Welcome to Plumfield and Paideia

What draws people to be friends is that they see the same truth. They share it. –C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

We are sisters in Christ who became friends over a shared love of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, found especially in good and great books. Our primary vocation is that of marriage and motherhood, but we feel a secondary call, as educators and homeschool moms, to walk with families who are seeking to help form souls who are capable of responding to the vocation God has called them to. Our objective is to form our children and grandchildren to the best of our ability, and in so doing share what has been meaningful to us with others that it may encourage them and lighten their burden. As homeschoolers, classical educators and Christians, we have a passion for the ancient Greek paideia and the loving education of Louisa May Alcott‘s Plumfield (from her novel Little Men).

You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Podbean.

You can email us at: plumfieldandpaideia@gmail.com.

Diane Pendergraft

I’m so happy you stopped by! It seems like dropping in for a visit has gone out of style.

I have been a Jesus believer all my life. I have been a wife since 1981, a mother since 1983, and a grandmother since 2008. I have three children, nine grandchildren, and more than the usual complement of parents and siblings. I was a homeschool mom, and a teacher at a classical Christian school. Currently, I am a language arts tutor and a homeschool mentor. 

Books have always been important to me. I have read many thousands of books in my lifetime, and sometimes, for a minute or two, I can feel overwhelmed by the thought that, with millions of books published each year, it would be impossible for me to read all the books. But then I remember, most of them aren’t worthy of my time. One of our goals at Plumfield and Paideia is to help you sort the literary gems from the publishing slash pile.   

I also write at https://theglorioustable.com/ and https://wyomingnewschronicle.com/. You may contact me at plumfieldandpaideia@gmail.com.

Talk Topics:

Build Your Own Literature-based Unit Study

I wrote my literature unit study based on The Chronicles of Narnia, Further Up and Further In, while using the Narnia series one school year as the foundation for our homeschool curriculum. Over the past twenty-five years, besides using this approach for my own children, I have implemented it in a one-room-schoolhouse style classical school, and in tutoring individuals and small groups. People who use this approach typically choose a single literary work as a focal point, or jumping off place, for further studies in literature and other subjects suggested by the original work. The interesting places you might end up with this method are endless. I will walk you through the process of constructing literature-based unit studies for your own homeschool. 

What About Curriculum?

I use curriculum like I use a grocery store; I take what I need and leave the rest. Because I homeschooled largely with literature studies, I purchased very little in the way of curricula. Later, while teaching in a private school, there was a prescribed curriculum for most subjects, but I still tended to shop those for elements I liked and fill in with pieces of other things I was familiar with. We’ll talk about how to “cover the subjects” without spending hundreds of dollars a year buying all the curriculum for all the subjects for each child.  

How We Got English Spelling and How to Teach It

For this talk, I use my “On Teaching Spelling” articles as an outline. I am an intuitive speller, and my (non)method of teaching my own children to spell worked for them because they were also (mostly) intuitive spellers. When I started teaching other people’s kids, I learned that most people don’t learn that way. I also realized that many students learn the “how” more easily if they understand the “why.” 

This is often a two-part talk. In the first session, I’ll talk about how English spelling got to where it is today and why it really does make sense. Mostly.

In part two we’ll get into the specifics of teaching phonics and spelling with methods for learning the phonograms and spelling rules.  

You Are Smart Enough   

Many, many moms begin homeschooling with trepidation. They don’t believe they are smart enough to do it right. They know they’re going to ruin their children’s lives because they won’t know all the right information at the right time in order to do it right. Let’s talk about what “right” is and where we got our ideas about what that means. Let’s talk about what is right for your family and each individual child. My mission is to help you know you are able to educate the children God has given you. Since he doesn’t make mistakes, we know he didn’t give your children the wrong teacher.   



Sara Masarik

Hello! I am Sara, and I have been a lover of good and great books since my earliest years, largely because of the incredible example my grandfather set for me. As a bookworm introvert, my love for the classics was augmented by my study of Philosophy, Religion, and English at Hillsdale College and the University of Oxford. As a revert to the Catholic Church, I have found G. K. Chesterton, J. R. R. Tolkien, Edith Stein, and Flannery O’Connor to be some of the great influences on my intellectual and religious formation.

I have the privilege of being the wife of Greg and the mama of Michael, Margaret (Greta), and John Patrick (Jack). Our little homeschool family lives in the woods of North East Wisconsin in a home dedicated to hospitality and fellowship. We have three hobbit-sized dogs, Samwise Smalls, Heather Rose, and Cedar (Mistmantle Chronicles). Oh yeah, and we have a cat named Mowgli, plus all kinds of fish that somehow have survived the cat…. And, yes, all of the fish have literary names as well. Our home is affectionately called The Prancing Pony by our friends.

I write at Plumfield and Paideia, where we work to help homeschool moms embrace their vocations of marriage, motherhood, reading, and homeschooling with confidence and joy. I am also the co-host of the Plumfield Moms podcast. You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, and in the free Plumfield Reads corner of the Biblioguides Online Community.

To inquire about Sara’s speaking engagements, please email here: plumfieldandpaideia@gmail.com

My current talks:

Your Reading Life

As homeschoolers, our lives are often packed to the gills with commitments, obligations, chores, and tasks that all need doing. How often do we feel like too little butter spread across too much toast? And, this life of being pulled in so many directions can also feel so very lonely. Making time for things that fill us up can feel impossible. But, like Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee, much good can be accomplished with a good friend and a simple plan. The Holy Spirit can speak encouragement, love, and inspiration into our hearts when we read. When we read with a friend, the learning and the joy is more than doubled. Join us for a conversation about how to easily and simply build a beautiful and life giving self-care routine into your life that may do more good than you can imagine! 

Building Teen Book Clubs

Book clubs are a wonderful way to foster teen fellowship and encourage meaningful growth. For years, Sara has led teen book clubs with boys and girls giving them what she would have loved as a teen: book clubs that are as much about the club as they are about the book. Keeping the focus on relationship and letting the book be the vernacular, Sara’s teen book clubs have been a place of joy and friendship for dozens of teens in her community. Join her as we talk about how to bless you community with teen book clubs. 

Building A Home Library

As homeschoolers, we know something about books. We buy, borrow, trade, and shelve more books in a year than some families do in a decade. Books are kind of our thing. But, what do we do with these books when we are done with them? How do we know which books to keep and which to move on? What can we do with these books when we aren’t using them? How can we turn these books into an act of stewardship? Whether you are new a mama with little ones and most of the books in your home are picture books or you are a seasoned mom with some or many already launched in the world, this talk could be for you! The business of building a solid home library can be an act of Godly stewardship.