Peggy Ployhar, SPED Homeschool Founder & CEO and owner/instructor at Eternal Aerial Arts, LLC, is a physicist turned home educator who left a lucrative career in the medical device industry to teach the struggling learners in her own home after her oldest son’s diagnosis with Asperger Syndrome.
Peggy is the former THSC (Texas Home School Coalition) Special Needs Team Lead, MACHE (Minnesota Association of Christian Home Educators) Special Needs Coordinator and MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) Area Coordinator for MN, ND and SD. She is certified by the American Association of Christian Counselors and trained as a Precept Bible Study leader. (She is also very open about her own autistic tendencies and quirkiness.)
In her free time Peggy enjoys teaching aerial silks, paddle boarding, vegan cooking, hiking and reading.
You can tune in every Tuesday afternoon as Peggy hosts Empowering Homeschool Conversations, a weekly talk show that focuses on homeschooling unique learners.
“A child is not something to be fixed, but rather a person to be understood.”
Peggy and her husband Doug live in League City, TX, and after 19 years of homeschooling have now graduated all three of their children from their home school.
Featured Videos
Peggy is the host of Empowering Homeschool Conversations, a weekly live broadcast on SPED Homeschool’s Facebook Page, YouTube channel, and Periscope channel.
Check out the list of her upcoming broadcasts on Empowering Homeschool Conversations Broadcast page or watch past broadcast full-length videos and clips on the SPED Homeschool YouTube Channel.
Peggy’s 2023 Speaking Schedule
New Talks for 2023
Using Scripture and Meditation to Calm the Nervous System
TED Talk Format (15 minutes)
Even though God reminds us it is counter kingdom culture to live in a nervous and stress-out state, many of us have unknowingly trained our bodies to operate in this mode. Thus, flipping the switch to enter a peaceful time of scripture meditation is not as simple as picking up a bible and forcing ourselves to meditate on scripture. Instead, it requires a focused effort and understanding of how to flip off the “high-alert” switch in the nervous system so it is possible to enter the promised rest God says He has ready and waiting for anyone who wants it. In this short talk, Peggy Ployhar, the Founder & CEO of SPED Homeschool and recent cancer survivor, will share nervous system calming scripture meditation strategies based on biblical principles and medical research that reveal how God designed our bodies, minds, and souls to most effectively enter His rest no matter what.
The Basics of Fasting for a Healthier Body, Mind, and Soul
You may have heard that fasting can improve your spiritual life, mental clarity, and a variety of health issues, but the whole idea of fasting to tap into these benefits can seem daunting and confusing. Well, help is here. Peggy Ployhar, SPED Homeschool Founder & CEO, started fasting in 2020 when her functional doctor informed her it was a necessary part of her natural cancer healing regime. 2+ years now in remission, Peggy has found that fasting has benefited her holistically after moving from just a health-based approach to a biblically centered approach to diet and healthy living. You will walk away from this talk with helpful information on how to successfully start fasting, understand how God created our bodies for fasting, and what you can do to personalize your fasting plan to maintain your health – body, mind and soul.
Women’s Morning Workout and Worship
(Onsite Event Offering)
“Let them praise His name with dancing; Let them sing praises to Him with timbrel and lyre.”
Psalm 149:3
Are you interested in offering a unique session to your event? How about a women’s morning workout and worship time? Peggy Ployhar, SPED Homeschool Founder & CEO, finds that her morning workout time has been a catalyst in improving her connection with God as she uses movement and music to worship the Lord. In this session, Peggy will use a playlist of worship music to lead the group through a warm-up routine, light conditioning exercises, and stretching that can be modified to any ability. This session is a great way to start your day, with a focus on Jesus and movement to awaken your soul.
Aerial Performance (Women’s events only)
To learn more about booking Peggy to give a worship-inspired performance at your next woman’s event, use this link
Parenting Talks
Be Angry…And Train Your Kids
Parental anger and the character training process happen to be the two largest struggles of any parent, but rarely are the development of the two undertakings ever considered to be interrelated. After many struggles with parenting anger, which stemmed from anger issues she carried with her from her upbringing, Peggy found herself seeking scriptural answers to her outbursts. Peggy Ployhar, in this talk titled “Be Angry…And Train Your Kids”, shares what God has taught her about how the anger-provoking instances that child training brings are tools meant to enrich the character training process. You will walk away from this talk comforted regarding any past struggles regarding parenting anger and equipped for the character training process that still lays ahead for you and your children. Want to read the book? It is available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle versions.
Shedding Light On Depression
Current statistics show over 13% of youth in the United States have suffered from at least one major depressive episode in the last year, and that number increased by almost 100k in a two year span. Peggy Ployhar knows first-hand how dark and limiting depression can be as a youth and young-adult who struggled with depression and as a parent who walked two of her children through the dark road of depression. As a biblical counselor, Peggy transformed her experiential insight of depression in the same manner that God revealed Himself and His truths to pull her and her children out of the pit of despair. This talk biblically dissects depression, exposes the darkness, and in very practical ways reveals how to shed the true Light of Christ into a life darkened by depression.
Biblical Encouragement for the Special Needs Parent
Speaking towards the scripture, “Train up a child in the way he should go…”, Peggy digs into the Bible to show parents how to live up to this standard without losing their focus, or their minds. From the experience of being a parent and a foster-parent of multiple special needs children, Peggy Ployhar has first-hand knowledge of the rigorous demands put on parents who are raising, training, and homeschooling children with special needs. Woven with personal stories, biblical truth, and lots of encouragement, this talk will truly speak to the hearts of parents who want to raise their special needs children as God has called them to do.
Busy Parent Self-Care Strategies
Have you struggled with finding time for self-care? Maybe it seems like there just isn’t enough time in the day to take care of the house, teach the kids, and maybe even attempt to juggle a full or part-time job. But, it is possible if you know how to work self-care into your everyday living. In this talk, Peggy Ployhar, SPED Homeschool Founder and CEO and recent cancer survivor will share her own story of near burnout and how that experience led her to many realizations about how and why it was so important to prioritize her own care to keep everything balanced in her home as well as how she creatively plans to ensure self-care in her busy working and homeschooling schedule. You will come away with new resolve as well as creative ideas for strategically building self-care into your own busy parenting and homeschooling life.
Homeschooling Talks
Flipping Special Education Homeschooling
Just as a house in shambles needs to be flipped to renew its purpose and extend its use, the typical methods for teaching special needs students in the homeschooling environment needs flipping if parents want to see better educational results for their students than the typical model provides. In this talk, Peggy Ployhar, the Founder & CEO, dives into the history of the special education system and where many of the current practices of teaching students with special needs stem from and how they have affected our preconceived notions on how to best teach a student with special needs. But then, with a twist of hope, she also shares how parents can take advantage of their homeschooling freedoms to flip these practices and homeschool their special needs students with renewed purpose to pursue their student’s God-given gifts and talents.
Overcoming Doubt – Your Greatest Homeschool Enemy
Doubt is the number one enemy of all homeschoolers. So, it stands to reason that overcoming doubt is the key to homeschool success. Peggy Ployhar, the CEO of SPED Homeschool, has 18 years’ experience battling doubt in her own homeschooling endeavors. But, instead of letting those doubts creep in and destroy her homeschool, she learned with each battle just how much God’s grace and truth provided strategies for conquering her doubts. This talk is filled with biblical fighting strategies to equip every homeschooling parent to do battle head-on with their own doubts so they can overcome them and homeschool victoriously.
Homeschooling Your Struggling Learner with Confidence
Are you feeling inadequate about starting the homeschooling journey with struggling student or one who has a 504 plan or IEP? Peggy Ployhar, SPED Homeschool Founder & CEO, says when she started homeschooling she would have probably been voted as the parent least likely to succeed in homeschooling, yet 18 years later she’s not only graduated 2 children from her homeschool but has also spent the last 15 years coaching other special education families towards homeschooling success. In this session families will be equipped with the top 5 keys to homeschooling a struggling learner with confidence as well as practical ways to put aside the things that may hinder applying these solid educational principles.
An Eclectic Approach to Homeschooling Charlotte Mason
Using the Charlotte Mason pillars for instruction as a framework for homeschooling can open up wonderful opportunities for learning while providing the freedom to customize curriculum and pace to meet the needs of your family and your students. Peggy Ployhar, SPED Homeschool Founder & CEO, takes the three basic pillars of the Charlotte Mason methodology (home environment, character training, and lifestyle learning) and expands them by sharing eclectic parenting and homeschooling ideas she has used over her 18 years of homeschooling. In this session families will be equipped with lots of practical, and customizable, ways for using the Charlotte Mason pillars in their homes and homeschooling they can easily implement into whatever homeschooling framework they choose to use.
The Essentials of Special Education Homeschooling
Homeschooling is the ultimate individualized education plan, so it’s not a wonder why parents of special needs children consider this educational choice. In this talk, Peggy Ployhar, the CEO of SPED Homeschool covers what it takes to get started homeschooling, avoiding and conquering common pitfalls, and how to homeschool special education through high school. This talk is filled with practical advice from the trenches of homeschooling for 18 years and working for over a decade as a special needs homeschooling consultant.
Customizing Your Curriculum
As the CEO of SPED Homeschool, and the former Special Needs Team Lead for the Texas Home School Coalition (THSC) and former Special Needs Coordinator of MACHE (Minnesota Association of Christian Home Educators), Peggy Ployhar speaks to one of the most frequently asked questions she has received over the past 17 years: “What curriculum would be best to teach the unique needs of my child?” Whether you have a child who has a specific diagnosis or one who just struggles in one area of school or another, Peggy addresses in this talk how to take the curriculum you already own, or plan to use, adjust it to meet the specific needs of your child, and consequently dissolve the struggles you are currently seeing in homeschooling your unique child.
How to Write an IEP and Then Use it Effectively in Your Homeschool
An Individual Education Plan (IEP) is a tool public and private school special needs teachers use to set progress goals for their students. Join Peggy Ployhar, the CEO of SPED Homeschool, for a very “how-to” oriented introduction on the basics of writing and implementing an IEP, homeschool style. This talk will take you through the entire process of the hows and whys of an IEP, the legality of the using a homeschool IEP based on the American Disabilities Act and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, as well as many teaching strategies on how to reach IEP goals for specific diagnosis and learning struggles.
Homeschooling Special Education High School
Homeschooling high school with your special needs student doesn’t have to seem like a daunting prospect. Peggy Ployhar, the CEO of SPED Homeschool, has graduated two sons with special needs as well as helped countless other parents walk the special needs homeschooling road. In this talk, Peggy shares ideas from how to pick curriculum, write a transcript, prepare a transition plan, and record keeping strategies you must consider if your child will need accommodations and modifications in college, in testing for college entrance, or for workforce placement.
Homeschool Special Education with Cheap Online Resources
Peggy Ployhar, the CEO of SPED Homeschool, has a Pinterest board featuring over 6,000 online resources for special needs homeschooling parents. In creating these boards, Peggy has discovered countless free and cheap resources parents of special needs students can use to teach at home. From teaching basic elementary concepts to high school level courses, in this talk, Peggy will highlight her favorite resources for parents. Come and see how you can save some money while meeting the specific needs of your unique learner using cheap online resources.
Skill & Transition Planning for Homeschool Special Education
Any parent knows a student’s learning goes beyond basics academics. But, parents of special needs students are even more aware of this truth. Successful post-homeschool transitioning of a special needs student requires planning. In this talk, Peggy Ployhar, the CEO of SPED Homeschool, takes parents of special needs homeschooling students through a plan that helps them be intentional in setting up a transition plan that will ready their student for life beyond homeschool.
Hands-On Workshop for Using Unit Studies Through High School
Many parents slowly progress away from hands-on learning as their student nears high school level classes. But, for students who have difficulty with understanding abstract concepts through traditional instruction, the removal of multi-sensory and discovery style instruction makes the leap to high school not only challenging but also often very discouraging. In this talk, Peggy Ployhar, the CEO of SPED Homeschool, covers practical ways to build high school credit courses for a homeschool student using unit studies and encourages her audience to do the same in this interactive workshop. You will leave this talk encouraged and equipped to start, or continue, your homeschooling high school journey using unit studies.
Homeschooling Students with Profound Learning Issues
Over the past 20 years, there have been many products created for the homeschooling market which help parents home school students with mild learning issues. But, that is not the case for parents who have non-verbal, visually impaired, severely delayed and/or physically handicapped students. Instead, these parents are usually left to try to piece together their own curriculum, if they even dare take the leap and try homeschooling their child. Peggy Ployhar, the CEO of SPED Homeschool, in this talk will share how to approach homeschooling for children with profound issues as she gives practical, hands-on ideas as well as ways to approach subject specific requirements when teaching children with profound learning issues and/or delays.
Homeschooling Strategies for Adopted Children
Adopted children often struggle with a wider variety of special educational considerations that go beyond typical struggling learner strategies. Behavioral, mental health, attachment, and alcohol and drug effect issues often complicate learning for these children. As the oldest of 14 children, ten who entered her family by adoption, Peggy’s own special education homeschooling journey spurred her parents on to start homeschooling her adopted siblings as well. In this talk, Peggy Ployhar, SPED Homeschool Founder & CEO, shares lessons and encouragement that her extended family has learned over the past 16 years in homeschooling her adopted siblings.
