
“Peppermint Stick Learning Company” comes from a family who has a background of valuing a good, fun/creative, and useful education – learning that continues to be appreciated beyond “just the school hours”!
There are some people we would like to acknowledge since they’ve had an impact on what we publish and our direction in life.

My mom was very helpful in helping me to understand how to make learning easier on a ‘mom of littles’ while keeping in the fun!
Mom was a creative, old-fashioned rural schoolteacher and homemaker who had been herself briefly homeschooled back in the 1940’s. Her experience with the boring drills that teacher sent home for her made Mom think that, if she were to grow up, she would like to be a teacher and make lessons more exciting for children. (And she did!)
I’m thankful I listened to my mom and put some of her concepts into practice! It saved me a lot of potential stress!

I was homeschooled by my mom for kindergarten, back in the day when homeschoolers were very rare or non-existent in our geographical area. My mom had taught many children in the one-room schoolhouses and town classrooms for a number of years and simply wanted to take the opportunity to teach her own children (my older sister and I) also how to read, to begin our formal education, laying a foundation before we went on the bus.
Mom had also trained teachers and was kind of a specialist in literacy. She loved art and drawing, making many of her own teaching resources. She taught me how to do the same for my school and later, work projects.

My dad had also been a teacher in his early career days, a couple of his favourite subjects being Canadian history and geography. Everyone in our family loved to read and collect books!
Later on, both of my parents returned to the public system as “supply teachers” in several schools, with my mom being called into elementary schools and my dad working in both elementary and secondary levels. Occasionally, my dad also supply-taught in my high school classes and that was fun too, especially when he looked after my class!
Throughout my education as well as the years which followed, my parents were very much involved with what I was learning and encouraged me to make a difference in the lives of others! (My mom is now home with the Lord. My dad still encourages me in what I learn and what I write about.)
Both Mom and Dad were also Sunday School teachers and leaders in ministry settings for most of their lives, designing quite a bit of the lesson materials themselves. My sister and I grew up singing together, playing a variety of musical instruments, and doing puppet stories for all ages – young children to seniors in nursing homes.
While I had some good teachers in school, it is my parents who were the main ones to teach me how to teach, in providing guidance for effective methods and ideas from their own experiences as well as the old-fashioned materials and publications they shared with me/us. In our earlier years of PSLC, they helped with sales and previewing products too.
After I had finished grade 1, we moved to live next door to my maternal grandparents in rural Ontario. They had a small farm with a variety of animals which we helped to care for. (I sometimes milked a cow by hand!) I was raised where family conversations abounded and the natural world was keenly observed.
My grandma had wanted to become a teacher but needed to help at home with a disabled father after grade 8 until shortly before her marriage. She was well-admired baker for church and family events and remained very attentive on anything she learned including some construction skills, advanced sewing and quilting, politics, history, herbs and so on. She also encouraged me to jot down notes, even if it wasn’t for “school” but rather just about something I was learning.
My grandpa was a self-taught man who valued lifelong learning too! He only finished a grade 6 education but earned a very good reputation that put him as chairman of the school district for a number of terms, despite his level of formal schooling. He farmed in a simple and often old-fashioned manner, knew bird calls, would take us all “back to the bush” from time to time in a “wagon” with his old tractor, and I’d follow him around to care for the chickens.
In their younger years before I was around, Grandma and Grandpa helped to begin an evangelical Missionary church in our small community too. Grandpa was a Sunday School (adult class) teacher for many years and their other daughter (Aunt G.) was/is a leader in developing VBS programs and other children’s ministries. They took time to prepare things they would teach and taught well.
My paternal grandparents both immigrated to this country before meeting each other. They raised their family on a fruit farm and were active in a Mennonite Brethren church with teaching Sunday School and quilt-making. Both of them also took time for writing – in regular dairies or community reports.
Both sets of grandparents were strong believers in Christ and fervent prayer-ers.
Among by my extended family are other teachers, a principal, children’s ministry leaders, musicians, and an artist (who helped by providing some of the artwork in this business).
It is a blessing to have this heritage of Christian faith and of creative education!


Rob grew up next to his grandparent’s farm in Southern Ontario too but in a different area. He received his business administration degree with a math minor. Rob helped profs/teachers there as well as in his previous schooling as one of the top students. He is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA, CGA) and works as a senior audit manager.
After university days and meeting at a young adults’ hayride, we were married. Rob’s interests include country living, baseball, biking, math, chocolate, reading, photography, helping friends, and times at home with his wife and kids.
For “Peppermint Stick”, Rob looks after most of the bookkeeping aspects, occasionally edits, previews a lot of resources (especially those for teen/adult literature studies and math resources for middle elementary to gr. 12), and has moved lots of boxes of books around!
The best word I (Joy) can think of right now to describe Rob is “faithful” – Faithful to God and His Word, even in challenging times, faithful to his family, faithful in prayer and testimony, faithful in the tasks facing him.

Our children have been/are very important in previewing curriculum, storybooks, and other materials, coming from a real and authentic child or teen/graduate-perspective!!!
They let me know (in a very honest manner) what they like, what they don’t like, and sometimes help to improve a few publications by joining me in its design. They also sometimes type smaller projects or research or find something (even if I haven’t asked – I appreciate their eagerness to help)!
The older ones have excelled in post-secondary universities and/or colleges. They continue to appreciate their homeschool background of “Peppermint Stick” and similar resources.
Each one of them have loved to learn with our PSLC curriculum! It is “kid-approved”! 🙂
“…lessons that stick with a refreshing touch of sweetness!”
