On this, the fourth day of the Blogging From A to Z April Challenge,
I’m talking a little bit about delight- directed education. As a home-schooling mom, I really believe it’s important to try to make learning fun. I don’t believe there’s a necessity for “drudgery” when it comes to learning, if one has the option of making it enjoyable. That doesn’t mean my kids ONLY learn with fun things, or that they NEVER experience drudgery while learning something, it just means that whenever I am able, I try to find ways to make their learning be something fun, engaging, and often-times, stealthy, so that they don’t even realize they ARE learning something!
When any of them expresses an interest in a particular topic, we can find resources like books, games, TV shows, movies, all kinds of things that are related to that topic. That, in a nutshell, is delight-directed learning! 🙂
We were given three different lapbooks and one unit study in pdf form to choose from:
The one my children decided to complete was the Earth Lapbook, which is available here, in two different forms. You may purchase the printed version for $21.00, or you may get the pdf instant download version, for $13.00. The download version is my favorite, because then I can use it for multiple children (and I have four of them!), either at the same time, or as each child reaches the level of ability needed for your chosen lapbook.
The Earth lapbook comes as a 42 page download, and requires two file folders to put together. In this lapbook, your child will:
“Learn about the Earth, what the Earth is made of, the Earth’s crust, sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks, the Earth’s 4 spheres-lithosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere, how the Earth moves-the days and the seasons, parts of the Earth, landforms-continents, mountains, valleys, and plains, how mountains are formed, the atmosphere, the water cycle, ocean zones- photic, abyssal, disphotic, hadal, the ocean floor- continental margin, continental shelf, abyssal plain, ocean trenches, and volcanoes.”
This is our very first experience with A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks, and it has been wonderful discovering just how easy the creators of this company make it for children to create a very nice, educational keepsake! When I opened my pdf file for the Earth lapbook, I found everything we needed. There were print outs of each activity, along with a page of information to go along with each one. My children chose to have me read the information to them, and do the little booklets, etc . . . as we went along. One of the nicest things was the placement guide page, which was like a map showing us where each little booklet was to go. At the bottom of each activity print out was a mini placement guide showing just that one item.
As you can see in the picture above, there is also a list of suggested books if you’d like to add one or two into your study. My children saw the list and reminded me that we own one of the books, A Magic School Bus book titled “Inside The Earth”, by Joanna Cole and illustrated by Bruce Degen. You can see “The Batman” reading it to “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” below, as part of their study.
You really need very little in the way of supplies to create your own lapbook. You will need your pdf file of whichever lapbook you have chosen, two or three file folders, scissors, pencil to write with, crayons or color pencils (for the most part, A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks are printed in color, with some graphics in black and white which will satisfy the child who wants to color), and they recommend either zip dry glue or Elmer’s Xtreme glue. I did not find either of those glues local to me, so I chose to use strong, double-sided tape, which I purchased at my local warehouse club. I think it was a worth while investment, even though it was a bulk package, because we do a lot of lapbooks.
Here is “The Puzzler” working on one of his activities . . .
. . . and here we have “The Batman” and “Mr. Loquacious” working on theirs.
This is what my kitchen table looked like when they took a break to watch a couple of educational programs that they really enjoy. We chose to pre-cut everything, and each boy had his projects in a zip baggie with his name on it. This way, the cutting was done and out-of-the-way, and they could simply move on to learning and putting together!
The whole idea is that the children will have a keepsake that they can learn from, and that it will be portable, and easy for them to look through it as often as they wish, so it made me very happy when they were done, that they all asked if they could keep them in their own bookcases, in their own rooms. Again, as my husband likes to say, “stealth learning”!
One of the things I like best about this company is that it was created by two home-schooling moms, and best friends. I very much enjoyed reading their story of how A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks came to be.
We have done several different lapbooks over the years, and have a lot of fun with them. I think that what originally drew me to lapbooking was how similar it is to scrapbooking, and I am an avid scrapbooker. My kids enjoy everything I do in my scrapbooking time, often asking me to show them what new pages I’ve done, so I knew they would love doing something that is kind of the same thing, but with little informational booklets, etc . . . as opposed to photographs. Well, I was right, they really do enjoy making them!
A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks has so many different topics to choose from, including Veggie Tales, the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, sports lapbooks, math, Spanish, history and geography, to name just a few. In addition, there are lapbooks to go along with some of your favorite curricula, such as Apologia and Jeannie Fulbright curricula. They even have state approved or charter school lapbooks, which might be helpful if you are home-schooling in a state with strict regulations.
A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks has a wealth of free information on their website, including several “how to” videos which will teach you everything you need to know about creating your lapbook! There are also several FREE lapbooks here for you to download and create with your children.
You will find a number of Express Lapbooks here, for only $1.00 each, and they also have $5.00 lapbooks of the month, such as the current choices for April, one about horses, the other about spring.
If you join their email newsletter, A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks will send you a FREE “Overview of the 17th Century” lapbook. I signed up for it, and plan to use a lot of their other lapbooks in the future!
Schoolhouse Review Crew Members reviewed this and other lapbooks or the unit study, please go take a look and see what they all thought, too!
This is day 2 of the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge,
and I’m touching on several “B” words. First, an update on yesterday’s word “agony”, because of my “Back” injury. It’s no better at all, in fact my husband took me to a work in appointment at our doctor, who gave me a prescription for a very strong pain medication. I took the first one 15 minutes ago, and it’s definitely working, so . . . YAY! Along with that, the doctor told me to go ahead and take my prescription muscle relaxer. My back is now feeling MUCH better, at least until the meds wear off, but the hope is that it will allow me to relax enough to actually sleep tonight, and that it will help my back recover from whatever happened when I was cleaning off the ottoman yesterday. Unfortunately, because of this, I was unable to attend Ladies Bible Study at church tonight :-(, but it is absolutely my intention to go to church tomorrow night. After all, I won’t have to drive, Mike can do that! 🙂 Which brings me to my next “B” word . . .
. . . “Bible”. As a matter of faith and practice, our family, and our church, uses only the KJV Bible. We believe it to be God’s preserved word for English speaking people. My Bible . . .
. . . which of course, anyone who knows me well would immediately know it was mine even if it didn’t have my name on the cover, given that it is purple, is extremely important to me. My Bible reminds me that no matter what happens in my life, the Lord is still in charge, and even if for some reason I get to feeling that He doesn’t care, well, He really does, and everything, even things I may think are bad at the time, will work to God’s glory at some point. My Bible can answer any spiritual questions I really need answered. The words contained within are at times a comfort, at times an encouragement, at times they are instruction, and always there to show me God’s love. My Bible is the manual for the human race, and it is God’s love letter to us.
“Boys” . . . of which my husband and I have four, four boys who we love beyond reason, and would willingly give our lives for, if necessary.
This was taken right before we left Michigan, on our big move across the country to New Mexico. The boys (“The Batman”, “Mr. Loquacious”, “The Artist”, and “The Puzzler”) are playing in Torch Lake, which is between Kalkaska and Traverse City, Michigan, a lake I grew up going to, and where we wanted to go one last time before moving away. Our boys are very much the joy of our lives, second only to God. We home-school, so I get to spend LOTS of time with them. I have known lots of moms who say they couldn’t stand to spend so much time with their kids. Sometimes I feel sorry for those moms . . .
Having moved to Albuquerque, NM, we see a LOT of my next “B” word, “balloons”, as in hot air balloons!
This picture was taken from right outside out front door, after my youngest came running to get me after going out to bring in the newspaper one morning. Aren’t they beautiful? We often see several hot air balloons when we have errands to run in the morning, as early morning is when they generally take off. Our city is home to the International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta, which we were fortunate enough to get to attend for the first time last October. It is awesome, seeing so many hot air balloons all at once! Until we moved here, I had never seen one in real life, only in pictures, movies and TV shows.
Another “B” word, “Bed”. Doesn’t go with the other words, but I’m proud to say that for the most part, I’ve gotten into the good habit of making ours look pretty every day . . .
Our bedroom furniture was a gift from my mother before she passed away, and we purchased it at Emory’s Furniture in Port Huron, MI, in their used furniture department. Isn’t it pretty? I just love it! As you can see once again, proof that my favorite color is purple, LOL!
One final “B” word for the day, “Baptism”.
Here is “The Puzzler” being baptized in our church back in Michigan, shortly before we moved to New Mexico. He asked the Lord for salvation on the final day of VBS, and was baptized the Sunday right after that. I’m so grateful that he finally understood what salvation was, and that now I can know for sure that all four of our kids will be with us in Heaven when the time comes. 🙂
So, there you have it, just some of the words which begin with the letter “B”, that have importance in my life for one reason or another.
Today, we did laundry. Yes, laundry can be part of a homeschooling day . . . I do want my kids to learn how to be part of maintaining our home and family. We also worked on some upcoming review products, a lapbook about the Earth (you all know how much the boys enjoy doing lapbooks!), “The Artist” worked on 3 lessons in his A+ TutorSoft math (and the other 4 grade levels we ordered with their 50% off discount which expires at the end of this month arrived today in the mail, yay). All four of the kids did a read aloud of part of an ebook we’re reviewing about Sacagawea, and in between, they watched a few educational programs. Right now, they are watching the last half hour of Disney’s Earth on DVD before they all go to bed.
Because we’ve had a stomach virus going through the house (“The Batman” got it first, and got hit the hardest Monday night a week ago), and “The Artist” is still suffering some of the effects slightly, we will be waiting until next Thursday to attempt resuming our weekly home school park day. I HOPE everyone is all better by then, the kids miss going, and I miss it, too, because I get to spend the time visiting with other moms!
So, tomorrow, we’ll finish the laundry I didn’t get to today, and work some more in our educational projects, and then some errands with my husband.
We were (sadly!) hindered by the massive snowstorm that hit a large part of the country during February, because we were waiting for our keyboard to arrive so that we could begin using this material. Of course, this delay was in no way the fault of Adventus, in fact, shipping was affected all over the country, from what I understand. Even though we live in the desert (New Mexico), I-40 was closed from part way into our city all the way into Texas for several days! Because we did not have a midi capable keyboard already, we needed to wait until ours arrived before we could begin our Children’s Music Journey!
As I am admittedly NOT technologically savvy, my husband’s help was needed when it came to installing the software and getting us going, however, when even HE had to call for tech support at Advantus, I didn’t feel quite as technologically dumb as I usually do! The person my husband spoke with on the phone was very patient, and took plenty of time to help him get the program up and running. We did need to attach a small external speaker to the keyboard, because for some reason the sound was not coming through at all. Fortunately, my husband had a little ipod speaker he had won during a give away at his job, because we’ve used it in this, and at least one other review, as well! 🙂
Before I get into what my boys have been doing with this program, let me tell you what you get with your subscription to Adventus MusIQ Homeschool:
â—¾unlimited, full-feature access to all the MusIQ HomeSchool software titles (over $450 retail value)
â—¾a discount on MIDI piano keyboards
This means that for the low subscription cost of $10.95 per month, you would receive access to ALL levels of the Advantus MusIQ Homeschool curricula, which is a phenomenal value, especially if you have multiple family members wanting to learn, even though they may be at different levels. This is a seven-year program, and you can have multiple student log ins, allowing for even large families to benefit from computer based piano lessons without paying separate lesson fees for each of them.
â—¾Early Curriculum: Windows 7/Vista/XP/2000 or Macintosh OSX and an internet connection.
â—¾Multi-level Curriculum: Windows 7/Vista/XP/2000 and an internet connection.
You will also need a MIDI Keyboard. If you do not already have one, Advantus carries a very nice one here, and your subscription includes a discount on the purchase of the keyboard.
The subscription is really budget friendly, because it is, as I said, a monthly cost of $10.95, and can be used by multiple students, at several different levels. However, there are other options for purchasing the software outright, listed on the Adventus website, including packages which would include a keyboard along with the purchase.
Now, to what has been going on in our house, in just the short time we have had Adventus MusIQ Homeschool! I especially wanted to focus primarily on having my twins use this program, as they have had no piano training whatsoever, and I wanted to see just how well it would really work for them. They do have some developmental disabilities, so even though they are almost 12 years old, I put them into Children’s Musical Journey 1, which is actually recommended for ages 4 – 10.
Here is “The Puzzler”, watching a lesson given by Mr. Beethoven, in animated form.
Your children will enjoy the lessons, as they are very short (which works well with my boys), and taught in an engaging way by many famous composers such as Beethoven, Bach, Joplin, Mendelssohn & Villa-Lobos. My boys finished the first five lessons, and are excited that when they go on for more today, they move on to a new teacher!
“Mr. Loquacious” is having HIS lesson
In fact, even my oldest son, “The Batman”, decided to give this a whirl . . .
As you can see, even his Batman action figure (seated in front of the keyboard) is being introduced to Mr. Beethoven! 🙂
The Children’s Music Journey is set up to be fun for the kids. After their short lesson with a famous composer, they can go into different areas, such as the practice room with “Miss Melody”.
After viewing the lesson, here is “The Puzzler” at another time, in the practice room.
They can go into the game room, where various games will be unlocked, depending upon which levels the child has completed. My children, of course, LOVE the game room!
“The Batman”, in the game room, with his own Batman action figure in his hand to help him play!
Although “The Artist” said he was not interested in participating in this particular review, as you can see here . . .
. . . even he came in to watch and see what was giving the others so much enjoyment!
Included in the downloadable lesson plans are coloring pages and worksheets, to reinforce what the children are learning during each lesson.
Here, “The Batman” and “Mr. Loquacious” are doing some of the pages.
In addition to the lesson room, the practice room, and the game room, there is also the improvisational room, where children may compose their own pieces using a variety of instruments and background music, and the library, where the student may review previous lessons, listen to music composed by the teacher they have already been working with, listen to music they themselves recorded in the improvisation room, or learn more about musical history.
In the edition of Children’s Music Journey 1 that we have, they have apparently changed Miss Melody’s appearance, because she looks more old-fashioned, with different hair and a long dress, which we like, it seems to fit better with the era of the composer we are currently on. Of course, I don’t know, her appearance may be different in different levels, depending upon what time period the composer/teacher is. I guess we’ll have to wait to find out! 🙂
Adventus has also provided additional materials for parents and teachers in the MusIQ Library, which include the following:
How to Insert Links Into Blogs: Have your students download their homework! How to insert links into your class blog
Certificates: Instructions for printing and distributing Certificates (all levels)
Blank Keyboards & Staffs: A collection of blank staffs and keyboard templates of various
GAME: Grand Staff Ladder: Fun for students of many ages and abilities!
MY children are really enjoying this program, especially my twins, “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler”. As I sit here writing this review, “The Puzzler has been in here no less than five times asking if I will go set the keyboard and laptop, up so he can do his next lesson “NOW, please?”, LOL! Now, THAT’S the sort of response I love to get when it comes to educational products, because it means they are learning with fun, not with drudgery. As my husband likes to call it, it’s “stealth” education!
Recently, I had the chance to use and review a writing curriculum called Essentials in Writing with my younger children, who are chronologically almost 12 years old, but who, for varying reasons, have had some significant delays.
Essentials In Writing was founded by Matthew Stephens. He was a middle school English teacher in the public school before he created the Essentials in Writing curriculum, and has taught at nearly every grade level.
Since my twins “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” are just at the beginning stages of being able to focus on any formal academics, I chose the grade 1 curriculum, which is intended for aged 6 – 7.
The grade 1 curriculum is $40.00, and includes the DVD lessons and a PDF file with all of the worksheets and answer keys, should you need them. There is an option to purchase a pre-printed workbook offered during the checkout process for $20.00. I chose to print the worksheets a few days at a time, rather than printing them all out at once.
“In First Grade, your child will learn: how to use words to make complete sentences, basic grammar, capitalization and punctuation of sentences, compose a friendly letter and a paragraph, and other topics.”
The grade 1 curriculum covers the following basics of written communication:
•Review Letter Formation and Sounds
•Introduction to Complete Sentences
•Capitalization Rules: Beginning of sentences, names
•Punctuation Rules: period, question mark, & exclamation point
•Parts of a Personal Letter
•Writing a Personal Letter
•Parts of a Paragraph
•Writing a Paragraph
•Other Forms of Written Communication: Lists
•Introduction to Narrative and Descriptive Paragraphs
•Text Features of Poetry
You may view a sample lesson here by scrolling down to the bottom of the page.
“Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” were not very enthusiastic about trying this curriculum at all when we began. They said “Mr. Stephens talks to us like we’re little kids!”. The plain fact, though, is that they were learning things while watching the lessons that they had not learned when they WERE age 6 – 7! They did not come into our family until they were age 8, and were not yet at that time reading, let alone writing in sentences.
This curriculum is SUPER easy to use, especially for the home schooling mom who finds herself either too busy for, or not comfortable with planning out lessons. The student watches each lesson on the DVD, and then does the assignments related to that lesson (which you, the parent, have either printed from your PDF file, or purchased in the pre-printed workbook). Some of the lessons have just one assigned worksheet, while others have two or three, labeled by letter (lesson 8A, 8B, 8C, for example). So, depending on the particular lesson and the child/children involved, one lesson can take anywhere from one – three days. So far, the most assignments my children have had from one DVD lesson has been three. I generally let them watch the lesson and then do one worksheet on the same day, with the remaining pages done one per day until completed. Because of their developmental delays, it is definitely taking longer to do each lesson than it may take your child.
“Mr. Loquacious”, “The Puzzler” & “The Batman, watching Mr. Stephens teach lesson number 10.
. . . and now they are doing worksheet number 10 A.
“The Puzzler”, my perfectionist, gets exasperated whenever Mr. Stephens goes even slightly outside of the lines on the board when he is teaching the lessons, and even more so whenever he himself makes a mistake in spacing, or capitalization, etc . . . but he is getting more practice at doing these things than he was before we began using this curriculum.
“Mr. Loquacious” is my speed demon . . . he wants to skip ahead of the instructions and do things his own way. He is discovering, though, that when he slows down and listens, he remembers better how to form his written sentences. He also sees how much neater his printing is by slowing down and paying attention to the task at hand.
“The Batman” didn’t really need the beginning lessons, but I brought him in with the others once we got past beginning letter formation and into proper capitalization, spacing of words, and punctuation. All three boys (and I’m considering having their brother “The Artist” join us too) will benefit from everything we are getting to at this point, and continuing on with, especially when we get to the sections on writing letters and different types of paragraphs. We have good friends in Michigan where we used to live, as well as family members there and in other states. All of my boys would very much like to be able to write proper letters. Or, maybe it’s me who would like them to be able to do so, LOL!
What I really like about Essentials in Writing is how simple it is for us to use. All I have to do is print out the worksheets, put the DVD in, and we are good to go! Really, it could not be any easier. I also do think that Mr. Stephens is a good teacher, and he is good at giving the lessons in a basic, easy to understand manner. One of my boys, “The Puzzler”, functions much younger than his twin, and he is having no problem understanding the lessons while watching Mr. Stephens teach. As I said before, though, he doesn’t like it when Mr. Stephens’ writing is not perfectly lined up. 🙂 I like that the lessons are very short, and that the written work is broken up so that it can be spread over a few days before moving on to the next lesson. The lessons are apparently filmed within a classroom setting, because when Mr. Stephens asks questions, there is often a child’s voice giving an answer. My kids noticed that before I did.
I do feel the production values of the DVD lessons could be better. The video recording did not seem to have been professionally done in either my husband’s opinion, or my own. It sort of looks like it was done by a person holding a video camera, as opposed to even having the steadiness of a tripod. There is visible shakiness in spots, and we can at times see what looks like the shadow of the camera person reflected on the white board that Mr. Stephens is using as he teaches the lessons.
Over all, I can say that Essentials in Writing Grade 1 IS giving my children the basics of written grammar and communication, and we will continue to use it, at least through the end of this level, although I would like to see the company revisit the quality of the filming in future editions.
Crew members reviewed this and other grade levels of Essentials in Writing . . . click below to find out what they thought!
I am LOVING New Mexico weather! I have friends from back in Michigan telling me how they got dumped on with snow today, like 8 – 10 inches worth, in the case of one family we are close to . . . While *I* was out running errand with no coat, rather, I was wearing an open sweatshirt hoodie, lol!
Other happenings . . . It is becoming so apparent that being a member of The Old Schoolhouse Review Crew is a tremendous blessing. So far, each and every product I’ve been given to review has been perfect for at least one of our kids, and some work well with more than one of them. Be watching for a BUNCH of upcoming reviews, starting about two weeks from now.
My husband is now recovering from his second back surgery over a six week period, and is hoping to be back to work in the next few weeks. At least this time around, the incision appears to be closed up, and he got his stitches out yesterday, so he feels like it may have worked better this time. I hope so . . .
We have been enjoying getting to know the taste of foods that we’ve never had before, I have now had pizza with green chili peppers on it! And I liked it! 🙂
We’ve finally managed to connect up with the family who adopted the biological siblings of our two youngest children, so we will be trying to maintain contact via email, phone, snail mail, and hopefully Skype if they can get that going on their end. Our boys are excited at the prospect! 🙂
I’m working on adding some structure back into our home education. Being totally unstructured has worked for a while, but not as well as we had hoped it would. It has allowed the boys to learn many things on their own, according to their interests, but they really, really like doing things like lapbooks and unit studies, so even though there are some naysayers who believe that using any curriculum or structured assignments is not “real” Unschooling, it’s what we’re going to do.
We’ve begun easing back in with some things that I will be reviewing for the schoolhouse review crew, for example, a Spanish program (which I too, am doing!), because with our move to NM, we feel Spanish is a good choice for foreign language.
I have my stepson working with a CD curriculum for math that is an upcoming review. Last year, when he was being diagnosed with several things, the psychologist did a number of educational tests as well, and although he was seen as quite high in just about everything else, he needs to get caught up in math.
My eldest, who is actually 20, is going to be working with the 3rd grade cursive Handwriting Without Tears curriculum. We had tried an earlier, printing version of it when he was very young, but he just couldn’t do it, due to his disabilities, but I think this version may be a good one for him. I’ll let you know how it went when I write the review! 🙂
I am pulling out the kindergarten and then the first grade Abeka phonics and numbers books for my twins. It is an excellent foundation in phonics, but when the twins first came to us they just couldn’t handle it. Now, though, they are asking to do it.
We will also be starting to build up a supply of educational games, and using them for a regularly scheduled family game night.
I have a gazillian things saved on my computer that over the years I’ve collected free from the Internet, worksheets, unit studies, coloring pages, all things the boys are now asking to do, so I plan over the next week or so to go through and see what I have and kind of rough out a plan.
For each subject, unit study, or whatever the item is, I’m (for now) making a file folder to keep it in as they do it, so I have a running record of what they are doing.
We’re Just going to kind of ease into this for now, as we’re also dealing with a husband/father recovering from two spinal surgeries within the past six weeks, and still settling into living here, but I think this will be a good decision in the long run.
Do be watching, because over the next few months I will have several reviews here for a number of different educational products, plus I’ve just been given three single products to review for The Old Schoolhouse Magazine website. I’m very excited and blessed to have this opportunity, and to be given the products at no cost to me, to use and review. It will certainly help us with homeschooling on a very tight budget! 🙂
As we begin the new year, I want to get a fresh start to the home education in our family. Flexibility is very important to us, for a variety of reasons. We like to be able to pick up and head out to the park if it’s a nice day, so it’s nice to not feel wedded to a specific, rigid structure in our home-schooling.
We use a relaxed/Unschooling/Charlotte Mason method of home education, or what I’ve occasionally heard called the “wing-it” method. 🙂
Now that I’m a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew, being flexible is also helpful when it comes to being able to add new things into our educational program when they become available to us. For example, we’ll soon be adding in a beginning Spanish program, which makes us very happy, because we’ve recently moved from MI to NM, and feel that learning the Spanish language would be a good thing in our new life.
As part of our fresh start, we will be getting into the History of Classical Music from Beautiful Feet Books. We bought this shortly before finding out we would be moving, so until now, had done nothing more than check to see that all the components were in the box before taping it back up for the movers. 🙂 This program, along with the Early American History package that we also have from Beautiful Feet, are put together from a Christian viewpoint, which I prefer. We’ve been slowly working our way through the history package over a few years. I also have the guide for Teaching Character through Literature from Beautiful Feet, and several of the books.
We’ll be adding in a math CD program for one of my kids who is very behind in math, to see how it works for him.
My kids love, love, love doing lapbooks, and there are tons of them online, free to download and print out.
For Bible, we are going to use the guide for reading the Bible in a year that our church is giving us.
Several years ago, I received via a grant program online, a huge set of prints of American art. I intend to use them for Art Appreciation with a Charlotte Mason style slant.
other thing I’m looking forward to is getting involved with our church’s home-school group. The home school moms in our church will be having a meeting this coming Tuesday evening to brainstorm activity ideas for the rest of the school year. This is important to me because I want my kids more involved with kids from church.
I also want to look for opportunities for my kids to become involved in service to the Lord, which I think is even more important than academics. More than anything at all, I want them to love the Lord and want to serve Him in whatever way he calls them to serve, not to mention the fact that the more involved one is in service to the Lord, the less opportunities one has to fall for sinful temptations.
Now that I have my NM driver’s license, I can get a library card. Once I do that, we can take advantage of some of the free enrichment classes they offer, not to mention the fact that really, one can home-school with a Bible and a library card.
We want to add walking into our program, beginning with walking the length of our block while my husband is recovering from spinal surgery, building from that, to walking around the block, to eventually long walks throughout our neighborhood.
I will be rebuilding our supply of board games, concentrating on educational games, and instituting a family game night once a week. We have Yahtzee, which we will begin with, as it will help with math and strategy.
We’ve been here in NM for five months now, and finally feel like we’re home, and ready for this fresh start. I’m excited to see what this new year brings to us!
So…My children and I have attended regular park days on Mondays since a couple of weeks after moving to New Mexico, with an unschooling group. It was made very clear in the description of the group that “pushing a religious agenda” was not allowed, so we have carefully not done so, rather choosing to simply do our best to live our faith and testimony, and talk about it only if a door is opened. At the same time, I’ve tried very hard to respect different views, whether they be political or religious, by not mocking them. I believe strongly that healthy debate is a good thing, especially here in the USA, but it truly bothers me when those who are adamant about non violent behavior seem to believe there is an exemption for those who choose to be verbally violent (at least in my opinion) in the way they mock someone else’s faith. To quote, for example “I can’t believe that 82% of people in this country are so stupid as to still believe in the rapture”. I believe in it, and at that point, I chose to say so. I was also told (by someone who was being very angrily sarcastic) that it was not Christian to disagree with mandated government-funded health care. It did, in fact, get to the point where I raised my voice right back, although I did subsequently apologize for that. I do NOT believe it’s un-Christian to disagree with forced government-run health care, or even government mandating that everyone MUST purchase health insurance, or be made to pay a fine for not doing so. I think if someone can afford to buy it, but chooses not to do so, then they should not be able to ask the taxpayers to cover their costs if they need medical care. I do wish everyone had access to whatever healthcare they needed, but I believe that the government is inefficient, at best when it comes to running any sort of aid. All that said, again, I believe healthy debate is a good thing. I grew up on it. My parents encouraged it, and we had very lively discussions around the dinner table and elsewhere. I also believe, however, that when one must resort to treating someone like an idiot because of their deeply held faith, they’ve lost the argument,whether they want to accept that or not. I believe that twisting what the Bible says in order to say another person is not acting in a Christian way is not a strong argument, either. I got to the point where I basically threw up my hands and said “whatever…”, and was about to pack up my kids and leave, and probably not come back. I have NEVER done to anyone in this group what was done to me today, no matter how strongly I disagreed with them. I’ve never rolled my eyes when someone refers to the “goddess” as in “if the goddess had wanted me to do (whatever it was) she would have given me (something, I don’t recall what that was)”. I’ve debated, as kindly as I could, the issue of abortion, Obama care, etc, as calmly and carefully as I could. In return, I’ve been yelled at for asking about whether it was the law here to only use call phones hands free while driving, yelled at when I said I hadn’t gotten used to not having to save pop bottles to return for deposit (yelled at that I should be saving them for recycling), and now verbally mocked for my Christian faith, and yelled at because of my deeply held views, both faith wise and political views. This came close to being our final park day, which made me sad, because I’ve come a lot of times because my kids love going, and have friends there. It is one of the few places they have since we’ve been here where they can have an extended, weekly time of fun and play with kids who accept them in spite of all their differences (they are special needs children, with issues ranging from fetal alcohol syndrome, bipolar, ODD, OCD, etc). What changed my mind, you ask? Well, after things calmed a bit and someone got the subject changed, another mom who has only been coming for a few weeks came to me and very quietly told me she agreed with me, and asked me for information about my church. The Bible says we are to be the salt and the light in the world.
Matthew 5:13 Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is henceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Matthew 5:14 Ye are the light of the world, a city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Matthew 5:15 Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on on a candlestick, and giveth light unto all that are in the house. Matthew 5:16 Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your father which is in heaven.
And for those who wondered why, if we’re under grace New Testament) the Old testament is relevent to our lives today:
Matthew 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law,, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. Matthew 5:18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
I believe this means we are to influence others by our testimony, and living our faith. I do try very hard to show my faith and testimony in the way I live, the way I treat others, and in the ways I react to what others do to me. As a result, unbelievers have told me that they can see my faith, they can see that I do my best to treat others with a grace that appears to be what someone claiming to be a Christian should be doing. I hope that one day, when I stand before Him, the Lord will say to me “well done, thou good and faithful servant”. And I pray that the lady who came to me today will come visit this Sunday evening for our Christmas candle light service. I invited her, after she asked me several questions about our church, and about where it is. And I came to the conclusion that her doing so, even after the derisive, mocking way I was treated for daring to disagree, means God has me there for a reason, at least for this season in my life.
My Journeys Through Life . . . Herding Cats In New Mexico! 