First Semester Homeschooling Plans

This semester has started out with more of a whimper than a bang. I didn't have everything together when we started. The printer has died on our computer, so that I can't print off the things I needed. That slows me down- A LOT! I have to go to the library to get it done. I didn't have our scripture passage copied, nor our poems selected. There were several other things that I had neglected, so I am still working on it this weekend. Fortunately, it is a long weekend, giving me an extra day. I need it.

This is our current group of scholars at the Mango Academy. They go from Senior in High school to first grader. It is a wide range. I have, as always, made changes in our school program. This year I have shortened our 'morning time'. The older children need more time free to get their individual school work done. We are still working on Bible Study and prayer, a hymn together, memorizing Hebrews 1, memorizing several poems including Browning's 'How Do I love Thee?' , One or two of Robert Louis Stevenson, and 'The Man with a Hoe'. I still haven't decided which 'lists' to memorize. We are reading a missionary story, 'Fallacy Detective' (again), and Jungle Doctor Story together. We are going to do our art and music study this year. Every year I start off with good intentions about art and music and fail, but this year I will succeed. I have a plan. Our artist of the semester is Albrecht Durer, one of my favorites, and the composer is Beethoven. I would also like to do a bit more in the Nature Study department. I will do more together things with T-Bob and Elizabeth. Including, Science and writing, and maybe a couple other things.

Joan is continuing to work part-time as a mother's helper. This fall she is starting college with College Plus through Thomas Edison State College. She is tentatively planning to study accounting. She and Mr. Boots are hoping to get to play some volleyball this fall and winter. She is also teaching at AWANA and helping with a CEF after school club.

Mr. Boots will be a busy guy! He is a Senior this year. He has to finish Biology and start Physics concurrently. He needs to do two years of Spanish in one. He is doing Algebra 2 for math. He is also going to be doing Speech and Debate with a Christian Homeschooling Speech and Debate Club. They also have classes in Christian Apologetics. Much of his schooling will be spent in debate prep. We haven't heard what this year's resolution is yet. Last year's was on US tax policy. He is still doing some yard work jobs in his spare time. He is looking forward to doing volleyball. We have been practicing in the backyard. We have a net set up there.

Michelle is the queen of babysitting. She really enjoys the children and does a great job with them. She is plodding through her schoolwork. Math, Science, Literature and writing. Keep her busy. She also is a quality cook and photographer. In other words, she is much happier doing artistic things rather than strict academic subjects. She must do both! The local homeschooling volleyball coach wishes that she had more of a desire to play volleyball - height can't be taught!

Thomas will be joining Mr. Boots in the Speech and Debate Club. This is his forte. He will only be able to do speech this year, as debate is restricted to 14 and up. He is doing Biology, Algebra 2, Spanish, and lots of reading. He too will be doing a lot of research and writing for the Debate club.

T-Bob keeps marching on. He would be in fifth grade. He is doing Saxon 76 math, and a lot of reading. I am definitely doing much more of a Charlotte Mason type education with T-Bob and Elizabeth. I just wished I had started earlier with the other children. Joan is sad that she only got one year of it. She plans to use that method when she has her own children to school. So T-Bob has lots of good books to read.

We have also started Nature Journals with the two youngest. I plan to really enjoy educating them. As the older ones start to move on in their lives, I realize that I need to treasure every moment with them and take advantage of the opportunities. Read more books together, sing together, pray together.

Elizabeth is doing first grade. I decided to commit to a Charlotte Mason Approach and actually sent the Rod and Staff books I had ordered back to the company. She is reading well already. She can easily read the Little House Books. She and I are reading through the first one together. I am using the Queen Family Language Lessons, this includes copywork, narration, phonics, and grammar. It is taught in little bits and is not stressful. We are also doing LOTS of reading together. We are continuing in Miquon Math for her. She is a joy to teach.

I am doing Apologia 'Human Body' for Primary students with T-Bob and Elizabeth. We are also reading a couple books together. I would like for them both to start Spanish (Rosetta Stone), but we will have to see how that works out.

I am also hoping to keep our field trips going. We enjoy them so much and it is a good way for us to learn history and science.

That's my plan for the year. What are you working on? How have your ideas and methods changed over the years?

~Mom

Read Further

Brandy at http://www.thoughtsaftergod.blogspot.com/ also has some excellent comments on this section in Norms and Nobility.

Norms & Nobility Pt. 2 - Some Thoughts on Education.

This blog is part of a discussion that Cindy at Dominion Family started. The book is called 'Norms & Nobility' by David V. Hicks.
Chapter 1 pt. III
This section is about the reason for education. The question is "Can virtue be taught?" Plato defined virtue as "the knowledge of good,the love of beauty, the vision of greatness, and the passion for excellence." I think that this definition leaves out the worship and service of the Divine. As I read through these ancient philosophers, I see their attempt to reach God, through human efforts. They hold out the hero stories as efforts to push their students to greatness, but I don't believe that virtue can be successfully taught apart from faith.
Samuel Johnson (1958) is quoted by Hicks as writing re education, "the first requisite is the religious and moral knowledge of right and wrong, the next is an acquaintance with the history of mankind, and with those examples which may be said to embody truth, and prove by events the reasonableness of opinions, Prudence and justice are virtues and excellence of all times and places;"
Hicks sees that education today has "the 'knowledge of external nature' standing in judgment over 'religious and moral knowledge'. " This section of the book discusses the conflict of preparation for a practical life skill rather than developing the soul and character. We need to be careful to avoid presenting the goal of education as being the life of financial success, pleasure, and entertainment. Hicks says, "preparing students for work rather than for leisure, for the factory rather than parlor, the school itself came to resemble the factory... losing its intimate and moral character." When we teach utility as our primary function, we do lose sight of doing the right things above our selfish interests, doing right in service to God and man. We need to challenge our students to choose to do things that fulfil the biblical mandates rather than seeking their own amusements. The god of amusement is clearly something that has been a part of our culture for a long time. Today, even our elderly have bought into this mentality. Many simply can't wait to reach retirement so they can travel and soak up the winter sun. They have forgotten the biblical mandate of the older women teaching the younger women. (Titus 2) Unfortunately, many of the older women don't have marriages that are reflective of God's plan; maybe it is better if they don't teach the younger women. They feel the need to rule their husbands. Proverbs 31 does not describe their lives. Virtue needs to be something that we constantly work on. As Hick says' " Virtue... is not a parlor game, but a perpetual activity."


These thoughts were brought to life this past Saturday at a presentation by a elderly christian. This gentleman was talking about making inner city youth aware of educational opportunities. His primary point of deciding for education for these jobs is how much they pay. There was no thought for service to God and man. Money was the be all, end all. There was no challenge to godliness. It was rather sad. It is easy to fall into this trap, even as Christian moms. We and our children fall into the trap of utility. How many times have we heard our children say, " Mom will I ever use this in real life? Why do I need to know this? " I thank Mr. Hicks for giving me good answers to this question. I like the thought he quotes by Plotinus, "Be always at work carving your own statue."

I do appreciate Hicks reminder that seeking after virtue and righteousness does "not imply a belief in the perfectibility of man," and "we tend to look upon virtue as what under a specific set of circumstances can be achieved, rather than as what ought to be achieved under all circumstances." We need to raise our standards for our students. We need to seek after godly character and right thinking rather than just occupational competence.
~Mom

Why Study History?

"Why do we need to study history?" Inquiring minds want to know. I have been giving this a lot of thought lately. I was talking to one of my Amish friend's daughter, Rachel, recently. She is 12 and I asked her what she knew about history. She said that she hadn't studied it yet in school. They don't get any history in school until 7th and 8th grade. They do study some American history and some world geography then. I was surprised. Her mother commented that they had an 'old wives' tale' that if the children study too much history they are more likely to leave the Amish. I asked another Amish friend about it, who is a more progressive type of Amish -she was even homeschooled, and she disagreed with that statement. She did know that those who studied their Bibles frequently left the Amish. An interesting insight from a born again Amish woman.
So what role does or should the study of History play in our everyday lives?

While these ideas were fomenting around in my brain, I started reading a blog post over at www.dominionfamily.blogspot.com regarding the book 'Norms and Nobility' by David Hicks. I actually had the book on my shelf. It was given to us by our friend Andy Kern. The best part of Cindy's blog posts (at the above blog) are the discussion in the comments. Mr. Hicks writes about what is true 'Classical Education'. It is a very meaty book and definitely not a lite read. However, I am finding it worthwhile to work through with the help and encouragement of Cindy. The basic subtitle of the discussion would be 'Classical Education, and how Charlotte Mason got it right'. I have always felt that an education following Charlotte Mason's principles resulted in a classical education. As our school has grown and the teacher matured over the years, I have adopted more and more of Charlotte's ideas in our schooling. I still have a ways to go though. It is a process, not an event. Fortunately, although I have graduated one student, I still have five others, including one in kindergarten to keep working through these things with.
Education helps us to see ourselves.

David Hicks defines classical education as 'the cultivation of the human spirit to teach the young to know the good, to serve it above self, to reproduce it, and to recognize that in knowledge lies this responsibility.' Classical Education is not just Latin and Greek pasted on to a contemporary education. Hicks identifies a classical education as being an education that is created to bring out the best in man, the hero that serves the greater good above self. Our education today is utilitarian. Know these facts and be able to pass this test so you can get a job. There is very little interaction with ideas, and no screen of morals/scripture to run them through to see if our assessment is correct. Very few people today know scripture well enough to judge whether an idea or activity is righteous, if it would glorify God. We are so confused because of this and get caught up in many things and ideas we should not. We don't have the logic skills to even work through a problem to see what is really at stake. We have lost our moral framework and no longer have the belief that we do what is right, no matter what the cost and instead we worry about how it will make us or somebody else feel. 'There is nothing new under the sun' according to Solomon in Ecclesiastes. If we had a knowledge and understanding of history we would be able to identify the fallacies presented to us and reject them, because we have learned of them before and know how they work out.

I would like to 'borrow' a quote from one of the commenters at the Dominion Family blog. It is taken from a speech by David McCullough on history. He said, "The late Daniel Boorstin, who was a very good historian and librarian of Congress, said that 'trying to plan for the future without a sense of the past is like trying to plant cut flowers. We're raising a lot of cut flowers and trying to plant them.' "

As parents and home educators we need to not just raise/train functional adults, but to think through what is required to raise up straight arrows for the Lord's service. Children that understand that their primary purpose is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. Who know the past and see what may be required of them in their generation. Ones who realize that living a long life is not the ultimate goal. People who in the midst of this confused generation, know the truth and do the right.

Other blogs you might find interesting on the same topic...

www.deweystreehouse.blogspot.com

www.ukrakovianki.blogspot.com

~Mom
PS In my experience, the Amish no longer teach the history and biblical foundation of their Anabaptist heritage. It has been lost to what is now merely a cultural exercise in legalism. The highest importance is to not do anything different from their Amish neighbors, or break some 'church' rule. It is true that the ones who read the Bible and discover a real biblical faith do end up leaving. In failing to teach the Bible and history they have lost their roots and major so much on the minors that they have little left, other than nice families.
It is all about external appearances.