Getting Physical

Back when we started homeschooling I remember fretting about how I was going to “do” gym with the kids.  I even spent forty some dollars on a book that would walk us through different physical activities and work out regimes.  How retarded was that?Looking back, and looking around I just have to shake my head and smile.  When my kids aren’t seated around a table piled high with books, or lazing with me on the swing or couch reading more books, they are up to their eyeballs in physical activity.    Like;

pull ups for instance.

not your traditional kind mind you, but they’ll do the trick.

lunges

splits

The old heave

Ho

Who needs a stair stepper when there are fences to climb?

and who needs to be sent to run laps when there are siblings to race?

  

and oh do they race.

flip flops and ducky boots n’ all

The competition is fierce

and usually they are pretty good sports

just havin’ fun.

that is until somebody older female passes somebody male younger

 

Then all of a sudden things aren’t so fun anymore

But like any good mother of boys, I blamed it on the flip flops.

Oh and no worries, if you find yourself alone without a sibling to race, there are always butterflies to be chased.

Suffice it to say I think adequate physical activity on the part of the rugrats is not something I need concern myself with.

John Jones

In Sunday School this week we were discussing the “indoctrination” factor.  Our kids are being indoctrinated by the people and sources they spend the most time with (school materials, peers, the media). It’s interesting to see how the public school system has shifted 180 degrees from the early focus on raising young men and women  of integrity and morals with proper etiquette and respect for their maker and fellow man to…. well, I won’t even go there.  I’m stuck in a time warp, still wholeheartedly approving of an old fashioned education.  I felt like cheering as the Poppet read this selection from McGuffey’s to me today.  Oh yeah, I’m all for this kind of indoctrination =)

“John Jones was a good boy, but he could not read nor write.  His mother was poor.  She could not pay for him to go to school.  She sent him out to help a man at the side of the road to break stones.  John could not earn much, it is true, yet it was good for him to be at work. 

It is well for us all to have work to do.  It is bad for us not to work.  John was a good boy and he did not love to play so much that he could not work.  He knew it to be right to work, and when his work was done he would play. 

The man for whom John worked was very kind to John, and gave him a great deal of good advice. 

One day he said to him, “John, you must always bear in mind, that it was God who made you, and who gave you all that you have, and all that you hope for.  He gave you life, and food, and a home.  All who take care of you and help you were sent you by God.  He sent His Son to show you His will, and to die for your sake. 

He gave you His word to let you know what He hat done for you, and what He wants you to do.  Be sure that He sees you in the dark, as well as in the daylight.  He can tell all that you do, and all that you say, and all that is in your mind. 

Oh, ever seek this God!  Pray to Him when you rise, and when you lie down.  Keep His day, hear His word, and do His will, and He will love you, and will be your God forever.”

McGuffey’s First Reader

Lunch With a Friend

and a passel of kids. of course. =)

“The road to a friend’s house is never long.” Danish Proverb

“It was seven hundred fence posts from your place to ours… I wore out that gravel road between my house and yours.” Diamond Rio

On quality of life; if you have a place where you can go and have a picnic with your family, it doesn’t matter if it’s a recession or not… you can include that in your quality of life. Jim Fowler

“Better a meal of vegetables where there is love….” Proverbs 15:17

'The chief pleasure in eating does not consist in costly seasoning or exquisite flavor, but in yourself.' Horace

Thank you Prairie Friend. I’m so glad you’re “just around the corner”. And for the record, your food always does taste exquisite, but your company even more so.

Have a picnic, everyone!

Truce in the Trenches

I’ve always been moved by tales I heard of this account.  This particular account we read in history today was truly gut wrenching.

December 24, 1914

When British soldiers south of Ypres saw lights and strange shapes moving about in the opposite trench, they wondered if there was a night attack coming.  It was only when they heard the carol singing across no-man’s-land that they realized the Germans were just celebrating Christmas.

Slowly, and more out of curiosity than anything else, men began to peer out of the trenches.  Soon, soldiers on both sides were stepping into no-man’s-land.  It didn’t take long for the rival soldiers to strike up conversations.  They suggested having a short cease-fire – a truce so they could come out and bury their dead.  As the sun came up on Christmas Day, crowds of soldiers could be seen in the middle of the battlefield.  Men came face-to-face with their enemies, most of them unarmed and eager to shake hands. 

The soldiers shared stories and traded tobacco or buttons from their uniforms.  A man who had been a barber before the war offered haircuts to all comers for the price of a few cigarettes.  In one section of the line, the two sides even played a friendly match of soccer.

But, as night fell, the men returned to their posts in the trenches.  In most sections of the Western Front, the Christmas Truce lasted little more than a few hours.

Usborne Book of the The World Wars.

Why We Homeschool, Part 7

Our Kids are Disciples, Not Missionaries… Yet.

This post is my personal defense of a common argument *against* home schooling.Touching on the argument "Christian kids belong in public school because if we take all the Christian kids out of school who is going to be salt and light to the non-Christian kids?"  This argument doesn't cut it with me for a number of reasons.

1. It blurs the purpose of public school just like the socialization issue does. SCHOOL is about education. It has been made into so much more, but it's fundamental and founding purpose was to educate our children in the 3 R's. SCHOOL is not a mission field for Christian kids. It's not a battlefield for them to fight out their burgeoning faith amongst the waves of secularism, humanism and materialism that run rampant in our society. When kids are *in* school, it can become both of those things for them, and sometimes for their benefit. But this was not an adequate argument to convince us that we should place our children in public school. Life is a mission field. The world is a battle field. Our every step as believers in this humanist, secular, materialistic world is a struggle and victory. The argument sounds spiritual, the great commission and all, but it completely misses the point that children are *part* of the great commission, not the ones commissioned to carry it out. Christian kids are not commissioned to be missionaries. Christian parents are commissioned to disciple their own children.

2. It insinuates that any family that chooses to homeschool doesn't have the same opportunity or passion to be salt and light. I get my hackles up when I hear people criticize homeschooling parents for robbing their kids of the chance to “grow up” and “face the world” and be “light in the darkness.”  We desire our children to be salty and bright in this stagnant and dark world just as much, if not more as the next person.  It is our inherent desire for them, and our prayer each day as we bend over backwards to work to train them and go about life with them. Public school is not the be all and end of all of opportunity for Christian witness. On the contrary, I think it often contributes to "busy-ing" people to the point of robbing them sometimes of more valuable opportunities to be salt and light in natural, simple, down home living. But that's beside the point. Public schooled or home schooled is not the issue here, being a light wherever you walk, whoever you interact with is.

We are not home 24/7, we live in this world too, we spend time with our neighbors, make trips to town, reach out to people with kids our age. And I watch my kids and I see them being salt and light. As for me, no I am not as free to run around and socialize day in and day out. But this blog has been such an encouragement to me that I don't need to be "out there" to be salt and light. I can be here, being me, doing what He has called me to do, and He can choose to use that in any number of ways. Just the fact that on any given day 70-200 people visit this blog, comment, email me or stop me in the street (this always gives me a bit of a jolt but I love it) to tell me how my words either challenged them or brought them joy, encouragement, peace or blessing shows me that God will use me where I'm at. And God will use my kids where they are at, which is usually at this point somewhere in my general vicinity. I may not be a soccer mom or supervising public school trips, but I am interacting with so many people from my community and beyond, believers and non, every day on levels that would be very difficult to achieve just passing someone in a hallway as we drop our kids off at school or sitting on the sidelines at a soccer practice. And my kids are part of this.

3. Along the same lines, there seems to be this underlying and sincere belief that "if I just put myself here or there, in public school, supervising this activity, accompanying my child to this or that activity" I will be putting myself in the position to cross someone's path and minister to them. I used to struggle with this big time. I knew that God was calling me to not join the rat race of enrolling our kids in overscheduled organized sports or activities that required excessive time commitments on our part. But if we didn't do these things how on earth could we ever be salt and light? We would never have opportunity to interact with all those other parents running their rat race. I've come to see this as a huge farce. Prairie Guy and I have discussed how rare it is to even have a meaningful spiritual discussion with fellow believers when you are in the same public venue, never mind unbelievers. Those are generally not the times and places that this kind of heart to heart interaction takes place (not saying it never happens). Neither is public school. I am sure that I have had deeper and more meaningful spiritual interaction with people that God brought into my path in His own timing and way here in my own home, or as I run my necessary errands, than I ever would trying to "put" myself out there in the midst of everyone else running the rat race. 3 minutes of ordained conversation, orchestrated from above, is worth oodles more than 3 hours of bleacher or poolside banter. So much attention is given to "establishing a connection" through this superficial type of "hanging", but I am with Henry Blackaby on this one... God is the one at work to draw people to Himself, He will start the drawing, and He will invite us to enter into what *He* is already doing, the work that *He* has already begun. We don't have to make ourselves busy looking for opportunities or trying to intersect Him. We need to put our heart out there and let Him make the appointment and keep our eyes and ears open to be able to recognize it when IT COMES ALONG.

4. It tends to overlook  the fact that kids are disciples, not apostles. The whole salt and light argument is a straw man argument, because the fact of the matter is that as Christians, we ARE salt and light just by breathing. At least we should be. It's our job to make sure we are. It's not a job of "discipling" other people, it's a job of walking in the fruit in every situation. My kids are no less salt and light to non-Christian kids just because they don't spend 6 hours a day with them. The time they do spend with them, is their time to shine. It's quality, not quantity. As disciples, their role is one of careful observer and copying of their teacher's (the parent's) training. We look to Jesus and how he interacted with his disciples to be our example to how we should disciple our children. Jesus was WITH his disciples the majority of the time. He sent them off here and there and gave them opportunity to spread their wings, but it doesn't change the fact that the majority of the time they were physically present with him observing Him and learning from His example. We are ordered to carefully train and disciple our children, not to send our children out into the role of discipling others.

5. It ignores the stats. Statistics show that Christian kids are more negatively affected by their non-Christian peers than vice-versa. Recent American studies show that 3 out of 5 Christian kids range from complete apathy to outright rejection of their childhood faith upon graduation and stepping into independence. Now, I am in no way blaming this on public school. The research analyzers don't blame it on schooling. They blame it on parenting. As I've said before, I believe it is an extremely difficult job to disciple your children adequately when they are spending more time under the influence of others (public school teachers, coaches, peers, even leaders of good Christian programs) than they are spending with YOU. How much of an impact do we, who are called to train them, expect to have when we are running in all directions, don't see our school age children all day and then one or the other of child or parent is running in separate directions for activities 3-5 evenings a week? Even secular psychologists are urging families of the importance to a child's and family's health and well being to "slow down", "eat together", "less action more interaction".

6. It seems to scoff in the face of the months (in our case years) of careful examining, analyzing, observing, praying with blood, sweat and tears home schooling parents have spent before making their decision. It treats a very difficult choice that some of us believe to be our duty and calling in order to raise kids who truly are salt and light, with almost a superiority and a snub nosed reaction that implies "how will your kids ever learn to persevere? how can your kids ever be a testimony? how will they ever learn to mature in their faith and life if they aren't sent out on their own?" These implied comments cut to my very soul and wound. Because our first and foremost calling and ambition (and indeed part of the reason we choose to homeschool) as parents is to

1. teach our kids to persevere (just because they aren't in public school doesn't mean they don't have ample opportunity to be taught this)
2. teach our kids to be a testimony (public school is not the only place people can testify), first and foremost they must have the foundation and faith and fruit that produces good testimony.
3. raise mature, thoughtful, independent, free thinking adults (why on earth sending them to public school would be necessary to accomplish this is beyond me. They have ample opportunities every day in life to be challenged and tested and spread their wings. )

In order for our children to be salt and light, they need to be seeped in salt and light. Is it possible to do this when your children are public schooled? Yes. My argument is not and has never been against people who send their kids to public school. Heaven knows many children have graduated public school, and been parented well, and turned into strong, upstanding believers. The struggles they face there *can* serve to make them strong, sometimes. My only argument is that public schooling believers should not discount homeschooling as a valid, honorable, obedient, and support worthy choice for Christian parents seeking to raise a generation of adults passionate about God and His kingdom. We are playing on the same team, we care fervently about being salt and light in the world. To have someone dismiss that important and personal choice with arguments that are near and dear to your heart is so frustrating and disheartening.

As Christian we are called to spur one another on to good works, encourage one another as we seek to honor God in our daily lives. This doesn't look the same for all of us. It doesn't HAVE to look the same for all of us. I don't look down on parents who send their kids to public school by any means. I look UP to them (the ones who are intentionally discipling their kids at least). They have their work cut out for them. But so do we.

In the end, it's not about homeschooled or public schooled. It's about how kids are parented. Passionate and intentional parenting is the key, not where a child sits to learn the 3 R's.

More on this here

Why We Homeschool, Part 6

Real Books.  Rich Literature=A Love for Learning.

I secretly smile when people's eyes glaze over at the idea of homeschooling. The preparation, the work, the dedication, the organization, the time commitment, the personal sacrifice that flashes before their eyes.... I seriously find it hard to suppress a smile. Let me set the record straight here once and for all, at least about our own experience.

I love to read.
I love to learn.
I love to discuss what I am learning.
I love to find ways to apply what I am learning.
I love to be with my kids who also love to read, love to learn, love to discuss and apply what they are learning.

In other words, homeschooling is really a great excuse to sit around reading and yacking with my kids all day and call it work =) 

Now, why Sonlight? Ah, just the name makes me feel all cheery and warm inside. Why Sonlight. Because;

Sonlight uses real books,
instills a love for learning,
exposes us to diverse angles of any given topic in an unbiased fashion so that;
we always have LOTS to discuss,
facilitates conscientious application of what we are learning and
is set up in a way that draws us together for hours and hours of every day to do the things we love most.

Some of you have asked me about "real" books. What does that mean, and how do they contribute to a richer and deeper education? I'm going to quote directly (with some personal emphasis, because I am an emphasis aficionado) out of the Sonlight catalogue, because whoever wrote the following article had a lot more time on their hands than I do to devote to this subject, and sums it up so perfectly that I see no reason to re-invent the wheel. The following quotes are taken from page 142 of the 2008 Sonlight Catalog.

"When history "comes alive," your kids remember more of what they study. With other educational media, and most especially textbooks, students don't read stories. They read reports about subjects. In fact, textbooks seem less like books, and more like "storage space" for dump truck loads of facts- as many facts as possible. There's just one problem: they leave out all the drama. The conflict, the context, the emotion, the story- so there is nothing left to attract the interest and attention of student readers.

Sonlight, by contrast, with its "real books" approach, brings you right "there" to see, feel and hear what happened- even if it was 2000 years ago. With the kinds of books Sonlight carries, you get to experience history. They draw you into the story so that all the things traditional textbooks and classroom materials tell you you're supposed to memorize... you memorize "coincidentally". You can't help remembering the names of the key characters, the places they go, the events they participate in. Somehow, when you are caused to feel something, emotionally, about a person or event, you seem never to forget. The images and experiences are forever imprinted on your mind.

When you enjoy reading your school books, when one of your favorite things to do each day is to read the books that are part of your curriculum, and when the books themselves make it easy for you to remember your lessons, you've got the easiest learning process possible."

And having taught this curriculum for 5 years straight, I can heartily endorse the truth behind these words. Learning is not a “task”.  It’s an adventure!

Why We Homeschool, Part 5

Quality of Education and Time Management.

I understand the struggles some people face when they consider homeschooling. We are blessed to live in a wonderful community, with a wonderful school, where the majority of teachers and residents of our community are believers. I can count on a few fingers the number of homeschoolers in our general area. It's not a place where you choose to homeschool because you are looking for a solution to combat negative social influence. And that is often how home education is regarded. As a solution to a problem. That was not the case for us. As a means to combat something negative. Or on the other hand, home education might not be considered because it is seen as having negative repurcussions, or robbing children of certain aspects of childhood.

While it's true we struggled with the "socialization" myth initially (this was years before our oldest daughter was even school age, when we first started evaluating choices for educating her). We struggled with the knowledge that she wouldn't get to "hang out" in the halls and school grounds with "the other girls", or play on the school teams, or just "be" with and like everyone else. Those are not easy choices to make. But in the end, we had to realize that the choice we were making, was a choice about EDUCATION. When we boiled it down to that, and deciding how and where our daughter would get the best education at our disposal, there was no debate. Home education won hands down, an official knock out. Alright, so I'm biased ;-) I won't pretend I'm not... I'm not saying a child can't get a good or even great education in public school, but I am convinced that however well a child does educationally in public school, they would have flourished even more in a devoted home education environment. There are just certain logistics that make this inevitable.

My kids don't have unintegrated "classes" exposing them to dates and general figures and unconnected geographical locations, and abstract grammar and vocabulary lessons completely unrelated to other topics of study. They are not exposed to people, events and dates in the context of a factual paragraph in a text book that they are required to memorize for a time and then forget. They don't waste half of their school time on the bus, changing classes, doing busywork while they wait for other kids to catch up, in assembly, etc.

With the time we save, we are blessed to be able embark on a much more exciting adventure in education precisely because we don't have 30 other kids at 30 different stages and with umpteen different learning styles to worry about. We also can funnel our money to buy the best materials available since we don't have to worry about funding and salaries and the cost of running public schools. So instead of text books chosen by a public school system we can choose "real" books that tell the "real" stories of the people/places/events we are studying. We have time to read great read alouds that correlate with our history studies, to watch movies and documentaries that bring to life the things we are studying.

For example, this past year our oldest dd (8) studied American history from Amerigo Vespucci to the civil war. After being exposed to this time period in elementary school I would have been able to repeat the names of Lewis and Clark, and the Erie Canal, have a most basal understanding of the American revolution (that the Americans wanted to break free from the British, and the British wanted to keep America as a colony) and told you that Sacagawea was an Indian guide on the Lewis and Clark expedition. These facts I would have gleaned from a textbook paragraph and a few black and white line drawings. Whatever I learned was abstract, usually dry, relatively boring, and definitely disconnected from my real life and interests.

My daughter on the other hand dresses her younger siblings up as red-coats or blue-coats and be-feathered Native Americans to re-enact the French Indian war. She recounts the story of the kidnapping of Sacagawea and Naya Nuki from their Shoshone tribe and they play act the escape and 1,000 mile journey of Naya Nuki (9 years old) as she finds her way back home to her tribe. She dialogues with Prairie Guy and I about the ins and outs of the American Revolution, and brings things to the table that even we find enlightening. She can trace out the path that Lewis and Clark travelled on their expedition and recount wonderful adventures and trials they met along the way. When she plays in the fields and in the bush she is able to envision the history that happened on these plains hundreds of years ago.

One of the biggest bonuses to home education in my eyes is the ability to integrate all areas of learning. We get to read great literature that captivates us and gives us visual to the time, place and event we are studying. We trace out routes and locations on the globe or map as they come up, bringing geography to life. We write out vocabulary words as they come up in the context of our reading, and practice spelling and grammar by dictation assignments (savory sentences as I like to call them) taken straight out of what we are reading. When we learn about nature or elements in science, we don't sit at a table talking about it, we get out there and look for it and experience it in real live color and depth.

We sink our teeth in, we go deeper, we go farther, we study all angles, how did the Native Americans feel when... how did the Americans feel when.... what would it have been like to be an American soldier at the Battle of Valley Forge, freezing, starving, fighting for what you believed was right and fair. Prairie Girl  writes stories and poems based on the topics we are learning about, she paints pictures, she reads books in her spare time that correlate. And all this, in less than half the time a child spends in and between classes in a public school setting, not to even mention the time they are required to work on homework.

Why We Homeschool, Part 4

Socialization
Yes. You read that right. Socialization. A reason to homeschool. Huh? You might say.... isn't that one of the "downsides" to homeschooling? Isn't socialization a good reason to send your kids to public school? I mean, that's more "social", right? Wrong. While it is true that some of the pioneers of the homeschooling movement were rather reclusive and anti-social, statistics show that a balanced (and much more common) approach to homeschooling results in BETTER socialization skills in homeschooled versus public schooled students.

Some people that don’t understand home schooling believe that it is confining rather than socializing. But those individuals that believe that are stuck in thinking about the stereotypical socialization of an age-based classroom. Children that are home schooled are exposed to social situations in a mixed age range.
Many homeschoolers feel that their children need to be exposed to the appropriate ways to behave not inappropriate. They feel that their child should be exposed to the model behavior of people who have learned to make decisions and handle themselves in various social settings. By being exposed to appropriate modeling of social behavior, home-schooled children will learn how to act appropriately.

Parents of home schooled children can also see when their child “gets-it” when they model for a younger child appropriate behavior.

Home-schooled children get a reality based social lesson. On a daily basis they see adults they know, love and trust manage and balance life day to day. Modeled for them is academics balanced with real life chores; caring for a sick friend or neighbor, shoveling the driveway and walkway, doing the grocery shopping and dropping of the dry cleaning, cooking dinner while folding laundry, putting laundry away and talking on the phone with Aunt Sara. These are real life situations that homeschoolers are exposed to and public school children are often sheltered from or are privy to a controlled school environment.

Quote taken from statsheet.com (not a homeschooling promotion site either!)

I have found this to be so true with my own children. They interact with people of all ages, and are just as interested in and comfortable with a newborn or someone years their minor or 80 years their senior as they are with children their own age. They also are strong independent thinkers since they have never been subject to the pressure to conform in order to be "acceptable" in a group of age segregated peers. They just are who they are and gravitate towards people of all types and are very innocent and sincere in their approach to people. They have no fears of being rejected, and would never dream of rejecting someone.

I have to smile inwardly when I hear people pull the "socialization" card out in favor of public education or other age segregated activities. In reality all of the segregation that happens in all segments of our society is more of a prohibitor than a contributor to healthy and well rounded socialization skills.

More on this topic here.

Why We Homeschool, Part 3

Freedom and Flexibility
I know, I know, I should probably be toting the qualities of time efficiency during educational hours and quality of education before I go raving about freedom and flexibility, but the freedom and flexibility aspect is what I am really reveling in at this precise moment with family here from Italy and a baby on the way, beautiful spring weather that I would dread for my kids to be spending in a class room behind a desk. Besides, it's a simple one that doesn't require much thought or preparation, which is good because my post-due-date brain cells are not exactly the sharpest right now *smile*.

I understand the value of the clock and the calendar, and heaven knows I like to be scheduled and punctual, sometimes to the point of obsession. I continuously find myself pulled between the Mary and the Martha. Beyond being punctual and reliable when it comes to commitments, I long to be the kind of person who doesn't live life by an agenda, but just LIVES LIFE. Who seizes those moments to be Here With Him (my heavenly beloved), and Here With Them (my earthly beloveds).

Now, don't get me wrong! I believe in structure, and thrive on it, as do my children, but a gentle, flexible, pliable, adaptable structure. The freedom and flexibility in education I refer to here is not that I can get away with doing "less" days of school than public schoolers, but rather that we are not tied to a 5 day school week, holidays on command and en mass with the rest of the public schooled population, an 8:30 bus pick up or a September to July school year. I am committed to teaching 180 school days, but when those days happen, is completely up to us. This is just one of the many perks of homeschooling, the fact that it provides us the flexibility to fit LEARNING around our LIFE, rather than the need to fit our LIVES around our LEARNING.

-I love that we can start school a month late in order to enjoy a fabulous September and still finish before school lets out in June.
-I love that we can school in the morning and take off in the afternoon, or take off in the morning and school in the afternoon. Or do some school in the morning, take off and come back to it later and heck, we can even do school at night if we feel like it. 
-I love that we can take a day off whenever we want during the week or on Prairie Guy's EDO and "catch it up" on a rainy Saturday if we want to (which we often do, because school hours are actually a wonderful time in our day) or not at all.
-I love that I can schedule our school year way in advance to finish before the arrival of a May baby,
-I love that we can take our family holidays while all other kids are in school and thus not have the line ups and chaotic beaches. And last but not least, and especially sweet;
-I love that I can decide our last 15 days of school have now been delegated an event for rainy days.

Why We Homeschool? Part 2

Family First.
I have heard the question posed whether family has become an "idol" in segments of the homeschooling community. Have home schooling advocates sometimes focused TOO much on their own families to the point that they are of no use to anyone else? I suppose this can be true. I suppose it can also be true that some people are so focused on work and personal interests that they are not much use to anyone else either, including their family. Personally I see more families that struggle to find quality time together than I do the opposite (is there really any such thing as too much quality family time anyway?).

Anything can become an idol in our life and it's something we for sure need to contemplate. I have sometimes asked myself how I can possibly be "useful" to God in building His kingdom when I have my hands pretty full just keeping up with my own little corner of the world. God has been good enough to speak gently to me and assure me that He doesn't need me to "free" time up for Him, or worry about having myself situated hopefully, possibly, maybe in a potential place for pursuing the lost. He is much bigger than that, He knows where I am, and He knows that both my heart *and* door are open *at all times* for anyone He sees fit to bring into my path. I have learned to trust Him to make the divine appointments and He has proven to me time and time again, that He is the best Day Planner.

Here's the way I have come to see it. My life is at the centre of an ever widening circle of influence. I'm kept afloat by God's strength, purpose and sustenance. His spirit is meant to flow outwards from me to touch those around me. My nearest circle is inevitably those whose lives are most intimately connected with mine, or at least it should be, my immediate family. Ironically, society has muddled and filled and robbed our schedules to such a degree that the average family spends the majority of their time segregated and running rather than united and bonding.

The bible is clear that men of influence in the church are only qualified if they have proven themselves faithful and successful in the more intimate circle of family influence FIRST. "An elder must be.....a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient." Titus 1:6 Wow. That's heavy. After all, we can do our best and whose to say how our kids turn out, right? I mean, they have their own free will, they will have their own personalities and make their own choices right? Will it really be our fault as parents if they choose wrongly? I don't know about that, all I know is we are called to be diligent, called to "train them up in the way they should go" and assured that if we do this diligently from an early age, when they are old they will not depart from it. Yes God can keep them and draw them to Himself despite our failures, but as parents you can bet your bottom dollar that we are going to make sure that we are doing everything in our power to train them up in the way that they should go, since He calls us to.

Personally, I am convinced that the conscience is formed in the earliest of years and that is one of the biggest reasons I believe in home education. We don't want peers, strangers, the world, public text books and television forming our children’s conscience. We want their consciences to be formed through the hearing of the word, the discussing of the word, careful and constant training through one on one interaction with the people who care more about their consciences and world view than anyone else possibly could. Their parents.

Also, rather than training our children "defensively" (as they're out there, in the trenches of society, one by one as the punches come, deal with them) we wanted to be able to train "offensively" (inform them of the punches to come, discuss right and wrong before the temptation/trial/situation arises, and play the primary role in the formation and strengthening of their moral conscience and worldview so that as situations arise they are informed and stolid about what they believe and what they should do.

I think the family first concept is kind of like the "be faithful in the small things first" concept. Not that raising kids is a small thing by any means, but in the grand scheme of life, it's the mundane, every day, day in and day out "normalcy" of your life. You are focusing on those "nearest" you rather than on big dreams. Why? Maybe because in order to truly influence those "nearest" you, you need to be on the ball! Others see you PART of the time, your family sees you ALL of the time. Parenting may seem at times like the monotonous "small things" but just remember the old Nitty Gritty Dirt Band song... "from small things baby, big things one day come!"

Cute, Cute.... CUTE.

Why We Homeschool, Part I

(revisiting this series for a friend, and copying over from Prologue).

Educating Our Children Is Our God Given Responsibility.
I think most parents would agree that we, as parents are responsible to educate, train and disciple our children. It's not a matter of *whether* we are responsible for their education but rather a matter of *how* we are going to accomplish that, what the challenges are, and making the choice that will best facilitate our success in that duty.

Some parents might agree in part but then say that as parents we are only responsible for the spiritual teaching, and spiritual formation of our children, and "secular education" is better left to "qualified" educators. In the grand scheme I don't believe you *can* separate spiritual formation from any aspect of education. Spiritual conviction and and one's world view as formed through education are intrinsically connected. We must look at science through the lens of Creation, History through the lens of His Story, Math through the lens of His Wisdom, The Arts through the lens of relationship with Him. These things all point to Him and His truth.
So, whether our children are home educated, or whether they are public schooled, the responsibility lies on the parent to make sure that their children's "worldview" AND spiritual formation are continuously growing upward in alignment with the Truth and the Great Teacher.

Once we recognize our children's education is primarily *our* responsibility it is a matter of deciding how we can best fulfill it. If our children would go to public school, our job would be the same, but our schedule would be difficult at best. For us it came down to the question of "how many hours are there in a day?". If our children spend 7 hours a day in school (between getting there and getting home) and THEN have "other" outside activities on top of that, sports, music lessons, homework, play time with friends, club, youth... plus WE have evening activities two to three nights a week, how much time does that leave us for being our children's primary educators? How much could we REALLY be aware of what they are learning, how they are processing it, how their peers are subtly influencing them?

For us, we didn't just want to "find out through the grapevine" what our kids were being taught and "supplement" it for mere minutes here and there. We wanted to be intimately involved in the forming of their worldview, in the moment by moment maturing of their consciences and understanding of God's world. Never in our wildest dreams did we ever imagine what a rewarding and beautiful experience that would be.

Besides responsibility, other determining factors were;
-time efficiency (time to learn PLUS live, laugh, love, play, relax and just plain be a child)
-quality of education
-family first
-freedom and flexibility

which I will talk more about in upcoming posts.  A passage that has always gripped me is the following verse that God spoke over Abraham,

"I have chosen him. He must direct his children. He must see that the members of his family after him live the way I want them to. So he must direct them to do what is right and fair. " Genesis 18:19 NIRV

Everyday Things

The true way to live is to enjoy every moment as it passes, and surely it is in the everyday things that the beauty of life lies.

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Finally!

They say that good things come to those that wait. Spring has kept us waiting unbearably long this year but I hope believe she has finally decided to grace us with her seasonal goodness. The grass is finally greener than brown, the trees are ever so slowly sending forth green shoots and the thermometer climbed to nearly 20 degrees C. Three wonderful reasons to celebrate!

(left click on individual images for a larger view)

“Look! The long winter is past & the voice of the birds has been heard in our land. The trees in bloom send forth their fragrance. Arise, and come along!'“

Song of Solomon 2:11-13 abridged.

A Single Rose

I have to admit I got rather bug-eyed when I read certain tales of Mother’s Day gift bliss. Adobe Photoshop, Canon Rebel cameras, front loading washing machines, etc. Wow. I could relate more to the following classic paragraph by my friend and neighbor Berry Girl;

Because, let’s be honest. Sometimes, Mother’s day is only going to be what you are going to make of it. Sometimes, you are not married to the guy who will plan you a breakfast in bed, or have bought flowers, or who will make arrangements so that you don’t have to cook. And that’s ok, it really is. Because he’s good at other things. So sometimes you just have to make the day what it’s going to be, and not complain. Which means that if you want strawberry shortcake, you will have to make it yourself. And eat two helpings.

Oh yeah.. I hear ya. And how. The long arm of my husband’s charm reached its limit when I told him that I might be watching a girlfriend’s kids on Saturday night so that her husband could take her out for Mother’s Day. His response? “What? Why? She’s not his mother.” And truthfully, I don’t think he was kidding, but he might have been. a little.

The truth of the matter is that I am very easy to please and all of this bothers me not one iota. I would rather have kids and a hubby who sidle up to me and rub my shoulders or pull my feet up on their lap to massage them as I read to them on a daily basis than all the big monetary gifts and pampering appointments. (Okay, who am I kidding, I'd give up a few neck rubs in a heartbeat for a Canon Rebel OR photoshop and don't you all just know it). But all that aside, chicken scratched “I love you” cards with heart shaped rocks taped to them really do spell redneck love to this prairie mama. And one single long stemmed rose presented at Church has provided me ample beauty and enjoyment.

Portraits of a single rose by Prairie Chick, quote from Leo Buscaglia

And my hubby knows he’s got it good and that’s enough for me.

Enclosed by Grace

We are a Garden walled around,

Chosen and made peculiar Ground;

A little Spot enclosed by Grace

Out of the World's wide Wilderness.

Issac Watts

I’ve always loved that. I love it even more now. I took this picture of our yard the other day while out riding with the rugrats. It was an enchanted day. Sunday was also enchanted. We drove home from church just soaking up the colors that are brought to life by vibrant spring sunshine.

Have you ever been driving up to your yard and all of a sudden got a flutter in your heart and a frightened feeling about what it would be like to drive up and find your house burned to the ground? I didn’t get that feeling on Sunday but I have had it in the past. It is not a nice feeling. No worries, our house was still standing when we turned in the drive. We piled out of our vehicle and made our way into the house completely oblivious of the fact that merely two hours earlier a prairie fire had started at our neighbors yard and threatened to race its way across the field right to our little homestead.

No sooner did we set foot in the dining room and a frightening sight met our gaze. Our large picture window that faces south revealed a charred, black, smoking field where just that morning golden wheat stubble had warmed our view.

The stanza that I shared above came to mind as I watched the heat waves and smoke rise from the ashes oh so near to this place called home. If the fire trucks would have been 10 minutes later… if the person driving by who reported the fire hadn’t driven by… if, if, if….truly I don’t think it is silly to say that this little spot was enclosed by Grace.

Truer and more vital yet is the foundational cornerstone of faith. That if our terrestrial abode HAD gone up in flames, our lives would still be irrefutably enclosed by Grace, because home really is where the heart is and the postal code of our hearts has been eternally etched into a heavenly ledger.

No insurance necessary, no cause to fret, we’ve got a mansion just over the hilltop. But oh, I’m very thankful this little farm house still stands, enclosed by Grace.

Mama Mia!!!

I'm featured over at The Flourishing Mother today! Andrea is one of my all time favorite bloggers, I love her approach to motherhood and womanhood. Be sure to pop on over and leave some sugar =)

Reflections from Neverland

~MRS. DARLING~

“She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner…

~RAUCOUS ROMPS~

Lovely dances followed in the nursery… the gaiety of those romps! And gayest of all was Mrs. Darling who would pirouette so wildly that all you could see of her was the kiss, then if you dashed at her you might have got it. There never was a simpler happier family…

~LOVE & RESPECT~

Mr. Darling used to boast to Wendy that her mother not only loved him but respected him. He was one of those deep ones who know about stocks and shares. Of course no one really knows, but he quite seemed to know, and he often said stocks were up and shares were down in a way that would have made any woman respect him…

~GUARDIAN OF THEIR MINDS~

Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children’s minds. It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are laid down to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you can’t) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it were as nice as a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. When you wake in the morning, the naughtinesses and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind; and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.”

excerpts from Peter and Wendy by J.M. Barrie

I adore Mrs. Darling. She stirs up a romantic desire within me to woo my children and husband with beauty, grace and charm, to award myself the indulgence of slowing down, allowing for a fuller appreciation of the romance and fullness of joy afforded me in the ordinary moments. Since reading this passage I have winked at the children when I sit on their bed to tuck them in and pray with them at night, teasing them that I have come to tidy up their minds. They grin so wide and giggle and we all find sweet joy in the moment. This excerpt awakens a passion in me to be a spontaneous dancer, a mysterious fount of grace, a romantic keeper of kisses, a gentle guardian of their bustling little minds. A desire to be remembered as positively Darling.

Celebrating May

May day found us up to our eyeballs in all kinds of dirty.  I haven’t had time to post since then, but here is a glimpse of the farmyard festivities and their repercussions.

Books Fall Open

Picture: Neverland, from our back yard swing.

Poetry: Books Fall Open by David McCord