The Bible Is Relevant to My Life Today?

January 10, 2005 by 1 Comment

“I didn’t know the Old Testament could be relevant to my life today!” She was a homeschool Mom, a good friend of mine, and a long-time believer. I was really excited to share some scriptures with her from Jeremiah that were confirmation and guidance for a spiritual battle she and I were going through together. I was floored. Could there be a Christian within my sphere of influence who did not know the power of the entire Bible? How could a believer today not depend on the wisdom of the Old Testament to supplement the grace of the New Testament? The lesson I learned that day was that I should readily share my love of God’s Word with my friends as well as with my children so that they may learn a better appreciation for its timelessness.

Short, spontaneous lessons applying scripture to daily life help our children see that the Bible touches all areas of their lives. Even if I do not know the verse perfectly from memory, I can still give my children the benefit of seeing that God’s Word is living and active by paraphrasing the verse until I get my hands on the concordance software to find the actual quote.

Proverbs 22:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.”(NASB) The New Living Translation says it in a way I like even better: “Teach your children to choose the right path, and when they are older, they will remain upon it.” I am not raising children; I am training adults: productive citizens, valuable members of society. What are you making for dinner? Water, meat, and vegetables — or soup? Children are the raw materials — responsible adults are the goals. Children are very anxious to grow up, and they will be equally anxious to learn when they realize you are trying to help them grow up.

I Samuel 15:22 “Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.” Yes, it is a very nice drawing, and I can tell you have worked very hard on it. However, what I had asked you to do was to pick up all your Legos and put them away. You did not obey. Do you understand the difference? Now you go back and pick up the Legos while I put this picture on the refrigerator.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event [delight] under heaven…” Do not get so wrapped up in schedules that you miss taking “gorgeous days” off. If this lesson just is not working, put it away for now; in 2 days (or 2 weeks, or 2 months) things will be different and it may work just fine.

Luke 15:4-7 “What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture, and go after the one which is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” We usually think of salvation with this parable, but we can also apply this to teaching: if one child is straggling behind, the lamb’s wool is caught in a thicket, that student is stuck on a lesson — go and find where that lamb is stuck and help him get free to move on. Find the way to help him gain understanding.

James 1:5 “But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” ‘Nuff said.

I may not have an impressive amount of Bible verses memorized verbatim, but I do know what the Bible says about many different topics. God has stirred my heart on many occasions with the perfect Bible story to share with the day’s events. Sometimes I know exactly where the desired verses are located, and sometimes I have to spend a little time searching for them, but in the end, I can read the passage with my family and show them where God’s Word speaks to today’s circumstances. The Bible is relevant to our lives today.

Filed Under: Homeschool How-To's, Scripture Applied to Homeschooling

The Wise Man Learns from the Mistakes of Others, The Fool Has to Learn from His Own

January 5, 2005 by 4 Comments

Before you reach for your concordance, I will admit that the title is not a verse from Proverbs. It is, however, a teaching from the book of Proverbs, stated many times in a variety of ways. As King Solomon put it, the fool is incapable of learning anything from anyone else. If we can find a lesson to be learned in any situation, we make ourselves wise.

My family has often analyzed the conversations and actions of others, not for the purpose of ridicule, but in order to learn valuable lessons ourselves. We have also analyzed circumstances and commended the person involved for the way they handled it: it does not have to be a mistake in order to learn the lesson. I am a firm believer in learning from others, if only to avoid the pain and embarrassment of having to go through their mistakes myself. I also have used the actions of others many times as examples with my children. “Do you think she reacted properly in that situation?” “How could he have handled that differently?” “What would you do if you found yourself in similar circumstances?” “How do you think that situation could have been avoided?” We readily apply this technique to analyzing literature — why do we hesitate to apply it to real life?

Much too often in Christian circles, people are rebuked for analyzing the actions of others, under the pretense of “avoiding gossip.” In my experience, those who scolded the loudest have been those with the most to hide, and were striving only to keep their own faults away from public scrutiny. Gossip cannot wait to share the latest juicy detail; gossip must be the one to divulge a secret. Compassion withholds details and keeps secrets, but may, in a private, controlled environment, analyze what went wrong or what could have been done differently to affect a better outcome the next time.

After spending a few years in separate colleges, my daughter and a friend were enjoying a day of “catching up.” As they discussed old friends and where-are-they-now’s, my daughter remarked that certain ones would definitely not follow through on their chosen paths. A few months later, as predicted, the drastic changes occurred. When the two girls got together again, the friend was amazed at the accuracy of my daughter’s foresight — which was explained based on reviewing the friends’ histories. Patterns of poor decision-making had simply continued, true to form. The girl had never noticed the patterns in her friends, even though she had known some of them for many years. My daughter had recognized and analyzed previous poor choices by those specific friends, and it involved very little risk to predict their future behaviors.

If we were to point fingers with a haughty attitude and puff ourselves up for being superior to those around us who make mistakes, we would become the ultimate fools ourselves. If, however, we see lessons we can learn in every circumstance of life, we will grow wiser with each passing day.

Post Script…

It is clear that I put more emphasis on observing the poor decisions of others than I put toward studying their successes. To my analytical mind, it is much easier to pinpoint where a plan derailed than it is to notice all of the steps that went right in creating a success. It is impossible to know all of the planning and behind-the-scenes preparation another person goes through, often leaving me to wonder how they affected the desired outcome (what percentage was due to careful planning, networking, dumb luck, or God’s divine providence?). If I chose to follow the steps of a successful person, I would be more likely to imitate the details that I felt were critical, but in reality may have been insignificant, and miss the crucially important decisions that lie hidden.

Filed Under: Behavior, Encouraging Your Student, Family Unity

Current Events 101

January 3, 2005 by Leave a Comment

Tsunami disaster. Catastrophe. Utter devastation. I find these phrases to be sorely inadequate. I still have a home, clothing, food, drinkable water, and my family. I live in the most prosperous nation in the world. I have no true needs. I will give from this abundance.

School is not always history; sometimes the best learning starts from things happening in our own world at our own time. The current headlines can be used to give your students an awareness of world events outside their safe and cozy environment. On September 11, 2001, my son’s curriculum changed dramatically to include Current Events 101: using TV news reports, newspapers, and the internet as our resources, we developed our own course, day by day. While that event was much closer to the American heart, this most recent event has much more far-reaching effects.

This website has been visited by readers from India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, East Africa, and many of the European countries whose citizens were in the South Asian area at the time of the earthquake and resulting tsunami. My husband’s co-workers made trips recently to the same region. Another has financially adopted several children in Thailand and has traveled there several times to do what he can for them. My daughter has an online friend who returned from a visit to Thailand’s beaches only weeks before this tragedy hit. We have dear friends who have recently moved from Iowa to Hawaii, joking that the weather is much more favorable there — no tornadoes, only tsunamis to worry about. They are no longer in a joking mood. That former missionary had bouts of recurring malaria while staying at my home — but she also had the proper medication with her. Without anti-malarial medicine to kill the parasite, the patient will die. I can see both the current tragedies from the tsunami’s path and the future peril of disease that will inundate these regions.

Perhaps I am seeing this tragedy more clearly through newly-opened eyes, but I feel this should be shared with our children. In words appropriate to their ages, talk with your students about what has happened and what will happen. Discuss it with them in ways suited to their level of comprehension, being careful not to frighten the small ones. Children can understand more than we usually give them credit for, and they will inevitably see and hear things that relate to the tsunami tragedy. If you make the subject available for discussion, you can be sure your children will get the proper perspective and understanding of the situation. Death does not need to be the primary focus, especially for younger children, even though record numbers of innocent victims have lost their lives or their family members. Your older students can be allowed to delve more deeply into the news reports, but caution them to use discretion when discussing the subject around their younger siblings. As the teacher, you can center your study on weather phenomena, map-reading, cultural differences, animal instincts, even why electronic funds transfers are an efficient form of giving — whatever is age-appropriate for your children.

Some children may want to do some type of fund-raising for the international relief effort, and I would encourage that — as long as it is on a scale that fits in with your family’s needs and priorities. Giving should begin at home, and teaching our children to be generous is best done by example. Careful discussions can bring an awareness of others and their needs to our children, helping to eliminate the self-centered focus that often accompanies childhood. Do not be afraid to talk to your children about tragedies such as this, just approach it from a perspective that they will understand and limit your discussions to what their ages can handle.

Filed Under: Family Unity, Learning Outside the Books

Finalist in the Best of Blog Awards!

January 1, 2005 by Leave a Comment

Guilt-Free Homeschooling is in the Top Ten Finalists for Best Education/Homeschooling Blog! Our heartfelt thanks to all our readers and supporters around the world.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Where Do I Begin???

December 22, 2004 by Leave a Comment

[co-written by Jenny and Carolyn]

You would like to begin homeschooling. Your children are already in school. How do you begin? Start with a trip through the Home School Legal Defense Association’s website (http://www.hslda.org) to learn what must be done in your area to be in compliance with your state’s laws. Some states require notification before you remove your children from a formal school; some do not. Trust HSLDA as your final authority: public school officials are often woefully ignorant of their state’s laws. Laws and requirements vary from state to state, so do not assume you can do the same thing as your friend’s neighbor’s sister-in-law who lives three states away. HSLDA also has links to homeschool support groups in your state or local region. Find the name of a homeschooling family and call them up — if they do not feel they can answer your questions, ask them to suggest someone else who can. I have spoken to many potential homeschooling families who just needed a little boost in the encouragement department.

The first physical step would be to pull your children from the school system they are in, but truly, you already have started teaching them. Your children have been learning from you from the time when their big eyes first followed you around the room, though they could not even speak or understand you, and it has progressed from there (see Who Taught This Kid to Walk…). Not getting your children up early enough to catch the bus may seem too simple of a way to begin homeschooling, but that is the beauty of home education. You may choose to delay removal from a school system until a semester break or major holiday break, but it often is not necessary. Others (in more drastic circumstances) choose to pull their children out NOW before another day goes by.

From there you can begin with the books that you already have around the house. Literature is a great way to start: read to your children, and have them read to you. Make cookies together and do the math of fractions. Play with water or corn meal and all your measuring utensils. There is no need to freak out and think you need a formal set-up. Relax and enjoy having your family together, and learn from life. Watch an historical video and discuss the parts that interest you. Spend an afternoon at the library. Walk around your local business district and see what you have never noticed before. If you are the only customers in a shop, talking to the owner can result in a fantastic, spontaneous field trip. Visit a local museum or antique shop and ask questions of the proprietor. Later, textbooks or organized lessons can be added, but it is not necessary right away, even if you are starting with a child who is in junior high or high school. You can still allow yourselves to take it easy at first; it helps make the transition less stressful and more enjoyable. Do not worry about desks and art supplies and music lessons until you find a need for them. Cuddling together on the sofa or gathering around the dining table will work just fine for now.

When you begin to doubt whether you are doing enough, stop to consider how much time your children would be wasting in a classroom while waiting in line, waiting for silence, or waiting for the teacher to finish whatever is going on before they can all move on to the next thing. A lesson that requires 45 minutes for a classroom to do may take only 10 minutes at home with one student. If you have multiple children, you may be able to combine lessons sometimes and save even more time. The entire family can enjoy a video or read-aloud book, and then your students can continue the lesson with assignments appropriate to their ages and abilities (i.e. further research, comparison or analysis of characters, make a costume and re-enact a scene). When my daughter had to read Hamlet for a college class, my son joined her for the video/read-along session and used it for high school literature credit.

It is beneficial and therapeutic to spend time contemplating what things you and your students have learned at home — remembering that we learn much more from life’s experiences than we do from books! Enjoy your time together as a family. From mealtime conversation to family game night, the educational opportunities never stop. Those opportunities were always there, but you were all too exhausted from rushing to keep up with school schedules to take advantage of them.

Filed Under: Deciding to Homeschool, Homeschool How-To's, Leaving Public School

Sorting Toys Is Algebra

December 20, 2004 by Leave a Comment

Do you realize that the mental skill used in sorting army men from building blocks is the same mental skill used in sorting variables in algebra problems? Makes higher math a little less scary, doesn’t it?

When a child can recognize and organize a playroom floor full of toys, he is honing the same skill he will use years later in recognizing and organizing an equation full of x’s, y’s, and xy’s. Whether the army men are green or tan, they are all considered army men, and building blocks are building blocks, regardless of their color. Whether the math variable is 2x or 3x, it is still considered an x-quantity. Army men do not get stored with building blocks, and x’s do not get combined with y’s.

If children are old enough to play with toys, they are old enough to put those toys away again. We used shoeboxes and plastic ice cream buckets large enough to hold all the army men or all the building blocks. Long before reading skills were acquired, I drew picture labels on index cards and taped them to each container (nothing fancy, just rough, cartoon-style illustrations — no words). Each child also had a picture chart for how to clean his room: a drawing of a messy bed and an arrow pointing to a drawing of a made-up bed; a drawing of books on the floor and an arrow pointing to a drawing of books on the shelf; a drawing of clothes in a pile on the floor and an arrow pointing to a drawing of the hamper. You get the idea. So will your kids. The artistically-challenged can adapt the idea with photos or pictures cut from magazines or catalogs.

The skill of tidying up the play area is extremely valuable, both to children and to parents. The children will grow in confidence and courage as they realize they have a new skill. Obviously, the parents will appreciate any amount of help in clearing a path through the house. However, do not expect your tiny tykes to understand this endeavor the first time you spring it on them, and do not expect them to do a first-class, absolutely perfect job… ever (hence the need for containers roomy enough to easily fit the contents). To begin with, sit on the floor with your little darlings and challenge them to pick out all of one specific type of toy from the jumble on the floor and put them into their container while you dispatch all of the other toys to their assigned spots. Point out to them how it is simpler to pick out the largest pieces first, before trying to select the tiniest pieces. Eventually, your little helper will be able to tackle two or three types of toys, one after the other. After they have mastered their sorting skills, you will notice them sorting out several different types of toys at the same time, as you would. Be sure to point out their progress and praise them for it.

Make your pick-up time fun by challenging each other to races or by sliding the Matchbox cars down a strip of racetrack into their storage box. Always allow for clean-up time as a part of playtime, so that no one is caught by surprise, and you are not left to clean up the mess after everyone else is tucked into bed. I did not want to make pick-up time feel like a punishment to be dreaded, so I helped my children as they learned the task and praised them for the good jobs they were doing. I have always enjoyed having someone to talk to while I clean up my kitchen, so I could easily understand why my children wanted my company while picking up their toys. “Together-time” with your children is never wasted time.

Another reward for a job well done was permission to play with more than one board game at a time. When I was a child, my mother had a strict rule that one game or puzzle had to be completely picked up and put away before a second one could be brought out. My children’s success at efficiently sorting and storing won them the privilege of playing with more than one thing at a time — which their creative minds took to new heights as they invented ways of combining games. They found it as much fun to sort out the pieces from multiple games, as it had been to play with the games themselves. Plus, you can only have enough letter tiles to solve some word puzzles when you combine the tiles from Scrabble, Scrabble Junior, and Upwords along with the anagram tiles!

I began teaching this sorting task to my children when they were very small — toddlers, in fact — years before we began homeschooling. I did not actually see the connection to higher math until years later. My children had no difficulty with understanding the concepts of polynomials (xy-type variables, for those of you who have forgotten or not reached that point yet in your homeschool), due in great part, I feel, to the sorting skills they possessed.

We held a birthday party for my daughter at age 15 and invited a handful of her homeschool peers. One of the games we had prepared was a jigsaw puzzle challenge. Each team of 2 girls was given a bag of jigsaw puzzle pieces: 3 puzzles combined — all simple, elementary level puzzles of varying size and complexity, but with all their pieces combined. The challenge was to separate the puzzles and reassemble all 3 puzzles before the other teams completed theirs. I was amazed at how difficult this was for some of the girls. Even though the puzzles were easily separated by the size of their pieces, some of the players had extreme difficulty in recognizing that. None of the puzzles contained more than 100 pieces, and each one was very simple to distinguish from the others and put together. As I later analyzed this situation in regard to the families involved, I concluded that the players who had the most difficulty came from families where Overworked Mom did all the picking up.

We should never feel that teaching our children to do household cleaning tasks is a punishment for them — it is giving them a future, valuable, life skill. In this particular case, they will learn recognition, sorting, and organization — skills valuable for their further education, as well as being beneficial for personal and professional choices they will make later in their lives. Learning to sort toys is learning to prioritize.

[See also The Importance of Play in Education]

Filed Under: Home Chores, Learning Outside the Books, Math, Preschoolers, Tactile Learning, Visual Learning

Screening — Paying Attention to Red Flags

December 15, 2004 by Leave a Comment

Be aware of what is being taught in any outside groups in which your children participate. Just because your friends approve of a certain group, it does not mean that you also have to approve or will approve of the same group. This applies to church-sponsored youth groups, church-sponsored Bible classes or clubs, scout troops, homeschool co-op classes, library story hours, etc. If you have already chosen to homeschool your children, you are obviously rather particular about what things they learn and how they learn them. If your children are currently enrolled in a public or private school, you may be noticing attitude changes taking place that correspond to their participation in specific activities, clubs, groups, etc.

Any changes in your child’s typical behavior should call you to attention. The changes may be positive ones, in which case you want to take notice of what caused the change and see if you can use that tactic in other areas as well to produce additional positive results. If, however, the changes in your child’s behavior are towards more negative behavior, you will want to investigate what has prompted those changes in order to correct a small problem before it becomes a major disaster.

Does your child look forward to attending the group/activity, or does the child suddenly become unruly, stubborn, and disruptive as the appointed time draws near? Does your child tell you about the group in great detail, or is it nearly impossible to glean any details whatsoever (especially noteworthy in a usually talkative child)? Does the child exhibit markedly different behavior upon returning home from the group/activity — is his attitude towards parents or siblings undesirable: rude, selfish, or extraordinarily superior? These are red flags, telltale signs that your child may be receiving teaching/coaching/prompting that is contrary to your family’s values. It may be coming from the leader of the group/activity or from friends he encounters at the group. Whatever the source, you will want to look deeper into the situation before it becomes a bigger problem.

Offer to assist the teacher with “crowd control” as a subtle way to check out what values are being passed on to your students. Mild differences can be discussed with your students before or after the class while still gaining as much benefit as possible from the class/activity itself. Major differences of value systems may require that your family withdraw their participation from the group. If the group is worth being involved with, it is worth your time as well as your child’s. Volunteer in whatever capacity will obtain you the spot you need in order to see what is going on. Speaking as a former leader, I would never have refused an offer of help; extra hands were always appreciated, whether the group was large or small.

We have run up against other children whose families simply had different values from ours. A brief discussion of “family values” with our children helped to clarify things for them, so that they could evaluate others’ points of view and determine for themselves what was worthy of ignoring. At other times, we found ourselves head-to-head with an important difference of philosophy from the leadership of an entire group. In those situations, we had to spend a great deal of time in soul-searching, family discussions, and meeting with the group leadership in efforts to rectify differences. When the problem was simply a misunderstanding, getting everything out in the open would quickly clear up any problems. Other, larger confrontations stemmed from troubles deep within organizational structures. Investigative probing revealed difficulties so vast that we knew our family’s voice could not have any positive influence. In those situations, we saw that it was time to pull out. When we deemed it necessary, we left immediately; other times we felt it beneficial to stay until a desired activity was concluded, then slip quietly away.

We have encountered anti-family philosophies in a wide assortment of organizations, all claiming to be child-centered and family-oriented. As I have said before, the proof is in the pudding. I have learned not to be fooled by words; anyone can say anything they like. A very wise pastor once said that you can tell a wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing by what he eats: wolves eat sheep. A wolf may disguise himself for a while, but sooner or later he has to eat a sheep — it’s what he does; it’s what he is; he cannot change his nature.

I became justifiably suspicious when told by a leader that parents were not allowed to sit in with the group, even when it met in that parent’s home. One leader pulled my child aside and coached the child, “You don’t agree with your parents, do you!” I have confronted administrators, forcing them to admit that, although they did not approve of what their underlings were teaching to children and felt it was wrong to do so, they would not take any measures to correct the behavior. I have also met face-to-face with parents who were not aware of their own children’s poor conduct, who thanked me for bringing it to their attention, and who took steps on the spot to reinstate the damaged relationship between our families.

I may sound rather cynical, but it is only because I have become cynical through misplaced trust. I now know (after more than a decade of homeschooling) that my children’s parents are the best teachers for them, and my children realize this fact also. We have all been taught through the school of experience that no one’s best intentions can replace the care and concern of family. If something about a group bothers you, consider that to be a red flag, and start looking around. As you screen things through your own “values filter,” you may find it to have a simple solution. You may occasionally find a much larger can of worms, but you will be grateful in the end that you took the effort to look. Your child is at stake. The risk is too great to ignore.

Filed Under: Behavior, Encouragement for Parents, Family Unity, Homeschooling as a Lifestyle, Parenting
« Previous Page
Next Page »
Verified by MonsterInsights