30 Days of Gratitude – Day 24: Freedom of Education

I am so grateful that I live in a state that has reasonable laws about education, although there should be no laws because the children do not belong to the state, but rather the parents.

We are in our 21st year of educating our children, and we’ve gone from one extreme to another as we have figured out our family’s philosophy and style.

Being responsible for our children’s education plays a huge part in our ability to be free. We cannot be free nor prosperous when we are dependent upon the state. Our children are our future, they are OUR responsibility. It is true that the hand that rocks the cradle rocks the nation… who is rocking the cradle?

I LOVE this quote by Joel McDurmon:

“…we must understand that government schools are at the heart of the problem of government-dominated society. We can change this personally now, and we should. All that is stopping us is the perceived benefit of free schooling and daily childcare. This is the cheese in the trap. Don’t take the cheese. Do we really want a free society, or do we depend on tax-funded benefits like the liberals and socialists we criticize?” - Joel McDurmon

Do you trust the government with your money? Do they spend tax dollars wisely? Then why would you trust them with your children for the majority of their childhood?!

Join us each day for the month of November and share what you are grateful for, you can leave a comment or link up!

Little House in the Big Woods

I’ve started reading Little House in the Big Woods to the children. This is a great book that can also be a great unit study. I love reading books that are so rich in real life skills. Although most of us don’t churn our own butter or hunt down our own meat, books like this one can expose our children to so much good stuff!

Last week we read where Ma would make pancakes in the shape of men on Christmas morning.

So for our afternoon snack I ground up some wheat and made the kids some special pancakes.

Here are some word search, crossword puzzles and other workshee ts to help re-enforce what is being read.

Here is a great site with lapbook printables for Little House in the Big Woods.

And more lapbook ideas.

Little House in the Big Woods

Life Can’t Stop for School!

Jeff and the kids picked green beans the other day. A friend *gave* them to us, we just had to come pick.

They brought home a BUNCH of beans!

It took 5 of us snapping to get them done.

I gave the younger children a basket full of beans to be snapped and placed them in front of the TV watching a documentary about bees, because bees are what they’ve been asking so much about lately.

This was not a typical ‘school day’ for us, but it was what needed to be done. We spent the morning snapping, canning and talking about bees, evolution and world view. This is the way education should be…naturally answering questions when asked, doing what needs to be done.

In the afternoon we did our math and reading, but for this morning, life…beans could not be stopped because we had worksheets to do; we had life and work to do!

Emma sat at the table snapping, while I manned the pressure cooker. This gave us HOURS and HOURS to talk. I loved it. I really wanted to slow the process down so we could talk even more… I know these kind of days will become fewer as the winds of change are blowing for her…for all of us.

I had to laugh at her at one point as she said in frustration, “Do you see my pile of beans going down any? I have been snapping so long but I don’t seem to be getting anywhere and my fingers hurt.”

I told her, “It’s just like life, you snap away, one day at a time, it seems like you are kind of stuck in time, but before you know it, your pile…your days are gone.”

We canned 49 quarts in 24 hours!!!

And we still have a huge pot of beans to eat off this week!!!

Life is good and God is GREAT!

Make Them Remember

I use to do scrapbooking, now I just do Facebook. Someday I WILL get all my digital pictures into photo books.

When the children came to stay with us last January I had to throw together our curriculum rather quickly.

For our morning lessons I made each of us a binder with page protectors.

In the binder I put the words to the songs we were learning; each month we learn a new one.

I include our memory work (we started out with the 10 Commandments) and our catechism questions…

and a list of the 21 Rules for the House. These were really good in the beginning as the children had to get use to a new way of life. We now review them maybe once or twice a month.

Each month I add a new character trait, we go over this 2-3 times a week and review the previous traits once or twice a month.

All these things, the memory verses, the character traits, the 21 Rules, the catechism questions and the hymns are GREAT to have ready to use as copywork too!

And what binder would be complete without a chore chart?

For older kids it would be great to add a list of goals too!

But this is their favorite part:

In the back of the binder I let the kids scrapbook, which for them was just gluing pictures in. Remember, everything is in page protectors.

We are big picture-takers around here, so from day one we have LOTS of pictures… we’re kind of like first time parents again!

One thing I noticed quickly was something that I’ve noticed in my grown kids, they “remember” more based on the pictures in their scrapbooks than they do the actual memory it’s self.

The new kiddos are constantly going through their binders and studying the pictures, ‘remembering’ the day they came here, remembering when Olivia built fairy houses with them, remembering when we made cupcakes while it was storming outside, etc…

This forces them to think on the happy memories, to ‘remember’ the good times!

I’ve also used our binders to show our social worker and lawyers a little of what our life looks like. The kids LOVE showing them to everyone that comes to visit!

We are almost 7 months post the kid’s arrival and their binders are getting full.I hope to be able to start fresh binders at their 1 year mark and put these on the shelf as their keepsakes!

I also figured if they had to leave us they would have plenty of pictures to take with them…to remember their time with us.

In this age of everything being digital let’s be sure to give our kids some physical things to look at, to touch…to remember by!

Take LOTS of pictures, even of trivial things, make sure people are smiling…even laughing. They WILL remember these things, but you may have to help them. YOU are writing history… YOU are documenting it!

Where does trust come from?

“Where does trust come from?

Hint: it never comes from the good times and from the easy projects.

We trust people because they showed up when it wasn’t convenient, because they told the truth when it was easier to lie and because they kept a promise when they could have gotten away with breaking it.

Every tough time and every pressured project is another opportunity to earn the trust of someone you care about.”

~Seth Godin

Seth Godin has some great common sense inspiration stuff!

How to Teach More in an Hour than a School Can in a Week

“Any child who can spend an hour or two a day,

or more if he wants,

with adults that he likes,

who are interested in the world and like to talk about it,

will on most days learn far more from their talk than he would learn in a week of school.”

~ John Holt

Education and Real Life- Part 1, Seeking Knowledge …Naturally

“…‘How will they learn to read?’ you ask,

and my answer is ‘Remember the lessons of Massachusetts.’

When children are given whole lives

instead of age-graded ones in cellblocks,

they learn to read, write, and do arithmetic with ease,

if those things make sense in the kind of life that unfolds around them.”

– John Taylor Gatto

Emerson said, “The secret of education is respecting the pupil.”

Do we respect a child who is full of wonder and energy when make them sit in a room, with the same kids, for the bulk of their childhood?
Do we respect a child who is an individual that has strengths and weaknesses and expect them to learn at the same pace as everyone else, whether they soar or struggle?
Do we respect a child who could easily ask hundreds of questions a day and tell them not to talk and only ask a question when their raised hand is given permission?

Think about it:

How much from school do you really remember?
How many facts were drilled into your head for the sake of passing a test?
How much of what was required of you then do you really use now?

This is NOT an anti-education post, it is a real life education post. There are a lot of basics that need to be taught, and that takes discipline and some sitting still behind a book, but should that take the majority of their day? Yes, we need to know how to read, write and do math. History is crucial to knowing where you came from and and where you should be going. Science, geography, music and art have their place too, but most of this can be taught and retained better outside a classroom, or as Mr. Gatto calls it, a cell-block.

If you think about it, it really is a cell-block because you loose your freedom to learn. You are no longer an individual, you are a number among the masses, all moving at the same pace when given permission. And who is giving you permission to move? Who is telling you what you should learn and how you should learn?

Having already raised my children and homeschooling them, then to have little ones in the house again has made things even more obvious to me. With my first go-around with my older kids I was hoping I was right, and now I know with a stronger passion that I am right!

Our 6 year old little boy thinks out-loud, he asks questions from the time his eyes open until he hits his pillow at night. He walks by our side all day and spends tons of time with Jeff as he learns so much about real life; real life that consist of math and science. He is having his questions answered as his natural, God-given curiosity is peaked. His quest for knowledge is being satisfied as he sees the big picture and how it all relates to LIFE! He is learning math and science as he helps in the garden and helps Jeff in his shop. He walks around with his tape measure and measures EVERYTHING!

A real education is a constant lesson in the real world,

and we graduate only when we pass on to our eternal life!

Are you snacking on poisioned fruit?

“It should come as no huge surprise that the secular world is confused and off-base about the identity and calling of women. But what I find distressing is the extent to which (this) has taken hold even within the evangelical world. We see the fruit of that revolution as prominent Christian speakers, authors, and leaders promote an agenda, whether subtly or overtly, that encourages women to define and discover their worth in the workplace, in society, or at church, while minimizing (or even at the expense of) their distinctive roles in the home as daughters, sisters, wives, and mothers – as bearers and nurturers of life, caregivers, as those privileged and responsible to shape the heart and character of the next generation. The feminist revolution was supposed to bring women greater fulfillment and freedom. It was supposed to make us feel better about ourselves; after all, “You’ve come a long way, baby!” But we see the poisoned fruit of the revolution in the eyes and pitiable cries of women who are drowning in the quagmire of serial divorce and remarriage and wayward children; women who are utterly exhausted from the demands of trying to juggle one or more jobs, function as single parents and be active in church; women who are disoriented and confused, who lack sense of mission, vision, and purpose for their lives and who are perpetually, pathetically shrouded in woundedness, self-doubt, resentment, and guilt.”

~Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Biblical Womanhood in the Home

A lively hope…

“…it is called a lively hope because it puts the soul upon lively endeavors.

Hope will make a man pray as for life, hear as for life, mourn as for life,

obey as for life and work and walk as for life.

Hope will not say this work is too hard and that work is too hot;

this work is too high and the other work is too low.

Hope will make a man put his hand to every work.

Hope makes a man more motion than notion;

it makes a man better at doing than at saying.

Hope gives life and strength to all religious duties and services.

A man full of hope will be full of action.

A lively hope and diligent hand are inseparable companions.

Hope will make a man do though he dies for doing.

–Thomas Brooks

Training Your Children for Heaven

“A true Christian must not be a slave to what’s currently ‘in-fashion,’ if he wants to train his child for heaven. He must not be content to teach them and instruct them in certain ways, merely because it is customary, or to allow them to read books of a questionable sort, merely because everybody else reads them, or to let them form bad habits, merely because they are the habits of the day. He must train with an eye to his children’s souls. He must not be ashamed to hear his training called odd and strange. What if it is? The time is short—the customs of this world are passing away. He that has trained his children for heaven, rather than for the earth—for God, rather than for man—he is the parent that will be called wise in the end.”

~ J.C. Ryle