Education-General

It's almost August! For our family that means a lot of birthdays. 

It also means planning for this upcoming school year! No I'm not waiting until August, I've actually started researching and have begun planning this month. It probably has a lot to do with a few meetings I've gone to in the past couple of weeks, and also my desire to be organized. 

The first meeting I went to was the Charlotte Mason group meeting about scheduling using the Ambleside curriculum. That was very helpful! Last year when I looked at the Ambleside website I felt SOOO overwhelmed! So I didn't attempt any of it. I like how the reading is outlined for the whole week, so I know what I need to do in that week. Also, lessons are suppose to be short, 15-20 minutes each. I like that, short and purposeful, not long and drawn out. With the reading you're suppose to also have nature studies, which we've been meeting with our group for almost a year now. Kiera is seriously becoming a flower expert. The artist study is looking up a little information about the artist and then printing out the pictures for the kids to see, and also for you to see what they observe. The composer study is a little more hands off, simply listening to the pieces the composer has written and reading about them a little as well. The listening can be done during drawing, eating, playing, etc. The books are well written so they can stretch the children's mind and are not dumbed down to bore anyone involved in listening or reading. I appreciate Charlotte Mason's philosophy in believing that children are thinking persons and are capable of comprehension beyond what a lot of people believe. Respect while instructing.

The second meeting was a co-op meeting with our homeschool group using the Five In a Row curriculum. We're only going to be doing 8 books for the school year which makes it feel more attainable. 1 book for two weeks, meeting at the end of the two weeks and then a week off to prepare for the next book. Not a week off of school but a different schedule for that week. That also gives time to finish up that book if there were other activities/lessons that I would like to cover. This curriculum is a unit study, which is using one story/book for all the subjects. The book's a picture books that are well written.

I'm really excited about both because they're both based off of well written books. The only thing I'll need to supplement with is phonics and math. I have the McGuffey Readers thanks to my mom and her love of books and phonics cards and activity sheets. Kiera already loves writing and she learned a lot of basic spelling while doing the My Father's World kindergarten curriculum last year. For math we just have a basic workbook and I plan on doing a lot of hands on with her. We have the Cuisenaire rods, legos (large, medium and small, haha), woodfoam blocks (we bought these because Domenic liked to throw blocks), fruit, sticks, rocks, and anything else we might find that can be counted, sorted, stacked and manipulated. 

With all this excitement (I've always loved school) of planning out our school year I have to remember what my goals, our family goals are.  God's Word is what we need to remember to look to for all our teaching needs and inspiration and look at everything else as supplemental.

For our Bible we will be looking at 45 Character Qualities The first quality being obedience.

Here are some scriptures that stood out to me while I was reading some of Charlotte Mason's Home Education (volume 1) book and praying for guidance during this time of planning.

1 Peter 5:2-4
(2) shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness; (3) nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock. (4) And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.

Children are a Public Trust.––Now, that work which is of most importance to society is the bringing up and instruction of the children––in the school, certainly, but far more in the home, because it is more than anything else the home influences brought to bear upon the child that determine the character and career of the future man or woman. It is a great thing to be a parent: there is no promotion, no dignity, to compare with it. The parents of but one child may be cherishing what shall prove a blessing to the world. But then, entrusted with such a charge, they are not free to say, "I may do as I will with mine own." The children are, in truth, to be regarded less as personal property than as public trusts, put into the hands of parents that they may make the very most of them for the good of society. And this responsibility is not equally divided between the parents: it is upon the mothers of the present that the future of the world depends, in even a greater degree than upon the fathers, because it is the mothers who have the sole direction of the children's early, most impressible years. This is why we hear so frequently of great men who have had good mothers––that is, mothers who brought up their children themselves, and did not make over their gravest duty to indifferent persons.

Hebrews 10:24 & 25
(24) and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, (25) not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more, as you see the day drawing near.

Code of Education in the Gospels.––It may surprise parents who have not given much attention to the subject to discover also a code of education in the Gospels, expressly laid down by Christ. It is summed up in three commandments, and all three have a negative character, as if the chief thing required of grown-up people is that they should do no sort of injury to the children: Take heed that ye OFFEND not––DESPISE not––HINDERnot––one of these little ones.

So run the three educational laws of the New Testament, which, when separately examined, appear to me to cover all the help we can give the children and all the harm we can save them from––that is, whatever is included in training up a child in the way he should go. Let us look upon these three

great laws as prohibitive, in order to clear the ground for the consideration of a method of education; for if we once settle with ourselves what we may not do, we are greatly helped to see what we may do, and must do. But, as a matter of fact, the positive is included in the negative, what we are bound to do for the child in what we are forbidden to do to his hurt.

1 Timothy 1:5-7
(5) But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. (6) For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to fruitless discussion, (7) wanting to be teachers of the Law, even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions.


1 Corinthians 10:23 & 24
(23) All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify. (24) Let no one seek his own good, but that of his neighbor.

Four Tests which should be applied to Children's Lessons.––We see, then, that the children's lessons should provide material for their mental growth, should exercise the several powers of their minds, should furnish them with fruitful ideas, and should afford them knowledge, really valuable for its own sake, accurate, and interesting, of the kind that the child may recall as a man with profit and pleasure.