Which book do you use….

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This question has been asked three times this week so I am going to answer here as well for what it’s worth – which probably isn’t much lol! There are as many ways to educate well as there are children being educated. Ours is one way. If it resonates with you, then wonderful, I hope it is helpful. If not, that is ok too.

There were a couple different ways this question was posed. First, which history book do we use? This one has been raised a few times in regards to a few different age groups. The answer of course, is different when addressing different ages and stages. A few things remain constant however. When thinking about history and teaching history I always remember Dr. Ruth Beechick’s words in You Can Teach Your Child Successfully.

Children’s understanding of time is just beginning to develop. History teachers who have been on the job a long time know that this is so.

(Dr Beechick was a giant in the homeschool world when we began teaching our children and we have been blessed by her sensible, simple, approach. It is a pity the likes of such wise mentors has been largely eclipsed by new publications and voices espousing complicated methods which intimidate so many parents or convince them that there IS in fact a “right way” to “do history”.)

A young child struggles to wrap his mind around today, tomorrow, next week, and next year. To a 5th grader “when I grow up” is as far away as his birth. It equals a lifetime. It is not uncommon for the elementary child to confuse Grandma’s youth with George Washington’s era or wonder if there were castles and knights when Jesus was born. The actual dates are essentially meaningless to them. He is still wrestling with numbers as well, trying to make sense of math facts and times tables. Those tools are still unwieldy in his hands.

The younger the child the more he thinks in images. Your best bet is to work that to your advantage and share with him epochs. Help him to get a good picture of what bible days looked like, what Vikings were like, how a knight lived, who the pilgrims were, who built American log cabins, and who were the Indians they met. These things DO stick in their minds. They will not be able to sort them all out til much later but that isn’t our goal in the beginning. Initially you want to tell fascinating stories complete with vivid images and light a fire for all the vastly different ways people have lived through time. Children will marvel over folks who thought and felt so much like they do and yet who dressed and worked so differently. This is our goal. Impart the wonder.

As Dr B says:

Through stories children catch on to the idea that people lived in the world before they were born and that their times and doings were different from ours.

The best ingredient… is the excitement of the parents. That at least is sure to have a lasting effect on children’s interest in history.

In later years – ideally middle and upper elementary grades – you can begin to discuss sequence in more depth. I don’t use a perfectly scaled timeline at first but the children retell the stories we read and we bind them together in order of occurrence. That way they can see that Jesus came after the pyramids but before castles and Grandma came after George Washington but before men walked on the moon.

This is a good time to introduce a history “spine”. A text book is necessarily limited in it’s ability to effectively transmit wonder. When you think of it, how could the stories of billions of people be told effectively by any one book? Many texts are also plagued by revisionist history, a desire to interpret the past according to our own biases and contemporary understanding. What a good text CAN do is to provide a framework into which all those images and stories can now be sorted so they will become a cohesive whole. A text without years of stories and images is dry and lifeless at best. Stories and images with no framework can become random trivia lost due to the child’s inability to pull them all together or to make connections.

So, in the early years we read widely and much. In middle elementary grades we begin to use texts – usually classic texts in our faith tradition – as a spine to organize our studies. We do not expect to cover an entire text in one year. Rather we spread out a text over a few years and add picture books, biographies and historical fiction to the mix to flesh out the data more completely. Bear in mind that in high school and college the student will usually employ survey texts that will sum up all that came before. So this is a process.

Remember also:

Since there is no widespread agreement on what should be taught in each grade you can be assured that you will do no lasting damage to your own curriculum by making adjustments that fit your situation.

This seems to be the most difficult concept for most adults to grasp. Surely there must be a correct order in which to teach history? Nope. I tell you truthfully. Nope. If you are skeptical then order catalogs from several major publishers and compare the scope and sequence of each. You will discover that one begins with the beginning of time in grade one and moves forward in strict chronological order each grade. Another will begin with local and family history and move outward to more abstract information. Others begin with American history and give world and ancient histories a nod in junior high. All will assert that their way is critical to success and may even suggest that failing to adhere to their system will lead to disaster. This is just not so.

Share the wonder, provide a framework, and trust that the stories which have captivated generations will work their magic on your children as well. Just exercise discretion. A first grader is likely to remember about as much cold hard history as you recall from that time in your own life. Work with their natural development and things will go ever so much better for you both.

A good list of picture books for history is here and here

Laura Berquist’s Mother of Divine Grace School is one of the few Catholic correspondence programs to employ this approach.

Rainbow Resource Center sells numerous literature and activity based history studies from varied publishers. A quick google search will turn up tons more.

Lazy Woman’s Ice Cream

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Since adopting the starch free diet last year for the arthritis I have one major dietary weakness – ice cream. It is my big treat now that cookies (sigh…) and chips are out. I treat myself to Haagen-Das or Breyers once a week. I kept wondering how hard it would be to make ice cream from the goat’s milk. We still haven’t gotten an ice-cream maker, however, so it was just sort of random musing.

A couple weeks ago I googled some basic custard ice cream recipes. I noticed some comments mentioned just freezing it and stirring periodically. Last night I gave it a whirl with this recipe. I used straight goat’s milk, versus the half milk, half cream. Since goat’s milk is naturally homogenized its all in there already. Being maker-less, it went right into the freezer in tupperware and was stirred a couple times. Oh my! Ohmyohmyohmy! It was incredible. Forget cheese. I love my goats but hate goat cheese of any variety. But goat’s milk ice cream….. Wow.

Ingredients
1 cup whole milk
1 cup heavy cream or whipping cream
2 egg yolks
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon real vanilla extract (not imitation!)

Directions
1 Beat eggs very well with a mixer, gradually add sugar beat until thick and lemon colored.
2 Stir in milk and heat, stirring until thickened.
3 Remove from heat and cool mixture.
4 Add cream and vanilla, cover and chill mixture.
5 Pour into ice cream maker and follow manufactures directions.

this too shall past

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That is the gist of the second chapter of the Napthali book where she discusses the concept of equanimity – the ability to keep calm whatever is happening. She discusses the myriad emotions that visit us and suggests that we consider them just that – temporary visitors. As such, we can acknowledge their arrival and allow them to come and go, exercising some objectivity versus clutching them tightly. We ‘host’ these emotions rather than becoming passengers, driven by them.

When something normally considered bad happens, you can handle it – it doesn’t derail you. Likewise, if something good happens you feel joy without feeling dependent on or attached to the event.

This reiterates the message of resignation found in Surrender to Divine Providence which I have read and reread countless times. (I will “get it” yet!) That whole book is about being at peace with the will of God. We can know with certainty that everything that happens has run by God first. He allows it all for (and only for) our greater good. Each will last just as long as He deems wise and not a minute more or less. We can allow ourselves to feel happiness and pain, knowing God has ordained each for a purpose, without feeling the driving need to control their arrival and departure. Someone else has it all well in hand. As the author says:

We should desire what God does and accept with filial submission all that is decided by His Providence

In a spirit of conformity to His holy will we should accustom ourselves for the love of God to putting up with all the little daily vexations, such as a word said that wounds our self-esteem, a fly that annoys us, the barking of a dog, knocking into something as we walk along, a small accidental hurt, a light suddenly going out, a rent in our clothes, a pen that won’t write, and so on.

This issue of control is brought up in the Motherhood book also:

With equanimity we accept what is and stop trying to control the inevitable and impermanent

What is inevitable?

…gain and loss, pleasure and pain, praise and blame, fame and disrepute. No matter how hard we try to attract or avoid any of these, we’ll experience all of them in their turn.

Trying to anticipate each or expecting to exercise control over them causes us unnecessary suffering.

St Philip Neri wrote something similar. He describes three stages of spiritual development:

In the spiritual life there are three degrees.The first may be called the animal life; this is the life of those who run after sensible devotion, which God generally gives to beginners, to allure them onwards by that sweetness to the spiritual life, just as an animal is drawn on by a sensible object.

The second degree may be called the human life; this is the life of those who do not experience any sensible sweetness, but by the help of virtue combat their own passions.

The third degree may be called the angelic life; this is the life which they come to, who, having been exercised for a long time in the taming of their own passions, receive from God a quiet, tranquil, and almost angelic life, even in this world, feeling no trouble or repugnance in anything.

Of these three degrees it is well to persevere in the second, because the Lord will grant the third in His own good time.

In all three sources, tranquility comes after much practice in taming ones emotions and is not generally to be had otherwise. Much commentary is made about being intentional in our reactions. With every challenge or trial we can choose joy. We can decide whether to let things roll off our back or to hold them in to fester. We can be driven by the need for emotional and sensational highs or, conversely, by the need to avoid unpleasantness. Or instead, we can greet both confidently and peacefully. The common theme is that this lofty goal is best achieved by mastering lots of little challenges:

It is even more important to practice conformity to God’s will in these small things than in larger ones, both because they are more frequent and because the habit of supporting them in a Christian spirit prepares us in advance and in a natural manner to show resignation when we have to face serious difficulties.

– Surrender to Divine Providence

trip

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indoor pool

room service

little people bundled into softs beds

driving to the school

one well-appointed dorm room

three new roommates

lots of late night snacks stocked

goodbyes

long trip home

a very lovely weekend

and so it goes

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The thought manifests as the word
The word manifests as the deed;
The deed develops into habit;
And habit hardens into character.

So watch the thought and its ways with care,
and let it spring from love

– Buddhist quote

“Watch your thoughts. They become words. Watch your words. They become deeds. Watch your deeds. They become habits. Watch your habits. They become character. Character is everything.”

– Emerson

the weekend update

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Our new appliances came yesterday and look absolutely gorgeous. We chose an entire set of black to match the existing island stove top and tile backsplash. It would not be my signature style per se (i think I have swooned over these appliances once before…) but definitely right for this room. The salesman neglected to mention the stove would need a conversion from regular gas to LP so that needs to be handled yet. And the fridge stopped cooling midday. So, we seem to be about par for the course for us ; ) I swear. I have a 25 year old dinged up, rusting fridge outside that has never had a problem. Ever. Buy old. Old is better.

Speaking of buying old – the desk is (re)finished! The little boys put on the new hardware while the kitchen was out of order yesterday. Still no iphoto but I took pics for that long hoped-for day of digital restoration.

Allen flew in late last night and Colin moves into his dorm today. The little boys were up at 6 doing the Daddy’s Home dance. We have plans to smother them both all weekend Will catch you on the flip side.

Large Family Logistics articles online

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I found a ton of articles by Kim Brenneman here. For the record we employ the very same routines in our home and have found them to be highly successful when done consistently. She has many convicting things to say…

On computers:

We need fellowship with other believers but often we exchange relationships with real people in our physical community for relationships with people in a narrow little band of online people that believe every little thing exactly like we do. The Proverbs 31 lady was in her community, her husband was honored at the city gates because of her renown, she extended her hand to the poor, and more.

Online communities can be a venue of encouragement and relation to others, but spend more time getting to know your neighbours. Be salt and light!

Computer rabbit trails also steal time from our first priorities. Be careful, be wise, make a plan for the time you spend online and use a timer.

On planning:

When we try to do everything we do nothing well. Focus on your first priorities and then carefully, thoughtfully, and prayerfully refine them before adding to them.

On fellowship:

Don’t be an idler, gossip, or busybody going about from house to house via the telephone, email, IM, or visiting. Save your talk time and be meaningful with it.

On chores:

Don’t be a drill sergeant, be an encourager. Say things like you would want to hear it from your mom. Sing while you work, make up a silly song to go along with the work. Work quickly and efficiently.

On toddlers:

Assign a day of the week for each toddler activity to be done while the rest of the crew cleans. i.e. Monday-playdough; Tuesday-washing dishes (water play); Wednesday-chunky puzzles; Thursday-coloring; Friday-finger paint.

Note: this REALLY works well. Little ones don’t need their entire day full of alternating activities,books, songs etc. You would be amazed how well they respond to a set “table time” or “tray time” daily. While most articles encourage you to do this first thing, we have also found it is best to do it while the others are cleaning. Makes for happy littles and more productive chore time.

On beauty in the home:

Try to create a harmony of favorite things expressing all of the senses. What fabrics do you like to feel, what do you like under your feet, what do you want to wrap up in while you sit and peruse a new magazine? When you want a peaceful setting what do you want to hear? Guitar music, ocean waves, the breeze in the trees outside, or silence? What do you want to smell? A favorite flower, a mug of hot chocolate, the night air drifting in? What do you want to see? Blank walls, art, photography, wallpaper? Lots of drapes and luscious fabric or simple, straight lines? Dark or light? Warm or cool? Simple, elaborate, or somewhere in between? Think about these things.

I will stop here but there is so much to glean. I have her articles printed and in my Home Mgt Binder. We all have periods where the routines slip a bit or we are under the weather but returning to these happy habits makes for a delightful home life.

gentle, patient, and persistent

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I read this awesome bk last month called Take Your Time by Eknath Easwaran. I decided to buy it because I had dog eared every other page to quote and realized the author had ONLY written substantial words and refrained from any filler fluff. It was all quotable and noteworthy – which ended up being part of the overall message.

Mr Easwaran is a college professor originally from India. He grew up in the Buddhist tradition though he does not write with the intention of converting his audience. His whole gist is about slowing down and paying way better attention to each person and activity you find yourself face to face with. Those are his driving principles. If you can’t slow down enough to pay attention to everything you do, say, and hear then you are doing too much and need to cull. He feels that the reason we are forgetful is that we didnt really give our full attention the first time around. Thats why we cant recall if we unplugged the iron or locked the car etc. We were spacing out when we did those things versus being truly present and having our heads ‘in the game’ so to speak. He maintains you can eliminate unnecessary stress by focusing your attention on whatever tasks – big or small – are at hand. This echoes the Sue Bender Amish experience book‘s lesson about the source that community’s contentment with their daily work. That whole intentional living again.

He had many examples of how applied application impacted our lives – from daily tasks to career to personal relationships. Bottom line was HOW. How do we achieve that level of attentiveness that assures a focused life and optimal functioning? He said that when our attention wanders we shouldn’t fret but rather just call it back to the task at hand cheerfully like it was a puppy. No need to berate ourselves nor overanalyze our distractedness. As long we keep calling back our attention then we will eventually get mastery over it.

I got another book this week called Buddhism and Motherhood by Sarah Napthali. Now of course I am totally not a Buddhist any more than I am Amish. Rather, I saw it on the Soulemama reading list and picked it up being intrigued by the subtitle: A Calm Approach to Caring for Yourself and Your Children. I won’t go into a theological treatise, just suffice it to say while I disagree with to whom and what the authors attribute truth still I found common threads in all of these messages and with Fr Lovasik’s wonderful Power of Kindness. The motherhood author said we need to be gentle, patient, and persistent with ourselves in calling our attention back. It occurred to me that this applies to our child training too. Children’s attention WILL wander and get off track. We need to be gentle, patient, yet persistent in calling them back to the present – to the task at hand. If we can just cheerfully persist they will eventually master themselves and their responsibilities and so will we.

All three attributes need to be in place to be effective however – the persistence AND the gentle patience. Gentleness because scripture tells us “a kind word turns away wrath”. Gentleness is a fruit of the Holy Spirit in the Christian tradition, one of the signs that we are in step with the Lord. We are to “clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, gentleness and patience”. We are also told not to lose heart when we are exhorted to “watching thereunto with all perseverance” and to not “weary in doing well” – whether we have done so once or twice or seventy times seven times. Our demeanor ought to be the same the first and last times – one tall order in an age of instant gratification.

Therefore, it is necessary to really commit ourselves to the challenge. We also need to realize that this kind of progress comes slowly after a LOT of repeating gently and patiently. Persistence pays off though. If we just don’t quit we can’t lose in the end. We just have to promise ourselves we aren’t going to give up. How could we fail if just refused to stop persisting cheerfully? The game isn’t over til someone throws in the towel. Let’s not let it be us.

The things we do for love

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Yesterday was a big day for me. We loaded up all the goat kids from this year and last year’s kidding plus another doe we had picked up last year and they headed for the livestock sale. Saturday was actually harder than the day of. Anticipation is always harder for me than the actual doing of a thing and this was no exception.

In my heart I know it was definitely the right thing to do. Homestead projects have always been, for us anyway, about providing what we needed and not growing beyond our comfort zone. Bigger is not necessarily better in almost any category. This is a recurrent theme here I am sure you have noticed. (I tend to think out loud and this is what we have been thinking about so very much lately.)

When Allen first suggested we were becoming a business rather than a homestead it was upsetting. It was not because he was wrong. We were becoming that. But growth is good right? It’s the American dream. It is capitalism at work. What’s the problem? Well the problem is that we are a family, not a factory. My chosen vocation is wife and mother, not provider of goods or services – paid or unpaid- outside these 4 walls. Anything else has to support the primary roles, not detract from them. Profit and praise are not the deciding factors. Quality of life is.

We have seen home businesses that were actually ‘mom’ businesses which grew and taxed the family. We knew we didn’t want that. We are discovering however that it takes even more self-discipline to control and limit expansion – whether in business or possessions or our social life – than it does to continue to grow.

It also takes a lot of self-discipline to trust your spouse’s leading and do the hard things that are asked of you, even when you know that person is asking for your own good. It is so tempting to mull it all over and then present lots of very sensible – even spiritual – reasons why it is you cannot or better yet, should not, follow through. However, the blessing is not in the resistance. It is in the whole hearted willingness.

I am trying to look at the house the same way. We are addressing the craft room, school room and storage shed next. Many items in all of those places have been with us for years. They have been boxed or shelved in many houses but not used. They are my “someday” things. Someday has not come. Instead of “someday” there is “everyday”. Everyday to work around them, everyday to have them take up space. So again this week we continue emptying space, clearing out the clutter in both our home and our hearts. We are taking a step out in faith and trust and embracing, in all areas, only what is blessing us.

My prayer today is to trust more in my family than in my “stuff”.

Home Education tutor republished

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I got an email yesterday saying that the Home Educator’s Tutor magazine had been bought by a new publisher and is changing formats for re-publication. Instead of a periodical it will be a series of spiral bound (to lay flat) books. The first is due out soon and the rest in 4 month intervals.

We subscribed for a year when it first came out. I loved having everything at our fingertips in one binding – the Shakespeare story, the art appreciation prints, the music, the poetry, Plutarch etc. for more information check here.