Archive for the ‘Homeschooling’ Category

Unit Studies for Homeschool

Friday, September 7th, 2012

unit-studies-for-homeschoolI’m on the edge of my seat, about to launch the biggest project I’ve ever done, which has grown way beyond what I imagined. It’s the fruition of 20 years’ worth of work, since I’ve been an educator for two decades. It’s a membership site where all my unit studies are in categories, with supporting materials beneath them, usually in the form of video demonstrations. It includes over 100 unit studies for homeschool. There are well over 1,000 supporting videos and articles, showing you how to homeschool your children with unit studies.

I’ve had people e-mailing me, asking for the book list for each of my unit study time periods. It took me many hours to track down all the books that I used, but these lists are now in my Unit Study Treasure Vault, followed by a list of activities in the order I did them while homeschooling my own children.

The science section has subject headings, and all the articles, videos, and field trips I did for each subject are under each heading. And I’ve added more high quality videos from the best of what the internet has to offer. I will be filming three exclusive demonstration videos found nowhere else on earth but in my Treasure Vault each month, plus I will continuously be adding to each category.

There’s a geography section, a literature section, an art section, a field trip section, and I will be adding more sections in the upcoming months. But each section is substantial and large already. That’s the crazy thing about it. And it will only be growing.

The Bible section is one of my favorite sections. Years ago I wrote Charlotte Mason style summaries for each book of the Bible, turning them in to my pastor for a class that took two years. My own father was a pastor and a missionary for 30 years (as well as a seminary professor), and he and my mother are helping me to edit the summaries and upload them to the Bible section of the Treasure Vault. Under each book of the Bible, I will be creating wonderful activities. This one section will eventually have hundreds of original hands-on learning activities. Even though I’m creating all these materials for homeschool moms, Sunday school teachers would also benefit from it. It might become so huge that it will need a whole separate Bible Treasure Vault. Who knows? The whole thing gives me so much joy, I can hardly contain it.

In fact, the whole idea for this Treasure Vault was birthed in joy. My husband had taken the kids swimming one evening, and I sat there in silence in the house, asking God what He wanted me to do with my business. I opened my heart to God and waited. Suddenly the idea for the Unit Study Treasure Vault came to me, and the individual ideas came like a waterfall, hundreds of ideas, and I had so much joy in the Spirit. I am exactly in the center of the will of God right now. In God’s presence is fullness of joy.

My husband is a computer programmer who happens to be my webmaster, so he has been writing computer code all summer long. I’m not kidding. He’s hardly been sleeping at all the last few weeks in preparation for this launch. My husband told me last night, “This is the biggest thing you’ve ever done, and you’re blogging about a hammock. We’re days from launching. I’m surprised you haven’t been getting e-mails saying, ‘What’s going on?’”

“Oh, I’m getting e-mails, and I’m answering each of them one by one. Those women are excited about the Vault and can’t wait.”

We have a couple of small glitches which are being worked out. We might launch tonight. Or Monday. The time is near…

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

The Unit Study Treasure Vault is now open!!

How Karate Helped my Son

Wednesday, September 5th, 2012

how-karate-helps-kids

Several years ago my husband and I were praying about what to do with one of our sons who was uncoordinated. Three of my children learned physical skills easily while the other child took forever to learn them. Learning how to ride a bike took just a few days of practice for most of my kids, but months of practice for this one son.

We put him into soccer, and that was disastrous. Nobody would ever kick the ball to him, so how was he supposed to improve? He was so frustrated; you could see the frustration all over his face.

So we pulled him out of soccer after one season, even though his brothers have continued to do various team sports and have loved every minute of it.

I advise homeschool parents to pray about the weaknesses of their children. God knows the exact answer to your prayer. You might not come up with it yourself unless you ask God. For our family, the answer was a Christian karate place nearby. The students quote Scripture as they do their poses. Both my husband and I felt a supernatural peace about signing up our son.

A year later, I had a son who was physically fit and had control over his body movements. It was a miracle. We are now in his third year.

A homeschool mom recently walked up to my son and asked him if he liked karate. I tried to change the subject. My son had never thought to question whether he was supposed to go to karate or not. He hadn’t thought of being rebellious to fight what his parents knew was the right thing for him. The homeschool mom didn’t realize that children don’t rule.

Any activity that you sign your kids up for that is making up for a weakness will not be the favorite activity of your children. That’s because that activity comes hard for them. But if it’s what God wants you to be doing, it will strengthen those very weaknesses so that for the rest of that child’s life, he will not struggle in that area as much.

And if you’ve prayed about it and have a supernatural peace and joy in your soul about that activity and are in complete agreement with your husband, move forward and do it. Your child will come to expect that it’s a part of his life.

My Sons’ Goofy Comments About Shakespeare

Thursday, August 30th, 2012

goofy-comments-shakespeare

Here are some goofy comments about Shakespeare my sons made to me recently:

“Mom?! How come you’re going so slowly? I can’t stand it! How on earth am I supposed to follow the action in the story if you take so long explaining one scene?” cried out my 10-year-old son Stephen.

“Sweetheart,” I answered, “you’ve already heard the plot of the story, and you’ve seen the play. Now we are going to read the actual Sharespearean language. I want you to understand the poetry of it, to savor the language. We are going to settle in and study one or two scenes per day. It will take a month for us to study this play. By the end of the year, after studying many plays, you will be able to understand any Shakespeare play that you’ve never read before just by reading the real thing.”

My 12-year-old son Bryan stated another observation about Shakespeare. “Mom, how come there are so many words in each scene? It seems like the characters could have said their lines in a much more simple and understandable way. Even in the play we saw, the action didn’t move forward very fast.”

“That’s because the language is poetic. It’s beautiful language, and your future wife is going to thank me for teaching you how to understand poetic language.”

My son Nathaniel asked, “Is that how Dad got you to marry him?”

“No,” I said, and we all laughed.

Related product: Romeo and Juliet Unit Study

Shakespeare in the Park

Wednesday, August 29th, 2012

Shakespeare-in-the-park

Last weekend we took our kids to see Shakespeare in the Park. This is an ideal way to introduce Shakespeare to children, because it is a casual environment that doesn’t require complete silence. Besides, kids can wiggle around on a blanket on the grass, changing positions, so even if your child has lots of energy, the child does not have to sit still. Shakespeare in the Park is usually free, so if you need to leave, you are not wasting any money.

On the way to the park, I told my children the plot of the story “Twelfth Night,” which was being performed that night. Twins are shipwrecked, and the girl thinks her twin brother has died. So she goes to work for the local duke. She dresses up as a boy in order to work for the duke, but she ends up falling in love with the duke. Meanwhile, the duke is in love with Olivia, who is in love with the duke’s page (who happens to be the girl dressed up as a boy). Suddenly the twin brother shows up and is mistaken for the sister who is dressed up as a boy. In the end, everyone is paired off and gets married. Yes, I told my kids that in Shakespeare’s comedies, there is always at least one love story, and couples always get married at the end. This is opposed to the tragedies, where lots of people are dead at the end. Yep. Comedy or tragedy. Married or dead. My kids laughed.

My kids seemed to follow their first Shakespeare play just fine. I told them they might not understand all the language, and just to pay attention to the plot. Also, I said that the language was similar to the King James version of the Bible. My 12-year-old son had no problem understanding the language, my two middle boys understood most of it, and my 7-year-old daughter said she couldn’t understand the words, but she enjoyed seeing the play. What a great kick-off to a full year of teaching Shakespeare to my children!

Related product: Romeo and Juliet Unit Study

Linked to Introducing Your Children to Shakespeare