Michael Phillips Shenandoah Series

I have been sick for two weeks with bronchitis. During the first week I was in the bed so I stayed sane by reading lots of good books. I have a new Christian historical fiction author that I really really enjoyed!

I read Michael Phillips Shenandoah Series. Our local library has a lot of his books. Below are the titles in the series:

Shenandoah (2002-2004)
Angels Watching Over Me, 2002
A Day To Pick Your Own Cotton, 2003
The Color of Your Skin Ain't the Color of Your Heart, 2003
Together Is All We Need, 2004

This series is about two young girls near Charlotte, NC during and after the Civil War. One girl is the daughter of a plantation owner, the other the daughter of slaves on a nearby plantation. The girls come together when the Bilsby Marauders tear through their county and others murdering anyone in their path, black and white alike.

Through immense tragedy, these two girls teach each other how to survive, each bringing different strengths from the lives that were ripped away. It is a beautiful story of God's love for us and how we should (but often fail) to love others.

Charlotte Mason Inspired Reading Lessons

A couple of weeks ago I began a new type of reading lesson with my eight yr old who has struggled to learn to read. I read about how Charlotte Mason, who was an educator in the 18 and early 1900's, suggested that parents work with their children to teach them how to read. This can be found in The Original Homeschooling Series - Vol. 1

So, what I will explain is how we have done it, not her words, though it was completely inspired by her words. I must also explain that I do still believe in teaching children to read with phonics, not whole language, however this child has proved to be the exception. He knows his phonics pretty well, we have been working on it for 3 years, however, this has NOT helped HIM become a fluent reader. We also believe he has Asperger's Syndrome, and that me be a contributing factor to his struggle to read.

Ok, so the first thing I did was to pick a poem. He loves poetry and he can be pretty silly, so I chose Where the Sidewalk Ends to pull from, because I thought this would make it more fun for him! He likes a good punch line. The first poem we used was Homemade Boat.

I made five copies of the poem in large type. I separated the title and the first couple of lines and the next sets of lines and put each set into a separate sandwich bag. I labeled them #1, #2....

I then cut each word apart (except for the Title, I leave that all one strip) and put them back in the bag and mixed them. I also prepared a half sheet of construction paper on which to mount a copy at the end of the reading lesson. One more thing I prepared was a spiral book of index cards.

On the BIG DAY, I sat him at the table and spread all the words from bag #1 out on a large plastic lid. I wrote the title of the poem, Homemade Boat, on the dry erase board and while he looked at it, and I told him what it said. Then, he searched for his five copies of the title in his pile. He spread them out on the table as the start of five copies of the poem.

Then, I continued to write one word at a time on the board, telling him the word, him repeating the word and giving him time to find them and place them in the proper order in each of the sets of the poem (we left all of the lines on the white board until we completed the poem and I did every other line in alternating colors to help his concentration).



When he finished the title and first two lines, I took up four of the copies and put them back in the baggie and then we pasted the remaining one onto the half piece of construction paper.

He read what he had completed out loud. Any words that he stumbled on we added to the spiral index cards. Some days, we added other words to the card that were in the same word family. For example, we had the word by, so we added try and my. One day we had cling, so we added bring, sting ect.

The next time, he read over the sight words in our spiral index cards, read the part of the poem that he had finished on the construction paper, then added the next two lines as he had done the previous day. We did this each day until the poem was complete.



We have done three poems now and the impact has been awesome. He can easily read all three of the poems without missing a word. This weekend he pulled out the real book and proudly read all three of the poems to our friend!!!!!!!!!! That is huge for him!

Math-U-See

Well, our collection has grown again. Went to our local Home School book fair and got our student books for the fall! We have from K-9/10 now. All we need are Geometry, Algebra 2 and Stewardship or Pre-Calculas to have the complete works!

We have used Math-U-See since my dd was in the 1st grade. I truely don't know how I would have fared without it. I was a below average math student who somehow managed to pass math class all the way through Calculas in high school (only a credit to a good teacher). But, I have to say, I never really got any of it.

Then when dd started Math-U-See I began to understand why I never got it. Steve Demme says (use to say?) in the intro video that he once read a Calvin and Hobbes in which Calvin tells what he learned in school. Calvin relates a simple addition problem like 2+3. He says something like "2+3=5, I don't know why, but 2+3=5". Steve said the MUS student would know why!! And he is right, we do know why! I have learned so much. I even understand the basic knowledge needed to succeed in Algebra, which I couldn't have explained before MUS!

Steve teaches each lesson on video. You also have the Teacher's Manual with the description in words for further explanation. So, if you are like I was, unsure of how you will raise children to be better at math than yourself, check it out!

For Whose Sake?

http://lejardinfeerique.blogspot.com/2008/07/for-whose-sake.html

The Courtship of Sarah McLean

Yeah!  I got the other books from Castleberry Farms Press in this week and just finished reading The Courtship of Sarah McLean.  

I had suspected this book would give an even better introduction to courtship.  I was not disappointed!  It does a very good job of explaining the idea of courtship.  The story is great too.

Sarah McLean is 19 when the book begins.  We see her interact with someone who is interested in dating her and see how she handles explaining to him that she believes in courtship instead of dating.  As in Jeff McLean:  His Courtship, we see a situation that doesn't lead to courtship and how it is handled.  The story follows Sarah as she struggles with her own person growth, trusting God's timing and honesty in the life of a christian.  When a courtship finally starts for Sarah, there is honest, realistic conversation between her and the young man who courts her.  They talk about spiritual leadership in the home, having children, their own personal strengths and weaknesses.  They attempt to think through a marriage relationship, not get caught up in a ceremony the way many so often do.

I think what is best about this series, is just like in this story, many of us know this is what we want for our children, but do not have families we know who have "gone before us", examples for us and for our children.  Therefore, it is hard to imagine what the process might look like.  These fictional stories do that for me.

I would not "PICK" my children's spouses for them.  What I want is for them not to think of "trying out" relationships with every person who interests them, but really praying and seeking the will of God in the person they will marry some day.  (Despite my own mistakes in this area, I know God was preparing my husband for me all along.  I remember the time in my life that I began to pray for him, years before we met).   I also want them not to make this decision based purely on emotion, though attraction and love do play a part.  Instead, to be honest about themselves and a prospective spouse, their compatibility to marry and most importantly that person's relationship with the Lord and seek Godly advice!  Lastly, to not allow themselves to be in compromising situations with someone they are not married to that they will regret later on.

This series of books gives me hope.  That God can be glorified as our children wait for the spouses God might have planned for them.  That they do not have to make the mistakes so many others make and regret.  That the whole process that leads to marriage can be beautiful!

Help with assessing Learning Differences

Last year at our local homeschool conference I met a lady named Jill Dixon. I attended her session. She has a real heart for helping home schoolers understand the individual needs of their students, whether it be understanding their learning style or diagnosing actual Learning Differences. I purchased POC4U: Your child's unique learning preferences matched with specific curricula to ensure homeschooling success. This book includes The Concise Learning Styles Assessment, a guide to match learning styles, curriculum and teaching techniques, a grade placement assessment and much more. I immediately came home and did the learning styles assessment with my three oldest. Even my then 6 year old wanted his done so I read it to him.

I also bought The Homeschooler's Guide for Learning Problems: Practical Tips for Daily Success.
This has descriptions of learning differences and tips on how to deal with them.

I have since swapped emails with them and they are very friendly and helpful. She is coming to our local conference again this year and I look forward to going to her sessions again.

The Original Home Schooling Series: Vol. 1 Home Education Preface

It amazes me always how the Lord teaches me so gently and slowly. I come to today with a slow and gentle introduction to Charlotte Mason's philosophy of education over the course of two to three years. As I read the preface this morning, having just come home from the annual Childlight Conference, it is amazing how much sense it all finally makes to me (remember it has come slowly).

Please don't stop at the interpretation from me or others, but read her words for yourself! Do not be intimidated, even if you must read slowly like me! Even if you must only read a paragraph or page at a time, you will find the efforts worth it.

So, this is what I gleaned from the preface:

Charlotte Mason had studied the ideas of education of her time, but felt in her heart that there were "laws" designed by THE Designer that already existed for education, and that the work done before her ("the benign and elusive vision of Education") still fell short of understanding and implementing these laws . I do not sense an "intellectual" need for an understanding of this law. Rather, I sense a longing to know these laws for their purity, and to be able to educate children according to God's original design and share them with anyone who also hungered to understand and implement them.

Mason felt that "there is no part of a child's home-life or school-work which the law does not penetrate" and also "it is not only a light, but a measure providing a standard whereby all things, small and great, belonging to educational work must be tested". She believed that great thinkers before her were right that it is "necessary to believe in God; that, therefore, the knowledge of God is the principal knowledge, and the chief end of education".

She believed that the proper theory of education must be: 1) "in harmony with the thought movements of the age"(hum...modern technology too?); 2) "must regard education, not as a shut-off compartment, but as being as much a part of life as birth or growth, marriage or work"; and 3) "it must leave the pupil attached to the world at may points of contact".

She believed the foundation of this theory would be that children are persons and Education is the Science of Relations. These two principles would solve the question of curriculum "as showing that the object of education is to put a child in living touch with as many as may be of the life of Nature and of thought". "Add to this one or two keys to self-knowledge, and the educated youth goes forth with some idea of self-management, with some pursuits, and many vital interests".

My friend and I were talking on the phone last night about how "non-persons" we were until after we were older or even grown. I did not know how to think about things, must less how to express what I was thinking. I have a son with Aspergers Syndrome who did Ambleside Online Yr 1 this year and have been astounded with how much more articulate he in his life as a whole after a year of rich reading and narration (And I barely even knew what I was doing!!).

Mason quotes: "The consequence of truth is great; therefore the judgment of it must not be negligent." WHICHCOTE

She ends the Preface with the list of 18 (later to become I am told the 20) copied here from Ambleside Online:

1. Children are born persons.

2. They are not born either good or bad, but with possibilities for either good or evil.

3. The principles of authority on the one hand and obedience on the other, are natural, necessary and fundamental; but

4. These principles are limited by the respect due to the personality of children, which must not be encroached upon, whether by fear or love, suggestion or influence, or undue play upon any one natural desire.

5. Therefore we are limited to three educational instruments––the atmosphere of environment, the discipline of habit, and the presentation of living ideas.

6. By the saying, Education is an atmosphere, it is not meant that a child should be isolated in what may be called a 'child environment,' especially adapted and prepared; but that we should take into account the educational value of his natural home atmosphere, both as regards persons and things, and should let him live freely among his proper conditions. It stultifies a child to bring down his world to a 'child's' level.

7. By Education is a discipline, is meant the discipline of habits formed definitely and thoughtfully, whether habits of mind or body. Physiologists tell us of the adaptation of brain structure to habitual lines of thought––i.e. to our habits.

8. In the saying that Education is a life, the need of intellectual and moral as well as of physical sustenance is implied. The mind feeds on ideas, and therefore children should have a generous curriculum.

9. But the mind is not a receptacle into which ideas must be dropped, each idea adding to an 'apperception mass' of its like, the theory upon which the Herbartian doctrine of interest rests.

10. On the contrary, a child's mind is no mere sac to hold ideas; but is rather, if the figure may be allowed, a spiritual organism, with an appetite for all knowledge. This is its proper diet, with which it is prepared to deal, and which it can digest and assimilate as the body does foodstuffs.

11. This difference is not a verbal quibble. The Herbartian doctrine lays the stress of education––the preparation of knowledge in enticing morsels, presented in due order––upon the teacher. Children taught upon this principle are in danger of receiving much teaching with little knowledge; and the teacher's axiom is, 'What a child learns matters less than how he learns it.'

12. But, believing that the normal child has powers of mind that fit him to deal with all knowledge proper to him, we must give him a full and generous curriculum; taking care, only, that the knowledge offered to him is vital––that is, the facts are not presented without their informing ideas. Out of this conception comes the principle that,

13. Education is the Science of Relations; that is, that a child has natural relations with a vast number of things and thoughts: so we must train him upon physical exercises, nature, handicrafts, science and art, and upon many living books; for we know that our business is, not to teach him all about anything, but to help him make valid, as many as may be of

'Those first born affinities,
'That fit our new existence to existing things.'

14. There are also two secrets of moral and intellectual self management which should be offered to children; these we may call the Way of the Will and the Way of the Reason.

15. The Way of the Will.––Children should be taught
(a) To distinguish between 'I want' and 'I will.'
(b) That the way to will effectively is to turn our thoughts from that which we desire but do not will. (c) That the best way to turn our thoughts is to think of or do some quite different thing, entertaining or interesting.

(d) That, after a little rest in this way, the will returns to its work with new vigour.

(This adjunct of the will is familiar to us as diversion, whose office is to ease us for a time from will effort, that we may 'will' again with added power. The use of suggestion––even self suggestion––as an aid to the will, is to be deprecated, as tending to stultify and stereotype character. It would seem that spontaneity is a condition of development, and that human nature needs the discipline of failure as well as of success.)

16. The Way of the Reason.––We should teach children, too, not to 'lean' (too confidently) 'unto their own understanding,' because of the function of reason is, to give logical demonstration (a) of mathematical truth; and (b) of an initial idea, accepted by the will. In the former case reason is, perhaps, an infallible guide, but in the second it is not always a safe one, for whether that initial idea be right or wrong, reason will confirm it by irrefragable proofs.

17. Therefore children should be taught, as they become mature enough to understand such teaching that the chief responsibility which rests on them as persons is the acceptance or rejection of initial ideas. To help them in this choice we should give them principles of conduct and a wide range of the knowledge fitted for them. These three principles (15, 16 and 17) should save children from some of the loose thinking and heedless action which cause most of us to live at a lower level than we need.

18. We should allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and 'spiritual' life of children; but should teach them that the divine Spirit has constant access to their spirits, and is their continual helper in all the interests, duties and joys of life.

Childlight Conference- 6:30am bird watch

Just returned home from the Childlight USA conference. Upcoming posts will be my narrations about the conference. Since my brain is REALLY fried, I thought I'd start with the Bird Watch I went on.

We met at 6:30 am at the Bell Tower and were given awesome tips for bird watching. We had a wonderful guide who has been all over the country bird watching for over forty years. She was very sweet and the thrill of her bird watching was contagious!

To start us off on the right foot our guide provided binoculars (she uses 8 x 32s) and taught us how to use them without loosing the bird. First, she says, you find the bird. Then, without taking your eyes off of it, you bring your binoculars up to your eyes. This way, the bird isn't lost in the process of getting the binoculars in place. I was very impressed with how much of a difference this very basic advice made in my bird watching experience.

As we walked along the trail around the beautiful pond and natural areas, she taught us to listen for birds that we heard and mimic the sounds we heard. If we were not able to identify the sound, she would tell us. Some of the birds we heard with in just a few minutes were a cardinal, a mocking bird, a sparrow, a crow, geese (oh course, they were everywhere) and well, I'll remember some more as I go.

She taught us that the first place you look is around the outline of the tree. Of course, if you do not see it there, then to the inside. To tell others where to look, you describe the location of the bird like the hours on a clock. Twelve o'clock of course the top, three o'clock to the right, ect. If it is the interior, you can add to the "location" of the tree how far down or over. This was also very helpful as we spotted birds and shared what we found with each other.

She also taught us that often the smaller birds will come to you is you Pish. Pishing is simply done by sort of blowing out the sound P Sh P Sh P Sh. We were all a bit fascinated with this.

I learned that what we call the "black capped chickadee" around here, is actually a Carolina chickadee....who knew??

Three birds we got to observe where a Kill Deer, a Eastern King bird and a Sparrow. The Sparrow really got us tickled because it says tweet, tweet, tweeeeetttt. And as it says the last and longer tweet it shakes its whole body. I got really tickled that it did it every time (like it just couldn't contain its glee!).

The guides she recommends are the Sibley Guide to Birds (Eastern or Western) and for beginners, Peterson's Guide. I can't wait to take the kids now!!!!!!!!

Beautiful Courtship Stories

I recently stumbled on some absolutely beautifully written fictional stories about courtship. There are four books all together, but I have only two of them right now (Jeff McLean: His Courtship and Waiting for Her Issac).

Jeff McLean: His Courtship is a story about a young man raised in a very Godly home. He is out of school and farming with his dad in the hopes of some day having his own farm. At Jeff's request, his dad begins to help him work through the things the family has studied about being a Godly man and provider for a family and what a Godly woman is. I can't even begin to explain the impact the family's study on Godly womanhood has had and is having on me. How wonderful to read a story in which the young people have their minds set on a true marriage and not just love and lust.

In Waiting for Her Issac the young lady faces what are to her challenges in her life and to her faith. She grows in character and in her relationship with the Lord all of which prepares her for life with the man God has for her to marry. "Watching" her grow up in the Lord was very encouraging and reminds me that we all must be willing to die to ourselves in order for Christ to shine in our lives.

My reading room

Welcome to my reading room. This blog is for my benefit primarily to help me process and remember what I'm reading. I also have always enjoyed sharing anything I read that is good with my friends. It is my hope that my writing here will benefit others are interested in the books I am reading.

Most of my reading will be Home School books, Parenting/Family, Marriage and spiritual books. I would love it if some would like to read along with me and comment, or comment if you've read it already.

Well, get a cup of tea and look around and see if anything here interests you.