Then Sings My Soul

I love a good story. And I'm one who always wants to know the "why" behind the "what." That being said, if you don't know about this resource, it might be one you would enjoy. 


Part of our homeschooling day is praise. Having grown up singing lots of good, old hymns, Kregg and I wanted our kids to be blessed by all those old favorites that have meant so much to us all our lives. We choose a different hymn each week for the kids to learn. If you don't already have them as an mp3 file, you can almost always find a video on YouTube to help with the singing and music. 


Then Sings My Soul gives a brief background of many of the old classic hymns, telling a little about the story behind the words and the person who penned it. Each hymn is given a two page spread: on the left, the words and music (like a page out of a hymnal), on the right, the story--complete with the date (which is always interesting). Each volume in this series contains 150 hymns. So you can sing a different hymn for days and days without repeating one. :)


This week, we are learning one of my all-time favorites: "Fairest Lord Jesus." It is dated to 1677 and most of those who contributed to the hymn, as we now know it, are anonymous. Quoting from a fourth century sermon by John Chrysostom of Antioch, Robert Morgan helps gives insight into the words: 

"I do not think of Christ as God alone, or man alone, but both together. For I know He was hungry, and I know that with five loaves He fed five thousand. I know He was thirsty, and I know that He turned water into wine. I know He was carried in a ship, and I know that He walked on the sea. I know that He died, and I know that He raised the dead. I know that He was set before Pilate, and I know that He sits with the Father on His throne. I know that He was worshiped by angels, and I know that He was stoned by the Jews. And truly some of these I ascribe to the human, and others to the divine nature. For by reason of this He is said to have been both God and man."

So the kids got to hear the story behind the hymn this morning, as we spend the week singing it together in praise. 


Glorious! :)

The Battle for the Imaginations of Our Children

This was drawn by "youngest" years ago

As those created in the Image of our Creator, creativity is at the core of our beings. Endowed with the incredible tool of imagination, man has been "creating" from the beginning. Intended for His Glory, our ability to imagine and create should be used to accomplish His Purposes through us. Is it any wonder the evil one has our imaginations in his wicked cross-hairs? Our enemy would love to hijack, for his own purposes, a Gift that is intended to be used in Holiness. 


So how do we thwart his efforts?


How do we protect the imaginations of our children?


Are we not the "guardians at the gate?"


No doubt, you remember your amazement when your young child came up with some incredibly fanciful idea or story or drawing. Watching their young minds at work is truly a humbling experience, because we recognize the potential contained in the gift of imagination. 


Is it any wonder there are so many attempts to capture the imaginations of our children? Attempts that do not have holiness at their core? Think of all the books and cartoons and movies and video games and regular games and apps for phones, and the list goes on forever, that try to capture the imagination of your children. Or even of yourself? 


Have you ever wondered why?


Have you ever wondered why millions and millions of dollars are spent creating things to sweep us up and away on flights of fancy? Have you ever considered just how many hours people in the United States spend each week allowing someone else to direct the course of their thoughts, strictly for "entertainment purposes?"


I'm going to spout off here, from my personal view of the world as I see it in black-and-white: I don't really believe anything is neutral. Either something is worth our time, or it isn't. Since time is our most valuable resource, the choice of how to spend it is of importance. Sure, there is value in relaxing. But we can't use the need to relax as an excuse to allow anything into our minds that isn't going to bless us in our walk with the Lord. 


We are choosing.


Whether we recognize it or not, we are choosing what captures our imaginations. Many people will argue that they aren't affected by watching something on television that they would never "live out themselves." But we must not be deceived. What we allow into our minds does affect our minds. 


As parents, what does this say about our responsibility to train our children in the use of their imaginations?


Their imaginations are always active. 


Are we offering them wholesome, encouraging, uplifting fuel for the insatiable appetites of their minds?


Their imaginations will be captured by something?


Are we being intentional about what that something is?


Do you know what your children are reading? Listening to? Spending time on? 


What is the value system of those who have created whatever it is that your child is fascinated by?


Our value system is reflected in what we create. 


If our children are reading, watching, absorbing things created by people who do not seek to glorify the Lord, is that truly what's best for our children? Especially when they are young, and their value system is still in the process of being formed? Especially when they do not yet have the spiritual discernment to recognize the schemes of the enemy that may be disguised in a book or game?


As parents, the Holy Spirit offers us the help we need to discern what is best for our children. All we have to do is ask and then be willing to allow Him to reveal Truth to us. 


There is SO much great stuff out there to capture the imaginations of your children. Of course, books are some of our favorite resources. And with the growth of homeschooling, many materials are becoming available again that have been out of print for decades. There is a wealth of historical fiction from a Christian worldview that is filled with adventure and truth and will capture the imaginations of your children. Biographies of great men and women are treasures that will bless the whole family. There is an incredible power in watching how people walk out their faith. 


Even if we haven't realized how easily worthless or even ungodly influences can creep into our home, the Lord will help us weed out and replace things with better choices. And, our children will acquire a "taste" for truly worthwhile things. That doesn't mean that our vigilance will not always be required, but it does mean that it will get easier as our "tastes" improve.


Our imaginations are intended to bring Him Glory. May we feed them properly.

Approaching the Word

I have been convicted, of late, that I should approach the Word with more humility. Okay, convicted is too strong a word. "Gently nudged" would be a better description. It occurred to me that I may have allowed an attitude to creep in that sort of "takes it for granted."


Not good. 


If I really believe that His Word is living and active, my heart should have an attitude that approaches it with a humble expectation of encountering Him through the words on those pages. Every time I pick it up, I should expect to meet Him there, in those words, and for that encounter to change me.


The kids and I discussed this today. In our homeschool, we read several chapters each day in our Bibles, and the very repetition can be conducive to the forming of an attitude of familiarity and complacency. So the posture of our hearts needs to be intentionally addressed to avoid a habit forming that allows us to read the Bible like it is no different than the words written by man. 


Even though they may not fully comprehend what to expect, they should learn to have an expectation when they engage the Word. We encourage them to write in their Bibles, to mark them up, to take notes, so that the lessons being taught them by the Holy Spirit can be built upon as the years pass.


This is the first year, for the ones still in our homeschool, that they are reading through the entire Bible in a year, in addition to our other Bible work. The hope is that it will become a lifelong habit that will take hold of their hearts. Not to check it off a list, but to help them continually devote time to the Word. Even if some of them don't understand much of what they are reading at this point, the Living Word is sowing seeds in their young hearts.

Trebuchet Triumph

I learned something this week about my youngest son, Ben. And, I must say, it is a "game changer."


Background first. 


Thirty six hours after we met Josh (Sergey) and Ben (Oleg), they were our adopted sons and we were about to leave the orphanage in Magadan in far eastern Siberia. The orphanage director was giving us a brief, as in two sentence, summary of the character of these two little guys, who now shared our name but whom we didn't know at all. 

She explained how Joshua was like Cinderella, willing to work as hard as he could just so someone would love him.  Then she said Ben believed he was a prince and could get away with anything if he would just smile big enough.


YIKES!


When we got home, we learned just how astute her summary had been. 


Ben didn't want to do anything that he deemed "too hard." At first, that encompassed almost everything. 


I remember getting out the Duplo blocks (giant sized Legos) for the boys to play with because they would be easily understood without a language barrier. He was six years old, but he sat in the middle of the family room floor with a block in his hand, crying like a baby and sliding the block across the building base over and over and over again. It was too hard. He wanted someone to build it for him. Needless to say, he did not get what he wanted. Life, as he had known it, was over.


He wasn't planning to learn English, either. He was going to continue speaking Russian and have Joshua serve as his translator for the rest of his life. You think I'm joking? Nope. 


When we were able to begin their schooling, it was the same story. Everything was simply too hard. He didn't want to put forth any effort and he fought every step of progress we made. It has basically been the equivalent of dragging him along. For seven years. Granted, school is hard for him. And there are things he will probably never be good at--that's okay, as long as he does his best.


We required the kids to learn their math facts before they could start our math curriculum. Guess who learned them last? Yup! That's right. No matter what we tried, they just wouldn't stick. We tried flash cards, drills, worksheets, manipulatives, rewards. IT TOOK YEARS! And there was NO progress! I began to think that maybe he was just not able to learn them. Finally, I figured out that he was bluffing. 


We were planning one of our epic road trips and the cousins were coming along with us. The kids LOVE traveling with cousins. Everyone rides with everyone else and the miles just melt away. Knowing how much he was looking forward to that, I told Ben that if he did not learn his math facts by the time we left on our trip, he would be required to ride the entire 4600 miles in our vehicle working on his flash cards. And I was dead serious. A week later? He knew all his facts: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division! Now, without constant drill, they still aren't automatic. In fact, he has to stop and calculate almost everyone of them while working his problems. We may very well be dealing with some fetal alcohol syndrome, but he still has to learn to do his very best at every job he's given.


Fast forward to the past couple of weeks. 


Our little group of young people at church have been in a great study on Sunday nights. As part of the study, they completed a spiritual gift assessment. Of course, the accuracy of the results depends a great deal on understanding the questions and so we tried to explain any terms with which they were unfamiliar. 


Interestingly, the area Ben scored highest in was craftsmanship. Hmmm . . . Didn't really fit with what we had seen for the past 7 years, but we felt we needed to simply wait and see.


We didn't have long to wait.


As we prepare for the arrival of the cousins and the commencement of festivities in celebration of Thanksgiving, we thought having our own little "punkin chunkin" experiments would be great fun as a group activity. I ordered two trebuchet kits of very different design so the kids could learn about the physics involved in the different models. How difficult could it be to build them? They're only two or three feet tall, after all. We could add their construction to our already formidable list of preparations to be made. No problem.

When the box arrived, I wondered what on earth I had gotten myself into! These are the parts for just one of them!

This is the first one, completed.

And here is number two!


And guess who became completely and thoroughly engrossed?! Guess who took the very complicated instructions and read large parts of it himself and assembled complete sections without any help? The same young man who has absolute FITS with word problems in math! He was amazing! 


Not only did I see something completely new in him, so did he! It was so precious. He realized that he could do this. Even though it had many intricate steps and pieces, he understood what to do and how to do it! You should have seen his face! There was a new maturity and confidence in him that gives me such hope. 


He said, "Well you know, Mom, it is one of my Gifts." 


A switch flipped.


I think this will be one of those serendipity moments in his life that he will always be able to look back on and recognize that everything changed for him while building trebuchets.


Thank You, LORD!!

Book Review: Character Sketches, Volume 1

This book is one of our very favorite parts of homeschooling. The kids love it! It's unique format takes a specific character quality and focuses on four different aspects of it in four separate chapters. Each chapter uses an example from the Bible and from the world of nature to explain that specific aspect of the quality being studied. 


The best way for me to explain is to give an example. 


In Chapters One through Four, the character quality being studied is Loyalty. In Chapter Two, the aspect of Loyalty focused on is "Standing With Those I Am Serving In Their Time Of Need." The illustration from the world of nature is the Canada Goose, so the chapter begins with a story about how the goose shows loyalty even to the point of death when its family is in danger. The illustrations alone are worth the purchase price. Each chapter has a large full colored illustration of the animal. Our kids love to try to draw their own version of each animal as we read the chapters. Following the story, there are several pages filled with fascinating facts and more illustrations about the animal for that chapter. 


Each chapter then moves on to a character study from the Bible, in this case, Mordecai. The Bible character is introduced in a suspense-building page long story where the reader/listeners are challenged to try to guess the identity of the character before the end of the story. The next pages of the chapters contain a detailed study of that person's story and how they displayed or failed to display the character quality for that chapter. Mordecai was an example of Loyalty as he "stood by" the king when he learned of a plot to assassinate him. 


There are three volumes in this series and all are jam packed with wonderful information. The books are designed to be read by fathers to their children and encourage great discussions in the search for Truth. By giving such great examples, children can firmly grasp concepts that would otherwise be too abstract for many of them. The books are large, beautifully bound and are almost 400 pages long. We plan to buy each of our children their own set as they begin their families. 


This is #38 out of 52. I've gotten behind in my reviews, so now I'm playing "catch-up."

Join the Fun!

"Hands On" is Helpful

One great thing I love in homeschooling is the ability to connect all the subjects. While studying Ancient China during our history lessons, we were talking about the discovery of silk worms and how carefully the Chinese guarded the secrets behind the fabric woven from their cocoons. 


It just so happens that right before we came to that lesson, I had found an adorable shop on Etsy filled with all kinds of wonderful handmade items. (I fell in love. :) I'm thinking Samuel will absolutely love some of these precious toys.) In addition to all the beautiful toys, she had packages of silk worm cocoons! 


We definitely needed to order some!

The package arrived quickly and it was so cute! I love cute packages. 

Included in the package were a dozen (we actually received 14) cocoons and a series of incredibly beautiful pictures showing the life cycle of silk worms! 

Each one is labeled on the back so that you know exactly what is in the picture. All that for only $9 + shipping! I LOVE a bargain! :) 

Isn't that incredible? Those tiny little fibers are woven into silk. The kids are going to try to unwind one so they better understand the complexity of the Lord's Design and why silk is so expensive and fabulous. 


This is much better than just reading about the silk trade, don't you think? 

Ratcheting It Up a Notch

Learning about the inner workings of telescopes

As we have settled into our school routine again after all the travel interruptions of the summer, we added some new things into the mix. Those additions caused a reevaluation of our schedule, followed by some tweaking. There was a little moaning and groaning as a result of our "earlier is better" schedule, but they have settled in well. 

The kids working on history timelines

So far, so good. It did take a few days for them not to fall asleep during math. Not really. :)

The mouse-cicles for the snakes come packed on dry ice, so an impromptu science experiment ensued.

As long as we were making adjustments, we also ratcheted up expectations and requirements for each of our young scholars. Achieving excellence requires a lot of hard work. But there is a balance to be struck between challenging them and frustrating them. Wisdom is required. One more reason for our days to be bathed in prayer. :)

Our Looney Lunar Phases

"Doing" always helps ideas and principles stick to that "gray matter" inside their little craniums. So in our homeschool, it's always nice to find an activity that doesn't require a long list of materials and isn't just "twaddle," as Charlotte Mason would say. 


In science, we are studying Astronomy. Hard to take field trips when the objects of our studies are thousands of miles above our heads, except to a planetarium. So observation has to play a large role in our learning. That and simple activities like the one we did Monday. 

All it takes is a dark room, a flash light, and a styrofoam ball skewered on a small dowel. Each of the kids took a turn "being earth" and watching the moon appear to morph into different shapes. Keeping their feet inside one tile, they were to turn slowly around while holding their satellite a little above their head at arm's length. "The Sun" was another child at the other end of the utility room pointing a flashlight at the Earth. As the "earth" spun on it's axis the light from the "sun" shone on different parts of the moon's face causing it to wax and wane. 

Of course, Rebekah looks as if she's dreaming up some fairy tale as she "rotates." :) 


Sure we can look at pictures of the different phases of the moon, but acting out the principles involved helps us to avoid "Teflon Brain Syndrome." And we all know how dangerous that can be! :)

Just How Important is That Curriculum Choice?

Curriculum choices, while important, are not as big a deal as some people make them. (My opinion)


What matters most in the success you will have in homeschooling is the philosophy of education that underlies each of your choices concerning the education of your children. 


As a "seasoned" homeschooler, this is where I encourage those considering home education for the first time to start. I have written about this before, but as the end of the traditional school year arrives and many people are now choosing the materials they will use in the fall, I wanted to climb up on this old soapbox again. 


If you already understand your educational philosophy, you can stop here. If, however, you haven't really thought about it, you might want to continue reading. 


Many approach home education by simply going directly to the curriculum catalogs. They may eventually get around to processing enough information about different approaches that they kind of end up stumbling into a philosophy of education. But it is much better to start from the beginning knowing what you believe about how a true education occurs so that it can guide you through all the choices necessary to effectively accomplish your goal. Be intentional.


During my education classes in college, there were basically two kinds of classes. The vast majority were about "crowd management" or education from a "herd mentality." But a couple of them were actually about the learning process. Those were the ones I loved. But I still didn't connect the dots. When we started homeschooling Hannah, I set up our little school room to look like a public school classroom. The curriculum I chose looked a lot like the curriculum I had used in the public schools. We had an okay year, but not a great one because I didn't "get it." I think the reason the year went as well as it did was because we did focus on reading wonderful books to her. But other than that, there were no memorable successes. 


In the years that followed, the Lord provided me examples of true education through a dear mentor/friend who was down the road several miles ahead of me in the process. I saw the difference between what I was doing/using and how she was teaching her children. There was no comparison. I was sold. The fruit I saw in their lives was so compelling that it quickly showed me I had settled for a mere shadow of reality. And there was no way, after seeing it, that I was going to continue down the path I had begun.


At that point, I wrestled through the philosophy aspect of homeschooling. And it has made all the difference. I read different authors from Marilyn Howshall, to Susan Schaeffer Macaulay, to Charlotte Mason, to Dorothy Sayers. I'm still reading about the philosophy of education: C. S. Lewis' The Abolition of Man and R. C. Sproul, Jr.'s When You Rise Up.


When we began homeschooling it was from a defensive posture, wanting to protect them from all the negatives that can be present in the public education system. But once I captured the vision for what true education is, it was no longer about defense. I was now homeschooling because I could offer them  much more by customizing their learning experiences to fit their giftings and their needs. 


So how does all of that affect the choices in curriculum? 


Recognizing that the curriculum is not the answer, but merely a tool to aid in the process affords great freedom in the choice. No longer do I have to find that one perfect curriculum that will solve all our educational woes. There isn't one. Instead, I look for tools that facilitate what we have learned about how learning takes place in the most efficient and fruitful ways. 


Sometimes that means a textbook for a certain season for a certain subject. Often it means using a great book to learn about a historical period. Or maybe a great resource that we can use as a jumping off place to delve more deeply into an area that fascinates us. We pull in LOTS of resources from field guides to internet searches to old, out of print historical fiction, to a simple framework that takes us through the Bible in stick figures, to the Character Sketch books, to an old series of books called the Book of Knowledge. 


It's about the process. It's about the tools of learning. 


What is your philosophy of education? What did the journey that culminated in your educational philosophy look like? What are your favorite resources? The ones you go to time and time again?