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Thursday, March 4, 2010

How Home Schooling Can Be Simple

Yesterday, the kids and I had the wonderful opportunity to travel with him and stay a few hours at a friend's home while he made a hospital visit.  We had a great visit.  The children got to play with another home school family out in the woods in the snow on a rather warm day and see maple taps on the trees.  I had an encouraging visit from two other moms, one who had already completed her home schooling journey and one who was in the thick of it with her 6 children.  It is rare that I get to sit down and visit with other home schooling moms.  We shared what was happening in our families and some journals of what home schooling looked like when another mom was teaching her children.  Getting to see the journals was very helpful to me because sometimes I get discouraged when I want to spend lots of time in the kitchen baking and cooking with the children and not working on our "lessons" for the day or spending time on other homemaking skills such as meal planning, laundry, or sewing.  She taught me that homemaking is schooling.  She taught me that going to see maple taps is schooling.

Just recently we finished our grammar book with our oldest child and was not planning on starting another for a little while, but in the mean time feeling as if he still needed to do some grammar (just because that is what we do).  While looking through my friend's journals I saw that she made grammar very easy by having the kids diagram sentences, write summaries, write out vocabulary words with their definitions, and copy Bible verses.  That all got me to thinking, "I could continue to teach Grammar without an "official textbook" especially since the curriculum I had been using had been teaching him how to diagram sentences.  So, my husband and I talked on our long drive home and decided that we were going to have our son keep a notebook of his diagramming and that we would start by diagramming the book of Romans.  Then we would have our daughter, who just finished her handwriting book, copy Bible verses from Proverbs.  What better way to teach your children than to use the Bible as your "textbook"!  I was so excited that I had to share.

Lastly, my sweet friend whom I went to visit, knew of my journey in making things from scratch and also knew that my husband was picking up a few of our bulk baking supplies (50 lb of white flour and 50 lb of wheat flour) and lent me a copy of King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking.  She also recommended and let me look at More With Less.  I LOVE cook books!!!  When I got home, I immediately opened the book and started reading it.  I am very excited to share with you in future posts my journeys through Whole Grain Baking.

The day ended by my husband and I sitting down and watching Julie and Julia.  If you have not gotten the opportunity to watch this movie I highly recommend it!  It is about Julie taking on the challenge of blogging about cooking for a year through Julia Child's cook book, The Joy of Cooking in a small 900 square foot apartment and about the story of Julia writing her cookbook in American while living in France.  It is two stories in one that is based on two true stories.

Later in the day, I will be posting of my journey in cooking from Scratch.  I would love to hear from you, too.  How was your week?  Did you venture out and try making something from scratch (it does not have to be food)?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are on the right track with your homeschooling, Debbie. Learning together in life is a wonderful journey with your children.

If your son can diagram the long sentences in the book of Romans, he will be way ahead of most Bible college students! That's a tough book but a powerful one. Go for it!

Sounds like you had a wonderful time with other homeschool moms. We all need that once in a while to share our hearts, vision, ideas, burdens, and joys. I'm glad you had the opportunity!

Cooking from scratch is so good for your family nutitionally and for your budget. Last night after church I made homemade bread and homemade hummus. Yum!

I love reading your blog. Keep writing and sharing. Makes me feel like I'm visiting at your lovely home.

Gretchen and John said...

I'm glad you had such a great time visiting with my mom! Diagramming Romans does sound ambitious, though excellent, of course. I know that we never did any diagramming that difficult (perhaps should have, at least in the later grades!).

Debbie said...

Gretchen, I had a great visit with you mom and am hoping that you will be able to go hiking some of the high peaks with your mom and I this summer. We want to camp at the bottom of the mountain and then hike it the next day. We will now try diagramming another book that is easier. I forgot how difficult Paul's writing were. Silly me!