Pulling Together An Education On The Road

Ok, admittedly, we are not on the road but after so many weeks of being unsettled and travelling up and down the north and south of England, it is a luxury to be staying put for even four weeks. Four weeks is a long time.....enough time for some routine, enough to make plans for work, as such I am grabbing the opportunity with both hands and we're making every effort to get back into our work routine.

So what are we doing? Not having any of my usual curriculum, books and supplies has meant that I have had to improvise. This is the part in which I could wax lyrical about  the beauty of internet access! 

Below is a look at how we are doing school:

Devotions:

We are carrying on with our daily devotions and I am using the character studies from Confessions of a Homeschooler as the basis of our short morning devotions. It has been very helpful for all of us. These last two weeks, we have focused on Arguing (dealing with it rather than actually arguing!) and Peacemaking. We  have all found it very helpful and I have to say that I have noticed a calmer atmosphere at home which is a blessing!  Last week we memorised:

1 Peter 3:8 " Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another, be sympathetic, live as brothers, be compassionate and humble."

(I made up some silly actions to go with it as it helps my four year old remember it better and I have to say it works a treat!)

Some of my personal favourite verses were from Proverbs:

"A gentle answer turns away wrath, a harsh word stirs up anger." Proverbs 15:1 

"Starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam; so drop a matter before a dispute breaks out." Proverbs 17:14

So the week was spent declaring to each other whenever an argument threatened to break out - " Don't breach the dam!" and "Be a Peacemaker!" And it worked (mostly) LOL.

Math:

I was using a combination of MEP math and Singapore Math before we moved but I don't have my workbooks with me and while MEP is available online - I didn't fancy  printing out the materials again and to be honest, it was too time-intensive during our period of family crisis. 


I discovered ConquerMath after joining some UK homeschooling forums. It is a programme that follows the British system right up to the GCSEs and you can buy the CD or subscribe for online access - no books to cart about. It works brilliantly for us as each subject starts with a video of a short 5-10 minute tutorial which is clear and concise afterwhich the kids go on to do a series of exercises online - all independently. Records are kept of their progress and they can go back anytime and do more exercises. This is such a help as it frees me up and they have someone else other than slow-at-math-mum teaching them.

English:

As my girls are at different grades - I am focusing on different things for them.

My elder daughter signed up to do two literary analysis courses with Brave Writer (The Hobbit and Anne Of Green Gables) over the last 4 months. I've said it before and I'll say it again - we love Brave Writer classes. She learnt a lot and enjoyed the classes immensely. She has really come along in terms of thinking about and analysing a text. She is now doing some work towards preparing for the IGCSEs with a UK based tutor called Catherine Mooney. She offers exam support, tutoring and marking of assignments. While I have no immediate plans for my 12 year old to take the IGCSEs just yet - she is certainly ready for the work. So we are using Catherine's course as a way to work through the concepts she will need to know for her understanding. It is written in an engaging and interesting way, so my daughter has been enjoying it so far. I am also thinking about using Susan Wise Bauer's Writing With Skill to work on her writing skills - I've downloaded some sample chapters for her to work through and we will see if it works out well. We are also continuing with copywork using Brave Writer's Arrows and Boomerang programmes as well as quotes I am pulling off the internet and books we are reading.

My younger daughter is working on building up fluency with her reading, writing and spelling. A friend recommended Units of Sound ( a programme designed to help dyslexic kids build a firm foundation in spelling, reading, memory and dictation). While my younger daughter is not diagnosed as dyslexic - she does have some issues. So in the period where I haven't had time to sit with her for spelling and copywork - I decided to give the programme a try. She says it is helpful especially the dictation and memory sections. We are also throwing in handwriting practice and more recently, we have started copywork again using our Arrows monthly publication.(I bought a number of different back issues at 50% off during an offer with the Homeschool Buyers Co-op - very happy about that!). She has recently started Catherine Mooney's Word Weavers course which should help her with establishing her grammar and writing skills. It comes with an audio CD which is an extra help. I also purchased in downloadable PDF format Susan Wise Bauer's Writing With Ease Level 3 as I think she could do with building up her narration and comprehension skills and with that book I don't have to think - I just print it out and go.

Outsourcing help and using online programmes or computer software has been the key to keeping homeschooling on the road during our time of uncertainty.

History:

As we are in the UK and all our Tapestry of Grace books and curriculum are in storage - I had to pull together a plan for our history studies. Being in England - studying British History seemed to make the most sense. 

As the spine of our lessons, I am using The Story of Britain by Patrick Dillon which I stumbled across in the bookshops. It is an engaging and well-written overview of the stories of british history written in chronological order for children - a little like a modern version of An Island Story by H.M. Marshall (also in storage!) I started reading this aloud and I also purchased from Audible the audio book of An Island Story. Both books give a helpful introduction into Britain's history. We have been reading it through but these few weeks we have gone back to the beginning to solidfy their understanding with more in-depth work.

I did a quick review of early British history including the Celts, Roman invasion, invasions of the Vikings (Danes), the Angles and the Saxons - ending with the death of Edward the Confessor. The girls made a notebooking page on an introduction to Ancient Britain. Click here for the Early British History notebooking page. 

Then we took up our story with the Battle of Hastings and conquest by Duke William of Normandy in 1066 - a crucial turning point for British History.

I found some excellent resources and made some notebook pages:

I used this powerpoint entitled "Who Should Be King?" from this useful website www.schoolhistory.co.uk to introduce the different claimants for the throne upon the death of Edward the Confessor. We then made a notebook page on Who Should Rule England?

  
The Battle of Hastings - I used this excellent website to tell the story of the battle using the Bayeux tapestry and this helpful powerpoint on The Battle of Hastings to go through the events of the battle. The BBC have produced wonderful hands-on resources on the Normans - using their lesson ideas,  I told the girls to pretend to be news journalists in the midst of the battle - one was reporting for the Normans and the other for the Anglo-Saxons. They had notes and then made short reports on the battle as it progressed. It was great fun role-playing newscasters and it really helped solidify their knowledge of the actual events of the battle. Finally, they finished off the lesson by making a newspaper front page on the battle. They used this template . It was definitely one of their favourite things to do.

Other resources:

Perfect for Co-ops - a Battle of Hastings game (the ultimate in hands-on learning) 

Reading list about the Normans from BBC 

Bayeux Tapestry activities from the BBC

Computer game recreating the Battle of Hastings

We shall be continuing a more in-depth look at British history as we go on and I will post more on the resources we use.

I have to mention our favourite show - CBBC's Horrible Histories which is available on Youtube. We all love it. It is very silly and funny (british humour) but it is amazing the little facts that stick through all the silliness. The girls have learnt the sequence of the Kings and Queens of England from this skit. Even my 4 year old is singing it! We love love love the Horrible Histories TV show. Go on Youtube and watch it - I guarantee you'll find it impossible to tear your kids or yourself away from watching.

The Kings and Queens of England Video

Another video on the War of The Roses (just for fun!)

And one more, just because I love it! About the Domesday book. Enjoy!

Science:

Science was hard for me to do consistently without my books.We read a variety science books picked up from the bookstore and started using a borrowed Apologia General Science book - however, I needed something they could work on independently and provided some hands-on work and experiments for them to do. I heard about Exploration Education's Physical Science programme from a friend's blog and liked the sound of it. It allows them to learn independently through interactive text on the computer and it comes with box of experiments and hands-on learning. The programme takes them step by step through a variety of projects such as building a car, a circuit board and a motor and using those things to carry out experiments. The experiments come in organised, well-labelled bags and it practically has everything you need. They managed 3 lessons to date and then got stalled because we didn't have a glue gun! That has now been ordered and we are looking forward to getting on with it! The girls like it and enjoy putting together the projects. We are also reading through The Story Book Of Science by Jean Henri Fabre which is a lovely read-aloud book that centres on the conversations between three children and their very knowledgeable uncle who takes them on journeys of discovery through story about nature and the world in general from ants milking "cows", spiders building suspension bridges, how we make cloth from wool, flax, hemp and cotton, volcanoes and earthquakes.

 Art Appreciation:

We are using The Story of the World's Greatest Paintings by Charlie Ayres which I picked up from the bookstore. It is an easy no-fuss way to accomplish art studies at the moment. It works well as a jumping off point for learning more about the artist and his work. I also use the SmartHistory videos for a more in-depth analysis of an artwork or artist. 

Poetry and memorisation:

I am trying to get back to encouraging the kids to memorise bible verses and poems. So we have a bible verse to learn each week and I am printing out poems for them to read and memorise once a week. I am also trying to incorporate poetry reading during our tea-times. Winter is a lovely time for hot chocolate, muffins and poetry!

Music Appreciation:


Another no-fuss solution to incorporating music appreciation in our week for now - I found this book My First Classical Music Book  which comes with a CD and an introduction to instruments and an orchestra. Although it is aimed more at my four-year old - we spend 15 minutes going through a chapter a day and listening (and dancing!) to the music. It is a nice way to keep up with some music appreciation without too much effort.  

Nature Studies:

You may have read in an earlier post that we do not enjoy the climate of the tropics at all and while we were living in Singapore - nature studies always had to be deliberately planned. It is so much more fun in temperate climates - you just want to be outdoors (admittedly less so in the winter). Nature studies have just happened naturally as the girls have taken an interest in the world outside. They have really got into birdwatching after we put a feeder in their grandparent's garden - they are taking pictures, using the field guides to identify the birds and checking out their tracks in the snow. Their experience was further enhanced when I bought this DVD - Beginning Watercolor Journalling. I bought it after reading about it in this inspiring post at Pondered in my heart. It has paid off and the girls have been completely inspired  by what they've watched and started to journal and paint more regularly. These are some early efforts. 

French:

I found a lovely lady who comes twice a week to teach all three kids. She does a great job engaging them using stories and fun games. I have asked her to start the girls on more serious grammar as they have progressed quite nicely. She recommended languages online as a good website for practice.

My Rosetta Stone software is in storage so I'm not getting much use out of that at the moment although I suspect that they are going to be able to progress much quicker with it after these lessons. I've heard about Galore Park French and have been looking into using this - possibly since we may not be in our current accomodation for long and will move to another part of the UK and lose our lovely french teacher!

PE:

Being active is a total challenge in winter and not being in a place for more than a month or two makes it hard to join any organised activities. So I am literally trying to make sure we get off our bottoms for 20 minutes each day at least to exercise . It's too cold to go outside for too long so I've devised indoor games (like an active Simon Says) or exercises like circuit training. We might start off with some stretches and then on some days, I'll have them pick 5 exercises from a pile of cards - it might say something like 10 sit ups, run up and down the stairs 2 times, 20 jumping jacks etc. On On other days I will lead the exercises myself. I'd love to play more silly run around games (we used to play dodge ball with a soft squishy ball and have obstacle course races in our old home) but there just isn't enough kid-friendly space for that kind of play indoors.

So that's us at the moment, for the next few weeks at least - who knows what the next month will bring for us but I'll take what we can get.

A Prayer for Today

Each day a conscious decision to follow, to surrender, to give thanks, to give words to heart-cries.

                                                               A Prayer for Today:

             

   Lord, may prayer become again a conscious, living, 

                                                                            daily natural rhythm in my life.

                             May that prayer infuse home, marriage, thought and action.

                                                                  May it be living 

                                                                   and infectious......

                 May my children breathe it in like air and catch it.

                                                                   May it be sacred and precious

                                                                   Yet routine, set in stone, unchanging.

                Like breathing, let it come.

                                                                  May it be deep,

                                                                                        hopeful,

                                                                                                    truthful.

                May it be born out of a listening heart.

May your morning be filled with the expectation of good things and the experience of His unrelenting grace.

When The Year Doesn't Turn Out The Way You Expected

Forgive the silence. 

It's been awhile.

It has taken sometime to find the words to make sense of the emotional roller-coaster that we as a family have experienced in the last year.

A post at the start of the new year seems fitting: a marker for myself; a symbolic statement that I am ready to engage again.

It has been over five years since I've experienced a northern hemisphere winter. Christmas' have been tropical affairs for us these last few years - barbecues, outdoor dining, shorts and T-shirts, and air-conditioning. It has been lovely to breathe in the frosty air and toast our toes by open fires for a change. I love the turning of the seasons and find it always speaks to me profoundly. 

I am a fascinated observer, watching as Winter strips the trees bare-naked, sharp twigs piercing blue-grey overcast skies, branches twisting and turning as bitter winds force them to bend and bow. I marvel as they remain unbroken, flexible, strong despite the unrelenting brute force of the windy gales. Occasionally, the skies break and rays of luminous light warm the cold; the sunlight painting landscapes in glittering shades of copper bronze and yellow gold - lifting spirits and turning the drab and dull into moments of eye-watering beauty. 

I find this a particularly apt symbol of my life as we leave 2011 behind and turn our eyes to a new year. I wish I could say that I have embraced the coming year full and excited at all that lies ahead. The truth is the rapid approach of the close of the year filled me with a dread that the no-man's land of  uncertainty we were in was no more likely to change as a new year began. I felt stripped bare - bereft of faith, of certainty and strength; I felt buffeted by the winds of circumstance with no clear compass or road map of what God was doing. I felt bent over and bowed down. But even in my frustration - I knew inside that I should be grateful, thankful for my many blessings; I should be thankful for the deep unshakeable knowledge that God is in control. Like the light that breaks in the midst of the grey and momentarily reminds us of the glory of nature - that felt knowledge of His unchanging nature  and the beauty of His perfect plan kept me and still keeps me going. I do believe the exquisite perfection of His timing and His purpose will eventually be revealed - but I must bend willingly and not fight and resist what He is doing.

2011 started with a decision to move countries - the timing was right and decisions were made. Our certainty and plans vanished when family illness forced us - almost immediately after our upheaval to a new country  - to abandon our plans and head to the UK for medical treatment. We left most of our personal possessions in storage because we didn't know where we'd be and for how long. All those shiny new homeschooling books I bought waiting to be unpacked, the kids bikes and scooters, the crates of gluten-free flours and products (bought because they were not easily available where we were settling), computers and precious photos....left behind. We had just what we could fit in a suitcase. To be honest, we didn't think we'd be gone this long - 4 months and counting with no definite idea of the whens and wheres. Had we heard wrong? What was God doing? How do we cope with this?


I'll have to admit to patchy sporadic bouts of homeschooling - with moving countries and medical emergencies, it was hard to carry on as normal. All this would, ever so occasionally, give rise to nights of panic and tears. Will my husband get better? How can I school my kids under these circumstances with no books, no fixed abode, constant displacement? Where are we supposed to settle now with no home of our own in any country? What is God's plan?

I'd love to say I met all this with serene grace and perfect trust in God's purpose and plan and to some extent, I think I can look back and say "Yes, I did meet every crazy twist and turn with equanimity and I did trust that all this will come to some greater purpose that would become clear to me - eventually."  But there were moments, no, more than moments, stretches of despondency, frustration and disappointment. Questions rising up ceaselessly - how long Lord?  All our plans put aside - for how long? The children's disrupted education - for how long? My husband's illness - how much longer? Living in a home that is not ours - for how long Lord? 


It was clear we wanted to make decisions that were wise and led by God but it was hard to hear and hard to be sure. Nothing seemed clear and clarity has not come with time - not yet. It seems that one-day-at a-time and trust are the themes of our new year. It is, I realise, the first year ever, where I literally have no plan for the year to come. No schedule for school, no plans for ministry, no important dates and appointments, no classes, nothing. This is because we can't plan - decisions have to be made around ever-changing health issues and we have no idea for now where the Lord wants us to be based in the medium term, let alone the long term.  We pray, answers tarry.


As I wake in the new year, it occurs to me - there is a lesson to be learnt. For the first time in my life, I can pray "Lord I have no plan (really) so show me yours." I have never ever been in this place - without an agenda. As a child - each school year was mapped out, maybe with vacations to look forward to, then came the years of work, weddings, marriage, children. When have I ever had a year where I had no plan?  This is not to say I have no desires. I have desires aplenty.

I want my husband well. I want him to be free of pain and strong.

I want a home, I want to be settled.

I want my stuff in storage.  

I want to homeschool.

I want to know EXACTLY where we are supposed to live and what we are supposed to do.

I want you to tell me straight Lord. I want certainty.

However, the "I wants" fall to the ground as easily as autumn leaves are snatched off their boughs and tumble to the soil. 

The "I wants" have nothing to hold onto. There is no certainty without Christ and I don't want to make mistakes by going my own way. I've spent so much of the last few months stating my "I wants" to God and finding myself crushed under the weight of my frustration and disappointment. I know He has a plan and a good purpose and maybe my "I wants" don't fit into those plans - not yet anyway. By His grace, He answered my feeble pleas to rescue me from my despondency and disappointment because I awoke to the new year with a desire to lay it all down and just seek Him. I know that desire comes only by His grace and not from me. I woke to the realisation that I was blessed - to enter this year unencumbered by expectation and plans and freed to choose Him. To choose the way of trust. What more did I have? But I saw I was blessed.  I would lay down my 'wants' and listen.

So begins the year of listening. The year of laying down. The year that I learn truly to trust. 

I would dearly love to go back to blogging about our homeschool adventures but it seems this pilgrim has another journey to make for now. 

The bible exhorts us in all things "GIve thanks." so I will give thanks, grateful for my many blessings of the last year:

1. for improvements in my husband's health 
2. prayers prayed to uphold us in our trials
3. for help from unexpected quarters
4. for financial stability
5. for cold weather to enjoy Christmas in
6. the joy of watching my children's faces as they saw snow for the first time
7. our first real bonfire in the garden
8. for family and opportunities to spend time with loved ones
9. for being together at Christmas 
10. friends made in the countries we have moved around in11. for a roof over our heads
12. for my favourite English desserts! and Custard!
13. for nature walks in autumnal weather
14. for the knowledge that God - you never let go of us.

Colossians 3:1-2 (The Message)

So if you're serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. 

Pursue the things over which Christ presides. 

Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you.

Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that's where the action is. 

See things from his perspective.

Teaching Worldview: Preparing my kids to understand their world

One of the advantages of homeschooling is the opportunity we have to step back from the traditional curriculum that schools follow and make time for discussions that will have an impact on our kids for the rest of their lives. Teaching my kids to think about life's big questions is one of the important strands I wanted to make sure I was weaving into our lives. I want them to understand that everyone has a view on these important questions and these will undoubtedly affect how they live their lives. My hope is that they will be able think through and understand what they believe and what they stand for, but not only that, I want them to realise that everyone has a worldview and appreciate where they are coming from. Once they have grasped those ideas, hopefully they will be able to critically wrestle with what they read and see in the media and to discern and perceive the worldviews behind the statements and rhetoric they will face each day.

This may be a tall order for young kids but it doesn't mean we can't start to lay a foundation that will help them as they grow up - and kids are growing up so fast these days. As a Christian family, we ultimately want them to have a living, truthful, intimate relationship with God and to fully grasp the foundations of their faith. We also hope to equip them not just with the knowledge of their faith and of other faiths or philosophies which people adhere to (consciously or not) but to enable them to walk with integrity and grace towards all people. 

So where do we start? 

First, we teach them our worldview:  this happens in part through our daily discussions during our family devotions - where we learn from the bible and tackle issues of right and wrong, what is good and bad, love and grace, life and death.

However, the real life lessons come from watching us live it out (or as the case may be - failing miserably to live it out) as role-models. I've come to accept that our failures are wonderful teaching opportunities - because even as they see us - as parents - fail, they also see us apologise, repent, resolve, struggle, and surrender. In seeing our imperfection and our response - they learn.

{I hope they learn that our knees should always be bent in humility and that our hands should be ceaselessly outstretched upwards to the one who is Grace and that our hearts can only survive if they flow with forgiveness.}

Secondly, we give them the big picture. Here I use two tools - Current Affairs: what is happening in the world today and structured study. 


I got a great idea from a veteran homeschooler to put a map in our home and talk constantly about current affairs. And as we talk about what is going on in the world, we mark the places in the map with newspaper articles or pictures of the leaders of the world. We should be talking about what is happening around the world and why, about leaders of countries, democracies and dictatorship, responsible government, about elections, ecosystems and economies. And after all that talk, what better thing to do than PRAY. It is an excellent way to teach our kids to be global thinkers, to always have the bigger view by looking at what is happening around us every day. Of course, what you choose to talk about will depend a great deal on the age of your kids but getting into the habit of talking about the world around us is a good start to them understanding our world and how it works as they get older and can address more complex issues. 

The second more obvious step is to undertake a structured study of worldviews. As we are at the beginning stages of our worldview studies with pre-teens - we have opted for an introductory course which I've found to be excellent. We are using The Young Historian's Introduction to Worldview by Brimwood Press. It is aimed at about grades 5-8 and is set out in a series of short chapters that have discussions and hands-on activities to aid understanding of big concepts like "What is a Worldview?", "What do all worldviews have in common?" and "How to Identify different worldviews?". You can read Cathy Duffy's review here. She makes a good point that although there is a subtle slant towards Christianity - the material itself can be used by families of different beliefs or philosophies as a foundational study for worldview as it takes a discovery and discussion approach to the subject. It is set out in four chapters but we have broken up each chapter into smaller more manageable portions within our time constraints. My book came with a bag of all the materials we would need for the hands-on activites which was wonderful. I can imagine that having to come up with the materials myself would have meant the book sitting on the shelf unused for quite a while.

When we complete this study, I plan to move on to a study of Christian apologetics - laying out the foundations, evidence and reasonableness of our personal faith. I haven't yet found a curriculum per se but intend to use some of the following books as a basis for our study. These will cover evidence for faith in Christ and deal with big questions like "Why does God allow suffering?", "Is God good?" or "Do all religions lead to God?" and so on.

I am also looking at curriculum and books from Summit Ministries - they have a whole range of interesting books catering to elementary students to High schoolers. I have ordered their Lightbearers study for middle-schoolers as it looked very helpful and thorough (although I have not actually looked at the full content or used it as yet). It is said to cover the tenets of the Christian faith and compares them with leading humanistic worldviews, teaches the student how to apply their faith to all ares of life from ethics, law, politics, history, economics and so on. It also deals with issues like abortion, relativism, relationships, cults and pluralism.

Finally, working on teaching logic and critical thinking is another important aspect of teaching our kids to think. It is an issue of teaching kids HOW to think not just What to think. I think this requires the parent to allow and encourage questions (even when it can get a little tiresome or when you may not necessarily have the answers and especially when it starts to tread ground on areas you might not feel so comfortable with). The temptation is often to tell them the answer rather than explore and guide them to the answer but I think the process of helping them make the connections themselves is a good basis for their future critical thinking. It is useful to ask them open-ended questions, sometimes playing devil's advocate or at least helping them to see things from different perspectives. I think active listening and encouraging them to be real and voice their doubts, concerns or confusion is supremely important. Kids get very good at giving the answer that is expected from them and it takes patience and wisdom to draw out how they really feel. 

In terms of material that one can use for critical thinking and teaching logic - I like the look of this series very much:

 

    

This is but one layer in equipping our kids to go into the world with all the tools they will need to understand the world around them, to stand firm in their values and beliefs and to be able to  communicate effective, clearly and compassionately. There are many other layers that prepare a child to face their futures with confidence - love, grace, healthy relationships, wisdom, life skills and academic training - all of which are equally important. Every parent wants to prepare their child to live to their fullest potential and for them to stand for what they believe, and I believe that this is one essential key for helping them do that.