her.
I believe that the Lord has a plan for each of my children's lives.
I believe that He will give them the desire to learn what they need to fulfill that plan.
I believe that He calls us to trust Him in every area of life--and this is no different.
~~~~~~
I think that we have to look down the road a little further than we tend to. What I
mean is this: Several years ago Tony and I were talking about the kind of adults we
wanted our children to be, specifically we were talking about Caleb. What kind of adult
do we want Caleb to be? We started listing different qualities and attributes we
wanted to see in his life. Then we talked about what we needed to do *now* to help
form him into that kind of man. It's kinda like baking. What's the first thing you do
before you start baking?
~Decide what you want to make--chocolate cake!
~Pick out a recipe--a plan to accomplish what you want to make.
~Select good, quality ingredients--surround your child with the 'stuff of learning'...
~Follow the recipe--Follow the Lord's leading, follow your child's interests
You don't just start dumping stuff in a bowl--every workbook that comes down the
line--and stir it up and *hope* it will become a chocolate cake! You have a goal in
mind--chocolate cake--and then follow the path, ie do what's necessary, to accomplish
that goal!
That 'goal' is different for each family, for each child--and the path for each child is
different. We spend much more time working on our children's character (controlling
our temper/anger, having a spirit of forgiveness, kindness, putting others first, being
diligent workers---it's different for each child) than we do on phonics or the times
tables. What really matters?
My children are living proof that children will learn without 4 hours a day of workbooks
(Ü)! Sam just finished 'first grade'. When he was in K, I spent several months off and
on going through 'Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons'. We got to around
lesson 60 something. Last year I didn't really sit down with him to 'teach him to read'
at all. Last night, he picked up Frog and Toad (2nd grade level) and read the whole
thing! He only missed a few words. He's been reading through some Dr Seuss books
at bedtime but I had no idea his reading was so advanced--he hardly stammered or had
to stop and sound out words at all. We laid the groundwork in K but he wasn't ready to
read until the past month or so. Now, he's reading like crazy!
I could give story after story like this. The children are learning like crazy. They all
love to read and/or be read to. *If you can read, you can learn/teach yourself
anything!* Yes, even math!! Learning is the stuff of life!
20 July 2003 ~Dana Lewis
lives, click here to read The Way We School.
homeschooling (Kindergarten) then we heard about Sonlight. Sonlight Curriculum is
based on whole books (as opposed to text books). Being a book lover, I automatically
just LOVED the whole idea! We use many of Sonlight's books but I do not follow their
teachers manual at all--I don't even buy it anymore. We are building an extensive
library and our children read, read, read. They have learned most of what they know
about science and history from reading! Our library had a big book sale last year and
we purchased 350 books, almost all were non-fiction history books, and the children
have been just *eating them up*.
We use Mastering Mathematics for math and are very pleased with it.
We keep a stash of Explode the Code workbooks and the children work in those as the
fancy strikes :-).
We try to keep a variety of books and 'the stuff of learning' all around our children
and it's amazing to see how much they are learning. It's neat to see when one of them
gets into something specific (like 'birds of prey') and everyone seems to follow suit.
They read books about birds of prey, talk about them, pretend to be them, etc... Fun
stuff--this learning is Fun Stuff!!!
