Aug 29
2007

Greetings from Me and My House,

I’m not doing a 50 States study, but I do have a friend planning one. (Our state study is more ongoing, integrated throughout our history studies.) She asked me about this book – which I don’t have (and haven’t seen) but is a good way to approach this – by reading real books from each state. (We somewat do this as we go along.) I’m not vouching for their book choices, since I haven’t seen them, but I like the idea of having a pre-put-together book list for this purpose, and I think they provide several to choose from.

From a couple of homeschool-publisher-internet-friends I know of  2 resources that may be a help to go with this. (One I have, the other I have "part" of.) These are both what I consider "enrichment" type resources. (See my last post – we don’t teach for the sake of information, but for understanding ideas. Information is definitely a by-product though, as ideas always apply to information.) But these present a more enjoyable way of "getting" the information part you may want them to remember – after you’ve presented and they understand the ideas.

The first, State Study Notebooking Pages, is from NotebookingPages.com. It is a set of Notebooking pages for each of the States. That is, a separate set for each State, not a generic set to apply to all. AND at a great price for the whole set. You don’t have to search for each state flag and bird and seal and flower and tree and song, etc. She has them all right there for you! Oh, and they are on sale for the next couple days too!

The second from Homeschool with Index Cards. 50 States Card Set is a set of index cards for learning the states, capitals, abbreviations and flags. Use them for making a game or as flashcards. Dirt cheap, so it isn’t worth making your own.

Both are available by download, so you can have them TODAY!

A few other resources we have used include:

96709: Map of the United States Sticker Picture Map of the United States Sticker Picture
By Pat Stewart / Dover Publications

Your Children can add the state sticker to the map when you study each state.

United States Coloring Book (also by Dover, but not available through us)  This one includes the flower, bird, tree, nickname, on the page. Just one page per state. Dover also has a State Birds and Flowers Coloring Book and a National Parks Coloring Book.

States & Capitals, Activity Book & CD
By Homeschool / Twin Sisters Productions

"It’s been shown that singing something helps kids remember facts better than rote memorization. …" My children like these types of songs for learning info.

I also have an old cassette of a Patriotic musical our church did for the community many years ago with many songs that I still remember, including the names of all the states. I think it was called, “Liberty.” It’s been over 22 years.

Enough for today. For us this all is used in expanding our Geography Foundations within our HisStory studies. Which I’ll tell more about some other day.

For Me and My House ~ At Jesus’ feet,
Lisa @ Me and My House ~ Discipleship for Life!
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Aug 25
2007

Which is the basis of your education? What do your goals generally look like? Are they to learn the names and dates of Presidents and Kings or are they to understand the ways men govern and how man’s character affects his governing? Are they to memorize the parts of speech and list of prepositions or are they to communicate clearly God’s message they have to share? Rather than going on with examples I’ll just ask, do you think the goal of education is to memorize reams of information? Do you think little children can’t learn ideas such as these?

Surely you’ve heard the old adage, “Great people talk about ideas. Small people talk about other people.” (I’ve seen it attributed to Tobias Gibson.) Think about what people talk about in society – the weather and other trivial facts, other people, themselves (the smallest of people surely fit here), and ideas. Can you not see that the adage is true?

Yes, religion and politics can bring disagreement in discussion, but they are the seedbed of ideas. All of life goes back to the core questions all of man has, whether he seeks their answers or seeks to avoid them, “Who is God?” and “Who is man?” and “What has God done?” and “How then is man to live?” You cannot escape religion and government in discussing ideas, because these are core to life itself. It is in the discussion of ideas that the mind grows – that society grows. And in discussing ideas, a child and a child’s mind grows.

There are educational philosophies that believe in teaching the great ideas, but — only in the later years of education. They spend the early years filling the child with facts to memorize. They believe the child will have something to think on and understand later, if he is full of facts first.

I respectfully disagree. A young child truly can reason and understand. Granted, not at the level of an adult, we grow in wisdom and understanding. But a child wants ideas; he longs for ideas; he continually asks “Why?” We’ve given a child a false misconception of value by granting our exuberant praise for rattling off a list he has memorized, rather than for his question of “Why?” Do we not see that a child who asks “Why?” has a hunger for learning. He desires growth. A child trained to rattle off information for praise has a hunger for self-acclamation. Knowledge truly puffs up. Surely we desire our children to hunger for growth in life and character more than self-acclaim and pride.

Does our basis of ideas mean we do not teach facts? Of course not! That would be impossible. As a Christian growth (not education) seminar I attended years ago taught, “Knowledge does not lead to wisdom. Wisdom always leads to knowledge.” It fits perfectly in our style of education. Information does not of itself lead to anything but parroting of knowledge. Ideas always apply to information. They are studied out in their very applications.

Learning ideas is our goal. We teach information within the context of ideas to give the information meaning. Learning is not just “knowledge.” It is wisdom, understanding, and knowledge – the proper understanding of knowledge and application of truth. As God’s Word teaches, “knowledge puffs up.” Men are “ever increasing in knowledge but never coming to the truth.” Yet, the “Lord gives wisdom, from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.” “Add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge….” In my words, teach information within the context of ideas, with the understanding and application of the ideas being the goal of the lesson. That is, above all teach Biblical ideas (principles) as the foundation of all of education and life.

For Me and My House ~ At Jesus’ feet,
Lisa @ Me and My House ~ Discipleship for Life!
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Trackback  •  Posted in Getting Started w/ L.E.D., L.E.D. Methodology, L.E.D. Principles, Misc. Education  


Aug 16
2007

Greetings from Me and My House,

One of our favorite governments resources, for parents planning lessons and/or teens studying independently, is God and Government by Gary DeMar. This course, containing 3 books, presents the foundations of all governments – not just the civil government that most people think of, but also home and church governments. By presenting "foundations" I don’t mean just introductory basic facts, but foundational principles, thinking through and reasoning how Biblical governments should operate and why.

There are 10 lessons in each of the 3 books, so at one lesson per week the course can be completed in a year. For a teen working through this, there is nothing you need to prepare to teach or for the lessons. Each lesson has a short introduction to read that will establish the context, then discussion questions to answer, mainly by looking up Scripture and reasoning the answer from it. Other resources are noted if needed, such as sections of the Constitution. Then a short summary is given to focus you on the main theme. Then comprehensive answers to the discussion questions are given.

It is best if you can set a bit of time to discuss with the student – or students with each other – once each week. I believe this is true in any learning, a student should have a place to share what he’s learning. This can even be over the dinner table. You don’t have to do all the research for the lesson yourself to discuss it, (unless you have time and want to). You can just use the provided answers. And they don’t expect students to come to such thorough answers on their own.

I really like their perspective, that the studies should not go on and on. "It is best for the student to want more than for them to say that they have had enough."!! They encourage applying the principles learned to current events – especially issues that arise in elections – and constructing "biblical solutions that can replace humanistic policies and programs."

If the student is interested in learning more about a topic, in the back of the book it lists further suggested reading by topics. Additional reading can either be left to the student himself to pursue according to his interest in various topics, or assigned.

If you want your student to write more in-depth essays on certain topics you can always assign those after your discussions, asking him to do further research and write out his reasoning through the topic Biblically.

There are a couple other resources that we like particularly for American Civil Government – one for pre-teens and one for upper teens. Hopefully I will complete our Governments Resources and Recommendations page soon with reviews of them.

For Me and My House ~ At Jesus’ feet,
Lisa @ Me and My House ~ Discipleship for Life!
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Aug 14
2007

Greetings from Me and My House,

Continuing our HisStory plans for the 1800′s.

In addition to the primary resources we will use for our study, we will also utilize biographies and other living histories, some from the Sower series, some from CLP, some from the Leaders in Action series – see our HisStory Biographies Resources & Recommendations for more links. Others may be from the "Christian Heroes" and "Heroes" of History series by Janet and Geoff Benge, as well as a few old originals I’ve picked up. Other links on our HisStory Resources & Recommendations pages for the 1800′s.

The children will each choose different ones to read. We will obviously not cover all of these. These will cover People (listed in no particular order) such as Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Lewis and Clark, Noah Webster, Adoniram Judson, Francis Scott Key, Daniel Webster, Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Samuel F.B. Morse, Johnny Appleseed, Jed Smith, Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, Abraham Lincoln, J.E.B. Stuart, Clara Barton, Harriet Tubman, Booker T Washington, David Livegstone, George Washington Carver, Matthew Fontaine Maury, William Carey, Hudson Taylor, George Mueller, Amy Carmichael, Florence Nightingale, Dwight Moody, Charles Spurgeon, Fanny Crosby – and I haven’t even listed the scientists and other important names such as Robert Fulton, Louis Pasteur, Helen Keller,  Louis Braille and I could go on and on. (Yes, I really do have biographies on all of these and others, some of them more than one.)

There are just a few I want to look at in more depth. We will probably read those aloud. Others we will just read short biographical sketches. Others the children will choose and read on their own.

Living histories we will include as read alouds are:

  • Of Courge Undaunted by James Daugherty
  • Our Flag Was Still There by Tracy Leininger (from Vision Forum)
  • The Alamo, the California Gold Rush, and the Pioneers will be studied through living histories – perhaps not full books unless time allows.
  • Boys of ’61 by Charles Coffin may be more detailed than we choose to pursue on the war itself. But we will use parts of it.
  • Christ in the Camp by J. William Jones – may not use all of this either and it will probably be used by high schoolers.
  • Oliver Optic’s fictional works from this time period are loved by our children.
  • With Lee in Virginia will probably be listened to since we have that on audio.
  • Democracy in America by Tocqueville and other primary source documents will be included too, mainly by high schoolers.

Videos we’ll watch/ audio we’ll listen to include:

We plan to spend more time on the Civil War and "Reconstruction" than any other thing in this time period, looking at the causes and effects.

Literature is the "handmaiden of history". It shows us the Ideas of the times. We have far more Literature we’d like to read from this time period than we will get to. Some prominent authors we’ll choose from include, Dickens, Eliot, Austin, Wilder, Twain, Cather, Optic, London, and a few others, as well as poets. Many of our favorite Lamplighter Publishing "Rare Collectors Series" are from this time period. I’ll list some of these resources we choose at another time.

Also we will include science, the arts, music, architecture, etc. from the time period.

For Christ and HisStory,
Lisa @ Me and My House ~ Discipleship for Life!
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Aug 13
2007

Greetings from Me and My House,

It’s about time I get back to writing some informative articles here. I’ll start today with our current HisStory study plans. We are moving further into our studies of  the PIPEline link "One Nation Under God" ("Go Ye Into All the World"). We will look at the People, Ideas, Places, and Events of the 19th century and the causes and effects of the happenings then.

We will look at the spread of missions at that time – reaching the far west of North America, South America, Africa, and Asia. We will look at the changes in Christianity in the U.S. in the 1800′s and the role that played in events then, and how it has affected Christianity and our nation today.

We will follow the philosophy and methodology presented in Freedom & Simplicity in HisStory, and document our studies through our various resources -PIPEline Journal Pages, PIPEline of HisStory, and PIPEline Book of Remembrance.

We like to get varied perspectives of HisStory.  Everyone won’t read all of the books listed below, and only the parts pertaining to the 1800′s will be read. A foundation of previous times has already been laid. Some will be read aloud, some only parts will be read, and some will be read only by certain students (generally high school.) Some of our reference resources will be:

  • Sketches  from Church History
  • Building the Nation by Charles C. Coffin (republished by Mantel Ministries, but currently out of print again – online Free download here)
  • Universal History in Perspective by Emma Willard (written mid 1800′s, out of print)
  • A Basic History of the United States by Clarence Carson Cumberland Books has it at a discount. Blackstone also has put it on audio.

America: The First 350 Years by Steve Wilkins (audio course) and From Sea to Shining Sea by Peter Marshall may be used to provide very differing positions that we can follow up through primary source documents. (Children’s version and Sounding Forth the Trumpet by Marshall also available on our History Recommendation page.) Genevieve Foster’s Abraham Lincoln’s World gives an interesting narrative of the time period – for the whole world, but not from a Christian perspective. We will probably not include it this time, unless we look up something specific in it. It does have nice picture clips of many of the events and people of the times that I like to use.

I’ll continue more about this study in another post, listing some biographies and living history books we’ll include, as well as literature and primary source documents. See more of our History Recommendations.

I’ll close leaving you another online link to another old history book I have, Putnam’s Handbook of Universal History, that I just found available for FREE download at the same site as Building the Nation,  listed as Tabular Views of Universal History by George Putnam. This book shows in side by side columns what was happening at a given time, all over the world. Another great history resource written in the 1800′s.

For Christ and HisStory,
Lisa
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Aug 6
2007

Last month many of you were blessed for being a blessing. We were a part of a benefit for the Estes family, to help with medical bills, and those that gave were greatly blessed with a HUGE Thank You package of home school and family resources.

This month we’d like to present to you another need. You may know Tammy Cardwell as the volunteer editor of Eclectic Homeschool Online, or from her own books or as a homeschool speaker. Tammy has given much to the homeschool community over the last decade.

Tammy’s situation is very different than the Estes family’s, but no less urgent. Read about it here. This “Emergency Firesale” will work much the same way as the Estes family benefit did. You give to the need, you get a HUGE package of products from homeschool and family businesses as a Thank You. The businesses have all donated the products and all the money raised goes directly to the Cardwells.

The Thank You package has different products than the one for the Estes family. And Me and My House does not have a resource in it this time. We’re just passing on good news to help the Cardwell family and bless you too.

Again, the site is: http://www.chirotoons.com/cardwell/

And the benefit is only through this Saturday.

Lisa @ Me and My House



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Aug 2
2007

Our newest e-resource. A color-coded timeline journal! Finally available as an ebook download. You’ve gotta take a look at this Lifestyle Education through Discipleship exclusive.

An order page and more info about it can be found here.

For Christ and HisStory,
For Me and My House ~ At Jesus’ feet,
Lisa @ Me and My House ~ Discipleship for Life!
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Aug 1
2007

What could be better than our Book of Time, a comb bound color-coded timeline in a book, your personal journal to put all of history in context?

Our new PIPEline Book of Remembrance color-coded time line in a book (same book, but remade and renamed) that you download and print out yourself!

What’s better than buying a Book of Time for each of your children at $15 each?

Buying a PIPEline Book of Remembrance for $20 once and printing out a book for each member of your own family.

What’s better than paying $20 for the PIPEline Book of Remembrance masters to print a book for each family member?

Buying it this week for the old price of 1 Book of Time – $15! (Good through Aug. 10th only.)

Watch our L.E.D. Resources page for the addition of thePIPEline Book of Remembrance, coming in the next few days. But you can order now so you don’t miss out on the Special Price, if you’d like :-)

Since there is no Shopping Cart button yet, just email us and we’ll send you the ordering info. UPDATE: Order button here.

For Me and My House ~ At Jesus’ feet,
Lisa @ Me and My House ~ Discipleship for Life!
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P.S. The PIPEline Book of Remembrance makes a great companion to Freedom  & Simplicity in HisStory and PIPEline of HisStory.



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