Author Archives: Lisa @ Me & My House

De Emoh to Home Ed

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Today we are continuing the De Emoh post.

Perhaps you’ve never considered the thought that the curriculum you buy is based on somebody’s view of what education is and is to be – and that somebody isn’t you. Do you know what that somebody’s view is? Do you know what your view is? If you know your view and you know their view, and they match, you have a good match in curriculum and you are able to jump out of that whirlwind of constantly trying the “latest, greatest” and changing course every year, and able to get on with building a solid educational foundation.

That is where we begin to turn the trend from De Emoh to Home Ed. First we need to know just what education is. There are basically 2 views. Although there are so many variations in each, they can be deduced down to basic underlying beliefs in 2 categories.

These 2 views are many times called the Greek view and the Hebrew view. These views were around long before either the Greeks or the Hebrews though. They began in the Garden.  One is man-centered, the other God-centered. One seeks the knowledge of man, the other the wisdom of God.

If you are going to be a home educator, the first thing you need to do is be a learner yourself. “A student is not above his teacher.” You must be a student, to lead your students. Begin by studying out the Hebrew and the Greek ideas about education, and see if you can come up with the differences.

To be continued…

 

7 Pillars

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Q: What’s the deal with 7 Pillars/ Principles here and there? Are these all spelled out in the Bible somewhere? (OK, the question wasn’t really worded exactly that way. This is a summary of questions I’ve been asked, and that have been asked on our e-group for home ed through Biblical Principles.)

A: About 15 years or so ago, I studied out  “Wisdom.” We know that Jesus Himself IS Wisdom – all true wisdom is embodied in Him. Prov. 9:1 says “Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars.” Whether the 7 is just symbolic, saying that in Jesus is all perfection and completeness of wisdom, I don’t know.

But I do know in my searches for wisdom in many various areas, many times I find 7’s. Whether I’m not digging far enough and I would find more if I pushed on through, I don’t know. I just know that I find 7 Pillars in many places. Just as I also find Tri-Unities (3’s) in many places. There were so many natural ones that I saw, that I began looking for them, as I do 7 Pillars.

IOW, I have not found in Scripture clearly laid out any definitive “THE Seven Pillars” are. I have found that when I really dig in a subject/ topic/ many things in Life, I do come up with 7 Pillars – Biblical truths which support the topic.

 

De Emoh

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Many home educators, perhaps even most, begin this journey backwards. They decide to home educate and then the first thing they do is pick a curriculum. They may ask friends what they use and buy that. They may pour over catalogs looking for the latest “best”. They may do an internet search to find free.

Now, when we began home educating it was no different, except it was hugely different. We had very little to pour over. There was no internet. We may not have known another home educator. (We didn’t.) And if we did, they were using one of the very few curriculums available.

Today you have it much tougher. I can’t imagine how difficult it is for a new home educator to begin to wade through all that is out there. But I think that is an even greater reason for beginning this journey at the right end of things – and that isn’t by choosing curriculum.

I don’t know why our minds tend to work backwards in this area. Perhaps it is human nature. No doubt it has something to do with the way we were educated. We tend to look at the externals, the effects, rather than, or at least before, the internal, the causes. We look at the what before the why or the how. The problem with that is the why and the how dictate the what. So even if we aren’t discerning the why and the how first, someone else has and the what you choose is based on someone else’s why and how.

This backwards approach even works itself out in how we teach our children.

To be continued… Lord willing, tomorrow.

 

L.E.D. Food?

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I don’t believe good nutrition is based on “food products”. So why am about to recommend a food “product”? … See my from me blog to see why.

What does this have to do with L.E.D.? This is our “off-week” (in between topical studies) and I am refreshing the children – and expanding their understanding – on nutrition.

 

Change it up

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I’m blogging everywhere and there but here this week. So I figured I’d share a bit of what we do on our “off weeks”. This week is the last in our term. We run a 6 week “on”, 1 week “off” schedule, though not dogmatically. If we need to continue to finish things up we do, if we finish before the 6 weeks, we moved on.

Anyhow, our “Sabbath” rest weeks aren’t really rest, nor are they really “sabbath”, as in devoted wholly to seeking God in the Scriptures – but we do continue our family worship times. Our “Sabbath” weeks are our one week “change in routine” we take between each term. I got the idea LONG ago from Teri Spray of Christian Cottage Curriculum, at a CHEC conference.

On our break week we focus on learning Life Skills rather than “book learning”. It may be on cleaning and organization – whether that means learning to clean something, or digging in and tackling a project. It may be cooking or baking skills or menu planning. It may be sewing or craft skills.

When we had a garden and bought cases of fruit to put up, there was always a week of canning and freezing and dehydrating. When we did Mega-Menus we put up 6 weeks worth of meals in the freezer during this time. For the boys it might be helping dad with a remodeling project. For next week it will be finishing tanning their deer hide – and probably raking all the acorn caps out of the yard! I also plan to take some more specific, prolonged times to help dd so-close-to-16 to work on her driving skills.

Sometimes this off-week is also devoted to special help in Learning Skills – such as, if someone is stuck on a math concept and they just need extra help over the hump. Or if we’ve slacked in working on spelling or editing-of-our-writing skills, we’ll do some catching up.

It’s also a week we try to throw in some extra fun things. Play some games, perhaps go to the Children’s Museum or other “special place”. I thought we were going to be going to Omaha – but 2 wrenches got thrown into that idea. We’ll have to come up with something else. (And Omaha will end up taking a day out after we get back to our “normal” routine. — Is there really such a thing?)

What do you do to “change things up” – to keep from getting in a rut, or take a break from the “normal” – at your house?

 

Bible Lessons from Beginnings

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This week we are finishing our first term. In Bible that means we are finishing our studies in Beginnings. This year’s focus has been on the principle of God’s Design.

We have looked at God’s Transcendence, how He is different than anything else, His incommunicable attributes. All else is created by Him and apart from Him.

Then we looked at Man in the Image of God, how God has “communicated” (shared) some of His attributes to some degree with man, making him different than any other thing in Creation.

Next we looked at God’s Design in the Heavens and Earth – in Time, Space, and Matter, and in living things to reproduce “after their kind”, and the purpose for Creation.

The next week was one of the hardest for me to bring together. But we saw that there is even Design in temptation, satan’s perverted methods really don’t change much, nor does the result of sin.

Last week we looked at God’s Design in the life of Noah. I’ve already blogged about that, how amazing His Sovereignty is even in the “smallest” of details.

This week we are looking at the beginnings of nations, God’s Design in Noah’s sons. We’ve mapped where the various families settled and began building nations. We’ve looked at the prophesy given by Noah and saw God’s Design for fulfilling His dominion mandate through the lives of men. Once more we are amazed at what we can learn from the “jots and tittles” written thousands of years ago.

Though we are moving on after this week, we’ve by no means exhausted these areas. But they will be revisited from a different angle again, as we build our learning, here a little, there a little.

After 20-some years of serious Bible study, (after 20-some years of mostly Bible stories before that,) I still stand amazed at the freshness and depth of God’s Word, teaching us something new everytime we gaze into it.

 

Contemporary Music Artist of the Week

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Well, contemporary to the time period we are studying – early 1800’s.

The last couple weeks or so we have been studying the War of 1812 – looking at God’s Providence, cause and effect, individuality, and such. We’ve met the men and lived through their battles. One of the things we’ve done is had the children each pick a battle and draw it and then narrate from their drawing what happened.

One of the key people we looked at was not a big General or fighting war hero. We didn’t look at him initially or even primarily for what he is most known for. We took a back door, and fell in love with him for a scripturally rich hymn he wrote. He wrote of his inexpressible praise for God, and for all He has done and does.

We saw in action a quote we memorized at the beginning of the year: “A good hymn is the best use to which poetry can be devoted.“, by another poet of renown, John Greenleaf Whittier.

Our poet is Francis Scott Key, if you haven’t guessed yet. Of course, once the children knew who it was, they knew what he is most famous for (our national anthem, the Star Spangled Banner,) and his and its connection to the War of 1812.

We learned the other verses of the Star Spangled Banner and saw the depth in them, and realized that like hymns, you really don’t know the author’s heart, intent and message if you don’t know all the verses. We lose much Biblical teaching by eliminating some of them.

The hymn we learned is Lord, with Glowing Heart I’d Praise Thee. Click here for the words. It’ll be worth it. 🙂

 

the Ark of the Lord

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My dc and I are currently studying the Ark; so far we have been looking at Noah’s life.

As we are studying, I am trusting in the grace of God to make His Word sweet to them. That they would be excited – AMAZED – at his Word. That it would be honey to their lips and strength to their soul. That it not just be another “lesson” to learn. But they would see it as the Living Water that it is.

Yesterday was one of those AMAZING days. In studying a story so common our 5 yo can narrate it, Lord bring freshness. Yesterday in looking at Noah’s history we talked about his grandfather and great grandfather and what all those around him must’ve thought as they, and even just their names, prophesied to the world. They were amazed as they saw it as The Great Story! real people living real lives sold out to God, walking with Him against all of society.

We talked about the prophecy of the 10 generation of names from Adam to Noah, telling the gospel, of God coming to save His lost, wretched people. They were amazed. They saw the intricate design of the Sovereignty of God in the details of men’s lives.

This is what it is all about. I can’t make our learning all fun and play all the time. But I can focus on reaching their hearts. That is so much more important to me. I can trust God that when His Word is sent forth it won’t return void. That it will be water, bread, meat to the soul. And I can trust the Holy Spirit to be our Teacher, as He teaches through the heart.

 

Our Music Lesson this Week

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This is the funnest version I’ve found of the 1812 Overture, which we will be studying this week. We’ll listen to an instrumental version too 🙂
here and part 2 here.

YOU’VE GOT TO WATCH THIS VIDEO! I removed the video from this page because it messed up my blog page formatting. Here is the link to it though. DON’T MISS IT! Enjoy.