Author Archives: Lisa @ Me & My House

HisStory Plans – 1800’s

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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.

Another New HisStory Resource!!

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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 the PIPEline 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 🙂

P.S. The PIPEline Book of Remembrance makes a great companion to Freedom  & Simplicity in HisStory and PIPEline of HisStory.

Study Time Management for Kids

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It’s not too often that I post these kinds of things, but they can be basic helps. Here’s a few tips for time management for your children pertaining to their studies.

See my from me post today for a few tips on general household time management.

Keep things in their place and Think ahead. Plan what they need before beginning and gather all necessary tools. Saves much time if they know where they are. 🙂

Also arrange activities to provide variety and break things up – alternate quiet and active studies. Take breaks when needed, doing a different type of activity, so the time spent studying is productive.

More another time.

Whatever Shall We Listen To?

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Some of you may be gearing down for the summer, allowing for a lot of outdoor play time while the weather is good. This is great and just as needed as indoor book time. But I hope you aren’t gearing down and allowing your children to sit in front of the TV or video games and turn their brains to mush.

Whether it be for days when it’s too hot or stormy to play outdoors, or for while doing indoor chores, or for long trips in the car, when mom’s voice is worn out or she’s busy elsewhere, stories on CD are a great choice for an enriching pastime.

Our whole family loves listening to all of the recommendations below, but I’ve divided them into target age groups to help you choose. Links are given for those that are not available through our website. For others just browse our catalog pages. The ones in bold print are available through us, others may be.

Some of our favorites for the younger children are Your Story Hour and Patch the Pirate. There have been several others over the years – Jungle Jam and the older Adventures in Odyssey. We also have several audio books. We especially love the ones by produced by Blackstone Audiobooks. You can buy these on tape or CD or download many of them in mp3 format from Audible. Just a few of our favorite ones for little ones are Beatrix Potter’s stories, Winnie the Pooh, and Charlotte’s Web. And I can’t leave out the Elsie Dinsmore series, the favorite of our 7 yo for a couple of years now. For just plain music listening they love Judy Rogers’ CD’s, Go to the Ant and others, the children’s worship CD’s from Sovereign Grace ministries, the old Tiny Tot Pwaise series (are they still available?), as well as the music on Patch the Pirate.

Middle age children love Jonathan Park, the Kingdom series audio books, and Radio Theatre‘s Ben Hur, Squanto, and the Luke Reports. But my 5 yo loves Jonathan Park, Ben Hur, and Squanto as well. He likes the others, they just don’t hold his interest as long.

We think of the Radio Theater series and other advanced books for youth and adults, but my just turned 7 yo has loved and listened to Silas Marner and Les Miserables for 2 or 3 years. Others we have include the Hiding Place, and we just got Amazing Grace.

Just a few other audio books we enjoy as a family are Pilgrim’s Progress, Ivanhoe, Swiss Family Robinson, the Henty books, A Basket of Flowers, Robinson Crusoe, and there are many, many more. We listen to many of the classics, both literature and historical Christian great books on audio.

Also we belong to 2 email lists that send an audio story for children each week: Jim Erskin’s Living Books for the Ears and Robert Green’s You Need a Story.

Have a great time listening!

See our other posts on Audio Books – Part 1 and Part 2.

 

Hymn Study

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For Hymn Study we love the living books by Douglas Bond in the Mr. Pipes series. There are currently 4 books in the series covering different time periods of hymn writers. The story is of 2 American children who go to England on vacation and meet an elderly church organist and hymn historian, who shares stories about hymn writers of old and the hymns they wrote. Besides reading and narrating these stories, we also copy and learn to sign the hymns, add them to our timelines, and do further research and writing on some of the authors and hymns.

The series is an ongoing story between Mr. Pipes and the children. But we didn’t start with the first book and we didn’t get lost. Obviously when we went back and read the first, it filled in some answers. But feel free to start where you like.

Mr. Pipes and the British Hymn Writers is where the children first meet Mr. Pipes, so it is first even though it isn’t first in history chronology.
Mr. Pipes and Psalms and Hymns of the Reformation is next – this is where we started, because it was what we were studying in History.
Mr. Pipes Comes to America is next – we haven’t read it yet.
Mr. Pipes and the Accidental Voyage is the newest and about the Early Centuries of the Church – so the first in hymn chronology but last in story order.

We just got the new Accidental Voyage this week and my children are upset that we won’t be getting to it this year. I planned on just finishing the British one and taking a break for a while. They obviously really love them.

We also have and have used are 101 Hymn Stories.
I’ve seen and plan to get Hymns for a Kid’s Heart series by Joni Tada
too. See more about all these resources on our History: Music & Art webpage.

I just ran across a website yesterday that looks like it will be a good supplement for us. Songs and Hymns.org has information about the hymn itself, the lyric writer, the tune composer, (including pictures of many of them -which is how I stumbled upon this site, looking for pictures of the writers), Scripture the hymn is based on, the words and music to listen to and read, and a story about the writing of the hymn and a devotional about it. Their daily radio show, Adoration Songbook, can be heard on some radio stations or listened to online. It is 5 short episodes about the hymn of the week.

UPDATE: Here are a couple more links to websites we’ve used in our hymn studies. Timeless Truths and The Cyber Hymnal. And a couple of Psalms sites. Psalm Singing – we found it when looking for The Scottish Metrical Psalter, and a more recent find, Psalter.org.

 

Timeline Figures

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It’s been over a year since I’ve written anything about timelines, but I get asked alot about where to find timeline figures to go with my PIPEline of HisStory.

There are several options:

1) You can draw and write your own. A 3×5 index card cut in half works great. You can either just write the name and date or you can draw (and color) a picture of the person or event. You may want to draw a symbol of their contribution on the card, such as making a picture frame around artists, a treble clef with composers, a crown for government leaders, a cross for Christian leaders, etc. You can also cut them out in shapes if you’d like, either a basic “person” shape or a representative shape such as a crown for government leaders etc. If you choose to do shapes, you can reproduce the shape several times on a sheet of cardstock and copy/print to to have ready to write or draw on and cut out.

2) You can find free or cheap pictures to use. Some people buy old sets of encyclopedias to cut up. But now we have the internet! You could do your own searches, but that takes way too much time for me. I prefer to use  picture groups already put together from websites like Homeschooling with Notebooking. I’ve also found a few nice ones at Christian Hearts Homeschooling.

3) You can purchase sets of figures. We used to sell a timeline with pictures you color yourself. I just found it available online now – Drawing from the Past. Homeschool in the Woods produces the History through the Ages timeline figures you can color, but I’ve never used these.

Start by ordering the PIPEline of HisStory and get started creating your own unique timeline by any of the methods listed here.

 

Writing Your Own Curriculum

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Does that sound scarey to you? Do you think you can’t possibly write your own curriculum? I hope by the end of this series of articles you will change your mind.

Years ago I got a book called, You Can Write Your Own Curriculum (or something like that). It was so common sense and easy to integrate, that once I adapted and developed some forms to suit our needs I got rid of the book. I wish I still had it to share its simplicity with you. But instead you will get my version.

For some the question may not be can I do it, but why would I want to? Writing curriculum is work. It takes time. And who knows if I’d do it right. So why write your own curriculum? In one word, Liberty.

Here in America we’re generally losing the understanding and the care about what that word means. We think freedom is doing whatever I want while someone else foots the bill. But in truth Liberty can be summed up in having self-government so no one needs to control me. It speaks of character and growth. Neither comes without Labor. Both require that four letter word that many don’t like to hear, work. But it is through Labor that we grow in wisdom, knowledge, understanding – and character.

Yes, writing your own curriculum requires work, but that is not a bad thing. It is the thing that will cause your own growth, and help develop good character in you. That which we are handed, whether it be curriculum or welfare, does not cause growth or develop character. It does not cause increase. It is only through Labor that we produce, cause increase.

How does this connect to Liberty? Increase through labor brings freedom. We live in a society that seeks ease above freedom, constantly giving away liberties in exchange for someone else to take care of everything for them. We do not have freedom when we are dependent upon others to take care of us. This mindset can pervade our thoughts of education also. We don’t see that freedom comes from laboring for production for ourselves. Laboring to write our own curriculum brings Liberty by freeing us from someone else’s ideas of what education should look like for our family. It frees us from being dependent upon someone else for our increase of knowledge.

Writing our own curriculum causes us to exercise our creativity through labor to cause us to grow and produce. It frees us from a consumer mentality. It allows our family to operate in the individuality God has created within us. It keeps us dependent upon the Lord.

Writing our own curriculum exercises our faith. We need to trust God to lead us to educate our children in the way He would have them go. We write in “fear and trembling”, acknowledging our own weaknesses and inadequacies but His ever present strength when we are weak that enables us to “do all things through Christ who strengthens me”, and knowing that His grace that is sufficient. He will see us through, and all glory goes to Him. And when we are most glorifying Him we have our greatest joy!

We write our own curriculum because of the freedom, individuality, and creativity, variety, growth and joy in it. It allows our family to show forth who God is making us to be.

I will continue this series, showing you the Freedom & Simplicity™ in Curriculum Writing.

 

Principles, Truths, & Rudiments

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What’s the difference between principles, truths, and rudiments? These may be completely foreign terms to you, but they are basic terms in Biblically principled education that is expansionary. Expansionary education teaches by “planting seeds that contain the whole” by getting to the core principles of a subject and beginning with those and from those the whole subject grows. This is sometimes called teaching from whole to parts.

The definitions of these terms somewhat overlap. But you see slight nuances in them that give us our basis of usage.
Principle: Source or origin of any thing, that from which a thing proceeds; element, constituent part; ground, foundation; a general truth; a law comprehending many subordinate truths.

Truths: (see also McDowell quote below): Conformity to fact or reality; true state of facts or things; fidelity, constancy; real fact of just principle; conformity to rule.

Rudiments: A first principle or element, that which is to be first learnt.
Let’s take a look at what others say about these:
This first came from a discussion with Ellen at the Foundation for American Christian Eduction:

Every subject will have its own individual principles. “THE 7”
Principles (of American Christian History and Government) are basic
foundational Biblical principles. You will find them interwoven
through much of what you study. But every lesson in every subject is
not based upon “the 7”. Utilize them as they fit. Utilize others as
they fit.

This from McDowell & Beliles book “Liberating the Nations”:

“While the Bible contains thousands of truths, these can be broken down into a small number of principles form which the truths spring forth. If these principles are known, this provides complete parameters through which to view life, assuring that one truth is not forgotten while embracing a new one.” And they go on to discuss principles as “seed”.

So how do we use these terms? I don’t know that there is anything magical about the terminology but from the above this is how I use them. IOW, this is a generally the explanation I go with but it is not set in cement.
1) I term the “Universal” or Foundational Principles as the “7”. These are God’s governing principles that overrule so many areas of all of life.
2) The Biblical principles that are specific to a subject I usually term the Biblical Truths (or Biblical principles) of the subject.
3) And the principles that govern the subject (not directly derived from the Bible), the first rules of the subject itself, I usually term the Rudiments.

I will post an example, probably in the subject of math, and add its link here – hopefully later today.

 

What’s in a Notebook?

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We Journal our studies in Books of Remembrance. I’ve already shared about using Lapbooking to Journal. In this post I’m sharing about our regular Journals. Some people call this Notebooking. Journaling is collecting in a binder all the things you learn from your study. It can be simple or elaborate, down to earth scholarly or glitzy and artistic.

Journaling is not storing your worksheets in a binder, nor is it printed off encyclopedia or other articles, nor is it just reports. It is your own personally written text living book of the topic you studied. It should express your own ideas about the topic.

You can use color and design to ‘brighten’ up your Notebooks, not just the covers, but also the pages. Depending on your personality that may be just using colored paper and/or adding a picture, or maybe it will be using unique layout on the pages and a variety of ‘scrapbooking’ fancies. Another possibility is to use templates, a preprinted page with a heading and perhaps picture, and space to add your own info.

What do we put in our Notebooks? Here’s a few ideas.

Copywork or dictation of quotes, Scripture, a poem, a song, a play, a recipe,
Notes, narrations, summaries, reviews, outlines, graphic organizers/mind maps
T-charts, other charts and graphs, illustrations/drawings, colorings
Map work, geographic reports
Timelines, pictures, a photojournal
Word studies, definitions, glossary
Biographical or Character sketch
Essays, reports, speeches, correspondence
Bibliography
Brochures, postcards, flyers
whatever!

It doesn’t even have to be just ‘paper’ items. You can also add 3-dimentional projects that are small enough to fit in. Or you may want to include a CD of music, a performance, a multi-media presentation or a website/pages you’ve designed on your topic, or maybe even a DVD of a movie/play you produced/performed. The sky binder thickness is the limit!

We save each item in our Books of Remembrance in page protectors. If it is worth Journaling, it is worth protecting. And don’t forget to make a nicely designed cover for your Book of Remembrance too.

Have a blast writing your own living books of the topics you study through making Books of Remembrance.

And learn more about Journaling and the other methods used in Lifestyle Education through Discipleship™ in our L.E.D. ‘How to’ book, Freedom & Simplicity on R Road to Biblical Wisdom.