Lifestyle Education through Discipleship™ musings

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?

For Me and My House ~ At Jesus’ feet,
Lisa @ Me and My House ~ Discipleship for Life!
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Greetings from Me and My House,

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.

For Me and My House ~ At Jesus’ feet,
Lisa @ Me and My House ~ Discipleship for Life!
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Greetings from Me and My House,

On our bibleprinciples elist I was asked for the nitty-gritty of our days. I’ve placed parts of that answer over here, to not make that post way too long, especially the details of our family worship times. As I noted in that post, every single thing isn’t done every single day, but this is our typical pattern, and what we work toward daily. Here’s how we teach when we lie down and rise up.

I like to begin our day the night before – remember God said it was “evening and morning the first day….”

Our evening family time consists of: Family discussion about the day and upcoming things, a chapter from a family read-aloud – “life changing literature”, a Psalm (or more than 1), and prayer together – including prayer that God will pull it all together! Usually each family member prays each night.

We are currently reading the Crown and Covenant series by Douglas Bond. It is historical fiction telling the stories of the Scottish Covenanters. We many times read “Rare Collectors” from Lamplighters. Last year’s highlight was the Kingdom series by Chuck Black.

We begin the morning with each person doing their own devotions – Bible reading and prayer. A Bible reading schedule that has us all reading the same chapters is awesome, but it doesn’t always work that way. Little ones can use a tape/CD or mom or older person can read to them. We encourage the children to journal their devotions. Little ones can draw. The older ones can follow the pattern set out in our Redeeming the Time forms – Read, Rewrite, Relate, Recite.

When we come together we have a Family Altar time: Opening with Prayer, Worship (singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs), Wisdom-Proverb of the Day, Scripture Recitation, Catechism study, Daily Prayer Focus – we pray for different areas each day, and each person writes a daily journal of what God is teaching them through Life and Learning studies. The little ones are required to be a part of all this, they can draw pictures of “what God is teaching them.”

Our older girls and I used to read 5 Psalms and the Proverb of the day each morning. We can’t get that much in anymore. So we do our Psalm at night, and many times only 1, but I figure we will still get through the book of Psalms at least once, maybe close to twice a year.

I will also say about this morning time, I believe music is very important for “physical” and spiritual reasons. Music (well at least certain forms) opens our hearts to God and also our minds to learning. Well balanced music helps our brains make connections between those creative and orderly parts of our brain and helps us remember. We begin with psalms and hymns to “enter His gates with praise” and play low level classical music through most of the day, at least as we get the day, and our brains, going. This is a good time to do music/ instrumental practice also – they usually snatch a few minutes each, in between their clean-up chores, and practice longer later.

Till next time.

At Jesus’ feet,
Lisa @Me and My House
Blogging Here
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Greetings from Me and My House,

I’ve added a MindMap of our L.E.D. Lesson Planning format on our webpages.

Also, I’ve posted one of our Spiritual Journey format for studying the Word, as well as revamped all our Clear Vision pages.

At Jesus’ feet,
Lisa @Me and My House

Order Christian and Home Ed Resources Here

Greetings from Me and My House,

Today is a weekday, so that must mean I am suppose to blog here. Yes, I know it’s nearly two weeks after I made this proclamation. I haven’t totally been “gone”, there are some pretty “general” posts over at my homeschoolblogger blog. See, I do post different things in the various places. One of the additions over there is a list of links. It’s generally general Christianity websites. I’ll work on some home ed ones for here – and get the others up at the Clear Vision blog [new ClearVision blog] too. Ok, enough formalities, what do I have to say today.

“A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.” Proverbs 16:9 Let’s go back to a blog I was working on when life so rudely interrupted me. Recently I was called an unschooler, and also asked (by someone else, in a totally different context) how much, if any, lesson planning I do.

Though I’ve clearly stated it here before, just for the record, I’m not an unschooler. Lifestyle Education through Discipleship™ was based upon principles very far from it. But neither am I a lock-step “schooler”. I am a disciple-er. And, yes, I do tons of lesson planning.

But my lesson plans are held loosely. I may devise my ways, but the Lord directs my paths. I teach my children as we “sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” But when I try to hold too tightly to what I have planned, and have so neatly scoped out, God always steps in to show me other priorities He has for the time.

I can lay out the perfect lessons for 6 weeks of instruction in Astronomy, before moving on to Medieval History, and say we will “finish” by such and such a date. But do I know all the lessons God will present, that will take precedence at times? The deep look he wants us to take into being doers, not only hearers, of the Word; the special extended times of worshipping Him; learning to delight in Him, not serve Him in drudgery; And the times of helping daddy hang drywall, and run to Menards. And yes, the times for special visits from the grandgirls, and our brand new grandson.

The “plans” will be completed, but perhaps not within my “planned” time frame. We just take things one step at a time. Sometimes we will follow closely to the way I thought it would look. Other times, even within the teaching of a specific lesson, God will take it a direction I hadn’t planned. And His way always turns out better than I had thought.

I love to plan and organize – though never seem to have enough time to do all I’d like – so I lay out a sequence, and general design, sometimes quite explicit, others quite loose. But as I allow the Lord to guide my planning, I try to always hold it loosely, knowing that it will be accomplished in His way, in His time.

At Jesus’ feet,
Lisa @Me and My House

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Greetings from Me and My House,

I don’t often get writing done on specifics about our personal studies. But thought I’d give you a look into our home today. Here’s what a day of learning looked like in our home after we returned from a vacation break. I’ll spare you all the details of the unproductive times, interruptions, general messing around.

We begin our day with Family Altar, that is Bible, Prayer and Praise. I had planned to go back to the Proverbs this week. We read the Proverb of the day, then each child chooses (or is given) a Scripture and reasons from it. But we aren’t finished with Acts yet, so we read a chapter there. Since today is Monday, our prayer focus is for missionaries and minstries we know, in addition to our immediately family and specific prayer needs. We also “put our armor on”. The current hymn we are working on is “How Firm a Foundation”. Sometimes we sing with a CD other times I play on piano.

After a short break to clear and clean up breakfast, we began our Bible Study. Today was on Exo. 1:8 and Egyptian government. Our studies took a bit of a twist as we were talking about the Israelites being enslaved and what that meant. Complete external control, to have no liberty, or personal rights, don’t own anything, even you yourself are owned by another, make no decisions about what you do, but do only as you’re told. You have nothing but what is given to you, and even then it isn’t “yours”. You are completely controlled by another in what you do, and dependent upon them for everything you receive. I then took them to Romans 1:1a, “Paul, a bond-slave of Christ”. Not only Paul, but us! What great Bible reasoning came from this lesson. AND as an added bonus, in our Adult Bible Study tonight, that we lead, we are studying Romans chapter 1. I have much to share and challenge with. They finished up this lesson by copying Psalm 23, and beginning to memorize (or refreshing memory of) it. We may be bondslaves of Christ, yet we do not serve a tyrannical dictator, but a benevolent King. Obviously, this was a Governments and Stewardship study as well. Normally our teen-aged daughter would have added assignments from our Bible Study, but I didnt’ give her any today.

In Communications we are laying our Biblical Foundation. Today we reviewed what Communication is, and its usage to Bless or Curse. We talked about the power of words. Their creative and destructive power (God’s words created everything, His word is living and powerful and surgically divides (so to speak.) That even our words have the power of life and death. We copied Pro. 18:21. Our older daughter will reason from this verse, and write an essay. Other Communications applications were scattered in, as noted below.

In HisStory and Creation we are just beginning a study of Astronomy. Our purpose for studying Creation (what is called the “sciences”) is to know God and make Him known. We looked at God’s purpose and the “big picture” of astronomy today. We reviewed our key scripture for Creation, Rom. 1:20, tying in Ps. 97:6. We read Ps. 19:1-6, which will be our memory verse. (We’ll copy it tomorrow, when we don’t have so much other copywork.) These lay a good foundation on how the heavens “tell” of God. We read an introductory child’s book called, “God Made Outer Space”, which gives a good simple overview. Normally I would take the time to narrate as we were reading through. Today there were too many interruptions. Hopefully, they will be able to narrate as a review tomorrow. We wrote down vocabulary words (there were about a dozen) from that book and discussed what each means. Our older daughter will formally define these. I also assigned her the first chapter of James Nickel’s astronomy book, Lift Up Your Eyes on High, a great study of the whole of star study (not just the “facts”, “but also of the amazing message the stars declare”). Tomorrow we will get into Gen. 1:14-19 and the beginning of the HisStory of the heavenly bodies.

Throughout these times we have had numerous phone calls and knocks at the door, giving plenty of time of chores, practicing piano, etc. We’ve also had several mini phonics lessons through the reading we’ve done (much of it the children read aloud). Some handwriting and grammar lessons mixed into the copywork and writing. The only specific “math” lesson we got to today was as our daughter was making soup she needed to figure out how much water was 3/4 gallon. Obviously, numbers and quantities were worked with in other ways, but not specifically as “lessons”.

We finally got to lunch, which will make a short time between lunch and supper, since it must be early tonight because of Bible Study. So our studies are probably finished until tomorrow, while we finish chores, play outside, practice music, and host our guests.

At Jesus’ feet,
Lisa @Me and My House

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Greetings from Me and My House,

Instead of “10 Things to do with Your Child Before Age 10“, (from my friends the Bluedorns) -
Here’s my 5 things to do with a teen-aged youth:

1) If your child doesn’t yet have a deep love of God and His Word, and self-government (discipline, self-control) born out of a desire to please Him, do whatever it takes to birth and nourish that in him; and to develop the ability to hear and follow His voice. (Including LOTS of prayer.)

2) Teach your child to “think Biblically”, that is, to correctly reason from God’s Word in all areas of Life – Creation Science is a well-known biggie in this area, but so also should he be able in Providential History & Geography, Internal Government, Servant Leadership, Productive Stewardship, Beautifying Dominion, and Grace & Truth Communication.

3) Teach him how to develop and maintain strong relationships. To show the love of God, to communicate the gospel. To “have communion with few, be intimate with one, deal justly with all, speak evil of none.”

4) Develop a love for true beauty. Help him to see that what is “good” isn’t just in the eye of the beholder. “I like it” doesn’t make it good. Judge all things by Phil. 4:8-9. Learn to appreciate the beauty of good music, good art, nature, the true beauty of others, good communication, and the beauty of simplicity.

5) Guide him in developing his gifts and calling. To hear God’s voice for His plan and purpose for his life. Help him prepare for that calling. Some are general for all, also the callings as a male or female – begin there. Then branch into his own special calling. Realize the way God works is not always the way we THINK it is going to turn out, so be sure to have the “general callings” things down solid, so that he is “thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

At Jesus’ feet,
Lisa @Me and My House

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