On Monday night my girlfriend spent the night. Her husband was out of town and she didn't really want to be alone. On Tuesday morning, my son suggested that we go out to a beautiful natural area and park instead of doing regular school at home. I thought about it and decided it would be just the thing. We would have a regular Charlotte Mason nature outing in the glorious spring sunshine. I packed nature journals, pencils, erasers, colored pencils, bottles of water, the camera in my green backpack. We even found a clipboard for my friend.

The trip turned out better then I had hoped. We parked at the back entrance and walked in so that we could have time to get the mood before we got to the pond. Both kids were happy. Not complaining was heard. As we got to the pond, my son spotted a Great Blue Heron, not far away. Out came the nature journals, and everyone started drawing. I was able to sketch 5 - 6 quick poses as he stood there, moving just his head occasionally. Then he took off and flew and we thought he would go away, but instead, he moved closer to us. This time I could see even his eye really clearly and got a good drawing. I was really happy with the work of my children too.

We moved on and I found yellow flowers to draw. My son played in a little irrigation creek. My daughter walked around and looked at things. My friends sat down in the grass and took everything in. Later she and my daughter wrote poetry and I followed my son around to the other side of the pond to see turtles sunning themselves on a board, red winged black birds, and a large hawk in a tree. Then he climbed around on a fallen tree and was so proud about how high he could go.

When we got back, my friend was making up math problems on a paper and she was happily completing them, and calling them easy.

It was really a good day. We ended our fun time by going to a little whole grain bakery and deli, and eating Mazidra for lunch. (Mazidra is lentils on rice, topped with lettuce and a wonderful garlic salsa.) We have got to do another day like this really soon. And next time we will take a picnic with us.

Well, my dear daughter is off with daddy to help replace a hot water heater for an elderly couple in town. She was so eager to go so she could bring tools up and down the stairs for daddy when he needs them. I hope she has good time.

As I come to understand my daughter more, I am seeking to make education more interesting to her, and something she just can't stop herself from doing. I really do want to light the fire of learning under her and get her going. I have never intended to just do school at home, but it is so easy to slip into that and think you are doing school the easy way. You know, finish this book and you will have learned what you need to know this year. But it isn't the easy way with Emily Rose. She thrives on variety, and change, and by the time she has finished the 3rd page of a new coveted workbook, she is "bored" with it. I hate battles over education. I don't want the next page in the book to take the love of learning away from her. And I can't fight battles over education every day and remain a happy mom. Battles really drain me. I much prefer peace and harmony flowing between everyone.

With thought and prayer I have continued searching for a better way. Then I discovered notebooking at Cindy Rushton's website, cindyrushton.com. Now you would have thought I would have known about this before, but somehow I never learned about notebooking until just a few weeks ago. I should have learned about it a long time ago, but maybe we weren't so eagerly ready for it yet. Anyway, we are now notebooking and having a blast. School struggles have dropped way down. Even my six year old son is really enjoying it. And I am feeling much better about what is happening at our house every morning. Today Emily Rose did four pages of math in her book in 16 minutes, an all time record! And then she worked on a memorizing more of Psalm 91. Yesterday when she didn't have to have school, she spent quite a bit of time on the web trying to find web pages for kids about the revolutionary war. She has been working on copying "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere", straight out of a Longfellow's book of Poems from the late 1800s. But yesterday she found a recipe for writing secret messages made out of cornstarch and water. She asked if she could write it out for copywork. And I said, "Go right ahead! And here is a stack of lovely paper you might choose from to put it on." She did lovely copy work. Then set out to the kitchen to make her concoction and then write some secret messages. We need to go over to Walmart and pick up some iodine to read the secret messages with later. It is supposed to make the words appear purple. This kind of school does take more time, but it was so lovely to have no battles, and to see her so eager for learning. We missed writing in her journal, but maybe writing those secret messages will count for that anyway.

I'd really like to find a list of good books about the revolutionary war for her to have to read. I have Johnny Tremain that I might use as a read aloud, but I think there are more good books on the topic, I just don't know which ones to look for. Let me know if you have any suggestions. She is 9, but reads at the 6th grade level or so.

My son had a good time learning today too. He read me a story out of his reading book, and then asked if we could play Uno. I said, "Sure!" We played one round. He won. Then he wanted to play again. I said, " Sure! But let's get a little copy work done first. Choose 5 of your favorite words out of your reading, and write them down for me. He quickly and neatly did this. We played our game. I got another set of copywork out of him. Then another game. I thought this was working so great I even volunteered that we could play another round if he would let me trim his fingernails. Then he offered his toes if he could play another round. We could have kept going for a long, long time, but lunch time came and passed and we really needed to eat something and get on with the afternoon. And on the last round I finally had my turn to beat him. I think I'd better teach him Skip Bo next.

Emily Rose and I have been battling over piano practice the last few days. It is draining me because I long for harmony in my life so much. I can't stand even disharmony with my children. Well, I was reading an article about homeschooling, and this text on the edge of the page jumped out at me. It is such a blessing and so encouraging to me. I thought it might be for some of you too, because we all have our battles as Christians and as mothers.

Hebrews 12:11 Amplified "For the time being no disciple brings joy, but seems grievous and painful; BUT AFTERWARDS it yields a peaceable fruit of righteousness - to those who have been trained by it [a harvest of fruit which consists in righteousness - in conformity to God's will, in purpose, thought and action, resulting in right living and right standing with God]." I am looking forward to the peaceable fruit of righteousness in my life and in my children's.

I haven't written much about our homeschool yet. It is something we do every day. Learning is a part of our life. For the basics I do use a text book approach. I just don't trust mysef to cover the important things, like math, that are needed for learning greater things. So we do have some of the basic texts books and workbooks for basic learning. But beyond that I try to make sure we are learning all the time, in a variety of ways.

Books are a big part of our life. Nature is too. In some ways I really agree with Charlotte Mason's approach to education. But I disagree with her book list. She did come up with the best available from her time period. But she included a lot that was not true. Today I think there are even more twaddle free, high quality books. And I keep searching for them. I look for biographies of people with characters that are worth emulating. I don't do fairy tales or myths. I use some fiction, but don't choose just any. There is a lot of cheep writing that is just for entertainment. A good story is nice, but I want it to teach something worth remembering. Many of the classics are well written, but I hold them up to the Biblical candle of "Whatsover things are pure, what soever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are right, whatsover things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report. If there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."

I want to do my best to make sure that my kids are getting the best, most worthwhile things into their heads while they are the impressionable, character formation years. Thankfuly, we do live in a time where there are realy great quaity books available, even if I do have to wade through a lot of junk to find them. I am educating not just for life. I am educating for eternity. I pray that God will help me teach my children the things they really need to know, and that I won't just settle for the ordinary, common things of the world.

Raising children for God in this world is such a challenge. Even when we homeschool and don't have as much exposure to the common downward slide of immorality, our kids are still effected. It really seems like satan doesn't want any of our children to know God, so he does all he can to mess up our families. I am doing what I can, by the grace of God, to stop that trend. I don't think that kids grow up right, with out lots of prayers, and the focused efforts of their parents. So now that my daughter is nine, and is heading into middle girlhood, I am looking at what I can do to educate her in the way she should go. I some how missed out on this education as a child myself, and some how I turned out, such as I am. But I think there is so much a girl should know that I don't even know yet. So I've set out on a journey to learn what I can and teach my daughter what I can about how to be a Godly girl and woman. I have purchased the book, Beautiful Girlhood. We started reading it yesterday. I was so surprised at what she so passionately had to say about women today, after we finished the second chapter. "Women today are becoming more childish or more babyish or they are becoming more like a man. They are like bare winter branches because they don't wear modest pretty dresses."

Friday was the last day of homeschool co-op for Winter session. There won't be a spring session, so we are free from that until Fall again. We meet on Friday mornings for two hours, for 8 weeks. It has been working quite well. I have been involved with my kids for probably almost three years now. It has been really good for my kids and I expect we will continue to be involved every years as the kids get older.
Last year I taught watercolor. This session I taught kindergarten for the 4 to 6 year olds. It some ways I enjoyed it, in other ways, I am very glad it is done. I was reluctant to take the job on, because I have not had any experience with the younger kids. I prefer 8 - 10 year olds, or so. In fact, I told them no, when they first asked me. Then I prayed about it, and I felt the Lord was asking me to do it, to go and be a blessing to the children in the class and hopefully share some of His light with them and their parents. I have no idea how much light was shared. I know it took a lot of time preparing for the clasess. Preparing is the hardest part for me. I felt bad about the time it took from my own kids. But they seemed to handle it, and that part got easier as the winter session pressed on. I got figured out my plans and they seemed to work better each week. There were half of the ten that just loved coming back each week and loved every minute of the class, and there were the other half that couldn't sit still, pay attention to much of anything and a few of those who didn't know how to color even. They were frustrating to me. But we worked through that and I think they even ended happy. I told the co-op coordinators that I didn't think I wanted to teach anymore and that they should look for someone else. But then all day today, I have been feeling guily, or like I should say I will go ahead and do it in the fall. I think I need to pray about this.
Co-op went interesting for Emily Rose. Lest you think she is the perfect daughter stepped out of a fairy tale, I will let you know otherwise. She is beautiful and precious, a wonderful blessing, but also very human. At the beginning of winter session at Co-op, she was signed up for drawing class, which I knew she would adore, and for public speaking, which she was sure she would hate. She was so sure that she would hate it, she set her mind against and only went to class with strong persuasion. Dear. Dear. Withing ten minutes, she was in my class crying her eyes out, and there was nothing I could do to get her to go back. And I couldn't leave my little ones to go and sit with her in public speaking. Some other people got involved, and tried to get her to go in and she wouldn't. It was a bit imbaressing to say the least. I felt so helpless, and inadaquate. She ended up spending half of the time under the table and the other half just outside in the hall. Then she went to her drawing class. At home that evening, Sir Henry and I decided that education isn't optional. Some things are. Ice cream is optional. Classes that you are signed up for, and have payed for, are not. She would go to her class the next week, or she would pay for the class herself, and she would go spend the time in daddy's office at the college, doing her regular homeschool assignments. Things are a bit boring there for a 9 year old girl. Was I ever surprised when the next Friday, she went to class without a complaint and has loved the class ever since. At the final class she had to give her first real speech. She choose to talk about Ham radio. She had just passed the technician level exam 2 weeks before and was eager to show off her new little hand held radio that daddy gave her as a prize for her success. I wasn't able to be there, but I sure wish I had been, because the other ladies who were said she was so unintentionallly funny they were almost rolling on the floor in tears from all the laughter. Just their descriptions were enough to warm my heart and make me glad that I stuck to my guns and made her go to the class. She is an auditory learner and talking to people is one of her gifts, privately or publicly. And now from this class, she has learned that she can talk to people anywhere.
I'm glad we have the freedom to have school at home, and have so many learning opportunities that most 9 year olds don't have, like studying for a ham radio exam as part of school, and co-op classes in public speaking. I feel sorry for other third graders that are just being taught to pass a test, so as to make their school look good.