We've been studying logical fallacies in our little homeschool this year, and Obama gave us a great example to look at some of them up close.

In his speech on race, he had a paragraph that is now being called the "throw grandma under the bus" argument. Basically, he said he realized that what Pastor Wright said was wrong, but he could no more dismiss Wright than he could his grandmother, who, when Obama was a child, said that she was scared to walk outside near black men.

This is what is termed the "Red Herring" fallacy. It really makes no difference whether Grandma was a racist or not (and from what I knew of her, she definitely was not). What matters is whether or not Pastor Wright is racist and someone whom a presidential candidate should align himself with.

By introducing Grandma, he's trying to deflect attention. It's a fallacy of relevance. Grandma has no bearing on Pastor Wright.

But there's something else going on here.

In the Grandma analogy, Obama is implying that she is wrong. But was she? Jesse Jackson said the same thing at one point. And in his book Dreams of My Father, Obama tells the story a little bit differently. It turns out that Grandma was being aggressively panhandled by an Africa American. Her fear, then, seems justified. I'm certainly scared of walking in some urban areas at night. Aren't you?

But if Grandma's feelings were justified, and Obama is equating Grandma with Wright, then is he also saying that Wright's feelings are justified? That one really can say God **** America? That whites really are all evil? That's the subtext here.

Anyway, I had fun going through all this with the girls. They got it all on their own, too. I know Obama speaks well, but the benefit of homeschooling is that we get to see beyond the words and the style to the argument. Can you take apart his argument? What is he really saying? And is this justified? It's a good real-life example in logic.

Why don't you try it with your kids?

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I'm just finished reading the Railway Children to my 10-year-old, and it is such a great read!

I loved it as a child, and this is my second time reading it aloud. I can't recommend it enough.

It's just a nice story. Set at the turn of the century, three children are forced to leave their comfortable life in London and go live in a smaller house near a railway when their father is mysteriously taken away from them. They don't know why; we don't find out until the end of the book. In the meantime, their mother is very brave, earning money by writing, and they try not to bother her by getting to know the railway and getting involved in everybody's lives all around them.

The children are very sweet, and there's a thread of definite morality throughout the book.

At one point, Peter has acted beastly towards his sisters and the local doctor notices. He takes Peter aside and gives him quite a nice talk. He says;

"You know men have to do the work of the world and not be afraid of anything--so they have to be hardy and brave. But women have to take care of their babies and cuddle them and nurse them and be very patient and gentle."

He then goes into a wonderful description of chivalry which is still so true but sounds so anachronistic now.

Another paragraph I love:

"Don't you think it's rather nice to think that we're in a book that God's writing? If I were writing the book, I might make mistakes. But God knows how to make the story end just right--in the way that's best for us."

Anyway, a wonderful book. Don't miss it with your kids!

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If you've never read Uncle Tom's Cabin, you should. It is simply one of the best novels I've ever read, and certainly the most Christian.

We're studying history and literature this year with my grade 8 daughter using Veritas Press' Omnibus III curriculum, which is wonderful. Basically, you read original sources from the time period and then do cultural and biblical analysis on them. We're doing the civil war right now, so Uncle Tom's Cabin was one source they used.

I always shied away from it because I thought it would be much more graphic and disturbing than it was. Instead, you invariably cry at the end, but it's a good cry, like you're climbing out of a nice, warm bath. (Actually, I was. I always read in the bath. But that's another story!).

You feel as if you have touched a piece of Jesus in the character of Tom, but also in the other characters.

And what I love about Harriet Beecher Stowe is that she tells it like it is. Not all blacks are good and not all whites are evil. Not all women are good, and not all women are evil. Some men are bad, some are good. She's equal opportunity, which is the way it is in life! We can respond to difficult circumstances (in this case, slavery) by becoming like Christ, or we can become bitter and persecute others. And I think because it was written in the 1850s children today can handle it. They just weren't as graphic about violence and sex as they would have been today writing the same novel, so it's wonderful.

The two questions Rebecca and I have both enjoyed are: how is Tom a Christ figure? It's the first time we've looked at Christ figures in literature, and it led to discussions of Lord of the Rings as well. And secondly, who is in slavery? And how? What she realized is that the white slave owners were in slavery as well, just of a different sort. They were enslaved spiritually, but also physically, because they could not extricate themselves from the evil system.

Anyway, a great book. Rebecca couldn't put it down and read it in one day. So read it, even if you're not studying the civil war! It will bring you closer to Christ.

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I know it's not fun. I know it's hard work. I know it stretches the brain.

But there really is no substitute.

My best friend pulled her daughter out of school this year because she was in second grade and she hadn't learned to read. She's going through Hooked on Phonics with her and the little girl is progressing well.

But I'm really disappointed in the math aspect of her education up to now as well. It seems that the schools just don't like forcing anyone to memorize anything anymore. They just want the kids to "understand the concepts". But as far as I'm concerned, if the only math a child does before grade 6 is getting the math facts down cold and understanding fractions, they'll be fine. The rest they can pick up really quickly later. The reason that math often goes so slowly is because they haven't memorized the facts. When kids know what 5 * 6 is or what 7 * 8 is without thinking, then doing 5678 * 85 becomes just routine. It's not scary. But when each time they're confronted with a simple multiplication problem like 8 * 5 they have to think about it, math is going to be hard.

She is still counting out all her plus 2's on her hand. She knows how to line up double digit addition and figure it out, but it takes her a long time to do it because she doesn't know these facts. She'll learn them all right, but I think it's tragic that we don't stress this enough in our schools.

Here's a great link to a Michelle Malkin column about the problem with "Fuzzy Math" and "New Math". It has a 15 minute video embedded in it that is fascinating. Even my 10-year-old was glued to watching it. So check it out!

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I'm looking at getting a new spelling curriculum for Katie, who is grade 5.

Does anybody use Spelling Workout? Specifically, I'd like to know what words are in Level E and which are in Level F, because I don't know which one to buy. And I'd love any reviews that people have of Spelling Workout!

We have a mish-mash program that isn't bad, but if this one is fun, and easier for her to do independently, I'm open to a change.

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We bought Rebecca, our 12-year-old, an Introduction to Logic curriculum that comes with a DVD teacher. The problem, though, is that she's finding it really boring.

One of the benefits of homeschooling, it seems to me, is that you can rush through things the kids already understand. Yesterday in math, for instance, my 9-year-old's lesson was on volume. She already understood it, so we skipped it and I just let her do the questions rather than doing a long teaching session for something she already got. That's how we manage to homeschool quickly. We spent a lot more in-depth time yesterday, though, on Spain in the 1500s and the effects of the reconquista and of its colonization of South America.

But with DVD curriculum, they have to watch the whole thing. And Rebecca's finding it really slow. The only good thing is that I've told her she can crochet while she watches it.

It makes me a little reticent to buy a bunch of DVD based things for high school. But I can't figure out how to "skip" something, or skim something, when it's a video! It's a bit of a pickle.

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I had great plans for this year, but we are definitely slowing down. I just don't have the gumption to get all the kids' work completed everyday.

But it's hard to feel badly, because we just sailed through first semester, even if it didn't feel like it at the time. In previous years we've always schooled four days, and then spent one day running errands. This year we schooled everyday. Rebecca had a more rigorous curriculum (she's in grade 7 working with Veritas Press' Omnibus program), and it didn't make sense to take a day off. So we didn't.

With math, that means that we're at lesson 105 out of 120 for both girls. With grammar, it means that Katie is finished Abeka Language A by the end of next week. They still have more to do on other things, but they're doing really well.

But my schedule is heating up like crazy. I'm speaking at a bunch of World Vision events this year, and I'm keynoting at two women's conferences in April. I'm thinking, sleeping, and dreaming talks. So it's good not to have to worry about them anymore.

If I had my dream, I'd just let them do nothing but piano for the rest of the year. But it's so difficult to get Katie to practice anyway, I wouldn't want that kind of fight all day, everyday. So I guess we stick with history and composition.

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I haven't seen the movie yet, but I've heard good things about it. I read the book when I was 10, and just loved it. So I think I will tell Rebecca, my older one, to read it this week.

On recommendation from Maureen at Trinity Prep School, I went to The Moral Premise and read their review.

I wish I could write reviews like that! The symbolism in it is amazing, and I never saw it before. It's funny, when we studied the book in school we weren't told anything about the Christian symbolism in the book. We just read it because it was a good book. But it's good because it has a real story with Christian roots, which is what makes everything ultimately redeemed.

Read the book! It's great.

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I'm still working on my list of memorization things for kids, and I came across one poem that I think is great for kids in grades 2-6. It's really short, and has lots to talk about. Here it is:

Stupidity Street

 

I saw with open eyes

Singing birds sweet

Sold in the shops

For the people to eat,

Sold in the shops of

Stupidity Street.

 

I saw in vision

The worm in the wheat,

And in the shops nothing

For people to eat;

Nothing for sale in

Stupidity Street.

 

~ Ralph Hodgson

You can see if kids will get the moral: why are there now worms in the wheat? And talk about the whole idea that you reap what you sow, and you shouldn't do things now just because they look fun or neat without thinking about the consequences. Anyway, that's what Katie's working on now.

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It seems that every year we start out with such high hopes--we're going to all learn to speak Latin fluently this year, and conduct dinner conversations every second Thursday in Greek! We shall write a novel together! We shall build our own telescope!

You get the picture. But somehow by the middle of the year we lose steam. I think what I need to realize after six years of homeschooling is that THIS HAPPENS EVERY YEAR. So what does that mean?

It means we should take advantage of September and October, when we're fresh and enthusiastic. That's the time to launch the big projects, to tackle the hard subjects.

It means that we should take the winter months a little bit more lightly. We've cancelled swimming lessons for the next two months just to give us more time to hang around the house. We're going to go skating twice a week, though, because the kids love that. Scheduling in things the kids love is very helpful.

It also means that I need to realize that we all have our ups and downs, and that that's okay. Things will be up again, probably in direct proportion with the thermometer. Until then, I'm going to drink lots of hot chocolate, and concentrate on the subjects we like. It's okay. The enthusiasm will return.

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The kids put the Christmas tree up this weekend when I was away speaking! I went to do a Christmas outreach event at a local church, and when I got home all the Christmas stuff was up! It was awesome. They did a great job, too. They decided to try to colour coordinate this year (can you tell they're both girls?), so they put only the blue and silver and purple balls and decorations on the tree, and the other stuff went in bowls elsewhere. It looks nice.

So now we start out December homeschooling. We'll be much more low-key. Katie's already 2/3 of the way done Saxon Math 6/5 for the year, so we're going to back off entirely. She'll still do spelling, but she's almost done her Grammar book, too, so we'll back off that.

What we will do is the special unit study I bought on Barbara Robinson's The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, probably The Best Book Ever Written That Was Not Written by Jane Austen, in my opinion. We're going to have a lot of fun with it.

With Becca we're just going to work on a few essays, and let her quiet down a bit. She's worked hard.

We've been collecting knitting machines to ship over to the Children's Home in Kenya that we support and that we'll go work at again next year (we were there last year), and I think I might pull one out and do a few sweaters on it this month, too. But all in all, I'm just glad it's December.

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I was just visiting Home Grown Kids blog, and she was posting about how kids learn when they need to. I totally agree.

I read a magazine article today about "what your kids will learn in each grade". I picked it up just to see how my kids were doing. My seventh grade daughter has excelled in everything except "should be able to converse freely and knowledgeably about STD's and AIDS". Guess we skipped that part.

My fourth grade daughter has missed out on quite a bit, because a big thing was "is able to use a variety of sources, such as maps and encyclopedias and the internet, to write reports" and "can make a bibliography". We haven't actually had her do projects like that. We've been focusing on summarizing from one source and on composition.

But if she ever had to do that, it's not hard to figure out. We never taught my older daughter, but she knows how to do it. We figure if we focus on the basics, the rest will come when it needs to. And that's good enough.

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I have two very bright daughters. But sometimes I fear that they don't put enough effort into their written work. I'm an author by trade, and I was worried that maybe I was expecting too much out of them. But it's hard to get a handle on what a third grader is supposed to write like, or a sixth grader, or a ninth grader.

So I found a site with writing samples from Grades 5, 7 and 10. They have samples for four different kinds of writing (narrative, expository, persuasive, and I forget what the other one is) and at four different levels (below standard, partially meets standard, meets standard, exceeds standard). It's really very helpful to read through.

I'm going to give it to my seventh-grade daughter so she can see. When she sees what other kids her age are doing, she almost immediately improves. It's that sense of competition thing, you know? And I hate always being the bad guy, saying you have to try again. This, I think, will help. So if you wonder how your child's writing fares, check this out.

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So I was browing over at hrlabonte 's blog, and she was bringing up the point that we should never do some curriculum just because we feel we have to. We should do it because there is a point to it.

It reminded me of what happened with grammar with my kids. I've always been one of those "the basics come first and thou must not skippest on anything that art of great importance" kind of people. But last year my fourth grade daughter was doing A Beka grammar and my older daughter was doing their grade 7 grammar. To my surprise, everything that was in fourth grade was retaught in seventh grade. It was very repetitive.

Now they were teaching new things as well, and building on what they learned previously, but it was all there. So we've made a decision. Once Katie's finished the fourth grade curriculum (she started halfway through grade 3) we're stopping grammar. We're going to do two years of just composition, where we'll reinforce grammar she's learned, and then when she's in grade 7 we'll do the grade 7 curriculum.

I think composition is fun, anyway, and she really seems to like writing poetry, so let's go with what she likes! You'll learn grammar by practice.

We also have cut out a lot of middle school curriculum for Rebecca and just gone straight to high school. If they get it, they get it. No point in making them go over it ad infinitum.

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We've been studying early church history and the Creeds with Rebecca, my 11-year-old, this fall, using the Omnibus II program from Veritas Press. One of the exercises it recommended doing when talking about heresies in the early church was to talk to some Mormons. I didn't know any, so I figured that was that.

Today two knocked on my door. I think they were rather taken aback by how happy I was to see them! The poor dears, they were in their early 20s and I don't think they knew what hit them. I invited them in and got them all comfortable and dragged down all our textbooks and began asking them questions.

I usually talk with members of different cults when they stop by our door because I figure if someone wants to talk about Jesus, who am I to send them away? Especially if I can direct the conversation.

So we talked about who Jesus is, the nature of faith vs. works, and the purpose of life. All very interesting. And I made Rebecca answer a few questions, like how we know that we get to heaven by faith and not works (Ephesians 2:8, 9) and what that means. I told the Mormon guys the concept of Jesus "imputing" his righteousness on us, so that when God looks at us, He doesn't just see us as people without sin--kind of neutral in the goodness department--but as people with all of Jesus' righteousness. We are given His good works credited towards us! That's pretty cool. I don't think they ever knew that.

Anyway, we weren't getting very far going back and forth on theology, and I wanted to let Rebecca hear what they actually believe, so I let them talk for a while. They said how they believe that Jesus appointed twelve people to lead his church, but these twelve were killed so the true church died out. Very interesting. I said, "what about Paul?". They didn't know what to say. He wasn't among the 12, was he? They said that only those 12 had the authority to baptize, but I brought up those verses when Paul criticizes the churches for saying "I was baptized by Paul" or "I was baptized by Apollos".

And when they left, Rebecca and I reviewed what we learned about the endurance of the message from the early church onwards. Great lesson to bring home the message of Eusebius! We really slogged through that work, but now we can see how it actually still is practical.

So I would really recommend the Omnibus program by Veritas Press. It's great. And talk to a Mormon!

Oh, one other thing. Whenever I have people in to talk, I always ask to pray before they leave. I pray that God will give us all wisdom, and that He will put in our hearts a sincere, courageous desire to know the truth, whatever that truth may be. And that we will be able to hear His voice. They always seem impressed to see that I can actually pray, and then I figure that God will honour that prayer.

Take care everybody!

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For years we didn't actually use a Bible curriculum. I didn't want anything too "hokey", and we always figured we could make it up better ourselves. And we did a very valiant job trying.

But somehow Bible always seemed to fall through the cracks. The kids were memorizing verses and doing devotions, but not really studying the Bible as a subject to understand it.

So we broke down this year and finally admitted we needed help (that's the first step, right? :) ).

And we bought Veritas Press, Grade 4, Chronicles through Malachi for Katie. Rebecca's getting Bible through the Omnibus program.

I thoroughly recommend it. It's very rigorous, and by the time Katie is through she will really understand the prophets and the major stories in order. A lot of the stories she's studying now are really interesting, but they haven't learned them in Sunday school.

A problem we often run into in Christian teaching circles is that the girls get the same story over and over, but miss out on some of the not as well known stories, even if they're very informative. So they've done Jonah a bunch of times but never really Jezebel and Ahab. They've done Daniel, but not Elijah. That sort of thing. So this is really rounding out her knowledge.

The program stresses memorizing the names of the stories in order, so they really get a sense chronologically of what happens.

Each week we have four sessions: one we read the summary card and talk about it; two, we read the story out of the Bible and complete a worksheet; three, we do one of the projects (there are usually two for each week, but we skip one), and then four, there's a test. The test is a good chance to check her cursive, too!

I'm a big believer in learning stories in context. For instance, you learn about each king, rather than learn about the concept of grace in the Bible, or famous kids in the Bible, or even famous creeps in the Bible. I think when you understand the point of the Bible, it makes more sense. So I would highly recommend this!

You can visit Veritas Press here.

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I put a new thing up on my sidebar listing all the stuff we use for curriculum. These are only textbooks, of course; the supporting books are something else.

I've had a number of emails recently asking what we use, and I figured this would be the easiest way.

I'll start posting reviews on some of it soon. Anything anybody in particular want to know about? We really like Omnibus from Veritas Press, and I'll write more about that in a few days.

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So mamma1420 asked in the comments in the thread below how I chose my poems, and I thought I'd reply in another post.

We got started because The Well Trained Mind talked so much about memorization, and I really believe in poetry memorization because poems can convey meaning and emotion far better than anything else. They also teach really good writing skills!

We use Abeka for Spelling and Grammar, and they have poetry memorization as part of their curriculum for spelling. But I wasn't overly enamoured with most of their selections. They weren't bad; they just weren't necessarily the Great Ones, as far as I can tell (the exception would be The Owl and The Pussycat, which really is a lot of fun!). Katie also memorized a few of their other selections from last year.

But the rest of the poems we've just chosen from books I have. I have a lot of antique schoolbooks and antique readers, and those have a ton of poetry in them. Not all are good, but quite a few teach really good values, so we chose some for Katie for last year based on that.

Then I have my favourite poems, which I absolutely must have them memorize, but those are more for the older grades, like the ones I mentioned above.

I did search some sites for "great poems for kids to memorize" and didn't come up with a very good list. That's what I'd like to try to compile here, with everybody's help.

I don't think, though, that any list is going to be exhaustive. I think poetry is highly subjective; you should learn what you love. But there are some truly great poems out there. I would just check old schoolbooks to see what poems they have listed.

And then leave some more comments here!

I also have them memorize lots of Bible work, but this is something separate.

So what do you all think? Any of you have any favourites?

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I just love poetry, and I love getting my kids to memorize it! They're not always happy at the time, but they're happy with the results!

Anyway, we've done a number of poems over the years, and I thought I'd take a poll and ask what are your favourite poems to have kids memorize?

Here's what we're working on this year:

Rebecca, my 11-year-old, is finishing up The Cremation of Sam McGee. After that she'll move on to The Highwayman. We're talking epic poems  here! She has to perform them once she's got them.

Katie, our 9-year-old, is doing The Jabberwocky. Earlier this year she did The  Owl and the Pussycat, and The Eagle, by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

I'd like to have them memorize the Road Less Travelled as soon as they hit 13. Sort of a "welcome to the adult world" initiation.

We'd also like to do:

• A Shakespeare sonnet or two (especially the one quoted at length in Sense and Sensibility: Love is not love if it alters when alteration finds, or beds with the remover to remove...")
• Some of John Donne's poems
• The Bull Moose

Anyone else have other suggestions?

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