Sep. 30, 2005 Individuality
Well, I see I haven't
posted what we have been doing as far as education in a few days.
Mostly because we haven't done much, I suppose. Here is a
snapshot of our day:
I made mush for breakfast just because it
was in a song in a video the kids have been singing (over and over and
over). It wasn't too bad, and definitely cheap! Dd 4mos got
to eat her first solid food (not mush, but it sure looks like
it.) It will be nice when she is through all the grain cereals
and we begin making her baby food. I enjoy making baby
food. It isn't that hard, and I really feel like I'm doing
something very good for my baby.
We just finished up our little study of the ten commandments this
morning. We looked at the last one, about coveting, and compared
it to Hebrews 13:5. "...be content with such things as you have
for He Himself has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake
you.'" After reading this, she reasoned that we should not covet,
but be content with what has been provided. We have His promise
and that is more important and better than anything we could want in
this world. We are supposed to seek after these things, the
treasures in heaven, and not cars and houses and toys.
She
practiced some phonograms while I worked on my quilt and did her math
while I put the baby down for a nap. This afternoon, we did a
history lesson involving pasta. In history, we are focusing on
God's principle of Individuality. We have discovered so far that
God works through individuals to bring about His plan for the nations
and we have been looking at some examples, such as Noah and
Abraham. Today, we backed up to reflect some on the principle
itself and how God prepares individuals to carry out His plan.
What better way to accomplish this than making our own pasta? As
we mixed the ingredients, we talked about what it means to become a
Christian and what changes in a person's life. I lead quite a
bit, but she finally got that the desires of our heart changes. I
made the comparison between the dry flour and salt and a lifeless
existence without God. Then we added the egg mixture and stirred
it while we talked about what it means to live with God.
Then we started kneading. We discussed how the bible does not
promise our life to get easy when we follow Jesus. In fact, He
only promises persecution. We talked about that a bit, and then I
asked her why she thought we had to knead the dough so long and so
hard. She figured that was to mix it and prepare it so we could
shape it. I told her it was just like that to walk with
God. Trials are there to test us and form us. The bible
promises that we will be conformed into the image of Christ, and that
is not easy. It takes a lot of time and shaping.
We talked about how Christians have the same spirit and are being
conformed to the image of Christ, but that does not mean we are all the
same. We talked about our individuality. She noted that we
look different, we have different interests and we have different
talents. This is all part of our individuality. To
emphasize this point, I showed her how to make some different shapes
with the pasta. I pointed out that although each piece of pasta
came from the same substance, each was unique. Even the ones that
look similar are not exactly the same. It is the same with
us. We have the same substance in Christ, but it is displayed
diffeently in each of us. We are all special creations of God,
created for a unique purpose.
Here is a sampling of the shapes we made:
It was delicious! I couldn't bring myself to dump store-bought
spaghetti sauce all over our homemade pasta, so I made a sauce with
garlic, butter and some spices. Yum!
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Sep. 17, 2005 Bread of Life
Today was one of those days that measured up to my idealistic notions of homeschooling I had before beginning.
We started by singing a hymn with the musical accompaniment of a midifile I found on the internet. I then printed off a copy of the food pyramid and we talked about it. First, in general terms, then I asked her why the bread and cereals group was at the base. She reasoned that they were healthy, you needed more servings of them than anything else and, with some leading from mom, that group provides the base or foundation of a healthy diet.
We then gathered our ingredients for bread making. Today we made flat bread (and corn muffins while waiting for the dough to rise). I had intended on making some other kinds of bread, as well, since today is baking day, but we are short on flour.
She measured all the ingredients herself.
Here she is, cutting flour.
She mixed the ingredients, herself, and kneaded the dough. While kneading, we talked about life when Jesus lived. We talked about "our daily bread" and how much a part of daily life bread was. It is the foundation of our physical life. I asked her who the foundation of our spiritual life should be. She answered, "Christ." I'm not sure she really understood the question, but she always figures Jesus is the answer if she doesn't quite know what I'm asking.
I told her the bible says that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that falls from the mouth of God. We talked about that a bit. It is, afterall, by His word that all the ingredients exist in the first place. I like that notion. Even the atheist lives by the Word of God, even if he denies it. She talked about Jesus holding up the bread, blessing it and sharing it with the thousands. While the bread rose, we made corn muffins and had some time to watch Bob the Builder. Then came the fun part: punching the dough.
God provides all our needs. He gives us the bread we need for today. He has blessed us in abundance. So much so that it is common for us to confuse needs with wants. In fact, God does more than provide our needs. God IS our need, just like bread. I told dd6 that the bible calls Jesus the bread of life while she rolled out the dough.
Why would the bible say something like that? "Because He gives us bread," she said. "He feeds all the people." True. I lead her a bit more, referring to the food pyramid and the bread at its base...it's foundation. "Jesus is our foundation!" She finally got it. Jesus is our daily bread because we need Him EVERY day. For everything, even when we don't notice it. While we stacked the finished bread for its photo-op, I told her this bread is a lot like the bread Jesus would have eaten. It comes from the same area of the world. Only now we are using processed white flour instead of stone-ground whole wheat flour.
For dinner, we had a somewhat traditional Middle Eastern meal. Meals in Iraq and Syria commonly involve fresh yogurt (I made this two days ago), tomatoes, chicken, rice, fresh fruit and, of course, flatbread. The rice is made a little differently. It is first fried in olive oil and then poured in the boiling water to cook. The chicken is often too salty for most American tastes. The meal is eaten sitting on the floor, and family members often eat from a common dish. It is commonly served with a yogurt beverage consisting of equal parts yogurt and water, salted to taste. I love the stuff, but no one else in my family does. And the meal is concluded with Assam tea, served about as sweet as your kids would probably drink it, if you let them.
While we ate, I instructed my daughter in proper eating, as it was taught to me by a family of refugees from Iraq. We prayed and then broke the bread. She immediately associated that with Passover. I told her that was similar, but there would have been no yeast in the bread. Then you use the bread and your thumb to scoop small portions of rice or take a piece of chicken. We practiced and I pointed out how you always consume the meal with a bite of bread. It is the foundation yet again. Not only does your body need it, but even the way it is eaten shows bread as a base. Eat bread dipped in plain, fresh yogurt. Eat bread with a small amount of rice pressed on it. Eat bread with a morsel of chicken. Moosh a tomato wedge in the rice, and eat that with a piece of the bread. That's how our life should be. With Jesus, the bread of life, at the base of everything. He is our sustenance and His provisions are but flavoring. Christ does not meet our needs. He IS our need.
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Today, I decided to make more of an
effort to make sure that I am not trying to push my daughter. I
think our pace has been good for the most part, but the day does seem
to drag on. I tend to look at the clock when we start and again
when the last lesson is put away and think..."Whoa. We spent way
too much time on this." But then I think, somewhere in there we
took a walk, watched a show, had naptime for the younger ones and free
play time for dd6. She is not sitting and studying that long.
For bible today we spent more time on the concept of "created in His
image." I got out my clay, showed her how to mix the colors and
had her look closely at herself in the mirror. She made a little
clay face "in her image." We talked about what she would want the
image of her to do if she could breathe the breath of life into it like
God. She said she would want it to do good things, and then
decided she would have it do her work for her. We talked about
how that is kind of what God wants for us, as well. We were
created "unto all good works." That might be what we get into
next. I have to think about it. I had been planning on
moving into the ten commandments and the beatitudes as a model of how
God wants us to be.
It has been almost a week since we have had a formal time to work on
the phonograms from Writing Road to Reading, so I need to get started
again before I get out of the habit. I will probably do that this
afternoon. My dd2 is sick, so we'll see what I get too between
all the snuggling for a sick boy and an infant daughter.
In
math, we are still working on number bonds and did the same activity
with the bean counters I described earlier, except with the number
seven. She figured out that if
5 + 2 = 7, then 2 + 5 = 7
too. That sounds obvious to an adult, but a good deal of my class
seemed to stick there when I used to teach first grade. I was so
happy she got it entirely on her own. I didn't even ask any
leading questions. I was going to work on that later. We're
wrapping up the concept of order and making personal applications for
how to order our lives to please God. Tomorrow, I want to start
on the concept of "immutability" but I'm not sure if she will
understand it. She might understand "unchangeable."
Last
night, we read another chapter of Mary Slessor, Queen of Calabar for
geography. Mary has just gotten to the mission post in Nigeria,
and we enjoyed following her journey on the map. We also got a
brief introduction to the wildlife of the area, and dd6 is keeping a
log of the animals as they are mentioned. Despite all her
confidence in Scotland, she is experiencing the first twinges of fear.
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