HeartsForHisGlory - Homeschool Blogger

Homeschool Fair

Mon, 12 May 2008 19:12:00 -0500

May 30, 2008
10am – 4pm
Rain OR Shine

FREE admission (donations are appreciated)
Bring your used books to sell- NO CHARGE for swappers!!

Location

(outside - bring a blanket or table)

Basketball Academy
2401 Stanley Gault Pkwy
Louisville, just east of Old Henry Rd exit at I-265

Attention Vendors:

Booth space available

Click Here

Live Music

Michael Alan Band

Food, Fun & Games for the whole family!

Mad Science Show: Up, Up and Away
Tumblebus
WLKY Weather Class
Music
Concession Stand
Inflatables

You won't want to miss this!!

What my 3 year old has learned this year

Mon, 12 May 2008 16:05:00 -0500

Sorry, I just have to share... ;-)

I've been feeling overwhelmed with trying to catch up on housework and also
feeling guilty about not doing more schoolwork at the end of this year. I'd
really wanted to have other unit studies planned for us to do after our co-op
and cottage classes ended. I've found that we've become quite lazy. =/? All of
the children slept in late this morning, so I was thinking we should get started
on *something*!!

Well, my 3yr old is at the table having breakfast all by herself and starts
singing...

"World War ll...

Axis leader were..

Tojo of Japan..

Mussolini of Italy..

And Stalin of the USSR!!!"

...a history sentence from our Classical Conversations studies! (OK, she left out "Hitler of Germany" -she's 3!!)

...and this is not the only one she recites... all on her own she will come off
with... "Watts steam engine, Cartwright's power loom and Whitney's cotton gin
spurred the industrial revolution in the 1760s...." and

"English King John signed the Magna Carta in 1215, limiting the kings power,
later England's King....." (OK, I admit I can't remember that one (there are 24)
so I just asked her to help me and she's being silly- she said, "you don't know
these do you?" LOL, I've been caught!

She's also memorized most of Ephesians 6:1-24, which was our scripture for the
year, along with some Latin.

Anyway, she's learned *alot* and SHE didn't even attend classes ( but stayed in
the nursery.) Its just from practicing with us at home and in the car. Our other
3 children learned all of these and many, many more facts. Its just incredible
to me that she picked up so much without any effort on my part, and that they
all still remember things from the beginning of the year. This program is put
together in such a way that review is logical, EASY and fun.

OK, I know you're thinking, "But she doesn't know what any of that means! What's
the use?"

Practicing memorization helps her learn how to memorize more.
It helps to hide God's word in her heart.
She's learning lots of vocabulary.
When she attends Cycle 2 in 3 years, she will memorize the information more
easily and have more time to learn about the material and understand it.
She thinks its FUN!! =D
If you'd like to learn more about Classical Conversations, check out the link
below and also feel free to email me at Coopers4Him@aol.com.

All for His glory,

Terese Cooper
www.HomeForHisGlory.com
www.classicalconversations.com

Plans for 2008

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 08:53:00 -0500

Of course ALL of our children will be doing Classical Conversations Cycle 3, which includes:
Veritas Press Timeline Cards
Story of the World Volumes 3 and 4 (audio cds)
Discovering Great Artists
Drawing With Children
Classical Music for Dummmies
Lyrical Life Science Volume 3
My Body
It Couldn't Just Happen
Scholastic American History Homework

I'm seriously considering Amy Pak's Time Travelers Series to help with notebooking and lapbooking!
AND, I also just saw Artner Reader's Guide to American History which correlates with the Scholastic book we'll be using. Has anyone used this?

We'll also attend half-day at HFHG-Educational Co-op:
Musikgarten
Kitchen Fun
Discovering Great Artists

Both 3rd and 4th grades:
Startwrite
Phonetic Zoo Spelling
US History Based Writing Lessons Volume 1- IEW
Draw Write Now

4th Grade:
Essentials Program
Saxon 6/5

3rd Grade:
Abeka Math and Language (workbooks only!) (dvd only for concepts)
Math-U-See (DVD only for learning concepts)

Kindergarten and Preschool:
Sonlight literature and Ruth Beechick methods from 3 R's
Math-U-See Primer
Handwriting Without Tears
Phonogram Cards
Bob Books and lots of easy readers

the BIG Snow!

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 12:21:00 -0500

March 8th is a day I'll not soon forget! We've had lots of fun playing in the snow over the past few days, but today it just KEPT snowing... nearly 14 inches!!

We don't have any big hills, so I took the boys to the end of our (gravel) driveway and made a track for them to sled down. It was pretty small, but they loved it.

And here's the reason I won't forget this day:

Right smack in the middle of these two boys is where I tripped and tore my ACL ligament (in my knee ) AND fractured the head of my tibia! OUCH!! At least I had plenty of snow to pack around it while waiting for Johnny to get daddy!! :)

Our Faith, A Full Quiver

Sat, 5 Jan 2008 11:50:00 -0600

(By Terese Cooper, originally published in the August 2006 issue of The Mother's Heart)

On Valentine’s Day – just ten years ago – I wrote a love letter to my husband telling him how much I loved being married to him. We had just celebrated our five-year anniversary and I looked forward to what the next five years with him would bring, “Whether we will be preparing for an empty nest or chasing toddlers and changing diapers- I’ll be happy as long as we’re together.” Little did I know that in the next five years, the Lord would answer our prayers and we would more than double the number of children had.

When I met John, we were each single parents entering our relationship with much anticipation. We had long discussions about our hopes for the future. When we discussed future children, it was bittersweet. John spoke of his dreams for a large family, which caused me to love him all the more, because I had similar dreams. But, I had a difficult confession to make. Years before, I had a tubal ligation and would be unable to have any more children. John didn’t hesitate to say that God could take care of that. My faith in having more children wavered, but John chose to love me regardless of whether or not we could have more children.

Once we married, we quickly realized the emotional and physical demands of blending two broken families into one family that would honor God. Any Christian family attempting to put together the pieces of life after a divorce has some serious challenges to face. Anger, intolerance, threats, and volatile situations from former spouses were more frequent than we’d anticipated. Explosive incidents caused us so much grief and pain, but we vowed to stand firm in our faith and be an example of Christian character. However, these months of pain and trials proved to draw us closer to the Lord, which strengthened our marriage and family.

As our faith continued to grow, God revealed to John that we should consider homeschooling our children. That step of faith has continued for almost 14 years now and the Lord has transformed our lives. Not long after we began homeschooling, I picked up a book called: All the Way Home by Mary Pride. This book sparked a conversation about our long held dream to have a large family. We started talking about the possibilities and whether it would be reasonable to try to have more children. We began praying about it together and over time God revealed how He planned to add to our family.

God provided funds for us to have a tubal reversal, and we prayed that it would be successful. It was! Our first child together, Jake, a beautiful baby boy, was such a blessing to us, and such a precious answer to our many prayers! One day we were driving along Interstate 265, going to visit John’s parents. We were just basking in the joy of God’s rich blessings upon us. That day we made a decision that radically changed the direction of our lives. John made the following statement: “I think we should just leave our family planning to the Lord.” I looked at him in awe at the moment, because it was the exact thing I had been thinking! I, too, longed to rely solely on the Lord for our family planning, completely out of a spirit of thanksgiving for God’s mercy. Also, our years of relying on the Lord for strength had taught me that I could faithfully accept His sovereign plan for our family size, and the timing of our children. When we had this brief discussion together, I felt an incredible sense of “oneness of spirit” with John. This was a unique feeling, a precious blessing from the Lord for us both to have concluded the same thing on our private walks with the Lord and to agree so readily. We were elated!

The elation turned into excitement for us as we became pregnant with Haley when Jake was not quite six months old. We became pregnant with Johnny, our sixth child when Haley was fourteen months old. This pregnancy ended in an emergency C-section, which required general anesthesia and was quite traumatic. It was at this point my faith in God’s plan began to waver. I was having doubts about whether I could handle any more. However, I always came back to Phil. 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Our family and friends met the announcement from us with concern when we became pregnant with baby number 7 just over a year later. I was nearing 40 and having so many babies so quickly was taking a toll on my energy and my strength. At this point, I have to admit we shared our family’s concern, however we tried to be positive and thankful. We were overjoyed to have been given the blessing of a seventh pregnancy, but we were also more than just a little scared. After much prayer, I was able to have a natural delivery of our seventh baby- a precious little girl!

With 7 children, ages 4 months to 20, John and I were both feeling stretched beyond capacity. We were convinced each of these children were an incredible blessing from the Lord, but began to be concerned that we were not doing a great job of caring for all that the Lord had given us. Privately, each of us was wrestling with the idea of having no more children. We told God we would trust Him with everything, but our faith was beginning to be shaken amidst the chaos of our daily lives. At this time, we were also reaping what was sown in our earlier failed marriages. Our oldest children were now teenagers stretching their wings between two families that had very different standards. We sincerely wanted to let the Lord be in control of our family size, but we also felt that we could not handle adding any more children to our very full family. It was truly an emotional and spiritual struggle for each of us.

As we drove along Interstate 265, on another visit to John’s parents, we embarked upon this topic once again. John stated simply, “I just don’t think we should have any more children.” As he spoke a huge wave of relief rolled over me. I had felt the same leading, but had been wrestling with the guilt of that decision for a while. It was amazing. We were in exactly the same spot of the drive when we made the decision to accept God’s sovereignty in the timing of our children. As we crossed the overpass, I could see the huge sloping hill behind John’s head as he looked at me and it was like a snapshot of the last conversation. That was the first time we experienced the “oneness of spirit” regarding our family size, and here in the same spot the Lord blessed us again with the same event, almost as a memorial. This was yet another gift from God, this blessed peace in the decision to consider our family complete.

Now our children are: Blaise 20, Rachel 19, Lacy 19, Jake 6, Haley 5, Johnny 3, and Maelyn 18 months. As you can imagine our lives are never dull, with three children in college it is challenging to keep up with their lives and activities and of course, the four little ones at home keep us hopping around too! We continue to homeschool our younger children and we are just so thankful for the size of our family. While we still struggle at times with energy and resources, we know that the Lord provides daily for us, as we lean on Him. We will never regret that we let Him be in charge of the timing for each of our pregnancies. Our faith is strengthened and renewed each time He reveals His provision for our lives.

Terese Cooper is married to John and is a homeschool mom of seven, with four children still at home. She is active in her local homeschool community; is the listowner of HomeForHisGlory, a network of 500 homeschool families in the Kentuckiana area; and is currently involved in the start-up of HomeForHisGlory-Enrichment Co-op, which will serve over 80 families.

Easter Service Project / Nursing Home Visit

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 21:49:00 -0500

This was such a wonderful way to spend Good Friday. Everyone involved had a really nice time. The nursing home staff had coordinated an egg hunt inside the facility and also the residents passed out candy to the children. We had more than 20 children and we walked around visiting and singing Christ the Lord is Risen. One child played the violin while we sang, which was beautiful!! And there were two older children who entertained the residents with a live bunny rabbit (in a basket!) and making balloon animals. Many times its difficult to get all four of our little ones out to serve, but this was a real JOY and we look forward to doing it again next year!

Family Fun Night

Sat, 29 Sep 2007 19:10:00 -0500

What a GREAT time we all had at the Basketball Academy

Louisville Parent Practicum: July 23-25, 2008

Mon, 7 Apr 2008 15:52:00 -0500

Educational Excellence by Equipping Parents

Every year, from May to July, Classical Conversations sponsors FREE 3-Day Parent Practicums across the US for parents and teens to attend.

Come enjoy fellowship and inspiration while practicing the skills needed to recover the "lost tools of learning". Learn to see Jesus in all you teach. Plan to use your brain and laugh a lot! This is for parents and teachers of all grade levels desiring to practice teaching from a classical, Christian perspective. The Louisville, KY Parent Practicum will focus on the subjects of Math and Writing Intensive.

The cost for adults is FREE! Pre-registration for Student Camps required -see below. Sign up early - Student Camps reach capacity quickly!

Our Practicum Speakers love teaching the fundamentals of learning and turning the difficult into the doable!

REGISTER NOW!!

Kids Camps have a minimal fee ($30 per child) to cover the leaders and supplies. Camps that will be offered:
Play Camp (ages 3-5)
Art - Geography (ages 6-8)
Institute for Excellence in Writing (ages 9-12)

My Notes on a New Classical Homeschool Book

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 14:00:00 -0600

Echo in Celebration: A Call to Home Centered Education, by Leigh Bortins (founder of Classical Conversations)

This great little book was easy to read, yet filled with challenging ideas and inspirational thoughts!

From the back cover:
"Ms. Bortins believes that anyone can be taught the basic tools of learning and how to apply these skills to embrace new adventures in both academics and life. Practicing the tools of learning allows students to take the talents they have been given and quickly adapt to new situations and new information. It is crucial to empower children to become world leaders and agents for change.

This book challenges parents to believe that they are created to competently pass on the love of learning about life tot heir children. True learning occurs when parents know that they, an not a principal or headmaster, are responsible for the education of their children, whether they personally teach their
children or carefully choose their children's teachers and mentors."

p. 12
"Home-Centered Education" refers to a middle ground between go it alone homeschooling and letting an institution make all the choices for your children's education.

p. 16
According to the government's own statistics...
-Until the 1950s education cost practically nothing; and the US had a literacy rate of 90% or better. Today, the District of Columbia spends over $13,000 a year per student; and...
-Less than 50% of American high school students graduate as proficient readers.
-Less than 15% of American high school students graduate as proficient mathematicians.
-In 2006, only 60% of high school seniors graduated.

p. 38-41
She talks about visiting a Jamaican Christian School where the first graders sat for an hour per day copying cursive scripture from a blackboard. She was appalled at first, but then realized ALL of them:

-could sit quietly
-could read every word
-had memorized lots of scripture
-had developed fine motor skills
-had the hand strength to hold a pencil for an hour
ALL of them had beautiful handwriting!

p. 43
"Do you ever find that young people, when they have left school, not only forget most of what they have learned (that is only to be expected), but forget also, or betray that they have never really learned how to tackle a new subject for themselves?"? (The Lost Tools of Learning- 1947, Dorothy Sayers)

p. 44
Good teachers have always fully understood that learning any information is a three step process...

I must first learn and practice the basic vocabulary, ideas and concepts of something new. Every subject has its own lingo, jargon, or grammar...

p 45 I have the skill to learn anything if I know how to:
-memorize vocabulary and rules (grammar stage)
-process new concepts (dialectic stage)
-clearly explain the grammar and dialectic to others (rhetoric stage)

Together, these skills are referred to in Latin as the "trivium" or "three roads."

can be re-named for non-academic subjects:
-input information
-process information
-output information

Proverbs 24
3 By wisdom a house is built,
and through understanding it is established;
4 through knowledge its rooms are filled
with rare and beautiful treasures.
5 A wise man has great power,
and a man of knowledge increases strength;

The FIRST tool of learning is to learn the GRAMMAR.

She describes how everyone has an incredible capacity to memorize information and ability to store and manipulate large amounts of grammar. "Imagine the grocery store you shop in. If I asked you to tell me where the eggs are so I could run right in and grab them, would you be able to do so? Of course you
could. The average grocery store carries 30,000 items and you can quickly tell me where to find most of them. Why? Because it is organized by category and you've shopped in similar stores repeatedly. In other words, you've seen those items over and over again in an organized way making it easy for you to memorize the store. You can categorize 30,000 items in one location."

p. 48
"I propose a good education teaches a child how to build a grocery store of the mind for every subject."

p.50
Education through DIALECTIC:

"Dialectic is often referred to as logic or critical thinking skills.I prefer to think of it as a dialogue to clear reasoning...

Dialectic skills are best learned through puzzles, discussions and group interaction led by an enthusiastic teacher... This is where we need to copy Jesus' model of discipling a few students at a time to be effective."

p. 53
Education through RHETORIC:

"Rhetoric has come to mean "sound bite" and propaganda to moderns. To classical, Christian students, it means to practice specific skills in order to be the most persuasive in expressing truth, goodness and beauty."

Chapter 5 Learning for Life

"Parents often ask for a complete subject scope and sequence for implementing the classical model. That question reveals a lack of understanding about the classical model. Instead (she has a chart that lists) a simple scope and sequence of skills taught in a classical education. The focus is on goals that
develop a free, competent human, able to confidently confront and conquer new ideas."

"The classical model is skill-based, not merely subject-based."

Chapter 6 Home-Centered Education has 3 guiding principles:

1) I am going to work hard and consistently as my child's primary discipler. She encourages reading aloud for over an hour daily and to restrict (or get rid of) TV and video games. Tell stories, play games... Controlling technology is one of our hardest challenges.

2) I am going to concentrate on teaching my students the tools of learning anything.

"The key to a classical education is modeling."

Most students don't really know what they are to master, why they are to master it, or are given the skills to master the information. Academic goals for inexperienced students should be clearly defined tasks, starting with mastering basic skill.

3) I am going to find many resources that challenge my child's mind and heart as well as finding a like-minded companion for the journey. She talks about how to find friends and mentors for our children.

Chapter 7 The Purpose:

Studying to Glorify God
"Catechism comes from the Greek meaning to resound or echo, to celebrate or initiate, to repeat another's words or deeds...... All of the educational models throughout history until the Enlightenment emphasized the idea of catechesis. It began with memorizing a set of facts and having the student echo the facts to a teacher. Then a discussion could begin that celebrated that information as God
given and used to initiate a student into a new world of thought.... Resounding scripture, seeing it in larger and newer contexts, and teaching it to someone else allows us to echo His joy. Catechesis!"

p. 105: "True education should prepare us to love learning and to see the world from God's side of the sky. Learning should affect the heart as much as the head. We should help our students look for challenging mentors more than easy textbooks. The original role of education in the church was to have students discipled by someone who looked out for their whole heart- a lover of Christ who transferred his or her delight in the Lord, somehow to show the students that they could receive His blessings now."

"We celebrate our life's purpose- to know God and make Him known!"

And from the final chapter:

"It is very hard work ro teach children 'to love Him, to imitate Him, to be like Him' in a home-centered environment, but the Psalms say that the joy of the Lord is our strength. Since every reference in the Bible about teaching is given to parents or church leaders, it follows that Christians should provide the
majority of a youth's instruction. To think otherwise is to trust non-Christians to teach your children the wisdom of God. I want my children to know I value sharing Christ and His creation with them and that there is no greater honor for me than being God's play-fellow with them. This may sound impossible to you, but if you seek first the kingdom of God, you will have those magic moments when your children know their home resides on holy ground." wow! ;-)

I was so inspired by reading this simple, easy to read book. I highly recommend you read it for yourself to gain a better, more complete understanding of a *Christian* approach to classical education. You can purchase the book here:Classical Conversations Bookstore
or there is also a copy available at the Southeast Christian Church Children's Library (which is open to non-church members.)

All for His glory,

Terese Cooper
www.classicalconversations.com

Finally, all seven together again!!

Tue, 1 Jan 2008 08:25:00 -0600

Everyone kept moving (imagine that!)