We believe good education starts with our God given right to "bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord" (Ephesians 6:4) and teach them in the style of learning that is easiest for them and at the speed that they are capable of learning at. Learning at home gives us that freedom, as well as our children will feel the love and acceptance all day instead of the rejection and hurt feelings they would normally get with a liberal public school education. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Mommyof8/ en-us Homeschool Blogger Sun, 8 Jan 2006 21:48:00 -0600 Sun, 8 Jan 2006 21:48:00 -0600 Does anyone know what happened to that family whose little boy died and then CPS took their other kids away? They were supposed to go to court right before Thanksgiving and I have been so busy that I haven't had a chance to look. I can't find their website either, it was named after their son who passed away I believe at the age of 3 from a seizure. Any help finding this would be most helpful to me. My mother has lived most of the last 20 + years overseas as a missionary (I'm a MK) and so when I tell her how bad things have gotten here in the USA with CPS and the power they have with no one holding them accountable she finds it unbelievable. Most homeschoolers dread the thought of CPS bothering them, I have had to live with that nightmare as well and its devastating results. So I want to show my mother other good Christians that have had similar problems with CPS/CYS or whatever it is called where you live so she will understand what a bad thing they are (as featured in the latest TOS magazine!!!! I would appreciate anyones help out there, please spread the word so that if someone doesn't log on and see this they will find out what I need. Thank you sooo much!! http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Mommyof8/65465/ Sun, 8 Jan 2006 21:48:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Mommyof8/65465/     One day a child declares, “I want to be an astronaut when I grow up mommy!”  Last week it was a ballerina.  The week before that it was a swim instructor.  I suppose next week it will be a concert pianist.  The parents smile a knowing grin at one another and tousle the child's hair in encouragement.  The parent knows the degree of hard work, discipline, determination, and divine favor involved in accomplishing any dream.  The parent has experienced achieving many dreams only to realize that they were not the heaven that had been imagined.     Indeed, the desire to achieve a personal heaven through hard work, discipline, and determination has been a common miscalculation since the days predating Abraham.  An entire global community united together and in singularity of purpose attempted to achieve heaven through personal achievement (Genesis 11:1-9).  As is well known this resulted in God confounding all of the world with separate languages.     In the New Testament Jesus again draws our attention toward the error of seeking to build our own towers (Luke 14:28-30).  We need to guard our homeschool dreams that they are His dreams.  When they are His dreams we know that He will build them and let us help sometimes.  When they are our dreams we know that they are destined to fail or worse still fail to deliver.  We may believe that our child should be reading at a certain level or achieve a given status but we are commanded to bring a child up in the way that they should go but not necessarily the way that we want them to go (Proverbs 22:6).  To let go and let God have his perfect way with our children is difficult but essential.  Remember that unless the Lord builds the house they labor in vain who build it (Psalm 127:1).     If only God is qualified to build our homeschools and grow our children then how much more is only God qualified to prepare us for the true heaven!  He did not allow the whole world to build a tower to work their way to heaven so why would he allow a single person to do so.  When Jesus says to consider the cost of building a tower He wants you to realize that He is the cost of building a tower.  That tower is the Cross of Calvary.  The only way that anyone may enter into heaven is by the free Gift of Grace through the Power in the Blood of Christ to bring atonement from our sins (Ephesians 2:8-9).     We bring all of our good intentions to the throne of God.  Every good work that we have performed we show to him.  Our heavenly father grins knowingly.  He tousles our hair and points to the Cross.  “My sweet child”, He says, “Don't you know that to live you first must die?” (Matthew 16:25) http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Mommyof8/43671/ Sat, 12 Nov 2005 14:11:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Mommyof8/43671/     Man the canons!  Sound the alarm!  Assume battle stations!  It’s time for another knock down drag out battle of the sexes over the organization of the home school.  “You are so disorganized.”, he accuses.  “Well you never help out with anything”, she counters.  The battle explodes and ends up with some new hopeless plan to be more organized which will inevitably end in more disappointment.  The plan is only dealing with the surface issue.  At the heart there is a much deeper concern.  The perceived disorder and disarray is in fact something else.   It is a clashing of organizational styles between husband, wife, and child.     Men in general tend to think very linearly.  In our home this is compounded because I am a computer programmer.  I have spent most of my life telling machines what to do in a very explicit step by step manner.  This is comfortable for me.  Although, I am a hard core hyper-intensive linear thinker most men engrossed in the western corporate world are pounded into this thought mold.     Women also follow a general trend of thinking which tends toward the spiral.  In our home this is again compounded because my wife spent 10 years ministering to Chinese people as a missionary firstly in Chicago and later in Taiwan.  Linguists assure us that Eastern Culture is dominated by spiral thinking as deeply as the Western Culture is by linear thinking.  A spiral thinker is rather unappreciated in Western Culture because organization begins with a central idea and spirals outward toward infinity hoping to cover as many details as possible.  The common western accusation is that he is running in circles.     The stumbling block to the home schooling family is in misinterpreting differing organizational styles as a lack of organization.  This is nothing more than common myopia.  In fact our Lord’s teaching style of using parables demonstrates a spiral organization as the Apostle Paul with his Greek schooling illustrates linear thinking though his masterful logical arguments.   If the two styles work so efficiently together to spread the Word of God then the same harmony could be found in the home school as well.  All that is needed is love, respect, and communication.     A first step is in tossing out the years of indoctrination of a typical western education.  If the system had all the answers then what is the point of home schooling the children at all?  The strength of linear organization is in efficient completion of a focused singular task.  The strength of spiral organization is in multi-tasking.  The nature of home schooling and a woman’s world in general is multitasking.  The list is endlessly comprised of interruptions such as crying babies, ringing telephones, and nagging spiral thoughts that seem random to a linear thinker.     A second step is in identifying the common central goals.  Many home school families have goals such as instilling spiritual values into the child, helping the child learn, building relationship with the child, and having a great time.  In many ways if the central objectives are being obtained then the method of accomplishing them is trivial.      In our home school a mind meld is beginning to ensue.  That is her spiral thinking and my linear thinking are beginning to merge into a complimentary organizational strategy.  Typically my wife will sit down and brainstorm by naming off all the things that she needs to get done throughout the day.  I will take these ideas and add a few of my own and build them into check lists.  The method and chronology of accomplishing these checklists is not important to us.  Instead they serve as a measuring stick to determine if our central objectives are being accomplished.  This leads to more success and less clashing of the strategies of two parents who were always dedicated to the same outcome.     There are in fact many other organizational styles worth researching that are beyond the scope of this article.   This becomes exceedingly important if a home school crosses cultural or racial boundaries.  The beauty of a home school is that it can be what ever the teachers want it to be.  As we sink deeper and deeper into the Love of God shared between one another then all of these differences seem to vanish into nothing and that is the most important lesson of all for a home school. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Mommyof8/32141/ Sat, 8 Oct 2005 19:57:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Mommyof8/32141/ Want to post, but been so busy trying to get back into the swing of things since having the summer off.  Honey bear is dealing with the lazies and  not wanting to crack down and get her work done. So we are using things like time on her Leap Frog and/or doing fun science experiments with her Dad to for a reward system if she gets her worksheets done on a consistant basis. I am very fortunate to have a computer programmer for a husband, so he writes the programs for worksheet generators for me so that I don't have to look for free ones online. Any of you out there that are looking for free worksheet generators or wish there were one out there you can't find, it is our ministry to homeschoolers to provide these free of charge to you. I will start posting them on my blog so that you can take advantage of them.  If you have an idea for one that you can't find, just send me an email letting me know what it is you are looking for and I will let my husband know and see if it is possible or not. We don't have all the ones written that he will write, so if you don't see what you are looking for it will probably be coming soon. I will post the links soon. So bookmark my blog so you can see them  as I add them. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Mommyof8/31514/ Thu, 6 Oct 2005 14:47:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Mommyof8/31514/