Lilliput Station Adventures - Homeschool Blogger

Life is Labor, and Death is the Transition Phase

Thu, 5 Nov 2009 06:34:00 -0600

The whole of creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth as it awaits its final redemption from the effects of the fall. ~Romans 8:22

As my grandma lay dying a year and a half ago, I was struck by how her suffering reflected the pains of childbirth. I felt as I watched that she was somehow being "born" ino heaven, passing out of the pain of this world to be caught up in the loving arms of her Savior on the other side, as all the angels stood by watching in joyful anticipation. I even had this Norman Rockwellish image in my head of the whole event. While it was very sad for all of us, there was a certain beauty in the process.

Yesterday, this thought came back into my head as I was reading from a book called Blessing Your Husband by Debra Evans. After quoting Romans 8:22, Mrs. Evans goes on to say, "Though it is easy on difficult days to forget our ulimate goal, our labor and groans are deeply productive where God's eternal purpose for us is concerned. 'For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:17-18' "

Not much is said about the symbolism of childbirth in the Bible, but there it is, an answer to the question of suffering and a picture of our salvation, put into words that only a mother could fully understand. That's just an awsome thought, isn't it, that God is speaking specifically to us who have gone through the pains of childbirth? Just picture the whole of creation groaning in the midst of labor, and then that final moment when the child arrives and there is instant and complete relief, and overwhelming joy. Our labors are over, our sinful natures are gone, along with all the pain that accompanies them. Amazing! And not just us, but someday "the whole of creation" will feel that relief. Don't you long for that day?

History of Art Co-Op: Ancient Art

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:16:00 -0500

We've been studying the history of art at co-op these past two months. The class is being taught by one of our wonderfully talented co-op mothers and I have really enjoyed being a casual participant. Every week, she sends home several projects ideas. The children are supposed to complete them as written, or do a similar project that they or their parents might think up.

My mom was in town for the first two weeks of co-op, so we were taking break from our other schoolwork. This gave the children a lot of free time, so the first week's of projects were a lot fancier than the later ones. For Ancient Art, the assignment was to do a cave painting using a brown paper bag as your "painting" surface.

Since it has been a while since we have done an papier mache, I suggested that my oldest son make a cave diorama for his cave paintings.

He liked this idea and made a second diorama for Egyptian Art.

There actually wasn't a project for Egyptian Art, but the two younger boys each made a picture anyway.

The Greek Art project was supposed to be painting pottery. Since we had already done several projects like this when we studied Greece two years ago, we decided to try a project we hadn't done- scratch art!

The younger boys had a great time coloring, painting, and scraping.

For Roman Art, the children were supposed to make a mosaic. There is no way I was going to afford materials for five children to make real mosaics, so we settled for the paper variety.

However, I really WANTED the children to be able to experience making a "real" mosaic. While shopping in the local bakery and bulk foods store, I spotted some chocolate rocks and inspiration struck. Why not make a mosaic on a sugar cookie?! We ended up purchasing several kinds of dried fruit and my 12 year old designed a delicious mosaic snack to share with all his friends. (CHEF are the initials of our co-op.)

My 12 year old son and my 11 year old daughter decided to combine the first three projects by making miniture art museums to showcase their work. My son did this in the form of a pop-up inside of a file folder. This was then three hole punched so he could store it in his notebook.

And my daughter made hers inside of a small cardboard box.

Teaching Literature in High School with High School Classes You Can Use

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:19:00 -0500

The responsibility of teaching highschool literature can be a bit overwhelming. There are so many questions to be answered: what books ought to be read, should poetry be included, should literature and writing be taught separately, what are the elements of literature, how should literature be analyzed. The author of this book does a wonderful job answering all these questions and more.

If you plan to homeschool through the highschool years, you will find a wealth of information and encouragement in this book. The author explains in great detail her own goals in teaching literature, and gives several practical ways to accomplish these goals. There are ideas for teaching literature in a book club, through blogging, and also through traditional classes. In addition to detailed lesson plans for several different literature classes (which are alone a good enough reason to buy this book!) there are also ideas to help you plan your own classes. Two pages are devoted to analyzing literature, both verbally and in writing, with questions to ask about plot, setting, characterization, and point of view. Literary research papers are also discussed, with step by step instructions on how one should be completed. There is even a list of Christian works which can be used as refrences for these papers. Finally, there are several blank book report forms for your child to use in recording what they have read.

This book has everything you need (except for the literature) to teach literature to your highschool student. There are more than enough ideas to help you plan your own class. Or you can go the easy route and use one of the plans included in this book. This book has been a great blessing as I plan our American literature studies for next year. It has saved me many frustrating hours of trying to figure this all out for myself!

Purchase from Currclick:

Teaching Literature in High School with High School Classes You Can Use

Another Reason To Dodge Cameras

Thu, 1 Oct 2009 15:33:00 -0500

Ducking, dodging, and hiding is a common occurance wherever cameras are found. (Let's face it, some of us just aren't that comfortable with our photgraphic image.) But with the increasing popularity of digital technology comes yet another reason to hid our faces- and those of our children- from the lens.

Warning! This photo may appear on Facebook!

It seems like everywhere I turn these days I find my childrens' names and faces plastered on the internet. And, to be honest, I find this frustrating. Though my husband and I have tried to protect our children by keeping their personal information private and by not posting their pictures in public places, there is no way we can control the actions of others.

So, what's the solution?

Should we, like a Scrooge of the blogosphere, approach each party with a request to remove the offending snapshots? Or should we arrive at every social event with an announcement of our wishes? Is it even reasonable to expect that our wishes be followed in this area? Does it really make a difference anyway?

Any thoughts?

If You Give a Child Some Cheese Wax . . .

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:50:00 -0500

Recently mother-in-law bought the children some little cheeses as a special treat. Who knew it would lead to a new hobby for my 12 year old son! Here are some examples of the wax modeling he has done.

wolf chasing deer

Billy goat

The neatest thing about this medium is that he can rework his creations to make a new masterpiece . . .

butting goat

We have a new baby!

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:43:00 -0500

Meet our newest addition:

"Cracker Jack"

born August 12, 2009 at 6:06 AM

8 pounds, 2 ounces; 21 inches long

Creating Opportunities

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:32:00 -0500

On my new Squidoo page titled Homeschooling? Six Things You Need To Know I talk about taking advantage of educational opportunities that we find around us. But sometimes, we as homeschool mothers must go one step further and actually help to CREATE these opportunities.

For instance, my oldest son has recently decided that he does in fact want to go to college (!). His reasons being:

to learn how to type
to learn all he can about fixing and opperating computers
photography

Now, you can see from this list that college is not an absolute necessity in order for him to reach his goals. However, learning opportunities are certainly required and I as his teacher have the responsibility to create those opportunities for him.

Ofcourse, it might be easier for me to ignore his goals and stick to my OWN plan for his education. And I might suceed in giving him an education which is excellent by many standards. But, in reality, I will have crippled him and left him unprepared to follow the path God is directing him to follow.

This isn't to say that education should always be left to the whims of the child. I am not advocating unschooling or child-led education, but we do need to take into consideration the goals and interests of our children, especially as they grow older. And we ought to do all we can to help them to reach those goals. So, with that in mind, I'm off to create some opportunities!

What opportunities have you created lately?

Great Notebooking Deals To Start Your School Year!

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 09:43:00 -0500

Debra at NotebookingPages.com is having a HUGE back-to-school sale. During the first week of August (3rd-7th), you can get a 50% discount coupon to the store!

During this first five day portion of the sale, you can buy EVERYTHING in the store for just $50.00! That's a great price for some wonderful notebooking sets. Basic Primary and Regular-Lined Pages, Character Study Pages , Alphabet Copywork Pages, Other assorted copywork pages, American Presidents Pages, Famous Composer Pages, Famous World Explorers Pages, Presidential First Ladies Pages, Fifty States Notebook sets with bonuses (this is a HUGE collection!), 7 diferent history sets, Latin & Greek Word Study Pages, Nature Study Pages, and 4 different bird study sets! And, if you purchase the full set during these five days, you will also receive a special e-gift package from several of her publishing friends (including Lilliput Station!) as well as some of her own free gifts.

There will also be a Pro-Click Binding System prize giveaway for all participating customers. (And wouldn't we ALL like to win one of those!)

Remember, these great deals will only be around for 5 days! (Though all sets will be 35% off for the remainder of the month.) Don't miss out!

NOTEBOOKINGPAGES.COM

"First" Day of School

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:26:00 -0500

With the baby coming sometime in August and my mom coming for a two week visit in the middle of September, I decided it would be easier to just take those months off. So, in order to fit in the days we need to complete our schooling this year, we ended up with a crazy schedule that starts today and goes for two weeks before we break for two more months.

So, today was our first official day of the school year, and it went really well. In reality, however, my children got bored with vacation long ago and started working on some of their favorite subjects on their own. Here are some pictures of an experiment my thirteen year old did last week. It is from the Apologia Physical Science book.

And here is my four year old working with some cloths pin counting cards I made so she could practice her number recognition and counting skills.

She thought these were the best fun and got them out again today to work on. I had planned to work on alphabet sounds with her today, but she surprised me by knowing more than I thought she did. So, we ended up doing some reading instead. She did great (normally she pretends she doesn't know things, but today she actually did the work) and I was very pleased.

And here are a couple more pictures from today. First, a model of the solar system my eleven year old made. This experiment comes from the Apologia Astronomy book. We had a little trouble getting the balloons the right size, but I still think it looks cool.

And here is my favorite picture. This is my five and a half year old practicing her reading. She is the one I wrote about on my Preschool Phonics lens. As you can see, she still can't sit still!

Curriculum Plans For the 2009-2010 School Year

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 18:07:00 -0500

I spent a good deal of time last week going through my pile of disks containing the school files I have purchased or gathered from the internet. I was also finishing up the last of my planning for next year's school and getting ready to place a final curriculum order. As I looked through my files, I realized how foolish it was to order a bunch of extra books when I already had what I needed- "free" for the printing. So, this year I am going to be using as many of those resources as I can. Here is our plan, using what I had already purchased, a few things left over from last year, and a bunch of things I am printing from my files. Now I just have to finish printing before the baby arrives!(As you can see, my older children are somewhat behind in math, the younger two boys are behind in language arts, and my 5 year old is advanced to the point that I can't stay ahead of her. I hope to get everyone else caught up this year while keeping my daughter from getting bored.)

In addition to what is listed below, we will also start each morning with Bible reading, learning new hymns using a free online digital hymnal, and doing Home Ec using a curriculum by Christian Light Publications.

JCT- 13 yob

Horizons Math Grade 6 book 1 & 2/ Math Phonics pre-algebra/ Painless Algebra

Apologia Physical Science with Live-N-Learn lapbook

Analytical Grammar

Great States! workbook

Economics and Government using:

the Uncle Eric series by Richard Maybury

Capitalism For Kids by Karl Hess

Economics: A Free Market Reader

Notgrass American Government

US Economics, American Government, The United States Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence lapbooks from Hands of a Child

CET- 12 yob