Learning As We Go - Homeschool Blogger

Happy New Year's Eve, as it were!

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 10:55:00 -0600

Tomorrow begins the liturgical Church Year! So Auld Lang Syne and Happy New Year and all that to you!

Be sure to check out the

at A Ten O'Clock Scholar, hosted by Kerry.

Grateful

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:16:00 -0600

For the beauty of the earth
For the beauty of the skies
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies
Over and around us lies

Lord of all to thee we raise
This our joyful hymn of praise

(Words from "For the Beauty of the Earth" by John Rutter)

Third Annual Advent Carnival

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:16:00 -0600

Kerry at A Ten O'Clock Scholar is hosting the Carnival of Advent Traditions. Advetn begins Sunday, November 29, and the Carnival opens Saturday the 28th.

There will be posts on how we understand Advent as Christians, what Advent looks like practically in people's families, how observing (celebrating!) Advent deepens our understanding of Christ and Christmas-- lots of good stuff!

Please check it out!

Advent Devotions 2009

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 09:48:00 -0600

We love Advent around here. I've shared some of our Advent traditions here and here.

This year I wrote a four-week series of lessons for our children's ministry at church. We've not had children's Sunday school or children's church since May, but we're doing a four-week series in Advent with the theme of Preparation. I'm sharing it here, and you can feel free to use it for your church, or your family devotions. The scripture passages are the gospel readings for Advent, Year C, in the Revised Common Lectionary. If you want the whole "curriculum" including my craft suggestion and full children's church routine, I can email it to you. Otherwise, here is the big picture with how I present it.

Happy Advent!

Advent Devotion, 2009

I’d like us to think about our time with the children as a time to pose questions, to lay before the children the symbols, the truth of the Bible. But I don’t want us as teachers to be chewing it and digesting it for them. These passages are hard and beautiful and FULL. Your pastor could preach all day on them without exhausting their meaning—let’s not try to reduce the passage to a kernel of truth and a craft for the kids. They’re (hopefully) going to live with these passages the rest of their lives.

It is like a feast, and our job is to prepare the most beautiful meal of the Gospel. But we can’t make them eat it. So try to resist the temptation to pare down the amazing imagery in these passages into something digestible. We’ll be amazed what they pull out, even if we don’t spoon feed them.

If the children ask you, “What does that mean?” please turn the question back to them, “Well, what you do think it means?” Ask a question, “I wonder what Jesus meant when he said…” or reflect with them, “I wonder why he said that.”

Theme: Preparation

Week 1: Luke 21:25-36

Jesus is coming again. How does the Church prepare for the second coming?

Week 2: Luke 3:1-6

Jesus is coming again. How does each of us prepare?

Week 3: Luke 3:7-18

Jesus is coming this Christmas. How does the Church prepare?

Week 4: Luke 1:39-45(46-55)

Jesus is coming this Christmas. How does each one of us prepare?

My hope is to present the Gospel with a wide lens first, in light of the second coming. Jesus is coming for everyone. Sometime in our future, he is coming, and we have a chance to prepare, both as the Church, and as individuals. Week One’s scripture recognizes the distress in the world, that things are not as they should be—there is distress among nations, and fear. Children are in tune with that. They hear the news, they see their parents’ worry. Children have fear. But this week’s passage reminds us to be alert and to pray.

Week Two narrows down the lens: how do I prepare for the second coming? Well, I look at John the Baptist, who prepared for Jesus to come the first Christmas. He preached repentance and forgiveness, and those are God’s gifts to us even today. I, too, can teach others about repentance and forgiveness—and I can repent, and I can be forgiven (and I can forgive).

In Week Three’s passage, John again is addressing the crowds, for how to make room in their hearts for Jesus. He specifically tells them to get rid of greed, of the stuff in their lives that fills them up with what is not of God. He tells us to share what we have and be satisfied with what we’ve been given.

Week Three is tricky, because this message can so easily be boiled down into “Don’t make too long a list for Santa,” and, “Be grateful for the underwear you get from Aunt Ruth.” Instead, I hope we can see John’s exhortation to share as applying also to the Gospel—we are to share the Gospel, to share Jesus with the world around us.

Week Four is our chance to present the Gospel to the children directly. For this reason, it’s the culmination of the four weeks. Mary and Elizabeth meet, and the babe within Elizabeth leaps as Jesus—within Mary—approaches. Our hope is that each of us, as we prepare for Christmas, will make room in our lives for Jesus. We have prepared by being alert and praying (Week 1), repenting and receiving forgiveness (Week 2), and clearing out the idols and greed in our hearts (Week 3). Now we have room in our hearts and lives for Jesus. But rather than focusing on Mary, I want us to focus on Elizabeth. She (and John within her) recognized the Savior, even though they couldn’t see him inside Mary. And the children in our church, though they cannot see him directly, can see the signs of him all around. Our prayer is that they will recognize Jesus—hidden in all the trappings the world piles on top of this holy day—and rejoice, like John.

Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:30:00 -0600

Last week I pulled Dorothy Sayers' Gaudy Night off my shelves and began to reread it. It's been so long since I read it that I can't remember whodunit. Last time I read it for the mystery; I came back to it this time for the love story. But what I am reading is neither mystery nor love story-- I am reading instead the story of a woman who is trying to reconcile brains and heart (her words). This theme runs through the book overtly: in conversations between Harriet (the Oxford alumna cum novelist) and the females dons in her college-- and in Harriet's musings; and covertly, in the portrayals of all the women in the book.

One passage that struck me particularly is a conversation between Harriet and a fellow alumna, a talented scholar, who had married a farmer and left the academic life. She describes herself as a razor used as a plough, and now has found herself too dull to be a razor any more. There is a striking passage as well about the farmer's wife's thoughts about the nobility of farming, and Harriet's response: "I'm quite prepared to admit that... A ploughshare is a nobler object than a razor. But if your natural talent is for barbering, wouldn't it be better to be a barber, and a good barber-- and use the profits (if you like) to speed the plough? However grand the job may be , is it your job?"

It fits my melancholy mood regarding my work (not to mention my time on the CSA). For many years, I have been torn between my work as a physician and my calling as a wife and mother. They are both calls, both gifts, both noble duties. I wonder sometimes if I am the razor, used as a plough-- or a plough who tried to be a razor.

Homemade Play Dough

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:20:00 -0600

I don't want to debate the merits of homemade playdough v. store-bought. I do both, but when all that's left in my house is this:

and I have neither the time nor the inclination to run to the store (where I'd spend way more than the $4 I'd spend on playdough), here is how I make it:

Play Dough

Bring 1 cup water, 1 tbsp oil and the food coloring of your choice to a boil.

Add in 1/2 cup salt and stir for 1 minute. Then add 1 tbsp cream of tartar and 1 cup flour. Mix well over low heat until it firms up, then put the lump on a plate and knead it until smooth and cool enough for your children to handle.

This is a very forgiving recipe-- you can actually add the ingredients in any order, but I find the color comes out better when I do it this way. Also, I used kosher salt one day and ended up with large grains still in the dough. So maybe use iodized (small grain) salt.

Just for fun, let's pan out from the play dough photo to show you what the kitchen really looked like...

But wait-- there's more:

Now you know what I'll be working on while the kids play with play dough.

Blessings to you today!

Library Books

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:12:00 -0600

We love library books, but I have yet to find a system for keeping them in the house.

I don't mean they walk away, but they're always being moved from room to room (and hiding), and in the living room, which is where most of our family reading happens, they end up in a messy pile. How do you manage them?

Christmas Crafts

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:01:00 -0600

Wow-- thanks, friends for some wonderful, thoughtful comments on my Gaudy Night post. You are an encouragement to me! Now, on a lighter note...

I would so love to have an entirely homemade Christmas, but... well, it takes two to tango. So I keep plugging away at my own gift giving habits and don't worry about everyone else's. I'm trying to instill in my children a love for making gifts, rather than my usual way of going about things-- nagging.

So we've been making lots of snakes, and Christmas ornaments, and we'll be doing some freezer-paper stencils. And I've been doing lots of knitting. Fun, fun, fun! What are you working on?

Bike Rides

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:24:00 -0600

Even SweetP loves her bike helmet. It reminds me of the verse in Proverbs, "Teach a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it."

Nature Walks

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:05:00 -0600

Autumn is one of my favorite times for nature walks. The bugs have died down, the sun doesn't burn, and somehow it's easier for me to see things: geese on the lake, nests in the trees, and my children, disappearing into the sky. I love autumn.