Homeschool Hints

Home Schooling Hints

I love home schooling! I love the fact that we can, for the most part, make our schedule around our family’s choices instead of a school calendar. I love piling up in the living room with an awesome book and reading and discussing it with my children. I love seeing the light come into their eyes as they learn and listening to them grapple with big issues of life and faith in the security of our home. I love it that I can write late into the night and chose to start school a little later the next morning. But most of all, I love it that Jerry and I can share Christ with our children as the primary influence in their lives and that we can fit “school” to the passions and needs of each child instead of forcing them to fit someone else’s system. I feel strongly that God has a plan for each of my children and that He will lead their dad and me to help shape their lives for that plan.

Of course, like anything else, home schooling has “those days” when I have to remind myself that I am called by God to do this job and that I love it! Below are reviews of some of the books that have helped me along the homeschooling journey as well as curriculum and resource recommendations. As I add to this section I’ll start at the top with new information so check back in from time to time!

Homeschooling Your High Schooler: From Transcripts to Graduation is overflowing

with real-life experience from those who have "been there, done that." Well-known authors, speakers and curriculum developers such as Inge Cannon, Paula Moldenhauer, Maggie Hogan, and Ann Zeise share their personal experiences and insights. Published by the Old Schoolhouse Magazine.

With the daily demands of homeschooling pressing upon us continually, it is

easy to forget the big picture of why we’ve chosen this path. Zan Tyler’s book, 7 Tools for Cultivating Your Child’s Potential, not only reminded me of why I made this decision in the first place, but put into words so much of what I believe about the foundational components of homeschooling.

Her book explores biblical principles that can guide parents as they pour into their children. These include: establishing identity, cultivating intimacy, discovering purpose, developing worldview, building character, providing stimulating academics, and fostering leadership and communication skills. As I read her book I found myself thinking more deeply about concepts I’d already embraced and processing ways to apply new truth to our homeschool. The book spurred some wonderful discussion between my husband and I about our goals as parents of the four amazing children God has given us.

Zan also works with LifeWay to bring support to homeschoolers. You can sign up for a free e-zine for homeschoolers when you visit LifeWay’s homeschooling page.

Crosswalk.com offers several free homeschooling e-zines. The articles in these e-zines cover topics from curriculum to encouragement to political issues from writers who’ve walked the homeschooling journey. You can sign up for the ezines that interest you when you visit their homeschool site. While you’re there you might want to browse their archives where a wealth of information and encouragement is waiting. I currently have several articles there. For specific titles and links see Paula Pens.

I recently began receiving an e-zine with parenting tips from Effective Parenting. I’ve found the tips to be insightful, wise, and full of grace. The tips are delivered to your email box and are free of charge. The authors, Dr. Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN, BSN have a speaking and writing ministry to

parents. I recently began one of their books, Say Goodbye to Whining, Complaining, and Bad Attitudes in You and Your Kids. Though I haven’t finished it, I’ve found it to be a fresh, grounded look at honor within the family. Obedience can be demanded, but doesn’t always reach beyond outward compliance. Honor deals with the heart. I plan to go back through this book in some form with my children after I finish it. I pray I can become a mother who truly honors them and teaches them to honor each other. I highly recommend this book. I’ll be reading more by these authors.

I recently began receiving The Old School House Magazine. It arrives four times a year, is full color, and packed with resources for home schooling, personal stories of the home schooling journey, and thought provoking facts. Each issue is so thick it’s more like receiving a journal or booklet than a magazine. It includes recommendations for curriculum and explores different styles of home schooling.

From what I’ve seen so far in the home schooling community, if you could only buy one home schooling magazine, this would be my choice.

They also have on-line devotionals written by home schooling moms to encourage you on your journey. Yours truly has one posted. J Soul Scents will be featured in their fall 2004 issue. They also offer a free online newsletter that is packed with encouragement. I have a few things published with the Old School House magazine. For titles and links see Paula Pens.

Thanks to the Old School House newsletter, which recently featured one of my devotionals, I made a wonderful new friend named Michele Hastings. She just self-published her first book after having published many home schooling articles. Her book is The Homeschooling Trail. What I like so much about Michele’s book is that she invites us into her home and thoughts allowing us to be a mouse in the corner and to discover what home schooling is really like.

What I sometimes find in the home schooling community is a false projection of perfection that makes me discouraged. I love the way Michele tells it like it is—walking me through her days and sharing with me her passion for home schooling. Her delight-centered learning approach offers me freedom to do home school in a more laid-back, child-centered way. You can check her site and get information on how to order her book.

Her website offers many articles on home schooling as well as book recommendations for reading aloud to your children and adult fiction for your personal pleasure. She likes many of the same books I do and I plan to begin reading from her list.

A book by Sally Clarkson, is called Seasons of a Mother’s Heart. It touched me at many levels. One of the best is that Sally is so real. She made me laugh and cry and showed me how human we all are. It is easy to get caught up in a certain ideal of what a home schooling family should look like and then feel discouraged when your family doesn’t look that way. God used Sally’s words to set me free from pre-conceived notions and self-imposed perfectionism in my home schooling. Sally also made me slow down and think of the individual personalities of each of my children.

I came away with the desire to be purposeful in asking God to show me what HE is doing in each of my children's lives and how I can join Him. I was drained after my home schooling year ended, as I often am, and I found this book washed over me with rains of refreshment. God used it to further my passion for the job He’s given me—loving on my four precious kiddos and showing them Christ. Learn more about this book and Sally’s ministry.

Families Where Grace Is In Place, published by Bethany House, helped us identifies ways that we respond to each other and our children that were out of old habits and experiences instead of God’s grace. According to the author, Jeff VanVonderen, Christian parents want to do things right and often put their best efforts forward only to be left feeling tired, discouraged and like failures. He shows how we often pressure, control and manipulate our spouses and children trying to “fix” them, which only results in exhaustion and hopelessness. VanVonderen shows the difference between God’s job and ours. God’s job is to fix and change. Our responsibility is to depend on the Holy Spirit, serve our families, and help to equip them to be all God intends them to be. The first part of the book shows examples of how not to do it. I found myself in several of the examples, thought I hate to admit it! The end of the book helps us see God’s way to relate to our family. Jeff’s site has more resources.

Reading Rescue 1-2-3 by Peggy Wilbur helped me understand a lot about the process of learning to read. A former elementary teacher, I wished someone had made things as clear as Peggy did back when I was in the public school teaching reading to 25 kids a year! It is an excellent resource that not only helps you understand the process of learning to read, but also gives practical steps and diagnostic resources to an easy approach to putting together a reading program suited to your child’s needs.

A few years ago I noticed my preschooler was not going through the pre-reading process the same way his older siblings did. As I prayed about this, I felt like God told me to read him more Dr. Seuss books. This made little sense to me until I met Peggy at the Colorado Christian Home Educators Conference. She put it all together for me, explaining that in a recent study most kids who weren’t reading had never learned to rhyme and when they were taught the skill of rhyming most of those same non-reading kids learned to read! I used her book with my children and have since purchased some of her children’s early reader books, which are presented with humor and intelligence as well as a vocabulary the emerging reader can handle. Peggy’s methods include techniques I hadn’t heard before like “to, with and by.”

To learn more check out Peggy’s website. You won’t meet anyone with a greater passion for kids and reading than Peggy. Her heart shines forth like gold. She not only helped me with my child’s reading, but also poured her experience and expertise into my own writing journey, encouraging and mentoring me in the process of writing for publication. Reading Rescue 1-2-3 grew out of her passion to give parents a written resource as they applied the methods she used with their children in the tutoring ministry she co-founded. She’s the real thing, folks! By the way, I checked out the reader feedback on Peggy’s book on Amazon.com. A five star book!

Sonlight Curriculum – As a home schooling family we’re interested in developing the minds of our children and their spirit at the same time. We are also interested in giving our children a Christian Worldview without putting them in a box that keeps them from understanding the culture they live in. Sonlight does just that. Sonlight’s curriculum packages are literature based core programs developed around historical or cultural themes.

Sonlight stretches my children’s minds and spurs deep social and theological discussions. I also appreciate the way Sonlight mixes biographies of Christian missionaries into the study of other cultures. Sonlight offers history, Language Arts (including teaching reading), Bible, and geography. In the elementary grades they offer a Science curriculum they’ve developed. Starting with 7^th grade they recommend and sell Apologia Science. They also recommend (and sell) math, art, critical thinking and many other elective materials. We found a keeper when we found Sonlight!

In the early grades we used Five In A Row. It’s a literature-based curriculum for the and we have many wonderful memories from that era of our life. With my older two children I think my favorite Five In A Row induced day was when we read The Glorious Flight and spent the afternoon making paper airplanes and talking about the science of flying! With my younger two, it would have to be the memories of our week with How to Make An Apple Pie and See the World. We had fun tracking down the ingredients for an apple pie by studying our maps and globe and the salt and evaporation science experiment was really cool, but the best part was the day our cousins joined us and we all made kid-sized apple pies! I have some great pictures of little people covered in flour proudly displaying their culinary masterpiece!

Five In A Row takes a wonderful book each week and develops language arts, math, science, geography, art, and social studies activities around the theme of the book. Each book is chosen for it’s timeless quality. There’s also a guide for bringing out the spiritual application in the book. This has been a priceless choice for our family. See their website for more information.

Another resource that has blessed our family is Diane Craft’s Child Diagnostics Inc. We met with Diane at a home school convention and within 15 minutes she gave us valuable insight into the learning struggles of one of my children—complete with a list of important things for us to do nutritionally as well as exercises and curriculum recommendations to help him overcome. Her website is full of valuable articles on learning and nutrition. She offers classes as well as private paid consultations. I know several people who have met with her for a private consultation and their success stories are very encouraging.

I recently began reading The Organized Home Schooler by Vicki Caruana. Okay, I’ll admit it. I’ve had the book for seven months and have carefully avoided such a distasteful topic. I actually met Vicki at a writer’s conference. I was impressed by her open, loving heart and the way she shared herself and her expertise with me. At one point in our discussion about the demands of writing while homeschooling, her eyes twinkled and she said, “You need my book, The Organized Home Schooler.”

When I finally began it this week, many months after I bought it, I was encouraged by its loving, gentle tone and the way Vicki reminds me that even in such an endeavor I am empowered by the Holy Spirit! What I’ve read so far shows it to be a practical, easy-to-follow book of basic organizational methods, not only for my home, but for my life-style. She ends her book with these encouraging words: “The quest for organization begins in the heart . . . One of the keys to becoming a more organized homeschooler is found in that very word becoming. It is a gradual process. It will not happen overnight . . . Allow the Holy Spirit to renew in you a sense of sense of organization. Allow Him to work in your heart, so that you can then work in your home and in the lives of your children.” I checked out Amazon to see what others thought of this book and it received five stars.

Vicki is the author of several books, including the popular Apples and Chalkdust For Teachers, and The ABC’s of Homeschooling, which both received a five star rating from the readers at Amazon.com. Vicki is a teacher to the teacher and her heart of encouragement shines brightly to those of us who’ve had a chance to experience her care first hand. I bought her Apples and Chalkdust book for a teacher friend of mine who daily navigates the waters of teaching public school and I would highly recommend it as a book for a teacher friend in your life. To learn more about Vicki's books and ministry you can visit her website.

A part of home schooling that is increasingly important to me is sharing with my children the struggles and faith of Christians around the world. A resource that has opened my eyes to this is The Voice of the Martyrs. I don’t usually allow my young children to see the pictures in this monthly publication or read the articles, but I often discuss them with the kids and we pray together for the people in the articles.

They also publish a magazine designed for children called LINK International that shares these issues on a kid level with pictures they can handle. They also distribute quality videos and other resources. The magazine is free although donations are appreciated to support the ministry.

You can learn about Link as well as get lots of resources off their website. Their goals are to: 1) Educate students about persecuted Christians and countries the restrict Christian worship. 2) Provide students the opportunity to speak and act on behalf of the persecuted church. 3) Encourage students toward greater spiritual growth by giving them examples of those who are risking all for Christ. To get more information on the parent publication visit their website. I found the people at VOM to be very ministry minded and wonderful to work with.

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If you haven’t browsed my book review or parenting pages yet, you might be interested. There are a couple of books on the non-fiction page that relate to parenting that I didn’t include on this page.