Monthly Archives: March 2009

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School Update

I haven’t posted much about our homeschool lately, mostly because I’ve been really busy (can you imagine that?!?), but we’re still plugging away and learning a lot (even Mommy!).

In February, we had a field trip to our local fire station.  Turkey asked a great question there about the new rescue boat they had, and he, Bunny and Moose got to sit in a fire truck (we don’t trust Ladybug in a truck with that much power!).  Even as an adult, I’m amazed at how huge a fire truck is (especially the ladder truck) when you get up close to it, because you usually don’t get such a good view, and the children were just blown away by the size.  The firemen were very friendly, and they even had cookies and coloring books–we’re still using the latter in school to discuss fire safety.

We had a fun Valentine’s week, decorating a cardboard mailbox for all of our cards, making Valentines for the people in our family, stringing beads for hearts with daddy, and my personal favorite, making pink and red construction paper “Valen-swines” (just use your imagination–they were super cute!).  We also read some cute books–The Night Before Valentine’s Day, written in the same style as The Night Before Christmas, and Clifford’s Valentines.

The day before Ash Wednesday, we prepared for Lent by making Alleluia banners from construction paper, and decorating them with crayons and glitter.  We then put them away until Easter, when we can hang them up and proclaim “He is risen indeed! Alleluia!”  We tried foods from two different cultures that day as well, trying “packzi” in the morning (like a jelly filled donut, but richer, if you haven’t hear of them), and jambalaya for dinner that night.

February also brought our 100th day of school, which was a lot of fun!  We counted to 100, by ones, fives, and tens, we looked at 100 of different items (legos, pretzels, M&Ms, and Q-tips), and we had a special “100 cake” after dinner that night.  More proof that counting is fun!

March has been pretty quiet so far–we had some fun on St. Patrick’s day coloring shamrocks and doing mazes to help a Leprechaun find his gold, but we’re on “spring break” this week, so we didn’t do a big craft.  We are making coffee filter flowers for the first day of spring tomorrow, so that will be fun.

On a more serious note, fun holidays, trips, and craft projects aside, the actual “schooling” is coming along really well.  Their recall for Bible stories (as well as other stories) is amazing, Turkey’s printing is almost better than mine, and they’re both reading more and more…nothing is safe!  All of the sudden, they’re reading signs when we’re in the car. words in the TV Guide, more of their own books.  Adding and subtracting are being understood more and more, and counting is easy as can be.  I can’t believe how quickly and easily they learn, and how much they enjoy school!

I have some fun things planned for Easter, and I just got a new game to use in school–Sequence States and Capitals.  We haven’t played it yet, but I think it will be very helpful in learning what each state looks like, and the names of each state and capital.  More to come on that, I’m sure, after we’ve had some opportunities to play it.

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Things I'd "Never" Do

Don’t think that the irony of this is lost on me…

Before I had children, I didn’t have a lot of ideas about what I’d “never” allow my children to do.  I didn’t have a lot of moments in public saying, “When I have children, you can be sure that I’ll never let them…” or, “I won’t ever tolerate…” and to be honest, for the most part, I still don’t.  I figure, you never really know what led up to a situation, so you can’t just judge a bad parent (unless it’s abuse) or a bad kid.  As a matter of fact, the only real “I’ll never” I currently have involves Heelys, or other shoes that have wheels built into the heel.  What a disaster those are…

I did have a few things I *was* sure I would “never” do, however.  The first was homeschooling.  Even one year ago, I was certain that I would “never” homeschool my children, for a variety of reasons.  And now here we are, almost 3/4 of the way through our first year of homeschooling, and planning next year.  Yes, my variety of reasons to *not* homeschool went away, and now I have a whole new variety of reasons why we *are* homeschooling.  Sometimes, it’s still a surprise to me…

The second was sending a three-year-old to school.  And in my defense, I still think that a normal three-year-old belongs at home with mommy, not in a school setting.  There’s plenty of time for that later.  But Moose’s experience is not normal, and so I broke my second rule, and sent a three-year-old to the public school, the same school that my two older children *should* have attended this year, had I not done a 180 on homeschooling last summer.

So, they’re equal and opposite situations…older children at home, where I swore they’d never be, because it’s the best place for *them* to learn, and younger son in school at what I used to think was a too young age, because it’s the best place for *him* to learn.

Yes, the irony abounds here, on several levels…

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Book Review: "Magdalene"

Magdalene, by Angela Elwell Hunt, has quickly become one of my favorite books, and one of the best books I’ve ever read.  As you might guess, it is a fictionalized account of the life of Mary Magdalene, and follows her story (or what her story might have been), from her life in Magdala before she met Christ, until her death years after Christ called her by name in the garden, and then later ascended into heaven.

I read this book for the first time about a year ago, and I was struck by the balance of justice and mercy in the book. I won’t spoil the end, but I will say that it was neither cheap (too much mercy), nor was it completely heart-breaking (too much justice).  The whole book dealt with these two concepts, and in the end, they were blended beautifully, in a way I never would have conceived of at the beginning.

I just finished my second time through with this book last month, and while I am still floored by the ending, I also discovered that I really enjoyed the way the Jews (particularly Mary Magdalene) were portrayed as they were waiting for their Savior.  I have long understood that the Jews were looking for a military leader to save them from their Roman oppressors, which is why so many of them ended up being disappointed in Jesus, but this book really made me think about why they may have seen Jesus at that kind of Savior at first.

Because of the miracles they saw Him perform, they may have thought that He could feed a whole army on next to nothing (the feeding of the 5,000), He could heal injured soldiers (all of the various healings He accomplished), He could even resurrect the members of their army that had died (raising Lazarus).  There’s no way for sure of knowing if this was their line of reasoning, but it does make sense, and I could understand why, after seeing so many types of miracles, they might have thought that Jesus was the military leader they were hoping and waiting for.

I love reading Biblical fiction because it makes me get out my Bible, look for what in the story is true and what is false, as well as what we just don’t know for sure.  It invariably makes me think about a Bible story or portion of the Bible in a new way, and really search for the truth.  Magdalene was no exception–I thought, compared, learned and considered some new ways of looking at things.  Five stars from me–checked it out from the library, and later ended up buying it!

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Book Review: "In the Footsteps of Paul"

The idea for In the Footsteps of Paul by Ken Duncan is a good one.  A kind of a photo-journal of the places the apostle Paul visited on his various missionary journeys.  The pictures in the book are beautiful.  Some of them look exactly as I imagine the Biblical locations to have looked.  Some show a more modern portrayal of these old cities. And still others demonstrate how cities often decline and fall into disrepair over time.

While I really enjoyed the photography, I found the rest of the book to be lacking. I would have preferred to have only Biblical text, and of course captions identifying the photos, as the entire text of the book. Instead, there were also many quotes used, as well as narrative by the author. The quotes used on many of the pages were distracting. Some of the narrative provided was OK, but much of that, like the quotes, was a distraction to both the photos and the Biblical text.

The other thing I found off-putting about this book was the number of times the author listed a photo as a place Paul “probably” saw, or “must have” seen.  If we do not know for sure it is a place he actually traveled to, saw or experienced, I don’t understand it’s place in the book. I prefer accuracy, not probably or might have.

This would make a good coffee table book, if you just want to flip through it and look at some amazing photos, but the written content leaves something to be desired.

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Book Review: "Christianity in Crisis–21st Century"

Hank Hanegraaff’s latest book looks at the problems and pitfalls of the very popular “Faith movement” in today’s Christian churches.  He isn’t afraid to name names (and, in fact, has a lengthy list of preachers who are giving false information, as well as what to look out for in those “sermons”).

Hanegraaff uses the acronym “FLAWS” to point out the major failings of the Faith movement, most of which have to do with the fact that this type of Christianity is all about “me, me, me” and very little about He who authored it. Each letter of FLAWS (Faith in Faith, Little Gods, Atonement Atrocities, Wealth & Want, and Sickeness & Suffering) is further broken down into four smaller, spiritual flaws

He then “gets back to basics” with the simple initials A,B,C,D,E, (Amen, Bible, Church, Defense, and Essentials) to counteract the mistakes of the Faith movement.  This part of the book, while much shorter than the cast of characters and the explanation of the FLAWS, is very practical, and gets straight to the heart of what the Christian life should be about.

I found this book to be very informative, and Hanegraaff really hit the nail on the head in addressing the problems of the church today. It is quite long, perhaps too long in some spots, but would be a beneficial read to anyone trying to sort out what is truth, and what is feel good hoopla coming from a lot of today’s popular “preachers.”

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Thanks!

A big thank you to my Mister for making my blog look just the way I wanted it to. (In other news, if you hadn’t noticed, my blog received a face lift!)

I have the “fancy squiggles” I was promised, as well as the ability to organize my posts by category. I don’t know if anyone else will appreciate it, but it makes it easier for *me* to find things when looking back over my ramblings. (OK, to be honest, it’s mostly when I look back because I can’t remember if I’ve used a quote already, or reviewed a book yet. I have four children–memory is not my strong suit!)

So, thanks Mister, for making my blog look really pretty, and for making it more functional, too.  Now, I don’t suppose you can create some kind of way that I’ll have more time to post, too?

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Making Memory Work too Hard

I have, now that we’re well over half done with our first year, one major beef with Sonlight. (And really, if that’s all the problems I have with it, I guess I’m pretty fortunate!).

The way memory work is set up drives me crazy.  Let’s put aside the fact that I’m very particular about Bible translations for a moment (read: I can’t stand translations such as The Living Bible, which is used quite frequently). The number one thing that makes me insane is the way they jump around from translation to translation…you know, if you’re going to go with an “easier” translation, then just stick with it.  Use it for all of all of the memory assignments.  Jumping from translation to translation (which is a *huge* pet peeve of mine in Bible studies for adults, as well), just smacks of trying to get the verse to say what you want it to say, instead of letting Scripture speak for itself.

I had already planned to use my ESV Bible (can’t wait for The Lutheran Study Bible to come out this fall, by the way–shameless CPH plug!) to write down our verse every week, so it’s not a huge deal to me that I can’t just copy it out of the teacher’s guide.  But, I have discovered that some of the verses just don’t make sense in the context they’re given outside of The Living Bible.  And this is where I see a major fault of that translation.  If that is the only translation out there where a half of a verse by itself makes sense, I don’t think it’s very good (or accurate).

I get that the good people at Sonlight are probably trying to find a child-friendly way to memorize Scripture, especially in the lower cores.  But, I think (actually, I know, from personal experience), that children are way smarter than we tend to give them credit for, and I also think consistency is crucial.  Have all the memory verses come from the same translation, so they become familiar with one translation. I may not like the one you choose, but at least I’ll respect you for being consistent!

So, I’ve had to substitute verses a few times, which may mean we overlap a few by the end of the year, but that’s OK, right? It’s not like you can learn a Bible verse too many times…