Home Sweet Homeschool (links)

Teen Graduates High School, College in One Week

How Long Should a Homeschool Day Be?

(Hat tip, Jess at Making Home. )

Reading Placement Test (scroll down, it's the San Diego Quick Assessment)

I was delighted that Elizabeth, who's 7, is reading at a 5th grade level. This was especially encouraging as we get back into the full swing of things since baby's birth. I've focused more on just the 3 R's for the past few weeks. A trip to the library is on the agenda for tomorrow, and a full re-evaluation of where I'm achieving and failing as a teacher is coming up very soon as well. I know I have areas of both. I never doubt our decision to homeschool, but it's the scariest thing I've ever done.

For Your Reading Pleasure

Since I can't even get my dishes done, much less blog, here are links to people who are clearly more organized and less newly postpartum than myself.

Jen of Et Tu? (Diary of a Former Atheist) is interviewed at The Cynical Christian. The topic? Approaching Atheists: What Can Christians Do? Good stuff. I don't often run into avowed atheists, but in a region that's 80% Catholic , I do frequently encounter people who are greatly disenchanted with organized religion. Ironically, Jen is Catholic, but her faith is clearly real to her. I appreciated her thoughts.

Anna's older children have all found their life's work and become good at it at very young ages. I recently asked her how she and her husband accomplished this, and she kindly answered me with this post.

Billy tells how to choose a good Christian book at The Disciple's Journey.

Frugal Home Library

One objection I sometimes hear to homeschooling is "It must be so expensive." Not really. Not only is it possible to buy curriculum inexpensively, a home library provides excellent resources for your homeschool. But books are expensive, right? They can be...But they don't have to be.

The cheapest way I've found to build your home library is used book sales. City libraries almost always have a yearly book sale of some kind, and some even have free tables or free rooms. In the city where Billy and I last lived, one of the local colleges accepted book donations all year and had a huge sale in the basketball coliseum. (Billy really loved this one because sometimes the families of deceased pastors would donate their entire libraries, providing an awesome selection of Christian books.)

These sales are almost always reasonable. I've been to some that charge a dollar or so for hardcover books, to as little as 10 cents apiece. Our local library has a sale where they charge 75 cents an inch. You can get a lot of children's books at that price. The other day we happened on a special sale that charged just $2 for all the books you could fit in a paper bag. By the time we were able to attend, the books were well picked over, but we still came away with 3 large bags of wonderful books, including children's classics as well as older history and science books. We spent just $6 for 50 or more books!

A side note that really has nothing to do with frugality: I love old history books because they are far more accurate (and less PC) than more recent ones. Science books may not be as up-to-date, but typically those about nature are still very accurate and tend to have beautiful illustrations. Finally, I really enjoy children's fiction from the 50's and earlier. I've noticed that there was a sharp turn in children's literature around 1965 from happy innocence to much darker subjects. Even the convers are less cheery. I might be old fashioned, but I think small children should read happy books. They will have enough death, depression, and drama to deal with in real life without providing it for their entertainment. Now that my 7-year-old is reading well, I'm much more aware of what I provide for her reading pleasure. Many years of used book shopping has taught me to scan spines for books that likely fall into these categories.

So call your local library and see if they have any kind of sale. Even if they don't they can probably point you in the direction of someone who does.

One more bit of advice: If you do find a good sale, try to arrive early. You'll discover that dyed in the wool bibliophiles will do just about anything to have first choice. At the college sale I mentioned, people camped out with lawn chairs and snacks as early as 3 hours in advance just for a chance to be first in the door. It became a fun tradition for us, too. It might sound like a lot of hassle, but it's worth it to build a home library for a little bit of nothing!

Frugal Fridays hosted by Crystal.

Good Books

Elizabeth, who just turned 7, has become a voracious reader almost overnight. Billy and I have been collecting children's books from used book stores and library book sales for many years, and I'm delighted that Elizabeth is now enjoying them--actually before I expected her to. Some of my favorite children's books are from the 50's and early 60's--an optimistic era when children's books were more or less free of drama, perversion, and subjects too heavy for little ones.

She read Chief Takes Over last week. The copyright is 1956, and it's illustrated by Charles Geer, one of my favorite illustrators from that time.



In most of these books, children have two parents (unless they are orphans or a parent is widowed), whom they respect and obey, and hard work, industry, and resourcefulness are valued. All against the backdrop of a relatively safe and innocent time.

I really love Johnny and the Tool Chest. It's about a boy who dreams of buying an iPod tool chest full of wonderful things with which to create.

Here's one of my favorite bits:

"...here's what I'll do," Mr. Thornton [Johnny's father] said. "If you save up half the price of the tool chest, I'll put up the other half."

Johnny's stomach was a lump of ice.

"But that would take a long time," he wailed. "I'd have to get practically twenty dollars."

"I think an industrious boy could earn that much in a reasonable amount of time," his father said. "That is, if it was important to him."

And another...

"--but there is only one sure way to get money," Mr. Thornton was saying. "And that is to work for it. You know, very few people ever strike oil or find buried treasure."

I love the way they call Johnny's father "Mr. Thornton" as though though that is what all adults are called. And I love the way Mr. Thornton is instilling in his son the values of hard work and saving.

By the way, Johnny and the Tool Chest is copyrighted 1964.

Greek to Me

Billy is taking a Greek class this semester. The other night when he sat down to practice his alphabet, he had Elizabeth and Silas practice with him. They loved to see that Daddy has schoolwork just like they do, and they spent over an hour writing Greek letters with him. Elizabeth says, "I am learning Greek with my Daddy!"

Silas thought it was more fun to write Greek than to write his name. (Yeah, I know my little southpaw isn't holding his crayon correctly...working on that one...)

Boys and Girls are Different

Yesterday Elizabeth and Silas each wanted to write a story. They both began the same way--a princess was in a garden. I wondered as he began if my boy was just going to copy my girl, but the difference in the stories' outcomes were remarkable. Elizabeth's was full of flowers, fairies, and wishes coming true. Silas's involved a lot of knights slaying dragons--and buying real estate!

Homeschooling Freebie

One of the greatest things about homeschooling in the age of the internet is that there are SO many free resources available. Here's a free printable flash card generator. I just printed a set and they are very nice. And using cardstock from my stash, free!

Lapbooks

Last week and this week have been "grace weeks" in school due to travel and sickness. School has gone on, just at a slightly more relaxed pace. One of the great things about homeschooling is that illness doesn't necessarily mean the learning stops. If we have to take a sick day it's because we are really sick!

Today I spent several hours making our first lapbooks with the kids. Elizabeth made one about butterflies and Silas wanted to do ants. Sarah glued miscellaneous pictures and papers to cardstock and she is so pleased with her "lapbook" too. I have no idea if we did it "right" and I'm sure there are as many ways to lapbook as there are people who do it. If you've never heard of it before, here is a YouTube video that shows more. (I just realized that the examples on the video are butterflies and ants. My kids saw the video so I guess that is where they got the ideas. But it didn't sink in till now. Funny!) I know a lot of people invest a lot of money in lapbooking kits, but I honestly don't see why you can't make your own with a bit of creativity.

The kids loved it, but it was actually really stressful for me, I suppose for the same reasons I don't scrapbook (time, mess, perfectionism...). And also I found myself saying about 5 million times, "Sarah, don't touch the scissors. Sarah, don't touch the glue. Sarah, leave the paper alone. Sarah, get off the table." She wasn't really being naughty, just curious and wanting to join in what we were doing. But a 2-year-old with scissors and a glue stick is just scary.

Anyway, Billy has the camera so I'll have to wait to show pictures till tomorrow.

Nature Journal

One thing I've wanted to be diligent about this year in our homeschool is having the kids keep a Charlotte Mason-style nature journal for nature study. I've planned to do this before, but it never worked well...Mainly because our notebooks were awkward to use. Sounds silly, I know, but the simplest things can make all the difference.

This year I bought NoteSketch books from Rainbow Resource, and they are working beautifully. My only mistake was that I didn't get one for Sarah. I didn't see any point in spending another $5 for a journal for a 2-year-old, but I should have. She wants to do everything the big kids do, with the same supplies. She kept confiscating their journals and trying to draw in them. I bought her a cheap notebook which will hopefully keep her happy for now.

Our yard is tiny but lush, with plenty of things to draw for awhile.

Clarice of Storybook Woods inspired me with her comment that she tries to lead by example in their homeschool. It's a simple but novel idea, at least to me! She mentioned that one way she does this is to keep a nature journal herself. So I got a sketchbook too. Although my attempts are awkward, I have to say that I haven't enjoyed anything this much in a very long time.

Teaching Hymns

Our church has a blended service that’s light on hymns and heavy on rockin’ praise and worship. We love it! But I don’t want my kids to miss out on the richness of hymns either. I know a lot of people in similar circumstances complain because their kids are not learning hymns in church. Well, I have a novel alternative—I teach the kids hymns myself. Billy and I believe that we are to be the primary spiritual instructors for our children, and church should merely reinforce that. We love our praise and worship time at church, and we love our time of learning hymns at home!

You don’t have to be a great musician to sing hymns together. We just sing a capella. Little ones honestly do not care what you sound like, but the wonderful words are getting into their hearts and souls, and their little ears easily pick up the simple measured tune and rhythm. I’ve found that small children really love hymns, whether they have been previously exposed to them or not. If you don’t know hymns yourself, I’d encourage you to get a CD of classic hymns to play in your home. They are soothing, peaceful, and rich with the doctrines of Christianity.

Homeschool Preschool

School this year is going so much more smoothly than it did last year. It seems that although I’m a homeschool graduate myself, it’s taken me several years to get in a homeschool groove that fits our family well.

Silas is especially enjoying preschool. I learned a lot from Preschoolers and Peace this year. One of those things was the idea of Circle Time. When we have Circle Time, we are doing preschool, but everyone is included. Sarah (2) is catching bits of this and that, and Elizabeth is my helper. Silas is just having fun learning. They cannot wait each day for Circle Time, especially the little ones.

As I’ve mentioned before, Silas has not been exceptionally eager to learn preschool skills till the past few weeks. This coincided nicely with the start of our school year. He already knew some of his letters, but we’re going systematically through the alphabet, focusing on a letter a week. I got this idea from Tenniel at School@Home, one of the first homeschool blogs I ever read. I’m sure it’s not unique to her, but her simple and straightforward descriptions of exactly how they did their letter of the week definitely inspired me to follow a similar pattern.

During A week we read A books, made glitter A’s, practiced writing A’s, and learned an A hymn. In fact, my goal is to teach the kids a hymn for every letter of the alphabet. (More on that in the next post.) For B week, one of our favorite activities was the “B” book we made. Book starts with B, and we filled our B books with magazine pictures of things that started with B…bumblebees, bicycles, berries, boys, books, boats. What a lot of messy cutting and pasting fun!

This is C week. Monday we talked about the letter C, and then as a special treat we walked to the old-fashioned ice cream parlor around the corner and the kids each got a candy stick. (Candy starts with C, get it?) They have the old-time display of many-flavored candies for just 15 cents. That was a cheap and fun reinforcement.

How many times have I used the word fun in this post? A bunch I think. I have always known God called me to homeschool my children, but I have never been one of those moms that just loves and adores the teaching part of homeschooling. Until this year. While we have our challenges, it’s now a joy!

School Days

School days, school days
Dear old golden rule days
Reading and 'riting and 'rithmetic
Dance to the tune of a hickory stick
You were my queen in calico
I was your bashful barefoot beau
You wrote on my slate "I love you so,"
When we were a couple of kids.

My mom used to sing this little song to us in our homeschool when we were small, along with other early twentieth-century tunes she learned from her mom (who is turning 90 this month). In doing a little research, I see that it was written in 1907, and actually we didn't have the words quite right. But I suppose any old song has its variations...

We began school today, the day after Labor Day, as was traditional till recent years. I say started. We have schooled all summer, but this is the official beginning of our new school year. Elizabeth is in second grade and Silas is in pre-K. They are both excited, but Silas is beside himself with delight. He has been reluctant to want to learn his letters, so I have not pushed him. Actually, I think it's just been in recent years that it's become popular for little ones to learn at the earliest possible age, as some supposed indicator of superior intelligence. I'm not necessarily a subscriber to deliberately delaying a child's education, but I do think now that they should display certain indicators of readiness. I pushed Elizabeth pretty hard in preschool because I wanted her to be "advanced" and guess what, she learned when she was ready. Furthermore, by the time she was ready, she was somewhat burned out because we had already been working on it for so many years (with little success and much frustration). It's a joy to see Silas ready to learn and so filled with anticipation. He already knows many basic preschool skills, but his big goal is to learn to write. He says when he can write all his letters, "I will write all the time!" He spent a very long time this morning writing the letter A in different colors all over his paper. It is such fun to see him having so much fun.

A preschool teacher reminded me recently that preschool should be fun and not to stress too much about how fast they are learning. "Remember," she said, "They have only been alive for four years!"

Elizabeth is happy to be in second grade, especially because many of her friends have been in second grade for a whole month now, an eternity to a six-year-old. We are following the same direction we went in for first grade, following many recommmendations and principles of The Well-Trained Mind with Charlotte Mason elements thrown in. I find that this is a good fit for our family, although all-in-all we are pretty eclectic. It is nice to have the flexibility of a classical curriculum rather than a boxed one, yet I also appreciate having some kind of road map to follow.

Like the latter part of the past school year, we are following a somewhat non-traditional routine and doing most of her school after lunch while the little people are napping. We get done in half the time because we don't have the interruptions. Preschool takes place during the morning hours while the little ones are fresh. Again, I love the flexibility of homeschooling and how we can tailor it to fit our own needs and the needs of our family.

I spent a good while yesterday finishing my planning and typing schedules, routines, menus, chore charts, and other organizational tools to use as flexible guidelines. Although I got a little off-track today, the day as a whole has gone smoothly.

Which reminds me, E is doing her free reading and now it's time for me to go help her with math. Sorry for the ramble. I'm just so happy to be off to a good start. I'll post a bit more through the week as I have time.

Home Library

I had a good-sized collection of books when Billy and I got married, mostly children's books my parents gave me during my growing up. Ever since, we've been collecting books from garage sales, library book sales, and other places here and there. At first I just got children's story books. Billy gravitated toward old children's science and history (and of course, grown-up theology). I quickly saw the merit in collecting non-fiction as well (although story books still have a special place in my heart--and my book bag). I rarely pay more than a dollar for these books. Often they cost from 10 to 50 cents.

This week, Silas (who's 4) and Elizabeth (6) got on a map kick. They wanted to know all about maps...Where certain places were...If the blue was water (Silas's question)...On and on. It was such fun to be able to pull these two books off my shelf to get them started. When we got home from church that night, Billy turned them on to Google Earth. They stayed up late looking at places around the world, and I can hardly pull them away from it now. They are virtual world travelers.

You've probably heard the saying by William Butler Yeats, "Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire." It's such a joy to actually see this in action. I feel very fortunate that my children are in an environment where we have the freedom to drop everything and pursue something when they are interested in it. That's how passions are born. I'm especially happy that we've taken the time and invested the (relatively small) amount of money to make sure we have resources on hand when interest strikes (or just when it's time to study a particulars subject). Our little home library is increasingly important in our children's education. What fun, when they express an interest in something to be able to say, "We have a book about that!"

Fun with Math

Today is one of those lump-in-my throat, want to sit down and cry days in our homeschool. You know, when the first grader is asked easy, easy preschool math problems and she looks totally blank...I am looking at her with disbelief because we had this concept long ago and have gone over it so many times since...And her daddy is looking at me like, "What have you been not teaching this child?!" Oh dear. So I guess it is time for some extra drill and review. She really despises math, but she's been doing so well and having such a good attitude during lesson time. She must have just had a flake-out moment, because I know she knows this stuff. Maybe some reinforcement pages will help. Here are a few sites for free printable worksheets that I found. Thought I'd pass them along in case I am not the only one whose child needs some extra drill.

Math Drills

Billy Bear Printable Math Worksheets

Homeschool Math

Retro Cuties

Meet Nellie and Emily, two cute little retro ladies I printed for Elizabeth a long time ago...




With their extensive wardrobe. For the life of me, I don't remember where I found them. We cut them out and played paper dolls yesterday as one of the final lessons in Elizabeth's home speech therapy.




The girls got all dressed up and had a tea party. Emily was a bit of a blabbermouth, but Nellie, the hostess, was kind and gracious. Uh, in case you were wondering, Emily was played by me. It's fun to have a little girl so the little girl in me can come out and play. Do we ever really outgrow dolls?

So Much More...Than What God Requires?

***UPDATE*** I now have a thorough review of the Botkin book up here.

As a Christian, I base my life on God’s Word, the Bible. I want to obey God, and I want to raise my children to obey Him.

I’ve wanted this ever since I first came to know Christ at age 12. I can’t say I’ve always been successful. Sometimes I’ve been willfully disobedient, and other times I’ve tried so hard to be obedient that I went overboard and tried to “obey” commands that weren’t even there. I pulled scripture willy-nilly from here and there thought I was being “led by God.” My heart was sincere, but sincerity won’t do you any good if you aren’t sincere about the right things. In fact, obeying extra-biblical rules or principles will put you in bondage and can even bring unforeseen disaster to your life.

That’s why I’ve been so saddened by the sudden popularity of books like the Botkin sisters’ So Much More and the corresponding documentary, Return of the Daughters (due to come out soon). I hope that I can present my thoughts as kindly, sweetly, and humbly as possible, for it’s not my goal to beat anyone over the head or to be mean-spirited toward anyone. I speak as one who lived and taught self-imposed extra-biblical principles for many years, principles that hindered me and others in ways I deeply regret.

Now to be fair I will admit that I have not yet read the book. I have read reviews by people who have read the book (both supporters and detractors) and I’ve viewed the movie trailer. I plan to read the book and possibly review it further at that point, but I think I understand enough about the gist of the message to comment a little.

Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin are beautiful, well-spoken, sincere young ladies. I’m sure they are wonderful girls who love the Lord and desire to serve Him. One commendation by their supporters is that “they back everything up with scripture.” Well, my friends, it is one thing to use scripture to support your views (the theological term is proof-text), and quite another to correctly interpret scripture by an objective method and thus gain your convictions from it. The basic premise of their materials (as I understand it) is that God’s will for daughters is that they should remain in the home until marriage, serving their fathers as help-mates to him, as they prepare to be help-mates to a future husband.

This idea is presented in the most appealing terms. The movie trailer is simply breathtaking. There’s just one problem. You won’t find any such command in God’s Word.

Now understand, I stayed home until I married. I spent most of that time just serving my family. I’m traditional and home-loving. There is nothing wrong with that. But it deeply troubles me when young girls like the Anna Sofia and Elizabeth try to tell other girls that God’s desire for them is to stay at home, simply serving their families (and their fathers in particular) until they marry (or forever, if they don’t marry), because God never said that.

I believe, like the Botkin sisters, that we should cast a godly vision for our daughters (and sons, too, for that matter). However, unlike the Botkins, I don’t believe that vision must be limited to being helpers at home. I believe that God’s vision for our unmarried daughters can be much greater than this. In fact, the apostle Paul tells us in I Corinthians 7:34 that the desire of an unmarried Christian woman is to serve the Lord--not to serve her father. When she marries, her concern becomes how to please a person, her husband, rather than God alone. This runs counter to the teaching purported by the Botkins. To them, serving one’s father (a person) as an unmarried girl is the only way one can serve the Lord.

I understand that they even go so far as to criticize the missionary work of Amy Carmichael and Mary Slessor, single women who dedicated their entire lives to serving God and others in foreign countries. Instead, they hold up untried teenagers as “heroines of the faith” simply for deciding to stay home until marriage. Does anyone else see the irony here?

It’s like a sword in my heart when I see people recommend this book as second only to the Bible in its importance for young women (as several did in the Amazon reviews). My heart is so broken that this erroneous, extra-biblical teaching by two young girls would be seen as more important than any other spiritual book ever written. Where is our discernment?!

I have held back from writing anything about it because I thought that surely its influence could not be that widespread. Frankly, I was leery of even giving it more press than it’s already gotten. I've hesitated, too, because it will sound just plain weird to a lot of my readers--weird in a "How could anyone fall for this?" kind of way. But it seems that everywhere I turn (at least among certain segments of home schoolers) I see it recommended. I am blown away...amazed...grieved...that this hyper-patriarchal model is becoming increasingly viewed as biblical. I am not speaking without experience here. Not only have I myself fallen prey to teachings not expressly found in scripture, I have also seen this very teaching lived out with truly tragic consequences.

Please, before we jump on the bandwagon of a “visionary” teaching that looks so good, let’s lay aside our feelings and hold it up for a stiff comparison to God’s Word. Don't be deceived. I beg you, don’t subject yourself or your daughters to a yoke that He never laid on the shoulders of His children.

*******


For some well-reasoned discussion on the Botkin sisters and their teachings check out these two conversations:


"Visionary" Daughters

Online Interview With the Botkin Sisters

(This is about the interview, not the interview itself. It links to the interview, however.)

Warning: They are long!

On Daily Routines

I revamped our daily routine recently. I happened sort of by accident. We’ve started having Elizabeth’s home school lessons in the afternoon, starting while the little ones are asleep.

I have to admit, it feels strange. Even having been homeschooled myself, I have a hard time breaking out of the idea that our school day should look like a traditional one. That if I start at a different time of day than people who send their kids to traditional school, I’m somehow giving in to a low standard. Never mind that it works better, we get more done in a shorter amount of time, and she learns more! An efficient and productive day is meeting a high standard!

I’m also learning to be flexible and change things up every now and then. This wouldn’t have worked a few months ago. I really want a “forever” routine. I want to establish a schedule and never have to re-vamp it. Of course that is totally unrealistic. It’s a balancing act between establishing structure and routine for the sake of our sanity and good habits in our kids, and being flexible enough to recognize when a change is in order.

Here are a few benefits to our new routine.

I don’t feel rushed and pressured in the morning. No matter how early I got up or how fast I worked, there was no way to get everything done that I needed to do before 8AM. I was upset every single morning, because I just could not finish before it was time to start lessons. Consequently, I kind of gave up on my morning tasks. They weren’t going to get done anyway. Now it does get done, because I haven’t placed unrealistic expectations on myself. In the near future, when my kids are a bit bigger, they’ll be able to shoulder more of the load. Till then, since I’m mostly doing it alone, this works better.

The kids can play outside early while it’s cool. I found that when we had school all morning and naps after lunch, by the time they had free time to play outside, it was too hot. I think it’s important for kids to have lots of time to play outside. My kids weren’t getting that, but now they are.

The house is more or less tidy when Billy comes home for lunch. That’s a big plus.

School time is more peaceful. People have asked me how I manage school with toddlers. I haven’t had a really good answer. Honestly, many days I was doing well to just grin and bear it…Um, bear it anyway. Now we can get the bulk of our school work done without distraction. Yesterday I put the little ones down, fixed Elizabeth and me some tea and a dainty snack, and we had school—with no interruptions. Yay! I’m so much less stressed, and so is she!

Elizabeth and I have one-on-one time, so she is learning more.

I feel almost guilty that school is not a struggle every day. Is it supposed to be this fun and easy? Of course it is. I just had to change my conventional ideas about our school time. I’ve heard people say for years that one of the greatest benefits about home schooling is the flexibility, but I didn’t really understand what they meant. Now I do. It's a no-brainer, but I'm kind of slow sometimes. A side note: I had to give up my time to myself during the kids’ nap time. But it is so worth it for greater peace in our day!

Paul Revere

Elizabeth has been studying Early American History over the past few months. Instead of verbal narration one day, I let her draw a picture of what we read about. Here's her illustration of Paul Revere's Ride.

Incidentally, our state's Grade Level Expectations require almost nothing for first grade history. If I recall correctly, children should only be able to differentiate between historical and modern times, particularly modes of transportation. Amazing to me. Kids soak up historical adventure like sponges at this age.

Out and About

The Dangerous Book for Boys is now available at Sam's, and we have our very own copy. Woohoo!!! Check out the video here. Love it.

Lindsey has a great 3-part article about learning to be content at home.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Anna has a short but oh-so-encouraging piece about homeschooling. She doesn't talk about homeschooling very much on her lovely blog, but recently her 15-year-old son Giles got a 33 on his ACT and received a full scholarship for this fall. This post was in response to some questions she received regarding her success as a homeschool mother. One of the most helpful things I've read in quite awhile.

Giles plans to be a photographer. You can see his amazing work on Anna's blog, and also on his own, here.

I met Mrs. Mobunny several years ago on a parenting message board (which I no longer visit; that's another story). Although we frequently "locked horns" in disagreement, I couldn't help but love her. She was always gracious and so likeable. She sent me a big box of little girls' patterns one time, which I still use. And recently she wrote a wonderful bit of teaching your sons to have a good work ethic. She begins:

We have been surrounded by cement for a majority of our married life. This means that our children have also been surrounded by the same thing. We have never lived on a farm, by a farm, or anything like a farm. We don't have a 2 acre garden, we don't raise llamas, we don't build fences for cattle and we don't have barb wire fences that need attention. We've never had chickens that needed a hen-house or a goat that needed a shed. The closest we've come to having 'animals' has been two bunnies in our back yard. And yes, when we had them, Daniel took care of them.

So, what do you do with boys that are not in an environment that causes them to run in flowery meadows with collie dogs, dig holes for fences or paint boats? You FIND things for them to do.

Near the end, she says:

So, don't do your boys a disservice by letting them lay around and read, watch TV, play video games, be idle, whine about the heat, or try to have them do domestic things to expel their energy. Boys need more than that. Don't cause them to be soft, don't allow them to prefer somebody else do the hard things.

The middle is worth reading. (By the way, I assume the part about tying sisters up is tongue in cheek...I can sure see my guy trying to do that...LOL)

I'm re-reading my battered softcover copy of Mama's Way by Thyra Ferre Bjorn. Beg, borrow, or steal--no, better not steal--a copy. It's a short and easy read, but one of the sweetest faith-building books I've ever read. She gets to the heart.

Last night I ran into a lady from church while I was trying to find my 6-year-old shoes that look like they should belong to a little girl and not like a, well, um...don't want to attract unsavory google hits...so I'll just say that I didn't want them to look too grown up, much less like something that should belong to an unwholesome grown-up. That started a conversation about modest dress, a passion we apparently share. This sweet young grandmother said, "Once, just out of curiosity, I googled 'modest clothing'. My word, it looked like something for the Amish!" She's right. It's hard to find something in the middle...Modest, but up-to-date. Here are a couple lovely companies that have stylish, modest options. Beautiful.

Christa Taylor (This company gives 30% of profits to Christian missions.)

Shade Clothing

Attention Spans

Although Al Mohler is on my blog roll, and I believe he's a great, godly person, I'll just be honest and say that I rarely read his blog. His posts seem to point to cultural problems, but rarely to solutions. Since my reading time is limited, I typically try to keep it uplifting. However, this morning's entry caught my eye. The attention spans of Americans are shrinking from minutes to mere seconds. Billy and I were just talking about this last night. One of the little guys in my Awana class, who is homeschooled, has study skills and concentration abilities far above the other 5-8 year olds in the group. That is something we want to work on in our children. The ability to concentrate and focus for extended periods of time is so important.