Striving to live a joyful purposed life one day at a time.
This is the day which the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Homeschool Days

    I have been homeschooling now for more than 28 years.  The joy and privilege of watching my children learn and develop is ingrained in my character.   I believe that teaching and training children begins the day they are born.  The first thing you teach them is that when they call out in the night you’ll be there.  When their tummies are hungry, you’re there to provide warm nourishing milk and when their diapers are messy, you’ll give them dry clean clothes to wear.  They learn the sound of your voice and they learn to trust and know that you love them.  This precious foundation is fundamental to our children’s spiritual and mental health for the rest of their lives.

    On Wednesdays a couple of friends come over with their children and we work on homeschool projects together.  The last several weeks has been creative writing (something I need to learn as well) and it has been a delight to watch the children’s imaginations soar.  We are using a program called “Excellence in Writing”.

IMG_2867 The children start by taking a paragraph out of any book, pick three key words from each sentence and then rewrite the sentences in their own words.

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We are also having the children take their keyword outlines and give an oral presentation.  It is still in the beginner phase but we have been thrilled with the results.  It has increased all of our confidence in writing.

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Today we had each of the children write their own stories using the outline that we came up with together.

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We have fun together too.  They were dying to go out and play in the snow.  So we let them go.  I guess you would call that recess.  It was a good day!

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