flynn057

Dear friends, This reflection is bittersweet for me since I officially retired from home schooling this year. I haven't posted on this blog in a few years, and I think this will be my last entry here. I do know that blog is still read, mainly via Google searches on literature studies, so I'm leaving it up as a resource. I was just reminiscing back on home schooling during the middle school years. My first child started 6th grade in 1998 and my tenth (and last) child just finished 6th grade in May.  That's a lot of years with middle school students in the house. My youngest  started public school this month for 7th grade, and is making a good transition. I'm very relieved about that since t his summer I went back to work part time (on a crisis and human services referral phone line). Next month I start seminary full time too, starting out with Church History, Christian Ethics, and Inductive Bible Study (much of which is literary analysis).   A nyway, I was just thinking ...

Add a Little Adventure to Your Home School Life isn't just a matter of fun and games, but a spoonful of sugar sure can help the medicine go down. We can help our children actually  enjoy  the process of doing their work rather than just tolerating it. In the process, they will learn their own lifetime techniques for making tasks interesting.  Middle school kids are naturally inquisitive. This creates big demands as Mom and Dad are barraged with “how” and “why” questions at inopportune moments. Within reason, we should not squelch curiosity, but catapult it into self-motivated learning situations.  Here are some ways to enliven academic pursuits: Hobbies:  Hobbies can provide beautiful balance to a home education program. They offer brain-enriching opportunities to plan projects, select materials, follow patterns and instructions, develop skills, care for equipment and supplies, make useful items, and nurture creativity. You could spend tons of money on this (“I ...

GOD'S GRACE IN THE MIDST OF MIDDLE SCHOOL MISERY by Virginia Knowles 8th grade San Carlos, California.  April 1977.   I had just announced to my classmates that our family was moving to Baltimore.  A red headed chick named Kathleen burst out, “Yay!  Now we won’t have to pick her for our teams in gym class anymore!”   I have laughed about that many times since then, but there was also still a sting from the constant and cruel peer rejection that I suffered for so many years.  I’m sure many of you can relate.   Middle school kids can still be vicious.   Maybe this happened to you or maybe you treated other kids like that.  Middle school misery is real. Well, I was one of those middle school outcasts.  I dressed and acted weirdly.  I talked too much.  I played chess at lunch time in the school library with the other outcast nerds, or we hung out at the nerd bench in the playground.  I had one dear Christian frien...

Creator, Creation & Creativity An excerpt from The Real Life Home School Mom: It's a Life in Revision As home school moms, we long to fill our children’s hearts and minds with good things! We are not just talking about behavioral rules or academic skills, but a thirst for beauty. We are right to focus on the cross and salvation as the foundation of our faith, but we also need to reverence the Lord as our Awesome Creator. Think back to Genesis about how our Lord marvelously called our world into existence. Paradise! Beauty! Purpose in life! Oh, how sin marred this ideal, but creation still points us to our Creator. In fact, Romans 1:18-20 says: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever ...

Dear friends, Here is the newest audio version of my workshop "The Real 3R's of Literature: Read, Reflect & Respond." This is from my presentation at the Books & Beyond 2010 conference in Orlando. Read, Reflect & Respond Life has a purpose! Reading has a purpose! Down with ignorance and apathy! The discipline of reading, reflecting and responding helps us learn to think more deeply and relate to others more wisely. We are less likely to be duped and more likely to engage in real life. We will have something worthwhile to say in a conversation. We will be prepared to meet life challenges. Reflecting and responding increases long-term retention of information, beyond the test. Our response often includes practical application and action to transform our lives and culture. Reading improves comprehension, logical thinking, creativity, writing skills, grammar, spelling, etc. Reflective reading feeds the spirit and inspires our souls. Readers become leaders! The ...

Dear friends, I love the Holy Experience blog by Canadian Ann Voskamp. Today her post is full of links for web sites that post daily educational goodies like spelling quizzes, geography facts, poems, writing prompts, bird pictures, classical musical, today in history, Biblical art and so much more. She notes that this was her kids' "go-to" list when she was busy with another child. How to Feed a Brain Every Day (Daily Links for Hungry Minds) http://www.aholyexperience.com/2009/08/how-to-feed-brain-everyday-daily-links.html While we're at it, you may as well feast on a foundational home schooling piece she posted last year, Seven Daily Rungs. I need to reread it myself! http://www.aholyexperience.com/2008/01/seven-daily-rungs.html Blessings, Virginia Knowles

Dear friends, If you're linking in from Lisa Stump's Wildflower Academy blog and looking for the article "Do It Well, But Keep It Humble" you can find it on my main blog here: http://virginiaknowles.blogspot.com/2009/08/do-it-well-but-keep-it-humble.html Blessings, Virginia

The Entire Object of True Education by John Ruskin The entire object of true education is to make people not merely to do the right things, but to enjoy them; not merely industrious, but to love industry; not merely learned, but to love knowledge; not merely pure, but to love purity; not merely just, but to hunger and thirst after justice. John Ruskin, 1819-1900 English writer, art critic, professor, reformer