Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Back To School For Homeschoolers?




"Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life."-Charlotte Mason

For me starting a new school year, is a bittersweet time. The simple things in life make the fall season a time of sunny days, nippy breezes, chilly nights, and warm memories. Fall activities, parties and traditions to help celebrate the fall season, and the upcoming autumn and all its charms. Each fall morning as I look outside my window and watch the yellow bus drive by my home, my heart is full of relief that my children will be at home with me. I will be the one to share in all those special moments. I will be the one to teach them how to read. I will be the one to teach them the things of God. Curling up together with my sweet boys on the couch and reading living books.Seeing my boys eyes twinkle with anticipation as the story unfolds. All of us sipping on hot cocoa as my son narrates what he has just learned. My heart fills with joy every time my son begs for me to read more! I love seeing history come alive through rich literature, timelines & notebooking. It’s this time of year that I'm delighted to have another enjoyable school year ahead, as our family experiences and learns new things together. Spending more time on lessons that need more work and soaring past the lessons that don't. I feel so blessed to be able to educate my boys with a Biblical world view and raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. What could be better? Oh, the joys of homeschooling!



Education is not knowing a whole lot of facts, it is a relationship with ideas. Ideas are the beginning of a relationship with a topic. How do we do this? Living books, music, art, people, life & God’s creation. This idea is contrary to the textbook based systems.Everything around my boys takes on new meaning.Every acquaintance, every book, every outing takes on a dimension of real life learning.Beyond real life relationships with all kinds of people from librarians to craftsman comes Living Books. We know as homeschool moms that education never really ends and the whole idea of, "back to school" simply does not apply to us. All of life is education.


Many homeschool moms have children in their final year of high school or those leaving the nest to head off to college for the first time. The realization that their jobs as parents will be taking on an entirely new role can be a difficult pill to swallow. Our babies will be grown up one day and will be ready to soar like eagles on their own. I cherish these times at home, I know they are fleeting. So, when I hear the bus in the late afternoon, I know that I have taken every opportunity to spend time with my children. While the public school kids go home to do more school work, my children & I look forward to a nature walk or simply enjoying being with each other at home......where they belong.


" The idea is to educate, not follow anyone’s schedule about when something should be studied. "
--Ray Drouillard

"Ideas are held in that thought-environment which surrounds the child as an atmosphere, which he breathes as his breath of life"-Charlotte Mason

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