Home School – Page 17

Home School, Inspiring, Sayings, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

Babies!

Posted on May 24, 2011March 13, 2015 by Katharine

I love babies. Their clean, new innocence makes me want to hold them, smell them, touch them.

I know I am not the only one. Every day, someone wants to chuck a baby’s chin, stroke a baby’s arm, or hold someone else’s baby. In the store, at church, even total strangers smile and want to see the baby or hold their children up so they can see him. Even stodgy, yuppie types give half a smile and nod to the babe-in-arms.

What makes most people give goofy faces and noises to extract a smile back from a baby?

Why—when newborns look basically like little old men—do we croon about how beautiful they are?

And when they get fat and develop a glistening dribble of spit on the lip, why do we exclaim how adorable they are?

I think it’s because we naturally protect. Our nature causes most of us to envelope the innocent and helpless. Some think of the potential lying in that baby carrier and all the life ahead of it. We imagine how confused we must have felt when we were that size. We think of this small bundle as incapable of wrongdoing, worthy of protection and advancement.

Our thoughts mirror those Socrates called for in his dying words, that our children justly deserve our input during their journey to be our rulers.

We naturally call up thoughts like Plato expressed in his Republic, that the beginning is the most important part of any work, for that is when the character is formed.

We echo Aristotle’s Rhetoric where he says pity may well up in those who think we may eventually find some sort of good inside a person.

Even in Homer’s Iliad, we find:

He stretched his arms towards his child, but the boy cried and nestled in his nurse’s bosom, scared at the sight of his father’s armor, and the horsehair plume that nodded fiercely from his helmet. His father and mother laughed to see him, but Hector took the helmet from his head and laid it all gleaming upon the ground. Then he took his darling child, kissed him, and dandled him in his arms…

The thought of a ferocious warrior, removing his armor for a baby, rings true in our hearts. We may not realize we have such bold and universally defended thoughts. However, although written a bazillion years ago, this tender scene resonates with most of us, much as meeting a stranger’s helpless baby in an elevator does.

The fact is that every human with a truthful heart cares about a baby.

We can even say that about dogs: often they sense, they know.

The protection due a baby can alter what we would expect their reactions to be, can surprise us, as does the reaction of a seeming iron-clad soul in a chance meeting with a baby.

All of the above is one good reason not to abort.

And a good reason to homeschool.

Blessings of Habit, Home School, Homemaking, Inspiring, Sayings, Wisdom, Womanhood

ABC’s OF HOMESCHOOL

Posted on May 20, 2011May 8, 2014 by Katharine

Hello, Friends!

This week I must devote entirely to several speaking chores. So I thought you would enjoy viewing the introductions to my presentations. Here they are in their approximate final draft. Enjoy!

RNLI at Boat Race 2012 (Photo credit: Annie Mole)

Raising children is like a boat race:

You never feel ready
You always feel watched
It’s hard to change your mind
Disasters can happen

Too often, a bad beginning can cause a disastrous ending.

What can we do to ensure we are even in the right boat?

Since we are SO FAR from the shore, what are some boat safety rules?

A. We can examine our attitudes. Many begin this race badly, with a bad attitude when they board the good ship homeschool.

Sometimes people begin home schooling because of a bad teacher experience. Often these parents are angry and the thrust of their actions is intended as a javelin thrust into some teacher or educational system.

They just want to rock the boat . . . .

We all need to get used to the fact that the State Institutions are failing everywhere. It is not personal. It just is a cosmic failure, such as comes every time we build a cosmic house of cards.

Those who begin for this reason, alone, often stop just as dramatically as they began, when they, for some reason, decide putting their child in a State Institution is not really such a bad idea, after all.

Some parents begin because the child is failing. Whether he is unable to learn, or simply untaught where he is, the parent decides to take the plunge because of embarrassment or natural protective instincts toward the child. This reason also fails the parent quickly, because soon as the child homeschools, he does better.

Amazing!

The parents allow this progress to lull them into a false sense of security. They opt for State Institutionalization for their beloved child, after all, thinking the problems were a false alarm.

They change boats in the middle of the race, and slow the progress of both methods.

The third reason is more stable. These people do not become quitters as easily.

They are the ones who begin because they see the rightness, the necessity of it. They see God’s commands to teach our own children. They see the State Institutions growing constantly more hostile to morality.

They see ketchup as a vegetable and “two mommies” as a norm, or even a goal.

These frightening observations rivet them and they realize homeschooling as a part of being a family,
homeschooling as a part of the decision to have children,
homeschooling even as a part of the decision to marry.

It’s just the natural, normal result, for them, of being alive and desiring to succeed.

And they do.

Home School, Homemaking, Inspiring, Womanhood

No Such Thing as a Single Income Family!

Posted on May 12, 2011December 13, 2014 by Katharine

Big announcement:

Parents who home educate their children must have someone at home. We may quibble about which parent must stay, but no doubt someone simply must.

Lots of people think keeping a parent at home precludes being a two income family, but it does not. The act of staying home saves so much, one wonders how that second wage-earner makes any money at all. Let’s look at how it adds up. (Note: These are 2011 prices.):

Clothing. Stay-home clothes, timely bought (on sale) cost far less than suits or uniforms bought under duress. The same is true for shoes, bags, coats, etc.
Transportation. If only one parent is going out to work, only one car is necessary. Same for gas.
Work. Someone has to do it. Either you clean the house or someone else gets about $1000 per year to do it. You can do your own laundry, yard work, repairs, etc., and save the high price of hiring it done.
Cooking. A rib-eye steak costs about $5 on sale at the grocery, about $12 at a restaurant. Spaghetti dinner for six costs the same at home as for one at a restaurant. Maybe less. A homemade birthday cake costs about $5, compared to $15 from the store, and you know which tastes better! Hearty, homemade bread is half or less of insipid store-bought.
However, if you make these yummy foods to sell, you get the store price, or above.
Shopping. What? Isn’t shopping how we lose money? No, that’s random spending. Shopping is comparing prices, waiting for sales, and squeezing all the value you can from every penny. It is sticking to your list, buying in bulk, and always being ready for the surprise bargain for someone’s gift for the future.
It is what you don’t have time for if you’re on your way home from the office.
Sewing. While it is true, fabric has gone up, it is also true you can make new, lovely curtains with hardly any sewing instructions, covering that window in sale fabric for about $25 instead of $125. With only a bit more knowledge, you could make yourself a skirt or cape. Learn a tiny bit more and make simple dresses for your girls. All with the same savings rate.
But if you sell, it . . .
Gardening. A pint of home-canned green beans costs about ten cents for the lid and bit more for energy to run the stove. There is an initial investment, but you can re-coup the cost once you’ve canned for a year or two. And store-bought vegetables are nearly $1 per can.
And sometimes you can find used pressure canners and jars for nearly free.
Crafts. A bit of yarn, a drop of glue, how surprising the fun and savings in making gifts! And the savings is phenomenal. You could develop a reputation for a certain type of gift and become known as “the afghan lady” or the “soap lady”, turning it into a business.
Last, but not least, Child Care! It’s about $18 per day per child.
That does not factor in the cost of medical care for all the diseases they will pick up.

This list could go on forever, but you get the idea. If, when you are at home, you actually WORK, you are a working mom. You add greatly to the family wealth. You add income by stopping the outgo.

Stop just wishing. You CAN go home. And this is how.

Blessings of Habit, Home School, Inspiring, Pre-schoolers, Wisdom

Weekly Photo Challenge: Wildlife

Posted on May 11, 2011 by Katharine

Not much to say, today, but wanted to show off one of my favorite photos. Surrounded by the safety in many uncles (the blue stripes and the adult finger belong to two of them) a young boy learns about which wildlife is to be trusted, a family tradition meant to instill wisdom and fearlessness:

: Boy and Bug

Tomorrow I’ll show you why this post was late.

See ya’.

Home School, Inspiring, Pre-schoolers, Sayings, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

Why Do People Put Their Children in Schools? Part – 3 – Can We Fix the Schools?

Posted on March 19, 2011June 6, 2014 by Katharine

From all the research that has been done, I think we might, might, might be able to make some progress solving the problems in governmental institutionalization of our children. It would take drastic change, though.

No matter what you are thinking, I meant more drastic than that.

Most classrooms have far too many children in them.

Instead, each classroom would have to reduce to only around 5 children per adult. Many homes have something like that, and national research shows it is the best way to learn. It certainly would be more natural. Some high school children might make do with 10 to 12 per adult, if they were mature .

It’s how the ancient Greeks taught.

Most classrooms have all same-age children in them.

Bizarre! Instead, each child should be allowed to receive the gift of relationships with vastly different-aged others. Most homes have that and the learning potential is expanded when the students are of differing levels of learning. Especially the older ones would learn, truly learn the subjects if they were, in this more organic approach, occasionally in positions to help teach.

We do learn most when we teach, right?

Most classrooms labor under the false assumption that touch, being sexual and subject to lawsuit, should be prohibited.

Instead, we all should acknowledge what we instinctively know, and has been proven, that hugs and pats and other touch, including light corporal punishment, are part of socializing and leaving them out is wrong. Most homes have touch. Remember, orphans who are never touched die, whereas touched children are healthier and grow taller.

To protect the child from the occasional bad teacher, and the teacher from the occasional bad parent, of course video cameras in every room and every hall would be essential. That way, any teacher or child who doesn’t care about God, could realize that Big Brother is also up there.

We have the space, really. We are closing schools every day because we’ve aborted zillions of the children who could have filled them.

We do not have enough teachers, but how quickly they would come if they learned we’d solved the discipline problems, wouldn’t they!

It would take a large staff of volunteers, but what better place to volunteer! Lots of families have become single-income these days, so one spouse must be somewhat free. Then that parent could discover the joy of watching or even helping his or her own child learn things of great value, even about volunteerism. It would be a whole lot like home schooling, and might even get the better results of homeschooling, but would happen at the school.

Or, we could just send them all home, which would be lots more cost effective.

Home School, Inspiring, Pre-schoolers, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

Why Do People Put Their Children in Schools? Part – 2 – The Solution

Posted on March 18, 2011December 31, 2015 by Katharine

Reasons for being at home Children need to be in homes.

Arresting thought, isn’t it.

If there exists any type of divine design, then for argument’s sake, we must think that children were put into homes for a reason.

But even those who cannot swallow the idea of a God must consider why all creatures seem to have evolved to higher and higher plains while passing through a home- or family-type stage, and the higher the plain, the longer the prerequisite familial stage, with homo-sapiens needing a family for the longest time of all.

It is worth a thought.

Many who have given it a thought have withdrawn their children from the bedlam outside the home. Then—surprise!—their children begin auto-correcting their psyches, learning more, retaining more, doing more with it, and growing up to be more productive.

I am not making this up. It is heavily-researched scientific fact that no thinking person should ignore, especially if that person cares about children, about the state of his country, or about the future at all.

And before we continue, we must define a home: a set of parents who function adequately, with each other and with their children, as mom and dad. To use a broken, dysfunctional, or abusive home as a reason for schools is as fair as using a broken, dysfunctional, or abusive school as a reason for home schools.

But bad schools are not the reason to homeschool.

CHILDREN are the reason to homeschool.

If you have them, you should.

Today’s children are being destroyed in schools. They were not made to be in schools and do not thrive there. They are tormented daily, growing warped personalities we see depicted in the worst national headlines.

And they’re not allowed to pray

Putting children into a school is asking them to pass the socializing test before ever receiving any instruction, correction,or reinforcements about HOW to socialize. They encounter children even less trained than they are, with no chance of escape from this zoo.

Sink-or-swim is often a great way to drown a kid.

The typical classroom is sink-or-swim. When drowning, it is natural for the inexperienced to attempt survival by pushing down on other swimmers.

Just natural.

Empathy is the natural product of a home education. Each older child who cherishes the home’s newest infant later has patience with that same child doing wrong, cares if that sibling falls down, laughs with—not at—that little one.

Resilience is another natural product of a home education. Encouraging, even requiring social resilience, leads to practice in resilience. The old “get back on the horse” motto prevails and in time, becomes instilled. As the child matures, he develops the ability to keep going, no matter what, if only someone has taught him how.

Confidence is another natural product of a home education, and it is born of hope. A child who is dumped at the door of an antagonistic, institutionalized experience has no hope. A child who has a mommy who will keep everyone on a good social plane while they learn, just because she loves them, has hope and learns confidence.

Tomorrow, part 3 about how to fix the schools. See ya’!

Blessings of Habit, Home School, Homemaking, Inspiring, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

Spring into Cleaning with – Eventualities

Posted on March 15, 2011December 2, 2017 by Katharine

Another reason we practice Spring Cleaning has little to do with clean.

Read:

The next in line for the Spring Cleaning ritual in our home is the bookcase area. We own enough books to fuel a small school, because we were once exactly that. You may wonder why I do not store some of them —

I have.

Let’s pretend, though, that yesterday’s scenario has aged five years, and the three imagined daughters are now 12, 10, and 7. You’ve been practicing inclusion of these girls for five years and now you are ready to tackle these bookcases. Your conversation might go like this:

Girls, help me get a couple of these bookcases done today, okay? Mary, get the dusting spray, the vacuum, and the paper towels. Hmm, I think we need this table cleared to stack the books on it. Can you take care of that, too, Mary? Thanks.

As we put the books on the table, we’ll stack them all in the same direction and then we can vacuum the tops of them all at once. Oh, yes, we should align the tops of them to make it easier. And keep them in order, so we won’t have to reorganize them. I think this will work.

Okay, let’s see if we can do two units in a half hour. Set the timer. Go!

Look at this old crocheted bookmark from Grandma—I want to clean and starch it. Set it aside for later. Someone make a note; we need to reinforce the spine on the “B” volume of this encyclopedia.

Thanks for collecting all our supplies, Mary. Can you attach the hose and the duster? Good.

Let’s hurry, here. It’s a big job. Susan, can you see the top shelf or do we need the step stool. Go get it, then, Leah. I want you two on the dusting job and I will vacuum the books. Try hard to keep the spray off the floor. It can be dangerously slick. And be sure you wipe the corners well and get all the spray wiped off.

Okay, start handing me books, in order, and I’ll restack them in their places. This is going well, time-wise, but I think we’ll stop in the middle of the second bookcase, so we don’t go overtime. No need to wear ourselves out with such heavy work.

No, I think we’d better stop short of that. There’s always tomorrow. Let’s call it done for now, and have some tea, okay? Then I want to show you all how to wash a delicate piece of crochet. Mary, you take care of the vacuum. That’s my girl.

Oh, how good it is to have all your help, girls! I don’t know what I’d do without you.

Can you see how, since the girls have received diligent training, they have become like extra arms and legs for the mom? Not only that, but also, they are learning good, quick, efficient work habits they can take with them into their futures.

In exchange for all the training you gave them before, you now are reaping great helpers. They, in return for their help, are receiving a gift many people lack: the ability to be diligent, reliable, trustworthy, hard-working members of their future worlds.

Wherever they go, whether into marriage or some other career, they will be ahead of their peers and rise quickly to betterment at every possibility.

It’s worth 30 minutes of my time.

How about you?