Where the Heart Is

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Welcome to the June 2009 edition of A Living Education E-zine!

Creating space in our days as homeschool moms allows a time of introspection. I realize not all busyness is counterproductive, but recently found myself stressed, and I find when “Mama is stressed, the whole family is stressed.”

During times like these God can draw out our hearts through circumstances in our families, home and friendships. We can see in these times of introspection the growth we have experienced through being a homeschooling mom and other times, that after so many years of knowing Jesus, that there could still be so many “gremlins” in our hearts.

Praise God that He is faithful to draw out our hearts so that we can become more like Him.

God also uses our children’s hearts to reflect issues in our own hearts, kind of like a mirror. The other day I began to see that certain things were causing my two teens to not engage with the rest of the family. This were not major issues, just small things...but I felt a jealousy rising in my heart for my relationship with them.

When I prayed about it, God showed me the things that were drawing me from Him and so lovingly and gently reminded me that He is a jealous God and that those things I had allowed to become part of my life, while not objectionable, were drawing my heart away from Him i.e. they were becoming more important.

Repentance brings such freedom as we find our way back into our Father’s arms. And it was once I had learnt this lesson and allowed God to draw out my heart that I could work with my children in this issue.

Charlotte Mason

Charlotte Mason, in Home Education, talks about a mother securing a “quiet and growing time” for her children in their young years. Some of my favorite books and movies are Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion. I love the pace of their lives and this was one thing that I have sought to create in my home, even now as my children are much older.

I have watched as they have learnt to use their time productively (well...mostly) and begin to develop their own course for their life plan. While Charlotte Mason’s “growing time” in her book relates to the first 6 years of a child’s life, there is no need crowd our children, even our teens, days with activity for the sake of activity.

Family and Sibling Play

The other day I asked my husband whether we were to controlling of how our children’s time is spent, or whether just helping them make wise choices. Through our dialogue we were able to clarify for ourselves, about certain choices we had made around entertainment, youth groups, sleep overs etc.

While some homeschool moms live on farms or in more rural settings, where we live there are so many things going on for children, all a stones throw from our house. It becomes hard to say “no” to them when everyone else seems to be enjoying themselves so much.

Early on in our parenting we established two guidelines – if the activity will pull the family apart it’s a no go. The other was that if we could teach or provide that thing at home, then we wouldn’t go elsewhere for it.

This called for a brainstorming as to what skills we held as parents. I smiled at some of the things I had learnt at school which I thought I would never need but now held tremendous value for my children.

Learning to share these skills easily and naturally in the home and then to watch them grow in my children has been a delight. Have you ever made a skills list of the things that you can share naturally with your children?

Organizational Tips

Over the past year we have been working at leading a less wasteful life. Many things we already did like recycling and cooking from scratch, but I would not hesitate to switch my oven on for just one thing or run a half empty dishwasher.

Nowadays I try to plan my baking days with when I will be having oven baked dish for dinner. I get one of my children to mix up batters or cookie dough while I prepare the supper and we bake them at the same time. This equals less electricity usage and a lower energy bill.

Marriage relationship

Sunday is Father’s Day and the whole world starts to buy gifts and make a fuss of Dad on this day. But what about the rest of the year? (By the way, I feel the same about Mother’s Day – everyday we should reflect love for those around us, not just on one particular day.)

Do we make time in our day, thoughts and actions for our husband? Yes, I know we are busy with schooling, home management and training our children 24/7 and it’s a full time job! But as you go about your day, build your husband up in prayer, do one special thing for him each day and encourage your children to do likewise.

For a little help I shared some of our favorite Father’s Day crafts on my toddler site.

Quote

“Our goal in probing the child’s heart is to bring him to the sober assessment of himself as a sinner, to help him recognize his need for Christ, and to teach him to act, think and be motivated as a Christian. It is not that difficult to train our children to act like Christians. We have really accomplished something when we have trained them to think like Christians.” Ginger Plowman, Don’t Make Me Count to Three

Book reviews

This month my older son and I have put our heads together and created two new book review pages for your older boys:

*Adventure books for boys
*Christian fantasy and analogies (Some of the books on this page have been enjoyed by my elder daughter too!)

Other updates to Homeschool Curriculum for Life

Summer vacation is here for my American readers and in a weeks time most South African homeschoolers will take a mid year break. With this in mind, and just because it is great fun, I have created a mini unit study focused on the movie: Night at the Museum 2

We found that while hugely entertaining, there were two places that were unsuitable for our younger children. If you are wanting to do the study, and are uncertain about these sections (so that like us, you can cover your young ones eyes) please contact me and I can give you ahead warning.

I hope to add a few more over the next while based on other movies that we have really enjoyed that have historical characters. So watch this space!

Take care until next time,
God’s richest blessings to you as you homeschool,
Wendy

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