Home-style learning

A wonderful homeschool room

We have an official "school room" in our garden-level basement. It is very pleasant, with a window facing the South. Besides containing two file cabinets, there is a round table with comfortable chairs, a wipe-off board, and walls full of educational posters, most of which were placed there some nine years ago, ones, which, for that matter, are no more noticed than the pattern in the wallpaper. There is an exception to this; a huge map of Oregon shows wear from being examined by a number of hands and eyes. We seldom use this room. I guess we are too busy learning all over everywhere else.

A craft time for Faith

Learning has never before had the same definition it does today. Life and learning are now in their own completely separate compartments and rarely ever touch each other. 

Modern schooling is to learning what plastic is to wood. No matter how you texture or color it, it is still "fake" feeling, looking and smelling. It just doesn't matter how we try and repackage modern education, children can tell when it's not the genuine article. The more we try to make it "fun", the more it loses its authenticity, and the more it becomes unacceptable.

But when life and learning come together, in a natural marriage, props are not necessary. The learners of the past; Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Lincoln, never saw an "educational" poster or played an "educational" game. Every lesson was educational, and every game taught something about life.

Ryan working on a project

These days we are not concerned with whether or not Johnny knows how to live capably. We are more worried about how he "stacks up" on the tests and on how he fits into the social strata among his classmates. We wonder how well he has swallowed the lie that following social and school protocols will automatically bring him success.

What happens when Johnny has to make moral decisions that will affect the rest of his life? Will he understand the consequences and their ultimate price? Johnny might be able to jump through all of the hoops to enter into college, but does he comprehend how long he will have to work to pay for it? Will his spouse realize her college education promises to make it impossible for her to stay home with the children that she will one day love more than her dream of a "career"?

Study time!

Why does homeschooling work so well? Homeschooling parents don't spend years learning how to teach. Less than $1,000 a year is spent on each student learning at home, compared with the $8,000 a year spent on the average public-schooled student.

Homeschooling is successful because it has taken back learning from "education". 

As God originally intended, learning at home is done under the auspices of nurturing and committed parents; just as it was in the time of the founding fathers. 

When parents are involved, learning happens 24/7. In actuality, life is learning and learning is life. Parents have the contact hours necessary to ensure that their children are being encouraged and "schooled" (in the old sense). Parents help their children complete the connection between gaining knowledge from books and the practicality of how it is walked out in daily living.

Parents are the ultimate, the original FACILITATORS!

Love and togetherness!

That is why children at home don't need a collection of gaudy posters, each one showing only a thimbleful of information. They don't need to be teased, entertained or coerced into learning; they were born with a natural desire to learn. Just watch them for a little while—they love discovering new and exciting things. 

We supply some structure, discipline, and the necessary materials. 

Oh, and we also add love, interest and inspiration—items never found for sale in a school supply catalog!

28 years ago...

...almost to the day, a baby girl was born to me. This morning, that same baby girl had herself a little baby boy. I am so pleased to announce the birth of Jonathan Andrew, 7 lbs, 20 inches!

Reviewing the family food budget

A local Christian radio station is running a peanut butter and jelly food donation campaign.

The idea is to keep children from going hungry at the end of the month by providing them with the means to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I like this idea—peanut butter has been a blessing to our family during many lean times!

A sample of one of our monthly meal menus

Tragedy can fall upon anyone—no matter how careful we may plan. There are times that even the surplus we have scurried away can be depleted, when the paycheck is gone, and there is illness in the family.

Challenging circumstances do happen to good, God-fearing people. They occur to those folks whose hearts are pure before Him. These difficult seasons can be a time of training and blessing, so that God can feed us from His precious promises and clothe us in His abundant grace.

But there is also a place for careful management of what we have. In our family, after reviewing our monthly budget, we set aside a specific amount to be expended for groceries. I understand that, if I do not manage these funds well, there are no extra dollars for me to spend; I must live within these boundaries.

Family budget - Home-School Planner

Without a plan or a budget there is a tendency for a family manager to drag her whole family through a "feast or famine" routine. See if you recognize it:

Since the family has been living on ramen noodle soup and bologna at the end of the month, everyone by this time is craving wholesome food. Before the money is placed into Mom's hands, everyone is begging for the meat, fresh fruits, vegetables and special treats which have been absent from their diet over the past week or so. Even Mom's eyes are big as she salivates over the steaks that are "on sale" in the local grocery store ads. "Wouldn't it be fun to have some friends over for grilled salmon, after all, it is at a rock-bottom price this week!" she muses.

So she goes to the store, with a purse full of coupons, and almost spends the entire budget, filling the cart with all sorts of special items that she knows will make everyone at home very happy.

In just a few weeks, after all of the pre-made, expensive foods have been consumed, she's back in the store again.

This time she is filling her basket up with oatmeal, potatoes, peanut butter, and baloney. The children come to the table and groan with discontent. Her hungry husband breaks the budget by charging lunch at work—which plunges the family's finances further into the red.

Then, the next month, the whole process begins all over again.

There is a better way!

Delicious beef tacos

This is what the wisest home managers do; instead of having all of the best foods at the beginning of the month, and the cheap foods at the end of the month, why not plan to have a bit of both every week? If we have two meatless meals with beans, and at least one meal of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every week, this allows for a few nights with dishes like Asian chicken and homemade pizza, and weekends with hamburgers and delicious beef tacos, etc.

If we eat steel-cut oats one morning, and regular oats another (making sure they are well-flavored and served with love and thankfulness), then I can offer my children Rice Krispies treats (with dried fruit and nuts) on another morning.

Living this way teaches my children to be thankful for what they have, to be content. It also keeps them from feeling "poor". The "feast and famine" approach gives children the idea that there is never enough. It keeps them thinking that the only way to live well is to have more and more money. The largest paycheck in the world will not last long if it is not managed well.

Five Basic Food Groups Chart

What I really love to do from time-to-time is to buy a huge roast at the beginning of the month, an inexpensive cut that is on sale, and save it in the freezer. Then, at the end of the month, while planning for next month's meals, I have this wonderful meat with potatoes simmering in the crock pot, and as I serve it up, the reactions of my loved ones are priceless!

I know that I must be rather odd, but there is something in a bowl of black-eyed peas that my body craves. In combination with a pan of freshly baked cornbread and some healthy "real" butter, the meal (and the protein) is complete. Jell-O with bananas nicely rounds out the mealtime.

This is not all that organic or trendy, but it has fed generations of American families. It has kept food on the table through all sorts of economic downturns and other stressful periods.

Cottage-fried potatoes also keep people satisfied and happy. These can even be done with a coating of olive oil and baked in the oven. I like to add some Parmesan and a bit of smoked sausage to mine. My children don't like onions, so a bit of onion powder suffices. Green beans are a great compliment to this simple meal.

Old-fashioned chicken noodle soup!

Of course, soup is just about the best wholesome meal for your money. On a chilly fall day, even the aroma can't be beat for soul-satisfaction. My kids love to put in green beans and a number of different canned legumes with smoked sausage, a can of diced tomatoes, along with some chicken bouillon cubes.


And, yes, we eat peanut butter and jelly at least once a week. We enjoy it with ramen noodle soup—just simple enough for the kids to love. To balance out the nutrition, we eat raisin bran cereal for breakfast, snack on carrots and celery during the day and have a more substantial meal for dinner.

Healthy and satisfying!

Even though we do not eat a complete diet of organic, and whole-foods, my children eat much better than I ever did growing up. My dear mother tried so hard to make sure we were well-fed, so it wasn't her fault at all, it was just our circumstances. I remember many days having a bowl of sweet cereal for breakfast, skipping the horrible school lunch food altogether (i.e., cold cereal, burgers served on a bun without condiments did not impress me—neither did the pizza—a square of dough with some tomato paste ladled onto it often accompanied with three tiny shreds of mozzarella cheese) and then enjoying my one significant meal with my mother and sister at dinner.

My children have three very healthy and satisfying, kid-friendly meals each day—and I know what they are eating and how much, because I am sitting at the table with them.

I would rather eat a little more inexpensively, with a tad of peanut butter and bologna, than to leave them each day so I could afford more pricey foods.

As an old country doctor used to say, "A child doesn't care if he has a few holes in his shoes, as long as his daddy and mama are King and Queen in his eyes."

For more good ideas visit Life In a Shoe and the other of the four moms discussing this very subject!

Something every child should know...

Charles Stanley had some wonderful, awesome, extremely important things to say about making wise decisions. Really worth watching and even printing out the notes for further discussion and study.

The Key to Making Wise Decisions

Our fall homeschool days

Here are some photographs of what I came up with for the core of our homeschooling program this year. I wrote in my last post how I was trying to use "raw materials" to cut down on costs (such as the Dollar Homeschool CD's, a printer, some paper, and basic stationery and school supplies). I am very pleased as to how it all turned out! Praise God!

This is Olivia's crate—in it she has placed her 3-ring binder, copybook, 
White's Arithmetic, and math answer booklet.

Here are Ryan's 3-ring binder and copybook. I used graphics from Clipart, Etc. and put them into Microsoft Publisher to create them.

Even our sweet Pinkie gets to do "school" with stickers and crayons in her booklet.

Big Brother prefers to do his McGuffey's while listening to music.

Sarah is also in the Elementary book. Here she is using the answer booklet 
I created to check her work.

I printed out some penmanship sheets from Donna Young and created booklets for 
Faith and her older sister, Olivia.

Here are some of the books I printed and bound for this year. Some of the graphics are from 
Clipart, Etc., some from The Graphics Fairy, and some from the books themselves.

Lorilee is telling me about her picture—her rendition of Beatrix Potter's "The Fierce, Bad Rabbit".

These are booklets I created using my long-armed stapler and some wonderful paper my dear husband found at a garage sale—we have a stockpile of the wonderful stuff in the cupboard!

This is one of my "learning baskets".

This is the contents of the "learning basket"; flash cards, star stickers, the New England Primer, and a set of index cards with one fun activity on each, such as "watercolor painting", "playdough" and "washing the play dishes" on each. I use these when planning for the little girls--they love them!

We are having such a warm fall that 'Liv and Ellie had to take advantage 
of it and do their work on the porch.

Nicole loves McGuffey!