Saturday, February 26, 2011

Goals in Homeschooling

Just trying to get ideas down today...Realized I am unclear after the Classical Conversations meeting today of whether it fits our family because I have not written out what exactly the goals for our children in educating them are. How will I know when we have fulfilled our roles in educating our children? Here are my goals in home education:

1. To motivate and inspire my children to seek after God and to follow Him all the days of their life.
2. To plant the word of God deep within their hearts, that it will be accessible to them in future time of need.
3. To nurture a desire in my children to learn and grow intellectually and spiritually, that a lifestyle of learning would be the norm, as opposed to teaching to the test.
4. To create competent communicators who can eloquently present, defend and expound the gospel as well as their own ideas when necessary.
5. To bring them each to a place of responsibility in their lives, where they are capable adults who are good stewards of their time, gifts and resources.
6. To teach my children how to learn, and how to gain new information and skills as they need it.
7. To give my children a firm handle on mathematical ideas and reasoning, that they would see the order in God's creation
8. To give my children a mental framework of the flow of world history, that they would see God's hand in world events and be discerning of the times in which they live.
9. That they would be capable readers, that no doors of learning would be closed to them in the future.
10. That they would have a clear understanding of science, scientific ideas, and the scientific method.
11. That they would be compassionate individuals, prayerfully minded and respectful toward toward those of different cultural backgrounds and religious beliefs, but evangelistic in their outlook toward all people and people groups.
12. That they would walk in truth.
13. And lastly, that they would grow to a place where I am no longer the teacher but instead we are walking together as adult peers and good friends.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Reading a book on Simple Living....

I started reading what looks to be a very helpful book from a lady named Tsh Oxenreider (yeah, weird name, huh? I'm not sure how you say it.) The book is called Organized Simplicity, and it's about simplifying your life and living intentionally. The author has a pretty cool blog, and some awesome free downloads at http://simplemom.net/tools/downloads/. I'm going to try using her daily dockets worksheets system to see if this is finally the system that will keep me on track. I've tried all kinds of time management systems and it seems most are too rigid and I can't even keep them up for a week. We'll see if this one is any different.