inspiration | Homeschool Happymess: A Naturally Inspiring Approach to Education

Up, Up, and Away! 1,500 books prepare to travel to Anglican Seminaries in Africa

Posted on October 17, 2013 by homeschoolhappymess

The Wonderland BookSavers are continuing with their mission to spread the joy of reading through the distribution of used texts to new readers. In this capacity, we were called upon to find a home for approximately 1,500 books from the personal library of the (deceased) prominent Episcopal minister, Rev. H. Boone Porter.

We began our project in the catacomb-like basement of the parish rectory. With flashlights and extension cords for our computers, we created an initial bibliography of the books we discovered.

Each box was like a surprise Christmas gift. We discovered Bibles from the 1800’s, ancient prayer books in miniature (designed for portability) and texts in Latin, Greek and Hebrew.

After our initial assessment of the books we began looking for a recipient. After much research we contacted the Theological Book Network in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We were thrilled to finally locate an organization that could organize and distribute our large volume of theological texts.

The following is a letter the Theological Book Network received from South Sudan from a previous (not ours) book donation. We are so grateful that the human spirit will continue to rise even after decades of desperation.

The RECONCILE Peace Institute is so thankful for your (Theological Book Network) partnership!

Your affirming e-mails, phone conversations, and library resources are an absolute blessing! The Theological Book Network’s generous commitment to provide 1,500 books will help improve the vital ministries of trauma recovery and conflict transformation which we offer in South Sudan. Thank you. Without question, life in a nation scarred by decades of
civil war, lack of development, extensive trauma, and profound community wounds is quite difficult, but the Lord has called our organization to this service. God is using people of faith from around the globe and in the Church in South Sudan to accompany the world’s newest nation in her journey towards hope, healing and reconciliation. Thank you for
investing your resoures into God’s vision for South Sudan.

As I write this letter, the South Sudanese pastors, teachers, bishops, NGO peace workers, and community leaders pictured above are traveling into places of unrest and conflict to make a difference. They all studied and trained at the RECONCILE Peace Institute. Your partnership reminds them, Christians of all nations support their efforts to rebuild their
communities. Thank you. I am sincerely honored to call you partners and friends.

Yours in Christ,

Rev. Shelvis Smith-Mather, M.Div., Th.M
Principal of the RECONCILE Peace Institute
RECONCILE International (Yei, South Sudan)

Theological Network builds “libraries” from donated books and ships them around the world. Rev. Bonne Porter’s books will be traveling to Anglican Seminaries throughout Africa.

This is particularly appropriate as Rev. Boone Porter is best know for his efforts to find common ground in the various denominations representing the Christian faith. His scholarly work led him to rewrite the 1979 edition of the Book of Common Prayer.

As noted in the New York Times on July 1, 1999:

“The vision of Reverend Dr. Cannon H. Boone Porter’s 44 years of ordained ministry aimed to revitalize the Episcopalian Church through education, liturgical reform and inclusion of its marginalized members. His work of raising up new membership, enriching Christian worship and creating a central place for women, Afro-and Native Americans and rural communities in the Church was often opposed but succeeded in redefining the Episcopal Church’s relationships within itself and with the world.”

We found that Boone’s personal library contains approximately 1,500 Christian texts, ranging from prayer books, books on Christian doctrine, books on the importance of architecture and discussions of faith-based questions such as personal responsibility and the ethics and ethos of free will.

As we handle these books we imagine the human beings who have come before us, hundreds of years of readers who have gained insight and inspiration from these very same pages.

“If God’s love is for anybody anywhere, it’s for everybody everywhere.” — Edward Lawlor, Nazarene General Superintendent

Let Me Count the Days: Homeschooling is connecting our lives with the lives of others, in a meaningful, tangible manner.

Filed under: Art, Community Service, History, Humanities, Literature, World Awareness | Tagged: community service, donating books, homeschool, homeschooling, inspiration, religion, Rev. H. Boone Porter, South Sudan, Theological Book Network, Wonderland BookSavers | Leave a comment »

Aftermath and Leisure: A poetic taste of Indian summer

Posted on October 9, 2013 by homeschoolhappymess

The end of summer and the beginning of autumn begins with blurred edges and ends with a sharp quick taste, like too-dark chocolate.

This year fall we have been graced with long Indian summer days paired with apple crisp evenings. Our too short summer is now extending into October.

Our local library hosts an evening pillow fight.

We daily wear bathing suits and T-shirts while frisking in the riotous spanking yellows and poignant orange pigments of the season.

Despite the weather, school is open…and with it we have new lessons, sharpened pencils, more Shakespeare, biology experiments and new poems to memorize.

What better poem to capture the season than Aftermath by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow?

When the summer fields are mown,

When the birds are fledged and flown,

And the dry leaves strew the path;

With the falling of the snow,

With the cawing of the crow,

Once again the fields we mow,

And gather in the aftermath.

Not the sweet, new grass with flowers

Is this harvesting of ours;

Not the upland clover bloom;

But the rowan mixed with weeds,

Tangled tufts from marsh and meads,

Where the poppy drops its seeds

In the silence and the gloom.

Or perhaps we need to hold a nugget of summer in our hearts, as expressed in this poem, Leisure, by William Henry Davies.

What is this life, if full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this, if full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

Let Me Count the Days: Homeschooling is spending just the right amount time studying this butterfly, and every other thing of beauty.

Filed under: Field Trips, Humanities, Literature, World Awareness | Tagged: Aftermath by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, classic children's literature, education, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, homeschool, homeschooling, Indian summer days, inspiration, Leisure by William Henry Davies, poetry, William Henry Davies | 2 Comments »

Happy Easter to All! The Lord is Risen Indeed!

Posted on March 31, 2013 by homeschoolhappymess

Lord, open our lips, and our mouth shall proclaim your praises.

This Easter began beautifully on the beach, where nature was as elegant as scripture in defining the moment.

Christ the Lord is risen today—Al-le-lu-ia!

Earth and Heaven in chorus say—Al-le-lu-ia!

Bounce was delighted to build in the sand throughout the service. He proudly recreated Jesus’ tomb. Children everywhere dug their toes into the sand and built crosses, tombs and raised small toys from the dead.

As Scooter later said, “That was the best church service ever!”

But where was the Easter bunny?

Hiding eggs and spreading joy with the help of the Peep Patrol

And with the clang of the bell, they were off!

After singing, prayer and egg hunts, we all settled into our own pursuits.

Scooter counted Bunnies

And I counted my blessings.

Two quotes I particularly enjoyed today from this 14^th century monastic work are,

If you consider what peace a good life will bring to yourself and what joy it will give to others, I think you will therefore be more concerned about your spiritual progress.

And, Keep an eye primarily upon yourself, and admonish yourself instead of your friends.

Let Me Count the Days: Homeschooling is, As it was in the beginning, is now, and forever shall be.. Amen.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Easter, homeschool, homeschooling, inspiration, spiritual progress | Leave a comment »

Inspired by Angie: Solving a Homeschooler’s Dilemma

Posted on March 5, 2013 by homeschoolhappymess

Recently, Angie, a Homeschool HappyMess reader, sent me a series of questions that I thought might make an interesting post, and so with Angie’s permission, she and I will together tackle the intricacies of designing a homeschool curriculum..

Angie: Allia, I have been following your blog and am inspired beyond measure.

Believe me, I am grateful for your confidence in our humble homeschool. Homeschooling is a leap of faith. You have to believe in yourself and believe in your children. It is my hope, through this blog, that people can see themselves bringing inspiration and creativity to their own children’s education.

Mine is one step in an effort to right the wrong of boring, stultifying education whose tenants of secular equality for all has whitewashed history and distilled learning to nothing more than a series of meaningless platitudes, creating a generation of children with no interest in reading and little ability to write, let alone create. Break out the paint, glue and glitter, read original documents, apply literature to history, perform a science experiment…together we can explore the planet.

Angie: I have a few questions: Do you use the literature to guide the history lessons or do you teach history in a chronological order (like other classical homeschoolers) and choose literature that corresponds with that time in history?

I am a strong believer in the benefits of teaching history in chronological order, after all, that is the order in which it all happened. Like domino’s, each event was the catalyst for the next, each shift in beliefs, a result of the immediate past. That being said, I have found that if followed too literally, it is difficult to ever get out of the Middle Ages, let alone Ancient Mesopotamia. So, although I enjoy reading A Child’s History of the World, by Virgil M. Hillyer, and my children love The Story of the World (especially on tape), by Susan Wise Bauer, sometimes (often) I will jump around.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC. Hall of Armour

Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC. Hall of Armor

HappyMess boys wearing “real” armor!

I am an even bigger believer in grabbing opportunities as they present themselves, and building a quick mini-lesson around an exhibit, or a play or an article in the newspaper. History, and science are so much more interesting when a child can see the immediate application of the knowledge.

Joan of Arc, MET

HappyMess kids studying Joan of Arc at MET

History at the MET

Museums are a great place to learn about the past. Here we find that ancient peoples had similar aspirations as ourselves.

History books that we have enjoyed include: The American Story, by Jennifer Armstrong and A Young People’s History of the United States, by Howard Zinn. There are countless wonderful books about ancient Egypt and Greece and about every corner of the world. I like to choose books with engaging pictures as I usually begin every History lesson with shared reading. Initially, it is the parent, or teacher, who breathes life into the history lesson. A good history lesson is like a piece of theater, filled with anticipation, suspense, surprise and resolution.

We have found that many literature books dovetail nicely with our studies. When reading historical literature we concentrate on understanding the feelings of the characters, asking ourselves, Why did they make these choices? Respond in this manner? How is this different, or the same from our experiences, desires, actions? Frequently we will read a book that is so compelling, we will read the literature first and then research the time period afterwards.

Celadon pottery at the MET

This was the case with A Single Shard, by Linda Sue Park. We read the book, chose a quote as our school motto, and visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC to view original pieces of celadon pottery.

Oh..and built an entire book club, around that experience, and created an Outreach Program, Wonderland BookSavers, that has so far, since September, donated 4,000 books to needy children both in the US and abroad…

and created a 7 minute documentary film and a Destination Imagination theatrical presentation…see the importance of just one piece of quality literature…?

So, what was the answer? Usually I am running at least two concurrent history programs. One is plowing forward through time, looking at facts, geo-political factors, resulting changes, etc., the other is inspired by current events, great literature, museum exhibits or lectures on a topic.

Additionally, Homeschool HappyMess kids participate in National History Day each year. This leads to very in depth research into a specific topic. This year we are focusing on the TET offensive and the media misinformation that surrounded that event, causing the American people to further turn against the Vietnam War.

Our older children have created a theatrical piece in which the “war fought in the living rooms of America,” literally comes home through investigative journalism. They recently won First Place for their local presentation, and are off to the State competition next month. Working on projects and competitions allows the student to “own” a piece of history.

We are also engaged in learning the fine art of the “research paper,” through a project on the Economy of Ancient Ephesus, as an offshoot of the study of Latin and a subset of the history of the Roman Empire.

History is the wonderful and terrible story that envelopes us all. There are 1,000 ways to study, memorize, examine, and theorize about history. Choose any path, as they say, “All roads lead to Rome.”

Angie: How do you relate the sciences?

Well, we again take several different approaches to the study of science, for younger children I am content with doing fun experiments and visiting hands-on science museums and randomly choosing interesting science books or biographies from the library. My goal is simple: awaken curiosity and provide answers about our physical world. Science and history can often be studied in tandem, as is the case with Leonardo Da Vinci, Galileo and Copernicus. Science, like history, is not a series of facts but a series of people.

leaf classification

Our 3rd grader is also following the BJU curriculum. This provides many interesting facts and experiments in a more organized fashion. Again, we read books, biographies and enjoy the world. As our students get older we follow specific studies so they can learn the basics of chemistry, biology and physics.

Angie: How do you go about choosing your reading list for the year?

I love classic literature. Generally those books, which have been known and loved for decades, are well written, use correct English grammar, have interesting vocabulary choices, reflect clear values and tell a compassionate story that resonates with young readers. In other words, they are worth struggling with and will make your student a better reader and a more thoughtful person. My annual reading list is comprised of those pieces of quality children’s literature which are at the appropriate reading level. I mainly choose books the child can read himself, but also include a few that can be read aloud and discussed. For our book club we have focused on books that reflect a message of personal growth and responsibility. These books have included A Single Shard by Park, from which we took as our motto, “One hill, one valley, one day at a time…,” Old Yeller, by Gipson, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, by Carroll, Classic Poetry, Ancient Greek and Roman Myths and now, Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan. With each book, our book club performed a community service project…but that is a long story for another day…

Angie: Also, a fun one: is your schoolhouse an outbuilding or connected to the main house?

HappyMess schoolhouse visitors

In this case, since homeschooling has taken over our lives and thus, every corner of our living space I think it might be more accurate to say that our home is a modified outbuilding connecting to our schoolhouse.

Angie, I hope this helps. Thanks for your faithful reading! Allia

Let Me Count the Days: Homeschooling is sharing the experience of growth with an unseen, but forever perspicacious community.

Filed under: Art, Contests, Current Events, Field Trips, History, Humanities, Literature, Theater, World Awareness | Tagged: Destination Imagination, field trips, History leassons, homeschool, homeschooling, inspiration, literature and history, metropolitan museum of art, national history day, Wonderland BookSavers | 7 Comments »

Adventures in Bookland: Destination Imagination (again!)

Posted on December 5, 2012 by homeschoolhappymess

Homeschool Happymess is counting down to Christmas and the vacation that surrounds this wonderful time of year.

We are crazily trying to complete all our fall projects, blasting through those half-discarded spelling books, competing with one another,

“How many chapters have YOU completed in Wordly Wise?”

Our older students have final exams in Latin, Witty Wordsmith, Chemistry, Algebra, and History of Science, to name just a few. They can be found up at all hours, musing over flashcards, strewn across couches, reciting archaic languages and studying arcane scientific facts. They are dedicated. They are restless. They anticipate the conclusion and yet, 15 page term papers still loom in their immediate futures

Our younger students are delighting in the wreaths that are newly hung on all the doors and windows. They eagerly search every magazine for clues as to what Santa may bring. They are crafting and wrapping small games and puzzles for their favorite stuffed animals. Adventure Bear will receive a lovely pot of marmalade, purloined from a breakfast buffet. Gifts are wrapped and hidden. Bounce has an elaborate pirate treasure map detailing all the locations. I encounter these odd items as I search the back of cupboards and behind doors looking for missing Christmas china and wrapping paper.

And throughout the mayhem emerges our newest project: The Wonderland BookSavers: Inspired by Literature

This year Bounce and his friends formed a new book club dedicated to reading and discussing Classic Children’s Literature. The book group members are young enthusiasts who are committed to making the world a better place. Following their reading of Old Yeller, (previous post), the group read, and became entranced by, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll.

They decided to name their Destination Imagination Project Outreach team after Alice in Wonderland and after great thought they have created the already amazing, Wonderland BookSavers.

Their mission is to redistribute gently used children’s books to children, libraries and schools who have need of these books.

Thus far they have donated 685 books to a local charter school library.

They are currently preparing another 1,000 books to be sent to a community in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia.

Wonderland BookSavers has already had a strikingly positive influence on this initially simple homeschool book club. The children are able to see the tremendous impact that literature can have upon the imagination and the spirit of the reader. They understand that reading is a form of communication, both with the author and with other readers. They value the time that they spend reading and discussing literature and thus they see the value that books have for all children and communities.

Wonderland BookSavers are committed to enlarging the community of children that have access to books. The children love handling all the “used” books. They pore over the pictures, read aloud sections to one another, and generally have the opportunity to enjoy hundreds of books that they might otherwise never have seen.

Occasionally they will hold a book up in disgust,

“This is TOTALLY inappropriate,”

as a modern and heavily pregnant Mary goes lurching along on a donkey in a parody of Mary and Joseph, and out the book goes in the trash.

But mostly, these discarded and unloved books are wonderful classics and our children fall in love with them before carefully placing them in the box with the other treasures.

Wonderland BookSavers are wondering, “Who are these other unknown children?” and, “Will they like these books as much as we like them?”

And so, as the Christmas Season is upon us, we find once again that, “Giving is better than receiving.”

What we didn’t realize is that we would be watching 4 young children locating and donating literally thousands of books to communities across the country and even across the oceans, with their motto, “Inspired by Literature.”

Let Me Count the Days: Homeschooling is watching a small book club reach out and touch the world.

Filed under: Community Service, Contests, World Awareness | Tagged: book donations, classic children's literature, community service, Destination Imagination, homeschool, homeschooling, inspiration, literature, reading, Wonderland BookSavers | 1 Comment »

Hurricane Homeschool

Posted on November 1, 2012 by homeschoolhappymess

Hurricane Sandy has swirled, uninvited, into our lives, and like our neighbors near and far, our lives have been temporarily rearranged.

The leaves are now gone from the branches. They hover in clumps at the bottom of the pool, shimmering on reflected trees.

We, like many, were Mandatory Evacuated. In a matter of 45 minutes we grabbed groceries (everything we could see), clothing (not much), schoolbooks (the basics), one computer and the dog. Of course, we forgot the flashlights. And so we returned to our Traveling Homeschool mode that marked so much of last year. This time, with our previous experience, we knew just how to do it. Hint: fastest packing item, the laundry basket. Grab everything you see and toss it in a basket. Throw basket in trunk and drive away.

Meanwhile the kids were most distraught about missing their friends and Halloween. In fact, that was the only salient point they understood about the entire evacuation process. Prompting my husband to question their sanity.

“But we will be missing Halloweeen,” they howled in unison, as our car pulled out of the driveway.

“It is a National Emergency,” Husband replies matter-of-factly.

“But we can’t miss Halloweeeen.”

Husband turns the volume up louder on the radio.

Three hours later, when we arrive at our new temporary housing,

“When can we go home? It’s almost Halloween. We HAVE to go home for trick-or-treating.”

A revolt was imminent. I unpacked the kids, dog and books and promptly set up a portable classroom. This shocked the kids into silence.

You may ask, Why school? With every single school in half the nation closed, why do we continue, undaunted, as we are pummeled by wind and rain?

Simple. Parental sanity. With 5 kids in a small space, schoolwork is the most direct route to peace and tranquility.

We brought only our most basic books, math, spelling and vocabulary. With many online classes and textbooks we quickly created a computer-share system with priority going to kids taking classes on the West Coast, where there are no weather-related delays. Remarkably, they got everything completed and uploaded in time, despite being granted extensions.

With few textbooks we quickly turn to the best education: classics. By late afternoon each day we are draped about the room, swathed in blankets and reading the available books. Athena is reading My Antonia by Willa Cather, Quantum finished A Raison in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry and then found a copy of Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Truth is happily reading Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, Bounce has finished Alice in Wonderland and is now reading Through the Looking Glass, both by Lewis Carroll, and I am finishing Black Boy by Richard Wright. Happily, with few clothes and much food, we are comfortably dressed in our pajamas for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Scooter found a box of alphabet letters and spent several hours figuring out how to arrange them in alphabetical order. Soon we may use these letters to show Scooter how to create three letter words. He now knows there is a pattern to word-making.

The lights began flickering and I began steadily cooking all the food in the house. My husband asked, as the second roast chicken came shimmering out of the oven with several dozen baked potatoes, “What ARE you doing?”

“Cooked ford is more useful than raw food,” I responded, and went on to hard boil another dozen eggs.

So now it is officially Halloween and the police have canvassed the neighborhood and forbidden children from wandering around in the danger-ridden dark.

Needless to say, our neighborhood is now scarier looking than the best Halloween and it looks like real ghosts have been playing havoc with the town.

Our family, like many others, is thankful for our safety. We are grateful for simple family moments: meals shared together by candlelight, games played by the fireside, and long afternoons spent reading cherished classics, all punctuated by long rainy-day dog walks.

Hurricane Sandy has provided us the opportunity to stop moving at the speed of light (electricity) and begin to move at the more natural speed of the human being.

Let Me Count the Days: Homeschooling is being grateful for the miracle of safety and educating your children through literature in the midst of chaos and adventure.

Filed under: Current Events, Humanities, Literature, World Awareness | Tagged: classic children's literature, education, Halloween, homeschool, homeschooling, homeschooling while traveling, Hurricane Sally, inspiration, literature, teaching reading | 2 Comments »

Wordless Wednesday: Have Sign Will Travel

Posted on October 17, 2012 by homeschoolhappymess

We observed this man at the beach.

Man and his Sign.

We stayed long enough to determine that: Yes, he arrived and departed with his sign, carefully folding it along with his chair and book, before returning all parts to the trunk of his car.

This is one dedicated individual.

Let Me Count the Days: Homeschooling is enjoying the local political scene while drinking coffee at the beach.

Filed under: Current Events, World Awareness | Tagged: education, homeschool, homeschooling, inspiration, Romney sign | 2 Comments »

Mystic Aquarium: Sea (ze) the Day!

Posted on October 16, 2012 by homeschoolhappymess

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The engine rooms of the Titanic are fascinating and tell a poignant story of ambition and destruction. Bounce and Scooter are amazed by the sheer immensity. How can something this big be so easily destroyed?

Examining the varieties of fish, touching the leathery-spiny hides of baby sharks and avoiding the nipping claws of sand crabs make marine life accessible.

Small portholes in the penguin exhibit give Scooter the impression that he is inside the tank.

The (brainless) jellyfish exhibit pure poetry.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Khalil Gibran

Let Me Count the Days: Homeschooling is finding beauty in all creatures, great and small.

Filed under: Field Trips, Science, World Awareness | Tagged: education, field trips, homeschool, homeschooling, inspiration, kids and marine biology, Mystic Aquarium | 2 Comments »

Missing From Schedule: Daydreaming

Posted on September 12, 2012 by homeschoolhappymess

A fellow blogger recently reminded me that daydreaming is central to creativity, intelligence and enjoyment of life.

So why isn’t it in the Schedule??!

Homeschooling is work, lots of work. When we aren’t focused on our worksheets and textbooks we are reading historical commentaries and related fiction. We are practicing our piano and rehearsing for our play. We are preparing for our next contest and checking our boxes on our assignment sheets. Yes, we are working away.

Many people are quick to comment on what they presume to be missing from the Homeschooling Lifestyle.

They ask, “But what about socialization?”

Can-Can Dancers created by Athena

I respond, “With 14 kids here running around designing new machines, creating art and theater and jumping on the trampoline, it is a wonder with all this socialization that they ever get anything done!” (Exasperated Homeschool Mom after Heavy Kid Infiltration)

Still unsatisfied, they query, “How do you know they are learning anything? Do you get them tested?”

Heavy sigh accompanied with small smile, “Yes, they take all types of standardized tests. They have weekly review tests. We are quite confident that they are learning.”

Doubting Thomas continues, “But aren’t you worried that they won’t know how to react in difficult situations? How will they know how to make the correct decision?”

I answer, “And how is that exactly being taught in schools these days?” Because really, if they are teaching morality, propriety and good judgment I am certainly the last to know.

But, do you know what is missing from Homeschool Happymess? Good old fashioned daydreaming.

The advantage of attending regular school is that you have hours upon hours in which you can simply gaze out the window. School affords the student with the opportunity to escape through all manner of dreams.

Universe created by Bounce

The opportunity to contemplate the universe, to imagine oneself as a super-hero, to solve global problems, to examine the wings of an errant butterfly, should not escape the homeschool student.

As Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

And echoed by Shakespeare, through Hamlet, ‘To sleep, perchance to dream…”

So in the name of good old-fashioned schooling, shall we have a day devoted to dreaming? It will certainly be a worthwhile way to spend our time.

Bounce in Self-Designed Chapeau

Let Me Count the Days: Homeschooling is a cornucopia of possibilities. Let’s remember to allow our children the simple but necessary joy of daydreaming, so they can imagine, and eventually build, a better tomorrow.

Filed under: Art, Contests, Humanities, Theater, World Awareness | Tagged: daydreaming, education, homeschool, homeschooling, inspiration, kids | 4 Comments »

History: The Timeless Gift

Posted on September 7, 2012 by homeschoolhappymess

A quick History lesson from Pulitzer Prize winner, David McCullough,

Nobody lived in the past, if you stop to think about it. Jefferson, Adams, Washington- they didn’t walk around saying, “Isn’t this fascinating, living in the past?” They lived in the present just as we do. The difference was it was their present, not ours. And just as we don’t know how things are going to turn out for us, they didn’t either.

In a 2005 speech, David McCullough makes the point that “history” happens to the everyday man and woman. What makes the story interesting, and thus memorable, is the way the people respond to the events of their time. As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, “Character is Destiny,” and McCullough makes the case that our Founding Fathers’ biggest attribute was their character.

McCullough encourages the teaching of history to ensure that we, the current occupants of this world, value the gifts we have been given by our predecessors.

He says, “We have to know who we were if we’re to know who we are and where we’re headed. This is essential. We have to value what our forebears did for us, or we are not going to take it very seriously, and it can slip away.”

McCullough offers this analogy, “If you’ve inherited some great work of art that is worth a fortune, and you don’t even know that it is a great work of art and you’re not interested in it – you are going to lose it.”

Thus our precious Democracy will go by the wayside if we fail to teach our young students the value of freedom and personal liberty. It becomes our responsibility as teachers, parents, and educators to instill a love of our Nation and an appreciation for the sacrifices that have afforded our freedoms.

One of our favorite books for the young historian.

Our Happymess kids love history. We strive to make every century seem relevant and interesting. We use countless sources from illustrated children’s books, colorful atlases, ancient maps, primary sources, personal diaries, illustrated encyclopedias and dense historical dissertations. We love documentary films, old newsreels and historical novels. History is the story, our story. And thus we were very gratified to find a perfect endorsement of homeschool-style teaching in the middle of McCullough’s presentation.

The original flag that inspired The Star Spangled Banner national anthem. We visited this last year in Washington, DC.

And we need not leave the whole job of history teaching to the teachers. The teaching of history, the emphasis on the importance of history, the enjoyment of history, should begin at home. We who are parents or grandparents should be taking our children to historic sites. We should be talking about those books in biography or history that we have particularly enjoyed, or that character or those characters in history that have meant something to us. We should be talking about what it was like when we were growing up in the olden days. Children, particularly little children, love this. And in my view, the real focus should be at the grade school level…they can learn anything so fast it takes your breath away. The very important truth is that they want to learn and they can be taught anything. And there’s no secret to teaching history or making history interesting. Tell stories. That’s what history is: a story. And what’s a story? E.M. Foster gave a wonderful definition of it: If I say to you, the king died and then the queen died, that’s a sequence of events. If I say, the king died and the queen died of grief, that’s a story. That’s human. That calls for empathy. And we ought to be growing, encouraging and developing historians who have heart and empathy.

I wonder if McCullough knew he was actually accurately describing the homeschool movement and our emphasis on multi-disciplinary, multi-generational and multi-cultural education, all with the purpose of “making it feel real” and thus instilling empathy for all.

http://www.notgrass.com

We are grateful for today’s history lesson, which was a portion of Lesson One from Exploring America, a homeschool curriculum designed by John Notgrass. We have used this program before and really love it. Notgrass has written text, quizzes, short-answer questions and essay questions, which cover the myriad facts that together comprise our national history. The companion volume, American Voices, is an amalgamated 400 pages of primary sources. Through these speeches, letters, poems and essays the student of American History can live and breathe the very words of the Americans who built our nation.

Let Me Count the Days: Homeschooling is bringing the past to life though original documents and mementoes.

Filed under: Art, Current Events, Field Trips, History, Humanities, Literature, World Awareness | Tagged: American History, David McCullough, education, field trips, history, homeschool, homeschooling, inspiration, John Notgrass | 2 Comments »

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