Alrighty ladies, Christmas is over and the New Year celebrations will soon be a thing of the past, too. That means almost all of you already have your wheels spinning about homeschool plans for the new year to come. I’m ready to include all your wonderful ideas in the next Charlotte Mason Carnival! (Um, that means I need you to write a wonderful post andsubmit it! LOL)
If you happen to have CM writer’s block, I’d like to pass on a few ideas. Why? Because these are things I’d like to read about!
Some of the best living literature you’ve read with your children.
Homeschooling CM style with toddlers in the house.
How you organize your family’s chore time (habit training.)
What you plan to do for winter nature study.
What didn’t work last semester and what you’re doing to tweak it.
All your submissions need to be in to me by MONDAY, JAN 5 at 8:00pm EST (preferably much earlier!) Oh, and encourage others to submit when you see a good blog post! I’m looking forward to all sorts of entries flooding in over the next few days.
Now, on to other things. Like many of you, I haven’t posted much lately because of Christmas celebrations and family time. I thought I’d include a few pictures to show you some of what we’ve been up to the past couple of weeks.
Christmas, of course. I just loved this picture of the big kids digging under the tree while Eli had this look on his face. “What in the world are they so excited about?”
A really cold day (seven degrees) with our single paned door looking cold, but beautiful the next morning.
A really warm day (seventy degrees) where we were able to go on a comfortable winter nature walk.
And a trip to the Creation Museum with grandparents and cousins.
I could keep going on about three different Christmas celebrations, after Christmas shopping, working cattle, doctors visits and such, but I’m sure your story is similar to mine and you can fill in the blanks! Have a wonderful start to your New Year!
I listened to Casting Crown’s While You Were Sleeping many times this Christmas season. Each time, I was moved. Each time, I found myself silently (or not so silently sometimes) saying, “Amen.”
Listen for yourself.
I was particularly moved by “As we’re sung to sleep by philosophies that save the trees and kill the children…”
Fast forward to today. I was browsing blog posts from my Homeschool Buzz widget and ran across Redbud Lane’s blog. In her side bar I saw this:
Did you read that number? Did you really think about what that number represents? Seven and a half MILLION babies. People. God’s people. His babies have been murdered.
Think about this…
We had raccoons infesting our barn when we first moved to our farm. They were creating a mess and destroying hay, feed and structures. We had to secretly catch and kill these destructive creatures because it was illegal to kill raccoons at the time. They weren’t “in season”. We could have gotten in big trouble. I guess we still could now that I’m mentioning it.
Deer are all over the place on our farm (and the roads that we travel daily.) Did you know you can get in BIG trouble – fines, removal of personal property, and possible jail time – for killing a deer out of season?
Did you know you can face the same consequences for fishing without a paid license?
Did you know you can go to federal prison for killing an eagle or taking one of its eggs?
I’m almost done, but there’s one more real example I have to give. I used to work with a Teen MOPS group. It’s purpose was not to support teenage pregnancy, but to teach teenage moms how to raise a child, to teach them how to *not* get pregnant again, to encourage them to see God’s will for themselves and their child and to hopefully lead them to Him through our teaching and example.
We fed these girls and their children before each meeting. Many of them weren’t getting very wholesome meals because, like most teenagers, they thought McDonalds offered all the food groups in a healthy way. The local churches would each sponsor one meal a year for our meetings. I went to my very own church one month asking the ladies to come up with something really great for these families to enjoy for the next meeting. All I recieved were rolled eyes and accusations that I was supporting teenage pregnancy.
Hear that. In my own church (and I venture to say many others that were approached) the main thought wasn’t turned toward uplifting these teens for taking the high road and not aborting their babies. It wasn’t on loving these girls who made mistakes and are now trying to be better moms. It wasn’t on asking, “What else can I do to help these girls learn to follow my Jesus and raise their children to follow Him, too?”
The main thought was something that a Pharisee might have had. “You want ME to support THEM? Cindy, what kind of so-called ministry are you part of?”
I don’t mention that story for any other reason than to point out more of the obvious. Our priorities in this world, in our country, and even in our churches are not in the right place. Casting Crowns’ song asks, “America, will we go down in history as a nation with no room for its King?” I ask, “Christians, are we doing all we can to make room for Him – in our own hearts and in our nation?”
“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.” Psalm 139:13-16
“Wisdom calls aloud in the street, she raises her voice in the public squares; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out, in the gateway of the cities she gives her speech: ‘How long will you simple ones love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge? If you would have responded to my rebuke, I would have poured out my heart to you and made my thoughts known to you. But since you rejected me when I called and no one gave heed when I stretched out my hand, since you ignored all my advice and would not accept my rebuke, I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you - when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you. Then they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me. Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the LORD since they would not accept my advice and spurned my rebuke, they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes. For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them; but whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm.”‘ Proverbs 1:20-33
Oh, and have you met God? Apparently Eli has! Every time he gets his busy little fingers on a Santa ornament he says, “God.” (Very reverently, I might add.) His innocent little eyes looking up at us with complete seriousness that he is holding God right in his chubby little hands.
This has been such a relaxing and awesome study! Using Easy Fun School’s free unit titled The Names of Jesus, we’ve spent a little time each day focusing on one of His names from the Bible and creating a scrapbook-style keepsake for each name.
I chose not to include most of the other suggestions from the unit since we were already doing other things each day. It has given my children the chance to really focus on the meaning of each of Jesus’ names and plenty of time to create a daily scrapbook page.
Take a look at a few of their pages. What a great memory maker for them!
Yep, Melissa was right from my last post, the cows were definitely not supposed to be in the yard. But, this much snow in December is pretty unusual in Central KY, too.
My children seem to think all the snow is wonderful! After a busy day of snowmen and sledding, they spent hours cutting out and hanging snowflakes all over their bedrooms. It’s festive for sure! (I’m keeping my fingers crossed that all that tape doesn’t pull the paint from the ceiling! Oh well, they’re only kids once.)
Speaking of snow, I’m hosting a wintry edition of the Charlotte Mason Carnival on January 6th. I know it’s tough to think about CM style schooling right now with everyone taking a much deserved Christmas break. After your Christmas celebrations are over, though, and you take a few minutes to think about your upcoming year, I’d appreciate you passing along some of your wonderful CM thoughts my way so I can add them to the carnival.
I’ve noticed the carnival has been slow lately. I hope we can kick off 2009 with a chunky edition. I’ll need your help, though. Since my blog change-over happened pretty quickly, I didn’t have time to warn people that my old RSS Feed would no longer work. I think I’ve lost some of my readers because of it. Will you help spread the word about the carnival? Don’t worry, I’ll remind you again as the date approaches.
You never know what I might be writing about - homeschool plans, field trips, projects, family life, and so much more. I hope you'll consider using the subscribe button at the top of my blog to keep up with all the happenings at Westward Academy. And, by the way, I love comments!
