New Homeschooling Blog

Hello friends,

A few homeschooling moms including myself have started a new blog about homeschooling. 

Our goal is to open a little window into the lives of several different homeschooling families, so that anyone who is interested can see what homeschooling is really like.

We do this for several reasons: firstly, in hopes of dispelling a few persistent and inaccurate stereotypes about homeschooling and homeschoolers; and secondly, in hopes of inspiring and encouraging those who are thinking about homeschooling, and those who (like me) are just getting started and could use some ideas.

The authors come from different sizes and sorts of families in the UK and US, and no doubt our homeschooling methods vary quite a bit, too.  But what we all have in common is our Reformed Christian faith, which motivates and colors all that we do.

I'm looking forward to reading the new posts, aren't you?  Go ahead and bookmark the link, or follow in your favorite reader.  I'll post the link on my "other blogs" page.

Training Up Our Children

Whenever I get around to writing up a "Why I Homeschool" type of post, I'll post that here as well as on the homeschooling blog.  But all the nitty-gritty details about homeschooling and its challenges will go on the other blog.

I hope you all have an excellent Friday.  I know we will; it's sunny, breezy, and cool (low 70's is the forecast).  And we're going to the library today!

Where did October go?

It's nearly the end of the month.  What happened to October?  I just looked at the date of my last post and realized that it's been almost two weeks.  And I haven't written a post of substance since the beginning of the month. 

I guess there are a few reasons I haven't posted much.  For one thing, comment reading/writing/re-writing/moderating has kept me busy.  The couple of posts that I have written have gone into my already-full "drafts" folder to be mulled over for a while.  And last but not least, I've been busy making things.

I made this

 and this

 and this

 and these.

 This one I sold in my Etsy shop to some guy in Finland.

I work exclusively with recycled materials.  The above items were made with yarn unraveled from old sweaters (great way to get quality yarns dirt cheap, by the way).  I have a blog about crafting with recycled materials, actually, but I haven't posted much yet; and besides, I haven't made up my mind whether I will keep it on Wordpress, or go back to Blogger where it was originally.  Once I make up my mind, I will add the link to my "other blogs" page.

In other news, we will finally be having another psalm sing next weekend.  All being well, we will have a few more recordings to post. :)

Must run get little boys ready for tonight's prayer meeting!

Three things

Firstly, I've been playing around with the design of the blog.  Do you love it?  Hate it?  I haven't made up my mind whether I like it or not.  I reserve the right to change it again without notice.  That header will probably change, for one thing (but isn't that a cool hawk photo?  My mom took it).  Sorry if the changes are disorienting, and I promise that within a few days, I will settle on a final design and then leave it alone for a while. :)

Secondly, on several occasions I've gotten comments that said, in part, "Feel free to edit this if you need to."  For the record, I can't edit comments.  I can only accept or reject them as is.  If I think something needs changing, I will have to e-mail you and invite you to re-write and re-submit it.  Sorry about that.

Thirdly, I've added a page entitled "Homeschooling Resources."  I will be linking to websites and books that I have found useful, and explaining why I like them.  I hope this page will be of interest to those of you who are homeschooling young children, or plan to.  I'll be listing more resources there soon, so stay tuned.

Education: Three Points to Consider

My wise brother has pointed out that there are really three separate questions to consider when thinking about the education of our children, and that when people discuss the subject, the three questions sometimes get muddled together, when they really ought to be kept separate.

So here are the three questions.  What do you think?


1. Should the education of our children be explicitly Christian?  As a sort of sub-question, one might consider, can an education really be neutral?
2.  Can a child be taught as well by his parents as by a professional teacher?
3.  The question of influence: does the child influence the school, or the school the child?

In case you couldn't guess, my answers would be:
1. Yes, and no.
2. Yes.
3. The school influences the child.


What do you think? 

Last Friday

On Friday the boys and I took a trip to Galveston.  We like Galveston.  First we rode the ferry, which is both exciting, and free.  (Sadly, this time we did not see any dolphins.)  The ferry goes from Galveston Island to the Bolivar Peninsula, which doesn't have much of anything on it (thanks Ike), except for the Fort Travis Seashore Park, which is interesting thanks to its crumbling old concrete bunkers and fortifications.

These kids are so stinking cute together, I can't stand it.  Isn't this a cool rusty old door?  It leads into one of the old concrete bunkers.  You can't see the jagged piece of rusty metal sticking out right behind Noah's bare legs.

I guess funds are low or something because this park does not seem to be big on safety.  It was odd to see this open manhole cover without at least caution tape or a warning sign or something. I suspect that some unsupervised youth have been using this tunnel here to access the interior of the bunker, which is supposed to be off limits.

Looks kind of desolate, don't you think?

Oh, here at last is a "danger" sign. Just to the right of all the broken off fence posts with the jagged metal edges.  It's funny, walking around this place, I felt like I was trespassing on abandoned property. 

We spent a little while on the playground (which is in good repair, thankfully).  Behind Noah is the Houston ship channel, which leads to the Port of Houston, the busiest port in the US.  In this photo, you can see five vessels if you look closely (one is just a dot on the horizon).  It's kind of neat seeing all the industry along the channel--the huge loading docks, the oil refineries, and of course the cargo ships, fishing vessels, and oil rigs.  Occasionally we see a huge cruise ship with passengers lining the rails.  Lots of things to talk to the boys about, and to look up in the encyclopedia when we get home.

After we came back from the Bolivar Peninsula, we parked along the Galveston seawall and spent some time on the beach.  The boys had a grand time digging in the sand. 

In other news, the weather here gets more fantastic by the day.  Look at the forecast for the next week:

 In case you can't read it, it says "Weather forecast: gorgeous, gorgeous, and more gorgeous."