Mealtime Geography

I decided to ditch the globe and bought a world map and a US map. But, I no longer had a place to hang the maps! One day I rolled them out on the dining room table.  They would not lay flat because they were laminated, had been rolled and were holding that rolled shape. I decided heat might relax the curve.  I got my blow dryer and began my work.  My middle daughter, age 16,  came in and said, "What is this-- National Treasure?" I laughed and explained what I was trying to do. Then I realized the maps belonged where I had them.  We piled into the van and drove to Walmart where I purchased:
--a lovely vinyl table cloth
--a piece of medium weight clear vinyl about 18 inches longer than my table top.
 When guests come for dinner or at other times when we are practicing our manners, I can place a linen table cloth over the table vinyl and set out the crystal and china. Often guests protest and think it is novel to eat on a map. 

The map comes in handy when we are studying: Currents in Time

(current events, WHOTDILCH (What Happened on this Day in LDS Church History?),
 as well as, when studying the scriptures, studying Geography, "The Family Hour," and at other interesting times. We learn the map before us as we eat.  We notice things we might never have noticed. "Mealtime Geography" is a great way to lay a foundation for the study of Geography.

Moving Forward with the Bicycle Approach to Homeschooling

Are you struggling to train children to work, keep a home, teach several children of different stages of development, nurture younger children and keep your sanity?

Don't give up!  Keep pedaling and you will keep moving forward!

Many new to homeschool look for a curriculum as a vehicle to move their children towards being educated. Perhaps the vehicle they need is not just a curriculum, but taking other things into account that impact children's character, work ethic, brain development, core body balance, executive function, socialization and more.

How to Inspire Insights 4-7

Here are four more ways to inspire love of learning--

4. Seek Ye Out of the Best Books!
"Seek ye out of the best books, words of wisdom..." Best books are great, inspiring, and living. "We live in a world where knowledge is increasing at an ever-accelerating rate. Drink deeply from this ever-springing well of wisdom and human experience. If you should stop now, you will only stunt you intellectual and spiritual growth. Keep everlastingly at it. Read. Read. Read. Read the word of God in sacred books of scripture. Read from the great literature of the ages. Read what is being said in our day and time and will be said in the future.” Gordon B. Hinckley - Commencement Address, Brigham Young University 27 April 1995.

How to Inspire Insights 1-3

Some helpful insights in developing and preserving the love of learning:
1. Be thou an Example! 
Do you love learning?  If not, why not? Being an example means at first, your focus is on you getting a superb education, and not focusing on them jumping through schooling hoops. Once you are established on your way, it is much easier to invite them to join you. Before you get going though, make sure you establish the habit and love for studying your central core canon.  A canon is your standard that everything is measured against. For me it is the scriptures and words of the living prophets. Time to sup it daily, to liken them to one's self, and to use it to discern good from evil; right from wrong; truth and error. Then apply it in one's own life and teach it to one's children. If one not living what they teach, it may become a stumbling block for their children. There will come a time as they mature where they have the skills and have learned to manage their wills, where they will be ready to commit to their own education. 

How Did My Mom Inspire Us?

So, how did my mom inspire us?

When I was four mom wanted to take oil painting class. I got to go with her. They gave me my own canvas, my own brushes, my own oil paints and let me at it.  I fell in love with art.  There were no requirements, no texts, no lectures. It became a part of me.

Mom did not teach me to read before school. I never saw my name until my kindergarten teacher wrote it down and told me to take that to my mother and have my mother sit down and teach me how to write it. My preschool years and that of my peers were not spent learning academics, beyond being read to and told nursery rhymes and singing children's songs.

Mom was not a college graduate until the year I graduated from college.  She took many college classes while I was growing up.  We would go to the library and we studied together. We did not have much money for books.  However, when the new library opened when I was 10 years old, we all went to the library and got new library cards. We went to the library often, and I began to love the library, the mysteries that unfolded from books, as well as its quiet order. I saw my mom grapple with learning new things. It was never a question of whether I would attend college. We had monopoly, scrabble and cards. Mom played these games with us. Mom always won at scrabble. This encouraged our learning to spell.  After all, we were trying to grow up and that was what the grown ups did! We had few books.  We had one oversized, beautifully Illustrated Hans Christian Andersen book. My sister and I had her read our favorite tales to us, even when we were in high school.

When I was nine my mother introduced us to the arts.  She explained about the reverential respect one shows at concerts, museums, plays etc.  It is a respect for the artist and their works.  We are not there to compete for attention.  It is also reverential respect for those who come to be lifted by the arts.  They sacrificed time and money to attend. We understood we were to not speak except at intermission of plays, movies, and concerts. That there were appropriate times to applaud. If we were sick with a cold, we did not go, out of respect for others. I came to love the preforming arts and visual arts.

Mom wanted to teach us about hospitality.  She taught us how to cook and clean right next to her. Then she even took off work to teach cooking to my junior Girl Scout troop. She arranged for us to use the kitchen at the junior high school.  I learned to love to cook. Then when I was in Junior High, mom would call home and say she was bringing dinner guest and asked me to prepare dinner for X number of people. I would tidy the house and have salad, sides, roast and dessert made, table set, when she walked in the door. More often than not it was a general and his wife or other very interesting persons. I learned to listen and to express myself.

Funny thing, the only thing she paid us to do was weeding. She paid a quarter a paper grocery sack of weeds!  Back then I could go to movies on the base for fifteen cents. I could by a candy bar for nickel. I could buy a burger for a quarter. A new Toyota was under two thousand dollars! So, a quarter had a lot of buying power for a child. Weeding was the only work we shunned! Mom did not want to do it, and so, neither did we.  I had to learn as an adult to find joy in the process. Yard work gives me great time for contemplation and saves me the membership at the gym! 

If we were sick we stayed home from school. It was respectful to others not to get them sick.

We lived in Hawaii and often had guests from the mainland. I got to skip school to take them on the tour of the Island! I knew the history and the great spots as much as any local. My mother bought matinee tickets to the symphony and I got to cut school to go. Mom understood that learning can happen anywhere and that learning and seat time were not the same. Awful you might say.  I still graduated one of 20% that could read at the college level, even though I was not in class every day and we had few books at home. She inspired us to LOVE learning.

To Be, Not Wannabe!

To be, or wannabe that is the question!

Every home is a school; what do you teach? Who we are and our attitudes lead our children. So, in learning to inspire we need to begin with ourselves. It is tough to look in the mirror and ask ourselves if we really want children who grow up like us. I am sure we all could improve. We need to be honest with ourselves. In reality, we are the only ones we have total control over to change.

Refrigerator Gallery

Several years ago I asked my mother-in-law to teach a poetry class at my home. She graduated from Stanford in Honors English Literature.  She had taught English at BYU for nine years. besides, she is an awesome poetess! She suggested we post the poem we were studying on the fridge and then repeat it at each meal. I thought it a dandy idea!

Dining Table Geography

In 2001, we remodeled our kitchen. In 2005, I decided to ditch the globe and bought a world map and a US map. I soon discovered I no longer had a place to hang the maps! One day I rolled them out on the dining room table.  They would not lay flat because they were laminated, had been rolled and were holding that rolled shape. I decided heat might relax the curve.  I got my blow dryer and began my work.  My middle daughter, age 16,  came in and said, "What is this-- National Treasure?"
I laughed and explained what I was trying to do. Then I realized the maps belonged where I had them.  We piled into the van and drove to Walmart where I purchased:
--a lovely vinyl table cloth
--a piece of medium weight clear vinyl about 18 inches longer than my table top.
 When guests come for dinner or at other times when we are practicing our manners, I can place a linen table cloth over the table vinyl and set out the crystal and china. Often guests protest and think it is novel to eat on a map.

The map comes in handy when we are studying "Currents in Time," "What Happened on this Day in LDS Church History?," studying the scriptures, studying Geography, "What Happened On this Day?," "The Family Hour," and at other interesting times. We learn the map before us as we eat.  We notice things we might never have noticed. "Dining Table Geography" is a great way to lay a foundation for the study of Geography.

Here is a link to the DIY on how I did this and supplies needed.

Inspiring Learning and Commonplace Books

In a world saturated with visual images, children and adults can often become spectators, stagnate in their learning, fail to grow and develop. Sometimes they just need to limit some stimuli and replace it with richer, more varied, and valuable stimuli, so they can inspire, grow, and expand their learning. Two ways to inspire learning is through exposure to new ideas and  homeculture. This can be done through home environment and parental example, such as the home and example Gordon B. Hinckley's parents set for him. If parents take the lead in taking notice, developing health curiosity, following through, then sharing it with their children, they will find ourselves inspired, and it can plant the seed of inspiration in their children. Inspiration to learn more can come as parents read aloud great literature, discuss current events, visit museums, attend plays, attend concerts, visit the library, take walks in nature, conversations with interesting dinner guests, and any number of experiences that enlarge our window on life. Through all this, we often have impressions to look something up, experiment, explore, and learn something. If parents do not write it down, the opportunity for learning may pass them up, as then the next impression captures their minds and swallows their interest. 

A Commonplace Book is nothing new, they have been used as a learning tools since at least the 16th Century. A Commonplace Book, is a common or central place to gather quotes, ideas, things one learns, and reactions to those things. I find it is a great place to record those thoughts that inspire us to want to learn more and expand our horizons. A great place to record what is learned when we pursue new ideas. Sharing these impressions and investigations can expand others interests, as well. I like to use plain marbled composition books. They are inexpensive and relatively durable. Their hard covers making writing easier when there is no table or desk near. During back to school time they can usually be found for 50% or more off at Walmart and Target. I like to purchase a case so we can use them to record things we want to study and what we learn when we follow through. They can also be used to annotate books we read, lectures we attend, and even as a simple journal.  Sometimes we leave them plain. Sometimes we glue scrapbook paper to the front and back cover, make a large paper pocket on the inside cover for loose notes, and add tabs to the page edges to separate annotations for different books.

Consider this wonderful learning tool!

Quote of the Day- June 8th

"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence." - Robert Lee Frost

Harvard Classics in Fifteen Minutes a Day?

We live in a world where knowledge is increasing at an ever-accelerating rate. Drink deeply from this ever-springing well of wisdom and human experience. If you should stop now, you will only stunt you intellectual and spiritual growth. Keep everlastingly at it. Read. Read. Read. Read the word of God in sacred books of scripture. Read from the great literature of the ages. Read what is being said in our day and time and will be said in the future.
Gordon B. Hinckley Commencement Address, Brigham Young University 27 April 1995

 I try to read my scriptures daily.  Presently, I am personally reading my way through a paperback copy of the Book of Mormon. I am marking it as if to a friend. When I am finished I will place my testimony in it and send it to my missionary son to give out on his mission. As a family we study the scriptures, as well.

I am reading Anne of Green Gables aloud with my thirteen year-old daughter. 

I recently read Successward: A Young Man's Book for Young Men by Edward Bok, with my seventeen year-old son, it was his great grandfather's book, a family heirloom.

Each evening we have a devotional with scripture, quotes, poetry, and stories. So, yes, I am getting some reading in!  Between being a wife, a mother, homeschooling, co-owning two businesses with my daughter, and being ward primary president, I find extra time to read often slips through my fingers. I decided to do something about it. President Hinckley had often mentioned that he had and still read from the Harvard Classics that his father had bought: 

"I have in my home a library set of the Harvard Classics that originally belonged to my father. Though he was not a man of great financial means, he was an educated and thoughtful man who placed high priority on language and learning.  I still refer to this fifty-volume set of books, just as I did more than sixty years ago as a university student. It is a treasury of timeless literature, an encyclopedic presentation of great thoughts of men and women who, in their eras, struggled with serious problems, thought deeply, prayed mightily, and expressed themselves in ways both challenging and beautiful." Gordon B. Hinckley, Standing for Something: 10 Neglected Virtues That will Heal Our Hearts and Homes, page 60.

I must admit that I have often wanted to read the Harvard Classics, also known as the Five Foot Bookshelf, ever since I heard him fist mention the series. So, I did some research to find out abour the Harvard Classics. It is a 51 volume set, of which I had already read several of the works in my effort to gain a liberal arts education. I found that the editor of the Harvard Classics is Charles Eliot, and that he had served as President of Harvard for forty years, from 1869 to 1909. He had delivered a speech to working men stating that:

“In my opinion, a five-foot shelf would hold books enough to give a liberal education to any one who would read them with devotion, even if he could spare but fifteen minutes a day for reading.”

That was what I was aiming for-- "a liberal education." Liberal not in the political realm, but liberal as in generous, broad, and deep; liberal as in liberal arts-- the arts designed to help a person be free.

The publisher P. F. Collier and Sons, heard of Eliot's speeches and challenged Eliot, to put together a list of books they called "The Five Foot Bookshelf." When I read the quote suggesting as little as 15 minutes a day I must say I was intrigued. Could this really be true? Is it possible to get this kind of education in as little as 15 minutes a day? I thought that would be just wonderful for momculture, wherein a mom pursues increasing her education. I thought it would be great to have a class of busy moms (and others if they want to join us) moving forward with their education in as little as 15 minutes a day and discussing what they are reading once a week.;After all, the series came highly recommended by a modern prophet of God! This would definitely help with mooring us to the classics.

Before starting a class, I felt I needed to see how it works for me. Though I have read different works contained in the series, I have not read the set before. No, I do not need to read the whole series through before we start. I just need to see if I can develop the habit of setting aside 15 minutes a day for several months of busy life. I do realize that this series is not comprehensive and that there are so many things that have happened in the century since it was first published. Yet, it is a good place to start in getting a "liberal education." Could I, with my busy life, regularly read 15 minutes a day? I want to read just 15 minutes a day for the first 90 days; later I can read more in a day as time allows. So, I began my journey yesterday. I do not yet own the books, but I found them all digitized online-- here and here. Perhaps I will gather my own set, one at a time, as I read each book, kind of a reward for staying on track! Where did I begin? "I started at the very beginning, because, of course that is a "very good place to start." I should be able to finish the first volume in a month.

What Books to Read Before Finishing High School?

I read this query and the thread that followed on TJEdMuse yahoo group.  I thought I would answer it on this blog.

"In a quest to form an  'Master Plan' for my kids' education and experiences before they leave high school, I'm compiling a list of the books I feel they should read before leaving home.  My list is very short though, and I wondered if you had any suggestions for books you were glad you read in middle school,  high school, or even elementary school, or books you want your kids to read while they're in school."

How Do You Use The Children's Hour for Homeschooling?

The Children's Hour (CH) is great for home educators who want to boost their cultural literacy, expand their breadth and depth of learning, and those who need to show a portfolio of work at the end of the school year. This is a simple system, it all adds up! This also saves the parent hundreds of hours compiling lists of people, art works, music, other resources and links for further study. CH has a yearly theme based on a cycle or era of time:

Teaching the Gospel in the Home

Today, I gave a talk in Sacrament meeting at church. My assigned talk was Teaching the Gospel in the Home. I approached it from the angle of using "family work" to teach the Gospel in the home. I thought I would share the written version here...