Inspire, Not Ignore

Inspire, not require is not about ignore and not require.

Now some argue God requires. Well, yes and no.  He does not require accountability for children under eight. He does not require we accept Him or believe in Him.  He invites and entices us to do so. For those who are accountable and desire to return to Him, He does have requirements. 

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.

Spiritual Gospel Centered Pre School Lessons Using Church Prepared Resources

Below is a question we received about spiritual lessons for preschool children.

“Hi Donna,

I am feeling the need to do something more for my 3 year old daughter. I am not very creative about hands on activities and I really want to teach a spiritual lesson every day because once a week in nursery is not enough. Do you recommend any preschool programs or should I just teach lessons from the nursery manual? Thanks!”

Becoming Goodly Parents

As Latter-day Saints we know it is vital we anchor our family's in the gospel of Jesus Christ. To help you to do this, I would like to spotlight a talk or article from one of our amazing General Authorities every Wednesday.

This weeks talk is: "Becoming Goodly Parents" by Elder L. Tom Perry
Given in the October 2012 General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

I love where Elder Perry tells us that,

"Parents must resolve that teaching in the home is a most sacred and important responsibility. While other institutions such as church and school can assist parents to “train up a child in the way he [or she] should go” (Proverbs 22:6), this responsibility ultimately rests on the parents. "

This is sooo true. We as parents bear a great responsibility to our children to make sure we do all in our power to raise them in righteousness. Thankfully The Lord offers many great resources to us to help us in our stewardship.

I honestly feel that what we offer at Moor House Academy is one of those God inspired resources. Mother and I have spent many hours prayerfully creating the resources we offer through our site.

If you haven't checked out our Children's Hour program (as well as the other educational materials we offer) I encourage you to do so. We offer free samples for most of our products so you can see if it is something that can benefit you and your family.

Using The Book of Centuries

I created and use a Book of Centuries in our home and my cottage school class "Leap into the Love of Learning." Today, we created our Book of Centuries for the school year. A Book of Centuries takes the study of history beyond the memorize and forget approach often seen in schools. This approach is hands on!  Children create a timeline of what they want to remember about each person and event studied.  A Book of Centuries helps organize history studied into an easy to use and understand format, and puts that information into an easy to retrieve format.

When we have larger groups we even add other steps:
"Stepping into Character." This is where the student comes as a character of history to teach others about them. "News Reporter."When the person being reported on is evil, the children can be a reporter, telling about the evil person. 

I recently changed the pages of the Book of Centuries to be a one page spread instead of a two page spread. I printed the Time/ Place grids on to card stock.  Each card stock page becomes an index page and content referenced on the index page is expanded and placed behind that page. 

We created our own tabs:
* Green for Creation– Ancient Times–1 AD
* Deep Burgundy Red for the Birth of Christianity, the Apostasy, and Medieval Times– 1 AD–1500 AD
* Blue for the Age of Discovery and Foundations of Liberty– 1500 AD– 1800 AD
* Yellow for the Fullness of Time–1800 into the future. 

When we begin the Book of Centuries, we have the children add their information, their parents' information, when their parents married, when their brothers and sisters were born. I want children to grasp what history is and they are part of history.

Once the children see themselves as part of history, we begin our study with a discussion of Pre-Mortal life which culminates in the Creation and the Fall. In addition to scripture we use the Apostle Bruce R. McConkie's book, "Doctrines of the Restoration: Sermons and Writings of Bruce R. McConkie," Chapter Ten: Christ and Creation. The children create a page for each day of the creation.  We use McConkie because it is a restored Gospel view. McConkie places the Creation and Fall scenario found in scripture and the temple, side by side. Then they can more clearly understand what the scriptures say and do not say about the creation. My students are then prepared to further research and learn more about the 36 Noble Men and Women from church history, nine artists; nine musicians; 36 mathematicians, explorers, inventors, scientists;  36 statesmen; and nine poets found in the Family Hour that we study each year, then add them to their Book of Centuries. Each child's Book of Centuries will be a treasure of their own making. 

Helpful Resources mentioned above:
Book of Centuries
The Family Hour
Leap Into the Love of Learning Class

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!