Weekend Edition~How can I teach my children EVERY thing they need to learn?

The simple answer is, you can't! That's right, you can NOT teach your children every thing they will ever need to learn. The good/bad news is, neither can a certified teacher, a professor, a public school, a college, even a ivy league college, will NOT be able to teach your children every thing he/she will need to know in life. That's impossible.

First of all, no one, well except for Jehovah, can really know what will be important 15 to 20 years from now. Think about yourself 15 to 20 years ago. Could you imagine the things you would of needed to learn by now? How to use a smart phone, how to use a tablet, that most people would not have land lines. We would have our own broadcasting network. We would be using tablets in field service, showing videos at the door. That we would no longer have the Theocratic Ministry School and have a entirely different meeting sit up. That we would no longer have a midweek congregation book study in brothers homes! And that we would have "family worship night" in it's place. Not to mention when I was a child, very very few people had a home computer, by the time I graduated high school, every thing was computerized! All these things are just a very few things we have learned in the past 20 years. That I don't think any one would of seen coming, and could of prepared ourselves for. But, here we are, and we have learned totally new things and different skills.

Secondly, we do not stop learning once we turn 18 or graduate from school. We learn things as we need to learn them. As stated above. We have all learned new things as they have came up, as we have needed to learn them. We didn't stop learning when we graduated high school, and/or college. And public school and schools in general did NOT teach us every thing we needed to know either. So it's unrealistic to expect that we can teach our children every thing they will need to know. So let's take that off the table completely.

So what do we need to teach our children? It can be boiled down to simply three things.

1) We need to teach our children to love Jehovah. We need to teach our children Jehovah's ways.

Deut. 6:7- You must inculcate [God’s commandments] in your son and speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road and when you lie down and when you get up

Matt. 4:4-
Man must live, not on bread alone, but on every utterance coming forth through Jehovah’s mouth.

2 Tim. 3:16-17-
All Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight, for disciplining in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be fully competent, completely equipped for every good work.

2) We need to teach them to love learning. If we teach them a love of learning, they will be excited to learn, and will initiate learning on their own. Jehovah created people with a love and thirst for knowledge. Often times it is squashed though by exasperating a child, in expecting a child to learn things that are developmentally inappropriate for their age and emotional development. When we teach at home, we can settle down and teach at a developmental appropriate ages and stages in life. We are not trying to pass big test to make more money, as public schools are. We also are not tied to a schools agenda. So when a young child wants to explore a new interest instead of stunting that so we can get more social studies homework in, we can put social studies (or what ever subject) on the back burner, and dive into the child's interest as much as he/she would like. Encouraging and cultivating their thirst for learning!

3) Teach them how to learn. If they have a love for Jehovah, and a love for learning. Then the only other thing they need, to be independent from us eventually, is to know how to find the answers to the problems that may come up in their lives. We have hopefully already did 1 and 2. And so then they just need to know how to find the answers. It's kind of like you can give a person a fish and feed him for a day, or you can teach him to fish and feed him for the rest of his life. When we teach a child where to go for reliable information-books from the Faithful and Discreet Slave, libraries, people who are actually doing the work-ie they want to learn about farming, you can look up articles on JW.org, you can go to the library and check out books on farming, you could visit the Watchtower Farms, or any Farms that may be accessible where you live, and ask farmers directly your questions. A local farmer to me, even holds a yearly homeschool day, and welcomes us to come, and learn about his farm. Even watching live surgery on one of his sheep once! This can also turn into apprenticeship which is very valuable in learning real life skills. So this line of thinking/learning can be applied really to anything the child has a interest in, or want to learn about. Help them figure out how to learn about it.

I'm in my 40's, and still am having to learn things. Our washer had a error message a few years ago. I used youtube and searched the model washer we had, and the error message I was getting. And Youtube told me exactly what the problem was and how to fix it!

So in the same manner we can teach our children how to find answers to things, when the need arises. I didn't melt into a puddle cause I wasn't taught how to fix my washing machine in school. I was able to use the tools I had available (youtube) and find the answer and fix it! Furthermore, the style and kind of washer I currently have, was not even available when I was in school. haha So even if they had taught me washing machine mechanics, most likely would not of helped me with my current washer. Going back to full circle of we can not predict what our children will need to know 15 to 20 years from now.

So take a deep breath of relief. And remember, it's ok. You don't have to teach every thing. Jehovah created us to be able to continue to learn for a life time! Not just the brief first 18 years of our life.

"Priceless" Printables~Daily Planner Pages

These are daily planning pages, that you print yourself and use in your homeschool planner.
I have Single Child one page and two page layout 3 child options. You can use 2 single child pages, two page layout for 2 children.

Single Child Planner Page, you could also use this as a two page spread out for two children at a glance.

Single Child Planner Page using Wendy Medium Font

Single Child Planner Page with Segoe Print Font (a font that comes with windows, no additional font download needed)

Three Child Two Page lay out Planner page-exactly as you see in the photos of my Daily Planner. With the subjects and name areas left blank for you to fill in.

Three Child, two page, lay out, using Wendy Medium Font

Three child, two page lay out, using Segoe Print (a font that comes with windows, no download needed).

Weekend Edition~Socialization-The Myth

It's easy to prove that one on one teaching is more effective then one on 30 to 40. So that train of thought was easily thrown out of the debate as to why to send a child to institutionalized school vs homeschooling them. So a mythical problem called socialization was thrown out there to see if that would work. And crazy enough many people actually believe that a child can only learn social skills through a institutionalized school system. This hypothesis has many flaws.

1. Only in institutionalized school systems are people divided into age groups. All other places in society people have to learn to socialize with others of varying age groups.

2. A child can only teach the social skills of their age level. They can not teach what they do not know. So expecting other children to teach your child a skill they do not have, is completely inappropriate. Children learn true social skills from mature older people, teaching them correct socialization methods. Think about why bullying happens? It is because they are not being directed by mature adults showing them how to socialize with others in a mature correct way. It becomes a Lord of the Flies situation, if children are left to other children for their training. Training was meant to come from the parents. In fact Jehovah commands parents to train their children.

3. Institutionalized schools are not the only place that children can socialize with others. There are libraries, museums, play ground and parks, the Kingdom hall, field service, restaurants, stores. Any where you go there will be other people that your children have to learn to communicate with in socially acceptable manners. Even if they never left the house, which is highly unusual and unlikely. Many years ago, people spent the majority of their time with their family. Their parents and siblings. There was only a few months during the year that going to a school would be tangible. There was planting season they had to help their family with, then harvesting season. Then winter was often too harsh and dangerous to leave the house. So that only left a very few months that schooling outside the home was attainable. The rest of the time they spent with their family. Yet, they did not seem to have social problems. In fact, some may argue people were more courteous and had better fellow feeling and manners. People learned social skills by dealing with and socializing with their families.

4. Studies have shown that the best socialization method is to mix children up with different age groups. When children of all one age were put together and observed. They all sank down to the lowest social skills to equalize and fit in. But, when children were put in mixed groups of ages. The older ones strove to be good examples to the younger ones because they wanted to help them. While younger ones worked at rising to the older ones example because they looked up to the older ones and wanted to be like them.

Do not be mislead by the socialization myth. Think about how you yourself socialize with others, now that you are a adult and do not go to school any more. If you are a stay at home mother, do you have to go to a job to socialize with others? Or do you have and find friends other places? You can find your core friends in the congregation. And that is exactly where you can find social opportunities and friends for your own children. True ones! That matter. Remember, bad association does not have a age to start. Bad association is bad for all ages, not just adults.. Live life as you normally would. And your children should not have socialization problems. There will be plenty of social skills being built along the way. And you will be there, as the caring adult, to lovingly guide them in the way they should go. If you notice your child has behavior or social problems, you can help them, and guide them in a better way. If they were away from you you would not be able to see it and correct it. But, the majority of children are going to take the leading example of their parents and not have problems socializing.

Homeschool Funnies~Belle learns her calendar months!

Working on Belle with the months of the year. I asked Belle what Month it was... her answer. Novanbruary! Yeah just use parts of all the months so you can't be wrong?

Daily Planner~2/16

Weekend Edition~First Dress Rehearsal

First dress rehearsal for the Noah's Ark Play!

Weekend Edition~Lessons from Great Grandfather

My Grandmother, two older sisters, little
brother, and Mammy and Pappy as
she always lovingly referred to them.

One objection to homeschooling I hear time and again, is My children won't obey me. I have to send them to school so they will learn to obey. OR Children need to learn to obey other people, not just their parents.

One thing that always comes to my mind when I hear this objection is a little story about my Great Grandfather.

I am not saying children are the same as animals. But, he had very special relationships with his animals. He raised cattle for a living. He had a dog and a horse that were extraordinary in their relationship with him. He could tell them to do certain task that you would not think a animal could understand. Yet these animals would do it to the letter with out wavering no matter how others would try to get the animal distracted. He could tell his dog, exactly which cow to go get out of the field and the dog knew and would go and get the cow and bring it to him. He could tell his horse to go get his children at school and bring them home and the horse would.

My grandmother, his daughter, said, that many of their school friends would want the horse to take them home too and they would tell their friends the horse will not, it will only go to our home. But, the friends would not listen. And they would get on the horse with my grandmother and her siblings any way and then try to get the horse to take them home. But, it would not, the other children would just have to ride home with my grandma or jump off the horse. The horse would not stop til he took my grandmother and her siblings home! haha

These things about his dog and horse, became known to the people who lived around them. Many people would come to my great grandfather and ask him to train their dogs and horses like he had his own. They would beg, plead, offer lots of money or anything to get my grandfather to train their animals. However, my grandfather always explained to them, he could train their animals. But, then they would only be trained to listen and obey him and do what he told them. He could not train their animals to do what the people wanted them to do, or to listen to them. That each person has to develop their own relationship with their animals and train them themselves if they wanted the animal to obey their commands.

To me children are very similar in this manner. People expect to send their children to "school" to get them to be trained to obey at home, but that does not work. All that it does is train children to obey the authorities at the school. Not the parents at home. If you want a child to obey and be trained at home, a parent has to form a relationship with the child at home, and train them themselves. You can not hire that out.

Daily Planner~2/12

Daily Planner~2/11

Their ant drawings

Daily Planner~2/9