Originally posted in 2007 So, what is education? What is it this task that I have signed up for? I’ve been collecting quotes on the topic for several years; when viewed together they paint an inspiring yet daunting picture. All bolding is my own doing, italicizations are original. EDUCATION – The bringing up, as of…
By email a few days ago, reader Pilgrim asked me a question: Have you or could you review what you use for Pilgrim’s Progress and why? This is a great question! It’s also one that is good for me to think through well enough to answer, because the truth is that despite its fame and…
Real life is gathering everyone for circle time to find the toddler is stinky and needs to be changed. Real life is gathering everyone for circle time a second time to be interrupted by a scream and uncontrollable sobs from the preschooler because she almost dropped her binder and a paper fell out. Take a…
I enjoy singing, and have been told I have a nice voice, but I cannot keep a consistent pitch or key when singing without accompaniment. I can’t play the piano and I can’t read music. I am quick to learn tunes and memorize songs, but even so, I cannot stay on key while singing them…
My mom taught 6 of her children to read with Teach America to Read and Spell, and I have so far taught 2 with it. It is a simple and straight-forward “vertical” phonics method where you memorize all the sounds of each letter and letter combination (phonogram, like th) at one time. The program includes…
I’ve already written the series on homeschool planning a year at a time, and now you can have a peek into the homeschool printing all-at-one-time process. It’s not always pretty. But I am always so happy in mid October and February and every other term break that I already did it all at one go…
This review was written in 2009. I’ve always wondered what exactly was better late than early. And how could I start homeschooling without reading one of the books that kick-started homeschooling as a movement? So, I finally borrowed this off my parents’ shelf and read it, as opposed to borrowing it and not reading it,…
Originally written and posted in August 2011 So I redid our memory work routine at the end of the 2010-2011 school year, for several reasons: It came to my attention that simply listening to the memory work, as we had been doing, was not sinking it in. They recognized familiar passages, and could fill in…
John Milton Gregory defines education as “embrac[ing] all the steps and processes by which an infant is gradually transformed into a full-grown and intelligent man.” There are two facets of this transformation: development of capacities and acquisition of experience. An important part of the latter is “furnishing the child with the heritage of the race.”…