humility

Humility is simply this: knowing yourself. When you see yourself as you truly are, then you can say that you are humble, and to see yourself as you truly are is to see yourself as God sees you. This means that you do not allow anyone, not your parents, not your in-laws, not your neighbors, affect how you see yourself. Instead, you cling desperately to God's vision that he has given you.

I have taught classes and have discipled people on the topic of humility. Yet, I am not humble. God has given me a beautiful vision of myself, and yet I have been swayed by the opinions of others. I have let my mother-in-law's negative words cripple me. I have let strangers influence the way I dress and how I carry myself. I have let people at church damage my relationship with God because I was more concerned about their rejection than God's opinion.

And now I know longer know who I am. I don't know if I have any value. I don't know if I am any good at anything. I don't know my strengths or weaknesses. I don't know why anyone would like me. When the day is done and I have fulfilled all my duties, is there anything left of me worth caring about?

Thus I have secluded myself to be alone with God. I have taken long walks alone in the park with Jesus at my side, and I poured my heart out to him. It is only in him that I can find myself again. And find healing from the frustrations and depression that has nagged me.

This is a home schooling blog, but no home school teacher can teach from an empty spirit. We all need to be renewed each day, or our lessons will be empty and flat. If we are not alive at the very core of our being, then parenting and home schooling will be another chore, and our children will suffer.

Take a walk. Get away. Find a moment of solitude. Find yourself again.

Celebrating Successes to Beat Depression

As a home schooling parent, I sometimes get lost in the worry that I am not doing enough. I am sure the whole world over, parents struggle with this issue, but when parents decide to take responsibility for their child's education with home schooling, it's as though that worry gets amplified ten times over.

Lately, I have felt a bit like a hypocrite. I write about parenting and home schooling, and although I do follow my own advice, I don't feel like I really do have it all together. Especially not right now. I'm a working mom, and I'm about to lose my job. So in the midst of home schooling, I have to keep working at my current job and find another one.

Only, there are no jobs in my field in the city where I live. All the jobs are located in the bigger city to the south of us. With the housing market the way it is, we are trapped in our house unless we decide to abandon it, ruining our credit in the meantime. Otherwise, I will have a long commute, and rather than being away from home 9 hours a day, I could be gone 10 or 11 hours a day.

I have cried myself to sleep several nights in the past two weeks. And with the feelings of discouragement and fear, I have been very negative with my words. I have railed at God, and I have said some very foul things about myself.

I decided today that I need to say something good about myself. I hate to hear my children speak negative words, and when I hear it come from their mouths (which thankfully is rare), I immediately make a move to build them up. Why is it that I don't give myself that same grace?


1. I hugged and kissed my children before bed last night and again this morning before I left for work.
2. I hugged and kissed my husband ten times this morning just to be sure he knows I love him.
3. I packed a tasty, gluten free salad for lunch today, taking good care of my health and tantalizing my taste buds. (roasted pumpkin seeds, ham, mozzarella, spinach, tomato, and avocado with olive oil & garlic vinegar dressing) It is important to eat healthy, but it is even more important to enjoy every bite.
4. I take time aside to exercise with my husband several times a week. It's good for me, but it is also good for him. In this way, I help to take care of him while I take care of myself.
5. The days that I don't exercise with my husband, I often get the family out for a walk in the park, so that we all move together. This is having family time, sharing the joys of nature with my children, and teaching my children to exercise.
6. I am not a helicopter mom. I don't hover too close, and I don't give constant instructions. I don't do everything for them. This means that they aren't dressed like perfect angels with spotless clothes and their hair done with cute little ribbons. I sometimes feel like a failure for this, but I believe it is better for them to dress themselves than that their clothes match and that they have the right kind of shoes for their outfits.
7. I actually get down and play with my kids.
8. I try to listen to my kids. I try to stop and hear what they are trying to tell me. Sometimes I have to stop daydreaming first, but I do get down on my knees to be eye level with them and hear what they say.
9. I spend time doing what my husband is interested in. I quite happily follow him into whatever adventure he has for us. I play his games, watch his movies, and enjoy every minute of it. I talk about the geeky things he likes, and he is always so proud to tell his friends about how geeky his wife is.
10. I have written a 450 page novel. That is by no means a small task. OK, there are many people who write novels and think its good when it is just crap. I have learned quite a bit about writing in the past year, and I know when I started what I wrote was crap. My characters were flat, the detail was empty, and my plot had holes. I kept coming back to it and changing it, making it grow into something better. I didn't give up.
11. I always keep moving forward. I never give up. No matter how discouraged I get, I am not a quitter.

If you also feel down and discouraged, please make a list like this. Keep going until you finally believe the good words you are writing.

5 Hands-On Geography Activities

There is more to geography than memorizing states and capitals and studying maps. If you make geography an experience to remember rather than facts and information to recite, you and your child will have a lot more fun along the way.

Explore the world with a compass.
Take a walk around your neighborhood or hike through the park while carrying a compass. Take a compass to the mall or the grocery store. Let your kids carry a compass while they ride in the car. This helps orient a child to their world, making them pay attention to where they are and teaching them how to navigate.

Draw your own maps.
Maps tell you where things are and how to get there. However, maps don’t need to be fancy. As you explore the world with your compass, draw maps of what you see. Draw a map of your house, your neighborhood, your grocery store, or your park.

After drawing a few small maps of your local areas, expand your domain. Look at a real atlas to see how they designate rivers, deserts, and mountains, and then use that as a guide as you build your own world atlas.

You can even have a little fun by drawing maps from stories. Based on the age group of your children, you can build a map for Clifford’s neighborhood, for the barnyard where Charlotte weaves her web, or for the four kids who traveled through Narnia.

Tell stories about your maps.
What happened as you walked around your neighborhood? Tell a story about it as you draw your map. Telling stories builds memory, communication skills, and confidence, so swap some tales as you color.

Add a little imagination and sail the Nile River on a raft. Climb to the top of Mount Everest and have a picnic with a mountain goat. Walk the entire length of the Great Wall of China. What do you see along the way? Who do you talk to?

Write your stories down and compile your maps and stories into a book that you can read again and again. This can be a project that grows over the years.

Experience different cultures.
Russia is the big country in the northeast corner of our world atlas, but what is it like to actually experience Russia? What do the people like? What kind of clothes do they wear? What kind of music do they listen to? Do they dance? Do they sing? What do they eat? How do they work? How do they live?

Answer these questions by eating their foods, wearing their clothes, and listening to their music. Learn some words of their language, and read books about children in that country. Maybe you could even find a pen pal your child can write letters to. Suddenly, you will find Russia is no longer a big orange smear on the map. It has come to life.

Travel.
As a child, I lived in Texas, and most of our extended family was in Wisconsin and Michigan. This means that every year, we had a long road to travel to visit our family. I remember every landmark along the way. I remember the little lazy town where our car broke down, and I remember the excitement over crossing each state border.

As an adult, my husband and I moved out west for a short while. The seven day road trip is memorable, and we still laugh at the South Dakota road signs. I loved driving through the mountains of Minnesota and snapping pictures of the pica that scampered across the road. We drove through Yellowstone and experienced wild bison, and I watched a beautiful green-blue Oregon river turn muddy brown from pollution.

Ask me to fill in those states on the map, and I can now easily list them all. But even more, I remember the terrain and what made each state different than the others.

The wonderful thing about home schooling is that you don’t have to wait for summer to take a vacation. Bring your schoolbooks, pack your paper and pencils, and hit the road.

China

Chinese Culture

China (A to Z) by Justine Fontes and Ron Fontes

This book is an encyclopedia of China, describing everything from animals to buildings to cities to dress. The book even includes some Chinese words. Easy to read, beautiful pictures, and wonderful information.

Children of China by Jacqueline Buksh

This chapter book describes life for four children in China. Written from each child's perspective, this story talks about daily routines, family life, things the children learn in school, and things they see around them. Nice descriptions and beautiful dialog.

Chinese Stories

The Pet Dragon by Christoph Niemann

A little girl named Lin has a pet dragon. Together the two cause trouble until one day Lin's father says that the dragon must be put in a cage. The next day, her dragon is missing and searches China to find her dragon. Along the way, we learn some Chinese symbols, which are cleverly incorporated into the art work. Every page introduces two or three new words in a way that is very easy to remember.

Warning: For those of you who are concerned about magic, there is a shaman/witch included in this story. If your religious beliefs are against this, you can avoid this book or you can use it as a means to discuss the topic with your children.

Two of Everything by Lily Toy Hong

This Chinese folktale is about Mr. and Mrs. Haktak, a little old couple who struggle to survive until they find a magic copper pot that duplicates everything they have, including them. Beautiful artwork and a cute story.

Favorite Children's Stories from China & Tibet by Lotta Carswell Hume and Koon-Chiu Lo

A book full of folktales from China, depicting life and customs in a witty and charming manner.

Chinese Food

Visit an authentic Chinese restaurant with someone from China. Let them order for the table and then eat family style.

You can also experience Chinese food at home. We often eat Asian Beef and Broccoli at home. This recipe has been altered to accommodate gluten-free cooking for those who have that problem as I do.

Ingredients

Head of Broccoli, chopped

Thin Beef Steaks, cut into strips

white pepper, to taste

salt, to taste

1 tbsp corn starch

1 tbsp sesame oil

1 tbsp gluten-free soy sauce (or you can skip this if necessary)

1/4 cup beef broth

1 tbsp olive oil

ginger, freshly grated, to taste

garlic, minced, to taste

Rice, cooked

Steps

1. Boil the chopped broccoli for two minutes. Drain and set aside.

2. In a large frying pan, spray with cooking spray and cook the meat at medium high-heat.

3. As you stir the meat, add white pepper and salt to taste.

4. Turn the temperature down, and put the lid on.

5. As the meat browns, stir together the corn starch, sesame oil, and soy-sauce.

6. Pour the sauce and broth into the beef and stir briefly.

7. In a small frying pan, saute the ginger and garlic in the olive oil.

8. When the garlic and ginger is browned (about 1-2 minutes), add it to the meat along with the broccoli.

9. Serve on rice.

The World of Plants: 5 Easy, Hands-On Activities to Learn About Science

Plants are an important source of life in our world. They clean our air, they provide us with food, and they cool us in their shade. Around the world, people have found joy and peace in tending gardens and planting flowers. Learning about what makes plants grow and thrive is a constant process that many people take a lifetime to perfect.

The joys of learning can be given to your children when you teach them about plants using a hands-on process rather than from a textbook. When life and learning go hand-in-hand, children will continue to learn long into adulthood. These five activities can be done as part of your lifestyle or as a short unit study with your children.

Plant a vegetable garden together.
In the springtime, my children are right beside me, playing in the dirt and finding worms while I plant my flowers and prepare my vegetable garden. As they have grown older, I give them more to do to help. This has become our springtime routine so that from very young ages they have understood where plants come from and what seeds are for.

The book Square Foot Gardening is a great resource on gardening and vegetables. It contains information for beginners and experts alike, including charts on what plants to do each part of the year. I love this book and have followed this simple gardening method for years.

Sprout seeds found in the kitchen.
Collect several glass or clear plastic containers and fill them full of water and cotton balls. In the containers, plant popcorn kernels, beans, whole grain barley, fennel seed, or whatever whole foods you have in your pantry. You could even pick a few apple seeds out of an apple.

In several days, these seeds will sprout. You can see both the new seedling and its roots. If you would like to take this experiment further, you can transplant the seedlings into a larger glass full of rocks and water. The rocks will give the plants support as they grow.

Explore the parts of a seed and the parts of a flower.
Soak some beans in some water and set them on the counter for a day. The next day, peel off the outer layer of the bean, and pull the bean apart. Inside, you will see seedling curled up inside the bean. It has not yet received the right conditions to grow, but it is still there, lying dormant.

You can also take apart flowers. If you open them up carefully, you can inspect the pistil and the stamens. The best part is the seed pod, which may or may not be pollinated. My morning glories were excellent for this project. The seed pod was just the right size to inspect. When the seeds were pollinated, they were black. Otherwise, they were white. You can follow this up with an age-appropriate library book on the parts of plants and the lifecycle of seeds.

Make paint out of flowers.
Paint construction paper by crushing grass and different colored flowers against the paper with a rock. Cut out interesting shapes from the colored paper, like butterflies or stars. Then hang the shapes as a mobile. After doing this project, discuss and read about chlorophyll, the green pigment in plants, and how plants use chlorophyll to photosynthesize, which is the process of turning sunlight into energy.

This idea as well as many others comes from Janice VanCleave’s Play and Find Out about Nature, a book of easy science experiments for young children. Although the experiments are simple and easy for young children to understand, older children can enjoy them too.

Take a nature hike.
Bring field guides for trees and flowers to your local arboretum. Look up the trees and flowers you find to learn how to identify plants by type. You can start a nature journal by collecting samples, drawing pictures, and writing descriptions about what you see.

To Add to the Lessons on Money Matters

Yesterday we went to the zoo on a small budget, and we got a lot of requests from the children. "I want cotton candy." "I want popcorn." "I want to ride on the train." "I want my face painted." I walked away remembering a lesson learned that I wished I had applied to our zoo trip. So here I am sharing my helpful hint with you, still wishing I had remembered my own advice.

So when going to special events (i.e. the zoo, the circus, an amusement park), give the children their own spending money. They have to balance the money between all of their wants. Then it is up to them to decide which is their most desirable purchase: cotton candy or getting their face painted? You no longer have to face all of their demands because they hold their opportunities in their own hands, and you no longer have to dealing with the whining when you say no.

I have done this before at the toy store. They each had $5 to spend, and we went through the store picking out things they liked. If they found something else other than what they originally picked, I would say, "You do not have enough money for both. Which one do you want more?" This was very successful for several reasons:

1. The choice is in their hands. They have to balance their money for themselves and decide what they really, really want.
2. With limited choices set before them, it is no longer up to us to be the bad guy. We no longer have to be the ones to say "no" yet again for another demand. They have to say "no" to themselves.
3. This teaches them the value of money. Money doesn't buy everything.
4. It also teaches them the wisdom of careful money use. Money should be used for the more important things rather than for everything.
5. When they whine about not getting what they want, you can put the ball back into their court. If they spend their money on popcorn and then discover an ice cream stand around the corner, you can say, "I am sure next time you will save your money until you know what you really want."

Book Review: The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White

The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White

"Ko-hoh," the swans say, but Louis remains silent. Louis is a trumpeter swan with no voice. He befriends a boy named Sam and learns to write on the slate he carries around his neck, but he still cannot communicate with his swan friends who cannot read. When he falls in love with Serena, he cannot trumpet to her his love, so Louis's father steals a trumpet so that Louis could woo the love of his life.

However, by the time Louis receives his trumpet, Serena has flown north with other swans, and Louis is left with a stolen trumpet and the need to restore his father's honor by earning the money to pay for the trumpet. Louis learns to play the trumpet and uses his skill to try to earn enough money to pay back the music store.

The story is surely a bit unbelievable. How does a bird fly carrying a slate and chalk, a trumpet, a money bag, and a badge of honor? How does a bird beak make the right ombiture to blow into a trumpet? Yet, there are details that are in fact very true to animal behavior, like how a mother bird chooses a location and builds her nest and how baby cygnets are raised.

Louis is a very lovable character. He has honor as he makes amends for wrongs done. He has love as he demonstrates true friendship. He has courage in his adventures. In true E. B. White fashion, a wonderful story is weaved. We look forward to reading another chapter every night, and when the chapter is done, the kids beg for just one more chapter. Most nights, we agree since we didn't want to end either!

I highly recommend this book for grade schoolers. Enjoy!