Many children are reading independently by the intermediate years. With my oldest two, it didn’t occur to me to keep reading to them once they were flying solo. My job seemed complete; the skill of reading and the habit of reading were set.

It was natural to read books aloud to the following two children for much longer as those skills and habits were set much later. Also, in those early years of parenting, I was always eager to get to the next stage. Eventually, my thinking shifted and I did everything in my power to settle into each stage and stay as long as possible.

My youngest four have been read to a lot and it is a stage in which I’m in no rush to let go. Even my 16-year-old, 6-foot-tall son is part of our morning time read-aloud.

Continuing to read aloud to your readers comes with some perks so keep going!

Factory Settings

Every family develops a family culture. Have you put thought into what you want your family culture to look like, or is your family operating on factory settings? Being purposeful about developing a culture of reading aloud is a very simple way to break free from those settings.

Family Bonding

There is no shortage of things that pull families away from each other. We need to be purposeful about protecting the things that draw us together. There are expensive and time-intensive ways to accomplish this and then there are the simple day in and day out rhythms of life that I would suggest work even better: eating together, reading aloud, and worshipping together.

I’ve only just begun reading The Life Giving Home, but if you want to be inspired as you build family culture and bonding I think this would be a good place to start.

Avoid Losing Ground

Your readers lose ground when you have been reading aloud to them and then stop because they are reading independently. The vocabulary and writing that your newly independent readers interact with will be simple…by design. Continue to read aloud! We want them to be bumping into language that is above their reading level, not to mention the added benefit of hearing how to properly pronounce difficult words.

Life-Long Learning

Reading aloud together allows you to demonstrate how to soak in everything you can from reading a book. After completing a chapter or two expand your knowledge of the country in which the story is set by pouring over a map book together. The Peterson Field Guides are not just for nature walks! They are a great resource to use as you explore books together. Grab one off the shelf to learn a little more about the animal or flower that was mentioned. YouTube and Google work as well, and we use them but I also love building a family library.  Whatever tools you decide to use, the idea is to be reading aloud with your children. It gives you the opportunity to show them what it looks like to be a curious lifelong learner.

Build Communication Skills

When you read aloud to your children you’ve opened the door to all sorts of conversations and communication skill-building. If you are reading to multiple children it’s a great way for them to learn that others may develop opposing opinions, and have differing perspectives. This summer I’m diving into Teaching the Classics. If you are interested in using dialogue and conversation more purposefully in your homeschool then you should check it out too.

Discussing books gives children an opportunity to practice moving their thoughts, ideas, and opinions from their minds to the spoken word. It’s such a simple thing but it builds communication skills. Many families use narration as a foundation to build writing skills. Honestly, it’s not something we’ve been super successful with but its value became very obvious to me as we tried to tackle Writing with Ease. The skill that is developed with this program was a real challenge for my children. I suspect that solid narration skills would have helped. We carry a bunch of narration resources; I have my eye on Know and Tell by Karen Glass.

Keep Reading Aloud!

We all live in a sea of amazing homeschool ideas. You need to know that you can’t possibly do them all and in fact, the “good” homeschool mom is not the one who tries to do it all. You would be wise to slow down, think things through, and be purposeful and prayerful about the homeschooling culture you want. It will mean saying no to things…even good things. Having said all of that, reading aloud to your children is foundational and not a trend. It’s worth making time for.

by Adrianne Curwen

Adrianne is a wife to a public-school educator/administrator and a homeschooling Mama to seven children, ranging in age from 8 to 24 and in 2021 the family added a son-in-law to the bunch. She believes that we have a unique opportunity as homeschoolers to design individualized education that suits giftings, interests, and passions. She and her husband have used a blend of registered homeschooling, enrolment with independent DL schools, and participation in public trade school programs to design individualized programs for their children.  She is passionate about using as many read-alouds, picture books, novels, and conversations to educate her children but also gets excited by the amazing homeschool-designed curriculum that’s out there.  Adrianne is thrilled by her new role as Communication Specialist for Classical Education Books and is grateful to have an opportunity to learn something new.  She is grateful, every day, for her saviour, Jesus Christ, and has no greater joy than when she sees her most important missions field walk with Him.

The post Read Aloud to Your Readers! appeared first on Classical Education Books.

Christmas is a season, not a day!

If your family follows the traditional Christmas calendar, then the Christmas season started on the last Sunday of November with the beginning of Advent and won’t end until January 6th. That is plenty of time to fit in the decorating, hosting, baking, wrapping, and celebrating; if it’s not then you have too many tasks on your list. Once you embrace Christmas as a season, then those sugar cookies you bake every year…you know the ones, they require refrigeration before you can roll them out, then they need to be baked, then cooled, then iced…consider baking them as a special treat for New Year’s Eve or on one of the Twelve Days of Christmas (December 25^th– January 5^th). You may need to think outside the box, it may mean bending some long-standing traditions, but it will help relieve some pressure.

Make Lists

If you are not a list maker, then this is a perfect time of year to sit down with pen and paper and get yourself organized. List making is a sure way to add calmness to Christmas and it is the simplest way to help you get organized. Lists help you re-evaluate; there may be items on your list that you simply must let go of. Lists also help to get the clutter out of your mind and onto paper.  Invest time today in figuring out what you are making for Christmas dinner, the list of ingredients you need for those sugar cookies, and what gifts still need to be bought! This time investment will pay off!

Never accept invitations on the spot.

Always answer with, “I’ll check my calendar and get back to you”. And did you know that you can decline an invitation even if your day is free? Yes, it’s true! I encourage you to look at your calendar and evaluate your week, not just the day. You can gracefully decline without giving a reason and simply offer another time that works better for you and your family.

I enjoy the Christmas season and like to participate in all the things: gift-giving, decorating, baking, hosting, crafting, and other activities. Over the years, I’ve learned how to gracefully decline invitations, how to be more organized, and how to set a calm pace. I hope you’ve been able to glean even just a little something.

______________________________________________________________________

by Adrianne Curwen

Adrianne is a wife to a public-school educator/administrator and a homeschooling Mama to seven children, ranging in age from 8 to 24 and in 2021 the family added son-in-law to the bunch. She believes that we have a unique opportunity as homeschoolers to design individualized education that suits giftings, interests, and passions. She and her husband have used a blend of registered homeschooling, enrolment with independent DL schools, and participation in public trade school programs to design individualized programs for their children.  She is passionate about using as many read-alouds, picture books, novels, and conversations to educate her children but also gets excited by the amazing homeschool-designed curriculum that’s out there.  Adrianne is thrilled by her new role as Communication Specialist for Classical Education Books and is grateful to have an opportunity to learn something new.  She is grateful, every day, for her saviour, Jesus Christ, and has no greater joy than when she sees her most important missions field walk with Him.

The post Curb the Christmas Chaos appeared first on Classical Education Books.

“Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, ⁴ and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, ⁵ to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.” Titus 2:3-5

Here’s what I know for sure.

1. If we need to be trained, the standard must not come naturally.
2. Loving our husbands and children is an imperative, a command, an obligation. It’s compulsory!
3. That last phrase, “that the word of God may not be reviled”, is an enormous consequence. It leaves me feeling like I have work to do.

A little bit of background

The Greeks had several different words that we would translate to the English word, love.  The scripture being studied here focuses on the Greek word, “philios”. It is the love for a friend; someone dearly loved in a personal way. It is experience/action-based love.  It’s the same love that Jesus calls us to in John 13:35, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.”

At first, it struck me as strange that the same word used to describe love for a friend would be used to instruct wives and mothers on how to love their husbands and children.  Surely, the love for one’s own husband and children is in a whole other category; at a whole other level.  The love for a friend seems a bit general.

I don’t always love what is revealed as I ponder these things, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that I have lacked understanding and my actions reflect it.  I started to think about the love I show to my friends and the love I show to my husband and children and I noticed a few things.

I handle offenses differently

If I’m honest, I overlook offenses much more easily when it comes to my friends.  Oh sure, it’s easy to justify these differences.  Living day to day with hurts from a husband is more challenging than the occasional hurt from a friend and I’m responsible to train my children so I need to point out what they are doing wrong.

I’m not suggesting that we don’t communicate with our husbands how their words or actions affect us.  And clearly, we should not forsake training our children.  I am suggesting that more could be overlooked, grace could flow more freely, and communication and correction should come from a better place; a place bathed in prayer; a place where there is a sincere hope for the relationship to be better; a place of genuine concern over their actions and behaviour.

Instead, our communication and correction often come from anger, fear, insecurity, selfishness, embarrassment, pride, perfectionism, and laziness.

I’ve learned a few things about handling the sin of others.

Handling the sin of another is tricky business.  I’ve seen this played out humbly and horribly, and I’m guilty of botching this one with friends and family.  My top takeaway when I’ve witnessed this played out well is that the “confronter” comes alongside as a fellow sinner, with humility, and compassion.  I imagine they were able to do this because their own sin was not some far-off unfamiliar thing.  Sincerely confessing our sins to God and others is a key ingredient to this familiarity.  We need to be well acquainted with our own sins and shortcomings if we are going to be able to come alongside our husbands and children in humility, compassion, and hope.  There is a way to interact with our sin that keeps us humble, compassionate, and merciful without burying us under guilt and shame.  You will need a full understanding of the gospel to do this.

My friends call upon me regularly to pray for them and I do pray. My husband and children don’t. Why?

I pray for my husband and children every day. I’m not sure why they don’t call on me for prayer but I know what I want to do about it. I have a very loyal prayer warrior friend.  I don’t know what her system is.  Maybe she has a list of names that she loops through, maybe my name is written on some calendar, maybe it’s something that just happens naturally when you are such a devoted prayer warrior, I don’t know, but she sends me a message every few weeks asking how she can be praying for me.  There is a well-worn path between her and me when it comes to prayer and she has been the one to clear that path!

My final thoughts:

There is a direct connection between our love for others and our witness for Christ; our love shows that we are his disciples.  This is so much bigger than having a good marriage or having children that turn out ok.

May we all seek the Lord in prayer, asking Him to reveal to us how we are falling short in the area of loving our husbands and children. May we display wisdom, restraint, and care as we communicate. And may we all have well-worn paths between us and our husbands and children, where we seek them out, asking them how we can pray for them.

by Adrianne Curwen

Adrianne is a wife to a public-school educator/administrator and a homeschooling Mama to seven children, ranging in age from 7 to 23. She believes that we have a unique opportunity as homeschoolers to design individualized education that suits giftings, interests, and passions. She and her husband have used a blend of registered homeschooling, enrolment with independent DL schools, and participation in public trade school programs to design individualized programs for their children.  She is passionate about using as many read-alouds, picture books, novels, and conversations to educate her children but also gets excited by the amazing homeschool-designed curriculum that’s out there.  Adrianne is thrilled by her new role as Communication Specialist for Classical Education Books and is grateful to have an opportunity to learn something new.  She is grateful, every day, for her saviour, Jesus Christ, and has no greater joy than when she sees her most important missions field walk with Him.

The post Love Your Husbands & Children appeared first on Classical Education Books.

Today, I’m writing a letter to my past self.  There is so much I’d like that young mama to know and my hope is that it can make a difference for you.

Dear Young Mama,

You are struggling to make a decision about whether to homeschool your children or to enroll them in public school.  There are many things to consider but here is the truth.  It will be easier to send your children to school if you decide that homeschooling isn’t a good fit than it will be to pull your children from school if you decide that school isn’t a good fit for you.

Consider finances.

I know the plan is for you to go back to work once your children are school age but the finances are going to be there as you need them.  The Lord is going to provide and it’s going to be faith building to see how He does it.  You are going to have to budget, there will be sacrifices, and lean times but there will also be amazing financial surprises along the way.  Start today by praying for financial wisdom.  Ask the Lord to reveal to you any financial beliefs, desires, and habits that are contrary to His word.  Spend the needed time uprooting financial idols.  Confess the worldly desires of your heart, He knows what they are anyway.  You will need His grace to change, you can’t do it in your own strength.

Once you have started to work on your heart, you need to implement some tools.  Start by writing out a budget and then figure out a system to keep track of the spending.  There is no need to buy a program for this, pen and paper will work just fine but I am a fan of YNAB (You Need A Budget).

Take some time to figure out exactly what your husband makes per hour (after income tax and all the other deductions).  This will help you when you are tempted to spend beyond what is needed.  Ask yourself in that moment, “Is this item worth my husband having to work X amount of hours for us/me to have this?”

Finally, figure out what you can do to earn some “Proverbs 31” income.  The size of this endeavor will depend on the time and energy you have, the level of responsibility your husband has at his job, and the amount of home and family responsibilities that he’s able to take on.  But please realize that even if you can only earn and save $100/month, it will richly bless your family 20 years from now.

Consider relationships.

Your friend group is going to change and not all family members are going to be supportive of homeschooling.  Don’t worry, you are going to meet heaps of incredible families and you’ll meet your most treasured friend amongst those families.  Try to remain quietly confident and strong-minded but tender-hearted towards the critics.  The fruit grows slowly, be patient, they’ll start to see.

Don’t consider whether you are smart enough.

Others will question and you’ll wonder if you are smart enough to homeschool your children.  Don’t waste your time pondering this question.  There will be an incredible variety of curricula for you to choose from that will help you educate your children.  Many people have gone before you and they will be a blessed resource.  Ask lots of questions, take notes, don’t be afraid to tweak the advice to fit you and your family, and twenty years from now you’ll be writing a blog post encouraging mamas with your own thoughts.

Consider your priorities.

Develop a firm grasp of what your priorities are.  Build a habit of being in the Word daily, become a prayer warrior, and worship, and serve on a regular basis.  Make your husband your next priority.  It’s a mistake to neglect this relationship and it’s so easy to do.  Next in line are the children.  It can get tricky here as you figure out how to serve the Lord as both a mama and teacher to your children; mama should show up first.

Consider how you will organize.

If you have a kitchen table, then you have space to educate your children.

What you will need are bookshelves.  I’ve yet to go into a homeschooling home that doesn’t have walls full of books.  Homeschool mamas develop a special relationship with books so get yourselves some bookshelves.

Paper!  There is so much paper.  It enters your house in many forms: workbooks, worksheets, journals, creative writing, reports, printables, artwork, and more.  Spend some time thinking about what you are going to keep and how you are going to store it.  Do Not, I repeat, Do Not buy a plastic bin to store all the paper thinking that you’ll get to it another day.

Consider time.

• Theatre Class
• Dance Class
• Creative Writing Class
• Art Class
• Self-Defence Class
• Martial Arts
• Soccer
• Football
• Baseball
• Basketball
• Hockey
• Gymnastics
• Homeschool Co-op
• Youth Group
• Swimming Lessons
• Skating Lessons
• Outdoor Club
• Archery
• Field Trips

There is no shortage of good things to participate in.  Take time to create a vision and some boundaries regarding how you will spend your time and then make decisions that align with your vision and boundaries.

Don’t ever consider that homeschooling will save your children.

There is no checklist or formula that ensures your children will become followers of Christ.  If there were, you would be owed the glory for the salvation of your children.

Homeschooling will protect your children from worldly influences for a time, but it won’t protect them from their own sinful nature.  Make no mistake, sin can still breed in the absence of worldly influences.

Be encouraged, young mama. He will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast because they trust in Him.  Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself is the Rock eternal. (Isaiah 26:3-4).

by Adrianne Curwen

Adrianne is a wife to a public-school educator/administrator and a homeschooling Mama to seven children, ranging in age from 7 to 23. She believes that we have a unique opportunity as homeschoolers to design individualized education that suits giftings, interests, and passions. She and her husband have used a blend of registered homeschooling, enrolment with independent DL schools, and participation in public trade school programs to design individualized programs for their children.  She is passionate about using as many read-alouds, picture books, novels, and conversations to educate her children but also gets excited by the amazing homeschool-designed curriculum that’s out there.  Adrianne is thrilled by her new role as Communication Specialist for Classical Education Books and is grateful to have an opportunity to learn something new.  She is grateful, every day, for her saviour, Jesus Christ, and has no greater joy than when she sees her most important missions field walk with Him.

The post Dear Young Mama appeared first on Classical Education Books.

Instead…

Reflect

Grab a pen and start writing about your year.  What was fantastic and what flopped?  Keep what worked and ditch what didn’t.  This exercise can be done in note form.

Hopes and Plans

What are your hopes and plans for this year?  Write them down; get them on paper.  I know, these sound just like resolutions and goals, and the truth is I’ve repackaged them a bit.  But keep reading.  Goals do give you a direction and something to aim for but that’s about it.  Too often I’ve made the mistake of thinking that goal setting will get me to where I want to be and the truth is that it doesn’t!

Build a Habit

As you focus on your hopes and plans, I encourage you to think in terms of habits.  What habits can you change or develop that will help get you closer to your hopes and plans for the year ahead?

By the way, when you are deciding on which ones to focus on, start with the one that causes you the most stress, anxiety, and worry.  Y’know the one that keeps you up at night?  Yeah, that one…choose that one!

Once you’ve identified the biggest, most challenging goal ahead of you, it’s time to start figuring out what habits need to go, change, or be developed.  Think it through, write it out, then start implementing the habits that will you help you get to your destination.  Even small, seemingly insignificant habits can have a huge impact over time.

A Personal Flop

One of my flops in 2019 was reading novels aloud to my children.  It didn’t really happen.  That changed in 2020 and it was addressing habits that really made the difference.  I changed the time of day and location from late afternoon on the couch to first thing in the morning, in pajamas, on my bed, under the covers with my kiddos.  What a great way to start a homeschool day and the new habit changed everything.  Sidenote,  did you know that you can wake up, exercise, do your personal devotions, shower, and then put your pajamas back on and crawl back into bed with your kiddos?

A 2021 Hope

At the top of my hopes and plans list for 2021…BEDTIMES!  This is going to be big for us and many habits will need to be addressed to make this plan a reality.  I will need more time to sit and think through things but my guess is that it will need to start with our dinner time habits.  An earlier dinner time would certainly make room for a better bedtime routine.

I hope you can see that stating resolutions/goals isn’t really enough.  You need to develop habits…good ones!

by Adrianne Curwen

Adrianne is a wife to a public-school educator/administrator and a homeschooling Mama to seven children, ranging in age from 7 to 23. She believes that we have a unique opportunity as homeschoolers to design individualized education that suits giftings, interests, and passions. She and her husband have used a blend of registered homeschooling, enrolment with independent DL schools, and participation in public trade school programs to design individualized programs for their children.  She is passionate about using as many read-alouds, picture books, novels, and conversations to educate her children but also gets excited by the amazing homeschool-designed curriculum that’s out there.  Adrianne is thrilled by her new role as Communication Specialist for Classical Education Books and is grateful to have an opportunity to learn something new.  She is grateful, every day, for her saviour, Jesus Christ, and has no greater joy than when she sees her most important missions field walk with Him.

The post Focus on Habits, Not Resolutions and Goals! appeared first on Classical Education Books.