I am 37 weeks and 4 days pregnant.

We don’t have a name for this baby yet. Not that that is entirely strange. We’ve named a baby then changed it hours later.

This pregnancy has been a bit odd in that we haven’t really discussed names much. We all kind of assumed or felt this baby is a girl. Early on we thought of a girl’s name and then we stopped discussing it.

Now, who knows if we’ll use that name and what if it’s a boy?

I don’t think we use unusual names for our children but everyone feels comfortable telling us we do. What makes them unusual? That they aren’t in the top 500 baby names used?

If that’s the case then Mindy is very unusual (not in the top 1000 for any of the last 10 yrs). Surprisingly, Patience is a fairly common name.

I’m not worried about not having any name ideas after all I do have a whole 17 days until my due date. That’s tons of time

…..

I wrote this yesterday afternoon and last night Michael and I stared at names until my eyes fell out. Then I fell asleep brainstorming different names. I really do not like picking out names. When I find one I love, Michael vetoes it. He suggests names to me and I rarely like them. *sigh*

It seems that everyone will agree with you that reading to your children is important.  But how many are actually incorporating it into their homeschool schedule?

For me, reading to Haley when she was an infant was easy.  She was the first baby and I had all the time in the world to devote to developing her young mind.  When Haven was born I struggled with juggling a newborn and a toddler and making time for the things that were most important.  I read less to Haven and subsequently less to Haley.

When Paisley arrived I had “mastered” having multiple children and managed to squeeze in a reading time most days.  This most likely resulted less because of my prioritizing and more because Haley was ready to start reading.  Her desire for me to constantly read overpowered my drive to clean and/or sleep whenever I could.

Up until this summer, however, all reading times were spontaneous, unpredictable and were the first thing to go if there was something else to do.  In June, we reorganized our schedule to include 2- 45 minute blocks of reading by me and one 45 minute block for Michael.

For those of you saying, “my children would never sit still for 45 minutes of reading!”, I said this too   At first they wouldn’t (Haven and Paisley) but now they know the routine and for the most part “listen”.  Haley eagerly takes in every word and keeps me on track because I often get busy and skip the reading time.

Narration is a huge skill that a child should begin to master at an early age.  Haven is 5 and can sometimes narrate the story, Proverb, or poem I just read but mostly his attention is not there.  Paisley is 2 and does pretty much whatever Haven does…and her answer to every question is either “God” or “Jesus”…. yes, Paisley, they are the answer lol.

There have been numerous studies done on the correlation between reading to your children and the various characteristics that lend themselves to success in life.  Reading is one of the top 5 gifts you have the opportunity to share with your children.  Many moms will implore you to start early to plant the seed of love of reading in your children.  It is much harder to get a 12 year old to read if they’ve never seen you read or known that reading was important.

By reading to them early and often you cultivate that love and the normalcy of it.  Although Haven cannot read words we often go in search of him only to find him lying in a corner “reading” a book.  We have to force Haley to go to bed at night or else she’d read until she couldn’t hold her eyes open.  Paisley enjoys a good story as well.

Although any reading is good, you can always strive to read the best.

Classics like Treasure Island, The Hobbit, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Secret Garden… are all excellent choices for ALL ages.  Our children sat captivated during each one and eagerly anticipated how Bilbo would triumph over Smaug.  One thing we don’t do is choose books with tons of colorful pictures or adaptations.  We want the children to love words.  The occasional picture should be simply a bonus.

If you’d like some guidance on which books are highly recommend I suggest Hand That Rocks the Cradle: 400 Classic Books for Children.  When we first received this book we went through it book by book.  Michael and I were quite disappointed that out of 400 classic books we had read less than 5.  Pathetic.

The good news is once you get started it doesn’t take long to start checking off books.  I can’t wait to look back in 15 years and see how many we’ve read and re-read.  But, reading classics is nothing compared to the enormous value of reading the Bible to your children.

I have been blessed beyond any expectations through our nightly family worship.  Not only have I learned more in 3 months than I learned in 9 years of being a Christian, but the kids have blown me away with their understanding and retention of Scripture.

I encourage you to begin reading today.  Don’t wait until you think your kids are ready (they won’t be) or until you have all the housework done (it never will be).  Like every good thing it will stink in the beginning and be riddled with trials but in the end it will be beautiful.

Homeschooling isn’t just sitting down with your children and teaching them math, reading, science and history. As a matter of fact, in our schedule there is no math. Nature is our science. And reading and history are combined in a fun way.

Homeschooling means you, the parent, want to be the one to teach your children about life. Not letting them wander aimlessly into a large classroom with 12-18 other children under the supervision (hopefully) of a teacher that may or may not be a pagan, homosexual, or a pedophile yet to be “caught”.

Oh, I know, not all teachers are bad. True. But, I’m not willing to take that chance especially when I don’t have anything better to do

Besides, you can only ask so much of a teacher who is paid between $30k-$60k to work ALL day with a bunch of children (some prepubescent, some rebellious teenagers, some drugged up, some who have never been disciplined, some abused… you get the picture). I can imagine it’s hard just teaching them one little concept, much less valuable life lessons.

I went to public school. Where did I learn life lessons? Where did I learn about modesty? sex? drugs? money? honesty? integrity? character? logic?

Sadly, I learned them from the world (or didn’t learn them). Now, I had great parents. So, this isn’t a “poor me, I was cheated in life” blog post. I feel that my parents did the best they could with the knowledge they had at the time.

Now that I have children of my own these life lessons are approached with extreme care. You only get one chance to expose them to something for the first time. I’ll never forget when Haley was reading a history book to me and came across the Scopes trial. Before Scopes, creationism was taught in schools and after evolution was.

Haley had never heard of the word evolution before. When I explained it to her, a confused look came over her face and she said, “that’s silly.” Yep.

I can’t imagine Haley coming home from school saying, “today, my teacher told us that men should be able to marry men.” The stress and emotion that would arise from that situation is crazy to even imagine.

How about modesty? Is that something I’d want Haley to learn from “the real world”? NO! Please, Lord, protect her eyes!

A month or so ago our family was convicted of our modesty. The Lord placed it on our hearts that myself and our girls would wear skirts only. Wearing skirts has been a huge blessing to our family. Sounds strange, I’m sure. But, it has helped teach our girls about being feminine. And it has helped me be more submissive to my husband. For me, wearing jeans made me feel equal to Einstein therefore I saw no need to submit.

Our family does so many things against the norm (really now, who wants to be normal? normal is abuse in every other household, over-medicated kids and parents, spending more than you make…) why add one more battle? Why choose to be on the defensive when you can play offense?

Homeschooling has already created an unbreakable bond between our family- and we’ve only been doing it for 3 years. Every thing we do is a learning experience.

My goal is to not have moms around me praise me as being some kind of super mom. HA! I only wish they understood that homeschooling is choosing to live ALL your life with your kids. That’s it! Yes, you have to spend a little time formally teaching but trust me TRUST ME, if I can do it anyone can.

If you aren’t currently homeschooling, here is my challenge to you: Write down the top 5 reasons why you don’t want to/don’t think you can/refuse to homeschool. Pray about those reasons. Ask the Lord to place people, magazines and blogs in your life that will either negate or solidify your reasons.

I pray this blog post motivates all moms to protect the eyes and ears of their children. It’s much easier to teach them the right way first than having to undo bad influences.

You are not required to have a degree to homeschool your children.

Having said that Michael and I have quite a bit of advanced education.  Michael is a doctor and possibly the smartest person I will ever meet (say any ancient civilization or geographic region and he will give you an in-depth explanation in 10 minutes that will surpass all your years of schooling!).  I have a lot of 1/2 advanced degrees   plus that little bachelor’s.

Now, you’d think with all of that we’d know the answer to just about every question our children would ask us.  Nope.

“Is a whale a mammal?” Michael really could not fathom that a whale nurses.  I assured him that I had seen videos of this occuring.

“When did dinosaurs live?” I still don’t know but Answers In Genesis is teaching me

“Who won the Civil War?” *sigh* I’m sorry.  I blame my ignorance on the public school system.

“Do dirt daubers sting?” I don’t think so but that’s just what my mommy told me.

“What is the definition of truth?” Ah, my sweet Haley. So deep.  But, really try to articulate this simple, yet profound word.

“Who wrote (insert any book of the Bible)?” 3 months ago I couldn’t have answered 90% of the books.  But, after much study I can quickly answer!

There are so many more that I can’t recall.  The point is no amount of public education is going to give you the answers to your children’s questions.  Homeschooling isn’t just for the children.

I’ve learned SO much by homeschooling.  I’m learning Greek for crying out loud! I can recite Psalm 23!

Recently I listened to a Vodie Bauchum (the one called Answering Objections..) audio and loved what he said about teaching your children the catechism:

…when a father gasped at the vast weight of teaching ALL of these to our children Vodie said he whispered the secret to this father…”you just have to stay one day ahead.” (I butchered the quotation but you get the point!)

Basically, learn it the night before and the next day you look like genius to your children.  We don’t have to know it all.

Can’t wait to learn something new tomorrow!

Since June our family has been learning how to read Greek (Biblical Greek).  It has been such an amazing experience!  It’s something we ALL do together.  Yes, even the 2 year old!

We do everything else together so why not Greek?

When we started out we simply made notecards and memorized the symbols.  After we had a good knowledge of them we began with the worksheets.  We use the system by Harvey Bluedorn. Besides disagreeing with Harvey on the pronunciation on many of the English words, I am very pleased with this program.

Michael prints out the appropriate pages for him, me, Haley and Haven.  I then change the Greek letters to a corresponding English letter for Haven.  That way he is involved and learning English first   Paisley “writes” her ABCs on paper while begging for her own praise.

We are only up to Lambda, but already we feel so intelligent!  There is something about learning a foreign language to boost your self-confidence.

As far as schedule goes, we were doing Greek after dinner and before family worship.  But, that was making the evenings so crunched.  We’ve moved it to after breakfast (and the reading of Proverbs) and it really sets a great tone for learning with all the kids.

I am so proud of Haley.  She is the most brilliant 7 year old I’ve ever spoken with.  She keeps right up with Michael and I and often corrects me.

Our long term goal is to read the New Testament in Greek.  I can’t wait!

Recently we started drinking goat’s milk after we finally faced the fact that Haven is sensitive to pasteurized cow’s milk.  We had a feeling but when it got worse the more he had, we knew.

Thankfully, we found a sweet young family with 2 extra gallons of goat milk we could buy each week.  The kids loved the tour of the “farm”: mingling with goats, petting an hours old chick, visiting a whole bunch of chickens and riding a horse.

It was definitely a day to remember for them.

The next day we drove 1 1/2 hours to a ranch to purchase a 1/4 cow.  Sort of a sample pack to see if we like their meat.  Really though there isn’t any chance we won’t like meat from 100% grass fed, no antibiotic, no hormone cows!

While visiting the Shudde Ranch the kids got to feed the chickens and horse while sweating profusely in the 100+ heat.  Ugh! It was miserable and fun at the same time.

We took the scenic route home from Shudde Ranch and saw the most amazing views! We are truly blessed to live in the Hill Country!!

This is the first time to use the program FlippingBook so bear with the imperfectness

[book id='2' /]

2 Heads? For sure!  I mean I must if I homeschool, right?

That’s certainly what many people think when you tell them you homeschool.  It’s interesting that the fact that we homeschool always comes up after they’ve raved incessantly over the local schools.

Ever noticed that everyone who sends their kids to public school resides in THE top school district in the state? Fascinating.

I try to smile as they give me this golden nugget of information then, because I would hate for them to leave with the wrong assumption , I politely say “we homeschool”.

The funniest response I have gotten to this statement: “Oh, well, if you ever decide to not homeschool anymore Kerrville has amazing schools.” This man, the pest control man at that, had already bragged on the schools 4 times!

What is so funny about this statement is that he (and most other people) believe that to homeschool is some flippant decision we up and made one day.  Like it’s on the same level as deciding what color underwear to wear today.

It’s actually quite insulting to the intelligence of homeschoolers to assume that it’s a decision made lightly.

I remember very clearly when homeschooling became a part of our lives.  Michael was driving home from the practice when he heard James Dobson talk about how detrimental the public school system is for boys.  This one statement was enough to flip a switch in Michael.

We had been discussing homeschooling but weren’t sure which way was best and what God wanted for us.  Hearing Dobson was just confirmation that we were heading in the right direction.  From then it wasn’t a question but a matter of how and what.

I was almost 100% NOT on board.  I mean really, what mother doesn’t dream of the day she gets some “free time”?  Who doesn’t wish they could read a book at 11am, take a shower at 1pm and bake cookies for the kids as they arrive home from prison daycare school?

Once I got over those insanely selfish feelings…3 years later!…things have actually been fun.

It wasn’t until this year that we were “really doing school”.  We’d been teaching since Haley was 3 1/2 and her intelligence was praised by many.  But as far as having a set plan, 2009 was the start.

We knew that Classical Christian teaching was our future plan but we weren’t sure where to start with a 7yo.  So we purchase Adventures in My Father’s World.  After a couple of months of doing that Michael read Teaching the Trivium.

Talk about confirmation!  Teaching the Trivium put into words everything Michael thought and wanted for the education of our children.  It gave us resources, schedules, ideas, and support that we had been craving.

My previous post talks more about that.

I can say that 80% of the time I enjoy homeschooling Haley, Haven and Paisley (on a good day Sterling is napping).  If you’ve figured out how to not be selfish 100% of the time PLEASE let me in on the secret!

My favorite part of our day is reading a good book.  I say “good” because not all of the books I read would I consider good.  Sure the kids love Hank the Cowdog but …

I really do love to see the raw excitement that the children have for Greek lessons.  They honestly love it and so do Michael and I.  Our family is so close.  We eat every meal together, read together, have Bible reading 2x/day together, take walks together, drive in the country together, learn together, live life and LOVE GOD together!

That is what homeschooling is about!

(originally posted June 21, 2009 at Do I Need A Bigger Plate?)

Over the past few weeks, life in the Beck house has changed dramatically. I am so humbled by God’s ever present hand in my life.

For years we have known of the book Teaching the Trivium by Bluedorn. We knew of this book because we homeschool using the Classical Christian approach.

After seeing it go on sale I purchased it for Michael and once he cracked the book life as we knew it changed. It’s not like we were living a bad life, God just had bigger plans for us.

Have you ever known that you believed in something or knew something but couldn’t quite put it into words? Then when you read it in print the huge lightbulb flicks on and you have that moment of suspended motion. A moment when you say “finally! Someone else thinks like I do.”

Well, Teaching the Trivium provided that moment for Michael. I love to see this fire in my husband. He can’t stop devouring new information (if you know Michael you’re probably thinking that he’s always been this way. he has but now it’s multiplied exponentially!).

If you are completely clueless on what classical christian homeschooling is or what the heck Teaching the Trivium is about, here is a synopsis:

The Trivium In a Capsule

The Trivium consists of the first three formal subjects of the seven liberal arts: Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric. This is the formal Trivium in the classical sense. This formal Trivium is an academic reflection of the more basic Biblical Trivium, the mental capacities of Knowledge, Understanding, and Wisdom. (See the list of references at the end of this article.) The classical style of education is built upon these three mental or intellectual capacities:

1. The first, for receiving and gathering up information – Knowledge.
2. The second, for arranging and connecting the information in a logical order – Understanding.
3. The third, for putting this gathered and ordered information into practical expression – Wisdom.

Children are continually developing in Knowledge, Understanding, and Wisdom. Though these three capacities are mutually dependent upon each other, and the capacities are developing in the child from before birth, nevertheless, children pass through several developmental stages, or levels of learning, where one capacity experiences rapid growth. We will describe these stages below. Keep in mind that our age divisions are not meant as nice neat little cubicles. They are only arbitrary approximations, and they may vary greatly from child to child.

…
In summary, the capacities for Knowledge, Understanding, and Wisdom are not neat little compartments with sealed doors between them. Rather, they all develop at the same time from the very beginning, yet they each pass through successive periods of intensive development, until they finally catch up with each other and work harmoniously together. These ages are only approximate, and your child may be on either side of the line.

To summarize it all in one sentence: we first instruct the child in Knowledge; then we guide the youth in Understanding; then we challenge the older youth in Wisdom.

*Exodus 31:3; 35:31; 36:1; Deuteronomy 1:13,15; First Kings 7:14; Job 15:8-9; Proverbs 2:6; 3:19,20; 5:1,2; 8:12; 18:15; 23:23; 24:3,4; Daniel 1:4,17; 5:14; Ephesians 1:8,9,17,18; Colossians 1:9,10; 2:2,3; and many other places.

Peruse that site for more information on the Trivium and Classical Education.

Now, as my title eluded to, here is our daily schedule. Michael feared I would push-back (as I often do with change) and that the kids would resist. However, like all things God designed “the cards fell into place”. Life has been much easier, less chaotic and abundantly rich since implementing this schedule.

7:00 am Wake Up. Breakfast. Chores (I will add this chart in another post)
8:00 am Bible time/Family worship/Prayer
8:30-9:30 am General meeting

1. Recite memory work- Bible verses, alphabet (eng., latin, greek, hebrew)
2. Reading- children read (Bible history, Constitution, poetry, etc.)
3. Practice narration- Haley or Mommy reads, Haven and Haley narrate back

9:30-10:15 am Mommy reads. May ask questions to children about what was read. Can do art or crafts but must be quiet! (the littles may busy their hands but must listen)

10:15-11:30am

1. Phonics for Haven – English notebook
2. Copywork- minimum 15-20 minutes (Bible, history, poetry, quotes, speeches, latin, greek) – can combine w/ artwork and draw pictures of what is being copied – put in English notebook
3. History and Timeline

11:30-1:00pm

1. Prepare and eat lunch
2. chores
3. clean house

1:00-2:00pm Naps.

2:00-2:45pm Mommy reads aloud (same system as 9:30)

2:45-4:30pm nature walks, play outside, library, volunteer work, field trips, museums, fairs, workplaces, ….

4:30-5:00pm Mommy works out

5:00-6:30pm Dinner and chores. Bible reading and questions w/ daddy.
6:30-7:30pm Daddy reads. Latin or Greek work.

Since we’ve moved to Kerrville (in Feb.) everyone – EVERYONE – tells us there are “tons” of homeschoolers here.  But where are they???

There is virtually zero presence on the web for anything homeschool related in Kerrville.  That’s why I decided to start this blog.  I have a family blog called Do I Need A Bigger Plate? and a cloth diaper blog All About Cloth Diapers.  What’s one more responsibility?? lol

Since this is the first post, I’ll introduce myself and my family.  I’m Autumn.  I am 31 and have been married to my wonderful husband for almost 11 years! We have 4 beautiful children: Haley, Haven, Paisley and Sterling.

We have been homeschooling since 2005ish.  Haley was eager to start learning with workbooks very early.  We’ve learned though that every child is different…WAY different.  Haven is just beginning to learn letters and writing.

Paisley is 2 and as we sit down to Greek at night she is eager to participate.  Unfortunately, she thinks the english “c” is the greek “kse”.

And of course little Sterling is just hanging out, soaking it all in.  At 4 months we think he is hands-down the smartest baby!

We began homeschooling with certain ideas about what was best. But when Michael read “Teaching the Trivium” by Bluedorn the lightbulb went on and everything just clicked.

I will be posting a post I published a month or so ago on my family blog about our daily schedule.  At first it seemed impossible but once I did it a week it is simple.  Aren’t all new things like that?!