We have enjoyed learning about Florence Nightingale! She is a wonderful picture of selfless service to others in the face of great risk to herself. This is a trait that we’d like to grow in and to pass on to our children.

There is a poem written by Henry Wadworth Longfellow, entitled “Saint Filomena”, about Florence Nightingale which we are going to put up on the wall of our daughters’ room along with the picture below…

 Whene’er a noble deed is wrought,
Whene’er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts, in glad surprise,
To higher levels rise.

The tidal wave of deeper souls
Into our inmost being rolls,
And lifts us unawares
Out of all meaner cares.

Honour to those whose words or deeds
Thus help us in our daily needs,
And by their overflow
Raise us from what is low!

Thus thought I, as by night I read
Of the great army of the dead,
The trenches cold and damp,
The starved and frozen camp, -

The wounded from the battle-plain,
In dreary hospitals of pain,
The cheerless corridors,
The cold and stony floors.

Lo! in that house of misery
A lady with a lamp I see
Pass through the glimmering gloom,
And flit from room to room.

And slow, as in a dream of bliss,
The speechless sufferer turns to kiss
Her shadow, as it falls
Upon the darkening walls.

As if a door in heaven should be
Opened and then closed suddenly,
The vision came and went,
The light shone and was spent.

On England’s annals, through the long
Hereafter of her speech and song,
That light its rays shall cast
From portals of the past.

A Lady with a Lamp shall stand
In the great history of the land,
A noble type of good,
Heroic womanhood.

Nor even shall be wanting here
The palm, the lily, and the spear,
The symbols that of yore
Saint Filomena bore.

Isn’t that beautifully written!

Here are some great resources that we used when learning about Florence Nightingale:

• A lovely Florence Nightingale paper doll with petticoat and dress – which I printed at 150% – nice and large. Our girls loved playing with them. Here is the doll and petticoat and the dress.

• A fun interactive page for children on Florence Nightingale.

• Florence Nightingale crossword puzzle.

• A wonderful printable download with pictures, life story and more of Florence Nightingale including a wonderful colouring page of her serving in the hospital. I can’t find where this comes from – and there is not link on it as to where I downloaded it from. If you know please tell me so I can give credit for the wonderful pack! In the meantime, here it is: Florence Nightingale info pack

• Florence Nightingale Lesson Plan

We are so blessed to have History to learn from!

“For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only [use] not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.” Galatians 5v13

I love crafts that are EASY to prepare for and execute! This one is fabulous. We are learning about florists this week and so we started with a great tactile activity. I cut a piece of oasis (floral foam) for each child and then gave them each some paper clips and some pieces of foam / fancy paper.

They explored and pushed the floral foam and poked it with the paper clips.

We then unbent the paper clips until they were straight, leaving a small hook at the top.

Then we pushed the bits of paper and foam on the paper clips to make flowers.

Our oldest made it more of a work of art.

Easy and effective!

“This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.” Hebrews 10v16

Read Part 1 – Looking Back here

The next step is to spend a good amount of time looking forward, planning and preparing for the year ahead.

You might like to go away on a planning retreat as a family or just you and hubby. You might like to take a whole month to do planning, brainstorming and strategizing as a family in between reading and playing together. You might need a week before you officially start a school year to do all the practical planning and preparation. Or you might like to get a head start during the entire second half of each school year – writing down any ideas that come to mind – always looking to what lies ahead.

Whatever works for you, make sure you set that time aside.

A popular term right now in Home Education circles is “unschooling” and while I understand where people are coming from, I don’t like that description. It sounds passive and it sounds like the complete opposite of what we desire to do – which is to do things intentionally and with purpose. I love the phrase “a lifestyle of learning!” Here are some ideas of how to go about preparing your lifestyle of learning.

1. Refresh in your mind / revise your family and home education vision, strategies and goals. Seek the Lord for your family for this year.
2. Ask your children questions about what would they like to learn to do, what instruments would they like to learn to play, what places they would like to visit, what they’d like to learn about, what books would they’d like to read, etc.
3. Think about what experience’s you’d like to have as a family, what areas you’d like to grow in as a family and as individuals, who you’d like to spend time with and what you’d like to accomplish as a family and as individuals.
4. Work on goals for the year for your homeschool and for each of your children individually.
5. Take stock of all that you have available to your family – all your books, resources, opportunities and people available to you that you could utilize in your learning lifestyle
6. Then plan! – get the calendar, put in key events, add in specifics of what you have discussed, where you will travel when and what events you will be part of. Get your planning files and record keeping materials in order.
7. Last of all is finding the books and curriculum that you need because now you know what to look for and can tie it all in to real life and learn as you go. School books and resources can be valuable but don’t pack your schedule so full of them that you don’t have time to pursue the things your children show an interest in learning about along the way!
8. Organize your materials and set up your school schedules.
9. Adjust as you go – most of all, enjoy this precious time with your children, learning together.

• All of this planning and these goals actually help me to be less rigid and structured and more free to enjoy the learning journey with my children.

A few extra notes:

• I have a document to follow with goals for each of my children within each area of learning e.g. Nature study – I write details of how I’d like to go about that “subject” that year as I often forget along the way e.g. go on a nature walk each week and find something of interest to photograph and write about…
• At the family table at dinner time our children come alive with delight as they discuss all they are learning and experiencing as they share with Dad and each other. Dad leads the conversation asking questions and drawing out each member of the family. Such lively animated discussions bond us as a family and enhance our home education journey.
• We have begun to be very intentional about the places we visit or travel to. Traveling to places rich in history and spending weeks or months beforehand planning, learning, studying the history and significance of the places you are going to visit makes them come alive.
• History becomes so rich when it is not just from a book but part of our lives as we learn, explore, visit places and honor those who have gone before. We become thankful as we search out the providence of God in our lives, our families, our country and our world.
• We use and love the Abeka curriculum but we also use bits and pieces from Vision Forum, Sonlight, Rod and Staff, Bob Jones and Christian Liberty Press.

In summary, the main things I want to emphasize are:

• that you have a vision for your Home Education so that you can evaluate how you spend your time
• that you look back with joy to be able to celebrate with your children all that God has done in your and their lives
• and that you look forward with anticipation; involving everyone in the excitement of planning for and the anticipation of that which is to come.

Vision In Every Area

Vision in every area is critical. A vision for how you would like your kitchen cupboard to look and function gives you the strategy and motivation to get it done. Having a vision for how you would like your family time or your Home Education to look will help you find the strategies and put the systems in place to make it happen.

Much of my life I have been operating without vision and STRUGGLING because I don’t have the motivation to do what needs to be done.

Now when I spend time with Hubby talking and praying and when I get a glimpse of the bigger picture – and of God’s greater purposes, everything has greater significance and I have the motivation I need to follow through.

I have realized that giving my children a vision of not just a clean room but a special and inspiring place to live – encourages and motivates them to work alongside me to meet that goal – instead of me trying to drag them through it.

For me, turning away from perfectionism (where I exhaust myself) to using vision in every area helps me make things efficient and effective without them needing to be perfect – is a wonderful breakthrough.

Home Education Strategy

A Home Education STRATEGY is something that we have only recently become aware of. We have always heard so much about the various curricula and methods, but it is hard to find much that goes deeper than that.

People always ask: What curriculum do you use? So in our homeschool I have gotten hung up on doing lots of research on what’s out there and on finding the most suitable “program mix” for us – the right maths, the right language program, the best science worldview, most interesting history, etc.
All this may be part of a good process to go through but I didn’t realise how profoundly different and effective it is to START with your Home Education Vision, goals and STRATEGY!

This has changed home education for us!

A note: Before I could step out into planning and strategizing for our home education freely and completely, I had to talk to my husband about fears that I realized I had. Turns out I’m a hypocrite! I always encourage people to not be bogged down by other people’s ideas, reservations or concerns about homeschooling – yet I realized I have not been able to be completely free in my Home Ed journey because of worrying what certain people will say or think. The thing is, though, hubby and I know what God has called us to do with our children and we know what direction He is calling us to take. It is a road that goes far beyond anything we have ever imagined and it is daunting, stretching, rich and exciting all at the same time. Talking through my fears with Hubby and then giving them to God – taking the LEAP of faith of letting go to Him has been so freeing. Now we can be free to make our choices based on God’s leading alone – and not out of fear that we “should” be doing certain things.

We have been so inspired listening to Doug and Beall Phillips on Family Strategies.

Being Intentional and Remembering

We have been reminded to be intentional about every part of our lives including Home Education.

The Phillips family spends almost a month at the end of each year looking back, recording and evaluating everything they have done during the past year.

This month of consolidating and looking back gives the children such a sense of accomplishment, of teamwork, of being part of something bigger than them.

The Phillips family record everything from which books they have read to which places they visited to how many teeth they lost and what memory verses they memorized – anything significant and meaningful in each child’s life.

We want to look back on which people we got to know during each year, big things God has done in our lives as a family (like finding a church that we love and have become part of.) We want to remember and record the ways our children have grown spiritually, emotionally, in character, in physical abilities, etc.

This is a huge amount to record but what fabulous memories to look back on for them. And if it is done throughout the year as well as at the end then it is not such a daunting task.

We have started scrapbook journals for each child and each week we add to these photographs and drawings of places we have visited and significant events that we have been part of and the children write what they remember from these places and events – what has been special for them and what they want to remember. We felt it was important to start this while our children are young as the memories from this season of their lives are so special. Our 8 year old does her own – and I help the younger three with sticking and writing down what they narrate on each page.

The year end becomes a time of celebrating the richness of family life together and of thanking God for His incredible grace that we have seen throughout the year.
After this rich time of thankfulness and looking back, its time to prepare for the year ahead.

What ways do you use to record and remember in your family? I’d love to hear!

Home Education Strategies Part 2 – Looking Forward to the Year Ahead

“And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.” Deuteronomy 8v2

Linked to Works for Me Wednesday

This week we learnt about traffic lights and road signs. We put number plates onto bikes and traffic signs up all over the house, gave each child some coins and raced around obeying the signs and the traffic light – we charged them a fine each time they disobeyed a traffic sign and if they ran out of coins then they had to go to ‘jail’.

Here’s a traffic light song to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star:

Twinkle twinkle traffic light

All my colours burning bright

Red means STOP

Green means GO

Yellow (or orange) means go VERY VERY SLOW

Twinkle twinkle traffic light

All my colours burning bright

(Also to same tune of first two lines of Twinkle Twinkle)

Red light, red light, what do you say?

I say STOP STOP right away!

Yellow light, yellow light, what do you say?

I say WAIT till the light is green.

Green light green light, what do you say?

I say GO, GO right away!

Who Invented Traffic Lights?

As we drove around in the car this week we looked for the wire in the road that activates the traffic lights that aren’t automated.

A Great Link to How the Traffic Light Works and What Activates It

We also counted stop signs and sang the traffic songs along the way.

We made a traffic light from an old juice box and a cardboard tube, covered it in black paper, stuck the lights on and then made black covers so that you could show one ‘light’ at a time – kind of like this…

Here is a great little online game where you click to change the traffic signal to control traffic in a busy city centre.

The little ones loved it and are still singing the traffic signs and asking questions like, “Mommy, why did you go when that light was red?” Dont worry, it was red for the cars going the other way!

“Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” Romans 6 v 16

I have been so excited to be able to use:

THE
BEGINNER’S AMERICAN HISTORY

BY
D. H. MONTGOMERY
AUTHOR OF THE LEADING FACTS OF HISTORY SERIES

BOSTON. U.S.A.
PUBLISHED BY GINN & COMPANY
1893

This book is so well written and is a very easy to use with young children. There is far more factual and story detail than I have found in most children’s History books and it is written in a very friendly style with great pictures and maps in between. It doesn’t trivialise history like many modern Children’s History books – and the illustrations are realistic and helpful. It has been perfect for my 5 and 8 years olds and even my little ones enjoy listening.

Find it on Gutenberg under Children’s Bookshelves. Here is the direct link to the HTML version.

Reprints are also available on Amazon.com.

Although I think the author refers to evolution in some of his other History books, I haven’t found any evolution in this book as its focus is modern American History. Also, because of the times he lived in, he does speak largely from a Christian worldview.

Another online free History book we are starting to use is:

YOUNG FOLKS’ HISTORY OF ENGLAND

by CHARLOTTE M. YONGE

found here.

Again I find the writing meaningful and less immersed in an incorrect worldview than many modern History books.

I have printed these books and plan to have them spiral bound and we are using them in our homeschool.

They are great resources!

“The heart of the prudent getteth knowledge; and the ear of the wise seeketh knowledge.” Proverbs 18 v 15