She just read me the first page of this book and we had to stop to take a picture and now we’ll go back to reading.
GO, Emy!! I am so happy I was able to see your face the moment you realized you were reading. That was priceless, I am thankful I was able to witness it – you were so excited and so proud and what an amazing world is now open to you. 🙂
From NieNie today, which I read as I lay in bed listening to my husband make our kids’ breakfast as I willed myself to heave this beautiful, big baby belly out of bed! (When I woke up Joseph pulled my shirt up to see his sister and traced my belly while saying, “Circle!” He also said, “Baby monkey” while poking her. I agree, she’s a monkey. Then he started laughing and said, “Crih-crih ME baby monkey!” which translated means, “Christopher called ME a baby monkey!” and I asked if he meant that and he said yes and we all laughed.) Back to scripture…
Now in this thing we do rejoice; and we labor diligently to engraven these words upon plates, hoping that our beloved brethren and our children will receive them with thankful hearts, and look upon them that they may learn with joy and not with sorrow, neither with contempt, concerning their first parents.
I was flipping through a homeschool magazine and a comment caught my attention. When your children are in school then the responsibilities are spread across a lot of different positions – teacher, principal & VP, school nurse, school board, therapists, counselor, janitor, gym & music and art teachers, school board, curriculum committee, cafeteria staff, etc, etc, etc… each of them does a little (or a LOT) for your individual child. (Though they are working with many, many children of course – not just yours.) But there are a lot of adults involved in choosing curriculum, implementing it, preparing and planning and assessing, administration, nursing, cleaning, feeding, etc, etc…
When you homeschool it’s just you and your spouse. Therapists if you bring them in, though you’re covering the daily therapy. Specialized teachers if you hire them for music or art. But you are doing it ALL – picking a curriculum, setting goals for and with your child, planning lessons not just for one age group but for each of your children, attending seminars and classes to learn more about learning styles and teaching methods, doing the daily teaching, clean up, counseling, crowd control, damage control, feeding, encouraging, disciplining. You are doing it ALL. No wonder burn out is such a real concern. 🙂
BUT, you also know your children in a way that no one else does and you, unlike anyone else, are promised inspiration and guidance and wisdom beyond your own if we prayerfully seek it. All parents desperately need this but when you are taking on the additional challenge of educating your child at home then I think it becomes even more crucial. We can have that inspiration in making these decisions, big and little, as we try to fill so many roles. I find great comfort in that!!
Interesting article link my sister sent from an art program she’s attending this week.
– Don’t tell someone to be creative (too much pressure/expectation.)
– Get moving (increase activity level.)
– Take a break, switch between projects if you hit a wall.
– Reduce screen time, decreases creativity.
– Explore other cultures (adaption, flexibility, awareness of another way of thinking.)
– Follow a passion (finding the zone.)
– Ditch the suggestion box (encourage individual action, not waiting for someone else to implement change.)
I cannot summarize this article but go read it – Teaching your Child. Fascinating, some of it I knew but some of it I knew and forgot and it will be changing how we approach things. Reminds me of Charlotte Mason in that we need to let children develop skills and have time to explore at their own pace before we attempt to turn them into academics and push them faster. Let them be kids and spare all of us a lot of grief by forcing something they aren’t ready for (and maybe shouldn’t ever be ready for! I went insane trapped at a desk for hours a day in school and I would go insane if I had to do it as an adult.)
From Elder Neil L. Andersen’s conference talk:
We hold in our arms the rising generation. They come to this earth with important responsibilities and great spiritual capacities. We cannot be casual in how we prepare them
(Thank you, Jess, for the link!)
Bumping this back up because I just started reading Ken Robinson’s book The Element and I’m really enjoying it so far!
Okay, going to have to take notes on this one…
Our five “common” senses – sight, taste, touch, hearing, smell. Other crucial senses (that I didn’t learn much about until discovering we had kids with sensory processing issues/sensory integration) – thermoception (sense of temperature), nociception (sense of pain), vestibular sense (balance & acceleration) & kinesthetic/proprioceptive (where our body is in space.) PLUS that extra sense of intuition that isn’t officially recognized by most physiologists (says the author.)
One myth is that only special people are creative. This is not true. Everyone is born with tremendous capacities for creativity. The trick is to develop these capacities. Creativity is very much like literacy. We take for granted that nearly everybody can learn to read and and write. if a person can’t read or write, you don’t assume that person is incapable of it, just that he or she hasn’t learned how to do it yet… Another myth is that creativity is about special activities. It’s about “creative domains” like the arts, design, or advertising. These often do involve a high level of creativity. But so can science, math, engineering, running a business, being an athlete, or getting in or out of a relationship. The fact is you can be creative at anything at all – anything that involves your intelligence.
And more…
As soon as we have the power to release our minds from the immediate here and now, in a sense we are free. We are free to revisit the past, free to reframe the present, and free to anticipate a whole range of possible futures. Imagination is the foundation of everything that is uniquely and distinctively human.
What activities just flow for you? When you feel in “the zone” and time seems to stand still?
Mind map vs. bullet points.
“And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children.”
3 Nephi 22:13 from conference talk That Our Children Might See the Face of the Savior by (former) General Primary President Cheryl C. Lant.
Another quote from conference – from Elder Richard G. Scott’s talk. I really needed this reminder:
Use the Church as a righteous tool to strengthen the home, but recognize that as parents we have the fundamental responsibility and privilege to be guided by the Lord in the upbringing of the spirit children He has entrusted to our care.
The vital importance of teaching truth in the home is fundamental. The Church is important, but it is in the home where parents provide the required understanding and direction for children. It is truly said that the most important callings in time and eternity are those of father and mother. In time we will be released from all other assignments we receive but not from that of father and mother.