I read the book and I’m going back through to copy down my notes and thoughts.
Quotes I liked: “God does not want us to grow up to be just his servants, his gophers or errand boys. He wants us to be a different kind of creature altogether, one he can trust and give full stewardships and talents and then leave and come back to see that we have used, expanded, and made them flourish.” C. S. Lewis
“Keep yourself busy enough getting your own education that you can let the children enjoy their childhood and stay in love with learning as they grow.” (Referring to homeschool parents improving their own education before rushing little ones into academics.)
“Set rules and be firm in following them. Do not set too many, and be consistent. When a youth breaks a rule, tell her; ‘try that again.'”
“Whereas the conveyor belt motto seems to be ‘when the student is ready, the teacher is too busy maintaining the structure for all the students who aren’t ready,’ Leadership Education optimizes the teaching moment when the student is ready.”
“It is not enough to train up one’s own children. The true mother must also train and properly raise the whole community in which her children grow up, looking ahead three or four generations and acting accordingly. This is not a government village raising the child, but a mother raising her own children, her future sons- and daughters-in-law, communities of great and good leaders who will ensure the liberty of her grandchildren. Not, ‘It takes a village to raise a child,’ but, ‘It takes a mother to raise a village.'” Thoughts on that quote – first, it takes parents to raise a child and that’s not solely the domain of a mother. I did like the reminder that I cannot be worried about only raising my children, I need to reach out and help all of the parents around me and encourage their children. I see what a difference it’s made to my children to have this community loving and teaching and encouraging them through our co-op and church and PE groups, to have other adults helping and inspiring them, and I have learned to love these other children. We need to encourage and help the families around us because we all need each other to make things better and to create a world that our children will be happy to raise our grandchildren in…
“… they will be socialized, it will happen regardless, but what will they be socialized for?” Dr. Julie Earley
1. Couple Council on Sunday evenings to review calendars, lessons, goals, concerns with kids.
2. Kids’ Counsels, parents meet two on one with kids to review their lessons, goals, concerns, etc. At least once a month on Sundays, preferably every other week.
3. Family Home Evening, discuss family calendar before. Study the scriptures together, not just at FHE but especially focus this night on conveying to your children your spiritual beliefs and testimony.
4. Morning routine: every day (recognizing there will be exceptions) have the family gather for breakfast, chores, prayer, then Dad to work and start lessons. Whatever agenda works, stick to it for consistency for all and so day doesn’t start to slip away.
5. Try marble jar, put marble in when any of the kids does something noteworthy. Can be serious or whimsical, but all kids’ marbles go into same jar and entire group gets special treat when it’s filled. Can be for meeting goal, lesson done quickly, service to others, etc. (Not sure if we’ll do this? I’m hesitant, wondering if kids will think they should get a marble for everything?)
6. Six months to purge of toys, clothes (rotate for seasons), books – whatever is not needed donate! Collect all year in donation box and dispose of when it’s full but do BIG purge/donate every six months. Also purge the CALENDAR. What commitments take priority, what stuff can be dropped?
7. Six month inventory & planning. List each child and discuss these questions with your spouse then with the child:
– interests to focus on?
– fears or concerns?
– dreams?
– biggest needs for next six months?
– how can I help with above?
8. Annual project: plan something big for entire family to focus on, a performance or project, service, trip, etc.
9. Plan breaks, time for children to be free from lessons and have chance to plan their own day (or NOT plan their day.) 🙂 Two weeks end of December/early January; two weeks for vacation; one week in summer.
10. Afternoon without routine: plan for free time, more open schedule, chance for kids to explore own interests. Parent should pursue projects as well and model for their children & share what they are learning/doing. With little ones this often means focusing on them but can explain to big kids what they are doing, include them in activities, do fun family activities and invite older kids to join if they are interested, etc. Try to present opportunities to be outside whenever possible.
11. Afternoon to evening transition: prepare kids to transition to evening with clean up, chores/meal prep, wash up time for dinner. Make family dinners a priority and use the time for meaningful discussions – not necessarily deep & serious, but talk about your day, what’s happening in the world, topics of interest, what you learned that day, family trivia game, etc.
12. Evenings are for family time, bonding, inspiring. Read together, attend firesides or concerts & performances, family discussions, etc. Create a family reading list and read aloud the classics together. We do scripture reading in the evenings but may need to be part of morning routine down the line.
These are NOT the first 12 ingredients but are my goals based on reading the first 12 ingredients in their Core & Love of Learning Section. I like a lot of this book but I’m writing up my notes based on just on what I plan to implement as inspired by this book, you’ll have to read it to get their actual suggestions. 🙂
13. Seasons – arrange the schedule around the seasons/schedule. For us the spring and fall are busy with therapy & sports and the weather is beautiful so we want to be outside as much as possible. The summer and winter are lighter schedules for therapy and the weather is really hot/cold so we’re not outside playing as much and we focus on more book lessons then.
14. Other teachers – seek out chances for children to learn from other relatives/friends, is there a special skill a grandparent can teach your child? A lesson an older sibling can demonstrate for a younger sibling? One time or ongoing, a special summer focus project or weekly lessons. Write up a list of areas that a grandparent could mentor a child in and officially ask them to help with x, y, or z. What special family activity can be passed to the next generation?
15. Prepare your children to take over stewardship of household duties. Train them to be able to run their own home by teaching them how to run aspects of yours. Cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping, budgeting, maintenance, etc. Young ones (8 and under) are being trained watching parents & helping with explanations on how to do things, 8 to 12 are doing with supervision/checks, 12 and up should be able to do chores on own and be responsible for certain areas completely. Make chores part of daily routine and make them a family affair, everyone get up after meal and help clean up; everyone transition from lessons to lunch prep, from afternoon free time to dinner prep, before bed clean up.
16. Weekly club – have children participate in a weekly peer group, scouts, co-op, etc. Does not need to be exact age group, but something with other children that is education focused (not just recreation.)
17. Portfolio/binder – include the six month list they wrote up from #7 that includes their goals, area of focus, books read, subjects studying, notes from Kid Counsels (#2.)
18. Plan field trips, smaller groups are often better, include down time to discuss and casually visit about experience. Don’t make it rush, rush, rush.
19. Library trip: go as family, take time to browse, encourage children to check out variety of books, let them see you pursuing your OWN educational goals. Talk to them about what you are curious about & studying. Every other week.
20. Book shelf: sort by levels. (The book goes into great detail about how they do it, I disagree.) We have a special books/gift books shelf with some novels, storybooks, any book we plan to keep forever; favorite storybooks/bedtime stories shelf; board books for toddlers in forward facing bin for easy exploration; easy readers in forward facing bin; stage 2 easy readers (Dr. Seuss, etc) on another shelf; kids’ novels; science & history/geography; art; school books (grammar, math, etc.) I think the point is to have the books organized in some fashion and easily accessible.
21. Bins: toys, arts & crafts, etc. In an easily organized fashion, accessible but able to be rotate and put away so everything doesn’t get dumped at once. We have those blue & red IKEA bins and we put some down low on the shelves and others up high in the closets and we rotate in and out to keep the novelty and minimize the mess.
22. Weekly lesson: when child has shown strong interest (not just passing interest) & is willing to commit to practice then let them have lessons in one (two tops) areas (music, sports, martial arts, etc.) They must first demonstrate responsibility and follow through in other areas before time & money will be invested. (We are still doing piano lessons with kids that I’m teaching them so they get a basic knowledge of music and if they are interested we’ll pursue outside lessons or Kit will teach them guitar if they want. We did dance lessons with a friend teaching in our home, Kit’s coached their soccer team so they played free, so we’ll explore options like that but for serious lessons with teacher we pay they have to show the maturity to commit.)
23. Limit recreational computer/game/television time. Use these as tools for education but be careful that they can become wasted hours if not used wisely. We keep all computers in public areas, Kit installed filters, we don’t have any broadcast tv (can only watch DVDs/tapes) and we installed passwords on the laptops, iPad, iPhone, so the kids have to ask for screen time & we’re setting a screen time allowance for recreational stuff. Educational games I’m fine with if supervised and after book work is done but we’re trying to be more careful with this.
24. Exposure to a variety of social events: formals, service opportunities, community events, religious meetings, political, etc.
“Leaders must feel comfortable in different situations, with people from different cultural, national, and soci-economic backgrounds. A leader must be able to work with all different types of people, and in many diverse situations. We socialize a leader by taking them to a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen, to symphonies, to rest homes, to formal balls, to political receptions, areas of crisis where help is needed, etc, etc. They need to understand how to be, and how to act in different situations.” Dr. Julie Earley
25. Carefully chosen assignments that are meaningful and challenging and ideally only given when a student is struggling with being self guided. Make it hard so they experience the satisfaction of reaching a goal truly hard won.