Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Read-Aloud Resources


When I was just beginning homeschooling my oldest child, a wise, experienced homeschooling mom told me this:
Homeschooling in the early years is mostly reading out loud and playing outside. Everything else can be accomplished in less than 30 minutes a day.”
At first, this might seem counter-intuitive. Most of us were raised to think that sitting in a desk, listening to a teacher talk, is the only legitimate way to learn anything. We might think that we need expensive curriculum and elaborate lesson plans to really educate our children.
But we don’t.
Last week, I talked about how, with a back-yard, a library card, and some writing materials, we can turn outdoor play into simple nature study with little ones.
This week, we’ll dip our toes into the fascinating waters of reading out loud to our children.
Thursday, October 21, 2010

Why Can't You Just Be NORMAL???

Has anyone ever asked you that question? If you care at all about raising your children to walk with God, chances are, you have.

I will admit that I often feel like the lemming at the edge of the cliff, who, after seeing the fate that awaits him if he follows the crowd, turns around, flails his arms, and screams,

"Hey, guys! Could we stop and think this over for a minute???"

...only to have his annoyed brethren push passed him, wondering why he's obstructing traffic!

Yes, friends, we have a problem, and it is not one that being more normal will fix.


"The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them, for they are spiritually discerned."
1 Corinthians 2:14

Our natural (dare I say, "normal"?) way, is our way, not God's way. In fact, business as usual for us is to consider God's way foolish.

"As it is written: 
'None is righteous, no not one; 
no one understands, no one seeks after God. 
All have turned aside,  together they have become worthless; 
no one does good, not even one.'"
Romans 3:10-12

Did you catch that, folks? We have all together become worthless. Psalm 14:3, one of the passages that Paul is echoing here in Romans 3, reads, "together they have become corrupt." This is all of us. This is our normal state of affairs. Not godliness, not righteousness...but sin.

"And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind, to do what ought not to be done...Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them."
Romans 1:28, 32

Misery loves company. Sin loves it even more. If we're following the crowd, doing things simply because other's are doing them or because the world around us approves, we are probably sinning.

Leo the Lop taught us that "normal is whatever you are". A more accurate statement would be that man has infinite tolerance for virtually every form of deviancy (take a look at that list in verses 29-31), while having almost no patience for God's perfect standard of holiness.

Now, I'm not advocating strange for the sake of strange, but normal for the sake of normal is equally foolish. When we place a higher value on being normal than we do on being obedient to God, we do so at our own peril.

When it comes to the education and discipleship of our children, we do so at the risk of their very souls.

Just something to think about, next time you're asked why you can't "just be normal".
Monday, October 18, 2010

Simple Nature Study with Little Ones



Most of us beginning homeschoolers have a subject area that freaks us out. For me, that subject was science.
I felt as though I didn’t know what to teach or how to teach it…and, as anyone who’s paged through the Rainbow Resource catalog can tell you, the choices are virtually endless.
Add to that the fact that my oldest son seems to be naturally gifted in this area, and my husband’s insistence that we make a special effort to nurture his interest. (Did I mention that during my own school days, science was the one subject that I was the least naturally gifted in?)
Yep. Time to freak out.
So, when our son hit the ripe old age of 4, I purchased a book full of household science experiments (do any of you all remember “Mr. Wizard”?). However, I quickly realized that, as simple as the book tried to make things seem, it wasn’t going to work for us. At least, not yet.
Okay, now it’s really time to freak out…
…or not.
Actually, it was time to do what I should have done in the first place: talk to another homeschooling mom who had more experience under her belt than I did. (You’ll be hearing this one a lot from me. Don’t try to homeschool completely alone. Seriously…just don’t do it.)
She suggested Nature Study.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Are you Ready for Some Fun?

I have a few short announcements for all my wonderful blog readers.

Make sure to read all of them...they're a bit random!

Would you like to guest post on God Made, Home Grown?

It's been a busy week around here! With only 4 weeks to go before my "due date", and my "nesting instinct" kicking in, I am finally starting to feel like I'm ready for baby #4 to grace us with his or her presence. We've even made final decisions on names...yeah!

With that in mind, I'm asking for submissions for guest posts for after the baby is born. I suspect I won't be able to help but be around, but probably not as much as usual, so as to give me time to rest and bond with our littlest blessings. So, maybe you'd like to write something to be published here during my babymoon?

You know what this blog is about--homeschooling, child discipleship, and biblical womanhood. Please keep submission to the topics at hand, and keep them family friendly. (Most of my readers have little ones reading over their shoulders at any given moment!) Ideally, I'd like submissions to come from regular God Made, Home Grown readers, but if you are an established, likeminded blogger, I'll consider your submissions, too.

Deadline for submissions is November 1st. Send me a message including your submission and a little info about yourself. If you're not sure how to contact me directly (I've decided against including my email address in this post), leave me a comment below and I'll contact you. I've never done this before, and I have no idea how many submissions I'll receive, so please don't feel bad if I choose not to use your writing.

My New Column on The Company Porch!


I am delighted to be the newest columnist for The Company Porch--the official Homeschool Blogger Community Blog!

I will be writing about homeschooling preschoolers and kindergarteners. Here's a link to my introductory post:

http://homeschoolblogger.com/hsbcompanyblog/784892/

Look for it on Monday afternoons!

And, finally....

They're Here! The 2010 Homeschool Blog Awards!!


Last year, I was thrilled to be nominated for the HSBA Post's 2009 Homeschool Blog Awards. Even though I didn't win, it was a lot of fun, and I got to know a lot of other great bloggers! It's hard to believe, but that time has come around again already! I'm looking forward to nominating some of my favorite blogs, and I'm hoping you all will vote, too!

Here's a link to the rules:

Join Me at The Homeschool Post!


The link to the nomination form is a graphic like the one above, at the end of the post. 

Please, be sure to follow the rules carefully. You may only nominate one blog per category, and you may only nominate any given blog once.

(I know you all love me, but if you nominate my blog for every category, none of your nominations will be counted!)

Also, make sure to include the title of each blog you nominate and a complete, accurate url. The url for this blog is http://godmadehomegrown.blogspot.com

And, no, you do not have to nominate a blog for every category...there are 20, after all! So, if you don't have time to read 20 different homeschool blogs, don't worry about it...just nominate your favorites.

I was a little bummed to see that the category I was nominated in last year--Live What You Believe-- isn't on the list this year. Nevertheless, I think this is still going to be a lot of fun!

The nomination period begins today, October 15th, and ends on October 30th, 2010.

So, what are you waiting for...let the fun begin!
Friday, October 8, 2010

Guest Post: At the Well

Join me over At the Well!


I am humbled and honored to have one of my favorite posts from the blog featured today on At the Well: In Pursuit of Titus 2. The ministry of At the Well has been such a blessing to me! They have so many godly women and talented writers there, encouraging women to...

"..love their husbands, love their children,
to be sensible, pure, workers at home,
kind, being subject to their own husbands,
so that the word of God will not be dishonored."

Titus 2:4-5

Please pay them a visit today! You'll be blessed!
Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Who Me? Organized?

One of the myths about homeschooling that I frequently encounter is that homeschooling requires parents who are exceedingly organized by nature. Regular readers of this blog know that I am not the most organized person in the world. I'm learning and growing in this area, but I still have a looooong way to go!

By the grace of God, I know that I can take one day at a time. I don't have to have it all figured out this morning, or even next week. I can keep moving forward, doing the best I know how, knowing that His grace is sufficient for me (2 Corinthians 12:9), and that each day has enough trouble of it's own (Matthew 6:34).

With that in mind, I'd like to share my latest homeschooling organizational technique. Perhaps it will seem like a "no-brainer" to some of you, but for me it was a big revelation...and has been a huge blessing!


I started with several medium-sized, multi-colored, plastic totes totes, purchased at the local "mart"--one for each subject area. I chose a larger one, not pictured here, for our math curriculum, because it takes up more space.


I made a label for each box on my computer, and taped them to the boxes...on the insides, of course, so the 2-year-old can't pull them off!


Then, I packed each box carefully with all the books we need. This is our "Bible, Catechism, and Church History" box.

Now, we don't spend as much time running around the house looking for the things we need for school, and I've reclaimed some much-missed counter and shelf space. The great thing is this didn't cost me much money or time, and the boxes fit neatly under an already-existing piece of furniture in our smallish living room.

Combine this with the free schedule planning and record-keeping resources available at homeschoolclassifieds.com, and I am starting to feel like I really have my act together!

Do you have any organizational techniques or planning resources that are saving your sanity and making you a more productive homeschooler? I'd love to hear about it!
Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Almost Christian

Hi Friends,

I want to strongly encourage all my readers to visit the White Horse Inn this week and listen to their latest podcast, Almost Christian.


You can listen right on the webpage, or subscribe to the podcast and download to your mp3 player.

This podcast addresses a lot of the issues that I am concerned with, and a lot of the reasons that I write what I write. Most young people raised in the church never develop genuine faith. It is an interview with Kenda Creasy Dean, one of the researchers involved in the National Study of Youth and Religion Project, about her new book, Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church.

"The problem doesn't seem to be that churches are teaching young people badly, but that we are doing an exceedingly good job of teaching youth what we really believe: namely, that Christianity is not a big deal, that God requires little, and the church is a helpful social institution, filled with nice people."

One of the most alarming findings of this study was that it didn't matter what denomination of church they were raised in--or even if they went to church at all!--most of the young people interviewed in this five year longitudinal study did not take their faith seriously. Rather than believing anything that could be considered truly Christian, they were "moralistic therapeutic deists". In other words, God makes me feel good about myself, helps me to "be good", and gives me the things I need to be happy. Ouch.

There are some real, tangible, applicable solutions to this problem but it requires a lot more effort and motivation than we've been willing to put into the spiritual formation of our children in the past--especially by parents. Please, if you care about your children and the young people at your church, take a half-hour of your life and listen to this important interview.

By His Grace,

Tiana


p.s.--Please pass this one on to your friends...and once you've listened, please come back here and let me know what you think!
Friday, October 1, 2010

Inchworm


"Two and two are four,
Four and four are eight,
Eight and eight are sixteen,
Sixteen and sixteen are thirty-two..."



"Inchworm, inchworm,
Measuring the Marigolds,
You and your arithmetic,
You'll probably go far.

Inchworm, inchworm,
Measuring the Marigolds,
Seems to me you'd stop and see
How beautiful they are."
Frank Loesser


Have you ever stopped to count God's care for you?


"Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies?
And not one of them is forgotten before God.
Why, even the hairs on your head are numbered.
Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows."
Luke 12:6-7


Now, that's what I call living math!!

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About Me

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I'm a Stay-at-Home, Christian, "crunchy" mama. I have been blessed with the calling to be a godly wife and mother. I am passionate about bringing up my children in the discipline and instruction of the LORD, through home education and discipleship. Helpmeet to my best friend and soulmate, Christopher since 1/29/2000, and mama to four little blessings, including a tiny, precious, newborn baby girl.

My Writing Elsewhere...

Fixing Your Heart on Titus 2

Did you pray for your
husband today?
Monday--His Work
Tuesday--His Integrity
Wednesday--His Mind
Thursday--His Purpose
Friday--His Health
Saturday--His Protection
Sunday--His Faith

Carnival of Homeschooling

Carnival of Homeschooling
Features God Made, Home Grown

Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival

2009 Nominee!

2010 Nominee!

My Wired Style

My Wired Style
Success is not learned. It is discovered and nurtured. What was your child born to do?
Thank goodness I was never sent to school...Beatrix Potter quote at DailyLearners.com
Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire. W.B. Yeats quote at DailyLearners.com

Our Curriculum 2010-2011

Bible--Child's Story Bible by Catherine Vos, Apologia Biblical World View Book 1, "Who is God and Can I Really Know Him?"
Catechism-- "Training Hearts, Teaching Minds" by Starr Meade
Phonics--Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
(Kindergarten), Year 1 Booklist (1st Grade)
Handwriting--Bible Copywork, made using Educational Fontware
Spelling-- All About Spelling Level 1 (1st grade)
Math--Math-U-See Primer (Kindergarten) , Math-U-See Alpha (1st grade)
World History--Simply Charlotte Mason's Genesis Through Deuteronomy and Ancient Egypt
American History--The Light and The Glory For Children Series
Art--Interest-led projects and handicrafts
Geography and Missions-- "Hero Tales" by Dave and Neta Jackson, as well as various other missionary biographies, incorporating globe and map study
*We will be studying music and phy-ed., participating in a writing club and nature club, as well as attending various field trips, with our church's homeschool group.*

Disciple Like Jesus

Disciple Like Jesus

Raising Homemakers

Raising Homemakers

Quiverfull Family

The Modest Mom

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