Transition

I am in the process of moving all the posts from my old blog link to this one.  Eventually all the posts should be accessible from here.  Comments will not be saved in the transition, but currently they are inaccessible at the old blog anyway.

Beginning Reading

For my second go-round with reading instruction, I decided to use the McGuffey Primer along with some CM-style activities. (I do not pretend that I was rigorously implementing an exactly-CM reading program!)

For each McGuffey lesson, I typed up word cards so that I had about three cards for each word introduced in that lesson. We would study each word, then dd would find the matching word cards that were mixed in with the other word cards. She would also try to write the word on a white board without looking at it. Sometimes I had her spell the word in the air with her arm–I should have done that more often, actually. Sometimes I would put the cards around on the floor, call out a word, and have her hop onto that word card.
We would play with word families. If we learned the word “cat”, I would write “at” on the white board and then add different initial letters and have her tell me what the new word was. When we were looking at a new word in our lesson, if it contained a “word chunk” we had studied before (like “at”), I would bring that to her attention to help her identify the new word.

We’ve spent a complete school year using these types of lessons. Because dd was not truly ready for them, her progress was slow. At times we had to backtrack. But we have completed through lesson XV pretty thoroughly and dd is now able to recognize words we haven’t studied and can read stories from other readers with simple vocabulary.

Parenting in Chains

Back in the first century, devout Jews worked hard to learn and follow God’s commands. God provided detailed instructions in the law, but not detailed enough to satisfy the people. To resolve questions, religious authorities compiled lengthy lists of rules extending and clarifying the original laws. Many of those devout people trying so hard to obey God’s commands ended up committing egregious offenses against God by adhering to rules meant to assist them in understanding God’s will.

As humans, we find rules reassuring. In every context of our lives, we tend to add rules. As Christians, we often find it intimidating to rely on the guidance of the Holy Spirit rather than on a list of specific rules, much as the Israelites preferred to have a human king rather than waiting on God to direct them. As parents, we are too quick to accept a list of rules for parenting that have the imprimatur of some respected Christian teacher or that are backed up by scriptural arguments.

God has called us to follow His direction. For this purpose He gives us the scriptures as well as the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Alas, He in no case gives us as full a set of directions in scripture as we desire. This should force us to rely on the guidance of the Holy Spirit as we search ALL the truth that God has revealed to find the best course to take.

All too often when we encounter a situation where scripture does not give us clear, explicit instruction in specifics, instead of seeking guidance prayerfully and educating ourselves about God’s truth as revealed in other sources (always enlightened by the truth we have in scripture), we instead turn to authorities who parse scripture for us to make lists of rules that purport to guide us in God’s ways. These are not, of course, God’s rules–nowhere does He give us these rules explicitly. They may be wise principles, effective in particular situations, but we abuse them when we give them the weight of Divine authority and apply them indiscriminately.

God has not given us step-by-step instruction on how to train our children. He has given us some principles by which to judge and adjust our efforts, and He promises to give us wisdom if we ask for it. The Holy Spirit knows our children, knows what they are thinking and how best to train them. He will guide us if we ask Him fervently and continually.

Certainly we should educate ourselves about what scripture says that has bearing on our task as parents–we must study the scriptures and even other resources that help us understand the principles in scripture. Certainly we should also educate ourselves on the natural law regarding child training–we must study our children but also study what has been learned about effective child training, even from secular sources. Along with this we must also pray and seek the guidance of God, trusting Him to help us find the right methods for each child.

Simple Spiral Crochet Hat Pattern

This pattern is majorly estimated, so don’t try this if you need specific, exact instructions! I just jotted some notes for the last few hats I made; this is the result. I probably almost always size my hats too small, so unless you crochet very loosely you may want to make yours bigger than specified.

This pattern uses:
* Worsted weight yarn
* Size I crochet hook

(The same principles will work for other yarn weights. For baby weight yarn, use a smaller hook and keep increasing for more rounds. For a heavier yarn, of course, use a larger hook and make fewer increasing rounds.)

Chain 2.
In second chain from hook, make 6 single crochets. (If you crochet over the tail, you can pull it tight at the end of the round to close up the hole.)
Use a stitch marker to mark the last stitch of the round so you don’t lose your place. Move the stitch marker to the end of each round as you complete it.
Make 2 single crochets in each stitch around. (12 sc)
*Make 1 single crochet in the first stitch, then 2 single crochets in the next stitch (increase).* Repeat from * to * to end of round. (18 sc)
*Make 1 single crochet in the first stitch, 1 single crochet in the next stitch, then 2 single crochets in the third stitch (increase).* Repeat from * to * to end of round. (24 sc)
For each round after this, until the correct crown size is reached, keep increasing the number of single crochets before the increase by 1. (So the next round would have 3 single crochets before making 2 single crochets in a single stitch to increase. The round after that would have 4 single crochets before increasing. And so on.)

Here are some approximate crown sizes:
* Infant – 9 single crochets before the increase
* Toddler – 11 single crochets before the increase
* 3-5 years – 12 single crochets before the increase

At this point, you don’t need to move the stitch marker anymore. Just single crochet around until the hat reaches the desired size. You can make it a bit big because the bottom can be folded up to customize the fit and allow the hat to be worn longer.

If you want to make ear flaps, stop the single crochet rounds when the hat comes to about the middle of the ear.
Chain 1. Turn.
Make 14 single crochets. (Adjust this number as appropriate for the size hat you are making.) Chain 1. Turn.
Make 2 single crochets together (decrease). Make 10 single crochets. Make 2 single crochets together (decrease). Chain 1. Turn. (12 sc)
Single crochet across. Chain 1. Turn. (12 sc)
Make 2 single crochets together, then make 8 single crochets across, then make 2 single crochets together. Chain 1. Turn. (10 sc)
Single crochet across. Chain 1. Turn. (10 sc)
Make 2 single crochets together (decrease). Make 6 single crochets. Make 2 single crochets together (decrease). Chain 1. Turn. (8 sc)
Single crochet across. Chain 1. Turn. (8 sc)
Make 2 single crochets together (decrease). Make 4 single crochets. Make 2 single crochets together (decrease). Chain 1. Turn. (6sc)
Single crochet across. Chain 1. Turn. (6 sc)
Make 2 single crochets together (decrease). Make 2 single crochets. Make 2 single crochets together (decrease). Chain 1. Turn. (4 sc)
Single crochet across. Chain 1. Turn. (4 sc)
Make 2 single crochets together (decrease). Make 2 single crochets together (decrease). Chain 1. Turn. (2 sc)
Single crochet across. Chain 1. Turn. (2 sc)
Make 2 single crochets together. Chain 1. Turn.
Make one single crochet.
Chain 30 or until appropriate length for tie.
End off.

For the second ear flap, find the opposite side of the hat. (Take the total stitch count for the last round, subtract 28–or twice the number of stitches in the ear flap first row, and divide by 2. Count that many single crochets from the end of the first flap.)
Attach the yarn there, and repeat the instructions for the first ear flap.

Let me know if you find any errors in this pattern!

Shipwrecked at the Stable

Many years ago dh and I started observing Advent as a season of preparing for Christmas, much as Lent is a season of preparing for Easter. Every day during Advent and the twelve days of Christmas (spanning the period from Christmas to Epiphany), I read from Watch for the Light, a book of readings by various authors. Yesterday’s reading from Brennan Manning was really long, but one passage particularly struck me:

The shipwrecked at the stable are captivated by joy and wonder. They have found the treasure in the field of Bethlehem. The pearl of great price is wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. Everything else is cheap, fake, painted fragments of glass.

The question for all of us is what we will really aim at next Christmas. If all we are going for is a placid decency, routine prayer, well-behaved worship and comfortable compassion, then we have effectively parted company with the shipwrecked and have no fellowship with the pearl-finder.

I wonder, if we were to stop people at random in the street on December 24 and ask them what they want most for Christmas, how many would say, "I want to see Jesus"?

I believe that the single most important consideration during the sacred season of Advent is intensity of desire. Paraphrasing the late Rabbi Abraham Heschel, "Jesus Christ is of no importance unless he is of supreme importance." An intense inner desire is already the sign of his presence in our hearts. The rest is the work of the Holy Spirit.

May we all begin to see the world in which we live as artifice and show and to seek wholeheartedly after the true reality.

Does Homeschooling Mean Living in the Christian Ghetto?

Over the last 40 or 50 years, the evangelical Christian community in America has gradually but steadily formed a separate sub-culture with its own institutions, events, services, and entertainment. I call this the Christian ghetto, a world-within-the-world where you can live your life without ever having a meaningful encounter with people outside your self-selected group. For those of us who homeschool or use a private Christian school, this isn’t just possible, it’s quite likely–about the only way to become more isolated among Christians would be to join a commune.

What affect has this had on the vibrancy of the church in America and its impact on the larger culture? In his book Grace-Based Parenting, Tim Kimmel writes, "What’s ironic is that the ‘secularization’ of the non-Christian community has risen proportionately with our withdrawal from it. The more options the Christian community created for itself, the more our general cuture moved toward secular thinking, the corollary being that the less we need to engage the lost world around us, the more it will be left to its own devices."

Homeschooling does not have to mean living in the Christian ghetto. Nor should it. Tim Kimmel’s book provides strong support for the position that isolating children from non-Christian influences does not keep them safe; on the contrary, it sets them up for failure when they reach adulthood and necessarily must encounter those other influences OR it makes them completely unable, as adults, to impact the world around them because they don’t know how to interact with it.

Christian homeschoolers often set up their own homeschooling support groups. The majority of homeschoolers are still Christian, and so it’s natural that Christian homeschoolers make up the bulk of the people forming and joining support groups. Because of that, it’s also natural that the small number of people constituting the rest of the homeschoolers find it impossible, outside of very populous areas, to form their own homeschool support groups because there just aren’t enough of them. The result? In some areas, where the only large and active group is restricted to only Christian members, other homeschoolers have NO options for standardized testing, field trips, clubs, social events, graduation ceremonies, athletics, and the other functions provided by a support group.

It is not hard to see that not only does this remove the Christian influence from the larger homeschooling culture, it breeds resentment of Christians (and by extension Christ) among the very people we are intended to love and serve!

You may not be able to change the policies of your local support group. But you can plan events and activities outside of that support group umbrella and make them open to all homeschoolers. If an inclusive group is available in your area, you can join it in addition to or instead of joining the exclusively Christian group. Not only will you be fulfilling your mandate to "be in the world", you’ll be moving your kids beyond the boundaries of the Christian ghetto and giving them a safe, supervised introduction to life in this larger world that they must someday inhabit without your guidance or else become irrelevant.

Pimsleur Spanish

This year I wanted to move forward with Spanish more aggressively, and I wanted a program with a strong audio component.  In fact, since I already had a couple of books with which I was very happy, I really wanted a strictly audio program.  The first one we tried was Pimsleur; after listening to the free sample lesson I bought the eight-lesson mini-package so we could try it out.  My third grader has been using this set for about five weeks now, on her own.  She does ten minutes of a lesson three nights a week, listening to the CD and speaking when prompted.  The lessons move slowly with lots of repetition and using few verb forms.  The speakers pronounce the words clearly and new words are pronounced one syllable at a time, starting from the final syllable and moving backwards through the word.  I would very much like to have access to a transcript of the lessons so that I could know what words and phrases have been covered without listening to each lesson, but that does not seem to be an option.

After a few lessons of Pimsleur had been completed, I felt it was time to look into buying the complete Year 1 package.  In the course of researching what, exactly, to buy, I learned from reviews that Pimsleur’s vocabulary was a bit formal and not necessarily a good fit for casual use in Latin America, so I thought we’d try a more informal program before committing.  I purchased the eight-lesson set for Learning Spanish Like Crazy, which focuses on Latin American Spanish and informal usage.  My third grader despised these lessons–they moved fast, repetition was light, many different verb forms were introduced in a single lesson.  They did offer written transcripts of the lessons, which was a positive, but she wasn’t able to follow the pace of the lessons at all.

I have not yet purchased the big Pimsleur package, but we are back working through those lessons and that purchase is probably not far off.  I can remedy the deficiency in vocabulary pretty easily, but I can’t make up for a complete lack of comprehension.