Ramblings...

1. I won’t actually use the Pearls methods on my children.  I’ve put too much hard work into raising critical thinkers with a high self-worth to undo that. Plus, I love them far too much to break them.  How can we break someone we love? I never could wrap my mind around that concept. Love is about building someone up not tearing them down. At least that's how I see it.
2. I’ll log my children’s behavior and the “appropriate” consequence(s) the Pearls recommend I use along with what I actually did and why I do things the way I do.  
3. I’ll ask my children how they would feel if their consequence was what is recommended and document their response as well as my own response.
4. On the show, I will have a visual to show the number of times it’s recommended to physically harm my children.  I like visuals.  While I deal in words, nothing can take the place of a powerful visual.               

Oh history. It can be a thrilling subject; I’ve spent hours engulfed in the History Channel. I adore that channel, it happens to be one of the few reasons I would ever consider getting cable or satellite again. While watching the History Channel is great, teaching history, on the other hand, can turn an interesting subject into a total nightmare. When you take away the trained narrator with his/her amazing voice inflection, leave the re-enactments on the cutting room floor, turn off the well-rehearsed musical piece, you are left with just the bare bone facts. And facts…well they can be rather boring, especially to children.

Now in an ideal world I would be able to turn on the History Channel, or acquire one of their many DVDs, and just allow TBM to sit and soak up all the history knowledge they could ever possibly need. We don’t live in an ideal world though…we live in reality, and in reality TBM find the History Channel to be just as dull and boring as ever history class I was ever forced to sit through. Those were actually genuinely boring, a lot of note taking, monotone documentaries, and tons of dates to remember. Did I learn anything in those classes, no not really, I spent my time lost in daydreams or reading the stuff I wanted to learn about. I didn’t appreciate history until I became a regular History Channel watcher, years of knowledge missed because of the way the subject was presented in school. I don’t want TBM to miss out on the experience that is historical learning, because I failed to present it in an enjoyable way.

So I’ve mulled over various ways to go about it without feeling like I’m sacrificing certain ideals we hold dear*i.e. purchasing curriculum materials that go against the core values in our home*. After a good six months of book buying, internet searching, review reading, and scheduling I think I have found what will work for us.

Truth Quest History! ...JUST KIDDING!! I promise that was a joke! Ok so what I have I really found? Well, a combination of various materials with lots of hands on stuff thrown in, hopefully this will produce enough information for a solid foundation on this year’s history topic while allowing things to be fun as well.

This upcoming school year we are tackling the Middle Ages! If only we lived near a Medieval Times! There is a lot that can be learnt during this time period, but I honestly don’t see the point in cramming a bunch of facts into small children’s heads. They need to experience the material first, so when the time comes to learn the facts and figures they are actually eager to do it. That’s the way I see it anyways.

Using History Odyssey as my guide I went through and plucked the items I felt would produce a well-rounded understanding of the Middle Ages for elementary level students. Considering how we will be revisiting this time period again due to us using the Classical approach in relation to history, I see no need to sweat the small stuff right now. I did make one major tweak to our studies; I will be weaving the study of various religions in with history this year unlike last year.

Christianity and Islam both play major roles in the shaping of our world during the Middle Ages, I feel I would be doing a disservice to TBM’s education if I continue to ignore the religious element of human history. I of course planned to hit it head on later down the line, but I’m starting to see that the present is as good a time as any to start the enormous task. I’ll break down what I intend to cover and then touch on how I’m planning to work in the religious element.

For the 2011-2012 School Year we will be covering:

The Roman Empire

“The Dark Ages”

England & France

Knights

The Crusades

The Black Death

Queen Elizabeth

William Shakespeare *we will be reading some of his various works for our language arts studies*

China & Japan

Samurais

The Middle East

The Americas

These will be broken down over the course of our year *we school year round with our year broken down into seasonal quarters (summer, fall, winter, and spring…we start our school year during the summer)*. We will still do our hands on “day in the life” geared learning this year, with us having actual outfits (that I intend to sew before the 4th of July) to go along with our learning. Being the Middle Ages there are tons of fun things to do from castle building to epic swordfight battles. The possibilities are endless and I’m really looking forward to our hands on work this upcoming school year.

Now comes the “fun” part, bringing in the religious study. It won’t be too in-depth, more of a taste of what people believe and a building of the groundwork that will help them understand the impact these beliefs had on the world.

I’m going to start first with a study of Judaism, followed by Christianity, then Islam, and lastly a brief overview of the religious beliefs of various American civilizations (Mayan, Inca, Native Americans, etc.), Buddhism, and Shinto. These studies will correspond with the main history topics being taught. I’ve figured out which religions to teach and when to teach them, the materials for teaching though still elude me.

As much as it pains me to do it I think I may purchase children’s study books for the major monotheistic religions, this will give me something to use as a core spine for those three. I will just have to deal with the issue of each painting itself in a picture perfect light as we make our way through the books. The others though I will have to do some digging *and a few library visits* to find what I’ll use as my guide. I think as long as TBM walk away from their studies with a basic understand of these religions I’ll be happy. I still plan to go more in depth with the big three at least, so just like with our core history studies I won’t be sweating the small stuff when it comes to the religious studies this upcoming school year.

That pretty much sums up our history for this upcoming school year. Wow that turned into an extremely long post! Now to finish sorting the supplies and hunting for fabric for our period themed garments!

Well even though we are fast approaching lunchtime here in Asia, it’s still the 20th in America, so there is still some time to get in our chuckles!

Now here is some friendly advice for those floating away in a few hours to help all of us who will be “Left Behind”:




And for those of us left to fight the zombies the CDC has a preparedness list to help ensure the survival of you and your loved ones: Click Here for that information.

If you will be engaging in any looting afterwards please do so safely and ensure the store you are looting was run by someone who was “Raptured” and not by someone “Left Behind”, we don’t want to cut off their livelihood.

For those attending “After the Rapture” parties please ensure you have a Designated Driver, we will need to avoid injuries while we are re-evaluating our medical response teams.

Other than that folks CELEBRATE!

Copyright(c) Rayven Holmes 2011

As a heathen family we are in a unique position when it comes to holidays. We can take part in the ones we want to take part in and we can ignore for the most part the ones we don’t want to be a part of. Generally, we see all holidays as a learning experience, so we usually read about them, do an activity, etc. Easter though has been a dwindling holiday in our home, it wasn’t first acknowledged until General Disarray was about 2 ½ years old, that year I put together a small Easter basket of goodies and hid a few eggs. The following year since The Spouse was deployed I tried to make everything as fun as possible with an indoor hunt due to it being extremely cold where we were living at the time, egg dying, and plenty of sweets and treats. They even meet the Easter bunny for the first time that year.

After that though? Well, it has become all about what they are going to get, candies and cheap toys, and that is it, we usually don’t even know for sure what day it will fall on until we see the store displays. We haven’t seen the Easter bunny in two years since the last visit resulted in General Disarray *who was at the beginning of a very long line* pointed at the bunny taking its seat and exclaimed “Hey mom that’s someone in an Easter bunny costume!” Thankfully all the kids right behind us were too young to even understand what was going on so their parents just ignored what they heard, probably thinking the same thing I was, couldn’t they have found a better bunny costume!

Since then we have done egg hunts, given T.B.M. baskets usually bought pre-assembled and ready to go, and that is it. I have no intention of discussing the Christian aspects of Easter with them until they are much older; going over why people celebrate the brutal beating of a man is just not my idea of need to know information before the age of ten. My recollection of Easters from my childhood all center on Mass, a very boring Easter Mass and the Palm Sunday Mass before it. I actually liked those because we would sit in the pew making crosses out of our palm leaves and that was far more interesting than the service. I vaguely remember Easter egg hunts, there were the forced Spring dresses, and a thrown together Easter basket, but Mass was the most important thing. As a non-believer Catholic Mass only pops into my brain as disturbed flashbacks of old white men in orientate robes sing-talking in monotone voices, making the one holiday I directly related to it something I tend to want to ignore and watch pass quickly from store shelves.

Lately, as the store shelves have become even more overrun with Easter throw-up I’ve been discussing with The Spouse the idea of actually ignoring Easter all together. All T.B.M care about are the baskets of candy and trinkets, and I personally don’t want to focus on a day strictly for material gain. Even Christmas in our home is about love, caring, giving, and being thankful for what we receive. The Spouse though doesn’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater so to speak. He loves watching the kids hunt for Easter eggs and enjoys helping them eat their way through their candy. He just doesn’t care about the religious aspect of the holiday. I feel while those things are fine we still need to actually have something we are focusing on other than the goodies.

Spring is a wonderful time of year and I would hate to watch the season pass without some sort of celebration. Since we do Spiral Scouts and are working our way through the Sabbats, I’ve been learning about Ostara for our lessons on it. It deals with renewal and rebirth, and a celebration of the Earth being at equilibrium. There are religious aspects to Ostara, and while I intend to discuss these with T.B.M. we wouldn’t actively take part in those aspects, but I do feel for our family focusing more on the time of year and what it brings will give Spring more meaning. We won’t “do” Ostara or Easter, but instead celebrate the Spring Equinox.

The Sabbats Almanac has a great article on kite making and flying as a family/friends activity to bring everyone together which I think would be a great tradition to start. Instead of dying eggs we would work together constructing a family kite, and then head out into the first Spring day with kite in hands, and watch as it flies high above our heads, soaring in the Spring breeze.

Would we completely dump eggs? I don’t think so, eggs are a figure of symbolism for Spring, and we really do love watching the boys hunt for them. We just wouldn’t wait until the “traditional” Easter to have our hunt; it would be a Spring Equinox event. We would discuss the symbolism behind eggs, and then set out in search of our brightly colored eggs. Instead of each egg being filled with candy, half will be filled with encouraging phrases or traits to focus on to help us achieve balance, move past old habits, and grow.

I think this would be a nice compromise for our family. We still get to enjoy egg hunting and goodies, but we also get to focus on family, and reverence for the season of renewal after the dark, cold winters.

Now I love watching Colbert, even more so when he is picking on Bill O’Reilly. Then add in some Neil deGrasse Tyson and you have me rolling on the floor laughing. Plus we actually learn something from this clip, how the tides work!! Win,Win!! To my fellow heathens ENJOY!

Copyright(c)2011 Rayven Holmes

Things have been quiet here on our little blog not for lack of anything to post about, just an overall lack of time. We have been very busy this holiday season! We have still been covering the winter holidays like planned though. On the 21st we covered Yule.

For our learning fun we used the Pooka Pages Yule packet, did a family ritual, and made some yummy treats (Solstice Snowballs and a Yule Log *So many things went wrong with making this, the cake didn‘t roll the way I wanted it to, the filling was far too runny, and the icing was a bit off. I‘m convinced it was me, but considering it was the first time I ever made one I think it came out ok all things considered. It was edible that is the most important part right?! One of you will have to try the recipe and tell me how it turned out for you.*).

Our Yule activities not only work into our winter holidays learning but they also help the boys fulfill one of their SpiralScouts patches. While discussing Yule *particularly during our family ritual*, I talked about the various elements in Christmas that have their roots in Yule. This of course got The Spouses attention, he always finds tidbits like this interesting.

I’m looking forward to when the boys are a bit older, so we can watch the sunrise *or the sun being born as some say* like they do in the story we read in Pooka Pages. I think that would be a great way to bring our Yule learning full circle so to speak. But that will have to wait until they are old enough to really appreciate a sunrise *without the complaints of wanting to crawl back in bed or fussing that would follow from an early morning wake-up*, for now they can sleep and dream of the sweet goodies they will receive in just a couple of days.

Also titled Teaching Religion.

*I should have posted this yesterday…better late than never though.*

Why would I want to teach my kids about religion? Why should anyone teach their children about religion? Let my first start by saying teaching your kids about religion and indoctrinating your kids into a religion are two different things.

Teaching them about various religions *including your own beliefs* means presenting them with the information on the various religions *actual, factual information about holy days, the belief system, how it got started, and so forth*. Indoctrinating is when you expect your children to unquestioningly accept your way of thinking, even if it means spreading myths about other belief systems *no Atheist don‘t worship the devil hate to break it to you folks!*.

Secular homeschooling had an article on teaching the bible for cultural literacy, but I think it needs to go beyond just the bible. In America we have non-believers, Jews, Muslims, Buddhist, Hindus, Mormons, Pagans, Scientologist *yes…I know…I know…* on top of the Christian population. Each with its own set of beliefs, way of operating, and so on. Now can we possibly give every single religion on this planet its own special bit of time, no, but we can make sure to acknowledge most of them and spend a good bit of time on the major ones.

Why though is it so important to discuss other religions? Well from this non-believers stand point it allows for the kids to see the parallels between many of the world’s big religions. This of course allows them to think critically about these belief systems, especially if approached by someone from one of those belief systems. Also by being well versed in the religious texts of the big religions they will have a firm grasp on books that have been used for centuries to justify various acts *good and bad* that have taken place. They can understand what drives many in those belief systems, and understand that they have the right to believe as they wish *even though we may not agree with them, and that we don’t have to respect beliefs that we deem harmful and hateful*.

Finally by being taught about religion they will be able to confidently state what it is they do and don’t believe. Instead of just repeating back what they think we want to hear, they will be able to look at everything and go “yes this makes sense to me, no this doesn’t make sense to me, yes I like that part, no I really despise that part”.

Do my kids currently repeat what they hear The Spouse and I say, of course they do, they are kids. We don’t take much stock in it, given their ages. We do use it as a chance to push them to further state why they feel the way they do. Is it because we said that or is it because they have reached that conclusion on their own. Child #2 really isn’t interested in discussing religion *or anything for that matter…but given his age that I don‘t expect him to be*, Child #1 though is at the age where he can start putting things together on his own. He is still too young for The Spouse and I to say whole heartedly that his beliefs are coming strictly from his own opinions, but it is a stepping stone to further critical thinking about religion.

So how do we go about teaching religion? Well a couple of years ago I started talking about other religious holidays that took place around the same time as Christmas. Each year we have grown more in what we discuss. Last year for our Hanukah discussion we lit a candle every night and read a traditional Jewish blessing, as well as talked more and more each evening about the history of Hanukah and some of the things Jewish families do around that time of year.

Then we read stories and enjoy traditional food items of that particular holiday. The rest of the holidays go the same way, recently we branched out from winter holidays, and discussed Mabon. Our Spiral Scouts activities help with discussing Pagan holidays because it actually makes me aware of all of them. At first I was apprehensive about how we should work on the Wheel of the Year patches, I have found they are working in great with our religious education work.

I also have plans to devote at least two years to full on religious studies. Where we will do a comprehensive study of the Bible, the Torah, and the Quran. As well as minor studies *full reading of important religious text(s) but not on the in depth level of study as the other two* on Buddhism, Hinduism, UU, Mormonism, Paganism, and Scientology. From there we will look at how Catholicism differs from mainstream Christianity, and how religious views impact political views and visa versa.

This of course would be when the boys are closer to their teens, but I am looking forward to those two years because I have always found religion interesting. I plan for us to visit various houses of worship to observe and then discuss afterwards, and the boys will need to write a “term paper” *for lack of a better word* on what they learned, and how what they learned impacted their own set of beliefs, at the end of our in depth two year study of religion.

I think it would be safe to say that at that point The Spouse and I would see their beliefs as being based on their own experiences and not on just what we say. Thus ensuring that they beliefs are genuine to them and they are not just parroting their parents.

Yes secular homeschoolers have reasons other than religion for wanting to homeschool, but it *religion* is still an important topic that should be tackled right along with reading, writing, and arithmetic.