Fun Homeschooling Toddler Activities: Warmth of God

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Warmth of God

I want my daughter to know the warmth of God. One of the ways I try to help her experience this is through our cuddle time after her nap. When she wakes up, she almost always wants to just cuddle and nurse. As we cuddle and she nurses, in a quiet, warm voice I tell her about what I read in the Bible that day. Sometimes, if I can think of a song to go with it, I'll sing the song, too. She almost always asks for "more" when I'm done, and so I know she likes it. And it is helpful with keeping me accountable to reading the Bible each day, as well. Sometimes, if I skip my prayer time, I try to tell her a story from memory (and I know lots and lots of texts), but the warmth of the Holy Spirit flows through me best when I've been basking in it myself that day.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Reasons to Homeschool

These reasons are not particular to toddlers. I am more writing this to remind myself later. I am adding to it as I go.

1. It is a well-established fact that physical activity is really important for the human brain to learn well, but, especially now with physical education programs being phased out more and more, our schools are set up in such a way that kids are expected to learn sitting still for 6-8 hours per day. Then they are sent home with a mountain of homework, which, if justice is done to it, requires even more sitting still. Homeschooling allows for more freedom in the schedule and flexibility in the form of education to allow for much more movement and exercise.

2. Sleep deprivation. This especially hits teenagers. Research has documented that teenagers get their best sleep by going to bed and waking up later than children and adults. But middle schools and high schools start around 7:30 am, making it impossible for teenagers to get the sleep that will enable their brains to function and thus learn well. Homeschooling allows for each individual child to sleep at the times most appropriate for that child at his/her particular stage of development.

3. Learning Styles. Different people learn differently, but a class with 20-25 kids in it simply cannot accommodate the learning styles of each child. This leads to some kids deciding "I can't do math," and then blocking it out, when really the issue is the way in which math is being taught. In the homeschooling model, the mother, who knows her children best, can work with the children's particular learning styles in mind.

4. Different people have different gifts. There are many ways to be "smart," as Gardner's Multiple Intelligences famously documented. Yet, the traditional education system is set up such that all children are judged on the basis of certain intelligences. Thus, many kids end up being labeled "stupid," because the ways in which they are created to be smart are not graded in school. This is ridiculous, because it is not the way the post-school world works - after school, what really matters is your gift. Even worse, because children's individual gifts are not adequately explored and developed, kids in college are still trying to figure out what to do with their lives, and many persons in my generation seems to have spent their twenties STILL trying to answer that question. Homeschooling allows for focused attention to, identification of, and development of individual gifts.

5. Children learn what they live. School is an environment that disappears when you graduate. So even children who adapt very well to the school environment have a rude shock awaiting them when it is over, because the real world just is not organized like the educational system. For example:

5.a. Socialization. Once an adult, life becomes multi-generational. You are thrown into an age group ("adult") with people who wear clothing, talk, act, and believe things from another time altogether, like your parents. I remember the look on a teenager's face when she asked, "What Sunday School class will I be in now?" when she was graduating. When she realized the "adult" classes were the answer, she was bewildered and didn't come. She was completely unprepared from her life to that point to be in a class with people 20-30 years apart from one another in age. Spending the overwhelming majority of your time for most of you life only around people exactly your own age, plus or minus 3 does not exactly prepare an individual for learning to call other persons, who make up the majority of the rest of the world, "my friends."

5.b. Kids in school often learn to find their work to be boring and unrewarding. It is a hoop to jump through. It should not be a surprise that this is producing adults who find their work to be boring and unrewarding, a hoop to jump through for money.

Fun Homeschooling Toddler Activities

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Warmth of God

No comments:

Activity Sites

Reasons to Homeschool

Blogs and Articles I have found to be helpful...

Labels

Blog Archive

About Me

Prep for the Future

My other blog

My Church