How to structure your home for learning and living.
Read moreLooking for Love on Valentine's Day
Are you all hearts and flowers going into Valentine’s Day? If you dread the upcoming celebrations, read on. There’s hope.
Read moreTable Manners for the Love of Others
In one sense, table manners are simply the way we eat. But they're more than that. And without practice and reinforcement, it's easy to slip back into selfish habits, undermining the eternal potential of family mealtime.
Read moreMom and Dad Can Hardly Wait
Ever notice how “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” comes with “some assembly required”? Parents are often overwhelmed by the expectations of their children. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Read morePrime Time For Read Alouds
Summer is ideal for reading aloud to your children, whatever their ages. Here are strategies to make it simple and more fun. A big key is what you choose to read.
Read moreHow Will You Spend Your Summer?
I feel like I could just breathe a huge sigh of relief and spend the summer doing nothing. Though as a mother of many children, doing "nothing" may very well be impossible. Still it's tempting, and possible, to be busy, all the while wasting the blessed season of summer. Here’s help for relaxing the pace and still making the most of summer?
Read moreMommy, Let Me Help You!
What do you say when your kids ask you if they can help? That’s a daily dilemma for busy moms whose kids long to jump in with unskilled hands and clumsy feet. It's rarely, if ever, efficient to say yes. It’s so much easier to just do it yourself. It’s faster and more certain it will be done right. Or at least the way you like it. But if you always choose the efficient and effective way, you may miss out on some of the most vital windows of instruction.
Read moreIf You are Welcome—Give Thanks
Without training, children will learn what is fast becoming the accepted response to every expression of gratitude: No problem. The problem with "No problem," however, is that it misses echoes of the divine when we say "you are welcome."
Read moreThe Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving Secret
It’s good to remember the 1621 Pilgrims of Plymouth, but I suspect they would tell us to look back even further to the source of their thanksgiving. How was it that a small band of believers was able to give thanks when they encountered financial loss, bitter weather, and inadequate food; when half their number died, when they subsisted that first winter on a handful of dried corn kernels each day, when they didn’t know if any would live to see the spring?
Read moreWhat we read this summer, or what you might want to read this fall
IMG_7786
Free time for reading is a big part of what makes summer special. This year why not set a reading goal you can work together to achieve?
Read moreHow to Teach Your Child to Read
if you're like me, you've probably had moments where you felt more than a little competitive over your child's ability to read. I always thought it would be cool to proclaim, "My child was reading at age three!" Though I never had that chance, because our kids were average (statistically, most kids are), it was no less a thrill to witness their blossoming ability to read.
There are no prizes for who reads first or earliest, but oh the joy of being able to read. That is reward enough. And how sweet to be the one to see the lights go on for the first time and the decoding begin!
Read moreHow to Find Good Books, Part 2
One of our favorite things about summer's longer, less-structured days is all the time we can spend reading. To make the most of the time, I'm calling ahead by pre-ordering a bunch of books from our local library using their website, something that's available in most public library systems.
Today my focus is geography books. With so many to chose from, how can I know which ones to order? Especially for kids that range widely in grade and reading level? My favorite online book-finder resides at SimplyCharlotteMason.com. It’s a searchable database of “living books” (the sort that make a subject come alive). If you don't know about Charlotte Mason, see Karen Adreola's Charlotte Mason Companion, a fine way to kick off your own summer reading.
Today I was looking for geography books for all of our kids (ranging from Pre-K through 8th grade) so I simply clicked the geography category with no set grade range. The site generated more than 20 pages of results. Lots to choose from. Many are available from our local library. A few that looked especially good aren't, but they’re likely on Thriftbooks.com or Abe.com.
Happy reading!
Camping in the basement
Our camping trip with the church got cancelled. So we pitched our tent in the basement.
Complete with a roaring fire
...which we made our s'mores over.
...with a little help from these products...
The Benefits of a Family Hobby
Jerry Seinfeld famously said, "There's no such thing as 'fun for the family.'" True? We don't think so. When Steve and I were dating our pastor talked about the importance of teaching his kids how to have genuine fun. ... If membership in your family is fun, challenging and important — something valuable — your kids will be less likely to pull away.
Read moreKitchen Help
They were so excited to help and I was thrilled to realize four is old enough to wield a potato peeler! Taking turns alternately peeling carrots and potatoes for our harvest soup, their joy in being able to help make dinner made light work of it. It was a surprisingly cold day, but unexpectedly cozy in the kitchen.
I almost hated to clean up all the peels; evidence of delight all over the countertops.