Story at LifeSiteNews. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

The British government announced last week their acceptance of the Badman Review of home education and introduced the new Children, Schools and Families Bill that will require home educated children to be registered with the local authorities.

[...]Homeschooling families were furious at the review’s results and say the new bill will mean the effective end of the rights of the family in education. The bill will follow recommendations that homeschooling families be subjected to spot-checks by local authorities, and that authorities can interview homeschooled children without the presence of their parents.

[...]In its announcement of the impending review in January, the government used language that linked homeschooling with child abuse. Children’s minister, Baroness Delyth Morgan, said it was necessary to investigate “claims that home education could be used as a ‘cover’ for child abuse such as neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.”

I sometimes think about marrying and having children. But when I hear stories like this one and the New Hampshire homeschooler who was forced to attend public school, I just think that it would be a bad idea.Why should I get involved in marriage and parenting when these things are tightly regulated by secular leftist bureaucrats? Why try to raise children when people seem to want to outsource their education and development to unionized, government-run day cares and schools?

Many times I have been asked about my lifestyle, by skeptics and seekers alike. What would possess me to homeschool my children? Since I find it difficult to share the vision of homeschooling in a casual conversation, I have decided to blog about some of the reasons I do it. Here is one inspiration.

Like Michelangelo, who regarded the masterpiece within the stone and said, “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set it free,” God sees the potential in each of us. By embracing the special role that my  family plays in tailoring our children’s education, we are setting our children free to rise to their unique calling in life.

But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. 

Isaiah 64:8

Eine friedliche, christliche, ehrbare Familie mit sieben Kindern. Die Eltern unterrichten ihre Kinder seit 11 Jahren zu Hause und das durchaus mit respektablem Erfolg, der älteste Sohn schließt die Realschule mit der Note 1,1 ab.

Und der deutsche Staat hat nichts besseres zu tun als diesen Eltern mit Gefängnis zu drohen. Eine Schande, anders kann man das nicht ausdrücken. Gott segne sie, liebe Familie Dudek.

Der Bericht auf pro: Homeschooling-Prozess

This year has certainly flown by for us. Christmas is just around the corner but before we celebrate Christmas we must also celebrate Advent. Growing up, Advent wasn’t really celebrated in my family, though we did attend Church. For a couple years, I attended Our Saviour King Academy in Newfoundland and the emphasis put on Advent was really refreshing. At least weekly (if not daily) all the elementary school would get together and light the advent candles and there would be scripture reading. I also knew a few families that would partake in the tradition as a family (that I got to partake in from time to time). I really enjoyed it. However, as the years went by Christmas got more and more commercial for our family and I have never been very much into the hustle and bustle of shopping and Santa. Now for the first time, Mike and I will be away from our families for the holidays and I am hoping to bring in some of our own traditions (okay, the tradition I would like to start) to the season.

This year, starting on Sunday, the 29th of November, we will be starting a study of advent that you can find here. We may not actually do the lighting of the candles but I hope to do the reading, scriptures with the children. I feel that it is important that they know more about the coming of Jesus. We have read about it before but I think it is time to go just a little bit deeper and I think that my son, who yes, still loves the Bible will especially enjoy this exploration!

Feel free to join us if you will.

As President, on October 3, 1789, George Washington made the following proclamation and created the first Thanksgiving Day designated by the national government of the United States of America:

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor, and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness. Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be. That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks, for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation, for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war, for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed, for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us. And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions, to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually, to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed, to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shown kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord. To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and Us, and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best. Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

Welcome to Rose Home School :: Growing Smarter Roses. This blog will be maintained by mammarose and daddyrose. We are proud parents who plan to home school, and we are getting ready now.

Rose Homeschool :: Growing Smarter Roses will be a blog all about everything we can find and do and create and share about home schooling, and all around making sure your child is open to learning anything and everything. Our home school blog will begin with preschool education and development and grow over time to eventually offer curriculum up to 12th grade and college prep. However, at the time of the creation of this blog, we are the parents to an 8 month old, so we are not exactly focused on higher levels of education just yet, though it isn’t far off, promise.

Our category structure (at this time, subject to change and grow as this blog grows and develops) is:
ABCs & 123s | Art & Craft Projects | Coloring Pages
Game, Song & Exercise | Math | Misc. | Spelling & Reading

These will grow and populate quickly, so enjoy the flow of shared knowledge, and may you have a wonderful journey in educating your child. We hope we are able to help you along the way!

It had been a couple of months  since I have gotten a chance to take my son and older daughters over to the knitting shop to choose a project to tackle and donate.  My goal was to have them chose a project that was somewhat of a challenge, yet not too difficult as my son’s knitting knowledge is way above mine. 

After  deliberating over the patterns and yarn available, my son finally chose the Very Easy Child’s Sweater.  Click here for the free pattern.

Very Easy Child's Sweater

Insha Allah, when finished, the sweater should look like this. This will be his first attempt at a sweater.  My eight year old daughter selected some multicolor yarn for a scarf.

Gestern konnten wir die Familie Dudek in der ZDF-Reihe 37 Grad sehen. Heute nun wurde das Urteil vor dem Landgericht Kassel gesprochen: 120,00 Euro Strafe. Ins Gefängnis müssen die Eltern nun doch nicht. Zunächst jedenfalls.

Bericht auf Spiegel-Online:

Für sie sind Schulen ein Ort der Versuchung und des Lasters – darum unterrichten hessische Eheleute ihre Kinder seit Jahren zu Hause, trotz Schulpflicht. Ein Gericht hat das Paar nun zu einer Geldstrafe verurteilt. Es sind zwar vorerst nur 120 Euro, aber es könnte schlimmer kommen. …

… Der Sohn beendete das Schuljahr als Klassenbester, Notenschnitt: 1,1. Ohne Sportunterricht wäre er noch besser gewesen. Derzeit absolviert er eine Schreinerlehre. Für die Eltern sind die Noten der Beweis, dass ihr Heimunterricht den Kindern nicht schade. Auch die Staatsanwaltschaft räumte ein, die Kinder würden von ihren Eltern gut unterrichtet. Das spiele für die Verletzung der Schulpflicht aber keine Rolle. …

Die Kinder sind trotz Schulabstinenz bestens gebildet, aber die Eltern werden trotzdem verurteilt. Ist das Gerechtigkeit?

Demnach geht also ums Prinzip. Der Staat setzt seinen Willen auf jeden Fall durch, denn sonst droht Machtverlust.

Den Blick über den Tellerrand wagen, sich flexibel zeigen, seinen Bürgern die Freiheit zugestehen, ihr Leben selbstbestimmt zu führen – Fehlanzeige.

Wie lange noch?

Link zum vollständigen Artikel

One of the hardest subjects for my is math. Some math books I do not like are Saxon or Calvert Math programs. They do not explain enough for me and they move quickly through tough things. I do four math lessons a week and they are on completely different subjects. I prefer a curriculum like Math-U-See or Teaching Textbooks. Both these books are designed specifically for home schoolers. With these books you only ger two new subjects a week which gives lots of time for mastery. I would recommend these books to add to any homeschoolers

~Rose~

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Sparse flurries are in the heavy grey clouds blanketing the sky today, but what an autumn we have had! A long, long autumn. Weeks of golds and browns.

We managed a hike last Friday to squeeze in a final day of golden sunlight and leaves crunching underfoot. Four families and we had the world to ourselves, at least as far as we could tell. More homeschool boys than you could shake a stick at, although they were shaking plenty of sticks. More moms talking and laughing. More girls skipping. We weren’t that many and yet we filled the place.

The sun was so low in the sky – reminding us of the lateness of the season. That was a winter sun. Yet there we were in sweaters and hatless.

Not a nature walk. No lesson. No educational objectives attained. Just people being people. Just humans being humans together in the wide world. Just beauty and wind and conversation and sun.

Even though our homeschooling organizational system is already fairly well organized, I am always looking to improve upon it.   Many other homeschoolers have raved about the workbox system which looks like a wonderful organizational method regardless of the type of homeschooling style you carry out. 

The only downfall that I could find to this system was the extra space that the boxes would require especially for a large family without any spare room to store these boxes. Every square inch of our house is already being used nor do we have a separate “school” room.  So, I adapted this set up to fit our needs and space, masha Allah.  

Five 4" three-ring binders on the bookshelf

I decided to stick with the three-ring binder system which I was already using to organize their educational materials.  We were fortunate enough to have been freecycled enough 4″ binders for  the children, alhamdulillah.  I kept the same organization within the binders as well, by using dividers to separate the subjects.  In addition to the dividers,  I inserted plastic paper protectors.  The page protectors store their daily activities.

They were also allowed to personalize their binders by decorating a page to slip in the front of the binders, masha Allah.  It was also enjoyable for them to transfer all of their work to the new binders. 

Now instead of having them retrieve all their books/activities down from the shelves each time they need their supplies, everything is already in the binder.  I have  torn out the consumable workbook pages, copied the current page being worked on in a textbook, prepared all the materials needed for hands-on activities, and inserted all of this into the respective plastic page protectors.  Each day  the binders are prepared using the weekly schedule that I created for each one before the week began.  The weekly schedule is placed inside a plastic page protector at the front of the binder.

Inside a three-ring binder

The following pictures are some examples of the materials that I set inside the page protectors.

Books

History coloring sheet

Hands-on math activity

Phonics work

 Just in the last few days that we have implemented this system,  I have found extreme benefits in planning and organizing the younger children’s activities.  Before this new method, I would struggle to prepare my preschoolers activities for each day and end up not using many of the wonderful materials I have stored away in the learning hutch.   Now, all the activities and materials are prepared ahead of time. 

My older children also enjoy not having to gather their books/supplies for each lesson.  They are ecstatic that everything is layed out in front of them in one binder. 

As a result of our success so far, I am also planning to put together a binder for my soon to be two-year old with age appropriate activities, insha Allah.

We downloaded the Aesop Lapbook from Homeschoolshare.com and it was wonderful!  This project  provided a huge variety of minibooks, activities and lesson ideas.  Each day’s reading and lapbook activity was a  delight and an adventure!

Here are the step-by-step details of assembling the Aesop Lapbook:

Assembling lapbook - stack pages

Piercing thread through the folder

Bring thread through pages and tie

Paste puppets to decorate inside folder

Brads and thread to close lapbook

Duct tape on front of lapbook

Fold over and stick duct tape to back of lapbook

Punch holes into duct tape

Showing and retelling to Dad - so proud!

Lapbook in the file

And guess what my girls said when we filed this lapbook?

“Mom, we want to do all our school work like this!  This was such fun!”

Have you had fun doing your lapbooks?

I always wondered how it would be to teach an adult basic literacy. Now I know, start them off phonics and aid their understanding with the basics of literacy which are as follows:

a)      Learning to hold the pen properly

b)      Sitting correctly

c)       Learning to recognise sounds

d)      Learning the alphabets and the phonics

These are just some of the many areas to concentrateon when teaching basic literacy to begginers and illeterate people.

Detail from "The First Thanksgiving" (1914), by Jennie Augusta Brownscombe

Essay by Polly and Bubbles

The year is 1620. A ship called the Mayflower is being boarded by 102 people, 30 children among them. They seek freedom to worship God the way they choose. Their destination is the New World, later known as America. The Mayflower is a small ship in comparison to other ships, and they will be crossing the wide Atlantic Ocean. But the captain of the ship believes the Mayflower will get them to the New World.

For the first days of their journey, everyone is fine. The 30 children laugh and play, while adults talk and enjoy themselves. Everyone enjoys the view of the ocean, and the winds are favorable. Oh, but many dark days await them.

Soon many people are seasick from the rocking of the ship. The sky is not blue anymore, but a dark gray color. Storms are frequent, and children are frightened by the thunder. The passengers are forced to stay below deck so they are not blown into the raging water.

After one terrible storm, the crew discovers that one of the main beams has cracked. Many people believe that the captain should turn his ship around and sail back to England, but the captain will not turn back so easily. He just tells them to fix the beam and they will go on. He knows what they have been through, and he believes that they will make it to the New World. He says that they decided to get on the ship, and there is no turning back. They will go on!

The beam is pushed back into place, and is supported to keep it from bending again. And they sail on.

On a day several months later, they spy the New World! Everyone hears the word that they have wanted to hear for many months: Land! They did it! They crossed the Atlantic! Their number is 103; one passenger has died, and two babies have been born.

For the first few days, a team of men is sent to explore. They see miles of forest, just waiting to be explored. The men are eager to go, but soon troubles await them. Traps set for animals that catch them indicate Indians. One evening the team spies a group of Indians. The men try to be friendly, but the Indians are afraid of their guns and run away.

Meanwhile, things are going much better at the ship. Clothes can finally be washed and dried for the first time in months. Wood is burned in the stove on the ship to get rid of the sickening smell of vomit and dried sea salt. The Mayflower is cleaned, and food is cooked on land.

Soon the men return, and they start to build houses. By the time winter sets in, they have one house built, known as the Common House. When winter comes, both the Common House and the Mayflower are turned into hospitals. Many people die during the winter, and those that are not dreadfully sick are expected to build houses. Surprisingly, all 30 children survive, and are expected to do the work of their parents. But many believe that if they can make it through the winter, they may have a chance.

Winter is gone now and spring has come. Flower buds start peeking out of the ground, and to the Pilgrims they are signs of hope. Then, one day, a tall Indian walks right into the settlement!

The Indian is welcomed into a cabin, and he surprises them by saying in English, “Welcome!” All are surprised by his words. They ask him how he knows their language. He simply answers that several English fishermen north of them taught him their words. He says his name was Samoset. The Pilgrims ask where the rest of his tribe is. He answers that they had all died of the fever, except for himself and one other man named Squanto. He promises to send Squanto over in “2 sunups”.

Squanto helps them, and he surprises them by speaking English also! He proves himself to be smart, and teaches them many tricks for planting and harvesting, including that “old Indian trick” to put fish on top of the corn seeds while planting. The fish would serve as fertilizer for the soil, making the corn grow better.

It is now 1621. The Pilgrims have decided to have a feast to celebrate how thankful they are. There is an abundance of food to eat. The Pilgrims are calling the feast “Thanksgiving” because they are glad to be here and they are thankful to have food. They have invited many Indians to celebrate with them, and they are bringing deer venison.

President Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863, and we still celebrate it today.

Today’s guest blogger is Lisa M. Cottrell-Bentley, author of the Wright on Time series. Lisa has been writing since she was a child, winning her first writing contest at age 9. She’s been writing professionally since 2002. Lisa is an active member of RWA and SCBWI. 

Lisa and her daughters spent many hours searching for children’s books about homeschoolers, but found very few. So, they decided to create their own. As they discussed their dream storylines, the Wright on Time series took shape. While they haven’t found any mysterious devices yet, they have done lots of field research trying out many of the activities described in these books. 

Lisa lives and learns while writing in southern Arizona with her husband Greg, two happy always homeschooled daughters Zoë and Teagan, and three cats. Her desire is for all people to live their own personal dreams, now and for always. 

“7 Ways to Make this Winter’s Family Vacation More Fun for the Whole Family” by Lisa M. Cottrell-Bentley 

Parents are finding vacations taxing and stressful these days, especially when their children are small.  “Vacationing with children doesn’t have to be hard or stress-inducing,” says Lisa M. Cottrell-Bentley, author of children’s chapter book Wright on Time: Arizona, Book 1. “Traveling with children can make some of the best vacation memories you’ll ever have.” 

Cottrell-Bentley offers the following tips for making family vacations more enjoyable: 

• Use online resources to look up family friendly tourist attractions and restaurants before you get to your destination.
• Pack surprises for the kids. New audio books, books, portable video games (DS, PSP, etc.), journals with special pens, and other small toys. Go ahead and wrap them! It helps prolong the experience. The Wright on Time books are great for this! J
• Have a list of potential activities planned for each day, but be prepared to do none of them.  Choose ones which you think your kids will like.  This keeps things interesting, and assures that no one will be bored.  It’s alright to only do one thing a day – drop off the items that don’t interest anyone and be flexible enough to know when even one activity is too much.  Even kids appreciate days where nothing is a “have to”.
• Keep some activity choices a surprise and have your children help plan the rest.  They want to be involved, yet surprises can be fun.
• Make sure the overall vacation has at least one activity planned for each person in your family. Don’t leave out Dad just because he’s not a kid!
• Take lots of snacks.  This is the one area where you can’t overpack. Sometimes kids (and parents) are grumpy just because they are hungry. Make the snacks healthy ones – e.g. homemade trail mix, whole grain cereals, and water.
• Be sure to give everyone a chance to take some photographs.  It’s nice to have pictures of everyone on a trip and the perspective of kids can be fun. You’ll quickly see things through their perspective when they are behind the lens. 

Wright on Time: Arizona, Book 1 gives fun ideas for activities to do while caving with children. Each Wright on Time book brings the excitement of different states straight into the homes and hearts of children. At www.wrightontimebooks.com, parents and children can read about family fun things to do in all the states and submit their own findings for other people to know about. Games and puzzles for the states can be found, too, which make great printouts for long roadtrips.

Look for our review of Wright on Time:  Arizona, Book 1 coming soon!

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Today, Kerry had a Thanksgiving party at HomeScholars Academy. (Every Tuesday at HomeScholars, he attends classes in Art, Spanish, and Music.) Check out today’s pics from HomeScholars…These photos are from his Spanish class and his Thanksgiving party:

Here’s Kerry, doing his Spanish written work:

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Working with these students is Bessie Brantley, who teaches Spanish.

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**{Other teachers not pictured are Traci Brantley (HSA owner/Art teacher) and Honey Beth Wiggs (Music teacher)}

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Austin and Kerry

(Kerry tells me that they are BFF or best friends forever )

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Most of the “crew” :

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