Homeschooling for His Glory

This year's TOS crew run has been filled with great, interesting products to review. One of our latest product was an online music lessons.     MacPhail Center for Music is a community resource dedicated to providing quality Music instruction to all students of all background and abilities. This includes kids from K-12. MacPhail is one of the largest comminity music school in the USA and is a leader in the field of Early Childhood Program, Suzuki Talent Program and Music Therapy Program. Their staff is comprised of highly qualified and experienced music teachers and musicians. 85% of the teachers hold master degrees in their field of music and are accomplished musicians with ongoing professional development. The center operates out of Minneapolis but includes 5 locations in total in and around the area. They offer both online and in person lessons. MacPhail offers music education and learning in 35 instruments, including Piano, Violin, Guitar, Trombone, flute, and ...

I have quite a few stuff that need to leave my house and make room for some needed cash. So here is a list of what I am selling. Feel free to e-mail me or leave a comment as to what you are interested in. The prices are negociable. To note:  I am in Canada, and all the prices listed exclude shipping. Reference Books: My First Encyclopedia (Parragon Publishing)  -  $5 DK Eye Wonder Earth  - $2 The Usborne Book of World History  -  $10 A Treasury of Children's Poems  -  $3 T he Great Dinosaur Mystery  by PAul S. Taylor-  $10 The Children's Book of Virtues  edited by William J. Bennet  - $8 Devotion books: A Little Boy After God's Own Heart  by Jim and Elizabeth George -  $5 Teach Them to Your Children  by Sarah Wean - $10 Lessons in Responsibility for Boys   from Pearables: The Christian Gentleman's series -  $10 Family Time Bible Storybook (dinged corners)  - $8 ...

The Old Schoolhouse Expo has been under way since Monday and lots of good speakers have already shared a lot of wonderful insights. We had topics such as: 5 Commons Mistakes Homeschoolers Make The Lay Child Teaching Boys and Other Children Who Would Rather Make Forts All day Top Ten Myths about Classical Education The Art of Reading from Suess to Socrates: Teaching the Classics at Home There is still two more days left so do not wait and get your ticket. In addition all of the sessions are being recorded, and all of the recordings are included in your ticket price. So this is a win-win situation. I myself have not been able to listen to the ones I was really looking forward to, and am certainly looking forward to the recordings to listen to at my leisure. So head on over and get your ticket now! The Price is now $17.

It is this time of year when planning is in full swing in many homeschool homes. Ours is not exempt. Tapestry of Grace is one of those curriculum, because of its richness, needs planning in order to sift through the buffet of learning it offers. Last year I tried a system that I did not really followed through, so this year I have to come up with another. Here is my attempt. The process I am presenting here will be done unit by unit. Before the year starts, for Unit 1: decide what will be done on what days: compile an assignment schedule detailing for each week:  * the readings for history and literature, * map work * timeline work * activities * vocabulary to be learned   Print out the maps needed for each week. Week before: Order books from the library (preferably early in the week or better yet 2 weeks before). Mark the pages in each books that we are going to read together. Gather supplies for projects  Our weekly sched...

Today I was reminded of the truth of Romans 1 about the fact that God has given every human beings a sense of His existence. " The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19  since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20   For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. 21   For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened." So here is how a conversion with my soon to be 8 year old went this afternoon, which started out of nowhere (which is typical of him): Joho:  " How do we know that God exists ?" Me:  " The Bible tells us so ." Joho...

I do not know about you, but I am really looking forward to the Old Schoolhouse Expo coming up in a couple of week. You will be encouraged, challenged and come away with new ideas and tips for your homeschooling journey, weather you are new at it or a veteran homeschooler. Have you checked it out yet? Ok, here is a teaser: Terri Johnson: Facing the Giant: Homechooling Through High School Todd Wilson: Taming the Techno Beast Jessica Hulcy :  Multi-Level Teaching Dr. Jay Wile: Texbook Myths and How to Deal with Them Kim Kautzer : The Lazy Child Marie Rippel: Effective Teaching Methods for Struggling Learners Deborah Wuehler : Prayer, Power and Perseverance Barbara Beers : Spelling, and Grammar, and Latin, OH MY! AND: Carol Topp Adam Andews Andrew Pudewa Hal and Melanie Young Malia Russell  . . .  and more Interested yet? August 19-23, 2013 1:00pm-8:00pm (Eastern) / 10:00am-5:00pm (Pacific) $24 You can regis...

On our last post in this series, it is now time to put things together. How can I talk about a relaxed classical homeschooling style? The way I see it, classical and relaxed can work quite well together. Classical homeschooling focusses on what needs to be achieved and sought for. It is about goals, that of teaching my kids truths, values, beauty, goodness. Relaxed homeschooling addresses the way or atmosphere in which education is pursued and done. As much as I hold to a classical philosophy of education, I do not think that it has to necessarily be done in a very rigid way. The way I make sure that my kids are classically homeschooled is in the kind of material or curriculum we use. I am very eclectic in our curriculum choices, but I usually tend to choose material that emphasizes the areas I mentioned on day 3 of this series. Materials that focus on: Language Arts skills Critical thinking and logic Good books of literature History and humanities Even as I make sur...