Shortly after my husband died, I read a book on widowhood by Joyce Rogers. One sentence in her introduction caught me up short and brought me to a full stop. I read the sentence over several times: ”God will not overlook the neglect of the practical." As a new widow, it was hard to care about the practical things, like fixing meals and cleaning the house. But that sentence kept rankling around in my mind. God, in His infinite wisdom and complete integrity, has structured the

Whew! The main body of the essay is written! Are we done now? Nope. Not yet. So far, we have followed the process of writing an essay using these specific steps (see previous homeschool blogs for specific instructions): Choosing a title Making a “Dump Page” Organizing your “Dump Page” into lists and titling each list Turning the lists into an outline Writing the main body of your essay Now you are ready to write the introduction. One of the main purposes of an introductory pa

Step 4 in the writing process is writing the main body of the essay. If you’ve followed Steps 1-3 in writing an essay (see previous Homeschool blogs on writing), then the actually writing becomes rather easy. Each of the main points in your outline will become a paragraph. If your students are young and just starting out, you will need to teach them four specific things: The definition of a sentence: A sentence is a complete thought with a subject (who or what the sentence is

When we first started out, we used a printed Bible curriculum, but I wanted to teach my children the whole scope of the Bible and the full counsel of God. There aren't many curricula that do that. Most Sunday School materials or Bible workbooks skip the unpleasant or uglier parts of the Bible. I was once asked when my children were little, "You're not going to teach them those parts, are you?" Well, yes. I had to be delicate and careful about how I described those sections, h

I wrote previously (April 2, 2019) that "keepers at home" can also be translated "workers at home." The word keeping carries the connotation of guarding. And guarding takes WORK! As mothers and homemakers, we are not only guarding our children and our homes against the ungodly influences of the world, but we must also guard against the ungodly habits of our—and our children's—sinful hearts. The kind of guarding I'm referring to here is what is often called spiritual formation

The 3rd step in writing an essay is making an outline. Once you have done a "dump page" and organized all the items on the "dump page" on a "lists page," making an outline is very easy. Simply look through the topic headings you've written above each list and see if some of those topics could be grouped together. Those broader groupings become the main points of your outline. The individual list headings will be the subtopics, the A., B., C. of the outline. Then the items in

I have to confess that as a child, and even (maybe especially!) in my high school years, I was messy. My bedroom was rarely clean. (Though when I picture in my mind's eye now, it always seems to be clean! Maybe it wasn't really so bad??) Hanging up my clothes apparently seemed like a waste of time. And though I can't imagine that I went off to school without making my bed (it's always made in my imagination), I'm sure I did; for I was forever running to catch the school bus,

Essay writing can actually become fun and fairly easy! Last week I wrote on Step 1 of writing an essay: choosing a topic and making a "dump page." Dump pages get all your ideas out on paper where you can see them. That's the really fun part, and it makes Step 2 very easy. In Step 2, you organize all your ideas from your dump page into subheadings, grouping like things together. Take a second piece of paper, and begin to make lists. Everything on your dump page now needs to be

I felt certain I had already blogged on this, but I couldn't find it this morning. So if this is redundant, I apologize. But then again, some things bear repeating! I read a book a while back called Mini Habits. It affirmed something the Lord had already been teaching me about prayer: If you want to start a new habit in your life, start small. Real small. Start with something so utterly un-overwhelming that you won't find your willpower caving in on you or fighting against yo

As a new school year begins, let's talk about writing. Most students groan when you even mention writing. Essays?? That's the worst! I wonder if we could take at least some of the scariness away with a few simple how-to tools. As I have done more reading and research myself on writing and publishing, I've picked up a few really great ideas. I tried one of them on a homeschool class I was teaching a few years ago. Like most students, they hated the idea of having to write an e

A masterfully written book, Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy combines fictional characters with an historical event in Maine. A community of former black slaves on an island just off the coast of Maine poses a contrived hindrance to the economic advancement of the town on the mainland. In their racial bias, the rich elite of the town determine to force the islanders off the island, drawing the new minister and his family into the conflict. Historically, the extrusion of

For many of us who call ourselves Christians or followers of Jesus Christ, prayer is an afterthought. By that, I mean several different things: Prayer isn't our first thought whenever we have a need or problem. We automatically try to figure things out on our own first; and when all our attempts don't work, then we turn to God in prayer out of desperation. Prayer is not our regular habit. We haven't learned to depend on God on a daily basis. Prayer is not like the air we brea

I may get in trouble for this one, but I'm going to take the plunge anyway. As "keepers or guardians of our homes" (Titus 2:5), we bear the weighty responsibility of creating the atmosphere or tone of our homes. One of the ways we can set the tone in our homes is through music. One of my daughters faithfully puts 5 CDs (yes, those nearly antiquated discs) into our CD player every morning. It's amazing the atmosphere that creates in our home. People who have come over for dinn

A couple years ago a friend of mine in Alaska told me how she had challenged her church with a question that went something like this, "What makes your home distinctly Christian?" I think most of us who call ourselves Christians know that just going to church on Sunday is not enough. Meeting together once a week is certainly a distinctive of Christians, but it doesn't necessarily make the nitty-gritty of our homes different. Four things come to mind as I contemplate that ques

As women who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ, God calls us to the most important task of being a keeper (guardian) and worker at home. This is to be our business, our employment, that which occupies us. We often think of employment in its narrowest sense: a job we go to in order to get paid. But here are some broader definitions that are instructive: something we keep busy at something we work at something that engages our attention something that occupies our time some

"A mathematician does not study pure mathematics because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it and he delights in it because it is beautiful." (Henri Poincare) This sums up the essence of the study of math. It is mathematics that defines and explains all the order and beauty and symmetry of our world. Math is found in all of science: chemistry, physics, biology, etc. I don't think there is any branch of science in which math is not part of the equation! But, r

The fifth life practicum older women are to teach younger women is to be "homemakers." That's how the NKJV translates the compound Greek word. There is some debate over what word is actually used here. Some say it is the word oikouros, and some say it is oikourgous. Both words fit the context and are significantly instructive. So let's take a deeper look at both of them. Both words are made up of two Greek words. The first word in both of them is oikos, which means home, dwel

We don't often realize it or think about it, but math is found throughout the Bible. From the very first chapter of Genesis to the very last chapter of Revelation, numbers play an important role in God's eternal plan. Counting and recounting, cycles and organizational patterns, adding and subtracting, multiplying and dividing, computing geometric equations and logging building materials, all contribute significantly to the biblical narrative. Beginning at the dawn of creation

Mathematics is full of patterns. This is why math is both beautiful and fascinating. By learning some of these patterns, we can become faster and more proficient in our calculations as well as more observant of the wonder all around us. There are all kinds of fun mathematical tricks that, hopefully, will help make math more enjoyable to our students/children. Here's a math pattern for students to use to check their answer when multiplying by 9: the answer or solution will alw

Becoming chaste women of God has two sides: a turning to and a turning away from. We turn our faces, our lives, our focus toward the face of God, and we turn our backs to the ways, the attractions, and the distractions of this world. Being holy as God is holy commands every aspect of our lives—the words that come out of our mouths, the attitudes of our hearts, the thoughts and meditations of our minds, the way we conduct ourselves at home and when we're out and about, and eve