August 16, 2006 - Critical Thinking Activity

As I worked on my Raising Leaders books, I discovered a pretty cool activity you can use with your children to encourage critical thinking.  As I read Ezekiel in my quiet times this week, I was struck by the use of metaphor. 

Metaphor is foreign to most of us.  If we think of metaphors, we usually associate them with similes.  Similes compare two things with the word "like" or 'as'. Metaphors compare two things without the word "like" or "as".  Metaphor is a much larger idea.  When we read classics, great authors use metaphors throughout their books. 

One of the reasons we don’t think in metaphor is it takes hard work.  Making comparisons between two things that appear different requires “thinking”.  Thus, my activity centers around metaphor.

Ezekiel offers several places to start.  (Or, you can find another passage)
 

            Ezekiel 31:2-9        Compares Assyria to cedar tree

            Ezekiel 32:2-9        Compares Pharaoh to young lion & sea monster

            Ezekiel 34             Compares Israel to shepherds

                                        Compares God to True Shepherd

1. Read the passage aloud to your children
2. Choose one of the items being compared.
3. Ask questions to get your children to describe the thing you choose.  For instance:  What is a cedar tree like?  How does a young lion act?  What does a good shepherd do?  I’m sure you get the idea.
4. Once your children have a picture of this animal, tree, person, etc, ask what it is compared to.
5. Ask questions to determine how these two items are similar.  For instance:  How is Pharaoh like a young lion?  How is Pharaoh like a sea monster?  How is Israel like a shepherd?
6. Draw comparisons and conclusions.  This will enlighten your children’s readings and discussions.

This is not included in my new book set.  It’s just a freebie activity for all of you to try.  Using questions is a great way to encourage your children to think on their own. If you like this type of activity, take a look at Raising Leaders, Not Followers.

Please pass this activity to other homeschoolers. If you share it on your blog, email loop or personal emails, please include the following bio:

Kerry Beck, author of Raising Leaders, Not Followers encourages parents to raise children to be wise leaders.  She wants to give you a Free Report and Free Online Workshop.  Pick them up at:  www.CurriculumConnection.net/leaders.htm

Blessings,
Kerry

category:

March 3, 2006 - What Does Your Homeschool Look Like???

One of my goals in our homeschool this year is to mentor my children, instead of giving them a stack of books & workbooks to study.

When you think of mentoring, do you imagine a group of students around a teacher, spouting off words of wisdom?  Many conjure up a scene with Socrates or Plato as they talk to their students.  I'm sure we all have our own idea of what mentoring would look like. 

I believe homeschooling is truly a mentoring process.  Some homeschools look like a government classroom, with desks, posters on the wall, and a stack of textbooks to be read and examined each day.

My idea of homeschooling/mentoring is much different. Let me give you a little glimpse of mentoring in our home.

• Sitting on my daughter's bedroom floor, discussing Dante's Hell with both my girls - laughter included
• Sitting with my middle daughter each week, with my cup of tea, discussing the lectures and books for humanities
• Sitting on my daughter's bed discussing which direction her research paper should go. 
• Looking through support books about Jane Austen to guide my daughter with her research
• Discussing possible research topics and narrowing it down to three
• Sitting on the couch, reading about how the gospel has spread across the earth.  Asking my son questions about today's reading and past readings as he dribbles a basketball
• Sitting on the couch and looking over the shoulder of my daughter as she edits her own essay.  A chance to discuss what is best.
• Reading the same books my kids read silently so I can discuss them. 
  
• Listening to my girl's weekly lecture in the kitchen while I fix breakfast so I can discuss it with them later in the week.
• Reading & discussing the worldview of the medieveal era as we fold laundry
• Developing my child's "interests" into a subject they can study in their high school years  
  

Take it easy and take advantage of informal times with your kids to discuss worldview, readings, and lectures they have heard recently.

What other ways do you "mentor" your children?

Kerry

Mentoring

category:

February 8, 2006 - More on Wisdom

category:

January 30, 2006 - Goals for 2006

category:

October 5, 2005 - Mentoring

category:

August 18, 2005 - Mentoring Website

category:

August 17, 2005 - My Oldest Goes to College

category:

August 12, 2005 - Real Life Mentoring

category:

July 20, 2005 - Taking My Own Advice

I took my own advice and cleaned our home office this afternoon.  It is very refreshing to have everything in its place right now.  When my computer gets back from the fix-it shop, we will be ready to roll out those orders. 

Then, I moved to my bedroom and started throwing away "stuff" that I hadn't used in years.  How could I move it twice and not get rid of it?  Well, less stuff will allow me more time to read and prepare for the coming year of mentoring my children. 

The DeMilles were right in their lecture notes, Core & Love of Learning.  Less stuff means more time for mom and mentoring!

Off to read. . .

Kerry

category:

July 20, 2005 - Cleaning, Cooking & Chauferring

The three great destroyers of motherly mentoring are cleaning, cooking & chauffering.  You need to decide between your stuff and your education.  Too much stuff in the home clogs up the education of everyone who lives there.  I know this well.  When we moved a year ago, we took 5-7 truckloads of stuff to goodwill and another 4-5 loads to the dump...WOW! 

When we moved into our new rental home last week, it was quite refreshing to not have as much stuff to care for.  Not only did I get rid of my stuff, the kids got rid of their junk.  After this recent move, my son made a box of things he wants to sell on eBay (always the entrepreneur) and a bag of his stuff to give to goodwill.  Now, he has less stuff to keep clean in his room.  This is a great way to promote non-materialism with your own children.  Summer is a terrific time to de-clutter.

Being a pack rat is a sure way to sabotage the Fundamental Phases of learning.  Tne great classics on the shelf are better than a hundred (or a hundred, thousand mediocre) books.  Here's one for the girls of the family:  If you haven't worn a piece of clothing in two years, you aren't likely to wear it in the next two years.  Send it away!

Managing your stuff takes time, effort, resources, space & above all the brain cells to keep track of it all...and I need every brain cell I can find for mentoring and education.  Lighten your load and free those brain cells.

One tip:  Keep a donation box at the back door, in the garage, in the back of the van or somewhere easy to find.  Use the donation box and de-clutter.

taken from Core & Love of Learning lecture notes

Kerry

category:

July 1, 2005 - Great Mentors

According to Oliver DeMille, great mentors are continually learning & pushing themselves....read classics...study hard!

They not only give assignments, BUT also accept their students and allow their students to begin practicing leadership.  As I stated in the previous example, a key part of setting the example is allowing students to take the lead as often as possible.  This is usually HARD for moms   Take it from a "control mom", it is hard to let go and allow your kids to practice leadership in their education.  BUT, in the long run your kids will be more mature and a real leader.

Kerry

category:

June 30, 2005 - Mentoring Experiences

If you have ever been mentored in an academic setting, please post a comment about your experience.  If you are an academic mentor, feel free to post as well. 

Since I am learning some of this as I go, I'd love to hear from some more experienced mentors.

Kerry

Mentoring

category:

June 29, 2005 - Finding Time for My Own Education

How can mom find time to study herself?  What about laundry?  And those 3 meals a day that everyone keeps wanting?

Here are a few tips:

1. Control outside family commitments
2. Remove distractions – possibly tv, newspaper, internet
3. Purge home of unnecessary stuff – reduce need for maintaining your stuff
4. Consolidate kids’ learning –group them together.            Keep them doing what they do now
5. Evaluate your schedule and find time to block off for study.  Role model for kids.
6. If I read, pushes kids to read and they see value of studying
7. Relax – Don’t rush a timetable – for you or your kids.  If you don’t feel the pressure to hurry through all these “skills”, you will spend more time really educating your kids and developing leaders of tomorrow
8. Investment in mom’s education is not withdrawal from kids education, just the opposite.

BTW, read Little Britches or Laddie, too! GREAT BOOK J

Kerry

Little Britches

category:

June 28, 2005 - Personalize Your Studies

One aspect of mentoring is personalization. 

When you create a program for your kids, you do not go out & buy the curriculum for that grade.  Instead, you ask, “What do you want to become?  What do you want to create?  What do you want to learn?”  The answers to these questions should prompt the mentor (you) in the direction your homeschool should go.  You can’t train leaders, if your don’t encourage kids how to think.  By asking your kids these questions, you encourage them to be leading in their own education. 

Unfortunately, America has become more highly trained and less educated over the past several decades.  Start today and give your children more education (through leadership education) instead of more training (through follower training).

Kerry

Leadership Education

category:

June 23, 2005 - My Personal Reading Journal Goal

I must confess that last year I did not keep up with my reading journal, like my kids did.  I began well in September and puttered out by October.

When we return to Idaho in July I hope to begin (again) the habit of keeping a reading journal or commonplace book.  My plan is to read a classic every morning after my Bible reading/prayer.  Then, I can enter my thoughts into my reading journal.  We will be early Christian fathers' writings when we get back home, so I hope to have a few essays about these writings.  I look forward to these readings, since I haven't read them before. 

When our "official" study time starts after Labor Day, I should have made this a habit in my life.  You know it takes 30 days of repetition to develop a habit. 

Kerry

Thomas Jefferson Education 

category:

June 6, 2005 - Biblical Mentoring

The Israelites were commanded to mentor their children.

Hear O Israel; The Lord our God the Lord is one!

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

And these words which I commmand you today shall be in your heart.

You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when youlie down, and when you rise up. 

You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.

You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

    Deuteronomy 6:4-9

The Israelites were to talk, or mentor, their children all day long.  That's what I call homeschooling!

Kerry

Leadership Education

Reloading

category:

June 6, 2005 - Mentors Through the Ages

Mentoring with classics has been the preferred method of education from the beginning of time through the ages.  Great mentors include Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.  Aristotle mentored Alexander and we all know what Alexander did...ruled most of the known world. 

George Wythe mentored Thomas Jefferson and has become the model for an approach to homeschooling.  Mentoring our children with classics is the best way to train your children to be leaders of the future.  You can read more about it in A Thomas Jefferson Education.

Kerry

Leadership Education

category: