Christmastime In the Homeschool

Tuesday, December 14th, 2010

I love Christmastime! Whether it’s white with snow or warm with friends, it’s always a wonderful time of year. I love the new LED lights and how their unique glow puts a quiet and beautiful effect on anything they decorate. Most of all, the Miracle of Christmas, the incarnation of Jesus Christ, is the reason for all the celebration.

With all that’s going on, it’s easy to overlook one of the best things about home education. We have an enormous amount of freedom through home education that can and will be used around Christmas. Remember sitting in school dreaming about Christmas vacation? I remember planning ice hockey games on our neighborhood lake, digging my sled out of storage in preparation for a trip to my favorite hill, and getting my skis tuned for a trip up to the mountains. I’d dream of playing with the toys I hoped to get. I remember the arts and crafts I would make with paper, glue and scissors of Christmas trees and maybe even a nativity-inspired creation. Today, schools can’t even call it Christmas vacation. They call it “winter vacation” and secularize yet another aspect of the American experience.

As home educators, we can make our Christmas preparations as secular or Christian as we want! How awesome is that? Want an extra couple of weeks for vacation? Take them! Want to participate in the church program for credit? Add it to the curricula!

Hey, dads, ever think of the science behind Christmas lighting? “If we use three strings of conventional mini-lights, eight strings of LED lights, five strings of C-7 lights, and six flood lights for the nativity, how many extension cords can we get by with safely? How much can we expect to owe the electric company if we run the lights by timer for six hours a night from November 28th to December 31st?” Such are word problems for applied math and science but other arts, sciences and applications are limited only by your imagination, time and money.

What I get the most enjoyment out of every Christmas season is the Advent stories by Arnold Ytreeide (no clue on the pronunciation). We’ve used them for at least the past five years now and we’ve enjoyed each of the three stories. It’s a fine “tradition” and above all, it encourages regular family time and is a great way for dads to step into family life by reading each day, or even rotating in as he’s able. Who knows? Maybe it will be so enjoyable that the family wants to continue after Christmas. I know that the Chronicles of Narnia would be a great new year’s start for us!

Home education is the best choice we could ever make for our family! Our freedoms and abilities to direct our children the way we believe is so valuable to us. Home education is a joy and an act of worship for us, especially this time of year! I pray it’s the same for you as well!

| Posted in Around the House, Fatherhood, Homeschooling | Comments Off

Starting Over

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

I wanted  to restructure my blogs to better put my thoughts to the world. I tried to export the historically Dad’s Corner, Walden’s Wits (HSB) blog over to my blogger blog and start this blog here at HSB as a fresh “re-blog” of homeschooling thoughts and ideas. Then I realized, there’s still a lot of good stuff here that people might have links to and, since WordPress and Blogger have no interest (or could it be ability?  in converting and re-converting each other’s XML file formats, I guess I’m going to keep things where they are.

Still, Walden’s Wits has grown off on it’s own and has actually become more of a life blog dealing with my lessons in disability, connecting with God, and realizing all His goodness as a father. That blog has no real firm connection with this, my first, original blog. Now, seeing that The Old Schoolhouse is still committed to supporting homeschool blogger, given all their efforts, I couldn’t turn my back on it. I want to use this blog to explore homeschooling and why I still think it’s the best method to continue parenting my children. There are things I’ve learned in between the gaps in my posts. We always learn more about homeschooling the further we progress.

So on the 5 year anniversary of my first post ever, I am starting over. Will it be another 5 years or another hundred that I will be writing here? Who knows! I do know that every good blog defies fastidiousness. Is that it? Every good blog dies fast? No. Uh… Every good blog does fine? My piano teachers, all five–two of which I drove into retirement, would have been proud if I had remembered that better. Regardless, I still write. I write because I need to write. I also need to share passion with others. It’s just something I do.

So, I hereby rechristen blog found at http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/stevewalden/ as the Dad At Homeschool blog.

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Never Abandoned In The Floodlands

Monday, November 9th, 2009

In a former life that I now dimly remember, I occasionally got free music as a sales associate for The Ark Bookstore in Denver. Normally, the samples were of new, relatively unknown groups that their label was trying to push. There was the rare exception, however, and those were moments that made the low wages and long hours almost worth it. Chief among those moments was when our Sparrow representative stopped by with a pre-release copy of Steve Taylor’s 1993 album, Squint. It was the last—so far—studio album that Taylor would release, capping a decade-long career in the Christian music industry. Most folks don’t know who Steve Taylor is. However, most Christians have likely heard the Newsboys’ song, Shine, which Steve produced and wrote the lyrics to. In fact, Steve’s partnership with the Newsboys is what most credit them for their success.

Steve’s music has had a huge impact on my life. Songs like Hero, Meltdown, On The Fritz and so many others fed my spirit when I faced religious hypocrisy and pretentious spirituality at a young age where I needed truth and solidarity. Truth confronts, but it also comforts. One of the best examples is in the song, "Curses," where the chorus (echoing Psalm 37:25) repeats,

Never have I seen the righteous forsaken
Never abandoned in the floodlands
Never have I seen their children out begging
Never have I seen them slip through your hands

This simple refrain would echo in my mind every time I faced worries about making mortgage or buying groceries. It remains a reminder that not only is God faithful, but that I am not the first of his children to encounter financial difficulty.

There is something else about the chorus. In this modern,"lower-middle class" lifestyle, I tend to forget the meaning of floodlands. Today, modern civilization has flood control. Rivers that used to rage and ravage towns and cities are now harnessed and regulated by dams and reservoirs. The floodlands were areas that were normally dry but prone to extensive inundation. As a result, no one who could afford to build would build in such an area. They tended to be vast areas with thick undergrowth crisscrossed by a myriad of foot trails. The only inhabitants were the poorest of the poor, vagrants living a nomadic lifestyle and eating hand-to-mouth. If a river were to flood, they would be among the first victims, sometimes the only victims. Being abandoned in the floodlands would never be by choice. It would be the last stop before dying.

God is always mindful of our situation. He never lets us slip through His hands. We make mistakes, but He never does. Also, notice what it doesn’t say. It doesn’t say that we would never see the floodlands, or walk through them. He may have us pass through the floodlands for any number of reasons, not the least of which would be to reach out to those are also in desperate need. Yet here is the one thing that brings me such comfort: we will never be abandoned! We have a God who carries us through the fiercest storms and the highest waves. Most importantly, when it’s all over, we get to go home with Him. That’s worth any trek we might face here on earth.

Just in case one thinks I’m blowing smoke, I’ll offer a subjective proof, one of many small miracles God has done for me and my family. Two weeks ago, my mind turned to Christmas. It dawned on me that we might not make mortgage, let alone have the ability to purchase gifts this year for my children. Rather than fret, I told God about it and asked Him to please provide Christmas gifts for my kids. Later that week, I got a call from our church saying that a family wanted to bless a family in need with Christmas presents and asked if I would be interested. "Are you kidding? I was just praying about that this week!" I told them. Needless to say, everyone was blessed at how God worked the whole thing. He usually isn’t so blatant and obvious. God uses subtle and practical ways for us most of the time. But once in awhile he offers us unmistakable signs that He’s there. With God, we are never abandoned.

| Posted in Connecting with God | Comments Off

There Goes the Sesame Street Neighborhood

Friday, November 6th, 2009

My wife came up and told me that Sesame Street had done another spoof. This time it was a skit called "Desperate Horse-wives." I got a groan when I asked if the characters were less than neigh-borly.

In all seriousness, I’m not that thrilled with how the folks at Sesame Street parody network TV shows. While I am sure that the creators mean simple and innocent fun with their skits, I believe it also sends the message that the shows they represent are normal and acceptable in normal households. I’m not sure how normal we are, but Desperate Housewives is a show that we do not let in our house. My children know that when Extreme Makeover Home Edition is over and they hear, "Previously on Desperate Housewives…" power to the television is to be immediately terminated. It’s almost comical how they scramble to turn it off, as if they were diving on a live grenade.

While it may not be a grenade, many TV shows are painfully difficult for us to watch these days. Some of the shows are so corrosive, I wonder how anyone can possibly watch them. Consequently, some nights we simply don’t turn on the television set. Instead, we will read a good book or play a game together, if we don’t split up to do separate things. We avoid the shows not because we like feeling superior or cerebral, but because we’ve found that these shows actively interfere with our hearts and minds.  

8-9Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies. (Philippians 4:8, The Message)

I can’t come out with a list of TV shows that I think are bad or good. The verse above should be more than enough for the average Christian, especially when it’s paired with the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Each person is responsible only to God for decisions like these. However, Jesus did give us a special charge with children.

"And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck. Mark 9:42 (NIV)

To me this verse means that God takes the destruction of children’s innocence very seriously. This is why the Sesame Street skits irritate me. It feels like they’re playing with fire. Look smart all you want, but I would prefer if they would just stick with "C is for cookie," and the yip-yip monsters.

What? You’ve never heard of the yip-yip monsters?

Yip Yip

| MySpace Video Thanks Jodi!

| Posted in General Parenting | Comments Off

Since Elections Are So Close To Halloween, Here's Something Scary

Friday, October 30th, 2009

I strongly suspect that those who would spend 30 minutes decrying Federal corruption and bureaucracy wouldn’t spend 30 seconds on Google looking up who’s on their local school board. If there was ever a weak point in democracy, this is it.

Thanks, Mike Rosen, for your thought-provoking commentary.

| Posted in Smalll-time Observations | Comments Off

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