Lessonsfromhome’s Weblog

This is a short and simple personality test meant to give you a general idea of your style. One of the pitfalls to personality tests is the tendency to want an absolutely clear, complete picture of ourselves. This is not possible nor necessarily desirable. Who we are at work and how we respond to situations may be very different from how we act at home. We need and want this ability to be flexible. We are gifted with the ability to adapt and change as the circumstances warrant. Locking ourself in to one rigidly defined type can work against us if we begin to believe we are stuck with our weaknesses. It can be an excuse for our failings when we say “I can’t do any better, it’s just how I was made.”

This test is designed to give you a general idea of where you fall on the personality grid. See this article for a brief description of the four personalities and how they are arranged on a grid. Use the information as a starting point to appreciate your strengths and recognize your weaknesses. Read the rest of this entry »

There are many different tests online to help you pinpoint your personality type. Some have as many as sixteen different types. This kind of depth and complexity can be useful for understanding a lot about ourselves. It also infers there are only 16 types of people. It is also somewhat limiting as it doesn’t allow for change or growth within our basic personality.

I’ve used a basic 4 type personality model for years because it gives us general understanding of who we are, but allows for infinite variation within our type and the possibility for movement, or growth. Read the rest of this entry »

There is a new terror that has seemingly risen from a dark boggy swamp somewhere. If you’ve ever sat before the teacher or doctor’s desk and heard “your child has ADHD”, you know the monster I’m talking about. Suddenly you are thrust into a world of testing, IEP’s, lifestyle changes and worst of all guilt: Where did I fail my child?

What if this simple collection of the letters a,d,& h were really nothing more than a harsh mis-label for what is in fact, a legitimate, God - given personality and learning style? What if the problem lies not with the child, but with the system they are inhabiting? For the sake of the children, can we at least be open to the possibility? Read the rest of this entry »

Raising godly children can be compared to buying clothes for them. The tv and magazines they see and the stores they browse will determine which styles they gravitate toward. In similar fashion, the people they hang around with, the ideas and worldviews they are exposed to, and the experiences they have will shape the people they become.

After observing some young adults in action and listening to a friend recount their experience with Jr. High age kids, my husband pointed out that much of their rude behavior is a result of simply not being taught any better. They’ve been left to browse the world of ideas and images on their own. Adolescence is a time of discovering who you are as an individual, separate from your family. It is a time of awakening awareness of the world around you and the differences in thought, styles, behaviors, attitudes, and lifestyles. If parents are absent, busy with their own lives, kids are exploring these new areas by themselves, without adult discernment or wisdom. It’s like letting them loose in Victoria’s Secret and expecting them to pick out appropriate outfits for school or church.

I’m not advocating smothering children or so controlling their lives they can’t think for themselves, but they can be provided with an assortment of appropriate clothes to choose from. What is appropriate? That’s where parental worldview comes into play. As a Christian, I use the Bible as my guide. I firmly believe God places children in families because those particular parents have the means to provide what those particular children need to become the people He intended them to become. It is incumbent upon the parent to seek God’s direction for each child and provide the “clothes” best fitting that child.

We were blessed with a child who has a very giving heart. She looks for ways to serve others. In school, that was a problem because she was so busy “helping” the other kids she didn’t focus on her own work so well. As homeschoolers, we were able to channel that gift into volunteering at a nursing home. Not something everyone would like, but this daughter loved going into the activities department and helping the residents. We provided a variety of opportunities over the years for her to explore her gifts and interests in groups like 4H, Civil Air Patrol, horseback riding, music lessons and such. Not all of them worked out, but they are all areas she expressed interest in . She’s learning about herself and how her particular gifts fit in the world. She’s trying on different styles without leaving the protection and guidance of her parents.

Dressing a child is a very individualized process. One size does not fit all. Our son would not be interested at all in helping at the nursing home. He’s much more of a climbing, building, exploring kind of kid. He’s also very sensitive, although he tries manfully to hide it. For him we’ve gotten involved in cub scouting as a family. This gives him plenty of social interaction combined with lots of boy activities, like building pinewood derby cars and doing chemistry experiments. He’s competitive and the opportunity to earn badges appeals tremendously.

It takes work, studying your children and getting to know them, as well as lots of time in prayer to seek God’s leading; but by providing a customized selection of “clothing” for them to choose from, we can help our children develop a solid foundation on which to grow.

Using the notebooking method is probably the easiest way to “do” history I’ve ever found. We just started a mini history study using God King, a Story in the days of King Hezekiah, by Joanne Williamson. The book can be found at either www.veritaspress.com or www.christianbookdistributors.com. We’ve been studying ancient Egypt all year and this book is a great historical fiction to compliment the study. God King follows Taharka, who is mentioned in actual Egyptian writings as either a Pharoah or the close relative to a pharoah depending on which history source you read. His adventures center around meeting an advisor to the Hebrew king, Hezekiah.

I read the book aloud and keep a piece of 4×11 paper close at hand as my notepad/bookmarker. The only real prep work I did was to print out a map of the Egypt - Israel area. Knowledge Quest has a great CD full of blank black line maps from all time periods: http://knowledgequestmaps.com/maps.htm

As we read our daily chapter or two, I jot down people, places, events, vocabulary words, customs, etc that we’re going to follow up on later. For example, the first chapter mentions the main character came from the land of Kush, traveled the Zambesi river and was living in Napata. After our reading was done we pulled out our blank map and a Bible atlas of ancient lands to locate the places I’d written down and mark them on our map. If you like to do web research, check out this link for a one page history of Napata: http://lexicorient.com/e.o/napata.htm. We colored the map, wrote the names of the cities and rivers and then stored it in a pocket folder along with the book until tomorrow. We keep everything together in the folder until the unit is complete then we’ll store it all in our notebook. Because we use one notebook for all subjects at this stage (4th grade) it’s easier to find the papers we’re currently working on if they are in their own temporary folder.

The beauty of notebooking is it can be customized to teach all ages at once. A younger child can simply color the Nile, the Zambesi and the Red Sea in blue and the surrounding desert brown. Older children can be assigned to look up the web page about Napata and write a short history of the city to go with their map.

The next day after reading we looked up Taharka and Shabataka at www.touregypt.net under their ancient history- Pharaohs section. This is a great website for all things Egyptian. We wrote a short biography based on the web page and discussed how hard it is to know the truth of what happened over 2500 years ago because ancient records differ. At this point you could move off into a discussion of why the Bible is our only inerrant source of truth, or you could look up several resources and do a compare and contrast chart on the information found about the two men. Another great blessing of using the notebooking method is to be able to follow your children’s interests, and go off on a rabbit trail.

We’ll continue through the book this way, adding locations to our map as they are mentioned, looking up the difficult words to use for our spelling and vocabulary practice. You can download Heart of Wisdom’s people and event pages to use. Check their teachers helps page for lots of great worksheets and more: http://www.heartofwisdom.com/helps.html. You can create a timeline of events, write your own story about one of the characters, download and use clip art of Egyptian gods, create a character profile of the main character and note how he grows and matures through the experiences he has, and you could do written narration of the chapter. Your notebook pages can be all drawings and clip art and creative design with minimal text or they can be all charts and maps and timelines, or they can be primarily written words. It depends on what works best for your child or what skills they need to improve.

We created a board game that traced the chronology of the story, with trivia questions based on events in the story. We also did a mini book about some of the gods of ancient Egypt. Here’s what the mini book looks like:

We’re in chapter 16 where it mentions an event found in the Bible. We’re going to look up the Bible version in 2 Kings 20 and do a notebook page on the Assyrian attack on Judah next.

The flexibility and options with notebooking are almost limitless. The is a quick, fun, very effective way to study any time period.

We love notebooking! As a family we have filled at least 10 big binders (guess who has the most? yup, Mom!). We fill them with notes, essays, maps, drawings, clip art, mini books, timelines, photos, vocabulary lists and much more. All it takes is a binder, lots of paper, colored pencils, a library card and some free, or low cost, internet resources. If you love scrapbooking like I do, notebooking is a great way to use those extra supplies.

What is notebooking? It’s an easy and fun way to learn using various learning styles. It can be as simple as storing all your school papers in one notebook or as creative as the most elaborate scrapbook page. It’s easy, fun and inexpensive. There are tons of resources on-line to help you. A great place to start is www.notebookingpages.com or see the link on the sidebar.

You can create a one topic notebook about an area of special interest to your child or use one notebook for all your work. We use one notebook, divided into general sections of math, bible, reading, and copywork. Every page from everything we read; literature, history, science, etc goes into the reading section. Since my son is a reluctant writer, right now he does a lot of copywork so that has its own section. You can use more detailed divisions if that fits your needs and style.

One of the greatest benefits of notebooking is the ability to customize it to meet your needs. If you have young children, don’t bother with multiple binders or tab dividers, just fill it up with all those precious drawings and early attempts at letters. Elementary school children can expand into several binders or multiple divisions. And, here’s the best part: if your child hates to write like mine, you can focus on maps, timelines, clip art, drawings, and copywork. If you have a writer in the house, fill the notebook with stories, essays, book reports, project data, and journal entries. All of these are valid ways to show what you’ve learned.

Another link to check: http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/CindyRushton/3711/

Next week I’ll post a mini unit study showing how we use notebooks at our house.

We’re checking out a new curriculum this week by Donna Ward (www.donnaward.ca) called “Africa, a land of Hope”. It’s a wonderful 36 lesson study of Africa, it’s people, climate, land and animals. The included lesson plan is full of activities, maps, notebooking pages, suggestions for further reading, and on-line links. Today’s study followed the life of Jackie, a young girl sponsored through Compassion, through her day. We watched her get up at 5 in the morning, draw water from the village well, pull on her one pair of shoes and walk through the dusty, cluttered neighborhood to her school. At school she shares a desk, more like a long bench, with at least 6 other students. She mentions rainy days are tough because water blows in the openings in the walls soaking the kids nearest the wall. She arrives home at 6 PM to help her mother in their small market stall, often not getting to bed until midnight. The comparisons with our daily existence are stark. We filled a whole notebook page with observations of the differences: no running water, only 2 or 3 outfits of clothing, milk is an occasional treat, the “dentist” was a bicycle repairman with the right tool, no electricity, 3 kids to a bed, and on and on. We followed up with a PBS video called “Affluenza” found from the links on Donna’s site. The disparity between Americans, spending an average of 6 hours shopping weekly, hitting the mall at least one day a week and throwing away millions of tons of trash each day and young Jackie’s life was powerful. It has given me new eyes to see how shallow and empty our chasing after material goods is when a young lady like Jackie lives with the daily reality that AIDS will eventually take her mom like it did her dad, there might not be food to eat that day, and thieves might break into her home again. Africa A Land of Hope is extremely well done, showing life in Africa up close and real in a way text books simply can’t match. The curriculum is $34.99 US and could be a short unit study or easily expanded to a whole year study using all the available links and supplemental reading.