Informing mind...

I came across this quote by Ann Radcliffe:

"A well-informed mind is the best security against the contagion of folly and of vice. The vacant mind is ever on the watch for relief, and ready to plunge into error, to escape from the languor of idleness."

This is a longer version of what my pastor often says. We need to keep reading scripture, because without the current inflow of scripture we become stupid.

Homeschooling thoughts

(below is an e-mail I sent this morning and after sending it I decided it would make a good post.)

This is the book I was talking with you about last night that talks about different philosophies of home schooling and has examples of curriculum that is available. The book is 5 years old, so you may want to update it with some web searching but I found the book very helpful. Wake county library has the book, so I personally would check it out instead of buying it:

http://www.amazon.com/100-Top-Picks-Homeschool-Curriculum/dp/0805431381/

Also, I don't know if you know about the Homeschool Gathering Place
( http://www.homeschoolgatheringplace.com/ )
It is a new and consignment homeschool place in Raleigh. You can go in there and look through LOTS of curriculum choices.

And then there is always the NCHE annual curriculum fair (I have not been to this one, but when I had my own company I used to sell at curriculum fairs.) http://nche.com/conference

This year will be the first year we have used any curriculum for pre-school (and that is just because Joshua has been asking for school like his older siblings, and we realize that we are less intentional with him due to time constraints.)

Our pre-school work for the kids has been mostly reading, reading, reading to the kids. We do also use some books with pre-school activities. When Abigail was interested in reading, we used Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons ( http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Your-Child-Read-Lessons/dp/0671631985 ) I know we also looked at The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading (http://www.amazon.com/Ordinary-Parents-Guide-Teaching-Reading/dp/0972860312/). With Philip, we didn't intentionally teach him to read, he just picked it up on his own. With Joshua, we are planning to use the Readers K from Sonlight. (I can report back later on how well this works.)

Wow...

Quoted in Sacred Parenting by Gary Thomas (which I am rereading), was this great quote from Abigail Adams writing to her 9 year old son encouraging him to go on an overseas trip with his father.

It is not in the still calm of life...that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.

Frustration

I am here safe in San Diego. We had some unplanned travel excitement, so we ended up getting into the hotel here around 3:30am eastern. I am fighting complaining about the traveling stuff and my noisy hotel room.
Scripture helped some this morning as it is hard to complain about it taking 12 hours to cross the country instead of 6 when you are reading about being taken captive into a foreign country.
Also, this morning I read of God giving us strength when we are out of it ourselves. God has been reminding me this morning that frustration is sin as it is really my saying in arrogance that God doesn't know how best to run the universe. (Amazing how stupid sin looks when you write it.)