A Night to Remember

So, even though I may be a bit behind not doing a Thanksgiving or Christmas post yet (but I do have really GOOD excuses!) I am going to start this new year with some pictures of how we rang in the New Year. Our 15 year old daughter, Hannah, has been so interested in the whole history of the Titanic. As most homeschooling families know many times an interest of study quickly takes over the educational process for everyone including Mom, Dad, siblings and even innocent bystanders!! So last fall we decided to plan a Titanic dinner party. Hannah got a hold of a book called The Last Dinner on the Titanic. It included the menu and recipes of all the wonderful food. So knowing that we were planning this event we kept our eyes open every time we visited a thrift store for period clothing for our big night! 

 

Our family minus Gus and Henry.  They were already fast asleep. 

 

 

The men. 

 

 

Hannah's violin teacher and her sister joined us.  I wore my wedding dress!    

 

 

The ladies. 

 

 

The menu ~ an eight course meal!

 

 

The place setting.

 

 

One of the 2 tables.

 

 

Sipping our sparkling grape juice.

 

 

The boys are checking out the menus.

 

 

Joseph and Sam really enjoyed all the food!

 

 

Right before midnight the ladies played for us Hymn to the Sea.  And as the clock struck they went right into Auld Lang Syne.  It was BEAUTIFUL!! 

 

 

 

 

Hannah read so many books on the true history of the Titanic.  Some carefully selected from our library but we also purchased the Titanic 100th Anniversary Commemorative Set from Vision Forum.  That included many books and some documentaries and the historically accurate film from the 1950's A Night to Remember.  We have chosen to not watch the James Cameron version of the Titanic because it has many things in it that would go against our beliefs and it is not historically correct.  Mike and I saw it in the theatre when it came out in 1997 but we were unsaved and not discerning at that point in our lives. 

 

 

 

So many lessons to be learned on true Biblical manliness when studying the Titanic.

 

 

 

Nothing Can Separate Us is a wonderful book on the life of Nan Harper.  She was a young child aboard the Titanic with her Godly father. It is a great book for the whole family but also for young children.

 

 

 

 

Oh yes, and The Heart of the Ocean!  Hannah did purchase this replica to wear for the dinner party she planned.

 

 

 

And because we love food, I felt it would be wrong of me not to show you what we made on New Year's Day morning ~  Eggs Benedict.

 

 

 

It truly was a night to remember!!!

 

 

 









   

Education vs. Schooling



Teaching Textbooks for math is our family favorite!

We have been educating our children their whole lives.  We brought our oldest daughter out of private school after kindergarten and 1st grade.  Officially, we have been educating our brood at home the last 9 years.  We believe that we are commanded by God to teach our own children.  When we began our journey of home education it was about sitting down in desks and doing school at home.  We had all the pretty curriculum and checked off all of the boxes as we completed our daily work.   We were even involved in a Christian Home School Co-op.  After 2 years of this we decided that it was not beneficial to our vision.  This is a wonderful recipe for Mama and children burnout!  After doing this the first couple of years I was stressed and I didn't know how I would have time to grow our garden, keep up managing our home, preparing nutritious meals, nurturing the newest baby and do all of the school work too!  We have been blessed with 5 more babies since we started educating at home.  After talking with my husband and observing some very successful home educated families we decided that our garden would be our main focus of education for that entire spring, summer and fall.  Freedom and liberation!!  It was wonderful.  We watched our children learn more than ever before and they were enjoying it so much.  This kind of learning and living covered so many subjects.  They were learning math, reading, graphing, horticulture, health, cooking, canning, spelling, God's creation, journaling, and art just to name a few!!   For us this means that they are taught hands on every day skills that they will use their entire lives.  We do use some curriculum but we realize that there is no one size fits all.  We want to instill in them a love for learning and reading.  I know from my own experience of being "schooled" rather than educated it was a chore and not at all something to enjoy.  I had to ask myself ~Why as home educators do we think we have to emulate the school system when educating our children at home??  There is a better way!!  I learned to relax and enjoy learning with our children and not worry about grade levels and what school should look like.  Technically we have children in 10th, 7th, 4th, 2nd, 2 in 1st grade, a pre-schooler, and a baby.  We explain this to them so that when people ask them what grade they are in they don't feel awkward.  We do not start and stop "school".  Everything we do is part of their education.  We want to teach them different than the government school teaches.  This past year our 15 year old daughter did a family tree project using Ancestry.com.  She went back generations and we all learned a lot about our own family history.  She also had an interest in Egypt.  She did a 23 page report and a poster board on mummies!  All the younger ones wanted to do reports on various things too!  



We have loved Pathway Readers for years!

We want our children to be strong in the basics ~ reading, writing, and arithmetic.  But above all we want to walk beside them in everything to teach, train, and discuss God's Holy Word.  We have decided to stay away from extra curricular activities as this can cause much division in the family.  Running around taking our children to this event or this lesson or this sport is not what we see as growing their hearts toward our family.  We do music lessons that enable our children to serve our church, nursing homes, etc.  For the most part we focus our education around our home and farm.  We have watched our children thrive.  If you have ever considered bringing your children home to teach them please watch  the documentary, Indoctrination - Public Schools and the Decline of Christianity in America.  It is eye opening.  We love the blessing of teaching and training our children in the protection of our home.