| ~ HOME LIFE NEWS ~ | Vol. 8, No. 2 |
Greetings!
By now, you all should be started back in the (usually!) welcome grind of the educational year. Whether you have older students, younger students or everything in between, you will have all the joys and sorrows associated with growth and change. Look in these words. You are not alone. HomeLife Academy is here to help you!
Thank you for reading, and thank you for all that you do for your children!Sincerely, Katie Johnson |
 |
Little House in the Big Woods:
Birthplace of Laura Ingalls Wilder
By Karen Johnson 
Based closely on her experiences as a pioneer girl in the mid-to-late 1800's, Laura describes places and activities that are not part of our world anymore. Recently going on a road trip to every home location that was part of the Ingalls' journey, I found an adventuresome spirit and appreciation for the sacrifices made by pioneers that Laura surely wished to invoke when she began writing the Little House books.
First published in 1932, Little House in the Big Woods introduces us to the Ingalls family living in the woods of Pepin, Wisconsin around 1870. Close by are grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Laura describes pioneer activities such as butchering the fall hog and preparing for winter, sugaring off to make syrup, the animals living nearby and the daily duties she observed from Pa and Ma.
 | | LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE: The Legacy of Laura Ingalls Wilder |
Written for younger readers, this book is both informative and fun. It is beneficial for children to become introduced to different times, to find the similarities and differences from their life to ours. Visiting Pepin this summer, seeing the land that Pa owned and looking at the view Laura woke up to each morning was a heartwarming experience. 150 years ago, a family lived, worked, and loved there. The work might have been different than what we do today, but the love for their family was just as strong. Actually standing in that spot, it was much easier to imagine Ma hanging out the wash, Laura and Mary playing under their trees in the summer, and the closeness a family develops when in a single room. It shows us that many things we deem as crucial now really aren't that crucial at all. Love for our family, hard work, and sacrifice continue to be the cornerstones of our society, and that was reiterated to me in a small cabin in the Big Woods of Wisconsin. |
|
"I'm curious. How did you get led to homeschooling?" : by Katie Johnson
 One of my duties as the Communications lady for HLA is to maintain the school's Facebook page. Honestly, it's my favorite part of the job. I love feeling so connected to the parents and the students we are serving, and to be available as much as possible to answer questions. Above all that, though, is how much I love it when I get the chance to ask YOUR opinions, to see how you think. HomeLife Academy serves families the world over, and you all have such different goals and perspectives. I can post a status on our facebook page and get a hundred comments, all original and interesting. I'm a people person. I like hearing how people think, figuring out how they tick.On August 10, I posted this very simple status on the Facebook page: "I'm curious. How did you get led to homeschooling?" I wasn't expecting the reaction it received. In every way, I wasn't prepared. Now, I would like to share with you the answers my silly status garnered. I hope you are as inspired, saddened, intrigued, and blessed as I was. ~Jenn Price: I was pregnant with #3 and someone gave us a box of homeschool books. We were not busy with much else so we tried it and it worked so well we were sold! That was 12 yrs ago. ~Anya Gullino: After three months of school my daughter's teacher couldn't remember her name. She was only in the 2nd grade. ~Crystal Marie Cole: My son's Autistic and the special education program leaves much to be desired. That and mainly I don't want to knowingly send my children into a place God is not welcomed. ~Tammie Gibson: My friend whose daughter is a couple of years older than mine started telling me about hs-ing when my daughter was a baby. I found the idea weird and had no intention of doing it. My friend proceeded to send me every hs-ing catalog, etc, that exists. By the time my child was 4 years old I was a totally brainwashed, diehard homeschooler! ~Maria Arthur: Our daughter was born with a large tumor on her nose & upper lip called a hemangioma. Children were frightened by her appearance so we decided to wait until after her first few surgeries to enroll her in a private Christian School for pre-kindergarten. She attended this school for 5 years but unfortunately the children did not embrace her differences as we had hoped. She was stabbed with a pencil, bitten in her back and told to scream at the top of her lungs, "I am beautiful" on the playground by a classmate. No one wanted to sit next to her during lunch and chapel time. She was the child chosen last and in fact, there were several instances where she was not chosen at all. Once the teacher noticed her sitting alone she was delegated to a team that didn't want her. We noticed alarming changes in her personality and self esteem and decided to homeschool. Here it is 9 years and 11 facial reconstructive surgeries later and our daughter will graduate high school in 2012. We cannot believe our homeschool journey is coming to an end. Our daughter scored so well on her ACT, qualified for some scholarships and plans to attend MTSU Honor College Classes. Homeschooling has been such a tremendous blessing to our family and we could not have done it with HomeLife Academy. Thank you. ~Sage Miles Dimond: I was listening to James Dobson on a radio show talking about homeschooling before I even had kids. I decided that day to homeschool my kids. Now I have 5 children and I've always homeschooled, and by the Grace of God, I always plan to. ~Carla Randall: My husband and I were just tired of the morals and values we believe in being compromised everyday. We started homeschooling our oldest when she was in 5th grade. She graduated in May 2010 and belonged to Who's Who Among American High School Students. Our youngest is starting high school this year and I can not imagine what I would do without Home Life Academy. Our youngest has major test anxiety and the fact that she does not have to do "official" tests makes this much more enjoyable. Thanks HLA!!!! ~Nicki McCrary Burleson: My daughter has 2 auto-immune conditions one of which has left her with no hair. That was the first reason for looking at homeschooling. She has a shy personality and would not adapt well in a school environment when she looked different from everyone else. I didn't want her to associate learning with trying to fit into a group. After I started to research, my list of reasons continued to grow! We just started kindergarten with her and I know we made the right decision. Our community has a wonderful homeschool support group with every activity imaginable. My husband has also become convinced this was the way to go. Thanks HomeLife! ~Iaci Flanders: The Lord! Only He could have opened my eyes to do it! He have me His vision for our family. Now, I thank Him every day!!! ~Karen Ramey Sutton: I was homeschooled, as were my 3 siblings. I thought I'd "never" homeschool my children. But when my oldest was going to start kindergarten there was no other option. The public schools where we lived at the time were horrible and I had many friend already homeschooling. It was a natural choice. Since then we've moved to TN and kept homeschooling. I'm glad we have the freedom to do it and even though there are days I wish I could "stick my kids on the bus". I know they are getting the training they really need to equip them for this world. ~Shelly Baynes Langley: After a very TRYING and frustrating 1st semester of 5th grade in public school for my daughter and myself, I began to explore and research our options. Private school was out of reach. We had once before thought about home ed before our child started school. We started praying about it and by March I felt like the good Lord had led us to this decision without a shadow of a doubt. That was 3 years ago. My daughter who loved school and learning, was hating school and learning by the end of 5th grade. My only regret is making her finish that year. I wish I had taken her out when I realized the difficulty she was enduring every single day. We kept saying to ourselves and to her.. you will have to learn to deal with adversity in your adult life... this was a bad mistake for my husband and I. If I had known then what I know now, we would have taken her out the 2nd week of school that year. She went from being behind in Math and hating it, to ahead and liking it again. Not love, but we are getting there! By Christmas we are expecting to be done with Algebra I in her 8th grade year. If you haven't visited our Facebook page before, please do. You never know what might be talked about and how you can contribute.  |
|
|
Coming this Christmas Home Life Academy is releasing our all inclusive online grade reporting system that will be available in the Member Login FREE with your annual membership. Come back soon to see more info and a sneak peak of some additional features in AppleCore that are sure to put a smile on your face!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
