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Looking for adventure, homeschool encouragement, and advice? You'll find it all in the new April 2012 issue of The Old Schoolhouse� Magazine
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Come Do Your Homework with TOS.
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We (the whole family) just love reading The Homeschool Minute .
While we always love and value what the ladies have to say on the various topics, we just LOVE what Familyman Todd Wilson has to say about "keeping it real". He's always very refreshing and keeps us in stitches. Please pass along the thanks to him!
Homeschooling for 11 years and loving it.
--The Szymanski Family
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I'm bawling this morning. I know lack of sleep is part of it. But this Homeschool Minute is great. I have to confess to you that I nearly didn't open it. The last time the Homeschool Minute addressed this issue, it made me feel inadequate and then just angry. I know I should have written to you then . . . .This issue is phenomenal. Thank you for addressing struggling readers in such an understanding way.
--Debra Brinkman, Yoder, CO
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This was JUST what I needed today. I'm sitting here crying over the first and last articles . . . I'm not sure I got past the tears in my eyes for the ones in between. (Okay, I just looked back, and they were advertisements I'd already had a chance to see the video of before, etc.).
Just had to touch base with you and say thank you. They usually don't tug at my heart quite this much, but these have somehow struck a chord with me today. I appreciate your
sending them.
Thank you so much. How timely! . . . You all work so hard year round to make our world such a better place! Thank you!! :))
--Beth Lilly, Bristol, PA
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The Old Schoolhouse� has MORE for you!
Check out these resources:
Who We Are:
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Enjoy This Wonderful
E-Book Straight from the Heart
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Take a look at what we have in the Schoolhouse Store!
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The Old Schoolhouse� Magazine
April 4, 2012
Art for the Art-Deficient Mom
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Greetings!
 | | Deborah Wuehler and family |
We just finished our annual Homeschool Project Fair, where children turn in projects in science, history, geography, crafts and skills, and more, and they are all judged or critiqued and given ribbons. More than all other categories, the fine arts category has the most entries. It seems that God reveals His creativity to us through His creation and children love to copy Him and display His creativity, whether in drawing, coloring, painting, sketching, or other art forms of many kinds. Too often, we squelch that natural bent.
When my older children were young, I did not realize how important art would be in their futures, but God did. I always had art supplies of many kinds, and I always let the kids be creative, but I put more emphasis on academics than art. It was messy (and still is), but I saw that they learned so many things through all the hands-on creativity. Only God knew that my oldest child would eventually end up as an art major, but I had no idea. So, by His direction, we became involved in a few art classes along the way, went to museums, entered contests, and met artists of many kinds. All of these things were involved in the shaping of my son's gifting from God, even though I was oblivious. Not all of the kids became artists, yet they all grew in art knowledge and appreciation.
Never underestimate the power of art in a child's life. It just might be their future. Our oldest son is receiving his AA from the junior college next month and in just a few months will be heading off to the university for his last two years in graphic arts and design.
Allow God to guide your homeschool path. After all, He knows your children and the giftings He has given them. Trust Him to direct you as you walk this path of obedience. Sometimes you don't know which activities you do with your children will ignite the flame of their future.
"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them." Ephesians 2:10
Enjoying God's workmanship!
~Deborah
TOS Senior Editor
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Advertisement
SchoolhouseTeachers.com Corner
April has brought new lessons, new teachers, new daily sections, and other additions to our SchoolhouseTeachers.com Library shelves! All five current 2011-12 Schoolhouse Planners are available for Ultimate Members to download! Are you ready to start planning for next year? Our 2012-13 Schoolhouse Planners will be available to our Ultimate Plan Members in July. If you have not used one of our Schoolhouse Planners before, you will discover that it is way more than merely a homeschool planner. At more than 800 pages, the Schoolhouse Planner is a household planner. And the forms are easily edited and customized to make it your planner! You can save it to your computer, print the whole planner, or print selected portions. If you have never used one of our Schoolhouse Planners, you will wonder why you never purchased one! Best of all, all five Schoolhouse Planners are available to all of our SchoolhouseTeachers.com Ultimate Members.
 Do you need to add quality art lessons to your homeschool? In our Schoolhouse Dailies section, we have added Everyday Easels to help you with the study of art, with practical hands-on lessons, reading, writing, and critical thinking processes. In April, students will create a color wheel and learn about primary and secondary colors. Students will also review fine art online, with your supervision. They will be asked to write their thoughts about the various pieces of art studied. And they will practice painting with watercolors and poster paints, plus learn about calligraphy. The Everyday Easels section has cross-curriculum ideas to help you teach art.
Interested in lapbooking but don't know where to start? In the Hands of a Child joins SchoolhouseTeachers.com this month. The company will provide weekly lessons and lapbooking templates to get you started. Up this month: a study about England, the site of this summer's Olympics. Whether you are a veteran or novice lapbooker, you'll love this approach to learning. Lapbooking combines fine-motor skills with learning facts about a subject in an interactive way for your students. When the lapbook is complete, it serves as a way to tangibly review what was learned.
Our SchoolhouseTeachers.com website is bursting with lessons and activity ideas in one place to make it easy for you to help your students learn.
Come do your homework with us!
Tami Fox
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Read Diana Waring HERE soon!
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Diana Waring
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Diana Waring, The Old Schoolhouse� Magazine columnist and SchoolhouseTeachers.com history teacher will soon be writing for The Homeschool Minute. Diana is author of Beyond Survival, Reaping the Harvest and the History Revealed curriculum published by AiG. She discovered years ago that "the key to education is relationship." Beginning in the early 80s, Diana homeschooled her children through high school--providing real-life opportunities to learn how kids best learn. Mentored by educators whose focus was to honor Him who created all learners, and with an international background (born in Germany, a university degree in French, a lifelong student of world history), Diana has been enthusiastically received by audiences on four continents.
~~~ Until Diana Waring joins us, veteran homeschool parents will be filling in for her. This week's article is by Amanda Jones. Amanda is a homeschooling mother of four blessings and devoted wife to Anthony. The family serves as missionaries in the United States and abroad through their web ministry and various facilitating projects. Amanda writes weekly on matters of faith and Christian growth at both KOGMissions.org and faithfulhomeschool.blogspot.com. Her greatest joy is serving the Lord and loving her family with all her heart!  | | Amanda Jones |
Art for the Art-Deficient Mom By Amanda Jones When God created the universe and everything in it, He was, in effect, an artist. Then He created man in His image . . . an artist! I know some of you may not feel like artists, but we all are, in one way or another. It is seeing art in its simplest form . . . and unlocking artistic ability in every form. When my children were young, we always had a collage box. It was filled with all sorts of things: pieces of yarn and ribbon, buttons, paper and fabric scraps, milk jug lids, toilet paper tubes, old magazines and parts of silk flowers, even finds from nature walks--you name it! I also set up an area just for the kids, with piles of construction paper, glue, and scissors. I encouraged them to create pictures using the miscellaneous supplies. I usually stayed out of their way and let them create. Sometimes I would give them a specific focus, such as "Glue things that are brown on your paper," "Create a self-portrait," or "Design a treehouse." Their imagination was their only limit, and it didn't matter if things weren't in the right place (eyes where the nose should be or a roof upside down); all that mattered was that they were creating. It may not sound like much for the art-deficient mom, but it actually unlocks creativity in children. And if you let it, it unlocks creativity in parents as well. First, you need not to mind the mess and the massive amount of glue you might go through in a collage corner. It also helps not to see a collage montage as random nonsense, but rather to look at each creation through your child's eyes. You can do this by saying things like, "Tell me about your picture" instead of the usual question, "What is that?" which can be offensive to a young child. Or you can compliment the seemingly mundane: "That is an interesting way to use blue string! What made you decide to do it that way?" You'll begin to see the beauty in all of your child's creations. Older kids like collage corners too, and their supplies can include scraps of wood, hammers, and nails, with paint on the ready. For more directed ideas, try FamilyFun.com or Crayola.com. Remember, we are all artists because God created us that way!
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TOS Announcement
A Gift for Military Families
A SchoolhouseTeachers.com Ultimate Membership
Click to watch video.
U.S. military families, homeschooling or considering it, will receive access to a members-only website with unlimited access to daily resources, daily recipe calendar, This Day in History Calendar, and more! Expert teachers in various subject areas like geography, history, home economics, literature, music/voice, and technology provide weekly, daily, and/or monthly lessons plus daily recipe and history calendars. Normally $64.26, yours free as a thank you for your service to our county.
Come do your homework with us!
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The Familyman
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Todd Wilson
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Todd Wilson, Familyman Ministries
Truth: Not all homeschool moms are created equal. Some like math, some don't - some are organized, some aren't - some love art projects and crafts, some despise them. My wife is in the latter group and often feels like a failure because she doesn't do fun, creative art projects with her children.
Fortunately, she has me to remind her of all her other great qualities (which are many) and remind her of the truth. The way I see it is if God had wanted OUR children to do cool art projects all the time, He would have made HER to like art.
Let me apologize on behalf of homeschool leaders everywhere for having given you false information and guilting you into thinking that good homeschooling moms should do art. It's not true. Your kids will be just fine if you skip that subject altogether.
Now, having said that, let me add that we have an art kid who spends most of his days drawing. He was made that way, so my wife has fed that passion, not by doing art projects with him but by getting him the tools he needs to develop that gift and by encouraging him in it. She's bought him art books, drawing pads, and computer software.
That's what homeschooling is all about: finding the gifts within your children and helping them pursue them. It's not about teaching what WE like anyway . . . but about what they like and are created to be.
So don't sweat art if art isn't your thing; they'll figure it out on their own if it's meant to be their thing. And, most importantly, don't feel guilty.
Be real,
Todd
P.S. Have a wonderful Resurrection Sunday! He is risen!
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Upcoming classes:
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4/19/2012
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Child of God: 5 Steps to Educational Success for Students with ADHD or Asperger's
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Announcement
Creation Revolution
Since evolutionists believe that humans evolved, they long to answer the question of when and how man first began to walk upright, freeing his hands for other things. Compare and contrast the evolutionist's view of man and his development with the biblical view in the article "When Did Humans Start Walking Upright?"
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Contest Corner
For the month of April, 2012
Twisted Fish Card Game
Twisted Fish is a fun card game. The cover says that it guarantees "outrageous fun every game!" It is truly a high-adventure game that your family will enjoy. Designed for ages 6 and up, this game is best played with three to six players. Inside the box are the Twisted Fish cards, the rules sheet, and a surprise toy. All you need is a small table for the deck of cards.
Twisted Fish is similar to the original "go fish" game. Each player begins with a few cards. The goal is to get a "full basket," which is a complete set of cards of the same Twisted Fish character in each of the colors (red, green, blue, yellow, and purple). Each player asks another player for a specific color and character. For example, player A might have a purple clownfish and asks player B for a yellow clownfish. If player B doesn't have it, then player A draws a card from the Fish Pond.
That's the easy way to play! Twisted Fish also has Zinger cards. They have great names, like "No Fishing" and "The Dead Scuba Diver." You can use them at any time. They have different purposes. Sometimes you can use the Zinger to see a card in another player's hand. If you don't play the Zinger and you still have it in your hand when a player has played all of his cards, then it is a negative 25 points. Ouch! At the end of the game, the players count up the points that they have from the full baskets and deduct the cards that remain in their hands. This is when the older children in your family can use their logic skills. Some characters are worth five points each, and others are worth 10 points each. Hopefully, the older children will learn that there is a number advantage to trying for a full basket of a 10-point fish. (...)
Win this resource for your family!
TO ENTER:
Email Deb (SeniorEditor@TheHomeschoolMagazine.com) with your name, mailing address, and phone number, for contact purposes, with the subject line "Twisted Fish" for a chance to win* this great resource!
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