PrincipledMom™

Just an update on the activities at our house. We watched a lot of coverage that morning. I pointed out different officials to Gabrielle, who kept asking when we could go play. We discussed voting and how important this day was in our representative form of government. We also discussed how leaders were shown respect and the etiquette of the day in general, which she thought was pretty cool. So we stood when the crowd did and bowed our heads in prayer to feel more a part.

The parade followed lunch, and then she drew a picture of the day from her perspective. We estimated and then timed the speech and the swearing in and recorded those in her notebook.For dinner we dressed in our Sunday best and had dinner by candlelight: "chicken a la Italia" on a bed of white rice, steamed broccoli and chocolate cake with a dusting of powdered sugar. (The menu I quickly printed up also went into her notebook.) We ended the evening with dancing in the great room to a selection of classical favorites (a local classical station). All in all I think it was a great success.

Keep in mind that I woke up that morning with no inaugural plans. I just thought as I was getting out of bed that it would be fun to do some inaugural day stuff instead of our daily lessons. I grabbed my Bible and researched some principles and then just created a fun day from there. I spent a total of 30 minutes planning everything. Nothing fancy or overprepared, just a day of fun with what we had on hand. I just don't want you to think that this had been planned for weeks. I'm not that good!

I didn't make frosting, I made the cake from scratch because I had no mix (Or I would have done it that way!) and the little flags they carried at the parade were flag stickers that my husband's label company created and we had on hand. The costumes we already had on hand and the parade floats were just crepe paper streamers tied to our strollers. The menu was printed in Word in 5 minutes on my computer (one page of cardstock cut in 1/2). But they day was a lot of fun. I share all of this to let you know that it wasn't perfect. I would have liked to make it a lot fancier but the girls had so much fun that it didn't matter. Anything else would have just been for me, to make me feel better. But I think it was just right. They still talk about how much fun that day was. And that's why I homeschool--to share these moments with my children and to pass on these Biblical Principles and values.

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Dr. Carole Adams, Executive Vice President of the Foundation for American Christian Education (and editor of the Noah Plan), was gracious enough to participate in a phone interview with Elijah Company's Chris Davis last night. Some interesting things happened during that phone call that I thought I'd share. I also want to share some of the things I gleaned from her conversation with Chris.I was really looking forward to this call because you don't often get the chance to hear from someone of her position. I had my pencil and paper out and was ready to soak up everything she had to say.

As the conversation progressed I'm embarassed to say I thought to myself, This sounds just like their Web site. I've heard all this before. I read that in this book here and read that in this book here. Then I got excited. As with learning a foreign language, there comes a point where you hear natives speaking in a conversation and you realize you can understand them. WOW! I actually understood what Dr. Adams was saying. It made sense to me and was comfortable and familiar.I realized that with God's help I have truly begun to transform my thinking. The Holy Spirit is retooling my philosophy of education and I "get it" more than I thought I did. That was almost an epiphany for me. I was more convinced more than ever when I listened to Dr. Adams speak that I am using the right form of education for my family. She inspired me to continue in my pursuit of excellent education.She said many inspiring things in her conversation and a few stand out to me, even now.

• On the Hebrew idea of education: The Hebrews made knowledge sweet for their children. They enjoyed the sweetness of studying Divine Truth. They were liberated to God's method of learning in order to possess it.
• On teaching your children with the Principle Approach: you discover the uniqueness of your child and tailor education to make the best expression of learning. (That is definitely what I'm working to do right now.)
• God's methods of learning:
  Recurring principles form a unity of truth
  Break apart each subject and find the truths within
  Not focused on content or rote facts
• Use of Providential history
• 4 R'ing is a natural way of learning, not a formula that must be followed. Researching, reasoning, relating and recording are a natural progression as one seeks to master a subject.

She also discussed at great length the history of the Red Books and the Principle Approach Philosophy. I didn't include that here because you can get that from their Web site and from the wealth of resources they offer. Chris will make this interview available on CD in the near future so you can contact Elijah Co. about it.

Thank you Dr. Adams, for your inspiration and challenge to provide my children with an excellent, Biblical education that embraces our unique American Christian heritage. You rock!

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We are studying Peale for the next two weeks. I was fascinated with him. He accomplished many things and led an intriguing life. Among the many things I discovered: He learned saddlemaking, painting, metalwork among other things. He was friends with many of the founding fathers and as a patriot bravely fought in the Revolutionary War. He had 17 children, 11 of whom lived (most of them he named after artists) and held the controversial position that a woman could be as creatively expressive as a man. He started the first natural science museums, a revolutionary idea for his time. He loved his family and his country. Here is how I developed our studies.I searched my library for resources and came across these (there are many more, including an autobiography on microfiche):

• The Ingenious Mr. Peale: Painter, Patriot and Man of Science by Janet Wilson
• This biography is short (120 pp. or so) but thorough. It gave me enough information to flesh out his life without getting bogged down in a lot of unnecessary information.
• Mermaids, Mummies and Mastodons: The Emergence of the American Museum published by the American Association of Museums Has an interesting timeline that documents the items procured for the different museums . Also contains sketches by his sons detailing the museums' interiors.
• The Joke's on George by Michael O. Tunnell This is a children's book detailing an true and funny incident when George Washington came to visit Peale at his museum in Philadelphia. This book really got me started on studying him more in-depth.

I also found more info on Peale online.

• Art Encyclopedia has links to many, many of Peale's works
• Virtual Museum of Art has a bio and links to lots of his art.
• "Your Garden Must be a Museum" article about Peale's love of God's creation and his care for it.
• Peale Family Papers on Microfiche
• CGFA online works by Peale, including some scientific works and self-portraits.

I discovered that one of my local museums also had some of his work. That was very exciting to me!

First I read through the biography of Peale and made notes on the following (according the the study outline in Dr. Rose's Guide): Key People in Peale's life, Key Events (in the form of a timeline), Key Institutions and Key Documents. I also kept a list of his character traits and insights as I went along.

From there I looked up key words in the Webster's 1828 Dictionary and then looked up those words in the Bible to discover the Principles I need to discuss. After I had done all of this I assembled samples of his work and then I felt I had a good grasp on just who Charles Willson Peale was.

All of this information helped me formulate my weekly plans. We will incorporate Peale in every subject these two weeks. Some things we have planned are:

• history study of his life.
• field trip to the Gilcrease Museum to see his work up close.
• creating a terrarium for science to study nature as Peale did in his own garden at Belfield.
• creating our own living history museum, complete with stuffed animals and local flora and fauna.
• We may "sell" tickets to family to come and tour our museum and see our hard work.
• Coloring pages, definitions and other examples of Gabrielle's work to file in her notebook. We will keep track of the four keys that we discover in our studies and document and color them.
• Copying Peale's art and discussing his influences and the attributes of his work
• We will still work on handwriting and mathematics each day and try to fit it with Peale as we can.

This is just to give you an idea of how PA works for me. We won't study in this way every time, that is, one single topic. I will begin to develop lessons in unit study fashion according to the Links on the Chain of Christianity. What I mean is we will study art, history, science and the other subjects that fit along the same link.

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