PrincipledMom™

We have been studying the Brothers Grimm and their literature. I said I would post some info about them so here you go. This was enough info for us. She's only 7 and we don't need a week or two of biographical info. We talked about them and then read many of their stories and discussed them. We have a nice copy of their stories on our home bookshelf with lots of beautiful illustrations.

Interactive online stories from the Grimm brothers here.
Long list of their stories with their original endings (which are not always kid-friendly) here.
Coloring page of the Grimm brothers here.
Chronology available here.
Biographies with a picture here.
If you have a girl into Cinderella you can see this page for info on Cinderella stories from around the world.

I used God's Principle of Individuality for our foundational principle here. Authors so easily demonstrate this principle that I use it often in literature.

Princess G enjoyed their stories a lot and we had fun reading them together.

One of the things I thought was most interesting about their lives was when they were young men making plans to follow in their father's footsteps and become lawyers. God's Providence worked in their lives and they took jobs at a library to support the family and the rest is "His Story." They were around books all the time and saw the need to preserve their folk stories as a way of preserving their German heritage. They took on the task and became honored scholars who devoted their lives to preserving their country's literary individuality. Today their stories are known the world over and copies can be found in almost every language. What a terrific example of God's Providence!

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Along with the latest writings from Shannon, God has been revealing to me what it means to be internally governed. I have been listenening to a seminar by Ms. Katherine Dang and also going through the Rudiments of America's Christian History and Government with Mrs. Smith from Pilgrim Institute. They have meshed together so well for me. God is using both of these women to speak into my life in such a profound yet practical way. What I am talking about here is what God has revealed to me as I spend time in His word.

Shannon did a fantastic job of breaking down internal and external. For that I will leave you to her entry. What I want to deal with is specifically Christian self-government, which is the intent and the expression of Christ's government.

God moves progressively with His people. First we had the Old Covenant, with it's commandments, ceremonies and celebrations. God sent the Law to help man. Adultery, sabbath rest and dietary restrictions were all external government that man needed. But God had a more excellent way.

In the fulfillment of the Law, Jesus came with His government--Christian self-government. He fulfilled the Law and he established a New covenant, one that requires more than simple behavioral compliance. Now He requires an internal control. In the Old Covenant man was not to commit adultery. In the New to look on a woman with lust was to commit adultery. In the Old Covenant one was not to have any other gods before Him. In the New we are to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Grace, internal government, is much more difficult to maintain than mere outward obedience. Now He is looking on the heart.

This new Kingdom Christ came to establish is that of Christian self-government, or self-government under the Lordship of Christ. He rules from our hearts, from the inward to the external. And since God is love, the more we become like Him the more love constrains, controls, rules us.

Mar 12:30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all
thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first
commandment.
Mar 12:31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love
thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

When He said that there were the two great commandments, they were both love. So that love, the love that is Christ, will control us. We will put God first, share the Gospel freely, care for the poor and orphaned, pray for the sick and more. Our needs will become irrelevant to us (and liberally met by God) as we seek first His kingdom.

Self-government will increase when we apply these love commands. If I view everything in the light of these two commandments, then I will always be exercising Christian self-control. It has to be the love of Christ that helps me because in myself I have no love to give. I am selfish and self-seeking. I must have His love to control me, to restrain me.

If I can show my children how those two commandmants hold the keys to Christian self-government, they can increase Christian self-government in their own lives and see the fruit of self-control flourish in their hearts.

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Last week was fun but not terribly eventful. We worked on our books in art class (aren't my girls cute?). I love making books so this was really fun. (see the principle in the lesson).

In our other subjects it went like this:

Bible
Principle: Moses was a servant leader.
continued our Moses as leader discussion. We talked about the diagrams from JBC showing the difference betweeen leaders and rulers. This was funny to me because I planned the lessonbefore I read the text in JBC about this subject. When I read what they said and it was the same as what I said I got very excited. I was on the right track! (see last week's post on "simon says"). So we talked about the difference between "leaders" and "servant leaders". That was interesting. Miiko's blog is also a terrific resource for JBC help week to week. She's really inspiring!

Math
Principle: Multiplication came out of God.
We have a Menu Math from Scholastic and she really likes those exercises. We are also continuing our lessons on multipication. We discussed again the principle that multiplication came out of God, not just from Him. He is mathematical in mature and He is a God of multiplication (see one of the many verses describing Him as a multiplier). We are working through a multiplication table. We also did a fun outdoor activity. I wrote lots of nubers out on the patio with chalk. I called out a multiplication equation and she had to work the answer in her head and then jump on the answer. We play this game for different math facts and she really likes the physical activity of it.

We also started economics each Wednesday. Just gentle learning about rudiments of economics. The first week we defined "economics", "Christian economics" and "American Christian economics." Last week we talked about needs vs. wants. (Matt. 6:31-34) She wrote: My needs come from God. They are food, clothes and shelter. He also provides my wants through prayer and hard work. She reasoned this from the scripture passage and some passages in Proverbs about work.

I am loosely following the section on economics in Mr. Rose's A Guide to American Christian Education. She has her own business (her newsletter) and she is very interested in economics so we added a small component each week to answer her questions.

History: We combined it with Bible last week.

Geography
Principle: Geography is the stage for His Story.
We talked about lakes. There are three types: mountain lakes, lakes in plains and salt lakes (from Guyot's Physical Geography). She reasoned that they get water three ways (my own part of the lesson): rain, springs and rivers. She drew examples of these for her notebook. We looked at examples of lakes in the Bible (like the lakes Jesus sailed and calmed and Peter walked on.

English
Principle: God gave us whole language from the beginning.
She is defining five subheadings of English: orthography, etymology, prosody, syntax and composition. We will try to get to at least three of these each week, putting prosody more on the back burner for now (more passive activities) and focusing more on orthography,etymology and composition. She is adding these to her little definitions flap book.

Literature
Principle: God's Principle of Individuality
The Brothers Grimm and their fairy tales are on tap. Their lives are interesting (but who isn't, really?) and I found some fun things related to them and their tales. I'll list them in another post so you can visit them if you are interested.

Along with preparing lessons I am also listening to Katherine Dang's seminar on "The First Things to Learn and Teach" about the BPA and how to apply it to home education. It has been amazing. I'm also slowly working through Ruth Smith's Rudiments Course. That has also been wonderful. My brain is so full! I still have so much work to do to renew my mind to the Christian idea of man and government. But I have come a long way and can't imagine looking at life any other way.

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We often discuss God's Principle of Individuality. It comes up a lot. (Did I mention a LOT?) It is the foundational principle from which all other principles arise. I love to talk about it. I love to talk about it with a 7 year-old. I love to look for it like treasure. But Monday we stumbled upon it quite by accident.

We were in our JBC studying about Moses this week. We were reading through the text when we came to the part about Moses in the wilderness:
Exo 2:16 Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters: and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father's flock.
Exo 2:17 And the shepherds came and drove them away: but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock.
Exo 2:18 And when they came to Reuel their father, he said, How is it that ye are come so soon to day?
Exo 2:19 And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew water enough for us, and watered the flock.

I had to stop right there. I had not noticed this before. Why did the women think Moses was Egyptian? He was Hebrew. It doesn't say he told them. This was very interesting, so we had to reason for a moment. Why would they think he was Egyptian and not a Hebrew? she reasoned four answers:

• his language (the way he spoke)
• his appearance (his clothing and hair)
• his name (given from the Pharoah's daughter)
• his mannerisms (uniquely his as he was raised Egyptian with his Hebrew mother in his youth)

I thought there were great reasons that she discovered. The women were looking at his outward individuality and making a judgement about where he was from and how he was raised. And we had to bring it around to God's Principle of Individuality.

Individuality is of utmost importance to God. I am learning more about this from Ms. Katherine Dang and will share more insights on socialism and individuality later.

I was glad we were able to take this small side trip on our journey through godly leadership this week. We will see how this contributes to Moses' leadership later in the week.

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