PrincipledMom™

Ms. Rosalie Slater, prolific author and crusader for the cause of Christ, passed away on February 17, 2006. As I celebrated my Earth-coming, she celebrated her homecoming. I definitely think she got the better deal.

She has been inspirational to thousands who seek to lead a life of Christian self-government. Her teaming with Ms. Verna Hall to restore America's Christian heritage (including the writing of the "Red Books") is an invaluable contribution to America in particular, and the body of Christ in general.

Many will have more eloquent and meaningful words to say than I, but she has forever changed my life, and subsequently, the lives of my children. I never met her, but her writings and FACE have impacted me in ways I can never repay, except to pass on what I have learned. She was a true stateswoman and Kingdom citizen and she will be greatly missed. She has run her race and has now passed the baton to each of us. Let us carry on her work in our own sphere of enfluence. That would be the greatest way we can honor her life and the work she began. We have a long way to go to restore America's Christian heritage, but together we can finish the race she began.

And thinking of heaven always gets me thinking about what everyone's up to. I'd like to think she's chatting with George Washington and Noah Webster, worshipping alongside Isaac Watts or sitting at the feet of Jesus and looking into the face of the one she so adores. What a wonderful way to spend eternity.

You can read a brief eulogy at the Foundation for American Christian Education. If you are so inlcined, please contribute to Developing and Preserving the Christian History Library.

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It's fun and easy to make your own math manipulatives. There's no need to invest lots of money in these fun math helps. You can whip lots of these up in an afternoon, mostly with stuff you have around the house, and it's fun to get the whole family involved. (These items can keep preschoolers busy too!) Decide what you really need, not just what your math program says you need. Then get busy and make your own alternatives to the pricey manipulatives.

• Money for counting. Make change at your bank. For $5, which is about the same cost as the plastic coins from the teacher store, your kids can get the feel of making real change. Or let them count their piggy bank.
  lacing cards. You can recycle cereal boxes or large plastic lids. Cut into the shape you want and punch holes all around the edges. Use an old shoelace and let them go to town.
• buttons, macaroni, beans, bottlecaps, candy pieces or anything small can be used for counting, sorting, predicting and quantitative measurements. Mini muffin tins are great with these. You can also use these for simple math operations, like adding and subtracting.
• Make your own place value sheet on a paper divided into place values with a marker (in "landscape" position). They can lay the beans or candy pieces in the proper place value.
• Color rigatoni or other large pasta with a little alcohol and food color. Lay them out to dry and then use some twine or yarn to string them together. (A little tape around the end like a shoelace will make stringing easier.) You can teach patterns and fine motor skills.
• I found a small food scale at the dollar store. This is great for predicting and comparing amounts.
  Use your measuring cups and spoons to measure all sots of things.
• I also got a ruler at Wal-Mart for 50 cents. And a fabric tape measure for a dollar. Kids love to compare and predict measurements. T-charts are simple for recording their results.
• Make your own flash cards. There are free programs online or you can get out your markers and index cards and have a great time creating your own. You can make silly word problems too.
• Another fun idea is to get two large tubs. Fill one with uncooked rice and use different size containers to see how many it takes to move the rice from one tub to another. Little kids really like to scoop the rice. You can keep preschoolers busy for a long time with some fun tools like a big spoon and a cup or some sand box tools.

Does your family have any fun, homemade manipluatives? Let me in on it!

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We use Ray's Arithmetic at our house and I love it. We started with it (except for a little trial of Saxon a year ago), so dd doesn't know anything else. I found a review of Ray's that summed it up a lot better than I could. Even if you don't use Ray's there are still helpful things to know below.

In James Rose's A Guide to American Christian Education, James Kilkenny lists things to consider when buying math resources (P. 249-250).
1. Statement of principles and rules. Ray's Practical Arithmetic says
Every principle is clearly explained by an analysis or solution of a simple example from which a rule is devised. The application of the rule to the solution of problems of gradually increasing difficulty completes the presentation of the subject.
The exercises have been constructed with a view to affording the mental discipline necessary to strengthen the reasoning power and to giving the pupil a mastery over the problems that are sure to present themselves in the common walks of life.
Ray's method is to explain a principle, analyze the principles, derive a rule and assign exercises to which the principles and rules may be applied (p. 249).

2. Overall organization
The logical organization of an arithmetic course is:
I. Skills of counting
A. Oral
B. Written (notation and numeration)
C. Operations
II. Categories of Application
A. Counting individual objects or individual groups
B.Counting equal parts
C. Counting units of measure
3. Are scripture references inherent to arithmetic?
Is the Scriptural foundation and use of the subject identified, or are the Scriptural references tacked onto each chapter as a pious exercise that bears little or no relationship to the nature of the subject? The teacher should do his own study of the Scriptural origin and purpose of the subject so that he will be able to intelligently apply this standard (p. 250).

What if you have already invested in another math curriculum? Mr. Kilkenny states:
"...the teacher who understands the organization of arithmetic can pick and choose useful exercises and statements of principle from books that fail to measure up to standards one and two."

Things I personally love about Ray's:

• Lots of story problems in real settings gets them used to thinkning of math in a practical way from the beginning.
• Customizable for each child. Their are guidelines in the teacher's manual, but you are free to go as slowly or as quickly as you like because it is not broken down by grade.
• It is gentle. In the beginning children focus on oral math and manipulatives. The focus in early math is not to get them writing numbers, but to get them to understand the concepts.
• Manipulatives are great in the early stages.
• The grammar is excellent. The ecthings are beautiful. It's a fun book to read--well, as much as a math book is fun to read.
• It's really afforadable. For less than $100 I have a curriculum for all kids K-8. They also offer higher math for high school. I can use buttons and other household items as manipulatives (for another post).
• It has a track record. This curriculum has proven itself for generations. Because the principles of math do not change, I do not need the most current trend in math. Ray's is a simple, no bells and whistles kind of program.
• You can also get Ray's in CD form. For $67 you can get your entire curriculum for all grades, including higher math.

Or you can get the book version from Mott Media. They also offer workbooks that follow their books for extra drills.

While FACE officially recommends another math program, they have endorsed Ray's in the past and offer Ray's from their site. I also recommend FACE's Mathematics Curriculum Guide. It's full of helpful information, suggested scope and sequence and help for discovering and applying Biblical principles.

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Tomorrow is my birthday. I will be 19486952 years old. (you didn't really think I'd tell you, do you?) I'm posting today to get it out of the way. And if you'd like to send some happy thoughts my way I'd be humbly grateful.

Every year I look back on the last 12 months and review my life. Was I as kind as I should have been? Did I do everything I feel God wanted me to? Was I the best mom and wife I could have been? Did I make other's lives better? The answer to these is probably not, at least not all the time. But I made the effort.

I did make someone's life better. I listened to my husband's concerns over his job and laughed with him over silly jokes. I spent time with both of my grandmothers. I home educated my children. I reached out to a great group of kids and together we touched heaven with our prayers. It is these little threads that form the tapestry that is my life. I hope that with the added years comes a depth to the weave that wasn't there before.

The Lord, in His Providence, brought me through another year of life. I hope that this year will be even more glorifying to Him than this one was. Then I will truly have a happy birthday.

I should have you all send my mom a card because she did all the work. If it weren't for her I wouldn't be here. Thanks mom!

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The book I am using for science is from the 1180's, entitled The Child's Book of Nature by Dr. Worthington Hooker. My volume is three books in one that I got on eBay. It contains botany, zoology and light heat and air, etc. The title page says "... for the use of families and schools intended to aid mothers and teachers in training children in the observation of nature."

I want to give you a peek into his books because it is a gentle science text that your kids will love. It is from a Christian/creationist perspective, so God is glorified throughout. And the writing is eloquent, so I enjoy reading it just for that. Let me give you an example.

Sample of Botany Chapter 1: Our Love for Flowers
Everybody likes flowers. We like them wherever we see them. How pleasant they are to our eyes as we see them in the garden! How their various colors please us as we look along the borders! Some are red, some are white, some are blue, and some are yellow. All these different colors, mingled with the fresh green leaves, make a feast for our eyes....
It was in a garden that Adam and Eve were placed. While they were innocent and pure God surrpounded them with beautiful things, because he loved them so much. Before they sinned they lived among the flowers and trees of the garden of Eden. It was more beautiful than any garden that has been since that time. It was so beautiful that God would not let Adam and Eve stay in it after they had sinned.
Some of the chapter titles in the botany book include:

• Our love of flowers
• What live on flowers
• The sap in leaves
• The leaves in autumn
• Lfe in the seed
• What seeds are for
• Leaf-buds
• what roots are for
• the bark of trees and shrubs
• the wood in trees and shrubs
• circulation of the sap

This year-long study of plants will give your child a wonderful understanding of botany--why we need to study plants and the wonderful way God created them to function. And it goes from whole to parts, making it easy for children to understand. It begins with what you see and small and then moves to what you cannot see. Biblical principles are also easy to identify and highlight. And I cannot stress enough how this book, with its gentle approach to learning, excites your children to learn without overwhelming them with information. It's one of my favorite books to use. (You can see some lessons we have done ubder my "science" heading" and in "general lesson plans".)

This book also lends itself very well to notebooking, with its reasoning questions at the end of each chapter. The subject matter makes it so easy to develop notebook ideas that kids love to do.

Ms. Katherine Dang has a $10 supplement that follows Dr. Hooker's books, with experiements and the like. You can contact her for more info (it's not listed on her site but you can e-mail her about it). I recommend it.

Dr. Hooker also has written volumes on chemistry, natural history, philosophy and more. He has a small bio here. He is known as the "Father of American Medical Ethics."

I am so happy with this gentle study of the sciences. Princess G begs to study from this book every day (no joke) and she loves for me to read to her from it. She has learned a lot about flowers and I look forward to seeing what she has learned at the end of the year.

You can see some for sale on eBay here. There is a new reprint in softcover you can see there. (I have an origianl 1888 three-in-one edition in good shape that I love.) Or you can get reprints from the publisher here.

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