What I Wish Someone Had Told Me At The Beginning

Kim Kimble of the Hudson Valley, NY, in “What I Wish Someone Had Told Me at the Beginning”, sets out virtually everything a new-to-homeschooling parent might need to know.

What I Wish Someone Had Told Me At The Beginning

by Kim Kimble

When I first began home educating nearly 20 years ago I was very nervous. In part, this fear was because everyone was always so positive about home education that I sometimes felt like I was buying snake oil. I searched for the negatives and couldn’t find anyone to talk about them (well, other than the NEA, whom I didn’t trust anyway). This is — in as honest a form as I can say it — what I wish someone had told me. My advice to new homeschoolers is as follows, take from it what makes sense for your family and leave the rest.

1. Relax, have fun, enjoy each other. This is my one mandatory suggestion.

2. Be a facilitator. I make an effort not to be a teacher. Instead, I try to facilitate learning by providing resources, opportunities, information, materials, and sometimes suggestions. I also try to mentor, but I have been most successful when I have arranged for others to mentor my children on specific topics.

Read More:

http://www.homeschoolnewslink.com/blog/?p=836

Biblical Homeschooling, 6/2015

June, 2015

Monthly Meditation

“FOR HIS MERCY ENDURES FOREVER”

by Wayne S. Walker

     “Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good!  For His mercy endures forever” (Psalm 136:1).  In the New King James Version, Psalm 136 is headlined, “Thanksgiving to God for His Enduring Mercy.”  It mentions several things that God had done to deserve this thanks.  He created the heavens, the earth, the sun, the moon, and the stars.  Also, He brought the plagues upon Egypt, delivered Israel from bondage, overthrew Pharaoh in the Red Sea, led the people through the wilderness, slew the kings of Canaan, and gave Israel the promised land.  Then He remembered our lowly estate, rescued us from our enemies, and gives food to all flesh.  Each verse in the Psalm ends with the clause, “For His mercy endures forever.”

There was a time in the early days of the English speaking church, following Henry VIII’s break with Rome, when the primary musical expression of public worship was the singing of Psalms.  We still sing “All People That on Earth Do Dwell” from the Anglo-Genevan Psalter, and “The Lord’s My Shepherd, I’ll Not Want” from the Scottish Psalter.  Other writers have sought to express the sentiments of the Psalms in more literary terms, including Isaac Watts (“O God, Our Help in Ages Past”), Henry F. Lyte (“Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven”), and James Montgomery (“Hail to the Lord’s Anointed”).  But today we sing far more hymns and gospel songs than we do Psalms.

In the winter of 1623-1624, while living at his father’s house on Bread St. in London and learning his lessons at St. Paul’s School, the fifteen-year-old John Milton (1608-1674) produced a free rendering of Ps. 136 in 24 two-line stanzas, evidently for his own delight or for that of his father and teachers. Each of the stanzas ended with the couplet, “For His mercies aye endure, Ever faithful, ever sure.”  It was natural, considering his Puritan heritage, that he would turn to the Bible for his inspiration. The fact that he chose a Psalm to paraphrase shows that the Psalms were still the chief outlet for singing praise to God in his day.

Young Milton, the lyric poet, was just imitating his elders, but many feel that he did a better job than they did. The poem was not published until 1645 in his Poems, Both English and Latin.   Milton went on to become one of the most famous English authors of the 1600s with Paradise Lost in 1667 and Paradise Regained in 1671.  His version of Psalm 136 was never used as a hymn until 1855, when it was included in the Congregationalist Hymn Book.  It is not as popular as it once was, but it is still a great hymn.  “Let us with a gladsome mind, Praise the Lord for He is kind; For His mercies aye endure, Ever faithful, ever sure.”

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June, 2015

New Testament Stories My Daddy Told Me

THE EXORCISTS (Acts 19:11-20)

By Wayne S. Walker

     Several years ago there was a famous fictional horror movie entitled The Exorcist, but there is an even older true story in the Bible about some supposed exorcists.  While Paul was working and preaching in the city of Ephesus, God enabled the apostle to perform many unusual miracles by his hand.  People would bring handkerchiefs or aprons for Paul to touch and then take these objects to the sick.  The consequence was that their diseases left them and any evil spirits went out of them.

So some itinerant Jewish exorcists, seven sons of a Jewish chief priest named Sceva, tried to copy what Paul did.  They found a man with an evil spirit and said, “We exorcise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches.”  The evil spirit responded, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?”  Then the man who had the evil spirit leaped on the pretenders, overpowered them, and chased them out of the house.  This showed everyone that the power of Paul was truly from God, whereas the claims of power by these exorcists were false.

Ephesus was a center of occultic activity, and when this event became known, both Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus began to fear and to magnify the name of the Lord.  Many who had believed came and confessed their deeds.  Others who had practiced magic brought their books and burned them publicly.  The value of the books totaled fifty thousand pieces of silver.  These actions demonstrated repentance in turning away from false religious practices to the truth of Jesus Christ.  As a result, the word of God grew mightily and prevailed.

Questions

1. What did God enable Paul to do by his hands?
2. What kinds of objects did people take from Paul to the sick?
3. How many Jewish exorcists tried to copy what Paul did?
4. What did the evil spirit say to them?
5. What did the man who had the evil spirit do to them?
6. What did a lot of people who had magic books do with them?

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Children’s cartoon shows gay knight marrying older man

Watch out, parents! If your kids like to watch cartoons about medieval knights and dragons, just make sure that you’re careful about what they see on Hulu.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/media/2015/06/17/childrens-cartoon-shows-gay-knight-marrying-older-man

Paragon School, Gunnison, CO

6/2015

Paragon School, District 22, Gunnison, CO

In 1889, the legal voters and board members of District 22 met for the purpose of building and furnishing a schoolhouse.  The contract for the building was given to J. H. Philips who agreed to construct it for $307.50.  This first log school opened in 1890.  In 1900 the school board decided to engage someone to draw up plans for a new schoolhouse.  John B. Outcalt presented some rough sketches and contracted to have the new school built.  At a board meeting in October of 1905, the voters of the region decided to proceed with plans to build the new school, which would not be an ordinary one, but “a school that was a paragon” of education.  The old log building, when it was no longer needed for a schoolhouse, was sold to Mr. Trampe for fifty dollars.  It was moved to his ranch and used as a home until his own home was built.  The unique and stylish new Paragon School building opened in 1906 (?) and was in use until 1948.  At that time, students were sent by bus to Gunnison.  From 1948 until 1967, the building was used by the Hoof and Horn 4-H Club as a meeting place.  In 1967, the school board of Gunnison RE1J, who had been discussing the possibility of selling the school and property, voted to give the school to the Gunnison County Pioneer and Historical Society. It was then moved from six miles northeast of Gunnison near Colorado Highway 135 to the Pioneer Museum, at the east entrance to Gunnison on Highway 50.

http://www.gunnisonhistoricpreservation.org/schools.htm

Cal Thomas says it all!

Cal Thomas says it all:

My high school colors were green and white. At graduation the boys wore green robes and the girls wore white. No one considered the girls inferior because of the color of their robes.

Today, we live in different times. My alma mater, Walter Johnson High School in Montgomery County, Md., is one of several schools to have decided that their commencement ceremony this year will feature single-color robes to respect transgender students and those who do not identify as either male or female. In the age of Caitlyn Jenner, any effort to classify the sexes is becoming increasingly difficult, if not downright impossible.

The Washington Post reports “student advocates” have been campaigning for this, claiming the use of one color for boys and another for girls does not allow for the full panoply of “gender identity” increasingly on display in the marketplace of the bizarre.

Read the rest of the story:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/06/11/should-pull-your-kids-out-public-school.html?intcmp=ob_homepage_opinion&intcmp=obnetwork

Veto protects Maine homeschoolers

Thankfully, not everyone in politics is out to get homeschoolers.  Please note that it was a Republican governor who stood with homeschoolers in the following news item from One News Now.  By the way, there is not one shred of evidence that lowering the compulsory attendance law has any beneficial effect on children’s education; it just adds to the problem of educational burnout.  So why are so many promoting it?  It gets children away from their parents and into leftist indoctrination centers (aka public schools) at earlier and earlier ages.

The article begins:

The governor of Maine came to the defense of homeschooling families recently when he refused to sign an education bill he described as “an invasion of the government into family matters.

Gov. Paul LePage (R-Maine) recently vetoed compulsory attendance legislation so families won’t be forced to send their children to public school until they reach the age of seven — not five.

Read more:

http://www.onenewsnow.com/education/2015/06/05/veto-protects-maine-homeschoolers?utm_source=OneNewsNow&utm_medium=email&utm_term=16781241&utm_content=483799206706&utm_campaign=19729

Home School Book Review Blog news, 6/2015

Homeschool Book Review Blog ( https://homeschoolbookreviewblog.wordpress.com/ ) is the place to go for book reviews, primarily of children’s and youth literature, from a Biblical worldview.  A search feature is available to find titles, authors, or categories.

In May, 2015, the following books were reviewed:

May 30, 2015–Mary Jane

May 29, 2015–Resurrection of the Phoenix’s Grace: Andy Smithson Book 4

May 26, 2015–Comanche: The Story of America’s Most Heroic Horse

May 16, 2015–The Church of Jesus Christ: Essays in Honor of Bob and Janelle Owen

May 15, 2015–The Dollhouse Murders

May 11, 2015–Going on Twelve: Kobie Roberts #2

May 6, 2015–The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents: Discworld Book #28

May 4, 2015–Is There Life After Boys?

Each month we give out a Book of the Month Award; for May, 2015, it goes to:

Comanche: The Story of America’s Most Heroic Horse, by David Appel

The runner-up was Mary Jane by Dorothy Sterling

Books that we are currently reading and will be reviewed in the near future include:

From Sea to Shining Sea: God’s Plan for America Unfolds by Peter Marshall and David Manuel

Mrs. Chippy’s Last Expedition by Caroline Alexander

The Boy Who Drank Too Much by Shep Green

The Christmas Box by Richard Paul Evans

Why do they hate homeschooling?

The loony left HATES homeschooling because it takes children out of their indoctrination centers (aka “public schools”), so they try every way possible to bring it under their control.

 

Read the following article:

 

http://www.redstate.com/2015/06/03/michigan-democrat-wants-state-monitoring-homeschooled-kids/ 

Johann Baptist Georg Neruda and his Concerto in DM for Trumpet and Strings

Johann Baptist Georg Neruda (1711-1776) was an early classical Czech composer, one of the leading Czech-born musicians of the middle part of the eighteenth century.  Relative to other composers of the Classical music era Neruda is little known, and his usual dates of birth and death, c. 1707/8 to c. 1780, given in the Grove Dictionary, are only approximations.  The latest research indicates that he was born Jan Křtitel Jiří Neruda z Rosic in 1711 probably in a village named “Rosice”, Bohemia, now part of the present Czech Republic, although it remains unclear which one, to a well-respected musical family.

Neruda is not an uncommon name for Czech musicians. He was the brother of Jan Chrysostomos Neruda and father of Ludvik and Antonin Bedrich Neruda, but apparently not related to the family founded by organist Josef Neruda or the Romantic-era Czech cellist Alois Neruda.  Educated in Prague on the violin, Neruda got a job as a theater orchestra violinist while still a student, spending his earlier years gaining a good reputation as a violinist and conductor in Prague and, beginning in the early 1740s, Dresden, Germany, and kept it until 1750, when he joined the court orchestra at Dresden, rising to become its concertmaster.

A notable journeyman composer of the era, Neruda’s compositional output includes eighteen symphonies, fourteen instrumental concertos, including one for trumpet and another for bassoon, some trio sonatas, sacred works, and an opera Les Troqueurs.  These were mostly in the new galant style that emerged after Baroque music fell out of favor.   According to Nimbus Records Ltd. (1994), one of the composer’s more significant works is the Concerto in E-flat for Trumpet and Strings. Originally written for the “corno da caccia” or “natural horn” using only the high register, it is now rarely performed on anything other than an E-flat or B-flat trumpet. Incidentally, the Corno da Caccia for which Neruda wrote is not to be confused with the four-valved hunting horn which has recently been given the same name. The manuscript for this piece is in the National Library in Prague, along with several other unusual works for brass instruments.  Neruda died on October 11, 1776 in Dresden.

The following work by  Johann Baptiste Georg Neruda is contained in my collection:

Concerto in DM  for Trumpet and Strings

—material selected, adapted, and edited from several different sources