O the joys of Home Education

When the weather is nice,
You can go outside and enjoy it!






Whoops!





There they are!



Guess H.E. isn't perfect either? Or we are not the poster family!

Christmas is here!

When it is quiet at home.....

You should wonder.

Special thanks to the unmetioned family member who gave my dd facepaints for Christmas. We will always treasure these memories in our hearts. (smile) Unfortunately Isaac had washed off some of his face before I thought to photograph them. ( He arrived at dinner with a very intricately painted pattern on his face.) I still don't know how his sister got him to sit still that long. But they had time to go back and finish these!

From Shakespeare to Fishing and Salamanders

I'm going to try and use this forum as an opportunity to mark the events that occur in our home. Although most of my children are past that "aww isn't it cute what she did" stage, there are still things to be recorded. And I want to be respectful of my older children's feelings. Because they are currently at that "everything is embarrassing" time. Take today for instance. Poor S dropped a bowl of noodles at lunch, breaking the bowl. And Shakespeare got it. Thank you Lord, for that dog. (I don't want to know how it got on the window)

At dinner this evening I found out that while my little ones were having "recess" - enjoying this 70 degree day. (yes, Virginia, in January) they got out the fishing poles and practiced "throwing" as Isaac recalls. Which, by the way, he wants his daddy to know that he is "really good at it now-better than Rebekah". The only CATCH is that it is now hung up in a tree.

My DH asks, "did this happen on your watch, dear, or mine??"

BUT with the brief respite from the cold, "we" enjoyed the local wildlife. Gee, I don't think I ever knew there were salamanders around here when I was growing up. But we seem to find many of them around our home. Wow. Let me take a picture of that. No, I don't want to touch. Well, at least they are the kind with legs.

Oh, no Mom! I lost one of the babies.!

Well at least Isaac wasn't in his big brother's room playing with knives any longer.

Some thoughts to Ponder

Here are some quotes that I am mulling today.


The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother's care, shall be in state institutions at state expense. – "Principles of Communism" (1847) - draft of what became the Communist Manifesto

Our form of compulsory schooling is an invention of the state of Massachusetts around 1850. It was resisted - sometimes with guns - by an estimated eighty per cent of the Massachusetts population, the last outpost in Barnstable on Cape Cod not surrendering its children until the 1880's when the area was seized by militia and children marched to school under guard. - The Underground History of American Education

Gerald Ford, former president of the United States:

A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have. - in an Address to a Joint Session of Congress, August 12, 1974


School is the first impression children get of organized society. Like most first impressions it is the lasting one. Life is dull and stupid, only Coke provides relief. And other products, too, of course. - The Underground History of American Education

Don't wait for the perfect moment to break free -- there isn't any. Don't let officials, relatives or anyone else intimidate you into sacrificing your children. If you want to help public schools, give them your money, give them your time, give them your house and your car -- but don't give them your kids. There's a world of support out there for home schoolers. If you can't home school, find a decent private school and sacrifice for your kids' education like you would for that fancy car you want or that vacation or entertainment center or big house. Whatever you'd sacrifice for the thing you most want in life, sacrifice ten times as much for your children.
Tammy Drennan, Alliance for the Separation of School and State senior writer


Leaves much to consider...and weigh.
I found them at a thought-provoking site http://www.schoolandstate.org