Welcome to Issue Six of Keep on Track

Our Focus in this e-zine is: Patience. Learning to wait without complaining.

Each Keep on Track Issue endeavours to provide the reader with practical advice and food for thought.

• Greetings from Marianne
• News
• Considering our Goals
• Curriculum Application
• Organizational Tips
• Coming soon

Greetings from Marianne

In this issue, we will focus on Patience. As always, these character goals speak to me as a mum, as much as what I need to teach my children.

"You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance." Franklin P. Adams

A harassed Sunday School teacher tugged away to get a much-too-small pair of shoes on one of her kindegarten children. Finally, she succeeeded and commented, "My, those were hard to get on."
"Yes," the little boy replied, "that's because they aren't mine." Exasperated, the teacher pulled the shoes off again.
"Well," the little boy said, when the shoes were finally off, "they're not mine, they're my brother's, but I had to wear them today."

Being patient is hard work.

As you know, I'm changing my site into a 3 column look. That really requires patience on my part, and I've found that I'm not that good at it. I'd love it done NOW! Every page takes time for me to changeover and I find it frustrating that the project doesn't happen quicker. Being patient in this circumstance would mean that I set myself an achieveable goal and patiently work in those parameters, without complaining, and with making time for my family members.

News

You will have noticed that bit by bit I am changing my site to the new 3 column look and feel. This way you can navigate to other places in my site far easier. You will notice the Bookshop on most right side bars as well as links to the Homeschool Gallery - easier for you to add your opinions and ideas.

Also, I added a page about Story Books or Living Books for Math. This is another great informal way to include maths in literature.

For those living in Sydney, Australia, I've added a "What's on in Sydney page." Some of the events listed may be interesting for your family to enjoy.

Also, have you seen Homeschooling in the News? Here I have a google feed of articles on homeschooling. You can choose Australian homeschooling, homeschooling in the world, home education and whatever articles have been written with these keywords will be displayed. Add your thoughts on an article.

There's a new page on Dolch Sight Words - words which are frequently used and sometimes difficult to de-code phonetically.

Here's a printable set of Dolch Sight Words for you to use as flashcards and games. Do you have a Dolch Sight Word Game? Add it here.

We have also enjoyed building an ant farm this last month and you can read about that here. It was easy to do and it is interesting watching the small ants at work.

Earlier in April, Ben held a Cold War Day. He loves organizing History Days according to the time period we are studying. He asked homeschool friends along and planned activities in a Communist fashion and in a Capitalist way. It was a great day - also an interesting lesson in behaviour for the mums! Read about it on Micah's mini-site and in Talitha's Tales.

From the gallery we read about Tayler's First Book Check it out - it sounds terrific; A Question on socialization and more from someone considering homeschooling; Another question about homeschooling with littlies. Can you help give advice or encouragement?

Whoever adds to the gallery - will now be voted on to be the TOP PICK each month. Your article/page/photo/nature entry will be displayed on the homepage and throughout the Gallery for the next month! Read more below:

Considering Patience

Being patient is waiting in God's good timing for things without complaining as we wait.

Sometimes it is hard to be patient when you know there is so much needed to done (the laundry, the cleaning, the cooking, the school work...) and one of your children wants to tell you about their tomato plant outside - what the leaves are looking like - is it dying? how can he stop a bird from coming to eat his tomatoes? Can I come outside to see his plant? and so on.

Patience is reminding yourself of what is REALLY important and prioritizing accordingly. It means taking the time to investigate the things which are important to your little ones.

It is also hard to be patient when you have very small children and you wonder what things will look like in 10 years time. Sometimes we are very anxious about the future. I know that when we first started homeschooling, I was trying to write out a plan for the next 12 or so years. I really wanted to know what we were going to do in 12 years time. I spent a lot of time researching the possibilities and the approach we might take. In a way, I was hoping to be in control of all circumstances and making those decisions way ahead of time. Being patient also means that we trust God with the future. Yes, we can plan, but only God knows what the future holds. We also have to allow God to mold and grow us as we go on in our homeschooling journey.

Being patient is also allowing our children to be who God has designed them to be. Some children will have difficulty learning, and we need to be patient with them when it seems so obvious to us. God has his own plan for them.

Sometimes we need to show patience to the child who is so different to us - and we are still working out what makes them tick and think. We need to patiently understand them.

We also need to be patient with our own and our children's shortcomings. We will fail and our children will fail in showing the patience we need to live together as a family. So, we need to be able to forgive and ask to be forgiven.

What a wonderful truth we have knowing that God is patient with us. God shows his patience to the world each day, by waiting for more sinners to come to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. Because of God's great love for us and his patience towards us as we fail Him day after day, likewise, we should show patience to those around us.

Some worthwhile quotes on patience:

Helen Keller:

"We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world."

"A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble. " ~Charles H. Spurgeon

"Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace." - Mary Sarton

"Patience is the companion of wisdom." -Saint Augustine

"Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city." Proverbs 16:32 NIV

"Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD." Psalm 27:14 KJV

"Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him…." Psalm 37:7 NIV

"The Lord is wonderfully good to those who wait for him and seek him. So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord." Lamentations 3:25-26 NLT

"Show me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths. Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day." Psalm 25:4-5 KJV

Curriculum Application

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Examples of Patience:
Job;
Abraham - believing the promises of God without having a child;
Noah;
Israelites - waiting to enter the promised land;
Prophets- patiently enduring suffering;

Characters from History

There are so many Christian characters in History who have only achieved the goal set before them in mission or setting up orphanages or standing before amazing trials - by learning patience and trust. As they waited on God, they learned patience. Sometimes he granted them fruit for their labours, but the lives of so many Christians in history can point us to the lessons they learned as they grew in patience and ultimately dependence on God.

Check out this wonderful series of Christian Heroes Biographies.

Also, George Washington Carver and his tireless experimentation with peanuts. A great study.

The Sower Series: George Washington Carver: Man's Slave Becomes God's Scientist By Mott Media, Llc Born to slave parents, young George was orphaned before he could walk. In his youth he fought poverty and throughout his life he battled prejudice. Yet George Washington Carver emerges as one of history's most remarkable men! How? "The Lord has guided me," Carver was heard often to say. "He has shown me the way, just as He will show everyone who turns to Him." Carver declared, "Without my Savior, I am nothing." With his Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, George Washington Carver was greatly used by God to discover countless numbers of scientific wonders and to lead a life which has inspired millions of Christians everywhere. For ages 9 to 13.

Science

My 9 and 11 year old boys have decided to look after a garden. They have planted, watered, weeded their vegetables and each day they are excited to check their project. They sell their produce to me. The wonderful thing about a garden is that you need patience to see it develop. You will never reap the harvest of hard work if you are only willing to be there for the initial planting. There are hours of work involved in the long process from planting to harvesting and that's where patience and determination comes in. That's why I like this quote:
"Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace." - Mary Sarton

So, gardening and botany is an ideal object lesson to teach patience. What can you teach?

• How a seed grows
• What a seed needs to grow
• The cycle of air exchange between plants and people
• Experiments to test if a plant really needs carbon dioxide to breathe. Rub vaseline on some leaves of a plant -tie a string around them to remember which leaves you coated with vaseline and watch the results.
• Do plants need water? Experiment
• Do plants need sun? Experiment - leave a plant in a dark box away from sunlight. Take note and draw your observations.
• Dissect the flower - and find out all its parts.
• Plant sunflowers which grow rapidly and measure whose plant grows the quickest .. is the tallest?
• Compare and identify flowers.
• Make an identification chart by pressing flowers and labeling them.
• Watch the water rise up in a stem of celery with food colouring.
• Collect and draw different leaves. Notice there shapes, size, veins, texture.
• Study the process of making bread - the long patient road from sowing the seed to baking the loaf; Grow some wheat (perhaps in the grass head (art)), and bake a loaf of bread.
• Discuss other processes which take time - making of clothes - wool; cotton growing - making the thread - cloth -sewing;
• Discuss the changes that animals go through to reach adulthood - especially the metamorphosis of some insects - butterflies, frogs etc. Draw life-cycles; Watch the life cycle happen by keeping these insects over a number of weeks/months.
• Discuss the growth of humans - development of babies in the womb - especially exciting when mum is pregnant. Take note of what is happening right now and over the next 8-9 months;
• Draw a time-line of your life - the changes you have gone through the experiences and what you remember from year to year;
• Discuss seasons and the changes that occur each season - draw this.
• Keep a nature journal over the whole year - showing the differences each season. Choose one plant and track its changes over the year. Draw or photograph the changes you observe.

Literature

The Magic Thread

Literature:

Read and memorize the poem, "Daffodils" by William Wordsworth.

William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Writing

Copybook

Copy the poem, "Daffodils" by William Wordsworth (above).
Or Copy the poem, "Trees." by Harry Behn

you can add these to a nature journal.

Trees

Trees are the kindest things I know,
They do no harm, they simply grow
And spread a shade for sleepy cows,
And gather birds among their bows.

They give us fruit in leaves above,
And wood to make our houses of,
And leaves to burn on Halloween
And in the Spring new buds of green.

They are first when day's begun
To touch the beams of morning sun,
They are the last to hold the light
When evening changes into night.

And when a moon floats on the sky
They hum a drowsy lullaby
Of sleepy children long ago...
Trees are the kindest things I know.

by Harry Behn (American poet, 1898-1973)

Copy the passage from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Recitation

"Daffodils" by William Wordsworth or Trees (above).

Arts and Crafts

• Use leaves as a stencil and spray around them. You can also do it with paint and an old toothbrush - as a splatter painting. Place some leaves on a sheet - spray around it. Take them off and add some more in another arrangement and spray using a different colour.
• Bark rubbings
• Leaf rubbings. - use a flat crayon, charcoal or pencil.
• Make an arrangement of seeds, flowers, leaves, stems, roots of different plants. Arrange your display artistically.
• Make a collage using different seeds.
• Grass heads - Use a stocking, sew on button eyes. Fill it with seeds such as wheat and the remainder of the head with sawdust. Wet the head and leave the bottom of the stocking in a glass of water. Watch your grass head grow some hair.

Practical Living

Our whole lives - daily living - are lessons in patience. May God help us to see the lessons in front of us and make use of them as we display patience and gently discuss the need of patience to our children.

Organizational Tips

Coming soon...