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The Pressure of Preschool

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Preschool Playing“My son can already write his name!” says a proud mother. “My daughter is not quite four, and she has just learned to read!” says another. One mom shrinks back into her seat, wondering if she’s doing something wrong. Should her son or daughter be reading at age three or four? Should her two-year-old be learning to form the shapes of letters?

For decades, parents have felt the pressure to hurry their preschoolers’ learning. They don’t want their children to be left behind. For homeschool parents, the pressure is even greater. They may feel that the world is looking at them more critically, ready to point out any perceived underachievement. If you’re feeling the pressure to teach your child more aggressively or to start kindergarten early, consider these important factors.

Rates of Development

Babies learn to crawl, walk, and talk at different rates; there is no ideal timetable. It’s the same for preschoolers and kindergarteners. Some will learn to read quickly; others will catch on to math concepts; and others may simply be interested in movement and play. Trying to force a child to mature more quickly can lead to behavioral issues and a dislike of learning.

Freedom to Grow

Kids need time to invent, explore, and create. They need space to run, jump, and climb, especially during the formative preschool and kindergarten years. Giving them the freedom to experiment, discover, and move through their world builds their confidence and their ability to solve problems—things that will prove valuable when they begin their homeschool years.

Perceptions of Potential

If you stress reading too early, you might become frustrated and discouraged; you may even think that your child doesn’t have the potential to be a great reader. That’s not necessarily the case; he may simply be operating on his own schedule.  Instead of frustrating yourself and your child, wait until the time is right to begin a more organized style of homeschooling.

Statistical Proof

A study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research revealed that delaying kindergarten for a year had remarkable benefits for children. Kids who were seven when they started formal instruction were measurably more attentive and less hyperactive at age eleven than kids who began kindergarten at the “normal” age of five or six. The kids who started kindergarten a year later had more time to learn self-control and mental focus before beginning their school career.

Preparation for Kindergarten

You can introduce your child to text and numbers in many age-appropriate ways. There are numbers on calendars, clocks, mile markers, your house, and store receipts. Words are everywhere—on cereal boxes, toys, storefronts, street signs, letters, and clothes.

When you read storybooks together, ask your little ones to show you the pictures and point to text. You are developing your child’s “print awareness” which is a prerequisite to phonics instruction. Where are the characters? What are they doing in the picture? What will happen next? It’s a fun way to engage with your children and start teaching them about story components and progression without getting too academic.

Maybe your little ones would enjoy dictating stories or letters for you to write down and read aloud. These activities emphasize the relationship of thought to oral and written language. And if those little bodies start to get wiggly, maybe it’s time to switch to another kind of education—learning through play.

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Rebecca is a work-at-home freelance writer, novelist, wife, and the mom of two bright-eyed little ones. She credits her success in writing and her love of books to her own mom, who homeschooled three kids from pre-K through high school.

7 Ways to Help Your Child Be a True Friend

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making a friendHaving friends—and being a friend—is important for every child. Good friends provide emotional support, companionship, and love. They help your children to develop social graces and to understand people with backgrounds and perspectives different from their own.

Becoming a good friend doesn’t happen by accident; like many important skills, it requires some guidance and training. Whether you choose to educate your children at home, in a private or Christian school, or in public school, teaching your child how to be a true friend is part of your role as a parent.

1. Greeting People

The best way to make a friend is to be one.  As the Bible says, “A man that hath friends must show himself friendly” (Proverbs 18:24). Does your child know how to start and end a conversation? Is he or she comfortable approaching and greeting new people or familiar acquaintances? Before a social situation, you can be your child’s coach and offer some tips about making new friends and greeting old friends.

2. Paying Attention

Is your child relaxed when talking to others? Does he or she remember to smile? Teach your child how to ask questions and take an interest in what others are saying. Help him or her learn to make good eye contact with someone during a conversation.

3. Practicing Social Graces

Purposely place your children in settings that compel them to use social skills. If a child is shy or uncomfortable in certain situations, invent fun ways to role-play those scenarios at home until he or she feels more comfortable.

4. Explaining Etiquette

Depending on their age and permitted use of technology, your children should be able to compose a congenial letter or email to a friend, as well as send a polite, correctly spelled text. Role-play the correct way to answer the phone or close out a phone conversation. To teach the proper etiquette to use at a party or another social event, why not host a pretend dinner party, complete with invitations and RSVP cards?

5. Sacrificing Self

Friendships are not one-sided but should enrich, inspire, and help both people in the relationship. A genuine friend puts time, love, and effort into the relationship, without the expectation of being repaid. Christ said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). For younger kids, that idea of self-sacrifice could begin with sharing toys or participating in games that the other person wants to play.

6. Learning Value

Teach your children to treasure their friends. Those friendships enrich your kids’ lives and personalities, as well as allowing them to share their gifts and blessings with others. Expressing gratitude to a friend through a note, an email, or a phone call is a wonderful way to teach your kids to appreciate their friends.

7. Praying to Their Best Friend

God is the most important friend your children will ever have. Jesus told his disciples, “Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you” (John 15:14). Through prayer, Bible reading, and obedience to God’s Word, your kids can have a close friendship with their Creator.

While perseverance, creativity, and intelligence help determine a child’s pathway in life, creating quality friendships may be just as crucial to future success. Even the Lord Jesus had His friends on earth, including the twelve disciples and others, with Peter, James, and John being His closest earthly relationships. With your help, your children can begin learning the value of making and keeping true friends.

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Rebecca is a work-at-home freelance writer, novelist, wife, and the mom of two bright-eyed little ones. She credits her success in writing and her love of books to her own mom, who homeschooled three kids from pre-K through high school.

Getting Excited About Logos Science Kits

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Have you discovered the Logos Science Kits yet? These kits were designed specifically for BJU Press secondary-level science courses, and they’re packed with tools, supplies, equipment, and clear instructions to help young homeschool scientists succeed!

Mr. Bill Harmon, a Distance Learning teacher, uses the Logos Science kits during his instruction sessions. As a chemist and a teacher of junior and senior high science and math courses, he appreciates the ingenuity of the Logos Science labs. The instructions are well-written, and the authors came up with creative ways to accomplish the labs in a homeschool setting.

Step-by-Step Guidance 

In using the labs for chemistry, Mr. Harmon adopted a “cooking show” style of presentation, revealing each step of the procedure and showing students a sample of the results they should see. “I leave the conclusion questions up to the student,” he explains. “That part is theirs to complete, along with noting any temperature variations of the experiment.”

For almost every lab, students can do all the setup and experimentation on their own, without an extra pair of hands. Thanks to the ten- to twelve-minute videos, students have a guide to help them succeed as they manipulate the materials and use the equipment.

Location, Location

Mr. Harmon recommends storing the materials and supplies for the labs in a dry, climate-controlled space so they will not degrade due to heat or cold. When homeschool students perform the lab, he suggests a location like the kitchen or perhaps a bathroom with ample counter space.

Correlation Between the Student Lab Manual and the Kit

According to Mr. Harmon, the student lab manual and the Logos Science Kits work well together. “The kit functions as an addendum to the student lab manual,” he says. “There are about three dozen labs included in each of the Logos kits. I use about thirty of them for the Distance Learning Chemistry course.”

Once in a while, the experiments suggested in the student lab manual and those included in the Logos Science Kit are different. For example, the lab in the student lab manual might be a specific experiment on titration, whereas the Logos kit may have a different experiment on titration. “They’re both teaching the same concept, though,” Mr. Harmon explains. “The kit often does labs on a micro scale. This benefits the homeschool student and prepares him or her for college science labs.”

Amazing Experiments

What’s Mr. Harmon’s favorite lab? While all of them are fascinating, he enjoys the titration lab the most. “When the material goes from clear to pink then disappears, it’s because the atoms that we can’t see are changing color based on their chemical structure,” he says. “It’s cool!”

Contents of the Kit

Logos Science Kits are available for purchase separately from the  other secondary science course materials. When you order your kit, check out the PDF link under the product description to find a list of all the equipment and supplies included . For example, the kit for chemistry makes your life much easier by including science supplies such as pH paper, O2 test tablets, test tubes, a molecular model kit, and dozens of other items and materials.

Each Logos Science Kit has enough materials for four students, which works well for homeschool co-ops, for passing on the kit to younger siblings, or for resale. If you have a young chemistry lover or physics fan in your homeschool, you’ll want to invest in this fantastic supplementary resource to encourage that affinity for science.

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Rebecca is a work-at-home freelance writer, novelist, wife, and the mom of two bright-eyed little ones. She credits her success in writing and her love of books to her own mom, who homeschooled three kids from pre-K through high school.

Homeschool Astronomy: Discovering the Night Sky

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Astronomy is a wonderful field of science for at-home study. The laboratory is your backyard, and the subject of study is right overhead! For Christians, astronomy has special significance. After all, the heavens declare the glory of God (Psalm 19:1). Whether you and your children want to learn some astronomy over the summer or on homeschool weeknights, these ideas will help you get started.

Check Out Helpful Astronomy Magazines

Two major amateur astronomy magazines, Astronomy and Sky & Telescope, are available at many libraries and bookstores. They’re full of good information and advice, including beautiful photos, monthly sky charts, and notes about special things to watch for in the sky.

You can read the magazines at the library, but if you intend to seriously pursue astronomy for several months, consider subscribing instead. You can also subscribe to the email newsletters of these publications and check their websites for digital editions and online resources.

Explore Fascinating Books About the Stars

At the library, online, or at your local bookstore, you’ll find numerous resources. The Stars: A New Way to See Them by H. A. Rey (Houghton Mifflin, 1976) was written for children by the author of the Curious George series. For an interesting discussion of the biblical references to astronomy, have your teens check out Stewart Custer’s book The Stars Speak: Astronomy in the Bible (Bob Jones University Press, 2002).

Some more recent titles that discuss astronomy from a Christian perspective are Taking Back Astronomy: The Heavens Declare Creation by Jason Lisle (Master Books, 2006) or The Astronomy Book  by Jonathan Henry (Master Books,  2012).

Use Your Eyes

You and your kids can begin with what astronomers call “naked-eye” astronomy in your own backyard. With some foundational information from BJU Press Science 3, help your younger children learn their way around the sky and become familiar with the major reference points. If you have teens, Earth Science from BJU Press is an excellent resource with plenty of up-to-date information about the solar system.

First, you can teach your kids about the major constellations, the map by which astronomers find everything else in the sky. Even young children can learn the most familiar ones, such as the Big Dipper and Orion. The constellations change with the seasons, and the moon and the planets are constantly moving around. To know when and where to look for them, use the NASA sky events calendar or sky charts from astronomy magazines.

Find Dark Places 

A little bit of stray light ruins the view of some of the most interesting things in the sky. Modern cities put so much light pollution into the sky that stargazing while in a city is difficult. Many children have never seen the Milky Way because it’s almost impossible to see unless the sky is actually dark. If you’re encountering this problem, plan a trip out in the country, to a spot far from any lights. Pick a night when the moon comes up late or when there is a new moon, so it will be truly dark. Your kids will be amazed at the view!

Look for the Big Ones

Even on days or nights when you can’t drive to the country, you and your kids can still study the sun and the moon. There’s no problem finding them in the sky! Sunsets, rainbows, sundials, eclipses, phases of the moon, tides—all of these are good subjects for study and provide abundant possibilities for projects.

Grab a Pair of Binoculars

Binoculars open up a whole new level of star viewing. With the help of sky charts, your homeschool astronomers will be able to see galaxies, nebulae, craters on the moon, and a host of new stars. You can use any set of binoculars with a large B value (lens size) for a bright, easy-to-see image. A common size that is good for astronomy is 7×50.

Visit a Local Planetarium

If you live near a planetarium, you have a unique opportunity to get a guided tour of the sky. Be aware that many planetariums now do a variety of music and light shows and educational programs that may not be related to astronomy. However, nearly all of them still do simple tours of the night sky.

If you visit the Creation Museum in Kentucky, remember to stop by the planetarium there. The amazing shows in the Creation Museum Planetarium will help you and your kids understand the scope of the known universe and the amazing power of the God who made it all.

Invest in a Telescope

Until you know your way around the sky, a telescope can be more frustrating than helpful. But after taking all the initial steps to familiarize yourself and your kids with astronomy, you might want to consider getting one.

The ideal telescope for home use is three inches or more in diameter, with a sturdy tripod and a mechanism that allows the telescope to move smoothly in order to keep the celestial object in the field of view as the earth slowly rotates. The higher the magnification, the smaller the field of view. But the smaller the field of view, the harder it is to locate and track the object. At 20x (meaning the image is magnified twenty times), the telescope becomes difficult to aim without a small “finder” scope to assist. You can see a lot with 30-50x, including the rings of Saturn, the moons of Jupiter, the Orion nebula, and craters on the moon. Principally, there are three basic types of telescopes: refractor, reflector, and compound. Refractors use lenses; reflectors use mirrors to guide the incoming light to a focal point wherein the viewing lens is adjusted (in or out) to produce a sharp image; compound telescopes use lenses and mirrors. Larger lenses or mirrors are much more important than large magnification since they yield a brighter, finer-detailed image.

Some of the cheap telescopes you can buy online or in stores are of poor quality; they feature high magnification but tiny optics and flimsy mounts. Before ordering or purchasing an inexpensive telescope, check the customer reviews posted for that product to help you decide if it’s a piece of junk or a useful tool for your homeschool astronomy sessions.

Astronomy is a subject you can tackle completely on your own with no previous experience necessary—and children of all ages can be involved. Explore the sky as a family and learn together!

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Rebecca is a work-at-home freelance writer, novelist, wife, and the mom of two bright-eyed little ones. She credits her success in writing and her love of books to her own mom, who homeschooled three kids from pre-K through high school.

Teaching Your Boys to Be Men of God

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A number of organizations, both secular and religious, have noted our culture’s lack of attention to the importance of strong males in both home and society. A lot of attention has been focused on myriads of other social issues, but the cultivation of strong, wise men has been neglected. As a homeschooling parent, you are uniquely positioned to direct your son toward biblical manhood.

Leadership

God has ordained at least three institutions—the home, the state, and the church—and in at least two of them, Scripture directs that the leadership should be male. This means that most men will be in some kind of leadership role; so it is vital to prepare boys for that future role.

Scripture is filled with examples of godly men, from Job to Moses to David to Paul (and of course, Jesus Himself, who though fully God is fully man as well). You can study these scriptural accounts with your boys and encourage them to note the key characteristics of each man of God.

Humility

Biblical leaders recognize that they are under leaders as well (Ephesians 6:9) and that they are prone to sinfulness as well as all the other characteristics of imperfection (Romans 3:10). They make mistakes, and when they do, they correct them. David repented of his sin with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 12:13), but he did not fail to meet his kingly obligations when facing the consequences of his sin (2 Samuel 12:20).

Self-Control

Self-control is one of the most important traits that a godly man can learn. In a world overflowing with temptations of all kinds, the ability to say “no” to oneself is crucial. Help your sons learn to say “no” to themselves when they are tempted by anger, lust, and selfish desires; and teach them how to focus on joy, gratitude, and service to others instead.

Love

Love is the key to self-control. It is putting the needs of others ahead of your own. Love is the opposite of pride and self-centeredness; and while it is necessary for all believers (Matthew 22:36–40), it’s especially vital for leaders, who have a bigger sphere of influence.

A key element of love— selflessness—comes from working with other people. Group projects (with siblings or other homeschooled children) can encourage your sons to work together and help one another succeed.

Responsibility and Courage

Often, being in charge means doing things that are not fun, and in some cases, not even pleasant. Leaders do those things anyway (2 Corinthians 7:8). They establish a vision, make a plan, and do what is necessary to accomplish it. Sometimes, leaders also have to make unpopular decisions. A godly man should be able to do the right thing despite opposition, even from those he loves; and that takes courage.

It can be healthy, if done in an encouraging environment, to stretch your sons by giving them a little bit more to do than they think they are capable of. Give your boys carefully measured opportunities to be responsible, and reward them with greater responsibility—and freedom—when they do well and make the right choices.

Attentiveness and Empathy

In order to recognize their responsibilities and make good decisions, leaders need to know what’s going on around them. They need to pay attention, listen, and consider carefully the actions and words of other people.

Good leaders have an understanding of how their own actions affect others. They recognize the emotional, physical, and spiritual needs of those they are responsible for, and they seek to meet them in appropriate ways.

Christlikeness and Obedience

Whether a man is a leader or not, he is to be like Christ. Reading Christ’s great prayer (John 17), we are struck by the poignancy of His need for fellowship with His Father. The lowest point of His life was when He cried out from the cross, agonizing over the separation from His Father that occurred when He took on our sin. Being dependent on God is not weakness; it’s the wisdom of recognizing where a man finds his ultimate strength.

Christ also obeyed His Father (John 4:34) even though He is His Father’s equal (John 10:30; 14:9). We are even told that He “learned . . . obedience by the things which he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8).

Knowledge

The Bible clearly says that Christ developed as a boy in all the growth areas of the human condition: intellectual, physical, spiritual, and social (Luke 2:52). He apparenlty learned to speak three different languages fluently: Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew. He observed carefully the nature of creation (Matthew 6:28) as well as human culture (Luke 7:32). If He could be both omniscient and thirsty for knowledge, each godly boy or man should also strive to be a lifelong student.

Endurance

Your son might be overwhelmed with the idea that he has to cultivate all these characteristics. Like everyone else, he is a work in progress that will not be finished until Christ returns again. To develop these traits in themselves, a boy needs endurance.

Christ is the ultimate example of endurance (Hebrews 12:2). He lived in a fallen, broken, soiled world in a flimsy body of flesh among sinners. He had to face every day knowing what anguish lay ahead for Him in the form of a cross, but He kept going. Through the filth, the faithlessness, and the failures of his followers, He persevered. At last, He “became sin for us” (2 Corinthians 5:21) and the object of the Father’s curse (Galatians 3:13). He completed His mission even though it took years of toil and trouble; and He can walk with your sons, giving them the endurance they need.

Good men do not develop by accident. They are the product of the work of the Holy Spirit, the study of Scripture, diligent prayer, and careful discipleship. In God’s providence, you have been placed in a discipling role for your sons. Disciple on purpose.

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Rebecca is a work-at-home freelance writer, novelist, wife, and the mom of two bright-eyed little ones. She credits her success in writing and her love of books to her own mom, who homeschooled three kids from pre-K through high school.