I recently asked a group of young children at Foundations Orientation if they wanted to learn how to make cheesecake. Always ready for an adventure and primed to have snack time sooner rather than later, they enthusiastically agreed. “So, what do we need to get started?” I asked. Answers...
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Charlie Brown never kicked a football held by Lucy Van Pelt; somehow he fell for her deception every time. She made a fool of him. I feel sorry for Charlie and I comfort myself in knowing that I could never be so effectively and repeatedly deceived. At least I...
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On the flight into Raleigh to deliver my son to Mandala Fellowship, I shared with him the printout of a poem I had just discovered, “The Church-porch,” by George Herbert (1593-1633). It is the first of three parts of a larger work called The Temple. My son was impressed no...
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When I hear the words homeschool and leisure together, I don’t think of them as a fit. I’m not sure it’s possible to conceive of parenthood and leisure in the same sentence. Over the course of this summer, however, I’ve been convicted to rethink my conception of both school...
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Our family LOVES to travel! We have adopted the goal of visiting all “50 States before they graduate” as our own. Besides the hundreds of photographs I take while we travel, we have two main methods of documenting our travels. The first method: my children’s travel notebooks. They each have a three-ring notebook in their favorite...
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It is easy to be deceived about the true nature of both math and reality based on elementary mathematics. When we are young, we look into very simple mathematical operations: counting, addition, subtraction. It is interesting that in these first operations we learn that there are no exceptions and...
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Why is it so difficult to ask good questions? This year, I have been part of a team working on Leigh Bortins’ forthcoming book, The Question: Teaching Your Child the Essentials of Classical Education. Leigh’s book is a survival guide for homeschooling through junior high and high school. As you...
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Words are hard to use, right? I mean, I think it’s hard to write stuff and say stuff because you never know how people are going to, like, take it. There’s this one essayist, I like him, named Wendell Berry. He wrote this essay called “Standing by Words,” which...
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If you have a cell phone and alerts turned on you may periodically get messages warning of emergency weather conditions or Amber alerts asking you to assist in the recovery of a child kidnapped from their family. The system has saved countless numbers of lives. Yet, when a government...
Read the Full ArticleHave you noticed the revolution exploding around us? I am sure you have, because it is impossible to miss it—although the fact that it is tumultuous, as all revolutions are by nature, might be something we do not always consciously grasp. Make no mistake, however: a revolution is swirling, and although...
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It was twenty years ago this fall that I plunged wholeheartedly and somewhat heedlessly into Christian classical education when some comrades and I started Providence Academy in Green Bay, WI. Since then, I have been hearing repeatedly the very sensible call for a practical education. In theory, I have...
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Here at Mandala Fellowship, we are all very excited about our Europe trip. Nobody is actually ready yet, so we are all looking forward to Tuesday with some trepidation. Mrs. Bortins has been working night and day to make sure we are all set for the trip. We leave...
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