“Are you a thermometer or a thermostat?” The question was originally posed to a group of teenagers at a Christian summer camp. When I heard the query, I was struck by how apropos it seemed for me, a mom preparing for another season of homeschooling. A thermometer reports the...
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Did you know that math is about more than numerical values arranged in symbolic sentences? It has great value in itself for practical application, of course, but it has much merit as well in the general skills and virtues that its study encourages. Recently, I have been reading a...
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You may remember from my previous article that I argued that we are all—barring some handicap—able to be musical. Therefore, I will not go into much detail about that point because that article addresses most of my reasons for believing this. Keeping this in mind, however, the question becomes: if we are all...
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Summer Practicum season is often the “pause that refreshes,” as Coca-Cola would say. Inspiration abounds from speakers keen to be God’s conduit for truth. Encouragement flows freely among those who have “been there” before—and survived a certain stage of the homeschooling journey. Renewal and recommitment to the challenge are...
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There is a scene in The Fellowship of the Ring that totally redefined the word “fellowship” for me. “Fellowship” is a word that has become so common among church members that it has been watered down to mean almost nothing. If teens are talking outside, but doing nothing, we say, “Well at...
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Has this ever happened to you? Two hours ago I opened my laptop to begin this article. As I was typing some notes, I noticed incoming email about an upcoming conference. Oh good! I opened it just to make sure everything was all set and to look over the...
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Dual enrollment for the mature and capable homeschool student presents a valid means of gaining college credit while in high school. With careful planning, the industrious student gains credit and experience, while starting to whittle away general education credits that are transferable upon high school graduation. Note the emphasis...
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“If the Challenge Guide has the weekly assignments in it, what do I do all summer?” asked a mom at a Parent Practicum. She had homeschooled her children for years before participating in Classical Conversations and she had recently decided to enroll her youngest child in Challenge I. Previously, she...
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Are you musical? What a question! And the answer will affect so much of what we consider our children and ourselves capable of, much less what we are willing to attempt. As you might have guessed, I suspect that far too many of us consider ourselves unmusical—or maybe I...
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In Genesis 2:2–3, Scripture tells us that “on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had...
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In Part One of this article, we looked at two recent arguments in favor of letting children’s desires dictate what they read. This common contemporary argument is directly opposed to the idea of a classical, Christian education. While the aim of most contemporary educators is to prepare their students for the...
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Recently, an accomplished youth choir participated in a workshop with an internationally acclaimed choral conductor. The workshop was aimed at music teachers and choir directors. The conductor spent several hours working with the youth chorale to demonstrate his conducting principles and techniques. Many of these techniques were highly classical,...
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