Thoughts at the end of a home education year

I initially wrote a post about what has and hasn't worked in our home educating this year. But the detail is probably only relevant to us and the overview can be encapsulated more simply.

When we have tried to keep to our principles things have gone well and when we haven't there have been problems.

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy might.
And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

Deuteronomy 6 verses 5-7.


Our aim is to have God centred education with a Biblical world view. This doesn't preclude good academics-certainly not. Failing to aim for excellence would not be God honouring nor loving our neighbour as ourself. It doesn't mean that we don't study any books except for the Bible or books about the Bible but everything is held or should be held to that standard.


Is this easy? Of course not. Not because it is hard to keep up with the latest in National Curriculum standards nor because it is hard to keep up with trends in education but because I serve a perfect God who hates wrong doing. He is perfectly patient but sees my impatience. He is perfectly loving but sees my selfishness. But there is forgiveness with Him that He may be feared.

Be with me, Lord, where'er I go;
Teach me what Thou wouldst have me do;
Govern whate'er I think or say;
Direct me in the narrow way.

Work in me, lest I harbour pride,
Lest I in my own strength confide;
Show me my weakness, let me see
I have my power, my all, from Thee.

Assist and teach me how to pray;
Incline my nature to obey;
What Thou abhorrest let me flee,
And only love what pleases Thee.

John Cennick

Most of the time, I don't do formal Geography lessons with our Wee Guy, but for the past couple of weeks, the Wee Guy and I have been doing some map work as well as learning some fascinating facts, by living vicariously through OMSH's family holiday.

Okay, their vacation.

Almost every leg of the amazing family holiday they're having has been chronicled on the OMSH blog (or, on PW's site). 

Their trip began in Texas, where they live, and so far, they've travelled through Oklahoma, 

Kansas, 

Colorado, 

and visited a snowy Yellowstone National Park inWyoming. They crossed into Montana, 

visited an incredible copper mine in Idaho, Utah, 

and visited the Grand Canyon in Arizona and New Mexico.

The fact they're in New Mexico tells me they're coming close to the end of their trip. They are almost home.

(In real life, they are actually at home now, but we're working some days behind them)

When we took our (almost) four week holiday to the US two years ago, we visited none of the places the OMSH family have seen, and yet, reading of their trip is bringing back some wonderful memories for me: 

the excitement of visiting places, previously only seen online or in photos; 

the enjoyment of each other's company, with the feeling of freedom that being on holiday brings; 

the joy of meeting friends - some of whom we'd never met before; others we had been missing for some time, and longed to see again;

and the (possibly unexpected) enjoyment of long trip together in the car.

I've loved 'travelling' with the OMSH family, and following an actual trip like this brings map reading to life for the Wee Guy.

Okay, and for his Mum!

As well as the Wee Guy finding individual towns, roads and parks in an Atlas (as seen below), we have also been sticking dots onto a map of the whole of the USA to give some perspective of the journey.

On the individual atlas pages, we place tape giving a rough idea of the roads they travelled. This is Wyoming, on Day 7 of their holiday. They travelled to the Yellowstone National Park and (I think) drove into Montana for a short time. (Did they do this just for the fun of having another state to add to their holiday? I don't know, but I do know that we did this on our trip!)

You can head over to the OMSH site to read more of their trip. Over the next week, we will finish their journey at our kitchen table, and I'll show you their final leg when we're done.