"Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis

From the book "Mere Christianity", buy C.S. Lewis. Page 148-149, the second chapter on Faith:

"Christians have often disputed as to whether what leads the Christian home [Heaven] is good actions, or Faith in Christ...Faith in Christ is the only thing to save you from despair at that point: and out of that faith in Him good actions must inevitably come. There are two parodies of the truth which different sets of Christians have, in the past, been accused by other Christians of believing: perhaps they may make the truth clearer. One set were accused of saying, 'Good actions are all that matters. The best good action is charity. The best kind of charity is giving money. The best thing to give money to is the Church. So hand us over $10,000 and we will see you through.; The answer to that nonsense of course, would be that good actions done for that motive , done with the idea that Heaven can be bought, would not be good actions at all, but only commercial speculations. The other set were accused of saying, 'Faith is all that matters. Consequently, if you have faith, it doesn't matter what you do. Sin away, my lad, and have a good time and Christ will see that it makes no difference in the end.' The answer to that nonsense is that, if what you call your 'faith' in Christ does not involve taking the slightest notice of what He says, then it is not Faith at all - not faith or trust in Him, but only intellectual acceptance of some theory about Him. The Bible really seems to clinch the matter when it puts the two things together into one amazing sentence. The first half is, 'Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling' - which looks as if everything depended on us and our good actions: but the second half goes on, 'For it is God who worketh in you' - which looks as if God did everuthing and we did nothing."

Raising Fit Kids

Notes from the book, _The No-Gimmick Guide to Raising Fit Kids_.

*Warm up before exercising: walking, arm circles, knee lifts.
*Stretches:
*****hamstring: sit down and spread legs, exhale and reach for one toe and hold 30 seconds, repeat on other leg
*****groin: sit, bring feet together so that the bottoms of feet are touching, lean forward and hold 30 seconds
*****quads: lying down on side or standing up, bring heel to buttocks, switch
*****lower back: lie on back, knees bent, bring one leg up to chest and hold 30 seconds, switch
*****cobra stretch
*****shoulder stretches
*****side stretches
*Go for walks daily. Start with 30 minutes and increase by 5 minutes each week. Kids run, skip, gallop, explore, etc.
*Other aerobic activities: bicycling, roller skating/blading, swimming, jump rope
*Winter aerobic activity: Dance Dance Revolution (there is a Disney version available!)
*Strength Training, work up to 2 sets of 12-15 reps, 3-4 times per week: weights (light), push ups, sit ups, back-ups ("superman"), chin ups, lunges
*Only take second helpings 20 minutes after dinner is served.
*Slow down eating, encourage conversation, manners, setting down the fork in between bites.

Day 3: The Meltdown

Today definitely did NOT go as smoothly as I would have hoped. It took E an entire hour to learn how to write the number 2. And R flipped out again about identifying naming words (nouns) and describing words (adjectives).

After many, many repetitions and mounting frustration, I had a meltdown too. Thankfully my wonderful husband stepped in and helped with the 2 teaching while I worked with R on his Language Arts.

No Language Arts tomorrow...History and Geography instead.

On the bright side, M has really been speaking a lot lately, increasing her vocabulary. She's growing up so fast!

Day 2

Today was a great day!

We started at 9:15 and finished at 1:00.

• We did Day 2 of our Bible Story book, about how God created Adam and Eve.
• I worked with R on Math, while E practiced patterns with the frogs.
• I worked with R on his Language Arts while E did her 6 workbooks.
• E did her Kindergarten World computer game while R and I did Language Arts.
• After lunch, R did Science
• While R was doing his math "homework", I worked with E on her reading.

R got frustrated really easily with the Language Arts sections that asked him to write sentences with naming words (nouns) and describing words (adjectives). He's trying to make it more difficult than it needs to be.

E did wonderfully with her writing the letter m and s. She only had to do one line of each today, since she was writing them so much better than yesterday.

Home School, Day 1

Whoopee!!! First Day of School Today!!!

Because we returned from our trip to Ohio yesterday night, I let the kids sleep in just a bit and we started our home school day a little out of order.

• R did Language Arts, Day 1: sections 1 & 2. That took most of the morning to do. (From 9-12)
• After E had her breakfast, she started on her workbooks.
• Then we did our Bible story, Genesis 1-2, and the kids colored a page that went along with it.
• After that I worked on E with her reading lesson. She did well with sounding out the letters, but had a hard time writing a lower-case m and s. Those letters are pretty difficult for a beginner, anyways. After that, Emily was done!
• After lunch, R and I worked on his first Math lesson, which was some easy review. He probably doesn't need to review it, but it's good for me to start getting the feel for the lessons.
• After that, we did Science, which was a basic overview of the book and discussion of Creation and he had to memorize Genesis 1: 1-5. He definitely did not like memorizing such a long passage, but he did get through it! Then I had him copy it down, to practice handwriting. He was finished by 1:45!

It was a good day and I definitely need to do a little bit of preperation for tomorrow's lessons, so it will run a bit smoother.

Homeschool 2009

This is an account of our home school adventures. Our goal is to complete lessons 4 days per week. At first, we will attempt to do 2 math or 2 science lessons along with 1 language arts or one history lesson per day (for R). Bible study (for both) will be done daily, as will reading and preschool basics (for E). Changes will be made if necessary.

Curricula chosen and frequency:

R: 2nd grade
Math - Saxon 2, 4x per week
History & Geography - Alpha Omega Lifepacs, 1x + 1 activity per week
Language Arts - Learning Language Arts Through Literature, The Red Book, 2 lessons, 3x per week
Science - God's Wonderful Works, 4x per week
Bible - 365 Bible Stories for Young Hearts, 1x per day

E: Preschool
Reading - Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, 1x per day
Preschool basics - Rod and Staff Preschool ABC series workbooks, 2-3x per day

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