Try a Unit Study.

Basically unit studies focuses on one subject or interest and learns from many different angles and modes. It is actually the way most of us learn when we are interested in something… we want to learn about it from many different angles.

Here’s why I really like the concept of unit studies.

It brings a KEY element to your child’s learning that will take it from random facts and work and linear information to permanent, brain-enhancing education.

The format of unit studies brings PURPOSE and MEANING to learning.

It connects the concepts and various areas of the brain and forms much deeper neural networks that last and strengthen longterm intelligence.

You can do a HUGE involved unit study or keep it simpler and just branch out into a few areas to bring the connections and meaning to whatever you are studying.

Let’s say you  have a 13 year old son who loves Ferrari sports cars.

Harness that interest and use it as a doorway to learn many things:
You can use it to practice narration or writing as he tells you WHY this $300,000 car is so fantastic;  study the geography of Italy and see where Ferraris are manufactured; make maps of where the races are; invent math problems with cost of fuel per gallon for an imaginary road trip; practice art –drawing a car or redesigning one with his improvements; draw graphs comparing the Ferrari to other cars; practice public speaking as he shares in front of family or friends all the advantages of this heavenly car; learn advertising and marketing – have him write ads or produce them on tape or video or on your computer; have him design a website page for it… Fly the entire family to Italy and go see where Ferraris are made… well at least you might see if there is a showroom here in town and you could all go and see them and maybe they might give him a spin in one of them! And I suppose there are good books to read about cars, sport cars, racing… I just don’t know any off hand.

Once your child gets a hold of the idea, together your creativity and with the internet, ideas are endless. The learning avenues nearly infinite.

Want to organize and record what you are doing? Then you keep a notebook (info for a future transcript) and categorize the work done and the opportunities used under the categories of “Art, English composition, spelling, math, science, economics, advertising, speech…”

There are a zillion websites with ideas for and information about unit studies. You don’t have to think it all up on your own. Feel free to borrow ideas or use their plans or bounce off on your own from the ideas they started you on.

For example, go to ling.cHomeschooom. There is an example of how you could use Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth for the basis of a unit study.

One word of caution. Use unit studies (interlaced with other materials or curriculum if you want) and be as organized, creative or innovative as you want or feel comfortable with. But don’t run it into the ground. Be sensitive to how much mileage and depth the learning can be from your chosen subject.

Have you used unit studies?                          Any questions about using unit studies?

Let us hear about it.

From Answers in Genesis www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2009/11/09/making-evolution-pill-easier-to-swallow-part-2

The mutations that we see in the world around us involve a loss of genetic information, not a gain. Mutations could never cause a species to gain genetic information and change into a more advanced species. This poses a problem for evolutionary claims that humans evolved from apes.

Mutations often pose problems for humans, in the form of birth defects. Some evolutionists claim that birth defects are the “trial and error” of evolution, and eventually this could create a new species or sub-species of human.

The reality is that the vast majority of mutations are detrimental (to some degree), and, thus, the genome of the human population is degrading.

My children struggle with this just as I do.

How many parents have told me that they struggle to keep on keepin’ on with home education – because the alternative seems SO easy.

Jon Bloom has some good encouraging words for us today.

Hang in there. The reward makes all the difference.

Cheryl

When You Don’t Feel Like It, Take Hearthttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DGBlog/~3/xEao3paRLG8/

Posted: 11 Nov 2009

(Author: Jon Bloom) www.DesiringGod.org

Did you wake up not feeling like reading your Bible and praying? How many times today have you had to battle not feeling like doing things you know would be good for you?

While it’s true that this is our indwelling sin that we must repent of and fight against, there’s more going on.

Think about this strange pattern that occurs over and over in just about every area of life:

§ Good food requires discipline to prepare and eat while junk food tends to be the most tasty, addictive, and convenient.

§ Keeping the body healthy and strong requires frequent deliberate discomfort while it only takes constant comfort to go to pot.

§ You have to make yourself pick up that nourishing theological book while watching a movie can feel so inviting.

§ You frequently have to force yourself to get to devotions and prayer while sleeping, reading the sports, and checking Facebook seems effortless.

§ To play beautiful music requires thousands of hours of tedious practice.

§ To excel in sports requires monotonous drills ad nauseum.

§ It takes years and years of schooling just to make certain opportunities possible.

§ This goes on and on.

The pattern is this: the greater joys are obtained through struggle and pain, while brief, unsatisfying, and often destructive joys are right at our fingertips. Why is this?

Because, in great mercy, God is showing us everywhere, in things that are just shadows of heavenly things, that there is a great reward for those who struggle through (Hebrews 10:32-35). He is reminding us repeatedly each day to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Each struggle is an invitation by God to follow in the footsteps of his Son, “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2).

Those who are spiritually blind only see futility in these things. But for those who have eyes to see, God has woven hope (faith in future grace) right into the futility of creation (Romans 8:20-21). Each struggle is a pointer saying, “Look! Look to the real Joy set before you!”

So when you don’t feel like doing what you know is best for you, take heart and don’t give in. Your Father is pointing you to the reward he has planned for all who endure to the end (Matthew 24:13).

For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:17-18)

Was 3 Hours of Suffering Enough? http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DGBlog/~3/8KmnSEkX_A0/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email

(Author: Tyler Kenney) This is an edited transcript of the audio. www.desiringGod.org

Jesus suffered on the cross for only a few hours. But that suffering was sufficient to pay eternal debts for millions of people. How can that be?

If our sins are punished by eternal separation from God, why did Jesus only have to suffer momentary separation?

That’s a good question, and I think there’s a pretty clear answer.

Another question would be, How can one man suffer when millions should’ve suffered? Same kind of issue. How does one suffering become the suffering of millions? The math doesn’t work! How does suffering for 3 hours on a cross correspond to delivering people from eternity in hell? All those kinds of questions apply here.

The answer is that the degree of suffering, indignity, reproach, degradation, and fall that Jesus endured is not simply determined temporally. And it’s not simply determined by the exquisiteness of the pain of a nail cutting through a nerve in your wrist.

It’s determined by the difference between the glory that he had with the Father in heaven and the ignominy that he suffered, naked and hanging like a piece of meat as the Son of God on the cross. It’s that distance that is the magnitude that provides the scope needed in his suffering to cover an eternity in hell and to cover the sins of millions of people.

The way to think about it is that we commit a greater indignity against God, not just in accord with how many sins we commit or how bad they are, but in accord with how great he is. Therefore our sins are infinitely great because they’re against an infinite person and deserve an infinite punishment.

Christ, being an infinite person, became so low that that drop in suffering, that drop in indignity was such a huge drop—it was an infinite drop—that it suffices to cover the sins of millions and to cover the entire length of eternity that we deserve to be in hell.

He is a great Savior.

(Download the audio or video.) www.desiringg http://od.org/download.php?file=http://cdn.desiringgod.org/audio/q_and_a/3963_if_our_sins_are_punished_by_eternal_separation_from_god_why_did_jesus_only_have_to_suffer_momentary_separation.mp3

http://www.desiringgod.org/download.php?file=http://cdn.desiringgod.org/video/q_and_a/3963_if_our_sins_are_punished_by_eternal_separation_from_god_why_did_jesus_only_have_to_suffer_momentary_separation.m4v

By Mark Gregston http://www.heartlightministries.org/blogs/pttradio/

:I recently looked at some 20-year-old photos of myself and was shocked to realize that I had on the same shirt as in the photo, thinking it still worked for me now!

I was so used to wearing my favorite shirts that I never took time to notice the nicer, newer shirts left for me in my closet as a gracious hint from my wife.

Many parents have the same problem with not updating their parenting style. There is nothing wrong with their tactics, they are just a little outdated.

So look at your parenting style periodically and determine what you may need to adjust to fit with the age and maturity of your children. The shoe may still fit, but make sure it is a style that’s working for you.

I thought I would share some from my study this morning of John Piper’s Romans. www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/1999/1079_The_Demonstration_of_Gods_Righteousness_Part_2/v

Something to meditate on the astounding need we have and the infinite remedy we have in Christ

Resting in Grace,

Cheryl

Romans 3: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;

Unshakable in a Hundred Crises

Today I want to focus on verses 23-24. Verse 23 gives the universal need of every human being. And verse 24 gives the all-sufficient remedy for that need. What these two verses say is more important for your future than 10,000 books written by man to help you solve your problems. These are the words of God spoken through the apostle Paul. They tell us our true condition as human beings. And they tell us what God has done to save those who put their trust in his Son, Jesus.

If you build your life on these verses – if the truth of these two verses becomes the foundation of your life – you will be unshakable in a hundred crises. If these verses become the sun in the solar system of your life, all your planets will orbit in harmony around the will of God. But if you put these verses out on the rim of your life (say near Neptune or Pluto) you need not be surprised if there is confusion and uncertainty and fear and weakness in your life. There are some truths that are so foundational and so central that you should memorize them, meditate on them, bind them to your mind and heart with chains and ropes and every kind of adhesive you can find. Many professing Christians are very weak, and amble through their days pretty much like unbelievers, because they don’t hold on to these verses the way a drowning man takes hold of his rescuer’s arm.

I know I feel like I do. In fact I kinda feel like my life just veered off the “script” I had planned for it. My current situation and my adult life don’t remotely reflect the vision I had for it all when I was young.

But I am amazed at what God has done in my life as He is writing my script for me.

I now understand that THIS was the journey for me and MY ideas were the real detour.

I really enjoyed this blog by Jon Bloom. www.desiringgod.org/ It’s creative and a great reminder about “detours” in our lives.

Resting in Grace,

Cheryl

Joseph: (Un)Planned Detours www.desiringgod.org/Blog/2138_joseph_unplanned_detours/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DGBlog+%28DG+Blog%29

(Author: Jon Bloom) www.desiringGod.org

“The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps” (Proverbs 16:9).

As Jesus’ earthly father, Joseph, discovered in Matthew 1-2, that’s just another way of saying that when your plans are detoured and redirected, you find out who’s really charting the course.

* * *

Nazareth. It felt good to Joseph to be back home. The same old market and the same old merchants. The same old neighbors with the same old complaints. The same old synagogue and the same old rabbi.

Oddly, though, the normalcy felt a bit strange after the unexpected adventures of the past couple of years. What an odyssey this simple Galilean carpenter had been on.

It had all started with Mary’s world-shaking pregnancy announcement that took an angel to help him believe. He had hardly stopped reeling from that news when he was hit with the census decree from Rome.

Joseph recalled the anger he had felt. Some vain emperor a world away was ordering people to go to their ancestral cities to register. As a descendent of King David, this meant for Joseph a royal 100-mile walk to Bethlehem. It seemed outrageously unjust. Not only would this disrupt his business and incur travel expenses they could not afford, but Mary would be in advanced pregnancy!

He remembered venting his exasperation to a friend who had replied, “Surely the Messiah will come soon and deliver us from these tyrants!” And then to cheer Joseph had added, “Hey, maybe you’ll see the Messiah there! You know what the prophet said,

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.” (Micah 5:2)

His friend might as well have hit Joseph on the head with a plank. All at once he saw it! Augustus in all his imperial pomp was merely a tool in the hand of God to fulfill Scripture. His anger melted into awe-filled joy. Yes, Joseph most certainly would see the Messiah in Bethlehem.

In fact, after Jesus’ incredible birth, Joseph had fully expected to make Bethlehem their new permanent home. Surely that’s what Micah meant. And he had just started to get his business going when the angel of his dreams came again, shortly after the Persian magi visited. “Flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you.” Herod wanted to murder their baby!

Joseph had felt anger rise against Herod. And he felt a stab of fear. The Egyptian border was another 100-mile foot journey for his wife and child, mostly through dessert.

But he quickly remembered. If Augustus was God’s tool, what was Herod? God had his reasons to send his Son to Egypt. So Joseph snuck his family out of town in the cover of night.

Egypt. That was one place Joseph had never expected to see, much less live in. He hadn’t had any idea how he would feed and house his family there. But he need not have worried. God provided wonderfully for them like he had all along.

And then after a few months another dream and another commission: Herod had died and he was to take the child back to Israel. Joseph assumed this meant returning to Bethlehem.

But he soon learned that Herod’s son, Archelaus, was ruling over Judea. Archelaus was a sharp chip off the cruel block. If he got wind of a Messiah in Bethlehem, no doubt another assassination would be attempted. One more angelic dream visit and it was back to Nazareth.

And who knew how long that would last…

* * *

The Holy Family’s first few years were not tranquil. They were filled with grueling travel during the hardest part of pregnancy, a birth in worse than a barn, no steady income, an assassination attempt, two dessert crossings on foot with an infant, living in a foreign country, waiting on God for guidance and provisions just in the nick of time. It was difficult, expensive, time-consuming, career-delaying and full of uncertainty.

And it was God’s will.

The unplanned, inefficient detours of our lives are planned by God. They are common for disciples, and they commonly don’t make sense in the moment. But God’s ways are not our ways because our lives are about him, not about us. He is orchestrating far more than we know in every unexpected event and delay.

So when you find yourself suddenly moving in a direction you had not planned, take heart, hold tight, and trust God’s navigation.