science experiment with acetic acid and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda and vinegar) giving off carbon dioxide among other things

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Hear how this Master’s student learned valuable lessons from classmates, then applied them at work the next day. Find out more about online courses and online education for homeschoolers at www.TheJubileeAcademy.org

Student Testimonials
High School Students on online homeschooling.

An overview of RIT Online Learning’s activities in 2006 includes the usability evaluation of Pachyderm, a product of the New Media Consortium (NMC), myCourses courseware management, Breeze web conferencing software, and blending learning

In spite of the fact that we are never too old to learn, I believe it is true that the best learning for human beings is when he is in its period of immaturity. The longer the period of childhood, the greater the possibiliies for learning.

A few summers ago, I was walking through a wooded park. Seeing a strange gray and white object lying in the path, I stopped to pick it up. It was full of hexagonal cells and curiously crunched up with paper covering over one of the cells. Out flew a hornet, who knew exactly what to do and it promptly. No one had instructed his newborn creature in the art of self-defense. It was born at sure knowing all of it ever need to know, and caring within itself the exact pattern of all that it could ever be or do. A dog’s puppyhood lasts about three months. The old saying that it is “hard to teach an old dog new tricks” is not without its foundation in truth. After weaning, the earlier the trainer gets the puppy. The more he can do with the puppy in 12 or 14 months, the dog has reached maturity and its best learning period is over.

The term instinct has largely fallen into disuse by modern psychologists, but it is a fact that the lower the form of life the more completely equipped for existence when it is born. Wasps, bees, flies can perform at birth without practice or learning, with all that they need to do is survive. The higher the form of life, the more helpless the incident is at birth and the more prolonged is its period of immaturity. The human child still has much to learn. There are no moral or spiritual qualities to be developed in a hornet or in the puppy. Not only must the human infant be taught the rudiments of self preservation, but also he must learn to live in a social and moral world. He must learn that his wants and needs follow up while of the utmost importance to him, must on occasion give way to the creature needs of others. An only child who sees his mother’s lap and breast preempted by the new brother. That place which until now has been his own place of comfort and refuge, learns that hard lesson early. The child is aware of others in his world with rights and privileges equals to his own. If he comes from Christian parents, he should have learned that God made his world and in His laws govern it. The child has begun to discover that it is a world in which cooperation works best, but he can work with the Supreme Being and that those who share the world within and so make it a happier and safer place in which to live.

All of this learning is possible because the child can think, as his experiences increased in number and kind, he recalls many of these and reflect upon them. He exercises judgment in connection with them and comes to certain conclusions, which helped him to make judgments and adjustments in his contacts with the natural world and with other people as the child learns and grows, he masters the techniques of knowledge and thought that make the world safe for, more beautiful, more convenient for himself and his friends. He finds that thought mocks the universe, and that a lifetime is too short to learn all there is to know. Who can doubt that the long period of human child and a definite part of God’s plan for those creatures whom he has made and equipped to think and to work with himself?

Objective observation of children at play is highly rewarding. To those who have never watched children at play, the first observation may be a startling experience. Though there are exceptions, most two or three year old children, free to choose their own activities, usually do so without fear. Their need for supervision is obvious. Yet the experienced homeschooling parent does not guide their boundless energy with endless “do’s” and “don’ts”. Instead, she proactively provides opportunities to explore and investigate. She encourages the homeschool children to try out materials and equipment, to do what is safe at the same time she leaves them free to venture and to experiment with what she has made available.

It is helpful to study the equipment provided by those who know and understand the physical needs of children. Note the large but lightweight box, but push and pull toys, the big boxes that can be climbed into, that can be filled up, emptied out, pushed over on their sides, all through the use of the larger muscles. Note, too, how careful the homeschool parent is not to cause fear or uncertainty in the venturesome child who is about to scramble up the jungle gym for the first time. She noticed that children are often better judges of what they can do that are anxious adults. She does not continually warn “Look out, you’ll fall”! That is a frightening thought to implant in the mind of the little adventurer. Instead, she said, “go slowly”, “Hold tight.” With these encouraging suggestions, a climber reaches the top successfully. He shouts in triumph, “See what I can do!”

Observation of older children is just as rewarding. The older child is greater skill in handling himself. There is evidence of purpose in every act, but he is more cautious in attempting what is new to him. Older children do not reveal their curiosity as frankly as little children do, nor do they call attention to their successes as openly. They are most humiliated by their failures, and often struggle with surprising determination to overcome physical difficulties.

Watch for signs of beginning cooperation in little children. Notice, to have the understanding leader of older children forestalls difficulties through sick gestures for cooperative action. She notices, for example, that France is an undertaking to move the bookcase away from the wall and that it is too much for her. Before temper blazes, or discouragement stopped efforts, both homeschooling parent suggests to Edith, “Francis needs help”. “Will you see what you can do?” She turns her attention to a couple of juniors who are growing weary or bored and says that’s too something else to do. Perhaps you end Mali would like to help clean our supply closet or would you rather work on our castle?

No single trait is more essential for effective Christian living, and the ability to live and to work with others cooperatively.

Sometimes parents take the attention-getting antics of the child too seriously. What can parents do with these trying times,? A good principle to keep in mind is that there are some things that a parent must learn to it nor. A next-door neighbor of ours used to tell us. You see too much where your child is considered quite seeing so much. Some of the behavior problems of your child which were you so much will be taken care of by time and the process of the child growing up. This neighbor was not a child psychologist and yet we have found that he was giving a sound advice.

Things will go a lot smoother if we can understand of a six-year-old will usually act like a six year old, and that when the same child gets to be 10 years of age he will usually act like a 10-year-old. To say to the child don’t be childish is about as effective as saying don’t breed. All children can vote missed the mark at times. This is because they are children and need time to learn how to conform to the requirements of their social world, time to learn how to control their emotions, time to learn how to get along with other people, time to learn how to make the most time. If parents can remember this, it will help in keeping the child’s behavior in proper perspective.

When the homeschooling child’s behavior becomes too unruly. Too frequently, it might be a good idea to look at his daily routine. Does he have enough opportunity to play with other children? Is there enough variety in his day? Does he have space and equipment for active play? Is he fenced in with too many unnecessary restrictions? There is a difference between the child’s natural exuberance and his misbehavior. The youngster is by nature adventuresome, curious, energetic cop, inclined to explore. When he has these tendencies curbed by parents who are too restrictive, the child naturally responds in some form of a bilious behavior.

In coping with the behavioral patterns which say “I want your attentio”, homeschooling parents sense of humor can be indispensable. Give the child’s attention temporarily and then channeled the incident into something amusing.

Another means of avoiding complex problems over his unacceptable behavior is by setting up a set of rules for conduct which the child clearly understands. If the child can see with these rules are not simply that are made necessary for the welfare of all concerned. And by the very nature of the situation itself, he is much more likely to go along with them. A word of caution: if the rules are too numerous to rigid and unsuited to the child’s present level of development, he is likely to thumb his nose at them, figuratively and perhaps even literally.

In all of this effort to deal with the child who is missing the mark, the parent who can retain his emotional equilibrium, is the parent who is in the best position to win. In order to keep his emotional control, it may be necessary for the parent simply to walk away from the situation and not deal with it until he has cooled off and until he can get the proper situation into proper focus. Here again a sense of humor can be a valuable tool. A smiling parent who can see, and can lead the child to see, the ridiculousness of a situation can often change and emotion packed atmosphere into a serene one and can do it much more satisfactorily than a scowling and threatening parent.

There is no more dynamic power in a child’s life than the need for his parents wholehearted approval and recognition. The child may hide the truth so that it is not easy for a parent to perceive it. He will often relinquish some of his strongest and most wholesome urges in order to adhere to parental instructions, if he knows that disobedience for the sake of independents will gain for him the disapproval of his parents. Even the child’s “I hate you” is the desperate plea of the youngster who has a worthless peeling that he is so hopelessly trapped by his extreme need for approval and acceptance that it compels him to acquiesce to the domination of his parents. Because they are children, children will fail to measure up to our expectations sometimes. How we as parents behave when our children misbehave is the real test of parenthood. If we can pass the test most of the time, we can breathe a sigh of relief by feeling that we are normal parents after all.

A mother and her son were admiring some baby chickens. The son picked up one and held it so tightly that it almost smothered. It struggled a until it succeeded in escaping. Casually, the mother said, if you hold a cheek to tightly, it wants to get away. Try holding one gently. The next little chick nestled quietly in the Sun’s open palm, while the mother injected a timeless truth: you know, son. People are the same as chicks. If we told those we love too closely to us, Bailey. They will struggle for freedom. Hold them with open hands and they won’t feel smothered.

That mother had shared a truth that valuable football parents: when are chicks, our children, missed the mark, let us deal with them with the open hand of overall love, understanding, and honesty.

Lets take a look at the central objectives of an outstanding Christian homeschooling program.

The central objectives of any good homeschooling program should be:

1) to assist students in the understanding and development of their own strengths and weaknesses,

2) To perceive, respond to and participate in God’s continuing activity and revelation in the human and Christian communities. If they deal with their continual life involvements of becoming an independent adult,

3) to provide a wide range of stimulating resources and tools that will enable students and parents to fully explore the world God has created,

4) to assist members of the Christian community to learn how to become change agents in the world, and

5) to explore ways in which homeschooling students can become social activists.

It is crucial to exist within a supportive believing community for the support necessary to become a change agent in society. The central objective of a good homeschool plan starts with the assumption that believers within the Christian community can become change agent much as Jesus commands us to be salt and light in the world

One temptation when developing the Christian homeschool curriculum is to try to copy the same educational system that most of us grew up with. Many homeschoolers set up desks and blackboards in their kitchens and tried to duplicate the educational process that exists in most public and private schools. I would like to propose that homeschooling does not have to replicate the traditional learning process and can and should in many cases reinvent the process so that more appropriately adapt to the needs of the individual learners.

In a traditional school system, students are grouped together by their chronological age. Every student that was born in a specific year is put in that grade level. Your respective of their intelligence and their mastery of the material. This alone create enormous problems for the teachers. The fact that everyone in the classroom was born in the same year means that both the curriculum and the teaching processes is usually dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. In other words, the teacher is often forced to teach to the slowest child in the classroom. What happens to the rest of the children in this scenario? It has been said that a one size fits all education, it’s no one. This is where we, as homeschoolers, have tremendous freedom.

One of the central objectives in creating a reinvented homeschool program is to forgo the notion that just because children were born in a certain year. That means they should have acquired certain skills and should be learning from certain books. That’s completely rethink the idea that children need to be at a specific place at specific times. It’s learning a race? Who determines when and why might eight-year-old has to learn XYZ. Exactly when he’s eight? This basic philosophy stems from the need in an institutional setting to herd large groups of children from one task to the other at the same time. In a great homeschooling program, we can jettison this notion altogether and concentrate our efforts on meeting the individual needs of our children.

I love to read! My idea of a phenomenal vacation would be to be left alone in a room somewhere with a pile of books and food delivered regularly to my bed. Here is a list of great literature that hopefully will help create a love of reading to your children.

Approved Summer Reading List – Montrose Christian Middle School

6th Grade
1. Christopher Paul Curtis – Bud, Not Buddy, The Watsons Go to Birmingham
2. Madeleine L’Engle – A Wrinkle in Time, Swiftly Tilting Plane
3. E.L. Konigsburg – From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankwiler, Outcast of 19 Schuyler Place, Amy Elizabeth explores Bloomingdale’s, Silent to the Bone
4. Margaret Peterson Haddix – Running Out of Time, Among the Hidden, Take Offs and Landings, Escape from Memory
5. Paul Zindel – The Pigman, My Darling, My Hamburger
6. Karen Cushman – Matilda Bone, The Midwife’s Apprentice
7. Jules Verne – Around the World in 80 Days, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, From the Earth to the Moon, The Lighthouse at the End of the World
8. L.M. Montgomery – Anne of Avonlea, Anne of Green Gables

7th Grade
1. Katherine Paterson – Bridge to Terabithia, Jacob Have I Loved, Invisible Child, The Same Stuff as Stars
2. Elizabeth George Spear – The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Sign of the Beaver
3. Charles Dickens – Great Expectations, David Copperfield, The Old Curiosity Shop, The Mystery of Edwin Drood
4. Frances Hodgson Burnett – Little Princess, The Secret Garden, Little Lord Fauntleroy
5. S.E. Hinton – The Outsiders, That was then, this is now, Tex
6. Avi – Crispin: The Cross of Lead, Fighting Ground, True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
7. Margaret Peterson Haddix – Running Out of Time, Among the Hidden, Take Offs and Landings, Escape from Memory
8. Gary Paulsen – Hatchet, The River, Sarny

8th Grade
1. Lois Lowry – The Giver, Gathering Blue, Silent Boy, Number the Stars, Summer to Die
2. Jane Austen – Emma, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility
3. Louisa May Alcott – Little Women, Little Men, Jo’s Boys, The Inheritance, Eight Cousins or the Aunt Hill, Rose in Bloom
4. Oscar Wilde – The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest, An Ideal Husband
5. Karen Hesse – Music of the Dolphins, Out of the Dust, Witness
6. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Lost World

When I first began homeschooling, I had many parents ask me, “Where do you find the patience to do that? I could NEVER homeschool my children! I just don’t have the patience.”

My answer has always been the same. As the mother of 8, patience is something I desperately need. I would say “Patience is something that develops by being tested, and it doesn’t happen over night. It takes time. It’s not something someone either naturally has or doesn’t have. If I’d have waited until I had patience to homeschool my children, I never would have.”

We’re not born with patience. It must be worked at and constantly refined. Just about the time I would think I had all the patience I’d need, something new would come up and I’d find out I had much fewer patience than I had thought.

Public school teachers don’t always have patience either, but with 20 to 30 students in their classroom, they don’t have the advantage that homeschoolers do to discuss the situation, or apologize to a particular student when they’ve been impatient.

Homeschooling is a way for parents and their children to live together in an understanding way. The very nature of a family has a number of different personalities within it. That then means that everyone’s patience will be tested from time to time. However, the opportunity is also there to correct an impatient attitude through an apology when necessary, and passing a similar test the next time instead of failing again.

The additional result will be the example you are to your children. Just as you teach your children through being patient, you also teach them through being impatient. It’s only through the special parental love you have for them, and the daily tests you go through together, that patience is ever found and perfected.