Welll this is a “novel” idea (ha!): an online library, ala Netflix. It’s called BookSwim. It’s kind of like a library/rental program rolled into one. I checked it out. The selection is still a little slim, but it’s growing and there are some really good books there. This could be a real blessing for homeschoolers, as well as for book lovers.

It basically works this way: sign up online and pay a monthly fee at BookSwim. You reserve books into your queue, and they are sent to you. When you finish reading them, send them back. Your next books from your queue will be sent to you. Shipping is completely free, both to and from your house (the books come in postage-paid packaging).

The great thing about this is that there are NO DUE DATES and NO LATE FEES! I like this aspect of it. I use my local library but I have to drive there (costs money for gas) and if I forget my due date (which has happened a lot lately), I am hit with hefty fines.

This service looks really great for people in very rural areas who have no access to local libraries, who like the convenience of online rental services, who read slowly or very quickly, and who prefer a variety of books, especially newly-released books. There is a wide selection of topics, so I can see this kind of business taking off.

If you are interested, click: BookSwim. I like the idea of this service so much that I’ve decided to become an affiliate for BookSwim. So I will get a little commission if you sign up using my link! I’ll keep the button to BookSwim in my sidebar, should you want to check it out in the future.

I discussed my book methodology here, if you need a refresher. I’m continuing my posts on some good homeschooling books that I have found and work for us, in the hopes that maybe a morsel or two will help you!

One thing I want to say is that I very rarely buy brand-new books. I have found loads of great textbooks and workbooks through my local library, on their “discard” shelves. I also happen to prefer the old textbooks, as they emphasize critical thinking and aren’t filled with all the extraneous mush of “How does this make you feel” junk. I don’t care how multiplication and biology make my kid feel, I care they that understand it and can apply it.

So anyway, here are a few more books, books I bought at yard sales and the library. Guess how much all those books combines cost me? Go ahead- guess!

Under a dollar! Pretty cool huh? They are great books, too. more…

A long time ago in this country, 90% of the population was literate. Most children began their school at home, learning to read and do basic math. Grammar schools, where available, educated the child until 8th grade. In the early 1900s, a new trend in education began: John Dewey’s “student-based” system. It emphasized learning from the perspective of the student. Whereas education used to be the memorization of skills to be applied in adult life, Dewey made education more of a social engineering tool, encouraging teachers to bring out a student’s opinions and feelings. Memorization and discipline went by the wayside. Children now work in group settings, think in group settings, and learn in group settings.

Parents wonder why public schools leave their childern so ill-equipped, and why students graduate with so few skills. This is why. The children are being taught to operate under social conditions, while independent critical thinking skills are thrown out the window. Of course, this doesn’t ALWAYS happen in EVERY school, but it is happening in more and more schools, everywhere.

We homeschool, and send our kids to an umbrella school for tests on what they have learned. It is the best kind of school, I think– I teach the kids from books distributed by the school (they use the excellent Abeka curriculum) and I can add my own stuff, too. They test the kids on the basics but the standards are extremely high (so the kids work hard and apply what they know). They also handle all the administrative paperwork. I just love the way the schooling works, and I love the education the kids are getting.

So we are free to pick and choose our own extra-curricular books. I love art and history, so we have a lot of those kinds of books. Here’s a little sampling of some really great books I’ve found through the years. Maybe it will help you if you are looking for some good books.

I combine social studies, history, civics, and “living” all together. The best history books I have found, by far, have been the Abeka books. I also really like “The Story of the Constitution” by Sol Bloom and Lar Johnson. It’s great for high schoolers. Comes with tests, too.

The Drive-Thru History series, by Dave Stotts, are DVDs, not books. But WOW these things are great!! We have almost worn them out. They are history-centered. Dave Stotts is a hilariously funny guy with a love for history and cool cars. He drives the neatest machines through Rome, Greece cities, places in Turkey, and more. He does a superb job, and we just love his stuff. He also has a great educational series on American founding history. LOVE these!

My kids are big into American history. Here are some of our favorites. more…

WARNING! Lengthy article ahead about homeschooling! lol

Well we’re gearing up for another school year here. Like I’ve said before, I homeschool, but it’s a unique homeschool. Our church has a small group of administrators that distribute curricula, give tests, and (best of all) handle all the administrative paperwork. We pay tuition to cover these expenses. We parents teach the children at home, grade all their bookwork, and ensure that the children do well on their tests. The standards are extremely high and the children have been receiving an exceptional education. This type of schooling is not exactly private schooling, and it’s not exactly homeschooling. The term I have heard is “umbrella” school. Parents teach the material and enforce the discipline, administrators regulate the curriculum and distribute and record tests and progress. It’s the best of both worlds. But I call it “homeschool” just because it’s easier for others to understand the concept; very few people know what “umbrella” schools are and I tire of explaining it to every nosy person at the supermarket, lol.

We parents also regulate music, art, and languages. The umbrella school handles the curriculum for topics concerning mathematics, grammar, science, and etc. In elementary grades, books on art and music theory are designated. However, once a student reaches 7th grade, the pursuit of electives materials is up to the parent. Music is mandatory, but the curriculum and/or instruction is up to parents. Same with high school art or other electives.

Elementary school grades are pretty cut and dry. There are a lot of resources available for the lower grades. I use the Abeka books system and absolutely LOVE it. We’d tried the ACE system and that was so lame it wasn’t funny. ACE is too easy, too dumbed-down, and doesn’t emphasize history and science like the Abeka books do. I like Abeka because it has more of a thematic feel to it– it’s orderly, the questions can be tough, and the tests are not direct repeats of the book questions (shame on you, ACE!!).

As for high school, once you’ve got elementary school under your belt, high school is a BREEZE. The kids are pretty much independent workers by age 13. The real fun part is watching your children develop likes and dislikes and interests in certain topics. The child’s personality really starts to come out. If you’ve been strictly disciplining during those early years, the student absolutely shines by grade 8.

I’ll give you a glimpse into our little world of curricula. I’ve tried a lot of books and various programs. I’ll share some of the neat books I’ve found, books that have helped the kids in their development. I am a history/art/language buff, and my husband is a science/music/math buff, so our kids have a terrific advantage right from the start, by working off their parents’ interests. I know not all families are like so fittingly blended, but homeschool is still Number One for education, no matter the style of the parents. Parents just have this keen perceptive about their kids. And the home, with it’s simple tools is well able to teach a child. You don’t need a science lab filled with beakers and pulse oximeters to educate your kid! Homeschooling is easy!

I think the primary reason homeschooling has been so successful in educating a child is because there is a built-in, vested interest in the parent to encourage hard work and self-discipline. These elements are missing from public education. Education isn’t about how many facts a brain can hold, how much trivia or data a person retains. True education is the ability to receive knowledge and APPLY that knowledge. There is a big, black hole of nothingness when it comes to public schools with this concept, because public schools cannot enforce the application of knowledge and critical thinking; they can only dump facts into the kids’ heads. So that’s why I believe that homeschooling is superior to public schooling, even with parents who have only a basic education. Like me. I graduated high school and was a “B” student.

Anyway, my husband and I have been “around the block” with books for the kids. I’ll share a few of the best ones in future posts.

… with God. Have you ever heard that? That’s a verse from the Bible. The angel said it to the shepherds, when the angels were announcing the birth of the Messiah to them. Literally in the Greek, it means “For no word of God is without power.” That’s absolutely amazing to me.

I’ve come across some really neat blog posts while dropping Entrecards lately. People have been blogging about the great things God has been doing. The stories are thrilling! When I am low, I really need a little boost like that. Well, I need a little boost like that ALL the time, lol, but especially when I am low.

Here’s a new book I have recently read about: Ozell Adkins Life Inspirations. It’s a book of inspirational poetry, to remind us that nothing is impossible with God. Everyone goes through bad times– everyone– but God is with us through them all. Sometimes things don’t always work out as we want, but I do believe that God works all things out together for good.

Have you heard of the book? I’m not “into” poetry anymore (I was as a kid, but kind of lost interest), but this looks like something beautiful. I wonder if this book is like the psalms– where they are basically prose of thanksgiving and prayer to God? If you have read the book, let me know what you thought. It’s not in my local library yet, but it is listed at Amazon. If you like inspirational poetry, check it out!

Update– at Amazon you can use their “search inside” feature, and I was able to read an excerpt of some of the poems. WOW!!! This is a terrific book! It’s a great one as a gift, too. I think I’m going to get it.

I am by nature an extremely organized person. This can be good and bad. It’s good when I have assignments or goals. It’s bad when I’m working with less organized people, lol. Lots of sparks fly from time to time.

Honestly, I don’t know how “unorganized” people homeschool. I’d go to bed every night in terror, hoping that my work done by the “seat of my pants” worked. I’m too high-strung for such dangerous living! Plus I have this terrible propensity of throwing away papers. I really don’t know how it happens, but for some reason, I’m always throwing away papers we really need to keep, like insurance documents, receipts, etc…. sigh. So I have a few boxes where I toss EVERYTHING in now, according to subject.

OK, so anyway, I have a very, very, VERY organized desk. I actually have two of them (one for school and one for my writing jobs). This is the desk where we establish our homeschooling “base.” To prevent clutter (and me losing paperwork), I keep the desk stripped bare, save for the current lessons and current books on which we are working. Other books and notebooks (like textbooks, score keys, etc) are stored on a bookshelf. When a child finishes a book, I put the expired lessons on the bookshelf and take out the new ones, and put it in its proper shelf on my desk.

This is a wild looking desk, I know. The base is a very old teacher’s desk we acquired from an old school building. It’s HUGE and it weighs a ton. It takes two men or three of us girls to move the thing. The top is a plywood box that my husband made. I drew up the plans of what I thought I needed, and he constructed it. It is the best organizer I’ve ever had.

I’ll be posting more about our curriculum and actual routine, but right now I just wanted to give curious onlookers an idea of how things look. You can see slots in the desk. These things hold the kids’ notebooks (they do not write in workbooks, they write their answers in spiral notebooks– this saves money), their charts (we keep track of exactly when they work and what they work on), journals (we have food/physical activity journals and music journals), and their Bible verses notebooks (more on that in a second). In these slots, I also store printed-out answer keys, extra printer paper, and extra notebooks.

I also have Goofy– my mascot– on the shelf. :) Everything has a particular place so that if it goes missing or undone, I know about it immediately. The kids fill in their own journals– for example, they must practice a musical instrument or work in music theory at least 30 minutes a day, four days a week. So in their music journal, they write down exactly what they have worked on, and for how long. I’ll be blogging about the books we use for such purposes in future posts. I think we’ve now got this thing all down to a science, lol.

About Bible verses. My pastor came up with a brilliant idea: he has the children write ten verses from the New Testament four times a week, in their best handwriting. Then, the children must read these verses aloud to a parent. It is AMAZING at how well-educated my kids have become from this. They have large portions of the Bible memorized and understand the doctrines. This requirement also fulfills: handwriting skills, oral-reading skills, spelling, grammar, and literate sentence structure. And because it is a discipline and because it is the Word of God, it is helping the children with their character and reasoning skills, too. My kids are all excellent spellers, readers, writers, and they all have scholarly skills in the understanding of the scriptures. I highly recommend this for any homeschooling parent.

Now about textbooks. We use the Abeka books, but have supplemented their education with a wide variety of books, DVDs, computer software, and field trips. Homeschooling is, essentially, our life right now. We have a structure upon which we homeschool– a philosophy of education, if you will. It is heavily based on reading and on history. Everything springs out of that, really. We do not read fiction books anymore. I think my youngest, who is now 11, read his last fiction book last summer. Why am I against fiction books? Well, why read fiction when there are so many interesting and edifying non-fiction books to read? The problem is that public schools and libraries are filled to the ceiling with mind-melting drivel that does nothing to educate the young.

Now before you think I am some kind of dictator— I am!!! Muahahahahahah! OK, ahem, well… my kids HAVE read fiction. Actually, for the first five years of schooling, I allowed fiction books. I’ve usually stuck to the classics (Black Beauty, Flat Stanley, Swiss Family Robinson, Robinson Crusoe, and the Laura Ingalls Wilder series, which are non-fiction books but read as fiction). And if my kids want to read a fiction book today, they may after it is approved. But they really don’t want to anymore. Why read about weird stuff like sorcery or talking mice, when the adventures of Daniel Boone (written by the man himself) and the exploits of missionaries (like John Wesley and Hudson Taylor and Elisabeth Elliot) are so much more compelling (not to mention character-building)? Garbage in, garbage out, I say. To us, homeschooling isn’t a means to an end, it is the journey of life itself. I am being homeschooled as I homeschool. It’s a way of life.

More later…