Pajama School Blog

Pajama School, Stories from the Life of a Homeschool Graduate

Homeschool Survey Results – Question Two

by natalie

The second question of my survey was:

What is the number one reason you homeschool?

  • Don’t like public school.
  • Gospel.
  • Christian worldview.
  • Didn’t think school was doing a good job.
  • Sees a lot of reasons and advantages to homeschool (response from the retired public school teacher).
  • Transmit our faith.
  • God. The influence of God in education.
  • God. Teach kids about God.
  • Godly character.
  • Impact future generations – raise children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.
  • Education; couldn’t imagine separating education from spiritual emphasis.
  • To have the heart of my children and point them to God.
  • Build character.
  • Instill Christian values.
  • The heart; to keep our kids’ heart.
  • So that our family will be close and we can give them a Christian education.
  • Want the best for our kids.
  • Raise godly men to go fight.
  • Religion.
  • Opportunity to instill faith.
  • It is spiritually better because they are taught the truth.
  • God’s calling.
  • Biblical worldview and character training.
  • Worldview.
  • Spend more time with our kids.
  • Don’t like the public schools (used to teach at community college and didn’t like what he was seeing).
  • Worldview reasons; biblical perspective; protect from public school.
  • Thought she was supposed to do it.
  • Passing on the faith; educated the right way.
  • Character.
  • It’s the right way to do it.

Homeschool Survey Results – Question One

by natalie

This is the question that I started with, and the one that usually took people a few minutes to figure out! 🙂

How many years have you been homeschooling?

  • 7
  • 4 (2nd generation homeschool family)
  • 9-10
  • off and on for 5 years
  • not a homeschooler; retired public school teacher (taught high school social studies for 31 years)
  • 15
  • 20
  • 8
  • 22
  • 12
  • 20
  • 12
  • 6
  • 15
  • will be starting in the fall
  • 7
  • 2
  • 1
  • 13
  • 11
  • 10
  • 8
  • 2
  • 8
  • 2
  • 9
  • 12
  • 11
  • 20
  • 12
  • 11

Homeschool Survey Results

by natalie

At the recent CHEC homeschool conference, one of the days I conducted a brief 4-question survey to gather some more information about homeschool families. Here are the four questions I asked:

1. How many years have you been homeschooling?

2. What is the number one reason you homeschool?

3. What is your biggest fear or concern about homeschooling?

4. What are the age ranges of your children?

Each day this week I’ll post the conglomeration of answers that I received for one of the questions. I suspect the answers are pretty typical of the demographics of most homeschool conferences across the country. It was interesting to me that regardless of the length of time families had been homeschooling or the age ranges of their children, the reasons and concerns about homeschooling still tended to be pretty similar. You’ll be able to catch a glimpse of the specific responses this week.

Pajama School Hits the Road!

by natalie

This weekend, I am thrilled to be attending my first ever out-of-state homeschool conference! I’ve wanted to for years, and with the recent release of Pajama School, this year seemed like the right time. So Noelle and I left Derby Wednesday morning and arrived at the home of some friends by early evening. Here’s a recap of our first day in pictures:

Pajama School
This is the view we woke up to this morning. Glorious, isn’t it?!

Pajama School

Noelle puts the finishing touches on our table display. You have to be creative when you only have one book to sell!

Pajama School

We had a few hours this afternoon once we finished setting up until the vendor hall opened, so I looked over the workshop schedule and picked a few from the very extensive and interesting list of possibilities. The first one we attended was a panel session with James and Stacy McDonald, Vicki Lewis, and “Little Bear” Wheeler on “Preparing Daughters for Marriage.” There were a variety of thoughts and ideas presented, but the overall theme seemed to rest on the importance of parents, especially fathers, gaining and protecting the hearts of their daughters.

Pajama School

Next we joined the crowd in a packed room to hear “Little Bear” Wheeler’s session: “Warning! Public Schools aren’t for Christians.” This is his last conference, since he has decided to retire from his evangelism ministry and devote his time to pastoring a church. This message was given without any notes, and was very heartfelt and moving. “Little Bear” referenced Psalm 14:1, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God” and drew the application that because our schools have removed God, children who are in the government-run school system are being educated by fools. He also shared that he believes that our current administration will outlaw homeschooling within the next four years, and exhorted us to be prepared for the attacks that will come.

Pajama School

The view from our corner booth right before the exhibit hall opened this evening. There are a lot of great vendors with a wealth of wonderful books and other materials. I’ve started making my mental list and will be doing my part to keep them in business. 🙂 I’ve already had a great time meeting other vendors and talking with conference attendees as they stop by the booth, and look forward to more of that in the next two days. Whether we break even or not, I trust this will be a helpful learning experience and that the Lord will bring blessing as He so chooses.

Enter to Win a Composer Activity Pak

by natalie

Composer Activity PakLaura Lowe, one of my piano teacher blog friends, is hosting a giveaway for a Composer Activity Pak over on her blog. The Pak is produced by Homeschooling in the Woods, a company known for its Hands-on History Paks. I loved making lap books growing up, and I know many other students enjoy them as well.

This looks like a wonderful educational resource! Just head over to Laura’s blog to enter the giveaway. And if you blog about it on your blog, she’ll give you an extra five entries! 🙂 The drawing will take place on Monday, June 8.

A Successful Failure

by natalie

Basil Plant This is a picture of my basil plant. What?! You can’t tell? Well, it had a little sprout a week ago, but it has since died. And so ends the sad tale of my third failed attempt at growing herbs. Now I’m off to the garden store for another packet of seeds and hopefully some knowledgeable instruction on how to coax my little plants to a more fruitful life. The third time proved not to be the charm, but perhaps success is just another attempt away.

How striking the parallel between my herb-growing misadventures and life. Sometimes it seems like the only thing I’m successful at is failing. I fail to communicate clearly the message that was in my heart to share; I fail to retain the interest of a particular student; I fail to correctly discern God’s will in a given matter; I fail to get a new business off the ground after months of planning and preparing; I fail to pray enough, memorize enough, show love enough, or share the Gospel enough. And on the list goes. Truly, my life is wrought with failure. And yet, in the midst of it I am compelled to cling to the promise of success.

The promise of success rests not in achieving the end for which I aim, but in the eternal constancy of the laws of God. Weariness gives way to another season of planting because He promises that “in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”1 The temptation to stop serving is replaced with another day of diligent labor because He promises that “your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”2 The pull to veer onto the easier path of the ungodly is kept in check by the promise that delighting and meditating in the law of the Lord ends with “whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”3

Thus, myriad failures are overcome because the faithfulness of God is great, and His mercies are “new every morning.”4 I am convinced that failure is a very necessary part of our continued growth and dependence upon the Lord. The more I cling to His promises of success, the more I find my understanding of true success redefined. Indeed, perhaps it is in repeated failure that we can claim our greatest success.

1. Galatians 6:9
2. I Corinthians 15:58
3. Psalm 1:3
4. Lamentations 3:22-23

Get a Free ESV Study Bible

by natalie

By far the favorite magazine in our house is WORLD Magazine. It is published bi-weekly, and is an excellent source of news from an unashamedly Christian worldview. Unlike most of the secular news magazines that nonsensically claim to be religiously neutral in their reporting, WORLD Magazine makes no pretense about their underlying philosophies and beliefs. Each issue is filled with a variety of relevant and thought-provoking content – an excellent way to stay current on news from around the world.

Anyway…I just found out that WORLD is offering a free ESV Study Bible to anyone who signs up for a new subscription. I’ve had my eye on the ESV Study Bible for a while now and would love to have a copy of this great resource! If only we didn’t already subscribe to WORLD… 🙂

Memorizing Scripture

by natalie

One of the areas of discipline that was very important to my parents as they raised us kids was the memorization of Scripture. We started with The Navigator’s Topical Memory System at a very young age, and then moved into longer passages and books of the Bible. Even though I didn’t always enjoy it at the time, this is probably one of the things that I value the most now. I describe Dad’s regimen for this discipline in more detail in my book Pajama School – stories from the life of a homeschool graduate.

In addition to the benefit of storing up much of God’s Word in our hearts and minds, I think this early habit of memorizing Scripture even helped us develop a capacity to memorize more effectively. That said, some of our family members do struggle more than others when it comes to memorization. I found this post of 18 Tricks to Memorize More Scripture recently and thought it had some really helpful tips. Intentional memorizing is hard work, but SO worth it!

“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”

Psalm 1:1-3