Last year was challenging (but when is homeschooling not challenging really) because I have always struggled with doing things the “right” way using the Biblical Principle Approach. Actually the BPA is beautifully simple. Not necessarily easy, but simple. Adding a 5yo to my 6th and 3rd graders had me a bit stressed. I wrestled with the idea of individual subjects, of textbooks, of private school. Some health issues have added to my struggle and I wasn’t sure what I could do, much less if I could do what I wanted to do. Then in a conversation with my husband it all fell beautifully into place.

So here are our plans for this year.

Bible: Judah Bible Curriculum (my favorite) and trying to work in some study of the Days of Awe. We are in grade 4.10 of the rotation.

Integrated studies for history, literature, English and geography. I am using a history backbone and we are learning through literature. Lots of great books. I am using Genevieve Foster’s book Abraham Lincoln’s World as a basis for our history and it’s working out great. The time period this year is mainly the 1800′s and we will finish the year with a study of our state’s history. Our overarching Principle for this year is America’s Heritage of Christian Character.

Math: Ray’s and other resources I have to add variety, along with studying a few mathematicians.

Science: tons of experiments from Janice VanCleave’s books. Earth science, oceanography, astronomy, and cytology.

Music: it’s always happening here. Two children take lessons at a local music school and my husband is a musician. We do some extra music games and then we try to have family praise & worship.

Foreign language: the girls want to learn Spanish so we are using The Easy Spanish. It really is easy (gentle lessons).

What will make what we do Biblical Principle Approach? Ask Renae.

Here’s what our weekly schedule looks like:

• daily: Bible, math and integrated study
• science, Spanish and art 3 days a week
• oldest daughter is starting homemaker lessons that she is working on independently
• I also work with my 5yo on phonics and a few simple things separately

Not complicated, not too much. Mainly reading great literature and learning from books (which is what literature means). I am finally getting to see my dream fulfilled and I am so thankful. (If you note the date on that post you will see how long this process has taken me!) I will try to post more often about how our year is progressing, like I did in my journal’s early years here (feel free to peruse the archives).

If you have written about your home educating plans, please feel free to leave a comment & link to it.

Unit studies (which I prefer to call integrated studies) are wonderful. Teaching all the kids all together, planning one stream of lessons for the whole bunch is smart and interesting, and you actually retain more information as you see how it is all connected. However, the thing that always has concerned me is the tendency to focus on facts. It is easy to get caught up in the activities and the topic and lose sight of the beautiful principles that hold it all together. How do you create a unit study that keeps the focus on the principles? Some things to remember:

1. The overarching principle is the focus of the unit. This is the umbrella for all your lessons.
2. The leading ideas point to the Principles. They guide your lessons.
3. Lesson plans come from the leading ideas, which come from the principles.
4. The facts of the lesson illustrate the principle, much like an illustrated sermon.

So this is it in a nutshell: principle—->leading idea—->lesson

For example, your study on WWII may discuss the Holocaust. Your study may have the overarching principle “God’s Principle of Individuality.” Your lessons could include the leading ideas like, “All men are created in God’s image,” “We are all responsible for our own relationship with God” and “Man has intrinsic value.” Your lessons would be guided from these leading ideas that reinforce the Principle. So your lesson might include studying a concentration camp story, reading up on the third Reich and their ideas that are contrary to the principle or calculating how many people lost their lives.

You could show that even as the prisoners lost their freedom they went to great lengths to maintain their individuality–sharing stories of their heritage, smuggling out personal items,writing stories during and after the horrific events. (It is interesting that the Third Reich went to so much trouble to document the Jews as individuals, taking photos, issuing numbers, keeping meticulous records.) Also there are many inspiring stories like Corrie TenBoom’s biography that are inspiring stories of individuals making a difference in the lives of other individuals during the war. And you can do scripture documentation, key sheets and word studies to complete your study. This is just scratching the surface of course, but I hope it gives you an idea of how an integrated study can work well using Biblical principles.

Do you see how the lessons come alive as you discuss the material in light of Biblical principles? Writing, reading, history, literature and sometimes math and science can be intertwined into a cohesive study that makes sense to all of your students. Have them study some things on their own and then share what they learn with one another. (They learn even more and you didn’t have to teach it yourself!) You will be amazed at what the Holy Spirit can prompt in your children.

It is almost like planning a traditional BPA lesson plan, only you have several subjects together instead of separate. Providential HisStory flows naturally between the subjects because everything has happened at some point in history.

I think the label “integrated studies” makes more sense for BPA families because the subjects are integrated under a principle and not a topic. If you think of them as integrated subjects that can keep you out of the “facts only” unit study ditch.

While this isn’t the only way to create an integrated BPA study, it’s the way that makes sense to me and I hope I’ve done a good job of explaining myself. Thoughts? Ideas? Please leave a comment.

I am not crazy about the term “unit study.” I much prefer “integrated study” but it’s really just semantics, so for the sake of the search engines I will use unit study here.

As I was considering again this whole idea of unit study, related to Principle Approach and most importantly to my little lambs, I had some thoughts. Unit studies can be enjoyable. They can also take over your life. If you are not careful they, like anything else out of balance, suck every ounce of enjoyment out of education. I came up with a list of things I am printing out to keep in my teacher’s notebook concerning this.

Education is not about the activities but about the learning. More activities does not equal more learning. Simple is almost always better.

I want my unit studies to be:

• not fun, but interesting (Ps. 16:11, Prov. 2:10, Ps. 145:18, 19)
• not complicated, but complete (Mt. 11:29, Job 37:16, 2 Tim. 3:16)
• not only temporal, but eternal (2 Cor. 4:18, Eph. 5:15-17)
• not fact-based, but based on Biblical principles  (Is. 28:10,13; Ps. 119:40,94)
• not standard issue but customized (Prov. 22:6)

When my plans are led by the Holy Spirit and based on the Word of God, they will do all of that and more.

So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. Is 55:11

Well I’m late with a recap because I have been pretty ill with a respiratory thing. Here’s what we did last week in our unit on homekeeping.

• We defined keeping home. We looked up scriptures and discussed things needed to keep home–diligence, organization, etc. We discussed what it means to “bless” your home. 
• We learned about the history of cleaning through the ages with Cleaning the House by John Mala and 300 Years of Housekeeping Collectibles by Linda Franklin.
  We drew our unhappy (messy home). We will finish the unit with drawing a happy (clean home).
• We read several cleaning books: Five Little Monkeys with Nothing to Do, In a Minute!, Spring Cleaning, Boo and Baa on a Cleaning Spree and Home Tools among them.
• We are coloring a picture each day from Doorposts’ coloring book on Psalm 31.
• We memorized Psalm 31:10.
• We made a kid-safe cleaning solution with baking soda, Borax and water. Now they have a special spray they like to use.
• They did worksheets for math. 
• And more…

It was a fun week. We learned a lot about cleaning and God’s idea of home keeping and blessing. This week we will continue, but my health has put things on a bit of a hold so far. We will start to work on a schedule and lots more that I will post next week.

In my last post I talked about the latest turn in my journey. I am venturing into unit studies and already I am more at home than I have ever been as a home educator. I have come home in more ways than one.

You may be surprised to learn about the topic of my first unit study. It is home keeping. You read right. (It is called home education, right?) That may seem a strange place to start, but you haven’t been to my house. It is a struggle for all of us to stay organized and orderly and it stops here. Now. Here is a snapshot of how this will work at our house.

We will begin with God’s design for women, using a concordance and Webster’s 1828 dictionary. We will also see how God intends for us to live, as children of God. We will note principles, such as God’s orderly nature, God’s Principle of Individuality and Christian self-government. These principles will be the over-arching themes throughout this study. They will reason from God’s Word for themselves what their unique roles as children and as young women are, liberating them to be what God intended.

Once the foundation has been laid and they know why we need to keep a neat home, we will move to the how. This will be things like the history of cleaning around the world, lots of children’s books (fiction and non-fiction) about the topic, samples from literature like Little House on the Prairie. We will mix our own kid-safe cleaning solutions, sew aprons, create charts, estimate task times, and by the end of the month we will have created a chart to keep a neat home together.

After this month is done, we will continue this training. Each Monday will be a sort of “Home Economics” day. We will learn all the things it takes to manage a home well, and do it with Joy. This will include meal preparation and food safety, sewing, cleaning skills, budgeting, shopping and making menus and time management. The other four days will fall into our usual lesson routine. As my son grows older we will teach him these things as well, along with some “manly things” that he will need to know.

It seems strange to say, but I am so excited to realize that it’s okay to teach my kids what I think they should know in this area, and that it can be a part of learning, just as math or history. So I feel the liberty to learn along with them as we start this new life–at home. I hope you will follow along and offer any insight you may have.