Today, many children graduate without this essential knowledge. Most curricula today follow a haphazard sampling of topics with a focus on political correctness instead of teaching students how to study. Leigh Bortins, a leading figure in the homeschooling community, is having none of it. She believes that there are core areas of knowledge that are essential to master. Without knowing the multiplication tables, children can't advance to algebra. Without mastery of grammar, students will have difficulty expressing themselves. Without these essential building blocks of knowledge, students may remember information but they will never possess a broad and deep understanding of how the world works. In The Core, Bortins gives parents the tools and methodology to implement a rigorous, thorough, and broad curriculum based on the classical model, including:- Rote memorization to cement knowledge - Systematic learning of geography, historical facts, and timelines - Reading the great books and seminal historical documents instead of adaptations and abridged editions - Rigorous training in math and the natural sciences

    "Don’t Waste Your Time Homeschooling: 72 Things I Wish I’d Known" features concrete suggestions to help you: • Discover ways to take your family’s pulse and maintain a peaceful household. • Realize how easy it can be to sidestep the isolation trap. • Find creative ways to maintain your own identity amid a sea of others’ needs. • Learn the one easy habit to help avoid conflict with busy teen drivers. • Explain to others how your children are being properly socialized.

    Everyone would like education to be a joyous adventure and celebration of life, as well as a solid preparation for living. Sadly, most education today falls far short of this goal.But as Susan Schaeffer Macaulay shows it doesn't have to be this way. Education can be a wonderful, life-enriching, joyous experience.For the Children's Sake is a book about what education can be--for your child, in your home, and in your school. It is based first on a Christian understanding of what it means to be human--to be a child, a parent, a teacher--and on the Christian meaning of life. At the same time it is deeply practical. Many of the central ideas have been tried and proven true over a century in almost every kind of educational situation. The ideas are in fact so true that they can be applied equally at home, in different schools, in Africa, in the inner city, and in your own community. But they are also ideas which Susan and her husband Ranald Macaulay have tried and proven in their own family and school experience.For the Children's Sake is a book which can help every parent and teacher awaken the young minds of their children and give them a new richness, stability, and joy for living.

    Weaving songs, stories, family rituals, and verses throughout, Darian shows how to bring joy to such daily events as mealtimes, going to bed, chores, naps, and playtime. A practical, creative, and much-needed resource for child-rearing in the 90s.

    Ironically, today's schooling is damaging the single most essential component to education--the joy of learningHow do we recognize the wounds caused by outdated schooling policies? How do we heal them? In her controversial new book, education writer and critic Kirsten Olson brings to light the devastating consequences of an educational approach that values conformity over creativity, flattens students' interests, and dampens down differences among learners. Drawing on deeply emotional stories, Olson shows that current institutional structures do not produce the kinds of minds and thinking that society really needs. Instead, the system tends to shame, disable, and bore many learners. Most importantly, she presents the experiences of wounded learners who have healed and shows what teachers, parents, and students can do right now to help themselves stay healthy.

    But our fears are misplaced, according to Yale early childhood expert Erika Christakis. Children are powerful and inventive; and the tools to reimagine their learning environment are right in front of our eyes.           Children are hardwired to learn in any setting, but they don’t get the support they need when “learning” is defined by strict lessons and dodgy metrics that devalue children’s intelligence while placing unfit requirements on their developing brains. We have confused schooling with learning, and we have altered the very habitat young children occupy. The race for successful outcomes has blinded us to how young children actually process the world, acquire skills, and grow, says Christakis, who powerfully defends the preschool years as a life stage of inherent value and not merely as preparation for a demanding or uncertain future.           In her pathbreaking book, Christakis explores what it’s like to be a young child in America today, in a world designed by and for adults. With school-testing mandates run amok, playfulness squeezed, and young children increasingly pathologized for old-fashioned behaviors like daydreaming and clumsiness, it’s easy to miss what’s important about the crucial years of three to six, and the kind of guidance preschoolers really need. Christakis provides a forensic and far-reaching analysis of today’s whole system of early learning, exploring pedagogy, history, science, policy, and politics. She also offers a wealth of proven strategies about what to do to reimagine the learning environment to suit the child’s real, but often invisible, needs. The ideas range from accommodating children’s sense of time, to decluttering classrooms, to learning how to better observe and listen as children express themselves in pictures and words.           With her strong foundation in the study of child development and early education and her own in-the-trenches classroom experience, Christakis peels back the mystery of early childhood, revealing a place that’s rich with possibility. Her message is energizing and reassuring: Parents have more power (and more knowledge) than they think they do, and young children are inherently creative and will flourish, if we can learn new ways to support them and restore their vital learning habitat.

    Her teachings on the topic of education required six large volumes to cover. This book makes it simple for homeschooling parents to find exactly what they need to learn about Charlotte Mason's thoughts on establishing good habits.

    Her approach, however, is not conventional. Miller dispenses with the more traditional reading instruction of book reports and comprehension worksheets in favor of embracing students' choices in books and independent reading. Her zeal for reading is infections and inspiring --and the results are remarkable. No matter how far behind Miller's students may be when they enter her 6th grade classroom, her students read an average of 40 books a year, achieve high scores on standardized tests, and internalize a love for books and reading that lasts long after they've left her class. Travel alongside the author as she leads her students to discover the ample rewards of reading and literature. Her secrets include: Affirming the reader in every student Supporting students' reading choices Carving out extra reading time Modeling authentic reading behaviors Discarding time-worn reading assisgnments Developing a classroom library with high-interest books Rich with classroom examples and practical advice and stitched together with the thread of Miller's passionate voice, this book will help teachers support students of all levels on their path to reading success and points a way out of the nation's literacy crisis. The book also includes an invaluable list of books that students most enjoy reading.

    With warmth and humor, Karen provides a wealth of insight, practical advice, and narratives, illustrating how educating "the Charlotte Mason way" actually works. In this book, you will discover how to recognize a "living book"; use narration; teach reading, spelling, composition, and vocabulary; appreciate great art, classical music, poetry, plays, and novels; keep a Nature Notebook for science; take part in hero-admiration for history, establish helpful habits; create a loving home atmosphere; and more.

    It is richly illustrated with lively anecdotes drawn from parents and teachers who have discovered how the power of story can help resolve a range of common childhood behaviours and situations such as separation anxiety, bullying, sibling rivalry, nightmares and grieving.

    How To Teach Your Baby To Read shows just how easy it is to teach a young child to read, while How To Teach Your Baby Math presents the simple steps for teaching mathematics through the development of thinking and reasoning skills. Both books explain how to begin and expand each program, how to make and organize necessary materials, and how to more fully develop your child's reading and math potential.How to Give Your Baby Encyclopedic Knowledge shows how simple it is to develop a program that cultivates a young child's awareness and understanding of the arts, science, and nature--to recognize the insects in the garden, to learn about the countries of the world, to discover the beauty of a Van Gogh painting, and much more. How To Multiply Your Baby's Intelligence provides a comprehensive program for teaching your young child how to read, to understand mathematics, and to literally multiply his or her overall learning potential in preparation for a lifetime of success.The Gentle Revolution Series:The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential has been successfully serving children and teaching parents for five decades. Its goal has been to significantly improve the intellectual, physical, and social development of all children. The groundbreaking methods and techniques of The Institutes have set the standards in early childhood education. As a result, the books written by Glenn Doman, founder of this organization, have become the all-time best-selling parenting series in the United States and the world.

    Whether you're a Waldorf parent or teacher, or you just want to learn more about these innovative educational concepts, this book contains important ideas on learning that you can apply today.

    

    Over the past forty years, educators there have evolved a distinctive innovative approach that supports children's well-being and fosters their intellectual development through a systematic focus on symbolic representation. Young children (from birth to age six) are encouraged to explore their environment and express themselves through many languages, or modes of expression, including words, movement, drawing, painting, sculpture, shadow play, collage, and music. Leading children to surprising levels of symbolic skill and creativity, the system is not private and elite but rather involves full-day child care open to all, including children with disabilities.This new Second Edition reflects the growing interest and deepening reflection upon the Reggio approach, as well as increasing sophistication in adaptation to the American context. Included are many entirely new chapters and an updated list of resources, along with original chapters revised and extended. The book represents a dialogue between Italian educators who founded and developed the system and North Americans who have considered its implications for their own settings and issues. The book is a comprehensive introduction covering history and philosophy, the parent perspective, curriculum and methods of teaching, school and system organization, the use of space and physical environments, and adult professional roles including special education. The final section describes implications for American policy and professional development and adaptations in United States primary, preschool, and child care classrooms.

    It's a message that stressed-out parents are craving to hear: Letting tots learn through play is not only okay-it's better than drilling academics!Drawing on overwhelming scientific evidence from their own studies and the collective research results of child development experts, and addressing the key areas of development-math, reading, verbal communication, science, self-awareness, and social skills-the authors explain the process of learning from a child's point of view. They then offer parents 40 age-appropriate games for creative play. These simple, fun--yet powerful exercises work as well or better than expensive high-tech gadgets to teach a child what his ever-active, playful mind is craving to learn.