The Holy Spirit:a Mother's and Child's intimate guide and teacher.

"The Holy Spirit co-operates in teaching every fruitful idea," Art Middlekauff taught me at the homeschool conference.  For the Bible says "when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. " Jn 16:12-13

This means He helps you teach your child every truth--numbers, nutrition, and nouns.  Mothers co-operate with the Holy Spirit in teaching their children.  Maurice explained this relationship between Holy Spirit and teacher back in Victorian days,

"The woman receives, not from her husband, not from her physician, not from her spiritual adviser, not from the books which she consults, — all these may help somewhat, if they do not hinder, — but from the Spirit of God Himself, the intuitions into her child's character, the capacity for appreciating its strength and its weakness, the faculty of calling forth the one and sustaining the other, in which lies the mystery of education, apart from which all its rules and measures are utterly vain and ineffectual."

If the Holy Spirit is our "living and personal Teacher and Guide," then why do I act as if he is not there, not in the room, not doing the actual act of bringing knowledge to my child?  How many times do I get in the way and hinder them from receiving from Him, "let the little children come to me and do not hinder them."

I feel convicted to pray in and through my homeschool lessons and with my children even more.

The Burgess Bird Book for Children (audio)

has a wonderful chapter on "the Bully" the sparrow.  We have been watching the sparrows outside our window devour the wild seeds from the feeder.  The children are diagraming birds and noticing bird behavior.  Z said this AM, "Mom I saw a crest on that one!"  I love how the birds wait their turn on the bare branches and roof behind, but scare away any other species or squirrel who comes their way.  They have power in their song sung as one against the bigger animals.

I am thankful for their beauty today and what they tell me about my Creator.  That he delights in the small, gives attention to the littlest detail, and cares for his own.

Loving learning science through narrative...

Charlotte Mason fanatics love this book because children learn all about animals and their habitats from an engaging narrative. I would love to own the original old copy. Here's a snippet: Jenny Wren cocked her pert little head on one side, and her sharp little eyes snapped. "Why don't you learn to swim, Peter, like your cousin down in the Sunny South?" she demanded. "If he had been in your place, he would simply have plunged into the Smiling Pool and laughed at Reddy Fox." Peter sat bolt upright with his eyes very wide open. In them was a funny look of surprise as he stared up at Jenny Wren. "What are you talking about, Jenny Wren?" he demanded. "Don't you know that none of the Rabbit family swim unless it is to cross the Laughing Brook when there is no other way of getting to the other side, or when actually driven into the water by an enemy from whom there is no other escape? I can swim a little if I have to, but you don't catch me in the water when I can stay on land. What is more, you won't find any other members of my family doing such a thing." Link to FREE AUDIO: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23708/m4b/23708-02.m4b