Quote from Forum Archives on August 11, 2001, 10:22 am

Posted by: homenews <homenews@...>

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THE HOPE CHEST: Ideas and Inspiration for Home Education
Issue #43 part 5 / August 11, 2001
Character Counts!
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WELCOME TO THE HOPE CHEST!

The Hope Chest Home School News is a free bi-monthly e-mail
newsletter with encouragement and practical teaching tips.
Web page: www.homestead.com/hopechest/welcome.html
Resource orders: www.hopechest.homestead.com/resourceorders.html

Personal e-mail: [email protected]
Subscription address: [email protected]
Unsubscription address:
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This is part 5 of 5.

WHAT’S UP IN THE NEXT ISSUE?
ON OUR HOMEFRONT: What’s New at the Knowles House?
by Virginia Knowles
RESOURCE ORDERING INFORMATION
REPRINT PERMISSION

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WHAT’S UP IN THE NEXT ISSUE?
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The next issue, which will come out in October, is on the theme of
Justice and Mercy. How do you teach about this concepts in your
home school, especially relating to school subjects like history,
geography, technology, health care, and others? What have you
discovered about applying these in your own family relationships
and through community service? In our new Home Health
column, I’d like to talk about the mercy-in-action topic of family
first aid, so send in your tips!

The December issue is A Cross-Cultural Christmas. I would love
to hear about how Christmas and other winter holidays are
celebrated in different parts of the country and in other nations --
like in your home! Also, how do you tie holiday themes into your
winter school work? For Home Health, send in your wholesome
holiday recipes to counterbalance all of the more fattening
goodies we will encounter!

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ON OUR HOMEFRONT: What’s New at the Knowles House?
by Virginia Knowles
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Despite my original intentions to set up a summer schedule, we
have been hanging very loose around here for the last two
months. Now I’m going to pay for it as we try to break back into a
school day routine. Fortunately, thanks to the generosity and
hospitality of family and friends, my children have had some pretty
awesome adventures that would be very difficult for a large family
to pull off. Mary visited home school friends, the Mulhern family,
in New Jersey. They saw Riverdance on Broadway and went river
tubing, among lots of other fun things. Julia, on her trip up north,
ventured as far as Massachusetts, where she visited Plimouth
Plantation, the Mayflower replica, the Basketball Hall of Fame,
and best of all, went whale watching. They saw about two dozen
whales quite close to the boat. Rachel didn’t take any big trips,
but she got to go to Kennedy Space Center and go-carting with
Thad’s uncle, Joe and his family. Joanna and Lydia started the
summer with a church choir day camp. They ended summer with
a bird-themed character-building day camp, taught by our friend
Cindy Pilling (the Florida KONOS curriculum director), at a local
park. Cindy’s presentation and the projects she planned made
her topic come alive for her campers. Three tweets to you, Cindy!
We’ve also been offered free tickets to Wet ‘n’ Wild, Orlando
Miracle WNBA basketball games and Disney World. Showers of
blessing!

One of my major goals this summer was to “put photos in
albums.” This stayed on my to do list for weeks since I am a royal
procrastinator. Finally one Sunday afternoon, I said, “This is it!” I
pulled out a large basket of photos, sorted them into piles, and
quickly stuffed them into the kind of albums with pockets. Well, I
made a good bit of progress that day. Job finished! Or so I
thought... The next day, my husband unearthed another seven
packages of photos from his desk drawer. So I put THOSE in
albums. Again, I had a feeling of accomplishment. Finally I had
all our family albums photos caught up. Or so I thought... This
week I was trying to find piles of extra photos to give to the girls
for their own albums, and I found a box with 20 more packages of
photos from Spring 1998 to Spring 2000!

Speaking of photographs, we had decided to do a “family night”
on our first day of school. We hadn’t had one in a while, and we
desparately needed some fun time together. I was wracking my
brain that day trying to come up with some activity ideas. Finally,
at last minute, I remembered that Thad had borrowed a slide
projector from his sister Sue and had several carousels to show
us from years gone by. So that’s we we did. My late
father-in-law, a civil engineer who often took community
development jobs in out of the way places, had traveled to over
100 countries in his lifetime. He sometimes took Thad with him.
Thus, we saw the slides from Thad’s and Ted’s trips to Israel and
Venezuela, and Ted’s trips to Egypt and the Canary Islands.
Pretty soon we are going to dig out the ones from their years living
in the Bahama Islands.

We had a rather odd start to school this year. I had wanted to
start at the same time as the pubilc schools on August 6, but nine
out of ten of our family members ended up with a nasty
multi-symptom cold over a two week period, and I had one of the
worst cases. Then I set a goal to start August 13, and put in a big
push to finish up the final hours of lesson planning to start the
year right. Since we were feeling better midweek, Thad
encouraged us to do a couple of half days. Thursday I did an
“orientation” to the school year, and then let the girls do some
things by themselves. Friday (yesterday) was much more full than
that, and I was exhausted when Thad finally got home from work
at 8:15. I’ve been trying to remind them all that there is only one
mom for eight children, and that my time is more limited than
theirs, so they have to learn patience when they are waiting for
me to help them! As I say, “I set the schedule, and you go along
with it!” Wishful thinking, huh?

This year we are using a Diana Waring unit study guide,
“Romans, Reformers and Revolutionaries” as the basis for our
history curriculum. We won’t get all the way through it. I love the
time period from early church through the Reformation and
Renaissance, and hope that I can instill this passion -- or at least
mild interest! -- in my children. I feel like that’s the heart of home
schooling!

Well, that’s all for now! I applaud you if you’ve read this far. I’d
love to hear what you think about this issue of the Hope Chest.

Blessings to all of you,
Virginia

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RESOURCE ORDERING INFORMATION
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I don’t have the space here to describe all of these resources, so
if you want to know more about any of them, check out my resource
web page (www.hopechest.homestead.com/resourceorders.html) or,
if you don't have web access, e-mail me and I’ll
send you descriptions! Right here I am just going to list titles,
authors, prices and order information. Shipping (all orders) and
tax (Florida residents) must be added to the prices listed. I have
limited quantities in stock (and some of them I can’t get any more
of) so please e-mail me before you send payment.

BOOKS BY VIRGINIA KNOWLES
The Real Life Home School Mom -- $14 (list price $16)
The Best of the Hope Chest Vol. 1(Issues 1-10) -- $10
The Best of the Hope Chest Vol. 2 (Issues 11-20) -- $10
The Best of the Hope Chest Vol. 3 (Issues 21-30) -- $10
The Learner’s Journal Lesson Planner & Resource Log -- $10
Nurturing Naomi: How to Help Yourself or Someone Else
Overcome Discouragement (audio tape) --
$3 or free with other order

BOOKS AND TAPES BY CINDY RUSHTON
Inspiring Our Children to Greatness Using Great Literature -- $12
Homeschooling... Digging in to ALL of the Options -- $10
A Charlotte Mason Primer -- $12
Ministering to the Heart of Your Child -- $20
Language Arts... The Easy Way -- $20
Nature Study... The Easy Way -- $25
The 3R'S for Moms...Well, Maybe Four! (tape set) -- $16

QUANTITY DISCOUNTS! If you order any three items or more,
take $1 off the price of each item.

TO ORDER ANY OF THE RESOURCES: Send me a list of
which books you want and how many, and compute the subtotal.
Shipping to USA addresses is $2.50 minimum and 10% after that.
Florida residents pay 7% sales tax AFTER computing shipping.
(Contact me for foreign shipping rates, rush shipping rates, or
quantity pricing.) Mail your check, order and e-mail address to:
Virginia Knowles / 1925 Blossom Lane / Maitland, FL 32751

If you prefer to order with a credit or debit card on the web, go to
the PayPal web site at www.x.com and send the payment to
[email protected]. Be sure to get the e-mail address correct!
Also be sure to include your name, address and other order
information. This is the ONLY way I can accept credit/debit card
payment.

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REPRINT PERMISSION
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You may freely copy material from this newsletter in other
non-profit publications (unless otherwise marked in the article),
but you MUST include the author’s name (not necessarily mine)
and this entire notice:

Reprinted with permission of Virginia Knowles from the Hope
Chest Home School News. For a free subscription, send an
e-mail message to [email protected] or visit
www.hopechest.homestead.com/welcome.html

Please send me a copy of the publication which includes the
material.
Virginia Knowles / 1925 Blossom Lane / Maitland, FL 32751

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