John Piper - God cares about your body

I have had my share of health issues.  It can really make homemaking and homechooling challenging.  I know of many other moms out there who have it even worse than I do.  This really blessed and encouraged me to go on.  God cares about my body, but he cares infinitely more about my eternity.  Thanks for the reminder, John Piper.

As the family goes, so goes the economy

As the family goes, so goes the economy
Posted By Jennie Chancey on May 30, 2011



From Mercatornet:

As we know, the family in western countries is not going very well. In its introduction the FRC report points out that people have a reduced capacity for the intimate social relationships that marriage demands.


Most American parents cannot stand each other enough to raise the children they have brought into existence. In 2008, only 45 percent of American seventeen-year-olds were in a family headed by their biological parents, leaving them weaker in their relational capacities than prior generations. The numbers are lowest among African-Americans, where only 17 percent of seventeen-year-olds have spent childhood in an intact family. Among Asian Americans the intact family is strongest, but even for them it is only 62 per cent.


Some people claim that family breakdown and the rise of cohabitation is nothing more than growing pains experienced as the family changes and becomes more diverse. Laws, social policy and the economy have to catch up with the evolution of the family, they say.


In sharp contention with that view is the title of the report: “Marriage and Economic Well-Being: The Economy of the Family Rises or Falls with Marriage”. Authors Patrick F Fagan, Andrew J Kidd and Henry Potrykus have analysed federal data and academic studies and demonstrate their case convincingly: the family based on a lasting marriage (the “intact married family”) outperforms other sexual partnering structures — by a mile.


Read the full piece HERE.



Narration--The Art of Retelling

From

Teaching God's World News

May 31, 2011

The Art of Retelling

The communicative tool of retelling has been used at least since the days when Moses was commanded to repeat the works of God to the children of Israel. It continues even today when parents tell their histories to their own children.

The methodology of narration is important to learning. A student learns to visualize a scene he has heard or read about, to assemble what he knows, to inquire, criticize, organize, select, and even express himself through speaking and writing. The narrator becomes actively engaged in the learning process.

Begin to hold your children accountable for what they are hearing, reading, and observing. Ask them to retell parts of their lessons. Do this after readings in Bible, history, science, and literature. Do it as they solve problems in math and as they observe art and nature.

Several powers of the mind will be activated as students begin really to know what they are reading and observing. Students will be able to develop a clear understanding of the material and will be able to participate in a broad variety of discussions with a certain degree of knowledge. They will learn to reflect, ruminate, remember, and participate in thoughtful discussions.

Here are some practical ways to use the process of narration with your students:

· Begin a new lesson or selection from a book with a review of what the students previously have learned.

· Introduce new vocabulary, background information, and facts before you begin the lesson or the reading.

· Read slowly and carefully though the material once. The students are to read or listen with the understanding that they will narrate or retell what they are hearing. Students are inclined to pay closer attention if they know they will be accountable for the information. In turn, their listening and attentiveness skills will be strengthened.

· Then have students narrate orally the portion read or heard, or the lesson observed. Students can be called upon in turns to narrate the passages or chapters until the whole is told back. Narrate less before you narrate more.

· Narrate point by point, episode by episode, not word for word.

· Do not talk too much, interrupt, or prompt.

· Assign written narration only after a students are fluent in oral narration. You may act as a scribe for younger students.

· Keep a record of written narrations as evaluations of the students progress. Evaluations should be according to sequence, details, and word choice.

· Follow up written narrations with the students reading aloud their work. For younger students, the teacher should read back what the students were told.

· Take time to narrate daily. Make this time calm and unhurried.

-- Maryellen Marschke