Worldview

On teaching science…

/ Holly Stoner / Leave a comment

I want to talk about why we need to avoid secular science textbooks. I’ve talked about worldview before but this topic came up again and this time it was at my church. How important is a Christian worldview when we are picking curriculum or educating our children; whether that’s in a homeschool environment or a Christian school? I can’t mention secular public schools cyber, or even alternate charter schools because most, if not all, are not teaching a Christian worldview at all. Let me give you a background here. After our church service was done there was a presentation about the localish (not entirely local to my area but the only non-Catholic Christian school option) Christian school. During the presentation it was mentioned how the school uses, for example, secular science books to teach their students about science in order to teach them the difference between worldviews. The idea here is that the teacher’s would be adding in Biblical principles as they come up. This is absolutely backwards if you want my opinion and if you don’t, than stop reading right now. It is far more appropriate to teach from a Christian worldview and include the secular ideas for comparison in order to equip your child for the world. I suspect one reason they choose to teach from a secular science book is solely based on college prep because if you do not intend on going to a Christian college and you are pursuing a career in the sciences you will be learning secular science which includes evolutionary theory presented as fact.

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Why does worldview matter?

/ Holly Stoner / Leave a comment

Hello readers!

Today’s post is still about homeschooling, but it will be different than my recent posts. I will get back to posting about how our 3rd year of homeschooling in the state of Pennsylvania is going, on a later date. For now, a topic came up in a group I am in which is for Christian homeschooling moms. The topic was teaching from a Christian worldview, why, or why not. All in, or only partly in? Follow along with me here.

(This was the post that started the discussion in the group)

So that was the question. How “Christian” should a curriculum be. Nothing against this poster, but this was posted in a Christian homeschooling group. I was curious, given today’s Christianity, or today’s “Christian”, what the answers would be so I followed along for a while. I’m not going to post to every response, but I will tell you that responses like the below were numerous and quite frankly shocking, though I guess I shouldn’t have been shocked.

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Not a new resolution….

/ Holly Stoner / Leave a comment

2019 Happy New Year background. Seasonal greeting card template.

An entire month went by and I didn’t post a thing on this blog. Whoops! So much for me trying to post at the very least, weekly. Life can be quite hectic sometimes. Trying to fit in outside hobbies and obligations while you’re solely responsible for educating your children can be an enormous undertaking. I wouldn’t change it though. God called me to this task so I know it’s what I am meant to be doing even though some weeks, or even an entire month, can feel so very daunting. There are so many things I like to do. There are so many things I have to do. There are so many things I need to do. Many of these things have nothing to do with homeschool. If you’re a homeschooling parent, you likely know what it’s like. For example, my son began phase two of orthodontic treatment and so that means many visits to the orthodontist. This will be part of our life now. The visits will be at least monthly, in the daytime, during school time hours. It’s much easier now though than when he was in phase one and in public school. The month of December is always hectic with preparations for the Christmas holiday. There are usually many events happening during the month. We also experienced some sickness and we are actually again cycling through another virus. It seems everyone around us right now is sick with a cold so no matter how much we try to prevent it, sometimes its unavoidable.
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To Halloween or not to Halloween

/ Holly Stoner / 2 Comments

Today’s post is going to possibly hit a nerve with some of the people who read it, but I felt like sharing why I no longer participate in Halloween. This post isn’t to judge anyone. I think for some of my family members and friends who’ve attended my Halloween parties in the past, they could be wondering, why the change? My children didn’t understand either until I explained it. Of course they still didn’t like the idea because to them Halloween meant CANDY! They realize now that we don’t need to participate in Halloween to eat candy.

Let me give you a background before I discuss why I no longer participate in the day.

When I was entering 2nd grade my parents began attending church regularly, of course with my siblings and myself as well. We did not participate in Halloween. We didn’t trick-or-treat and we didn’t have parties and we didn’t buy or wear costumes. I remember in public school, which I attended in kindergarten and first grade, I did wear a costume and participate in a during school Halloween parade. But for most of my young life, I didn’t. I guess it wasn’t until maybe I was about 10 or 11 that my sister and I began to ask why we couldn’t trick-or-treat when most of our friends were. My parents decided that we would be allowed, but with rules. We were not allowed to dress up as witches, zombies, or anything scary. Our costumes were created by things we found around the house. We dressed up as hippies one year, for example. Mostly we just liked the dressing up part which we did even to just hand out candy. Our trick-or-treating years were short because once you reach a certain age you pretty much stop going.

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let the prep begin…

/ Holly Stoner / Leave a comment

Hello! It’s the middle of July already! The summer is flying by. Our year 2 of homeschool will begin, officially, August 27th. We have some educational trips planned prior which will count as school days and we’ve just completed Vacation Bible School at our church. My going into 8th grader was a volunteer as I was and my going into 6th grader spent her last year participating in the Bible lessons, crafts, music and games. It was a great week. Now that is over and my curriculum orders are coming in, I am prepping my schedule and lesson planning. I have most everything we need to begin right now, waiting for another order of books to arrive. School supply shopping has also begun. As with most homeschooling families we will have well over the PA requirement of 180 days or 990 hours. Every day can bring about an opportunity to learn and we are allowed to begin counting school days beginning July 1st.

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