This booklet was compiled to ease the burden of home education and show how simple and practical it is. There is much money being made in the home education market selling elaborate curricula. We have observed parents spending hundreds of dollars per year on curriculum and then pressuring their children to work systematically through each of the books. These poor children are sentenced to four to six hours of seatwork daily. This puts tremendous pressure on the child and parents.
Children do not need hours and hours of book learning every day. The purpose of a Godly education is not to fill up a child's brain with facts and figures from a book. Intellectual knowledge is only a small part of education. A more important aspect of learning is gaining practical wisdom and understanding of God's world. As we seek to raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, we need them with us. As life unfolds, we seize daily decisions as opportunities to instruct and set an example for our children. The scriptures give us the ideal method for teaching our children:
The LORD our God, the Lord is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
Deuteronomy 6:4-7 NIV
We share our lives with our children, taking them with us to the workshop, to the garden, to visit the sick, to the store - wherever our lives take us. This is the practical way for our children to learn. As parents, we are intimately acquainted with the needs and traits of our children. As the children are ready, we introduce reading, writing and math concepts. We encourage them to do as much as possible on their own. If we push our children too hard or compel them to study too long, they may lose the joy of learning and it will be an uphill battle to teach them.
The purpose of this booklet is also to add insight into our relationship with the state and their home schooling laws. If we have a conviction about educating our children at home, how do we respond to the demands of the state? This booklet also explains our school enrollment program to place the supervision of your children's education under the covering of the Church.