The Sentinel Writers

I write when I’m inspired.  I’m Sasha Takis and I’m the “oldest” writer in the bunch.  I’ve been writing for the Sentinel since its inception and I’ve enjoyed the venue for my thoughts.  Because I love finding gospel parallels and life lessons in everything around me, and because I like to write about all of these joyful discoveries of my journey, my column will be an eclectic mix of all sorts of surprises.  Think of it as a monthly birthday gift from me to you.  I hope that “Homeschooling According to Sasha—the Joy, Journey, and Juxtaposition” will be something you look forward to seeing in your inbox.

In case you don’t already “know” me…

I live in Nibley, Utah, which is just a couple of stoplights south of Logan.  I am being taught by my 5 children (4 boys and 1 girl) whose ages range from 14 to 5.  We have a huge dog, a small cat, an even smaller fish, and a really small frog. (There are also an undisclosed number of mice who I try to pretend don’t exist.)  So far my children have never been to public school, but I’ve learned (with a lingering taste of toe jam) to never say never when it comes to parenting, education, and fast food.  I homeschool mainly with Unit Studies, but incorporate my favorite parts of all methods and philosophies into the mix.  Occasionally folks around the country invite me to share my ideas in person at conferences and conventions.  My family is completely lunatic over baseball, some of us playing year-round around the Western U.S.  During the heat and height of the regular “recreational” baseball season, 6 of the 7 family members will be playing on at least 1 team each, 6 days a week on any of 15 fields in 7 cities at the same time.  We get lots of snow here in Cache Valley, but on any given day any time of the year you may see my family outside playing catch or hitting balls in the field, my husband, Phil, leading the ritual in shorts and sandals (with socks)—even in February.  I love reading, writing, music, photography, shopping, gardening, canning, archery, tennis, hiking, running, cross-country skiing, laundry, and mowing the lawn.

Our family moved this last spring. One of my first projects was to pick up 15 book boxes at the local hardware store and start packing my books. I packed box after box after box. Pretty soon I was back at the hardware store buying more book boxes. My husband gets cranky when I start filling medium-sized boxes with books, and there were still more! The new elder’s quorum looked at me in disbelief when books had to be hauled into the school room, the family room, my room, the study, and up to the children’s bedrooms. And then of course there were the bookshelves to hold all those books!

I have always loved novels, but when my first son was born I developed an obsession with parenting and child development books. Over the years those books lead to books on raising boys (with three sons I thought maybe that was all we’d ever raise) and then gender learning differences. When I started homeschooling four years ago it was only natural that these personal interests would lead to study on learning styles and educational methods. I have just recently moved on to political philosophy and organic gardening. 

My children—three boys ages 12, 9, and 7 and finally one little girl age 4—love my new gardening kick. They are already pouring over my heritage seed catalog as we debate which crops to plant next spring. When I see how much they enjoy learning about new things that we’ve never seen in a textbook, I am further inspired in my search for “living” educational materials. Last year we converted our living room into a full-fledged schoolroom. Once the bookshelves and tables were in place the kids quickly dubbed the space the “living schoolroom.” They found the title seriously amusing. I found myself wondering, what is a “living schoolroom”?  To me, “living” learning is learning outside of textbooks, which can include games, books, field trips, and my favorite – grasping teaching moments. Not only is this type of learning fun, many experts believe it is critical to children’s education and development. I am excited to explore this topic in my new column, “The Living Schoolroom,” and hope the information presented will benefit you and your children in your home school journey!

Doreen Blanding has been homeschooling since before she knew there was a word for what she was doing.  She started back in 1991 with the birth of her first child.  He is now a sophomore in a local college preparing to serve a mission. The other five children still gather around the table for daily learning.  Her post high-school education was in the field of education with an emphasis on elementary and physical education.  She has used that knowledge to homeschool all six of her children and coach soccer.  She is a frequent guest speaker at homeschool conferences as well as the author of many articles on homeschooling.  She loves photography and wishes it paid more.  She is into family history and genealogy and loves to combine her love for story with photos in writing her family’s history.  She and her family live in Redmond, WA. 

She has titled her column “For the Sake of the Children” because everything she does is for them.  In August 2009 she was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. “Or course it would be easier to send them to school all day and concentrate on me,” she said, “But I would miss them. I cherish every moment my Father in Heaven grants me and wants to spend them with my family. I’m not done learning. There is so much they can teach me and that I can teach them.” 

Need some new ideas to make living fun?  Every month Kari will present ideas that will add a little sunshine to your home in the form of games and activities that will strengthen your family time.  Playing and talking leads to open communication and that is what families are all about!

Do you have a reluctant writer?  Is it more fun going to the dentist than writing at your house?  Kari will present some innovative writing ideas that you can use TODAY!  Kids love making fans, animal shape books, postcard reports, and writing about experiences that are important to them.  Make writing enjoyable for everyone involved!

Kari Berge Brimhall wrote her first book in third grade and has been writing ever since.  She is married to her best friend and is the mother of four fabulous and incredible kids.  She is a master teller of tales and loves to help bring out the story in kids (and adults).  She loves to cook and has lots of projects just simmering and waiting to take shape.  You can read more on her blog:  http://www.writingisablast.blogspot.com/

Kinesthetic learners are exhausting.  They have to be doing something all the time.  If their hands are not busy they will find something to do with them…tap on the table…pick on their sister…you get the idea.  If you have hands-on learners you know what I’m talking about. 

As the mother of six active children I am always looking for ways to enhance the learning of my children by letting them do.  We love games and manipulatives that provide an active approach to learning.  File folder games, lapbooks and other activities keep their hands busy and their minds focused on the subject at hand, helping them to comprehend and learn effectively.

In this column, “The Hands-on Learner” we will discuss ways to provide positive learning activities for our kinesthetic learners.  The column will include many inexpensive ideas for creating simple games or manipulative that will complement you homeschool environment. 

Music and art have both been passions of mine since I was very young.  I love almost all music from pop to Broadway to opera.  I also love art from Picasso to Escher to Disney.  I get excited when I hear a guitarist playing the blues and have that same emotion when I hear an orchestra playing a piece from Stravinsky.  In the world of art, I love how an artist delicately paints flower petals while another artist will use broad thick strokes for the sky.

While I am far from being an expert in either field, I know a thing or two about them.  Why do I feel I know more than the average person?  Is it because I’m a concert musician or perhaps have an art degree?  Nope.  I can barely draw a stick figure and while I do play piano and violin, I am not by far a virtuoso.

I was instilled with the love of music and art when I was a child.  My mother sang in a professional opera choir so she listened to classical music and opera.  She is also Korean, so she listened to Korean folk music.  Not only that, but she listened to music from around the world.  My father loved everything from mo-town, country, jazz, and big band.  So from that combination of music, I became a music lover.

Some of my earliest memories are from my mother taking me to recitals. I was probably around 5 or 6 and to most people’s surprise, I always sat still.  Granted, there were times I fell asleep, but when I was awake, I was moving my hands and pretending to conduct.  I went to my first opera at age 8, but unfortunately, I fell asleep there and don’t remember much from that night.  After that, I went to music performances more frequently and finally was old enough to stay awake!

One of the highlights when I was younger was being in a youth orchestra and meeting Luciano Pavarotti.  He was very kind to all of us and took his time with autographs and talking to each of us.

When I was a child, I was lucky enough to live in Germany so my mother took me to many art museums from all around Europe.  I remember at school one time, I told the teacher all about Picasso and Chagal, but couldn't figure out the math problems that were supposed to be so easy.

However, I was not the student that had a great imagination nor could I draw, paint or sculpt great art.  Even my handwriting lacked coordination and neatness.  I did not have a great desire to be an artist, but it was frustrating every once in a while when I couldn’t recreate something I saw.

I hope to write articles that will inspire you to go out and explore.  Explore the sounds of the Gamalan as it’s played in Indonesia or the sounds of the bagpipes from Scotland.  Explore the ballet paintings of Degas or the optical illusions of Escher.  At the same time, I hope you will take your family along for the journey.  I hope to write ideas that will make your journey exciting.  With music and art everywhere, your family will always have something new to hear and new to see.

I welcome any ideas or comments.

Amidst the complex comings, goings and happenings of my large family, I need constant reminders of what matters most. The other day I caught just a glimpse of an LDS mother’s blog.  It showed a picture of small children outside with their father playing in the autumn leaves.  The mother was in the house probably doing the dishes when her husband called to her, “Honey, you’re missing it.”  I don’t want to miss what matters most.  And I am sure you don’t either.  But I often struggle to distinguish between what is important and what is not.  President Monson reminds us that “…what is most important almost always involves the people around us.”  Family relationships are the Point—the reason for all we do.  I know that, but I still get caught up in the “Get it Done Syndrome” (including home school) and too frequently forget the Point.  Hearthside is my way of bringing me and you back to the heart of what is most important. 

About the author:

Angela Baker is wife and best friend of Roger.  They have 7 children ages 3-19. The oldest is currently serving a mission in Oklahoma.  She has home schooled her children through the best of times and the worst totaling 13 years.  They are precious years she wouldn’t change for anything.  The Baker family lives on their 1 acre farm in the rural community of Erda, Utah.  Their farm produces mostly very active children, a few animals and a lot of die hard zucchini plants. She is the founder and director of a children’s chorus called “I LOVE TO SING!”  She is also the founder and mentor for Erda Academy—a leadership style academy for home school youth.  She holds a masters degree in education from George Wythe University and a Bachelor’s degree in Family Science from BYU.

Schooling for Freedom

Children fighting tanks? Preposterous! Yet here they are, the boys and girls of Castle Hill in Budapest, maiming and destroying dozens of communist tanks, sent to lash the city into submission. Over here, youngsters are spreading liquid soap on the streets to make the tanks spin or slide. Over there, a brave gal is setting brown plates upside down in the street to look like land mines. Some children are running up to the tanks and jamming plumbers’ pipe into the tread, while still others are sticking broomsticks out of windows to look like sniper guns that will lure the tanks into dead end alleys where they are trapped.

Everywhere as the tanks halt, the youth are dousing them with homemade gasoline bombs. Their exploits of this year 1956 will be told by their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Could my own children dare such bold business against captivity? Would they?

Now fast forward 10 years. In another city, children are denouncing their parents and teachers in political posters they are hanging in the school yards. They chant in glee as they smash produce and signs in the marketplace smacking of the old traditions instead of the new communist order. They feel ashamed of their family heritage and audaciously strike out for a new life in the Red Guard, serving Chairman Mao. Could my children do that? Would they?

I had always hoped that my five children, now ranging in age from 14 to 24, would be like Helaman’s stripling warriors, who were taught by their mothers that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them. When I first read about Hungary’s Freedom Fighters of 1956, I thrilled! This was homeschooling at its zenith! In cellars, after dark, when the communist teaching in the school had ceased for the day, Hungarian mothers re-told the true stories of their heritage and coaxed their sons and daughters to memorize the heroic feats of their founders. By candlelight, they instilled in their offspring “the spirit of God, which is also the spirit of freedom.”  (Alma 61:15)  If only the Chinese mothers had been able to save their boys and girls from the socialist propaganda all around them!

When I began homeschooling in 1995, I was naïve to much of the indoctrination creeping into our lives. For me, leaving the public school system was at first about academics. Later it became a matter of character training. Now, it seems urgent to train the rising generation in freedom preservation for “our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children.” (Alma 46:12). 

With only one student left at home, one back in public high school, two at college, and one married, my impact is diminishing. My knowledge of how I should have trained these young warriors seems to have lagged painfully behind my experience. But I can write, and remembering how valuable the experiences of the homeschool veterans were to me when I was a novice, I offer you my pen. I feel a fire for raising up children unto the Lord – servants who will discern truth from error, be trendsetters for liberty, and champion old-fashioned values. Together, let’s bring forth sons and daughters who will “think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they [will] upon their lives,” (Alma 56:47) who will “stand fast in that liberty wherewith God has made them free; and [be] strict to remember the Lord their God from day to day; yea, [and] observe to keep his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments continually; [for] their faith is strong in the prophecies concerning that which is to come.” (Alma 58:40) 

Katrina is a  Navy wife of 18 years and mother of three "brilliant" children. She and her husband, Jeff, have been homeschooling their kids for over eleven years, from kindergarten through high school. Their oldest began a full load of college courses at age 15 and made the President’s Honor Role the first semester he was enrolled. Due to their transient military lifestyle they have had the opportunity to homeschool in four states and two countries, providing them with a  great deal of experience in various homeschool laws and curriculum choices.

Katrina has also served as a Navy Command Ombudsman twice, served on the boards of homeschool support groups in various locations around the U.S. (and once in Japan) and is a popular speaker at both adult and teen homeschool conferences.

“I love to help new homeschoolers wrap their brains around the idea”, Katrina says. “And I love to encourage homeschool families to continue to homeschool into high school. There are so many resources available for homeschool families now that it can be very overwhelming. I hope to be able to help folks by directing them to some of the best ideas and resources I have found (and am still finding…as I am a perpetual researcher).”

She’d love to hear from you, too. Got something you love? Something that really works (or doesn’t work) for you? Tell her about it! Need some advise in a specific area…shoot her an email via the ‘contact us’ link on this website. She wants to help you make your homeschool more productive and happy.

Starla Hale loves being with her family, reading, scrapbooking and family history if the time allows. She enjoys teaching, speaking, knitting, crocheting, sewing and gardening and she LOVES to write.

Starla and her husband, Leon have been married for 31+ years and have lived in four states and six cities. She is the mother of 6; 3 sons and 3 daughters. They range in age from 30 to 12. The four oldest are married and three of her children were married in the same month and in the same year and she survived!

Starla has a wealth of experience with her local homeschool group the Mini-Cassia Home Educators. She has helped with radio spots promoting the group, she has helped to oversee monthly co-op activities, annual Carnivals, “Around the World in 80 Minutes,” Great Brain Projects, Science Fairs and has taught a few classes here and there. She has served on the graduation committee and worked in the local conferences. In 2000 she was a speaker at the LDS Oregon Conference.

She began homeschooling for a few different reasons – a shy child who needed the opportunity to shine, another who was a straight “A” student who suddenly was struggling in math but mostly because they felt prompted to. She says she is a bit selfish and loves spending time together and found if hard to accept that someone else would be spending more time with her children that she was. Starla especially loves to watch the moment the “light turns on” when something new is learned or a concept is finally understood. There is no greater reward than that precious moment.

On a languid summer day my kids didn’t have anything to do. Well, actually they did, they just didn’t feel that my list of things they should be doing was as vital as sitting around doing nothing. But the real trouble is my kids don’t sit around doing nothing for long. They always manage to find an adventure or activity that leads to mayhem.  And it certainly did on this afternoon.  They decided to try their hand at repelling, with jump ropes, off our second story deck. Needless to say this story is now a family legend. Over the years I have learned one of a mother’s greatest gifts is a sense of humor.  After, of course, her heart attack. For a homeschool mom who has her kids under foot all day it is a necessity!

As home educators we try to help our children think outside the box. To take an idea, twist it a little and be able to see it in a new way. Little do we realize what a two edged sword that is until they say, “But Mom! It was a science experiment. “ Or “Mom, you told us to keep busy’, or worse, “Hey Mom! Watch this!”  I cringe when I hear that. Like the time I walked around the corner and was almost flattened by a child on a mattress flying down our stairs. All the boys (and their sister) who were old enough to muscle a mattress (the mattress’ were small) were lined up at the top of the steps waiting for their chance to wipe out some innocent person who chanced to walk past the bottom of the stairs.

My column will be my chance for vengeance. Well, that might be a little strong.  Maybe just even the score a little as I relate the various and wide-ranging adventures, mishaps and mayhem my children have put me through in the last 27 years. You will read the story of the Purple Heart, why long hair can be very funny, why martial arts movies can lead to IDEAS and lots more. The only thing I have conceded is my oldest daughter, now married and a mom herself wants to preserve a little self- dignity and asks that I not identify the guilt. You know, tell everyone her name.

If you have any stories you would like to share, I would love to add other families’ adventures to mine. The more the merrier, right?

Dana Wood is the mother of 10 children, 8 sons and 2 daughters ranging in age from 27 to 3. She and her husband have been homeschooling their children from the first, having made the decision to do so before their oldest was born. As a military family they have traveled across the country with duty stations from Philadelphia to Alaska. Dana’s husband has recently retired from active duty so they are about to embark on a whole new adventure.  Dana is the editor of the Sentinel and on the Board of LDS -HEA and the Advisory Board of LDS Eastern Home Educators. As if that wasn't enough, Dana has embarked on a whole new adventure with the start of this new web site, LDSNHE. She is an avid gardener (she cannot fit another rose bush in her yard) and has yet to meet a craft she didn’t like. Right now her passions are quilting, knitting, spinning and learning to weave.

In this column we will feature best loved articles from previous years. Wisdom from the “ages” so to speak. While some of these articles were written "years" ago, they still offer inspiration today...

In this column we will feature "irregular" or "one-off" writers with a message to share. If you would like to submit an article for consideration, please let us know!

In this column we will feature vendors who support your LDS Homeschool efforts by offering products and/or services to help you be a more successful homeschooler.  This column, just for vendors, will run the 5th Tuesday of the month (there are four 5th Tuesdays a year). We are hoping that this issue of our newsletter will feature the best of the old and new in LDS and homeschool curriculum.