• When You Feel Like Putting Your Kids in Public School

    It wasn’t that long ago that people would say, “Homeschooling?  What is that?” Homeschooling was not talked about much until the 80’s, although there were already articles and books being written on the problems of traditional education in the 60’s and 70’s from a few notables such as John Holt and Dr. Raymond Moore.  Dr. Dobson even had a program with Dr. Moore back in 1979 but it wasn’t until the 80’s that homeschooling really started to become a movement. So homeschooling in the way that we know it today really hasn’t been around a very long time.  Many battles have been fought to give us this right to teach…

  • Gone to Hunting Camp

    It’s that time of year.  The elk hunt is upon us and we’re off camping and enjoying those fire starters that Justus made at our Castle Defenders class. He burned one before we left just to see how it would do.  It was pretty amazing!  It burned for over 8 minutes!!  I liked how they worked so much that me and Audrey made some more just for us.  I’m looking forward to a good hot fire.    

  • Science – Are We Equipping Our Kids for Life?

    Several years ago our family visited South Africa where we had the privilege of meeting a man who operates a rehabilitation center for wildlife near the game reserve, Kruger National Park. From the time he was a young boy he has had some type of wildlife around him.  When he married, it was a monkey that caused no end of trouble with his wife because it was jealous of him. Many humorous stories about that! Today he has hippos, lions, cheetahs, hyenas, birds, badgers, etc.  When the animal is injured by poachers or from another type of situation, he will be called upon to get the animal from the wild,…

  • The Castle Defenders Get Together!

    If the girls are going to get together (aka Castle Keepers) then the boys need to have some fun, too.  Right?  In a slightly less organized and formal group than the Castle Keepers, we are going to be having meetings with the boys while the girls are having their gathering. The boys club is called…. Castle Defenders! They are a fine bunch of boys don’t you think? My husband, Russell has agreed to help with the classes but since he was unavailable yesterday, I had the honor of doing it.  I love working with young children. They are just so special to me. The first thing we did was to…

  • An Update on the Girls Club

    A few weeks ago I told you about how I had wanted to start a girls club but had never made it a priority until just a few months ago.  We have now voted on a name and we’re calling ourselves “Castle Keepers”.  Our girls are learning home keeping skills for their future “castles”. We had our first class on apron making.  The kids had a lot of fun but we mothers are having a great time as well.  One of the mom’s suggested that each of the girls make a 2nd apron just to cement the skills they had learned in the apron class. It was an idea that…