Yesterday, Jeremiah completed his graduation requirements, and we celebrated all that Yehovah has done in his life up to this point in time. We have graduated seven students so far, Daniel, Tyler, Rachel, Lydia, Brenden, Rebekah, and now Jeremiah. David has finished his academic schooling as well. We are half way through. Since Adam is only five, we have a few more years before all our students are finished with their homeschooling requirements.
Copywork, journals, and other achievements.
I often get asked what are my requirements for graduation. I thought I would take a second and write about it. Over the years it has changed. When we first began homeschooling, I wasn’t even sure if I would teach for more than one year. As time went on, I loved having the privilege to be the person who decided my children’s education plan and path. Jeremy and I knew that teaching our children the Word of God, the Christian Bible, was of utmost importance to us. We also knew we wanted learning to be fun and a life time goal for our children. School should be exciting and challenging at the same time. So, we set out to make it our goal to teach our children to desire to learn every day for the rest of their lives.
As the four oldest children began to get old enough for junior high and high school, we knew even more how critical it was to give them a firm foundation in truth and an identity in Christ. So, we began to create an educational method that didn’t just teach math, science, reading, writing, and history, but taught Godly character, and Biblical wisdom.
We used lots of different materials and methods at first to find the one that worked best for our family. When my oldest two were just beginning high school I realized I want the Bible to be our core textbook. I began a teaching method that would take a student through the whole Bible in four years, and would incorporate all the necessary school subjects as I taught it, it is a history based method. The study that I was writing takes a student through the Word of God chronologically in four years. Completing the four year method is the first requirement of our school. Most students actually complete it twice as we just start over every four years, and all students do it as soon as they begin schooling. I now use homeschoolingtorah.com to complete these core requirements.
The second requirement of our school is to copy the whole Torah. At first, when I began my copywork method I thought a student could easily copy the whole Bible in four years. But I soon I realized it wasn’t as realistic as I thought, and have sense made it a requirement to complete only the first five books of the Bible using my copy work method. The goal is NOT to have wonderful neat notebooks full of God’s Word, nor is it to have great journal entries, or beautiful artwork. No the goal of this five step process is to put God’s Word deep into the minds and heart of the student. This slow deliberate process causes them to truly think and focus on God’s Word.
The third requirement of our students is to take a purity class. This class is customized for each student. It requires them to read assigned materials about what purity means and what God calls purity. I have used lots of different materials over the years for this class, and haven’t settled on a set method as of this time. But basically, it requires them reading and/or watching materials about purity. Writing their answers to questions about purity, and then discussing over dinner what purity is and what it means to them with their dad and I. After this discussion, we then ask them if they desire to walk in purity, and if they are committed to being held accountable to a life a of purity, by us and/or someone else.
The fourth and final requirement to graduate from our school is to give a graduation speech. This speech can be about anything at all, but I often encourage them to share what they learned in school, and where they think God is taking them now.
These are the four absolute requirements of our students to graduate. Here are some details about our core method.
Our core method requires a student to take the following subjects:
Two years of basic math, algebra, geometry, etc.
One year of stewardship math
Four years of foreign language, Hebrew, Greek, Spanish, etc.
Four years of History/Literature/Writing(Grammar)
One year of government/civics/economics
Two years of CEF training
Two years of music
A FEW MORE LINKS TO HELP YOU WITH YOUR HOME EDUCATION GOALS.
Practical Steps to Godly Education
How to teach reading with the Bible
Related Posts:
Katie! This is fantastic! Thank you so much for sharing with us! If we do this, would this take the place of a formal Bible curricula/study? I know you use the actual writing for language arts and such, but do you also have your children do more copywork for Bible, as with HT curricula?
Jackie,
I actually have my older ones copy two hours daily in this method outlined above, as the foundation of our education. We do at times have other copywork. For example, I will during a group lesson have everyone copy the memory verse of the week. I try not to add extra copywork during non-group times. For example, we study together as a family in the morning from about 10 am to just past noon. We do history, science, and additional indepth Bible study at this time. These group classes focus more on the elementary/middle school kids. During these group lessons, I may have them copy one verse. But for the most part, their individual copy books are the major part of their copy time. Copy time for the younger students does look different than the older ones. Also, I do require all my kids that can read on their own to be doing a personal Bible Study apart from copy work. I will try and make time to write out better exactly how we do things.