My Collection

I homeschool my children. Before they were even born my husband and I planned to homeschool "differently" and "uniquely." You see, although I loved school and it seemed to be a great fit for me, my husband (who was highly intelligent) did not have good school experiences. He was adamant that we not have "school at home." Unfortunately he didn't live to see the beginning of our official homeschooling. Frankly, he would have been disappointed because my eldest's preschool program looked awfully like school at home (and not one of those great hands-on preschools, either.) Fortunately it fell by the wayside in a few months when it became obvious that he was not ready for worksheets and formal learning, and we went back to our happy lives just exploring and learning naturally.

About this time I started researching homeschooling. First I researched curriculum. I researched exhaustively, and through that research came up with what I believed were the best curricula available at the time. I also researched philosophies and methods. I read books, researched on the internet, and paid attention to how my children learned. This was all good and valuable.

A year or two passed. I came across a concept called "Lifestyle of Learning" which I began to embrace. I obtained many of Marilyn Howshall's out-of-print books and devoured them (see sidebar for her new website--she is back in ministry after a several year hiatus.) They told of being led by the Holy Spirit in educating your children. This made sense to me and to some degree I followed through, but something was still lacking. More years passed. During those years I began to really study my Bible. I did my widow study and some other smaller word studies. I started to study about education, but got bogged down and distracted.

While I was reading my Bible one day, I came across a scripture that pertained to learning and education and I decided to jot down the reference so in the future I could come back to it. Thus began my scripture collection. On an old piece of notebook paper, folded in half and stuck in my Bible, I wrote down references for any scripture I ran across that had to do with teaching, learning, education, knowledge, wisdom, etc. I did this for a year or two, until my paper had scripture references written at all angles all over one half of that piece of paper. I decided it was time to do something with my collection.