Incredible Curriculum

I LOVE the Foundation for American Christian Education.  Everything I read on their site or from their books just resonates so strongly with me.  I've been trying to read their red books (hard, deep, enlightening reading!) and I feel "smarter" every time I read a chapter.  They present things, from original sources, that help you see into some of the great minds of the past and I love the depth that I find there.

Anyway, they have different curriculums (the Noah plan) and things.  I've bought all of their curriculum books, and I have gained a lot from them, but I have found them hard to implement them with such varying ages of children. 

I've tried to implement them into our youth group as much as I could.  One of the reasons I parted ways with some friends in my last group was that I felt so so strongly about understanding and applying the principles F.A.C.E. speaks of.  They were already applying some, but I wanted more.  My friends liked what they heard of it, but I don't think they liked me coming and messing with an already good thing, so there was some resistance, and since I knew what I wanted for my daughter, we parted ways.

I'm mentioning all of this because I want to emphasize how much I believe in this this type of education - learning to become something - not just to know stuff.  I think any learning done just to "know stuff" is a waste of time if you don't live better because of your knowledge.  A big reason I have not followed a curriculum with my children is I hated wasting our time on "knowing stuff" when there was so much more depth that I wanted to take them to.  The problem was that it took me a long time to prepare a "depth lesson" so the result was that we had about one good lesson per week or two and the rest of the time they learned as they lived life (which has some pretty awesome learning opportunities) so it's worked out alright.

I did love what we were doing in our youth group, though, and I wished I could do it a little more with my little children.

Well, guess what?  I just learned of a new curriculum for homeschoolers that does exactly what I've been looking for!  It teaches children to apply the information they learn, to "test" it's truth by living it, and recording the evidence of the truth they've learned.  It's learning in a gospel-centered way (instead of to pass a test).  I am so excited about it.

The website where you can find it is latterdaylearning.org.  You can see their history and the curriculum there, as well as some free samples.  I'm excited to use it this year for our devotional.  I probably won't go as fast as the schedule they have on their site (although I'll try), but I think each lesson is worthwhile and even if I don't cover all of them, we'll learn a lot as we go. 

This is kind of a blind testimonial since I've only done two lessons so far with my children, but I believe so strongly in the principles, that I think much good will come from it.

I just had to share :-)