A Day in the Life of a BiblioPlan Homeschooler
After breakfast, Mom sits down with her children to read the Bible. It is a perfect way to begin her own day with God’s Word and to set a great example for her kids. But it also conveniently happens to be part of today’s BiblioPlan Ancient History reading assignment. After the scripture lesson, Mom reads aloud from her chosen history spine (e.g. BiblioPlan’s Ancient History Companion, Story of the World or Mystery of History). Her oldest child brings out the BiblioPlan Cool History assignment sheet for the week so that everyone can answer the questions from the readings together. Later in the day, each child brings out his or her assigned library book: a work of historical fiction, non-fiction or biography, chosen from the BiblioPlan Guide, that goes along with this week’s history lessons. Before bedtime, Mom, Dad or even the oldest child brings out this month’s Family Read-Aloud selection from the Guide so that the entire family can focus on meaningful topics from the week’s lessons.
On the next day of history lessons, Mom moves to the next column on the BiblioPlan Guide page for the week. As she reads from the BiblioPlan Ancient History Companion, she notices connections between Bible history and secular Ancient history, and she helps her children understand these connections. In order to put today’s lessons in context, Mom prints a copy of this week’s BiblioPlan Map assignment sheet for each of her children. Her oldest child has a knack for geography, so she helps the younger children with their maps while Mom admires her gifts. When the maps are finished, the younger children spend some time cutting and pasting figures onto their BiblioPlan Timeline charts and working on their Giants of the Faith summaries from their BiblioPlan Cool History assignment sheets. The very youngest child colors a picture from the BiblioPlan Coloring Book. Meanwhile, the older children find a quiet spot and spend time reading the more advanced selections from the BiblioPlan Guide-- the BiblioPlan Ancient History Companion, Trial and Triumph, Famous Men of Greece or some other text. They find it satisfying to educate themselves on more complex topics that they think the little ones won’t understand. Later, though, when the little ones overhear them discussing their readings with Mom, they understand more than the older ones think!
On the third and last day of history lessons for the week, Mom looks once more at the BiblioPlan Guide that has laid out the week’s assigned readings so neatly and simply. She asks the youngest child to bring out the Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History. Saving the snippet readings for later, she opens the encyclopedia to the two pages that will enhance the topic for the week, providing rich pictures and some Internet links to peruse. Today is also the day Mom has chosen to work on the activity she’s chosen from the BiblioPlan Craft Book to cement this week’s lesson in everyone’s mind: they’re building a miniature shaduf, an ancient irrigation device. Later, the oldest child gets some public speaking experience as she reads aloud for the younger children. The little ones can’t wait to see how the story comes out, and Mom can’t help but admire how far her oldest has progressed. She is grateful for the simplicity BiblioPlan brings to home schooling. Her different-aged children will always be on different levels in their studies of math and science, but with BiblioPlan, they can all study history, geography and literature together.
