A Lesson Learned

We're one week into our second year of homeschooling. I think the kids would agree with me that it was a good week. The boys were thrilled to join a homeschool roller hockey league. Face masks, shin guards and a stick....Need I say more? Annie's reading has really taken off, which makes teaching/ learning so much more enjoyable! I took a risk this year and bought a new math program, Math-U-See, no complaints......yet! The highlight by far (at least for me) has been combining our Bible and History. I'm venturing off the beaten path and piecing together my own curriculum. Not just a little scary!

Our first stop in History is the biography of Nate Saint, a missionary pilot who lost his life in the jungles of Ecuador.  As we read his biography, the kids and I are going to dig a little deeper in the events and history surrounding Nate's life. His story begins with his boyhood during the Great Depression. So, I've checked out different novels for the boys to read about that era, Bud, Not Buddy and A Long Way From Chicago.(They were intrigued by Al Capone and Bugs Maron!) We've been listening to an audio recording of Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse, a heart-wrenching account of the dust storms. On Friday night, after Wayne and I put the babies to bed, we watched Cinderella Man with the older kids. Although it broke my G/ PG only rule, I believe that it gave us an accurate depiction of a family's daily struggle and survival through the bleakest of days. My hope is that my children will get at least a small understanding of the Great Depression.

I remember sitting on grandpa's lap and listening to his account of the Great Depression. He was just a little boy when his parents left him with his grandparents and went to look for work. He told me about Davis, Oklahoma, shoes that were re-soled with the cardboard from a detergent box (but mostly he just went barefoot),  how much better a Hershey's bar tasted back then, how he changed his middle name on the first day of the first grade, how his aunt's biscuits were the best he ever ate, how he couldn't afford a new motor-bike so he built one himself, how he and friend hitch-hiked through the midwest and almost starved, how good bologni and canned peaches tasted when he had eaten in days..... It's funny, he talked about food alot!!! Oh Grandpa, how I miss you! I am grateful that I listened, I'm grateful that you shared! What I would give to sit on your lap just one more time.....

Grandpa with my babies, May 2005

Richard Ansel Dickson with his namesake Ansleigh.