• My Favorites for 0-3 Yrs

  • My idea of education is to unsettle the minds of the young and inflame their intellects. Robert Maynard Hutchins

    Education is a progressive discovery of our ignorance. Will Durant

    If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders. Abigail Van Buren

    But, good gracious, you've got to educate him first. You can't expect a boy to be vicious till he's been to a good school. Saki (H. H. Munro)

    It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. Frederick Douglass

    It is little short of a miracle that modern methods of instruction have not already completely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry... I believe that one could even deprive a healthy beast of prey of its voraciousness if one could force it with a whip to eat continuously whether it were hungry or not... Albert Einstein

    If you don’t have a plan for your life, someone else does.Anthony Robbins

    Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.Plato

    The great difficulty in education is to get experience out of ideas. George Santayana

    I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. Mark Twain

    You send your child to the schoolmaster, but 'tis the schoolboys who educate him. Ralph Waldo Emerson

    The mother's heart is the child's school-room. Henry Ward Beecher

    The primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one's mind a pleasant place in which to spend one's time. Sydney J. Harris

    We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.Chuck Palahniuk

    I try not to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself.Mikhail Baryshnikov

    For the unlearned, old age is winter; for the learned it is the season of harvest.The Talmud

    To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while. Josh Billings

    Only the curious will learn and only the resolute will overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient. Edmund S. Wilson

    Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army. Edward Everett

    The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives. Robert Maynard Hutchins

    Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you’ve never been hurt and live like it’s heaven on Earth.Mark Twain

    Don't worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you. Robert Fulghum

    The historian is a prophet in reverse.Friedrich von Schlegel

    I am not a teacher; only a fellow traveler of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead--ahead of myself as well as of you. George Bernard Shaw

    If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.William Blake

    There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million. Walt Streightiff

    [Education] consists mainly in what we have unlearned. Mark Twain

    Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible. Marion C. Garretty

    Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. John Dewey

    The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn. John Lubbock

    Education aims to give you a boost up the ladder of knowledge. Too often, it just gives you a cramp on one of its rungs. Martin H. Fischer

    Feelings of worth can flourish only in an atmosphere where individual differences are appreciated, mistakes are tolerated, communication is open, and rules are flexible -- the kind of atmosphere that is found in a nurturing family. Virginia Satir

    It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense. Robert G. Ingersoll

    One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters. George Herbert

    The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without a teacher. Elbert Hubbard

    An educational system isn't worth a great deal if it teaches young people how to make a living but doesn't teach them how to make a life. Author Unknown

    Education is not filling a bucket but lighting a fire. William B. Yeats

    Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve. Roger Lewin

    Motherhood has a very humanizing effect. Everything gets reduced to essentials. Meryl Streep

    Education would be much more effective if its purpose was to ensure that by the time they leave school every boy and girl should know how much they do not know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it. William Haley

    The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows. Sydney J. Harris

    The world makes way for the man who knows where he is going.Ralph Waldo Emerson

    Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants. John W. Gardner

    That best academy, a mother's knee. James Russell Lowell

    Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action.Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

    The formative period for building character for eternity is in the nursery. The mother is queen of that realm and sways a scepter more potent than that of kings or priests. Author Unknown

    Education is too important to be left solely to educators. Francis Keppel

    You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself. Galileo Galilei

    There's nothing that can help you understand your beliefs more than trying to explain them to an inquisitive child. Frank A. Clark

    An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy. Spanish Proverb

  • My Favorites for Ages 3-6

  • My Favorites for Ages 6-9

  • My Favorites For Ages 9-12

  • My Favorites for Ages 12-14

  • My Homeschool Library

  • I’ve Gotten Awesome Family Deals Here

October 18, 2009

Singing: It Brings Me Joy

I love to sing. I sang a lot with my family growing up. My mom sang professionally, but we never took any lessons. I took choir in high school. We sang in our church once in a while. We sang Christmas carols every year to our neighbors and friends. It was a big family tradition for a long time, until everyone left the nest.

In college my church asked me first to lead the music in the main meeting, then to direct a small choir. Our numbers grew when I figured out that treats really had influence, especially for the guys. And of course when the guys came, the girls followed. Anyway, it was a fun and musically educational experience.

After I married, we lived in San Diego while Mike went to medical school. I had enjoyed the choir directing so much that I volunteered and ended up directing a choir for the 6 years we lived there. I also joined a community choir, and finally took some lessons from that talented director, Norm Boaz.

I had the privilege of traveling with our group to Jerusalem to perform an amazing work of music and narrative (straight from the Bible, word for word) based on the last days of Christ. It was created by a talented man, Lex de Azevedo and his wife Peggy, and called Hosanna.

It was the experience of a lifetime. The music was so powerful, it brought the stories from the scriptures to life for me. It touched my soul. We later performed it again with Lex’s Millenium Choir, in LA for Easter (I found an old write up if you want to read it).

As my children grew, I sang to them. I found the most fun, inspiring, happy music for us to enjoy. (I will share some of my greatest finds here in the future.) My kids have sung in church and other places, and have had many musical adventures of their own already.

Music is a powerful thing. It can inspire minds and change hearts. I use it in my home education as often as possible. Right now, I’ve discovered a new vocal teacher, and am taking lessons again with my kids. I got out some of my music last night to practice.

It’s making me happy to be singing again.


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One Comment

  1. Em says:

    I would love to take lessons! How fun to do it with your kids. We sang in church last Sunday, it was more like me doing a solo with a couple cute little back up singers. :)

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