Part Fifteen—A House of Learning

WARNING: this is a super-long post, with weird formatting.

A HOUSE OF LEARNING

We have always had “a house a of learning.”  So much of our homeschooling adventure revolved around the theme for the year, but outside of formally designated school time we are always learning.

Recently I made a list of the learning experiences we have enjoyed that didn’t revolve around a theme. Making this list helped me see that we really did get some things done and what Hal and I did to help our children learn and grow as individuals.

Giselle at the 'puter' as she used to call it.

The computer was and is, first and foremost, a tool for learning in our home.

Family Devotionals—sing a hymn, family prayer--holding hands with kisses and hugs all around afterwards, read scriptures. We began having formal scripture-reading with our children when Amber and Jasmyn were little. Since about 1986-87, we have rarely missed a day of family prayer and scriptures, thanks to Hal leading us, even during vacation.

Hal and Hal IV at devotional, (before couches in the living room)

Scripture reading became the foundation for our learning. Hal taught many gospel principles and history lessons during devotional.

Most of our children have learned to read by reading the scriptures with us. When they were very young they would ‘read’ a verse by repeating the words after one of us. As they became interested we showed them words like ‘a’, ‘an’, and ‘the’, and taught them phonics too. I always imagined that this is the way most children learned to read in days past.

I remember a few years when it seemed like quite a sacrifice to hold family devotional. Amber was going to the local college and wasn't home for most of the day. We decided to have devotional before she left, which meant we had to do it before all the high school kids left for seminary. That year devotional was at 5:30am!

Giselle was only five years old, and someone carried her out to the living room, where she usually slept through most everything. Several times I felt so bad that we had to do that, but we were commanded to do it, so we did. I often wondered, "Heavenly Father, why do I need to wake my little daughter up so early in the morning for this?" I knew it was the right thing to do, but it was difficult at times.

Giselle and Jasmyn during family devotional

Giving Talks in Primary and sacrament meeting: Like most LDS children and adults, our kids feel comfortable speaking before a large group of people because they've been doing it since they were three years old!

Giselle and her Primary teacher, Jeremy Spencer

Political and history discussions at the dinner table and after family devotional: sometimes Hal would tell a family history story that developed into a history lesson.

Youth programs: Youth for America—Hal and Chase, Constitutional Conventions--Hal, Especially for Youth—Jasmyn, Chase, Autumn, Giselle, swimming lessons with Ginger in Hesperia, Pebble Beach Park pool, Village Park pool, Snedegar pool—all; ballet—Amber, Jasmyn and Autumn.

Autumn in class

Jasmyn dancing in the city Christmas parade

 

Autumn Heather and Giselle at swimming lessons

Music: piano lessons—all; teaching piano in our home and at other piano studios—Amber, Jasmyn, Giselle; violin lessons—Chase; voice lessons—Amber; college orchestra—Amber, Jasmyn, Chase, Autumn

Amber

Giselle

Chase at a piano recital


Chase and Jasmyn going to orchestra practice at the college
(Jasmyn is always setting up poses for photos!)

Miscellaneous--animal husbandry –-Chase; girls’ book club—Heather and Giselle; youth classes in Rancho Cucamonga—Hal and Chase; Young Eagles—Chase and Autumn, Ostrich Farm, Calico Ghost Town; Tae Kwon Do—Chase; Gymnastics—Amber, Jasmyn; rapier lessons—Chase; Young Explorers with umbrella school—Amber and Jasmyn; Park Day—all; computer science mentoring with Br. Horvath—Chase

Chase and his goat at the Johnson farm

Chase, Autumn Heather and Giselle at Young Eagles

Chase in rapier class

Giselle at Girls' Book club

Excelsior Charter School: Amber and Jasmyn attended one or two semesters just to try it out, but didn't like the boring textbooks, as I recall, though they did attend a few college classes simultaneously .

Museums and Zoos: natural history museums in LA , Utah, San Bernardino County museum; Art museums—Getty, Huntington Library and Gardens, BYU Museum of Art, Norton Simon; Church Museums--Museum of Church History and Art, Beehive House, Jacob Hamblin home, Pioneer museums in San Diego, Salt Lake, and Pioneer historical points of interest in Utah; San Diego Fleet Science Center and LA Science museums; zoos in Utah, Sacramento, Los Angeles; planetariums; Children’s Museum in Salt Lake City; Calico museum, Oak Glen, Fairy Tale Town, and Oro Grande Park were as good as museums for learning!

Giselle and Hal IV at the LA science center

Chase, Autumn Heather and Amber at Huntington Gardens

 Fairy Tale Town

Hal IV at Hogle Zoo

Performances: plays, ballets, vocal and instrumental concerts, musicals—Utah theaters and universities, Riverside, high schools, Victor Valley, High Desert Center for the Arts; Messiah Sing-In at Victor Valley College and Riverside, Shakespeare festivals in Redlands and Cedar City; Claremont Kindrick concerts--we enjoyed concerts by the Kindricks on the piano, violin, hammered dulcimer, harp, and more.

The Green Show before a Shakespeare play in Cedar City

Redlands Shakespeare Festival

Chase, Jeanne, Autumn Heather at a John McCutcheon concert in Claremont

Giselle at the play, Anne of Green Gables

Fairs, Farms, etc: picking peaches at the church peach farm in Little Rock; pumpkin patches and the Johnson's farm and other friends' farms where the kids got to spend time learning about the animals; Riley's Farm; Renaissance Faires, San Bernardino County Fair

San Bernardino County Fair

Amber, Autumn Heather, Hal IV, Jasmyn, and Chase pick peaches at the church farm with Hal (in the tree)

Chase and Hal IV at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire

 

Girls and scout camps: attending and being youth leaders

Amber gets her camp name during her first leadership year at girls' camp.

Chase at scout camp

Seminary: All six children attended seminary four years and graduated

Youth leadership positions and other church callings and responsibilities: all held church callings

Young Men, Young Women, scouts: all

Autumn Heather serving with the youth at the bishop's storehouse

Hal's eagle scout project

Chase and Hal IV--eagle scouts

 

Chase with a new cub scout award 

Jasmyn conducts singing at a patriotic Mutual event

Hal IV with the tool box he made in cub scouts

 Amber earned her Young Womanhood Recognition award, (the other three did also)

Participating in theater and music, etc: Missoula Children’s Theater—Amber, Jasmyn, Hal; High School Musical—Autumn; Church plays, talents shows, road shows, musical performances; Christmas play--Hal and Chase, Achievement Days Christmas play—Autumn, Road Shows—all kids, Dance Festival—Jasmyn, Chase, Autumn; Pioneer performance—Amber; ward, stake, and youth choirs—all.

  

 Amber and Jasmyn in play at college

Jasmyn, Amber and Hal in ward roadshow

Jasmyn in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever at Victor Valley College

Amber getting her hair done for
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever at Victor Valley College

Amber (pink), and Jasmyn, (green and white), perform in Christmas play at church

Autumn Heather in High School Musical 

Pioneer and other treks: Amber, Jasmyn, Hal, Autumn, Giselle

Amber, Hal IV and Jasmyn before pioneer trek

Hal’s lectures: 3-hour scripture lectures on topics such as the Table of Nations, as requested by homeschool families in our group, and other times.

Books: Just the fact that we had/have thousands of books and read them in front of them, showed them our passion for learning. All our children love to learn and read.
We visited the library frequently and also participated in the pre-school programs and the reading programs. (Book-it, with Pizza Hut prizes, and other programs with Barnes and Noble gifts cards and Burger King prizes); reading to kids: we did lots of non-theme reading to the children, at night especially; three of our children wanted to read to me--Jasmyn read The Chronicles of Narina and other series to me, Chase read Artemis Fowl, and Giselle read The Series of Unfortunate Events and some others; Joan Dolberg read books every summer from 1995 to 2003—all.

Chase, reading one of the Great Books of the Western World 

Giselle, Chase, Joan Dolberg, Hal IV, Autumn Heather

Hal reading Christmas stories to the kids--They unwrapped a Christmas story every night from December first through Christmas!

Hal reading to Giselle

TRAVEL-- 

Hal and I traveled a lot with the children. For us it was all about spending time together and educating our children about the world. If we had had more funds we would have traveled the globe with them. As it was we traversed the United States and parts of it many times.  

Many trips: Utah, Colorado, Warm Springs, California--including San Francisco, Sacramento, Coloma, the coast, San Diego, Huntington Beach, Santa Barbara and Summerland beach.

Cousin Andrew and Hal IV in Sacramento

A few trips: Eastern shore from Massachusetts to Virginia, Ohio, Washington D.C., Maryland, Montana, Church History sites in Ohio and New York, Oregon, Idaho, Mexico.

Amber and Jasmyn in Connecticut

Hal at the Steinhart Aquarium, San Francisco

Chase, Giselle, Jasmyn, Autumn Heather, Jeanne at the Nauvoo Temple, Illinois (Hal IV stayed in Maryland with the Allreds)

Hal IV, Jasmyn, Chase, Jeanne, Giselle, Autumn Heather at Monticello

Chase, Autumn Heather, Amber & Giselle in Montana on  Joan Dolberg's property

One trip each: Florida and other southern states; New Mexico; Hawaii, South Dakota & Wyoming, Maine, Washington

Epcot Center, Florida

Hal IV at Kennedy Space Center, Florida

Other: Camping at Calico, Jackson Flats, camping and visits to Utah, Escalante, and fathers and sons campouts

Giselle,Hal IV, Jasmyn, Autumn Heather, Chase at the Mormon Battalion visitor center, San Diego

Amber on the tenth floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, Salt Lake City

Wall Chart of World History: At first I used to put this on the wall in the dining room, as it was the only place in our house with an empty wall fourteen feet long. When we moved the china cabinet back into the dining room, I divided the chart into two 7-foot pieces. They fit perfectly on our dining room table—one piece facing toward the set of chairs on the right and one towards the left. That way we could all read bits of history there during breakfast, (we always put a tablecloth on the table during dinner and sometimes lunch). The chart shows ages of the antediluvian prophets and who was alive at the same time, the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, etc.  Hal IV especially loved this chart.  

The Wall Chart of World History under a plastic tablecloth

  

 Potty key points: when I wasn’t putting up quote of the week, song of the week, scripture of the week, or poem of the week on the bathroom mirror and in the shower to memorize during the school year, I put up other non-thematic info to read or learn about. Later while reading Cheaper By the Dozen I felt a little like the father in that story. He was an engineer who had his children play French and German records in the bathroom while they did their toilette every day. 

A random photo of our bulletin board opposite the toilet during our WW2 school year.

Homemaking Skills:  All the children learned to sew by hand and  with the sewing machine. Hal and Chase usually sewed their own merit badges on their scout uniforms.   Amber and Jasmyn used to cook for fun and set up what they called, Colonial Kitchen or Pioneer Kitchens--restaurants complete with menus for all of us to order from; they baked something for their dad or for Sunday or for Family Home Evening treats; Autumn Heather and Giselle did some of this too. Hal and Chase cooked too, especially the things they liked to eat.  At one point I set up a schedule where each of the four youngest—Hal, Chase, Autumn Heather, and Giselle, would cook a meal. I think they cooked on their kitchen clean-up day. 

Jasmyn sewing her baptism dress

 

Liz Allred, Chase, Deborah Allred, Amber and Jasmyn sit down to a colonial meal they created, possibly Colonial Kitchen

Valerie Hendrix and Amber in the kitchen

I still remember the time that Grandpa and Grandma Collette came to stay at our house for a week while Hal and I were in Hawaii on a company trip. Instead of filling the freezer with frozen burritos and pot pies—which was a treat for the kids when we were on trips since they didn’t usually get prepared food--the four youngest children kept to their cooking schedule, each taking a night that week. My mom didn’t have to cook much that week.  I remember talking to her and hearing about how Hal IV had made Caribbean meal the night we talked. 

Gardening: The kids learned how to work in the vegetable garden every summer. Sometimes planting their own plots of ground corresponded with our yearly theme, but usually we just worked as a family. 

Chase

Autumn Heather looking over her garden plot

Camp Bradley: when the older kids went to their camps, we held our own Camp Bradley and learned things like cooking over a campfire and tying knots. 

Chase, Giselle, friends, and Autumn Heather

Holiday history for Family Home Evening or during family devotionals, especially Thanksgiving, Independence Day, etc.

Independence Day production by the Bradley and Allred kids

Sunday things: writing in personal journals and using the Sunday Box

Chase and Hal IV write in journal/scrapbooks

Birthday dates: Hal took  the kids (and still takes those at home),on a birthday date to the place of their choice every year. Depending on what they chose, sometimes the experience was educational.

Jasmyn and Hal

This list doesn’t include the other non-educational family things we did like going to Ontario and Victorville Scandias and other amusement Parks like Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm, ward and stake functions, patriotic celebrations, scout functions including dinners, derby races,  and courts of honor.

I think that this is the kind of list every mom should keep and keep up to date, just to have some real evidence of all the work she does to teach her children! (Dads might not need a list like this, because the stereotype is that they don't feel guilty like moms do).