Reaching Higher is a free, monthly homeschool ezine to encourage and equip homeschoolers, bringing you the best advice, articles, websites and encouragement we can to help you as you raise your young ones and build your family legacy!

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Swimming against the stream

In the last few months www.south-african-homeschool-curriculum.com has had more than 440 people contact us for advice on homeschooling in South Africa. We, the owners of the site, have been so aware that people are desperate for something new in their children’s lives.

Parents are turning their hearts to their children, hearing their children’s calls for help and responding by taking them out of the school system and taking the responsibility of their education on themselves.

With this new responsibility comes the wonderful fruit of restored family relationships. But with it also comes the critics, whether they are in-laws, parents or peers will differ in everyone’s own situations.

There have been times in our own homeschooling walks that both of us have felt like we are swimming against the stream. If you have ever watched a movie of the salmon who make their annual pilgrimage up the river, you will know that the salmon do not have it easy.

The first thing they have to contend with is the water direction. Then some hit rapids where they actually have to jump out of the water and expose themselves, all the time their gills burning. While they are out of the water they have predators to face – in some case bears, in others birds.

While they are designed by God for this annual trip, it is not easy. How does this relate to homeschooling families? Mom and Dad, you are swimming upstream too in a country that is relatively new to homeschooling. You are faced with your own rapids and the friction that arises because you are moving against the stream of conforming to what is accepted. And you also have to face “predators” who will rob you of your joy as you homeschool.

You may well feel very lonely or isolated in your community, if there are not others who share your values about family life and education. We would like to encourage you to embrace this season.

You will find that as you are building character in your children, that God is using your homeschooling circumstances to build character in you too. Many of God’s elected leaders in the Bible, such as Moses, Daniel, Esther, John the Baptist and even Jesus, first spent some time in isolation from their communities, before they were released to fulfill God’s plans for their lives.

Just remember that you have an awesome God who is there to help you as swim against the stream. To help you remember how beautiful the work is that you are busy doing in your home and children’s lives, take a look at the following video clip

Advice

We know that this time of year in many homeschooling homes has many a mom looking for a way to wrap up their year. Some choose to do assessments, others put their children’s work into portfolios and others have family or support group award events. Please refer back to the previous Reaching Higher Ezine where we give you ideas on how to end your year. Click here to read Reaching Higher #1 – End of Year Encouragement

Free Printables

This month we have decided to give away a free lesson plan for you to use as the Christmas season draws near. This is based on the story book A Christmas Cloth by Reviva Schermbrucker.

Included in this creative literature based lesson for younger children is some age appropriate copy work using Bible memory verses. This is one of our lessons from the Little Footprints program for children aged 4 – 8 years.

Little Footprints is a gentle, fun and easy to use program for families who want to enjoy digging deeper into South African culture, plants, animals and people using picture story books and a comprehensive parents guide.

Download your free lesson here!

Websites

Go to Christmas Unit Study

Footprints News

We are excited to see the response to our Tips for Starting Homeschooling E-course We have had more than 150 people sign up for it in the last month.

On completing the course, one mom sent us this comment: “I would just like to say thank you very much for your wise words from your e-course. I really benefited from it and you covered all the aspects extremely well. I enjoyed the get organized page and have already implemented some of your suggestions that have taken some of the chaos out of my life. Thank you once again - we can truly learn from your experiences.”

We at Footprints, are so blessed by these kinds of comments because we know we are reaching the heart of homeschooling moms, and this is our goal. Even through our Footprints Programs we seek to come alongside parents and share the wisdom we have gained from the many years of homeschooling we have under our belts.

Shirley was also recently interviewed by Readers Digest for an article on homeschooling, which was very positive. This shows us how many more parents are looking for information on homeschooling in South Africa.

Our Footprints Into the 21st Century Program for teens is now complete! It has had a major overhaul over the last few months. We will have the new guide and books available for parents to view from the end of this month. You can download the sample lessons on our website. Remember – Footprints Programs are not just history!

The curriculum convention season comes to an end after the Johannesburg Expo on the 10th of November. Footprints will be there and we would love to have some of our readers pop over to say “hi” to us!

Till next month, we wish you every blessing

Wendy and Shirley

www.south-african-homeschool-curriculum.com

Footprints On Our Land - South African Homeschool Curriculum

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"The way you help heal the world is you start with your own family."
~ Mother Teresa

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