Fun Lessons for Pagan Children
by AmberSkyfire

Homeschooling
I am one of those weirdoes who does not believe in school. I believe that children do not need to be institutionalized to learn properly. I understand that there are parents in the world who have to work and cannot watch their children all day. I understand that many parents are too incompetent to teach their own children or simply do not want to teach them. Aside from those people, some parents want to and are able to give their children the best learning at home in their free time.
Homeschooling has many advantages over public school. For one, public schools are designed to leave no one behind. They plod along as slowly as possible so as not to disadvantage the slower children. Lessons are tediously repetitive and children quickly learn that school is not the place that they want to be. Kids learn to hate learning. Learning means not having fun and their entire childhoods wasted away sitting in class and staring at the clock in hopes that recess or lunch will be coming soon. School is an institution intended for the best, but sometimes headed for the worst. Children learn the wrong things in school. For example, alongside learning how to read and write, children learn about racism, ganging up on others, and that what you wear or what is on your lunchbox is who you are.
Many parents argue that children must go to school to learn to be social. Unfortunately, school teaches children how NOT to be social. They learn social skills from other five year olds. These include hitting, fighting, and selfishness. When children are sent to school or daycare you must remember, they are not being raised by the adult in charge. They are merely overseeing them and keeping order. The ones who are teaching your child are the other little kids. It does not seem proper to me to hand over the raising of my little ones to some idiot's little snit. Of course there are some darling little children in school, but no one wants to be friends with "them." Remember your school days. How many good children can you remember? Children find friends in their own neighborhoods. These friends, and not the friends they meet in elementary school, are the ones that will stay around their entire lives. They are no better behaved than the children in schools, but at the very least, you know them. They have dinner at your place, go to the park with your family and have probably even slept over at some time or another.
Schools pose a plethora of other problems. Aside from teaching children how to behave, parents have to worry about other dangers in school such as perverts, religious teachings, violence, racism, and foul language. Teachers are not all perfect. Schools teach religious songs to students which may make some pagan parents uncomfortable. Other teachers may not exactly be the type of morally ethical people you would want watching your children all day. I plan on homeschooling my children until they are old enough to go to high school and make their own decisions on whether or not to go to school.

Teaching your children yourself is much easier than you would think. Everything can be made into a game. Children love doing things if they can get something for it such as prizes or allowance for doing well. Teaching your children does not mean stacks of papers that need to be graded. Children will do a lot of the work themselves and love doing it. It is better to teach children to love learning so that they will learn on their own when they are older. I taught my little brother when I was young. From the time he was three, I began playing a game with him that we called "school." It began as a game and I made pretend school papers and used stickers from my collection as rewards and used a red crayon for grading. Very soon, however, my parents realized how quickly my brother was learning. It was a game to him, so he always wanted to play. Soon after that, my parents took me to teacher supply stores to buy me the supplies I wanted to teach him with. BEFORE my brother went into kindergarten he was reading teen novels, writing perfectly in both cursive and print, doing long and short addition and subtraction, multiplication, and was beginning long division. He was only five years old. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for this child who was reading two hundred page novels to sit in kindergarten and "color the circle red" or "trace the dots to form a square." He was not a genius, he just liked learning. Children learn much more quickly than adults and he had learned much of what he needed to know for high school before he even began school. He was skipped through first grade, but even that was obviously not helping. The teachers held a meeting and decided that it would be best if Bryan was sent to a school for gifted children. Off he went to an academy where he stayed until high school.

Teaching your children also means that you cut out a lot of the unneeded extras that they are taught at school. Children can spend more time being children and you can take the time to teach them lessons that fit your customs or subjects that you think are more important for them to learn. In addition, teaching your children can help you learn as well. Because children learn so much faster than adults, you can begin teaching your child another language. Don't take it all on at once. Choose a language that you and your child would like to learn. Purchase a dictionary or teaching book of that language. Begin by learning some of the words with flashcards. It begins as a game, but as you both progress you will begin to learn the language together very quickly. Many science and nature lessons are the same way. Children can also do better craft projects than the cheesy paper-and-cotton-ball crafts handed out in school. You can better teach your child to be creative and express their ideas and feelings rather than be quiet, speak only when spoken to (like a slave), and follow directions exactly on projects. Other things can be learned in the home alongside their studies that are not taught in school such as ecology, gardening, sewing, and cooking as well as taking care of the house, finances, comparison shopping and other important (but often overlooked) tasks of everyday life. Your child could be learning where the wrens nest in the spring and when to pick the ripest tomatoes, or they could be in school learning the exact number of Yankee soldiers killed in the third battle of the Civil War. When you teach children to have fun learning, they will find what they like and go from there by themselves. If you make learning interesting, then they will want history books and science books filling their bookshelf.

Life Cycle of a Frog
--All Ages
Begin by setting up a small fish tank or fish bowl for the tadpoles. If you use gravel, make sure they are light colored so that you can easily see the tadpoles as they swim on the bottom. Add a large rock or two for the tadpoles to crawl to shore when they become frogs. Do not add water to the bowl. Make small nets by stretching panty hose over a small frame made from a coat hanger or other piece of wire. You can sew the netting to the wire around the top, or you can buy a net used for fish from a pet store or a tackle shop. Take the children and a small bucket out to the pond or creek and show them what a tadpole looks like. Fill the little bucket with water from their habitat. Then scoop three or four of the tadpoles into the bucket with the nets. Tell children how the mother frog lays her jelly eggs in the water and how the tadpoles hatch out to look like fish. Take the tadpoles home and pour them into the fish bowl. Keep the bowl in a place where it can easily be seen by the children each day. Feed the tadpoles flake goldfish food. Just a tiny pinch will do fine. Feed them three or four times a day, but if the water becomes dirty, feed them less. You can change the water out, but only change out half of the water. Make sure the water you change it with is at room temperature (the same as in the bowl) and that it has been allowed to sit for at least 2 days to allow it to release all of the chlorine. Chlorine will kill tadpoles and fish. Once the tadpoles have grown into frogs, you will have to take them back to the pond. Be sure to release them as soon as you can so that they get a healthy start in life. Explain to children how frogs eat insects and how next year, they will lay eggs of their own.
Here is a link to a tadpole site: Toad and Frog Tadpoles

Raising Butterflies
--All Ages
Butterflies are easily cared for if you have a few simple tools. It is easy to build a cage to house your butterflies. If you have a terrarium with a screen top to keep the caterpillars in, you can use that. If not, here is a simple way to build your butterfly cage. Find a small cardboard box (about 10x10 inches is perfect. Measure about 1 inch around the edges of the sides of the box. Cut out a large piece from three sides of the box leaving this 1 inch border all around so you can see through the sides of the box. The third side will be the back of the viewing box. Using acrylic craft paint, paint the box white inside and out. Children can paint butterflies on the outside of the box if they wish or use stickers to decorate. Get some screen or mesh and cut it to the size of the sides of the box. Glue it around the edges on the inside, being careful not to allow any holes for the caterpillars to crawl through. Now the box is finished and you can furnish it through the top of the box. Take the children out to find some caterpillars. Any kind will do, but make sure you only get one type. Collect food only from the plant that they were found on. Very often, caterpillars will only eat one type of plant. Put the plants in the box and add three or four caterpillars. Each day, change out the leaves in the box with fresh ones for your caterpillars to eat. While you are waiting for the caterpillars to form a cocoon, look them up on the internet or in a butterfly book to see what kind of butterfly you have collected. Let children watch as they form cocoons and emerge as beautiful butterflies. Once their wings have dried and they are ready to fly (about two hours) take them outside and let the children set them free. Teach children that they eat nectar from flowers with a long curly straw. Older children can trace flight patterns, as some butterflies travel the world in search of food and breeding grounds.
Here is a link to a site for butterflies: Butterflies of North America

Growing a Garden
--Ages 5 and up
Children will learn about plant cycles and the importance of hard work, and growing their own food when they are allowed their own garden. Begin with something to start seeds in. If the garden is going to be in a plot of land outdoors, give the child only about three by three feet of space. Too much garden will make them less likely to want to work hard at it. If the plants will be in pots, they can be directly seeded into the pot. Very young children will have to have an adult's help. Begin by allowing the child to choose which plants they would like to grow. Keep in mind how much space you have and don't buy too many types of seeds. Three or four types are good for this exercise. Help the children seed their gardens either directly or by starting them indoors in seed pots. Read the directions on the back of the seed packets and allow the children to learn to follow directions. Some young children will need an adult's help with this. Once the seeds are in place, water the garden. It should be watered as needed. Make sure the children do not forget to water the plants. Show them each day the different insects and animals that visit the garden. You can teach the children safe ways of removing and controlling pest insects. Once the plants have grown, teach the children about harvesting the fruits of the plants. You might even decide to have them for dinner one night. Children love eating their vegetables when they grow their own! Flower gardens also work well for this exercise. If you want to plant flowers, make it a little more interesting by planting plants that attract butterflies.

Seashell Gifts
--Ages 8 and up
This is a wonderful gift idea for friends and relatives. It is easiest if you live by the ocean. If not, you can purchase shells at the store and do the same. Gather 10 or more different kinds of seashells together. Have the children look for the shells on the internet or in a shell book. Then have the children draw each shell on a piece of paper. If they cannot draw well, you can draw it for them or print pictures from the internet. Then have them label the shells underneath the picture with the shell's name. Fold the paper and place it with the shells in a basket and give the gift to a loved one. Older children may want to do a similar take on this to keep in their rooms. You can make or purchase a shadow box or curio box and place the shells inside along with the name of the shell labeled under each one.

Animal Flashcards
--Ages 4 to 12
You can adjust the difficulty level of this game depending on the age of the child. Give the children magazines with pictures of animals in them or have them choose pictures from the internet. Younger children should give the cut-out pictures to adults. Older children can make the cards themselves. Take index cards and glue a picture to one side of the card. If the child is older, have them find out what kind of animal it is and write the name of the animal on the back of the card. If the children are hard of reading and writing, the adult can do this part. Then play a game with the cards. This is especially fun with two or more children. Let them compete against each other to see who can get the most right. For very young children, you can use easy animals such as a lion, tiger, giraffe, horse, dog, cat...etc. For older children, see if they can remember more difficult animals such as a wallaby, scissor-tailed flycatcher, blue whale, etc. For older children, you can add fun facts to the back such as food, habitat, lifespan, continent of origin, etc. Then you can ask a specific question for each card held up and children will learn more than the animal's name.

Animal Speed Game
--Ages 9 and up
This game requires a television set and a nature documentary whether it be a television program or a videotape. Set the children in front of the television with pencils and paper. As the video plays, have the children write down the names of as many animals shown as they can and one fact about the animal. (two or more facts for much older children). At the end of the show, see who has named the most animals. Animals that do not have a fact are not counted. This can be especially fun with older children because they will recognize animals in the film that are not mentioned by the narrator. These animals can be considered extra credit if they are correct.

The Story Necklace
by D. J. Conway
--Ages 4 to 10
One of my most precious memories was being allowed to string buttons at my grandmother's house. She kept a can of old buttons of every shape, color, and kind just for this purpose. Later my daughter remarked that she also had enjoyed the privilege of stringing buttons at Grandmother's house. Then I remembered my children stringing the buttons and telling a story as they went.
    This activity can be beneficial to opening the creativity in young minds, but can also be used in a therapeutic manner for both adults and children. Those who have been through a traumatic experience and are having difficulty expressing their feelings about it can use the story necklace in a non-threatening way to bring out all they are feeling. This can be very helpful when dealing with very small children who have experienced abuse or personal loss and don't have the full vocabulary needed to tell about it.
    Since it is not advisable to give a sharp needle and thread to small children, use a shoelace, or child's lacing yarn that is wrapped at one end. Get a number of large colored beads of all shapes and sizes. Hobby stores carry some quite unique ones, often in animal or human shapes. Have several beads of the same color. Put the beads on a pretty container, and have them available for "talking times."
    Perhaps the child has just experienced the death of a pet or a person and isn't quite sure how to express or deal with the pain he or she feels, Start off by talking about all the good and humorous times the child spent with the deceased. Have him or her chose  bead or button that expresses that time. Next, of course, you must come to the stressful time of losing the pet or person to death. Allow the child to chose a button which symbolizes to him or her this experience. Discuss this transformation into another realm of existence and follow this by having the child choose a bead which symbolizes the new "birthday" into the spiritual realm. Tie the ends of the string or yarn together and let the child keep this story necklace as long as he or she has a need.
    The same idea can be used to encourage children to tell you about their day or an outing. Adults often forget to ask children how their day went. By sitting down and talking while the child strings beads and tells you what they mean, you establish a greater rapport.
    The story necklace can be used to encourage children to use their creative minds in story telling. Begin a fanciful story and put a bead on the yarn to symbolize that point, then pass the necklace to one of the children. have him or her continue the story and string a bead or beads. The necklace makes the rounds of the children involved until the story comes to an end. Never interrupt the child adding to the story or comment on what he or she is saying. Let the story progress in its wild, fanciful twists and turns, and enjoy the reative ideas being shared.

Making a Hot Air Balloon
by AmberSkyfire
--ages 6 and up - must be done with adult supervision!!!
You will need:
Kite string
very thin wire
A cotton ball
Kerosene or Lighter fluid
A lighter
a thin light plastic garment bag from the dry cleaner's
tape
scissors
Begin by taping up the small hole in the top of the dry cleaner bag. Cut two pieces of the wire that will each fit across the width of the large hole in the bottom of the bag. Poke each wire through the cotton ball so they form an x with the cotton ball directly in the center of the crossing. Thread the wires through the plastic and arrange them so that they hold the bottom of the bag open in a square shape with each end attached through a tiny hole at four equal points on the mouth of the bag. Tie a string to one of the corners, away from the cotton ball so it will not slide toward the ball. Soak the cotton ball in kerosene or lighter fluid and hold the bag upright so that the cotton ball is at the bottom and the opening is opened wide. Light the cotton ball with the lighter and hold onto the string tight. It will soon lift up and fly away! See whose balloon can stay up the longest.

Artistic Inspiration Through Music
by AmberSkyfire
--All ages
One very good and simple way to inspire your children to be creative is by playing different types of music while they are painting or doing their crafts. See if there are any changes in the types of art they do or what sorts of things they make depending on the types of music they are listening to.