New Curriculum arrived!

I have been homeschooling for about six years now and every year I ponder anew which curriculum to choose. I have tried textbooks, but that doesn't seem to work well for my lovelies. I really liked  Ambleside Online. A great curriculum fashioned after Charlotte Mason's style of teaching. I really enjoyed it when I had only two kids and they were in the same grade level. It didn't work so well for me when I had three kids in three different grade levels. I don't know how others are doing it, but it drove me crazy, it is quite possible that I could have done something different and make it work, but I couldn't figure out how. Then I tried to put my own curriculum together, which worked well but was VERY work-intensive! I also tried Tapestry of Grace, which I thought was super because I could put all three kids in the same curriculum and we were all learning the same but at different levels. The difficulty I had with TOG was that I couldn't just pick a few books. I constantly had to battle the want to read every book, which TOG clearly states is NOT intended.
This year we will be a very different year for us for many reasons, some I will talk about in a week or two, the other reason is that one of my kids is starting college work. She is going to do 'her own thing' and I have only two left to teach. I really needed something this year that spelled everything out for me and was already all done, so that basically all I have to do is open the folder and start teaching. Sooo, this year we are trying Sonlight. I got the first box with curriculum and I am excited! It is ALL done for me! I don't have to do much at all. I can't believe how easy it can be to plan a school year! Would you believe that I am pretty much done with planning for one of my kids? I opened the box, put all the stickers on the books, so we know which books is for which week. Next I loaded the student and teacher folders and I am done :)  I can't believe it! Okay, so I have to add Math and Science, but they are really easy to plan, because they are pretty much scheduled when they come. This year the kids will do Wordly Wise on the computer, I got a really good deal on that. The only thing I have to do is move some of the scheduled work, because it is planned for five days but we want to do it in four days. That way we don't have to worry about things when it is co-op day. So Fridays will be for co-op, field trips and catch up if needed.
I would like to mention that there is nothing wrong with any of the other curricula, I just really don't have the time to plan so extensively anymore.

So anyway, here are some pictures from 'box day'  :D

Justice Department: Home Schooling not a 'Right'

Really? So what does that mean for homeschoolers here in the US????

Since this hits close to home - so to speak, I thought I pass this on. I think if enough people know about this, we can then stand together to keep the right to homeschool here in the US. It is the land of the free and should remain the land of the free!

The U.S. Justice Department says home-schooling is not a fundamental right.

That was the argument the Obama administration made in federal court against an evangelical Christian family from Germany seeking asylum in the United States.

Germany broadly forbids home-schooling. So the Romeike family was forced to flee the country or risk losing their five children to the German government, which was trying to force them to put their children in public schools.

The Homeschool Legal Defense Association is working on the Romeike family's behalf.

Michael Farris, founder and chairman of HSLDA, wrote about Germany's home-school ban in his blog saying, "It is thought control. It is belief control. It is totalitarianism dressed up in politically correct lingo."

For more on this important case and its potential impact on home-schooling in the United States, CBN News spoke with Michael Donnelly, director of International Relations for HSLDA.

The Romeikes claim their religious freedoms are being violated.

But U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has filed against the Romeike family in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He said that asylum should not be granted to home-schoolers since home-schooling is not protected under religious freedom.

But Farris wrote, "In most asylum cases, there is some guesswork necessary to figure out the government's true motive -- but not in this case."

"The Supreme Court of Germany declared that the purpose of the German ban on home-schooling was to 'counteract the development of religious and philosophically motivated parallel societies,'" Farris explained.

Source:
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/politics/2013/February/Justice-Department-Home-Schooling-not-a-Right/

Beginning of the week

Mondays are usually a little difficult for us. It isn't so easy to get started again, especially since we didn't do anything over the weekend due to the winter storm warning. Though in our particular neighborhood we didn't experience anything too awful. We thought we better play it safe and stay at home, which was really nice and cozy. Which made the start of this week really hard :)
We started out school day a bit later than intended, but it all went well. Jeremy did one whole math lesson from Math U See in about 30 min! Yes! He really had fun doing it and I enjoy to see that he has fun and understands this part of math easily. In Science he is doing Human Anatomy and Physiology from Jeannie Fulbright this year. It is a good curriculum and has some really fun and easy experiments. Boys really seem to like those, the girls, in general didn't care much about experiments. Anyway, Mrs. Fulbright came out with an audiobook for Anatomy, which Jeremy listened to and followed along in the science book for a little. Then he decided that he wanted to color some pages from the accompanying student journal while he listened to the audiobook. This was really awesome for me, because while he was learning, I was able to make food! I was surprised how much he retained from listening. So we had a good school day and he felt pretty independent.

In December Jeremy started with Karate and I am happy to say that he really likes it. Last week he was allowed to break a board, he was really happy that he succeeded :)
For the next week he is going to train a lot because he is going to his first Karate tournament at the end of this month. He also has his pinewood derby with his cub scouts at the beginning of March and he working a lot on his little car. I haven't seen it yet, because he goes to a friends house because the friends dad has all the tools they need. We only have a bread knife ;-)  I will post some pictures about that after the derby. In the meantime, here are some Karate pictures of my little guy when he broke his board. Though really, he isn't that little anymore :)

the teacher is explaining what to do

test run on how to hit the board with his knee

He did it ! 

Sickness in the house

For the last few days the kids have been sick with some sort of bug. They have headaches and feel dizzy and have stomach aches. It seems to get better - very slowly......
Needless to say that we had to take a break from school for now. I took the the chance to look some more into our schedules. I have heard so many good things about the "The Well Planned Day" that I decided to order it. It has many good schedules and encouraging articles and it said in the description that it can be used for up to four students. Well, at least that is what I understood....

Isn't this pretty? Just the thought of having all kinds of schedules in one book makes this homeschool mom's heart beat faster :)
They have a class schedule, daily schedule, grades and attendence schedules, semester goals and even a shopping list and Dinner menu schedule for the week along with these encouraging articles. I really, really like this set up!

Isn't this awesome? I really like it! So I was all enthusiastic to start using it. I thought that this would be great, since I have only three children there would be enough space to add all our subjects. So I started adding the information and our work and quickly realized that no matter how I try to squish it together, it is not going to work for us. Now that was very disappointing on at least two levels. One, I really, really like everything else about it and - two, I hate to spend the money and not use it. So I was wondering how to make this work for us. I think I spend a whole day looking at schedules all over the web and I didn't find anything I liked. I was getting pretty frustrated thinking that I couldn't use this otherwise marvelous book that combines everything a homeschool mom needs. Since I researched all kinds of schedules, I found what I don't like. However. what I wanted started to crystalize more and I finally set out to make my own schedule. When I was done, I was quite happy with a very simple yet very workable schedule that finally works for us. It was still upsetting that I thought I would have to print it all out and then put it in a folder which I then have to use somehow together with the Planner. Then I had a great thought. Why not combine the two! The question was just how to do that. I went through several possibilities in my mind and concluded that I would just print the needed sheets out and tape them with double sided tape in the Planner.
Here are some pictures of what I did. The letters in the boxes are the beginning letters of each child. This gives me enough space to briefly write what is to be done today. I have the lesson plan for each child and each subject in my teacher's binder. I wrote in greater detail in the lesson planner, so this is a great way for me to have all the assignments for all three kids together. I am surprised to see that the most simple template works the best. Maybe I am just strange, but I never had enough space for each subject we are doing. Now I am writing my own and I got every subject for every child together. This is a great way - for me - to continue to use this awesome Planner :)  If you are interested in a template, let me know and I will send it to you.

Now I better go and attend to my lovelies :)

New system

Jeremy and I were frustrated lately with the way the school work went. I wrote a schedule and gave him a copy and he was supposed to do it. Well, that didn't always work very well for us because at time he didn't know what to do and had to wait for me to have time for him to explain the work that needed to be done. Sometimes he had to wait for about 10 min because I was working with one of his sisters. I think you can imagine what happens to a young boy who has to wait to find out what schoolwork he has to do.....yes, I lost him to his Legos and it was hard to get him back.
I came across a system I had heard of before, but due the fact that we live in a small place always discarded the idea - until a few days ago... I came across a blog from a mom who uses workboxes. After reading and thinking about it, I thought we should try it. It was fun to set up the boxes, though I must say, it does take a little more work on my part. However, my little guy really gets what he has to do and is now happy that he can work independently. He worked on quite a few subjects today without needing help! The only really bad thing is that we now have all the boxes in a corner of our already small place. But it does seem to work very nicely for us. I will let you know how the rest of the week goes, as this is our first day and so I can't say too much about it.
So here is what I do. I have one box per subject, say for example, Literature. I put a blank paper, pencils and his cd in the box. Then I write a note of what I want him to do. In this example : listen to Wind in the Willows ch. 4 and draw a picture about the story and write two sentences. I print this out and add it to the box. Done! Then I move on to the next subject. It gives him a good idea of the work that needs to be done and he can freely choose which subject he would like to do next. Some things we will do together, but most he can do himself.

You are invited, it's free :)

Our homeschool co-op is hosting a Parental Rights workshop. I guess most of you know about us having to leave Germany and moving to the US because we were in danger of loosing our parental rights because we homeschool, which is against the law in Germany. It is such a blessing to be able to educate your children in this kind of freedom one has here in America. However, this freedom is now in danger. What if you don't homeschool? I am glad you asked that question, because it still concerns you! If you have children this concerns you! If you have grandchildren this concerns you! If you want to keep your freedom this concerns you! You need to know what's coming your way and what to do about it. This is why this workshop is important. So, grab your spouse or a friend or grandparent and come out to listen for a short while. You owe it to yourself and your children - plus we have snacks ;-)

Click to see the bigger picture (haha punny)

Oh my....

I don't know what happened ..... just yesterday summer started and now it is almost over! We had a busy summer and I thought I just write a few lines, just to make sure that I still know how to spell ;-)  

We had to buy a new car, my beloved Gus is dead now. It was so sad. That awesome truck brought us all the way to Kentucky and back before the motor made the most horrible noise and I couldn't drive it anymore. Speaking of Kentucky, I still owe you guys pictures from our visit of Creation Museum, but that will have to wait a little while now. I found a nice van, an Oldsmobile Silhouette, which I liked and hubby thought it was a good deal. Now we are driving that, this newer van uses much less gas. It is a nicer ride all around and even sports a dvd player, which the kids really like. I thought it would be worse having yet another possibility to watch tv or something like it. Fortunately it is being used very rarely! This new to us van is really fancy in comparison to Gus, but I did have tears in my eyes when they came to pick up Gus. It was such a good and reliable truck.....

I also finally finished planning our co-op with some other ladies. At first it looked like we wouldn't have many families at all and we thought that at least we have ample space. During the summer we have had quite a few families joining Anchor co-op and the space is getting smaller, it will be rather cosy this year :)  I am looking forward to starting the school year with many new families, some of them for their first year! I am very excited! I am sure it will be a good year, with Science, Art, Literature for young kids and Current News for the older kids and gym for everyone. Though it looks like we have reached the limit for this year and now have to open the waiting list.

What else did we do? Well, there is the Library, Christian Resource Center Library. We had to close the library for a month in the summer because for building maintenance. Now we are open again and the work starts. We had move 126 boxes of books from one location to another. Thank you First Baptist Youth Group! They have done a marvelous job moving the boxes! Now we are getting ready to sell all the books because the library doesn't have so much room anymore. So stay tuned for news about the mega sale!

I finally got my Mac updated, well at least as updated as it will get. Now it talks again with the itunes on my iphone. This was a lot of work, actually more time consuming than work. I ended up going to the genius bar and the guys there were really nice and helped me very quickly. I then spend a very good portion of the day to try to install the airport express so that I can print wireless, but it didn't work - much to my dismay.....genius bar again? 

I just want to have it all in place and updated and running for school. I have spend so much time planning and doing so many other projects, that our school planning to a back seat - really far back, something like the 4th row or so....

I am now working over time - yeah, right ;-)    I did buy a Kindle for this year and hope that this will help with reading for at least one child, as it has the Text-to-Speech feature. That should be good. We can also take it with us while we are waiting for this and that like music lessons....oh, I still have to find a violin teacher, oh dear.  We should also be getting the Apologia books and dvd soon. This year we will try the lecture dvd and see how that works, maybe it is a good option. We are going to do Tapestry of Grace, year 4 - 20th Century - with some added things like Shakespeare, Plutarch, Composer and Art Study. It will be a full year but I think it will be fun.

I am going to write another post soon with our plans for the new school year and which books we will be using :D

$99 Membership for free!

I was very excited when I got my regular email from Freely Educate. This lady has really good deals for schooling and other things. As the name suggests, it is free. So I would encourge you to hop over to freelyeducate.com  I just had to share this with you all, I just signed up and it still works, but I would think it is only for a limited time. 

Here's a Coupon Code to Get a Membership to MightyBookJr.com FREE ($99 Value)

A couple of readers have let us know this offer is still working.  If you're new to Freely Educate (Hi, there!  Welcome!), you may want to check out this offer that we first published in January....

MightyBookJr.com offers "interactive books that inspire early childhood literacy for grades K-6th."  With over 850 interactive books in English & Spanish, you're sure to find one for your homeschool or family to enjoy.   Songs, games and puzzles are included.
MightyBookJr.com normally costs $99 per year for a household membership, but with the coupon code learntoread, you will get your membership for FREE. 

Know what you believe....

I don't know if you have been following what has been going on in the last few days in the homeschool community. It seems that it is making big waves and it doesn't paint a very nice picture of some people. Hhm, maybe that is not quite right, I should re-word the sentence. I personally have been disappointed by the stance some people took. 
If you happen to be a friend of Ken Ham and/or Answers in Genesis on Facebook, you will most likely know what is going on. If not, you may want to skip to Mr. Ham's page and read a little. I can try to recap a bit. Ken Ham was invited to speak at two Homeschool conferences, in Cincinnati and Philadelphia. Some of the other speakers were Peter Enns and Jay Wile. Well, I don't know much about Peter Enns but what I have about him and from him - well, let's just say I REALLY don't agree with him. You can read what another author wrote about Mr. Enn's theology here.  It doesn't come as a big surprise that Dr. Ham doesn't share Dr. Enn's theology either and there were some tensions. Ken Ham felt it was important to warn people about Peter Enn's Bible curriculum that he is selling at the conference as well. Ken Ham thought that at the very least people need to know what Mr. Enns believes. The organizers of the " Great Conferences" didn't like that and dis-invited Ken Ham/AiG from both conferences!
As just one example Peter Enns doesn't think that children should be taught about sin and flood until they are mature enough to discuss the tough subjects of PG-13 movies. If you click on the links, you will get a good understanding about what Peter Enns believes and why Ken Ham had to say something about it. Unfortunately Dr. Jay Wile sided with Peter Enns, along with Susan Wise Bauer, and was quite harsh about what he said about Ken Ham on his blog ( Jay Wile's) blog 
I would encourage you to read up on this for yourself. I personally am very much disappointed by Dr. Wile and was wondering if we should continue to use his science books. Then today Apologia send their Newsletter out where they distanced themselves from Dr. Wile. 
I am writing about this because I think that this whole situation is really sad. On the other hand it is also an eye opener and as such it is important for us to note it and dig into our bibles and pray. We NEED TO KNOW what we believe and why we believe it. There are many good Christian resources out there, we need to discern the best ones for our families. 
In all of this I have learned to better check into our curriculum and make sure I agree with the stance of the author. I have become way too trusting in the way I view Christian materials. I have been just scanning over things and didn't really check into what the author believes. Sometimes it is rather blatantly out there but often it is not so obvious but still finds its way into the schoolbook. I also find it very important to stay on the up and up about who is who in the "Christian " world. I think I will investigate Peter Enns for myself and I will have a lot of discussions with my kids about this. This is a good time to teach our children how to be discerning. If we don't believe this but that - why do we do so? What is the biblical basis for that? What does God say about this?  I think I have a pretty good idea of what we will be doing for Bible study for the next few months. At some point my kids will be out there alone, I really need them to be discerning and make good choices. In order to make good choices we need to find out where we stand not just  say what everyone says and do what the majority does. When we start doing that, we start being dumbed down. After a while we really don't anymore what is really going and we can be manipulated by all kinds of "winds".  As much as I cringe about the thought to have a Peter Enns book in my house (where in all likelyhood it will not stay) and read it and discuss it with the kids, I think we will put right in the schedule as an elective, critical thinking. I think for next school year we will have a subject called Apologetics on our schedule. I do agree with Ken Ham / AiG and I do agree with the Institute for Creation Research and we have tons of both those materials at the CRC library, this will be heavily perused next year!

Home made Montessori

My little guy has some problems grasping the decimal system, place value and such. We have been using Math U See and I really like it, but despite large amounts of effort and patients it didn't really catch on. So I was being on the look out for something to help us. As some of you know, I am volunteering for the Christian Library here and it is now in the building of Hand in Hand Christian Montessori School. When I came to the library one day, I saw what Montessori kids had worked on that day. In the long hallway they had many, many chains of beads strung out in one long row. Underneath were little arrows with numbers. This got me interested and so I researched more. After quite a while of searching and reading I decided that this would be helpful for us. So I set out to make our own Montessori math materials. I decided that we would start with the golden beads and the exercises that go along with that. We have use the materials now for about two weeks and I think he starts to understand more. It is really hands on and it can almost be experienced, just what we need. Now I am not saying that I do montessori math, I don't know enough about that, I just read from one lesson to the next what I can do to help him understand how units become tens and how tens become hundreds and so forth. In any case he has fun doing it because it is so logical and hands on that understanding comes pretty much effort-less. Here are some pictures of our materials.....

 Due to finances, we had to tweak some things. The "golden beads" are amber colored pony beads, the thousand cube is printed on cardstock. I found two trays for 99 cents at Goodwill. The bottom is cut from a piece of foam, so that the materials won't slide around too much.
The number cards which usually are made from wood, but I have printed at on card stock. The strange looking bead thing is supposed to be a hundred square.

 This one actually doesn't look too bad, it is our hundred chain.

In the basket are ten hundred chains, we have nine thousand cubes, 47 tens (in the red bowl) and 50 or more units in the glass dish.
It was kind of fun making these.

Our school week in review

We have been working pretty hard this week and as a reward we could all feel good about the job we have done this week. Yeah! We have been in kind of a slump and didn't seem to be able to get out of it. So this was a our week of victory ;-)  We have been  learning about World War I this week. It was somewhat difficult because the girls don't really get into the war theme. We read in Flanders Field and several other books and have been very saddened about the realities of war. It was somewhat heart wrenching to see the girls reading biographies and such and for the first time "feeling" war on some level. 
Still it was all good, we talked a lot and worked a lot. Papers were written, tests taken, math conquered and foreign language taken by stride. Reading and spelling were done with good attitudes, too! Unfortunately we didn't manage to do our maps this week, instead we had our co-op day which was a lot of fun.
We also had some new snow, much to the disappointment of us all. We even had to shovel the snow, well, Jamie did anyway ;-)

 Here is Jamie shoveling the balcony, her hair was turned into a lump of snow.

The snow was pretty wet......

a

......and rather heavy......

 Bible study.....

 Nice cell drawings, the Golgi body looks much better the second time around.

Facebook in the background, I gotta keep watching this one.....

Physical Science

I was up fairly early today and could enjoy some time before everyone else woke up. I sat down with hot and wonderful smelling cup of coffee and started checking my email. It was so nice and peaceful and quiet and relaxed....until I came to an email from someone on one of the email groups I am on. She said that she researched the topic and called some Colleges on the east coast and she found out that many of them didn't accept Apologia Physical Science as a High School course. That the way it is written right now, it doesn't qualify as one anyway. In order to give a High School credit, there needs to be a research paper at the end of the course! My heart dropped...REALLY???? How is it that I didn't know about this? My poor child is suffering through this. There is some math that is pretty tough for her because she didn't have that yet. Yesterday she finally had a break through and really understood the math and the subject. She also wrote the test and got an A - in science! Yeah, major accomplishment! I am so proud of her! Now I had to tell her that she has to write a pretty good research paper (I am thinking something like 8 pages, 5 points...but have to find out more). She was pretty sad, because she was so looking forward to being half way done with this......

I feel awful, I should have researched this better ..... in my defense, it does say on their website that it is for 8th grade but can also be a 9th grade course.... sigh......

Well, I guess we are off to the library ..... maybe I get a nice big Latte to comfort me....

Books we use this year

We are using Tapestry of Grace and are going through year 4, which is the 20th Century. I am using the DE version and so can print whatever I need and how often I need it. Which is really nice, because if one page is all messed up because I made too many marks and comments on it, I can just print out a new one. Also, it allows me to take it with me since it's on my laptop. All through the week there are several days when I drop the kids of and am waiting for them to be done, like AWANA and youthgroup, music lessons and so forth. Now I can use this time and plan for the next day or week. The kids are in different levels, lower grammar, dialectic and rhetoric. We do enjoy many of the books used by TOG, for one of the kids I try to use audiobooks whenever possible, because of dyslexia it is easier to listen than to read, obviously and it allows us to stay more on track. I really like that we are all working on one subject together, just in different levels. I don't have hunt down the right books for each level, that has been done already! I used to put our curriculum together in a VERY ecclectic way, but that didn't work anymore when I had to separate them all into their own levels/grades. I didn't manage well before when we all worked on different things, now most of the work is done for me and I have a teacher's manual - really cool. I also like the price of TOG, which is more than reasonable.

We use Math U See for math, Apologia's Physical Science for High School and Jeannie Fulbright's Anatomy and Human Physiology for elementary. Some of the kids use Rod and Staff for grammar and spelling while others use "All About Spelling" which is a great program for dyslexics. I ordered it about a week ago and just got it in the mail. I am very excited to try it out with the kiddos! I'll talk about it some more as we go along. We have tried some other things before, one was Sequential Spelling, but that didn't work for us. It is absolutely possible that we didn't use it the right way..... We are very curious about the new program and are eager to start!

We use Life in the Word for Bible at this time, along with The Answer Book from Answers In Genesis. The Answer Book is not as easy as I expected it to be, my little guy has a hard time following it in parts. We are only in the first chapter, but I don't feel that the language is for younger kids. We just take a slower pace to work through it. 

Other than that we pick up different books, many of them from our Christian library, but I also make extensive use of the public library!

We usually work from 9:00 in the morning until about 4:00 in the afternoon. We also have one hour lunch in there. I would like to shorten the day but since we only have half a day on Wednesdays, because of Science co-op and meet with our homeschool co-op every other Friday, we don't have much time to get through the books. We do have weeks when we don't get started until 10:00 or so. Unfortunately, those are the days when we don't do the more fun things like Art or Shakespeare/Plutarch....

I think that is about enough insight into our far-from-perfect home school :D 

Freezing cold....

We didn't have a good school week...the children were feeling sick with coughs, sore throats and headaches. We didn't get a lot of school done, by the middle of the week two were feeling better and got inspired to start their work on the upcoming science fair for our co-op. It started with one project, which I am not quite ready to share yet....but then my little guy remembered that water freezes when you throw it up into the air and it is cold enough. Here is a little video of his experiment which his sister filmed..... It didn't quite work out the right way when they video taped this. However, the water did freeze when it was thrown high in the air when the kids did it just before making this video.

Poor Dominic - please pray for him and his parents

October 6, 2010

Government’s Claws Dig Deeper in Johansson Case 

Support the Johanssons

Letters of encouragement and support can be sent to the family at:
Christer and Annie Johanssson
c/o Rune Johansson
Alva Gudings 363
623 46 Hemse

On September 21, 2010, Swedish Administrative Court Chief Judge Peter Freudenthal handed down his decision in the case of Domenic Johansson of Gotland, Sweden, dashing the hopes of his parents for reunification with their son, who has been kept in foster care for over one year. Dominic was seized by Swedish authorities from the plane he and his parents had boarded as they were moving to India, his mother’s home country. Authorities cited untreated cavities in the boy’s teeth, failure to vaccinate, and homeschooling as reasons for taking him into custody.
After multiple appeals, Judge Freudenthal has upheld the decision of Swedish social services officials, who are the engineers behind the case. Domenic has been kept from his parents since June 25, 2009, and has only been allowed to visit with them once every five weeks with a supervised 15-minute telephone call once every two weeks. It has become increasingly apparent that the social workers have no real intention of reuniting this family, and that they have simply transferred Domenic from the Johanssons to the foster family. Domenic is now in the public school system.
Friends, family, and a university professor of psychology testified that the Johanssons are more than capable of parenting Domenic and caring for him. Despite this testimony, and the willingness of the family to do whatever the state wants them to do, Judge Freudenthal decided to go along with the assertions of the social workers that Domenic was better off in the care of the state. Meanwhile, Freudenthal spent almost as much time discussing the fees the appointed lawyers would collect as he did explaining the rationale for the state’s continued custody of Domenic.
Ruby Harrold-Claesson, a noted international human rights lawyer and president of the Nordic Committee for Human Rights (nkmr.org), represented Christer Johansson before being removed from the case on the motion of Eva Ernston, Domenic’s appointed attorney. Harrold-Claesson has developed a practice of fighting Swedish social services, a system she calls increasingly “evil.”

“Held Hostage”

“I have never in 20 years of practice seen a case more badly handled,” says Harrold-Claaesson. “This family has been so traumatized that they may never recover. The Swedish government has grossly violated this family’s human rights, both under Swedish law and under the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR). Under the ECHR people have the right to leave their country. But in this case the social services took this poor little boy and prevented him from leaving with his parents. He is being held a hostage—essentially kidnapped by the Swedish government. It is an absolute embarrassment for Sweden and for every person involved in this case. Each person, from the social workers to the judges, should be ashamed of their behavior and their continuing callousness towards this family. They all must be brought to justice for their crimes against the Johansson family.”
Attorney Michael Donnelly, director for international relations for HSLDA, agrees.
“It is revolting to read the opinions of these judges and attorneys, who continue to allow and support this inexcusable and traumatic separation of this family,” says Donnelly. “This is an object lesson for anyone who is concerned about what can happen when the state becomes all powerful and unnecessarily invades the sphere of the family. Overbearing bureaucratic paternalism and a sense of personal power are driving Domenic’s forced alienation from his parents.”
Donnelly notes that the opinions of the Swedish judges are questionable.
“I’ve read the opinions, and there is no evidence that points to the need for continued state custody,” he explains. “Even in the face of overwhelming evidence from credible witnesses that show that the parents are able to take care of Dominic and that refute the social workers absurd allegations that Mr. Johansson is ‘narcissistic.’ This case is so egregious, that the only explanation for the decisions is that judges and social services authorities are simply trying to cover their tracks because they know they have grossly violated the basic human rights of this family.”
HSLDA and ADF, along with the Nordic Committee for Human Rights, have teamed up to bring this case to the European Court of Human rights, where urgent “interim orders” have been requested. As of today, there has been no word from the court, even though the usual time for a response has passed.
Roger Kiska, European counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, notes the delay is concerning.

“Very Concerning”

“In most cases I’ve had a response from the court by this time,” says Kiska. “This is especially true when we are asking for urgent interim orders due to the serious nature of the violation. It is very concerning that the court has not responded to our application.”
Kiska continues, “This case is very troubling in light of the most recent rejection by Judge Freudenthal. The opinions in the Johansson case reflects an underlying attempt by the Swedish state to conform Domenic to the bureaucrats’ image of a child, rather than respecting the right of the family and the parents, and even the right of the child to be with his family.“
This tragic case reflects what happens when a socialist bureaucracy is bent upon turning out cookie-cutter children, rather than respecting the individual differences of individuals and families. Even if you believe every single allegation that the social services authorities have made, as outlined by Judge Freudenthal, the evidence falls far short of the dramatic intervention they brought upon this family and the continuing harm perpetrated by this continued separation. I’m embarrassed for Sweden and hope that we will be able to help this poor family reunite and attempt to recover from this horrible tragedy.”
In his decision, the judge stated that eight months after the verdict of the Administrative Court of Appeal it is necessary for the state to continue its care, because there was much to “recover.” The judge adopted the facts as offered by the social council that Domenic’s being homeschooled “resulted in delays of several years in knowledge and connections with peers and other people.” and that he likes to “play with younger children.” The judge’s opinion notes that the social workers argue that the past issues regarding Dominic—not being vaccinated prior to their attempt to move to India, that he had some unaddressed cavities and was homeschooled—have deep impact on the case. In spite of the fact that all of these issues have been corrected, and that the parents indicate a willingness to cooperate with social services, the social workers have decided that because the family made these decisions this is proof that they are incapable of parenting Dominic.

Power of the State

What this really means, of course, is that the social workers believe that Dominic should not be raised by his parents simply because the state has a different opinion of how children should be raised. Regrettably, the state has the power to force Domenic into the upbringing that they believe is best for him. Sadly, the decision by the social workers is being supported by the entire Swedish administrative and judicial system.
American homeschoolers can view this abuse of authority as a foreshadowing of the kinds of issues we would face if the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child were to be implemented in the United States. There are already numerous cases every year of state bureaucrats attempting to, and, in some cases with the cooperation of American judges, substituting their own decisions over that of competent parents. These cases often result in the involuntary separation of families which result in great trauma to both the children and their parents.
HSLDA calls on Sweden to return Domenic to his parents. Sweden’s treatment of Christer, Annie, and Domenic Johansson are reprehensible and do not uphold the standards of freedom and due process that ought to be the hallmarks of a Western nation. We ask our members and friends to remember this family in their prayers that they will be able to persevere in the face of this overwhelming loss at the hands of their own government under such outrageous circumstances.

You can find the original here:http://www.hslda.org/hs/international/Sweden/201010060.asp

 

The Child Documentary Promo

                                                                                                                                                                            

Some of you know us and our story. Some of you may not know our story, for you I will recap real quick. We were homeschooling in Germany and the German government wanted to take our parental rights - just because we homeschooled our kids.  We came to the US and thought that we stay for a few months until things blow over in Germany. Well, they never did - the courts left our case pending, with the purpose to start proceedings ( if we would return) right where they stopped - so as not to lose any time to take our children away! Of course this is everything in a nutshell. It doesn't tell you about the children being very scared because we were watched secretly, it doesn't tell you about all the emotional pain of leaving loved ones behind nor does it tell you about starting over without your spouse, money or friends. Neither does this tell you of many other things that hurt...... are you willing to give up your rights? Do you really want to experience all that and more yourself? Do you think it would hurt your children if they had to wonder which one of their friends turned them in to the government? America, this IS at your doorstep! You can disagree, you can dislike it, you can put your head in the sand and pretend this is not happening - all that doesn't change the fact! The fact is that America NEEDS the amendment to the UNCHR. This is not only for homeschoolers, it is not even only for christians - this is for ALL PARENTS!    Do you want that the government can tell you what you can do with your children? Which school is best for them? Which kind of help they need? What worldview is best for them? How to think? If you think this will not happen - well, think again! If any entity has this kind of power - trust me, it will exercise this power. It is in the nature of the human being. In my own history is quite a bit to where I must say, all alarm bells are going off in my head. If you look back in history you can see that it is MUCH harder to get rid of something like the UNCHR. Fight for your rights now! America needs the amendment to the UNCHR. Think about it, children have good rights already! You don't need foreign entities to tell you what is best for your child! Go to http://parentalrights.org/ to read all about it. At the very least inform yourself, find out what you should do! Find out the truth before it is too late! 

The next phase .... High school

I don't know about you, but I am starting to think about the new school year and all the planning that is ahead. My lovely oldest daughter is going into 9th grade and I need to get "my ducks in a row". I find all this high school stuff a little overwhelming but I have found a little online seminar to download. It is very helpful and you can watch it over and over again as you progress through all of those things like record keeping, portfolios and such. If you go to  

Upper Level Homeschool you will get to this course. It gives 13 weeks of instruction and direction for those that really aren't sure how to homeschool through the high school years or just need a little bit of guidance. They have recently uploaded two videos to these sites that describe the course and include testimonials. They also have a course for people who are thinking about homeschooling or are still new at this. You can find that here at Homeschooling ABC's. Both courses are from Terri Johnson from Knowledge Quest.

Maybe this is helpful for some, I have the Upper level homeschool course and will work through it during the summer and will hopefully feel more confident schooling my first child for the last four years of high school. This is exciting and also scary....