Oh please tell me I’m not the only one that feels like a cop half the time in their home and homeschool.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about the traffic cop, the one that stands at the intersection and directs traffic.  I’m talking about the cop that has to escort you to the station in order for something to get done!  The one that directs traffic is a pleasure… the escort is not so nice!  I love being mom and homeschool mom to three very active boys, aged 13, 12 and 9, but I don’t want to be the policeman for them all day everyday!  

This is a new issue we are having.  Up until recently, I was a SAHM and their dad was also a SAHD.  We have a small business that we run out of our home, but he was managing it and had been for three years.  Recently, my husband went back to work and I returned to running the business after my three year hiatus.  So the boys lost having both mom and dad home and fully engaged at all times in one fail swoop.  So, in the boys defense, we are all in adjustment mode right now.  But that being said, they have been sleeping till noon and not even getting all their chores done, much less all of the schoolwork (we homeschool year round).  I was having to run behind them and not only direct traffic, but escort them to get the job done!  I don’t have time to manage them at this level and never had to before.  At the same time, their dad is feeling less involved in their daily activities and almost inactive completely in the homeschool realm.

The easiest way to show the continents on earth is on a round globe, after all the earth is round. But there are times when we must use a map instead.  Many of us may not realize that a flat map is not the best representation of the relationship of  continents and their sizes. In order to get understand why, we will learn How to Make a Globe Flat and why we would!  

Distortion!  There is just no way to take that round globe and make it flat without deforming and transforming some of the sizes and relationships of the continents. One of the most common ways I’ve seen to demonstrate this distortion and how you can’t take a round earth and make it flat without have distortion is by using an orange peel. Another way that I found to be very effective in this demonstration is using a balloon  

To turn a spherical surface into a rectangle or other two-dimensional shape, we have to transform it or deform it by stretching it and/or compressing it. To see what happens when you deform a spherical surface, use a balloon. First blow up the balloon and tie it off. then draw rough outlines of the continents on the surface. Carefully cut off the tied end of the balloon and snip through the Pacific Ocean. Now try to flatten it into a useful shape. What does it look like? What happens to the shapes, sizes, and positions of the continents?

Cartographers have better ways to project spherical surfaces onto maps than stretching them by hand, but they’re subject to the same limitations. All projections deform the earth’s surface in some way, which means that every projection is in some way inaccurate. The trick in drawing or selecting a map is to find the projection that shows key information for a given region with the least inaccuracy.

The Mercator projection map commonly used on globes was developed in 1569 by a Flemish cartographer to aid navigators on their voyages.  Unfortunately, it shows land masses Greenland and Antarctica much larger than they actually are.   John Paul Goode.  He was very concerned about how the Mercator Projection map distorted the land mass sizes and thought it would confuse students.  So he set out to create a better map than the Mercator projection map. At the 1908 meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Goode described the Mercator Projection as “evil.”  It is for this reason he set out to create the Goode Interrupted Projection map.

I was intrigued when I was offered the opportunity to review this curriculum, A Young Historian’s Introduction to Worldview, published by Brimwood Press. Being Messianic, I was a bit worried and wondered how hard it would be teach my children using a traditional Christian curriculum, since so many have a denominational slant or perspective. My Brimwood Press Worldview Curriculum Review will also include a link to the review bymy  thirteen year old son of the book, The Secret of the Scribe.  Be sure to click through and read that as well!

Why should we teach a biblical Worldview to our children? Because we interpret our whole world through our worldview glasses. Every major life question is filtered through those lenses, as well as every minor one. Questions like “Where did man come from?”, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”, “What happens to me when I die?”. Every struggle, tragedy, joy and triumph is seen through those same worldview glasses. It impacts every aspect of our lives… our views, our relationships, our wants, our desires and our priorities… so it’s pretty important to spend some time with our children talking about worldviews.  

How does this curriculum teach this subject?  A Young Historian’s Introduction to Worldview is only four chapters long and is the beginning of their worldview curriculum product line. The four lessons focus on:  

• defining the concept of worldview
• identifing what all worldviews have in common
• providing a tool to identify and understand the differences between the worldviews
• and looking at how worldview influences history

Each of the four lessons present hands-on activities, literature activities, thinking activities and discussion questions to help our children understand how a person’s worldview shapes their perspective of cultures, individuals, literature, history, art and entertainment.  It explains how faith and philosophy are the foundation of a person’s worldview. The guide helps students understand the basic beliefs of four  worldview families.  The worldviews/faiths presented are: monotheism, polytheism, pantheism, and naturalism.  Twelve different religions are discussed, contrasted and compared and then sorted into one of these four categories.  and their   are presented dispassionately, numerous opportunities are presented to discuss these concepts and solidify your family s values through Table Talk sections. Several hands-on activities are presented, including the construction of boxes (all materials provided) to graphically illustrate the differences in worldviews. These lessons are powerful, powerful, powerful! If you purchase the entire set of materials from Tools for Young Historians, it is recommended that you cover these four lessons first, as they give the student a lens through which to evaluate the rest of their study.

This curriculum is designed for children ages 10-13 or in 5^th to 8^th grades.  

The first lesson begins with a brief introduction of the concept of worldview as “the lens through which people see and understand the world in which they live.” To reinforce the concept of seeing through different lenses, students are directed to the computer to view a geodesic picture on the publisher’s website. They complete an observation sheet viewing the geodesic picture with the naked eye, through sunglasses, and through 3-D glasses (provided in the bag). Next, students either read or listen to the story of Lensland that demonstrates how conflicting perceptions can have significant consequences. Lensland’s citizens divide into three groups: Twoeyes, Multieyes, and Thickeyes. As one might guess from their names, each group has different eyes and, consequently, views things differently. Their conflicting visual perceptions lead toward a clash that threatens the peace and tranquility of Lensland. The lesson then transitions back to the real world with two examples of authors’ writing about DNA demonstrating how different “lenses” influence how people might interpret the same information. Discussion questions are interspersed through the lesson, and it ends with Table Talk: Family Discussions Facilitated by Parents. This section might be used by the entire family even if they are not all involved in the rest of the lesson. It reviews key ideas from the lesson and raises questions for family discussion.

The rest of the lessons follow similarly creative formats. The second lesson teaches what all worldviews have in common—the important questions about the meaning of life and existence of God. The third lesson introduces a simple way to divide worldviews into four categories, using some very creative hands-on activities. The fourth lesson primarily uses stories and discussion to demonstrate the impact of beliefs in selected historical settings.

I particularly like the discovery approach used to lead students into worldview concepts. By raising questions and working through activities, students are led to explore their own beliefs and recognize the important questions they need to ponder. Because younger students are particularly susceptible to the influence of teachers, it makes the most sense to use this course within the family so there is opportunity to identify and discuss the family’s religious beliefs. Each family can then decide how far they wish to go in exploring alternative worldviews.

Brimwood Press has also published a series of four historical novels that can be used with students in this age group as a springboard for worldview discussions. The novels are set in different time periods—ancient, medieval, early modern, and modern–and feature characters with different worldviews: polytheism, monotheism, naturalism and pantheism. Titles are: Secret of the Scribe, The Jeweled Astrolobe, Beneath the Cat’s Claw, and Rebel on the Path. Brimwood should soon have available (by 2009) the Christian Readers Guide for Engaging Thinkers, a discussion guide for all four books.