Thursday, March 05, 2009

Homemaking Curriclum Ideas


Cards from Victorian Trading Company

Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold.
For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it.
I wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions. -Proverbs 8:10-12
Please see the previous post for curriculum ideas you can make up, yourself.
There may be things in these books that are not needed for everyone, but if you concentrate on the things that you can use, they will be most useful. If you have daughters at home and you really want to motivate them to be enterprising and productive in the home, these books will be of value:

Future Christian Homemakers Handbook by Laurie Latour: Illustrates with photographs of her own home keeping classes at home; contains food studies and home keeping skills, and instructions for the temperament (kindness, goodness, etc) Most excellent with assignments.

Treasury of Vintage Homekeeping Skills by Martha Greene: lovely home keeping book with everything in it from laundry to Home repairs; includes knitting and other needlework skills, how to make a sewing box, cooking, the home office, and much, much more. Has work pages to fill in. This is a very worthwhile book for study or for keeping. Has historical notes and quotes in it.
Keepers of the Faith: This is written for little girls, but what fun it would be for an older girl at home to take it chapter by chapter and do the assignments in it and fill up a notebook with samples of the skills contained in it. I would like to do it too!

The Joy of Womanhood: This is mainly a Bible study containing Bible examples and verses that pertain to womanhood. In the back of the book are exercise pages that teach you how to manage family finances, and give assignments such as reading a book on bread making, reading a book on home organization, keep your own room neat and organized for 6 months, keeping a journal, reading ("read 20 books ob the following: biography-4 books, history-2 books, how-to--4 books, poetry-1 book, nature, 1 book, etc;) writing assignments: write a letter to your congressmen on a particular subject, write to a local newspaper; physical fitness, and serving the needs of others. A small book but full of ideas in the back.

Bold
The Christian Girl : Book One, Book Two, Book Three and Book Four; these were last authored in 1964 but are still being published as new, today. I have reviewed the lessons in these books and the scrapbook assignments at the end of each lesson. If young girls were taught these lessons, they would be happy to do what is right and good and be pleasing instead of peevish, happy instead of harping, and serving instead of sullen. Check out recent posts I've had about these books.You can order these booklets by calling The Christian Herald Bookstore at 1-800-939-6767.


American Girls Handy Book: This is not a Christian book but it has some very interesting activities that were popular in Victorian times. It is divided into four parts: spring, summer, autumn and winter, with activities for each season. Some you will want to ignore, but others are quite good. For example, the summer section contains instruction for summer cottage decoration, and what to take to a picnic. There are paper crafts and other kinds of crafts done in the 1800's as well as how to play games of the times. I have always treasured this book. It is called a nonpareil book.

A young lady's education should draw her closer to her home and family, and draw her family closer to her, and make her desire, more than anything else, a home and family of her own. Education that detaches young women from such values, has gone beyond education and is tampering with the emotions and the mind, outside of the word of God. In my opinion, women who are educated at home can take on any issue with intelligence and clarity. Such women are well-read and knowledgeable on many different issues.

I have read it and would suggest you read it carefully to understand the meaning and word usage and expressions of the time and get an understanding of the whole subject. There is a lot of instruction directed to daughters before marriage, who are at home with their families. It could be quite a classic and it gives a glimpse into what people used to think that young girls should be busy doing.
More book titles will be inserted into this post soon.

The previous post contains ideas of being a librarian for a day or week, a hostess for a day, a reader, and other things that give hands-on experience for young ladies at home.

8 comments:

tamlovesran said...

A few years ago I found a site that was called something like Homemakers University. I wish I could remember the exact name and find the site again. It was designed to be prepare young women to be a homemaker and set up like a four year program with suggested reading for each year. If anyone knows the site that I'm thinking of, I would love to find it again.

Thanks,
Tammy

Theo-Ann said...

Great ideas! This info. may help Tammy--I used to be a part of "Women at Home University". For the longest time, I've tried going to the link, but it is unavailable. I went to college with the founder, but the last few years have been a change of ministry direction for her and her family. So, I wish I could help, but it doesn't look like this is available any more.

tamlovesran said...

Yes, Theo-Ann Women At Home University is what I was thinking of. Too bad it's unavailable now.

Anonymous said...

Thank you dear Lydia for these wonderful ideas and resources. Your specifics are going to be a great help to many. Makes me rather melancholy to read all these helps and your examples as I know my now 23yr old married daughter would have loved and benefitted so much by these back when she was growing up and homeschooled. I did my best but I now realise I could have done so much better.. 'if I knew then what I know now'... Thanks for all your work. Love Linda

Stacy said...

I have really loved your last two posts. I think the books would be good for ME to read as well. My girl is only 2 right now. So it would be nice for me to know exactly what im talking about by then. :) Thank you!

Anonymous said...

Dearest Lydia,

this sounds excellent. I believe there is a great need for not only gaining wisdom from the past, but also (this would be an incredible ministry for a more experienced homekeeper who has or has had young adult daughters at home prior to marriage, to create a modern classic that draws together the best of the wisdom of of former years. I was blessed to be given, twelve years ago now, 'the Braille Cookbook', published in 1947 by the Kentucky School for the Blind, for their home ecconomics students and especially intended for the vision impaired homemaker. its excellent and contains much more than recipes! My copy is battered, the front cover has fallen off completely (it had been battered about when i received it) but the braille and binding is still sound. this sort of thing is no longer in print; www.visionaustralia.org.au does its level best to get young vision impaired persons (women especially) out of the family home and into a flat to live 'independantly' which is virtually always interpreted as living outside of the family unit, alone. there is no skill given to the parents to help them train up their own children with the necessary knowledge you mention in your posts so they can learn within the family; indeed, the family is seen as a type of stumbling block to the young person with a vision impairment (largely because the vast majority of families do not train their vision impaired and blind children in daily living skills) and work with the family is rare indeed.

Just read the client profiles on their site; i can almost see a hidden agenda to break up the family and keep parents disempowered regarding training up their blind and VI children - especially girls!!

blessings,

Sarah,
Australia.

momstheword said...

These are great ideas. Although I have boys, my husband has needed to teach them some things about working around the house and on cars that they need to know. We've also had them learn to cook so that they can do that as well. These are just practical things that you want to teach as well as the spiritual things.

Anonymous said...

The online copy is no longer available at the link specified, but is here: http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=8996

FYI and thanks!