#55

Every parent and teacher wants to give his or her children the best education possible. We hope that the education we provide is a joyful adventure, a celebration of life, and preparation for living. But sadly, most education today falls short of this goal.

For the Children's Sake is a book about what education can be, based on a Christian understanding of what it means to be human-to be a child, a parent, a teacher-and on the Christian meaning of life. The central ideas have been proven over many years and in almost every kind of educational situation, including ideas that Susan and Ranald Macaulay have implemented in their own family and school experience.

It was back in the 1980's when Cindy Rollins, then a new mom in search of the best ways to teach her baby son, first heard about homeschooling. Thirty years and nine children later, Cindy has become a popular blogger, podcaster, and award-winning teacher. This is her story. It's a story of big families and cross-country moves and small-town living. It's about great books and morning times and nursery rhymes. It's the story of a dedicated mother's journey toward the Truth and the family she brought along with her.

This new, revised, and first print edition of Sarah Mackenzie's best-selling eBook version contains 35% new content! Those who have made the decision to homeschool their children have done so out of great love for their children and a desire to provide them an excellent education in the context of a warm, enriching home. Yet so many parents (mainly mothers) who have taken up this challenge find the enterprise often full of stress, worry, and anxiety. In this practical, faith-based, and inspirational book, Sarah Mackenzie addresses these questions directly, appealing to her own study of restful learning (scholé) and her struggle to bring restful learning to her (six) children.

I am Cindy Rollins author of Mere Motherhood, A Handbook to Morning Time, and Hallelujah A Journey Through Advent with Handel's Messiah. From December 2016 to December 2018, I put out a newsletter. It contained some of my best writing. After I moved on to other projects, it occurred to me that those newsletters might be helpful to others if they were collected together. Here they are complete with poems in the public domain and recipes, which were often the best part of the newsletter. In these newsletters I ponder significant moments in the life a mother, the ups and downs, realities, joys, and sorrows. I even have a bookslist or two! You will find laughter and tears and recipes month by month. Many people asked me where they could find these newsletters once they vanished from their inboxes. Here, for the first time, they are collated together. You can buy them as an ebook or even print them out. I am deeply indebted to Elizabeth Sage for the cover art.

MORNING TIME is a regular gathering focused on remembering—remembering Scripture, songs, poetry, works of music and art, stories—even Plutarch’s Lives and Shakespeare’s plays.

Cindy Rollins shares with readers how to experience the blessings of Morning Time in their own homes and communities. As Cindy gathered her family for Morning Time on a regular basis, she realized that the routine had become a liturgy, a regular practice and pattern that carried love and life to her children. The things that Cindy and her children discovered together in Morning Time were the very best things, and those things have proven to endure in their hearts.

The practice of Morning Time is simple to implement into one’s homeschool, family, or classroom. This book gives readers a practical, road-tested way to make Morning Time a beautiful liturgy of their own. It includes Cindy’s Morning Time Anthology—over 150 pages of poems, hymn lyrics, Scripture passages, catechisms, Shakespeare passages, and other Morning Time selections gathered to make your Morning Time easy to put into practice.

CINDY ROLLINS has been sharing for many years about her implementation of Charlotte Mason’s timeless principles of education into a regular morning gathering she calls Morning Time. The author of Mere Motherhood and Hallelujah: Cultivating Advent Traditions with Handel’s Messiah, Cindy also leads online workshops and discipleship courses through her website. She is the host of The New Mason Jar Podcast, a co-host of The Literary Life Podcast and co-author of The Literary Life Podcast Commonplace Book series. Find out more about Cindy at her website MorningTimeForMoms.com

Family traditions become established, sometimes quite by accident and sometimes because “we’ve always done it that way.” But the best family traditions are thoughtfully cultivated. With Hallelujah: Cultivating Advent Traditions With Handel’s Messiah, Cindy Rollins leads the way in building a rich Advent tradition for you and your family. Inside you will find:

• Weekly Scripture passages, hymns, and poems,
• Daily Messiah listening schedule with background information from Greg Wilbur
• An overview of the church calendar by Thomas Banks
• Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany recipes, and
• Suggestions for celebrating the Advent feasts of St. Nicholas
  and St. Lucia.

Cindy also invited four of her friends to share how they celebrate Advent with their own families.