Inspirements

My eldest child is becoming a scholar. She has joined with a group of other scholar youth to learn and grow together. One of the mentors creatively coined the term Inspirements:

(my own definition) Inspirements: (n) a learning activity similar to an assignment, except it is meant to inspire.

Each week several of these inspirements are given and the youth are encouraged to pick any inspirement that they would like to do. The inspirements are very diverse and meant to meet every learning style. It has been a joy to watch which ones my eldest has picked and which ones she has profited and learned from.

So this past week in our home we were going to learn about Mormon as our "ancient history biography" So in the spirit of inspiring and inspirements instead of giving a lecture or reading a book about Mormon (which would have been amazing btw :) ) I gathered all my resources about Mormon, laid them all out on the floor, and said, lets learn about Mormon.

Everyone picked their own resource or not (dude asked if he could just make a list of all the things he already knows in his head about Mormon) and after 30 minutes we all came back together to share. Everyone had something different that they learned about Mormon. And as a homeschooling mother I thought that was pretty cool.

But the REALLY cool thing was that we REALLY learned about Mormon...like did you know that his father was named Mormon? And did you know that Mormon in Nephite language actually means "More Good" and so when we refer to ourselves as Mormon's we are actually saying we are "more good"? And we are not saying it in a prideful way...like more good that others.... but that we are striving to do more good. And that Mormon was 10 when he found his mission (the same age as dude)? And that it was a huge mission...keep all the records for an entire civilization! And that when he was 15 he actually saw Jesus Christ and that Christ changed his mission from just make your own record, like Ammaron had told him to do, into the mission to abridge all of the plates from the whole history of his people...oh and btw lead an army while your doing it all :). And then that he was commanded to not cry repentance to the people for a time because they were so wicked. Our learning went on and on and on.

After we were done my kids all said, Mom, that was so much fun...can we do it again tommorrow? Can we do Alma?

What more can a homeschooling mom want? ......um....world peace :)...yea, that would be nice too!

ps. Thanks to great homeschool mentor mom's who are so wise and inspired and are still helping me after 5 years of homeschooling to figure out there is a better way then the way I keep on using :)...silly me