Customer Reviews

Beyond Survival: A Guide to Abundant-Life Homeschooling

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I purchased this book prior to spring break and pored over it from cover to cover my entire week off! I found it to be packed with tons of good information and covered just about any question I had about homeschooling. Diana Waring encouraged me to be flexible regarding curriculum and not to get discouraged during the inevitable "valleys" of home education. I am still in the homework/ investigation phase since I can't begin homeschooling our daughter until the fall. This volume served to further confirm my decision and increase my enthusiasm for the privilege and right to educate my child at home.

I have absolutely loved reading this book! I have had my fears relieved and been encouraged in every way. When the idea of homeschooling entered my life, I thought it would be an impossible task. Diana explains homeschooling with such excitement and devotion. I have come to the realization that homeschooling is not a technique, but a lifestyle! A lifestyle my family has needed and is already benefitting from. Diana gives reference to many wonderful books and points out her favorites. I highly recommend this book.

Diana (and after reading this book I feel that I can call her that) has managed to share enough of her own family's homeschool journey, and that of others, to make me believe that I, too, can successfully and joyously homeschool my children. I most appreciated the recommended reading at the end of each chapter, and I loved Diana's maxims. Overall, this is an excellent book with a distinctly Christian (but not preachy) perspective.

This author covers a lot of ground: the basic philosophy of homeschooling, the ins and outs of where to get and how to use ideas on unit studies, how to assess learning, how to cope with homeschooling laws, even an introduction to learning and teaching styles. The book is heavily influenced by the author's Christian beliefs and well sprinkled with scripture quotes, often using quoted scripture as the basis in reason for a certain approach. If you are bothered by this, please try to ignore it and read on anyway (or skip/skim those parts) because if you do, you will still benefit greatly from the author's zest for enriching her family's educational life. Also contains many useful references to other books and resources.

This book came for me at exactly the right time. I was feeling like a failure because we weren't highly systematic in our homeschooling. But I'm not of the unschooling persuasion. Waring did a wonderful job of just sharing her personal experiences. No pressure to try one method or another, no forceful political undertone. Just a friendly human being setting out to encourage other's to tailor their home school to their families needs, lifestyle and interest.

Maybe it is just the end of winter blahs or the fact that homeschool has widdled down to just the bare bones or has become stifled. Whatever the problem, this book will jumpstart you with fresh ideas and insights. Curl up with a hot cup of tea and enjoy this refreshing, inspirational homeschool book. It is chucked full with "how we did its" and how to get beyond "just getting by" to really and enthusiatically enjoying the God given priviledge and responsibility of homeschooling and training our children. This book will be a resource and a blessing as it adds spirit and life to why we do what we do in homeschooling our children. And the glimpses into understanding our children's learning styles made easy will help us understand why and how each of our vastly different children learn and then how to maximize on it. Reading this book will give you such a rich appreciation for not only what you should do, but what you can do. Diana makes everything so practical, simplified and enjoyable. And you won't stop with this book, because you will love her tapes too. If it is time to regroup - start here. If this book doesn't help you air out the dusty homeschool room and bring a breath of fresh air and joyous life to your home and school, I will be greatly surprised

If you are a Christian mother who desperately wants to homeschool but are scared to death you'll fail like I was this book will encourage you. If you are looking for someone to kinda give you a mountian top view of the world of homeschooling Diana does a beautiful job! She shows you some of the mountians you'll have to climb and also tell you how beautiful the view is! If you're stressed or worried, Get this book! It really helped me!

We've been homeschooling for two years. I picked this book out of our homeschool group's library mostly because the title made me smile. Survival is always good, right?! This has been a really encouraging book to read. It is like getting to sit down and talk with an experieced Christian homeschooling mom. The lists of resources at the end of each chapter that are invaluable. The "journal" entries about her family in each chapter are my favorite. My husband did balk a little when he saw the chapter titled "Blow up the TV". I promised him our TV is safe..

If you are a beginning homeschooler, I think this is a great place to start. All the information I had to glean from so many different sources is all right there for you. If you are getting to be a well seasoned traveler on the homeschool journey, it is a great book for making you evaluate where you are going. It isn't a "how to guide" by any means, but I think it will make you really look at how you can make homeschooling more rewarding for the whole family.

This was my first homeschooling book to read, and I so appreciated all of the wonderful information. I felt the author was very knowledgeable and down-to-earth. I feel I now have a very good basis of homeschooling information on which to base important decisions for my family. Thank you, Diana Waring.

I could not put this book down. I thought that it was going to be another "how to" books, but turned out to be the most refreshing of all the homeschooling books I have read. Diana and her family sound real and practice what they preach. This book is one that I recommend to ALL homeschoolers, whether new or ancient