LITTLE CREEK FAMILY SCHOOL | THANK YOU BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND ANDREW CARNEGIE

No homeschool is complete without a library card.

What an amazing resource and gift to the American public. The ability to borrow thousands of resources and return them with no cost at all. If you have never thought about how it came to be, here is some history.

The history of the public library harkens back to Benjamin Franklin, who is credited with starting the institution. Public libraries in modern western society may be traced to fifteenth century England, but it was not until the seventeenth century that English libraries became public institutions supported by local governments. Benjamin Franklin established the first lending library in America in 1731.

Andrew Carnegie, a 19th-century industrialist, donated millions of dollars to build public libraries around the world, believing that libraries were a necessity for everyone to have access to knowledge. Between 1886 and 1919, Carnegie's donations of more than $40 million paid for 1,679 new library buildings in communities large and small across America. All this knowledge was brought to you by Google, another amazing resource for learning at home in this generation.

All homeschooling families probably hold their library cards as one of their greatest assets, and though Little Creek Family School was investing many Goodwill trips to building our own little library, trips to the public library were fun and educational. I learned early on to spend time with my computer at home “ordering my choices online” to be picked up when we arrived so that we could focus on what my “students” wanted when we got to the library. We went home loaded down with books and videos.

Though computers and the internet and our friend Google have provided us with so much knowledge and information at our finger tips, there still is nothing like a book, reading aloud, the shared experience of turning the pages and having the stories unfold.

And whether you homeschool or not, I heartily recommend reading to your children and purchasing the book, “Honey for a Child’s Heart.” It is such a great resource and isn’t available at the library.

Just a side note: I went on to homeschool Noah all the way through high school. It was an interesting journey, since Noah and I both had some serious ADD issues. One day we were discussing our crazy journey, and I told him I didn’t even remember teaching him language arts and yet he was a great speller, had a great vocabulary, was a great writer and communicator. He simply said, I learned it from the books I read.

Today he is an avid reader and has a library of his own. His books tell the story of a kid who grew up fascinated with American History (He has read Hamilton more than once) and American Government. He also has almost all the Left Behind series and Babylon Rising, which he and his Papa read together and had many conversations about.

Interestingly, some of Noah’s favorite historical heroes were educated the same way. George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin received no public education.

One of the many advantages of homeschooling, especially through high school is allowing your students the ability to “major” in the things that most interest them. With Noah, it was American history and government, patriotism and Christian evidences. But that is a whole blog in itself.