What is the Leading Idea?

  This is something that I heard of often from ACH people, but wasn't really sure what it was.  Katherine Dang helped me understand and put it into practice.

  Katherine encourages us to slow down, to allow time for a lesson to marinate in the hearts and minds of our children.  The current traditional teaching does not allow for this.  Instead, we find gobs and gobs of information being dumped into each lesson, and we hope that some of it will 'stick.'

  The leading idea is a means of stick-to-itiveness.   Katherine encourages us to teach ONE idea for each lesson.  This is called the 'leading idea.'  If your child leaves a lesson with that one idea, then you have accomplished what you set out to do.

  Teaching from the leading ideas provides a context in which your child can put the lesson learned.  Without context, it is likely that nothing will remain, kind of like that paper that was filed in a file drawer with no file folders.  Oh, it's in there, somewhere!  But locating it when it is needed is time consuming at best.

  So here are some examples of leading ideas:

 1.  God providentially prepared Moses for his task as leader of the children of Israel.

 2.  God demonstrates work ethic in His act of Creation.

 3.  The colonists lived in local self-government for 150 years prior to our Declaration of Independence. 

 4.  The Constitution of the United States is a Christian document.

  I think you get the idea!