Stretching out a Week...

We don't usually follow the official school holidays except over Christmas and New Year but some of our regular activities such as dance lessons are suspended over the holidays between school terms which leaves us with some free time. Road traffic reduces dramatically during school holidays and with the combination of that and a reduced schedule we usually do some things we don't always get the time or inclination to do at other times.
We had a week's holiday a couple of weeks ago & I didn't want to have a complete break so soon after that, so I'm doing something that works well for us - ie. stretching our weekly schedule out over two weeks.
I printed each child's schedule at the beginning of the week. This is Benj's:

 

If there are certain things I want each of them to get done, those are given priority. Looking at the schedule above, I know that dictation and Jensen's probably won't get done but I'm fine with that.
I usually plan a few outings or catch up with family and friends during our 'extended week' and we
also make a time to meet my husband near his work and have lunch together. This was a priority so I made sure we did it earlier in the week.

Benj is reading through the poetry of George Herbert and he came across the following poem which intrigued him:

Paradise

I bless thee, Lord, because I GROW
Among thy trees, which in a ROW
To thee both fruit and order OW.

What open force, or hidden CHARM
Can blast my fruit, or bring  me HARM
While the inclosure is thine  ARM:

Inclose me still for fear I START.
Be to me rather sharp and TART,
Than let me want thy hand and ART.

When thou dost greater judgements SPARE,
And with thy knife but prune and PARE,
Even fruitful trees more fruitful ARE:

Such sharpness shows the sweetest FREND,
Such  cuttings  rather heal than REND,
And such beginning touch their END.

(The old spelling is retained in order to preserve Herbert's ingenious construction: furnishing new rhymes by the dropping of a single letter at a time - Albatross Book of Verse, edited by Louis Untermeyer)

I suggested he try writing a poem of his own using a similar construction. He managed the construction but had a hard time coming up with a serious poem! 

 Another priority was a bush walk. We've been doing regular nature study but hadn't had a good observing time outdoors. We went to a park a little way out of our area today that we hadn't visited in ages and found some interesting fish to draw and a bird we hadn't seen before.

Very well camouflaged...identification anyone?

A trip up to our local lookout...

Some climbing on the rocks & trees...

And then I read aloud in the warm afternoon sun, which we haven't experienced much of in recent times. 

When we got home, I had a look at the flowers I pressed a couple of weeks ago. They were nicely dried so I put them into my nature notebook.

Linking up with Weekly Wrap-Up 

 

Playing with Plutarch with the artful aid of alliteration

After I had read our Plutarch lesson & Bengy and Moozle had taken turns narrating sections, I had them both write out a number of words starting with the letter 't.'

'T' was the obvious letter to use as we're going through the life of Timoleon and just about everyone involved in the narrative has a name starting with that letter.

Then I asked them to write a short paragraph or verse relating to our reading using alliteration.

This was just a quick & rough exercise but they had a bit of fun.

Alliteration is enjoyable for a younger child to try - it's one of the more obvious and easiest poetic devices to use.

Bengy wrote:

Trustworthy Timoleon trusted
Tumultuous, tyrannical Timophanes
Who had a tendency to terrify
Tremendously true citizens
But Timophanes turned traitor
And Timoleon tried to tell him
To give his crown to the people
But tumultuous, tyrannical Timophanes
Laughed the trusted warnings aside
And so Timoleon, with tremendous tenacity
Therein killed Timophanes!

This is Moozle's (unedited) version where spelling goes out the window:

Timoleon tried to peswade his brother Timophanes to stop his tyranicall tyranny and thinking that his traterus tyranny would sucsed. He would be tyrannicly traiterus to the people, Timoleon said.
He already had a tyrannical aditude towards the peoples and it would not turn out well.

Edited copy:

Timoloeon tried to persuade his brother Timophanes to stop his tyrannical tyranny and thinking that his traitorous tyranny would succeed.
He would be tyrannically traitorous to the people, Timoleon said.
He already had a tyrannical attitude towards the peoples and it would not turn out well.

Poetry as a Means of Intellectual Culture - Furnishing the Mind

'Poetry takes first rank as a means of intellectual culture. Goethe tells us that we ought to see a good picture, hear good music, and read some good poetry every day.

...fine poetry need not be understood to be enjoyed.

...the youth who carries about with him such melodious cadences will not readily be taken in with tinsel.'

Formation of Character by Charlotte Mason

I've been thinking about the inherent power of poetry. It isn't something that is immediately obvious, but over a period of time, a regular diet of good poetry furnishes our minds with beauty and is a means of acquiring intellectual culture.
Good poetry (even if isn't understood), stored up in our minds, also provides a safeguard.
When we appreciate true beauty, when the rooms in our minds are well-furnished, we won't be taken in by counterfeits. If we have a storehouse full of good things we're not going to be tempted by junk.

The first couple of verses of Proverbs 24 speak to me about filling or furnishing our minds with this beauty.

By wisdom a house is built,

and through understanding it is established;

through knowledge its rooms are filled (furnished)

with rare and beautiful treasures.

Poetry has been called heightened speech; thoughts so charged with emotion that they spontaneously seek a rhythmic expression.
There have been seasons in my own life where I could only express my thoughts by writing poetry. I was looking through a book I kept during one of these times and I was surprised at the intensity of some of what I wrote. This is one of my poems that isn't as emotionally charged as some of my others, so I'm more comfortable sharing it!

I've read poetry and it has tugged on my heart for some reason that was inexpressible to me.
Poetry has lifted my eyes above everyday concerns and given me encouragement and hope. It has caused me to seek virtue and not settle for just following the crowd.
Was it Socrates that said that wisdom begins with wonder?

C.S. Lewis in Reflections on the Psalms said:

It seems to me appropriate, almost inevitable, that when that great Imagination which in the beginning, for Its own delight and for the delight of men and angels...had invented and formed the whole world of Nature, submitted to express Itself in human speech, that speech should sometimes be poetry. For poetry too is a little incarnation, giving body to what had been before invisible and inaudible.

Poetry...a little incarnation...it makes me wonder.

Ambleside Online Year 7 - Creative Narrations using Alliteration

Many children write verse as readily as prose, and the conciseness and power of bringing their subject matter to a point which this form of composition requires affords valuable mental training. One thing must be borne in mind. Exercises in scansion are as necessary in English as in Latin verse. Rhythm and accent on the other hand take care of themselves in proportion as a child is accustomed to read poetry.

A Philosophy of Education Pg. 193

Bengy is working through The Grammar of Poetry and I asked him to use write a narration based on the Battle of Bosworth (covered in AO Year 7) using alliteration:

Lesson 23 is on Alliterative Imitation and the student is asked to read some excerpts from Beowulf and then write an alliterative poem with a similar sound and feel. Bengy chose to base his poem on Ivanhoe.

We're not rushing through The Grammar of Poetry but it's been interesting to note that this is my son who would choose to do a poetic narration any day over any other kind of narration but he struggles with the more formalised presentation in this book. I have the older spiral edition which doesn't have a great deal of practice in some sections where it would have been helpful but there is a new version with additional aids that I haven't seen. The book does go in to quite a bit of technical detail on the different types of 'feet' which is probably the hardest part and there are numerous exercises in scansion. I like how the tropes or pictures such as similes, metaphors etc are presented but more ideas for practice would have been helpful. The book is easy to use and so far I haven't seen a book that includes both the writing of poetry and the appreciation of poetry that I like better.
Bengy says of the book: 'Some parts of it are interesting but some I find extremely boring.'

Ambleside Online Year 3 - Shakespeare, Plutarch & Poetic Narration

A few months ago I shared some of Moozle's written narrations inspired by Plutarch. Since then she has continued to do a written narration once or twice a week and has branched out a little from the letter form she started with.
The  first one here is still in letter form but was inspired after our weekly reading and listening to Twelfth Night, which we finished about six weeks ago.

This one was a 'news report' she wrote after we'd read a lesson from Plutarch's life of Crassus. Some poetic license was taken in the 'Consul Spiro Maximus Nero' addition - Spiro and various derivatives of said name have been popping up in all of her Plutarch narrations, regardless of whether the characters are Roman or Greek.

This one was done this morning. She's been keen to do a poetic narration and she asked if she could do one after reading a chapter of Our Island Story. I thought she'd be so intent on making it rhyme that it wouldn't make much sense but I was surprised when she came up with this: 

  

I shouldn't have been surprised because she's been listening to poetry for years and absorbing rhythm, rhyme and the beauty of words and that should translate into her writing at some point but I wasn't expecting it at this stage. Just as I wasn't expecting her to get anything much from Plutarch, either.

The reading of poetry will:

 '...accustom him to the delicate rendering of shades of meaning, and especially to make him aware that words are beautiful in themselves, that they are a source of pleasure, and are worthy of our honour.'

Home Education by Charlotte Mason

Charlotte Mason: How to Use Books

In Chapter 16 of School Education, Charlotte Mason gives us some hints about using good books in educating our children, while stressing that we should be careful not to let the devices we use
'come between the children and that which is the soul of the book, the living thought it contains.'

Putting aside a straight forward narration (the child or the teacher reads a given passage and then the child tells back what he has read or heard read) what other ways may be used to get a child to labour in thought over the ideas presented to him via a living book?

How do we get our children to
'generalise, classify, infer, judge, visualise, discriminate, labour in one way or another, with that capable mind of his, until the substance of his book is assimilated or rejected, according as he shall determine'?

I've had to learn much of this myself as I went along, filling in the gaping chasms left by my own interrupted schooling; picking up ideas along the way and putting them into practice with my own children; learning with them; challenging myself to read more widely.

Charlotte Mason mentions a variety of ways we can use books:

Give the points of a description;

Give the sequence of a series of incidents; 
Give the links in a chain of argument; 
Enumerate the statements in a given paragraph or chapter; 
Analyse a chapter, divide it into paragraphs under proper headings, tabulate and classify series; 
Trace cause to consequence and consequence to cause; 
Discern character and perceive how character and circumstance interact; 
Get lessons of life and conduct; 
Let the pupil write for himself half a dozen questions which cover the passage studied.

'...until they have begun to use books for themselves in such ways, they can hardly be said to have begun their education.'

I'm often asked if I have a teaching background mainly because I've home schooled all the way through high school. I don't but I've found a few 'teacher's helps' along the way that have given me ideas and helped me to get my children to labour with their minds without destroying the enjoyment of learning.

Here are some of them:

A Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason

This was the first book in the series that I read and I can't praise it enough. If you're starting out with older children this book is the one to read. Go to The Curriculum, Chapter 10 and there you'll find a variety of examples of writing by the students of CM's time. I was really inspired after reading this and gleaned some ideas which went really well with my 17 year old at the time.

Outlining

I've used Rod and Staff Grammar to teach outlining. Following the Plan (English 5) covers it thoroughly. After they are comfortable with the process I get them to outline the chapters from a book or take notes during a sermon on a Sunday and then write an outline for it at the beginning of the week.
Knowing the basics of outlining will help a student develop the ability to use the first five ways that CM suggests above. 

 I think my eldest was about 13 years of age when she did this after taking notes from a sermon:


 


A simple less formal outline from 10 yr old girl:

Some books lend themselves well to using this tool, for example, How Should we Then Live by Francis Schaeffer (around the age of 15 years and up) and A Young Woman After God's Own Heart (good for girls about 13 years of age and older). After a chapter is read they write an outline or summary.

Plutarch Guides by Anne White

I couldn't come up with these questions for the life of me and they've been the catalyst for some interesting conversations and opportunities to write as Anne often suggests topics for narrations.

Shakespeare

Some Shakespeare guides are often too explicit in their sidebar comments so I generally don't give them to my children to use but they have some good ideas for writing and I can always find them cheaply second hand. We're currently reading through The Winter's Tale and the other week my 14 year old used a suggestion from the Oxford School Shakespeare:

'Archidamus is most appreciative of the reception and entertainment offered to Polixenes in Sicilia, and he reports the details back to Bohemia. Write his report, either in a letter to his family and friends; or in an article for the national newspaper.'

Other guides I've seen that offer writing ideas are the Cambridge School Shakespeare and the Heinemann Shakespeare.

The Brightest Heaven of Invention by Peter J. Leithart explores six of Shakespeare's plays and suggests writing topics for each one. This was one of my daughters' favourite books. An excerpt of the book is here.

Another book by the same author and done in a similar manner is Miniatures and Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen. Thoughtful questions which present opportunities for writing topics are included and an excerpt of the first chapter, Real Men Read Austen, is here. I found this when my second daughter was about 15 years old & she enjoyed it thoroughly. The boys have surreptitiously watched the BBC Pride and Prejudice and secretly enjoyed it and I said they had to read Northanger Abbey because it was an AO Year 9 free read. They did but that's about the extent of their Jane Austen immersion. 

Poetry

Writing a poetic narration using the rhyme scheme of a poem they know
Choosing a ballad poem and changing it to story form
Writing about a subject using alliteration
Writing acrostic poems

Composition

When I first started homeschooling my three older children (now 25, 23 & 21 years of age) I hadn't read any of Charlotte Mason's books but used what I'd gleaned from Susan Schaeffer Macaulay's book For The Children's Sake, and what I could source for a reasonable price here in Australia. I found the two books below and they worked well for us. The Creative Writing course can be adapted to make it CM friendly and the second book works well as is and for those with large families it's well priced, uncomplicated & non-consumable. I have the 1992 & 1996 editions respectively although they've been revised since.

Wordsmith - A Creative Writing Course for Young People by Janie B. Cheaney

The author states that creative writing is basically 'expressing oneself' and the book is designed to sharpen language skills and then apply them. It comes with a Teacher's Guide, is written to the student and is designed for about Grade 7 and up. 90 pages.

There are three parts to the course:

Part 1 - concentrates on word usage with a brief overview of grammar, choosing words, pronouns and antecedents. I like how the author connects good grammar with writing and shows its effects.

Part 2 - active and passive voice, sentence structure.

Part 3 - figures of speech, story structure, writing assignments, revision, proofreading.

The teacher's guide has a suggested plan of study which covers 36 weeks and a short section called 'Writing all over the Curriculum' which I like and have gleaned ideas from. I used this for two of the girls who loved writing and they breezed through it. They published a newsletter with another home schooled friend for many years and wrote stories, poems and a variety of other newsworthy material, sending it out to family members scattered across the country and to others who asked for a copy, about 4 or 5 times a year. Although the writing assignments in the book could be substituted with others of your own making to make it more usable in a CM context, it is probably better only to use it with a child who loves writing.

Inspired after listening to Mozart's Sleighride:

Wordsmith Craftsman

This was written as a self-directed programme for Grade 10 and up. The book has suggested schedules for students starting in Year 9, 10, 11 or 12 and also has three parts.

Part 1 - writing every day: note taking, outlining, letters, summaries

Part 2 - paragraphs, writing techniques

Part 3 - the essay: structure, brainstorming, the topic, thesis statement. I think it walks through the essay writing process in a clearer way than some other books I've seen.

A short appendix contains a note taking form, a summary writing form, summaries of the steps used in the four types of essay writing and a list of common fallacies of argument with brief descriptions and examples.

93 pages.

Inspired by Ten Fingers for God: The Life and Work of Dr Paul Brand by Dorothy Clarke Wilson:

Mother Culture

Some quotes and thoughts that have stirred my heart or encouraged me in some way this week:

Uniqueness

'Everyone on this earth should believe, amid whatever madness or moral failure, that his life and temperament have some object on the earth. Everyone on the earth should believe that he has something to give the world which cannot otherwise be given.'

The Quotable Chesterton

I keep a prayer notebook. For each day of the month I have a list of people I pray for. I also have a couple of pages set aside for my immediate family with ongoing prayer reminders and scriptures I pray over each of them and I'd neglected this notebook in recent months. I was still praying but some people slipped through the cracks because I didn't think of them in the busyness of life. I read these words and was stirred to be more faithful in prayer:

'If you are not getting the hundredfold more, not getting insight into God's Word, then start praying for your friends, enter into the ministry of the interior. "The Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends." Job 42:10 Wherever God puts you in circumstances, pray immediately...Pray for your friends now; pray for those with whom you come in contact now...'

Oswald Chambers

After reading the words by Chambers above I also thought that I should be putting feet on my prayers. I decided I'd act upon what the Lord put on my heart that day - pray and then follow it up with an action, however small. For me that meant an email, a phone call, a visit, some text messages, a letter, a card.

'As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by failing to pray for you.' 1 Samuel 12:23

My intention: to put feet on at least one of the prayers I pray today. 

A picture of a friendship between two couples inspired me to have a large-spirit mentality in my relationships:

'In the ripened Indian summer weather, those two once again choose us. In circumstances where smaller spirits might let envy corrode liking, they declare their generous pleasure in our company and our good luck...

We have been invited into their lives, from which we will never be evicted or evict ourselves.'

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

Sometimes my children have not appreciated reading and memorising Poetry. "When are we ever going to use this? What's the point?"
Well, one day it might save your life.

We've just completed Plutarch's life of Nicias. The Syracrusans had defeated the Athenians and the Athenian prisoners were sent to the quarries or into slavery and their commanders executed. But there were some who gained their freedom in an unusual way:

'Several were saved for the sake of Euripides, whose poetry, it appears, was in request among the Sicilians more than among any of the settlers out of Greece. And when any travelers arrived that could tell them some passage, or give them any specimen of his verses, they were delighted to be able to communicate them to one another. Many of the captives who got safe back to Athens are said, after they reached home, to have gone and made their acknowledgments to Euripides, relating how that some of them had been released from their slavery by teaching what they could remember of his poems, and others, when straggling after the fight, been relieved with meat and drink for repeating some of his lyrics. Nor need this be any wonder, for it is told that a ship of Caunus fleeing into one of their harbors for protection, pursued by pirates, was not received, but forced back, till one asked if they knew any of Euripides’s verses, and on their saying they did, they were admitted, and their ship brought into harbour.'

Plutarch's Lives

 We teach Poetry because it nourishes the soul and here it had the added benefit of preserving it.

Notebooks for Nature Study, Science, Bible, Poetry & Hymn Study

Nature notebook

I've been sorting through my older children's homeschooling work and came across nature notebooks belonging to two of them, so I thought I'd share some of what we've done with various notebooks over the past 15 years. Two of the boys aren't represented here - I still haven't finished my sorting out yet.
The pages below are from my eldest daughter, JJ's nature notebook when she was between 10 and 12 years of age. She's 25 years old now.

 

These pages are from Zana's Nature notebook when she was 10 years old. She turned 21 years of age earlier this year.

A page from her Bible notebook:

Below is a page from Hoggy's science notebook when he was about 15 after reading about Galileo. He turned 19 years of age a couple of months ago.  On the right is a psalm from his Scripture Notebook. They started keeping these for recording the verses they'd memorised. He was about 7 years old when he did this page.

Poetry & hymn notebooks (above) - they wrote out their poems as we were memorising them and also some of the hymns we learnt. These were done when Hoggy was about 13 years old.
From his Bible notebook when he was 9 years old:

This is an oral narration from Bengy which I typed up for him and he illustrated when he was 7. The three younger boys each did a Bible notebook where they did narrations on each major event in the Old Testament. They all started off with oral narrations and then progressed to writing them themselves. They enjoyed going back over their 'book' of Bible History and I enjoyed looking through them again.

Science notebook pages which were done after reading I Am Joe's Body along with Fearfully and Wonderfully Made by Paul Brand:

 

And finally, some nature pages from Moozle the youngest. The first one was done last year after she'd pressed some flowers. They were a little mangled in the process but I think they turned out fairly well. The second was one she did this month.