Christian Greats Challenge 2019 Book List

These are the books I'm considering for the Christian Greats Challenge in 2019. Some of them are re-reads that I'd like to re-visit after a long separation. For details of the challenge see my original post here.


1)  A Book on Early Church History: 

On the Incarnation by Athanasius


2)  A Book About a Prominent Christian Who Was Born Between 500 A.D & 1900

Not shown in the picture above as I haven't decided yet :)


3)  A Christian Allegory

Hinds' Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard (a re-read because I just found a beautiful copy with watercolour illustrations) or Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis


4)  A Book on Apologetics 

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis


5)  A Philosophical Book by a Christian Author

Tending the Heart of Virtue by Vigen Guroian


6)   A Missionary Biography 

L'Abri by Edith Schaeffer (re-read) or Chasing the Dragon by Jackie Pullinger


7)  A Seasonal Book 

Marian @ Classics Considered linked to some ideas on Lenten reads which sparked my interest so there are a few ideas running through my head which I'll mull over for awhile.


8)  A Novel with a Christian Theme

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo


9) A Good Old Detective or Mystery Novel

Unnatural Death by Dorothy Sayers. I would really like to re-read her books that include Harriet Vane who becomes Lord Peter Wimsey's wife but I can't find them & think my older children must have taken them when they left home. Looks like I might have to buy my own copies.


10)  A Substitute

Every Good Endeavor by Timothy Keller

Classical Academic Press - Review & Giveaway! Latin Alive 1

'Hardly any lawful price would seem to me too high for what I have gained 

by being made to learn Latin and Greek.' 

C.S. Lewis

Some background

I’d always wanted our children to study Latin but, like many other home educators, I had no background in the language myself, unless the medical terminology I learned years ago counts.
I’ve attempted Latin with all seven of my children but, like our French language learning, I spent quite a bit of money on curriculum that either wasn’t comprehensive enough, too difficult for me to teach or for them to use independently, or it was dull and lifeless. This was most noticeable around the ages of about 11 or 12 years when they were ready for a challenge, could handle the grammar, but also needed a creative, lively approach.

I started using French for Children by Classical Academic Press (CAP) with my daughter nearly two years ago just before she turned eleven & she loves it.
She had also been studying Latin using some resources we already had, some of which were good introductions to the language, but as time went on she started to complain about the lack of explanations, that the material was boring, and that it all seemed rather pointless. This was the same scenario I faced with her older siblings.
One day she said, “If Latin was taught like my (CAP) French I wouldn’t mind learning it.”
Enough said.

Classical Academic Press kindly provided me with a free Latin Alive! 1 bundle to use and review. This is our sixth week of using this approach and I’m very pleased with how much my daughter is actually enjoying Latin. Here are my honest thoughts on the curriculum and how we are using it:

Latin Alive! Book 1 by Classical Academic Press is the first in a series of three texts designed for about 7th to 8th Grade students and up. It is the next step after CAP's Latin for Children but it is also suitable for students with no previous Latin knowledge and the DVD’s allow the student to work independently. (see video samples on YouTube)

My 12-year-old finds it challenging but not overwhelming. This is partly due to the grammar she has covered in her French studies and her ability to think more logically now that’s she’s older.

Classical Academic Press recommend that younger students follow one of two options, depending on their academic level (see their FAQ):

1)    Complete all three Latin for Children Primers (Levels A–C), then start Latin Alive! Book 2.
2)    Complete Latin for Children Primers A and B, then move into Latin Alive! Book 1.

I did consider using Latin for Children C before commencing Latin Alive! 1 and I have to admit that I was a little overwhelmed when this curriculum arrived and I started looking through it. I thought perhaps I'd made the wrong decision.
Latin Alive! is extremely comprehensive and chock-a-block full, but after going through the introductory section of the first DVD, it was much less daunting. Now that we’re six weeks in, I think it’s an ideal fit for my daughter.

Latin teacher, Karen Moore, shares her own story of learning Latin on the first DVD: she explains how her love of Latin developed after her mother made her take Latin in Year 7, and why the study of Latin is relevant to us today. This was so good for my daughter to hear as well as being an encouragement to me.


The Latin Alive! bundle:

•    Latin Alive! Level 1 Student Edition - 268 pages

•    36 weekly chapters - 29 of these contain new material, the others are review

•    A section is included at the back of the Student Edition listing vocabulary chapter by chapter and reference charts for declensions etc

•    Latin Alive! Level 1 Teacher’s Edition - 323 pages; includes the complete student text & answer keys. The answer key to each chapter is found at the end of each chapter in the Teacher’s Edition; Student pages directly correspond with the Teacher’s pages

•   Teacher's Extras in the back of the book contain various worksheets, projects and seven unit tests to be given after the unit review chapters are included

•    Latin Alive! 1 - DVD & CD set with over fifteen hours of teaching on seven DVDs. The audio CD contains unit review Latin readings so that students can practice proper pronunciation and accent. The DVDs use the Classical pronunciation and a streaming option is also available


What Latin Alive! looks like in real life:

•    Each of the 7 DVD’s in Latin Alive! 1 contain between three to five chapters, and each chapter is about 30 to 50 minutes long.

•    We decided to cover one chapter per week over three days. This usually takes about 15 to 30 minutes each day, although some additional time may be added for writing exercises. My daughter also keeps a Latin Notebook where she writes definitions or other material she wants to remember. It might be better for some students to spread the lesson over the week but this works best for us at present.

Last week we did Chapter 5 and this is how it looked:

Day 1: Watched a section of the video that went over new vocabulary and explained transitive and intransitive verbs. The video teacher directs the student to stop the video and complete exercises in the student book as they go through the chapter together. Wrote definitions in Latin notebook.

Day 2: Continued with the DVD, going back where necessary to review the previous day’s explanations. Learned about the accusative case and direct object and completed assigned exercises. Finished watching the video for the chapter.

Day 3: Chapter reading - these readings started in Chapter 4 and at the beginning consisted of short sentences in Latin about Greece and Troy. By the time the student reaches Chapter 7, the readings are about two paragraphs long.
Read the Culture Corner, a short section to help the student learn about the culture and history of the Romans.
Derivative Detective - found a derivative for amat, nautical and spectat
Collaquamur or ‘Let’s Talk’ - used some questions and responses to review nouns; used ‘eye’ Latin to try to identify words.

I asked my daughter to say what she liked about this curriculum and this was her response:

Well laid out
It doesn’t assume you know all your grammar, but teaches you everything step by step
Good teacher, explains things well
Teaches you how to pronounce words properly
Nice music

The Student and Teacher editions plus the DVD & CD set include everything you need for this course, although it is suggested that you have access to a Latin/English dictionary.
Here are some free online versions:

Lexilogos
Online Latin

A support page for Latin Alive! is provided on the CAP website.

The only negative comment I have to make is that the Latin Alive! 1 text has recently been revised but the DVD won't be updated to match the text until next year. I understand that this primarily affects Chapter 1 and that CAP has created an errata sheet for families to use in the meantime. This wasn't an issue for us as it was only a matter of page or exercise numbers and it only took a few seconds to find the correct one.

Classical Academic Press is giving away three Latin Alive! 1 bundles to entrant with a USA residential address. To enter via Rafflecopter please visit the following blogs:

Julie @ Nurturing Learning, Karen @ Living Unabridged or Melissa @ Reflections from Drywood Creek

A 20% discount off the purchase of any Latin Alive product is available with the discount code LAJourney1 throughout the course of the giveaway for anyone to use. 

If you order from CAP with the 20% off and then win the giveaway, you will be refunded.

Giveaway ends at midnight on December 5th. Winners will be contacted by email. Winners who do not respond by the deadline given in the winners' email will be replaced by random drawing.


Thank you Classical Academic Press for supporting this Giveaway. Learn more about them and their excellent products at the Classical Academic Press website.




a Rafflecopter giveaway

Mercy & the Hard Heart: A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)

Bizarre, disturbing, violent and peopled with freaks and unpleasant characters - this seems to be a common consensus about the content of Flannery O'Connor's writing. I've just finished reading ten of her short stories contained in the selection above. If I'd stopped after only reading the first few I  might have described them in that way also. Some of her stories left me wondering what it was she was getting at, and her characters certainly weren't appealing. At the same time, though, I sensed there were significant themes tucked below the surface that needed some stretching of my moral imagination before I could interpret their meanings.
The first story in this collection was 'A Good Man is Hard to Find.' I knew what to expect, having heard about it beforehand, so it didn't have the shock value it might have had if I hadn't been prepared. Still, my reaction to the story was "What ?? Is that the end of it??"
I went on to the next story, and then the next.
Emm...??
Then I came to story number six, the one with the unfortunate title of The Artificial N***er, and all of a sudden, O'Connor's theme of violent mercy, grace and redemption is so clear.
Mr Head takes his belligerent grandson, Nelson, to the city, intending for him to see everything there is in a city so that he would be content to stay at home for the rest of his life. An incident occurs in which Mr Head, in the grip of fear, denies that Nelson is related to him.

Mr. Head began to feel the depth of his denial...He knew that if dark overtook them in the city, they would be beaten and robbed. The speed of God's justice was only what he expected for himself, but he could not stand to think that his sins would be visited upon Nelson and that even now, he was leading the boy to his doom.

Mr Head had never disgraced himself before and he hadn't known what mercy felt like because he had always been too good to deserve any!

Mr. Head stood very still and felt the action of mercy touch him again but this time he knew that there were no words in the world that could name it...
He understood it was all a man could carry into death to give his Maker and he suddenly burned with shame that he had so little of it to take with him. He stood appalled, judging himself with the thoroughness of God, while the action of mercy covered his pride like a flame and consumed it. He had never thought himself a great sinner before but he saw now that his true depravity had been hidden from him lest it cause him despair...
He saw that no sin was too monstrous for him to claim as his own, and since God loved him in proportion as He forgave, he felt ready at that moment to enter paradise.

Mercy...

'He had so little of it to take with him.' 

It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

 They are new every morning...

Lamentations 3

Out of all the stories in this collection, this one was my favourite and I think it would be a good first introduction to Flannery O'Connor.
'The Displaced Person' would be my next pick - a haunting sort of piece about a Polish refugee:

...she felt she had been tricked by the old priest. He had said there was no legal obligation for her to keep the Displaced Person if he was not satisfactory, but then he had brought up the moral one.

The old priest...sat on her porch, taking no notice of her partly mocking, partly outraged expression as she sat shaking her foot, waiting for an opportunity to drive a wedge into his talk. "For," he was saying, as if he spoke of something that had happened yesterday n town, "when God sent his Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ Our Lord" - he slightly bowed his head - "as a Redeemer to mankind, H..."
"Father Fynn!" she said in a voice that made him jump. "I want to talk to you about something serious!"
The skin under the old man's right eye flinched.
"As far as I'm concerned," she said and guard at him fiercely, "Christ was just another D. P."

I enjoyed O'Connor's ironic sense of humour and the names she gave to some of her characters:

Mrs Hopewell who 'had no bad qualities of her own but she was able to use other people's in such a constructive way that she never felt the lack.'

Mrs Freeman: 'Besides the neutral expression that she wore when she was alone, Mrs Freeman had two others, forward and reverse, that she used for all her human dealings.'

Mrs Shortley: 'Her arms were folded and as she mounted the prominence, she might have been the giant wife of the countryside, come out at some sign of danger to see what the trouble was. She stood on two tremendous legs, with the grand self-confidence of a mountain, and rose, up narrowing bulges of granite, to two icy blue points of light that pierced forward, surveying everything.'

Not to mention Mr. Shiftlet and Mr. Paradise and a host of other unlikable and offensive individuals.

Flannery O'Connor was a devout Roman Catholic from the Bible Belt of the South, and is considered to be one of the most important short story writers in American literature. He first story was published when she was twenty-one and she died eighteen years later of an auto-immune disease at the age of thirty-nine. She said of her own work:

Many of my ardent admirers would be roundly shocked and disturbed if they realized that everything I believe is thoroughly moral, thoroughly Catholic, and that it is these beliefs that give my work its chief characteristics.

Heidi @  Mt Hope Chronicles has a comprehensive post about the author with many and varied links. I listened to the Circe Podcast she linked to earlier this year and it gave a good introduction and overview of the author.

Invitation to the Classics edited by Louise Cowan and Os Guinness contains a short chapter on her life and work.

I have found that violence is strangely capable of returning my characters to reality and preparing them to accept their moment of grace. 

Their hearts are so hard that almost nothing else will do the work.

Invitation to the Classics

This is my Classic Short Stories entry for the Back to the Classics Challenge 2106

A week of Ambleside Online Years 5 and 11/12 and other happenings

Our 'new look' week is gradually falling into place. Moozle is in the last term of AO Year 5 and Benj is doing selections from AO Years 11 and 12. This year Benj is doing a Certificate IV in the Liberal Arts on Monday & Tuesday of each week so I adjust his AO readings according to his workload for each week. This has put much of my normal timetable on its head and I've had to re-order things so that the lessons we do together can happen when he's home. He's loving this course, which gladdens my heart, because when I asked him how everything went this week his laconic reply was, 'Dense and intense.' The work is a challenge but he's taking it in his stride and is enjoying the stretching process.

He has just started covering the Early Mediaeval History, a favourite time period for him, plus the study of Rhetoric using Aristotle's book (the picture on the cover isn't what I'd call inspirational) :

We finished reading and listening to Hamlet. Benj gave an oral narration while Moozle decided she wanted to do a picture narration. This was taken from Act 1, Scene V:

Moozle's narration after reading a chapter from Plutarch's Life of Demetrius:

Benj's free reading:

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll - he hadn't read these previously but he decided for the sake of 'cultural literacy' that he should as there are so many allusions to the books. We have a friend who named her cat, Dinah, so now he knows where she got the inspiration for its name...My favourite source for free classic books has a nicely illustrated kindle version.

The Children of Hurin by J.R.R. Tolkein - he said this was a bit sad, but he loves the writing:

AO Year 5 has Kim by Rudyard Kipling scheduled for Literature in Term 3. I was tossing up whether to read this aloud or give the book to Moozle to read for herself. She is a very confident reader but I still read aloud some of her books - mostly those I haven't previewed before, or if, for some other reason, I think I should. We're about half way through Passion for the Impossible, and I'll be going for a few months yet as I only read her a chapter a week; Madame How & Lady Why is another read aloud plus some Australian History titles and Stories From the Faerie Queen, so I decided I'd let her read Kim on her own. I did some research and put together some resources to help her understand the context and background of the story and so far she hasn't had any problems and is enjoying the story. I'll post those later on when I have the time.

Moozle's free reading:

This week the Marguerite Henry books have been all the rage. There are many to choose from and they are all good. The hardback books we've picked up secondhand are nicely illustrated by Wesley Dennis and have larger print. They're expensive to buy online so it's probably best to look out for them in secondhand bookshops.

 

The Misty of Chincoteague Foundation is an interesting website to browse.

The Orchestra Moozle is involved with were given a piece from Peter and the Wolf and they were  asked if they'd heard it before. Two out of about 22 children put their hands up - Moozle being one of them. The piano accompanist with the group was so surprised as it's such a famous piece of music and the kids in the group have been playing for years. Music appreciation isn't just about playing an instrument and even someone who hasn't learned to play an instrument can be at least culturally literate in this area. The video below is about 30 minutes in length and is a wonderful narration and performance of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. Highly recommended!


                                                                                                                                                                

This year I decided it was time to get back to some home-ed gatherings. I was involved in the home- ed community for a season and made some wonderful friends over the years but for different reasons that hasn't been possible for quite some time. Over the past few months some important commitments shifted to different times and this has freed up Friday afternoons for us. So now we have a fortnightly park day and the past two get togethers have been great catch up times with people I haven't seen for years. I said to my husband after our first park day that I didn't realise how much I needed this connection with others who are on the same journey until after it happened. Besides that, there are so many mothers just starting out and they sometimes just need to see that, yes, it can be done and no, your child will not be ruined for life.


Linking to Weekly-wrap-up

Consider This: Charlotte Mason and the Classical Tradition by Karen Glass

Consider This has helped to fill in the gaps in my understanding of Classical Education and to affirm my own 'discoveries' in implementing a Charlotte Mason education. There are ideas on both sides that seem to be in total agreement on the one hand, or diametrically opposed on the other, and this has confused me at times. In recent years the Circe Institute has been instrumental in helping me to better understand classical education and now Consider This, in exploring the roots of Charlotte Mason's ideas, has provided a link between the two approaches.

Glass starts out with the question, 'What is the Classical Tradition?' before looking at whether or not Charlotte Mason has a place in it. She explains that we cannot fully understand classical education by looking only at what they did in the past. We must discover why they did it. We must understand the principles behind their teaching in order to make it serve us today.
Virtue was the goal of a classical education and all areas of education were brought into service to this end. The guiding motivation for classical educators was that right thinking would lead to right acting.
Glass discusses the "classical ideal" - the pursuit of virtue, humility, and synthetic thinking (poetic knowledge) that motivates to right action. Ancient thinkers believed that the universe was orderly and understandable, and that all knowledge was interconnected. Charlotte Mason's insistence that 'education is the science of relationships' is consistent with this classical understanding of the world.

In a brief overview of Charlotte Mason's background and life, Glass shows that Charlotte Mason read widely, but with discernment, and gleaned ideas from the classical world because they represented universal truths about education:

Her ability to see the "big picture" and draw out common principles from various philosophies was her particular genius.

Highlights

* Humility is Necessary to Education - pride of knowledge closes the door to further instruction. Humility keeps us teachable. It is an intellectual virtue as well as a spiritual virtue. At the time I was reading these thoughts on humility, I came across John Ruskin's observation on Lilias Trotter related in the book, A Passion for the Impossible:

...she had a teachable spirit, that mark of humility often missing in the very talented. "Not seeing or feeling the power that is in you is one of the most sure and precious signs of it," he writes, "and that tractability is another. All second-rate people, however strong, are self-conscious and obstinate."

* In Chapter 5, Finding the Forest amid the Trees, the synthetic and analytic methods of learning are explored. Synthesis is the word Charlotte Mason used to describe what many of us would know as poetic knowledge. (I've also heard this described as 'analogical.')

Poetic experience indicates an encounter with reality that is nonanalytical, something that is perceived as beautiful, awful (awe-full), spontaneous, mysterious… Poetic knowledge is a spontaneous act of the external and internal senses with the intellect, integrated and whole, rather than an act associated with the powers of analytic reasoning… It is, we might say, knowledge from the inside out..

The Civilized Reader

Analysis should not be our primary approach to knowledge, especially in the early years. Augustine called education the "ordering of the affections," - every object is accorded that kind of degree of love appropriate to it (C.S.Lewis). Synthetic knowledge speaks to the heart, the seat of the affections, and not just the intellect.

*  The synthetic process of narration lays a firm foundation for analytical thinking later. Modern education jumps into the analytical, examining the parts, before it has experienced the whole.

Once the unity of all knowledge is comprehended and many relationships formed, we are able to employ analytical thinking without harming those relationships.

* Grammar, logic, and rhetoric are not subjects to be studied but arts to be practiced and refined in the process of reading, narrating, and writing (synthetic learning). It is possible to learn both grammar and rhetoric through exposure to correct speech and eloquent writers and speakers i.e. the classical practice of mimesis or "imitation."

*  The concept of the trivium as stages of child development can be found only in materials written within the last few decades, but the trivium, properly understood, is applied in every teaching moment at every stage of our learning and growth.

Consider This, besides being an encouraging read for those using a Charlotte Mason approach, is a valuable addition to anyone interested in a classical model of education. For those who think that Charlotte Mason works well in the younger years but isn't suitable for older students, or that your child doesn't have the intellect for a classical education, this book will be a breath of fresh air. If  home education has lost its joy and you feel you're in a 'classical grind,' Consider This just might be the tonic you need.

A Day in the Life of a Classical CM Homeschooler

About ten years ago I wrote out a day, much like I've done here, and besides having an extra five children in the mix back then, the general routine we have now still looks very similar. Our two eldest are married and we have five children still at home. Three of those still at home have graduated and are working/studying and now I'm just teaching the two youngest, Moozle and Benj, who are in Years 5 and 11. We use the Ambleside Online curriculum and adapt it when required to suit our Aussie context.

6.30am - I get up. Nougat, Zana have already left for work. Hoggy leaves home at different times depending on whether it's a study day or a work day.
I'm inconsistent with my waking times but if I get up early enough I go out for some exercise but first on the agenda is:
A cup of tea, read my Bible and a section of Augustine's Confessions. This morning I wrote in my Commonplace book which I'd neglected lately.  
While I was out I listened to a Circe podcast by Andrew Kern & Wes Callihan - 'A Perpetual Feast,' and I highly recommend a listen. There are a few in the series.

7am - Benj has his alarm set to get up at this time so he gets up and takes his time over a shower & breakfast...

8am - I get home & hang out the washing that was in the machine overnight and put on another load. I realise Moozle is still in bed so go and wake her. She is not an early riser...
Dad is also up but doesn't have to rush off this morning so I make him some bacon & eggs (rare!)

9am - this has always been our 'official' start for lessons but some of their independent work (eg music practice, maths - for the older ones, or copywork) may get done before then.

Me - hang out the washing; put on another load

Moozle  - maths (with me), copy work, poetry
Benj - Bible, maths

Moozle - Read Abraham Lincoln's World - gives me an oral narration afterwards

I hang out another load of washing

Moozle - I send her off to make bed, and brush hair her hair, which she forgot to do earlier, then she does her cello practice

10am cello lesson - one hour

Benj  - dictation; we look over his essay from the previous day and he prints it out

I start making dinner

Benj - science reading & science notebook

I finish listening to A Perpetual Feast podcast & clean up kitchen

Moozle - read chapter of River Rivals; oral narration; dictation

Benj - piano practice & exam prep. This takes up a lot of time at the moment.

Moozle - I read History of Australia aloud while she traced a map & then oral narration
Map work
French - Classical Academic Press; write vocabulary in notebook

12.30 - lunch
Listen to folksongs, French songs, composer (Rachmaninov)
We have about an hour where we all read; I check emails, finish off dinner preparation

1.30pm

Devotions - this is our time together and we've always referred to it as 'devotions,' because that's what we do first. We've been reading through 2 Kings, taking turns reading aloud. Then we do Bible memory - working on new portions and revising old, finishing with a prayer time where everyone prays.
Today we worked on a couple of newish verses:

Matthew 5  - the Beatitudes
Isaiah 43: 1-7

And reviewed some others:

 Ps 139
Colossians 1:15-20
Colossians 2: 6-12
I Thessalonians 5: 16-24

Plutarch - we're reading through Plutarch's Life of Demetrius. Benj will do a written narration about this tomorrow but Moozle will do hers today.

 M's drawing practice

That's the end of our formal 'lesson time' for today. Later in the afternoon we drive Benj to work and Moozle and I come home for a short spell, pick up her cello, and head off to orchestra recital.

We have a semi-organised schedule for what we do each day during our together time but if we miss something it just gets done the next day. Basically it looks like this:

Monday - Shakespeare

Tuesday - Read aloud

Wednesday - Plutarch

Thursday - Nature Study & nature notebooks

Friday - Read aloud, Picture Study, catch up time for anything else we may have missed or that I'd like to get done.

Most days I also read a poem aloud & from time to time we review those we've learnt. Handicrafts or drawing are sometimes done during read alouds. Some of my children have been happy just to listen, others needed something to do with their hands or they got distracted.

For the past two years, now that I don't have as many children to teach, we've had extra out of the home activities in the afternoons. All seven of our children play an instrument and took lessons over many years. We've mostly managed to have teachers come to our home during the school day for lessons which was wonderful when I had babies & toddlers but also now with the extra running around we do. This is what the week's extras include:

Monday - Benj swims

Tuesday - Moozle has Highland dance lessons; Benj and Hoggy have band practice.

Wednesday - Benj works at a bakery for a few hours in the late afternoon/early evening; Moozle has a cello lesson in the morning and a two hour orchestra recital in the late afternoon. I stay there with her and get some reading, writing or sewing done.

Thursday - both Moozle & Benj swim. An outdoor pool, all year round. I read, write, or sew.

Friday - Benj has a piano lesson in the morning; dance lesson in the afternoon for Moozle if she has a competition coming up; three of the boys are involved the youth group band and two of them are leaders so they all head off to set up and practice around 5pm.

Saturday - morning jobs around the house & yard, car-washing; Benj teaches piano at our place - he's only just started doing this & is teaching an 8 year old boy from our church. Moozle entertains his little sister while he's having his lesson.

Lunchtime reading:

Moozle - Stars of Fortune by Cynthia Harnett (1956). A very good author of children's historical fiction, Cynthia Harnett writes about Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen of England, when she was imprisoned at Woodstock and her sister Mary Tudor sat upon the throne. The story unfolds through the eyes of young Francis Washington of Sulgrave Manor, which still stands. America's first President, George Washington, is descended from the Washingtons in this story.

Benj - The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson (1963) A very moving and inspiring story written by the man who ministered to the gangs in New York and started Teen Challenge ministries.  Raw in places and I'd recommend a pre-read but it is a most wonderful story! It's scheduled as a free read in Ambleside Online Year 11.

Me - Most Secret by Nevil Shute. This book was written during WW2 and was censored until 1945. Set partly in England & Brittany in France, Shute does his usual interesting character development and presents the war from a unique vantage point. There's an overview of the book here.

I'm linking this post up with Alison @ Learning Mama for A Day in the Life of a Classical Homeschooler.

Starting Older Students with Classical Education

 The Cardinal Virtues by Raphael (1511)

As some of my children have neared the end their high school years there has been a temptation to want to cram all the things I think they should know or should have covered or really 'must' read into the remaining time. In fact, cramming or gap filling seems to be a pretty common temptation, even with those whose children still have years to go before they finish homeschooling. 

When there have been glitches in our plans - sickness, moving house, the addition of a new family member; when circumstances overwhelm us for different reasons, we rush to make amends when we get the chance.
In this video Andrew Kern addresses this temptation in the context of a student who hasn't been classically educated as yet and advises the parent not to stress out and cram in an effort to fill in the gaps.

Even if you are already classically homeschooling, this practical and encouraging video helps to identify the true goals of a classical education and how important it is that wisdom guides our decisions. 
I appreciated his perspective and the lack of elitism when giving his answer to the question below.

"In those years when you weren't teaching classically...maybe some other really important thing were happening."

Am I moving towards wisdom & virtue? - this should guide be our guide and then:
"You do what you can do, when you can do it."


Question: What can I do for an older high school student who hasn't been educated classically to fill in some gaps? 

 



I've added a page on Classical Christian Education at the top of my blog which I'll add to from time to time.

Ideas for Poetry with Children

These are ideas I've used to get my children appreciating and writing poetry.
I like getting them used to hearing the rythm of verse when they are really little. Simple books like Ten Apples up on Top, Put me in the Zoo and A Big Ball of String are easy to get through with little ones at one sitting.

I like collecting poetry anthologies and books of verse and I've found many of them for around a dollar at Lifeline sales, Op shops and library sales.
Here are a few of my favourites:

Nursery ryhmes....

I knew Mother Goose by Tasha Tudor inside out after reading it just about every day to my youngest daughter when she was 2 years old. After a little while she could rattle many of them off herself, which was very cute.

The Golden Treausry of Poetry  is a very good collection of poems, well-illustrated with interesting sections on the poets themselves or the background of the poem. I've come across a few books (e.g. Modern British Poetry) where Louis Untermeyer has selected and commented on the poems and I've appreciated his selections and what he has to say about them. He includes a number of ballad poems which I've found the boys tend to prefer over other types of poetry.

A well known anthology and still in print is Favorite Poems Old & New by Helen Ferris. A chunky volume with over seven hundred classic and modern poems.

Call of the Gums is a great little selection of Australian poems which was published in 1962. It includes Bushsongs & ballads, humour, history, and war poetry. Particulary popular with the boys, some of their favourites poems in this book are: Clancy of the Overflow, Andy's Gone With Cattle, and How McDougal Topped the Score.

I wouldn't want to be without any of my poetry books but if I could only have one I'd probably pick The Harp and Laurel Wreath by Laura M. Berquist. What makes this book different to the other anthologies are the helpful study questions, her insightful comments in the introduction about the importance of poetry and her Christian worldview.

 

The contents are divided into poems for The Early Years, The Grammatical Stage, The Dialectical Stage and The Rhetorical Stage with suggestions for memorization, dictation, and study questions; 493 pages.

The poems included are selections I've been able to use with my children when they were toddlers e.g.The Little Turtle and all the way through highschool.

A book of poems I've been enjoying alongside my daughter while reading Our Island Story by H.E. Marshall is Kings and Queens by Eleanor and Herbert Farjeon. Starting with William I in 1066 and up until Elizabeth II, the book presents amusing but historically accurate poems about the kings and queens of England. Good fun!

 

The Grammar of Poetry by Matt Whitling is an Ambleside Online Year 7 suggestion for poetry but it is quite involved and introduces topics such as iambic Tetrameters, tropes, trochaic foot, dactyl and syndedoche and unless you have a child who wants to write poetry or is really interested in the language side of things I'd hold off for a couple of years. I used it with my 17 year old last year and found it quite useful but when I tried using it with his 16 year old brother this year it didn't go down so well so I've put it aside. But this young man is enjoying writing songs and I think the years of listening to and memorising poetry has encouraged this.

Grammar of Poetry also covers themes such as onomatopoeia, simile, metaphor, pun, alliteration, personification and  hyperbole which are easier concepts to understand and I've encouraged him to use some of these devices when he does poetic narrations even though we're not continuing with the book. There is a Student's book and a Teacher's Manual which is a replica of the student's with some examples. I find I need the Teacher's manual and you could possibly use just this if you wanted to save some money.

Student book:                                                        Teacher's Manual:

           

The above edition is the old one so you'd have to get a secondhand copy. The first poem below was written using alliteration and he followed the meter of a poem he'd been reading.

The second poem was a poetic narration of Plutarch's Dion. I asked him to use some of the vocabulary words in the reading for that week - Plutarch has such great vocabulary!

Other books I found helpful for poetry when I first started homeschooling with my three older children, two girls and a boy, were the Rod and Staff Grammar books. They have poetry sections which have simple exercises on rhythm and rhyme, accented and unaccented syllables etc. I wouldn't suggest buying the books just to use for their poetry sections unless you were using the grammar sections as well or could pick them up second hand. These books were written for the classroom and are overkill for a homeschool situation so can be pared down quite a bit.

A sample can be seen here (go to page 5 of the sample).

The following poems are written narrations my 13 year old son did this year:

These were done when he was 11 and 12 years of age:

He wrote this acrostic poem when he was about 10:

Reading poetry aloud and discussing what the poet was attempting to convey has been a very enriching experience at times for us. At other times my boys would just blurt out how stupid the poem was (the girls never seemed to do this). They did this with Emily Dickinson's poems but ballads or historical poems or poems of heroism and brave deeds were never a problem.

Recently I read aloud The Fool's Prayer and it generated a discussion on the wisdom of well-chosen and well-timed words; another time a poem by the same author gave us an opportunity to talk about using what you have and not using what you have not as an excuse for inaction or cowardice. We've also enjoyed  Australian bushsongs and ballads put to music - it's a great way to learn a poem.

Some other poetry books on our shelves:

A Child's Book of Poems is quite a nice anthology of poems that is suggested for Ambleside Year 1. Gyo Fujikawa's illustrations are appealingly uncluttered & whimsical.