Relationships, Connections and Making Memories

When a short window of opportunity to have a holiday opened up two weeks ago, we headed off to New Zealand to visit family with our youngest two who hadn't been there before.
A flight to Auckland in the North Island and a drive south to Hamilton where we stayed with my husband's aunt. From there we did some day trips...

 Middle Earth

I really wanted to buy one of these but we wouldn't all fit... 

Aunty B used to be a history teacher and has interests in lots of other things: embroidery, poetry, botany, genealogy, to name just a few. Her house is filled with books & I drooled over them all. I read her copy of 'Cover Her Face' by P.D. James while we were there. I don't have a copy and have wanted to read it for awhile (it's James's first novel) and I also found this poem in one of her poetry compilations and thought it was lovely:

Idle Fame

I would not wish the burning blaze
Of fame around a restless world,
The thunder and the storm of praise
In crowded tumults heard and hurled.
I would not be a flower to stand
The stare of every passer-bye;
But in some nook of fairyland,
Seen in the praise of beauty's eye. 

by John Clare (1793-1864)

Aunty B's had her spinning wheel set up in the lounge room, so Moozle had some spinning lessons. I've had a spinning wheel since before we had children but it has been in the garage for quite a few years & I hadn't got around to teaching anyone how to use it yet.

On our way to Rotorua we stopped at Huka Falls - this is where the Waikato River, which drains Lake Taupo and is one of New Zealand's longest rivers, squeezes through a narrow gorge...just magnificent!

We arrived in Rotorua where Benj & Moozle experienced first-hand the unique aroma of sulphur fumes (like rotten eggs) and the geothermal activity in the area. A look around Taupo, dinner with second cousins and a tour through their organic gardens. Everyone we know in N.Z has a decent vegetable garden! Up to the lookout to star gaze and take some photos of the moon - I haven't seen those yet - Benj took them using his go-pro. It's late and we drive back to Hamilton.

We visited the children's Great Grandma most days. She is 95 years old and before she fell and broke her femur late last year, was living independently, growing her own veges, going to aerobics and doing her patchwork, knitting etc. An amazing lady who until recently had never missed any of our birthdays - and she has numerous other grandchildren, great-grandchildren & great-greats who were always remembered too. We've been so blessed to have her in our lives.

The kiwi - they're nocturnal and we saw one being fed in a special enclosure where photography was not allowed. It was hilarious. They are quite aggressive, this one was about the size of a large cat and  kept attacking his feeder with his beak. Fortunately the man wore long boots & just patiently endured the offense. This one was stuffed & on a display:

Off to Tauranga ...

On the way we visited the Waitomo Caves to see the glow-worms. They looked like multitudes of little LED lights on a ceiling. I don't have any photos as they are prohibited in the caves but it was very interesting. These glow-worms are unique to New Zealand and are the larvae (Arachnocampa luminosa) of a wingless insect. I'll be doing some research to find out more about them.

Waimungu Vocanic Valley

We came here on our honeymoon and when we were talking about what we should do when we were in NZ on this visit, this was on the top of my list. It is so unique and there is nothing like it in Australia.

In the mid to late 1800's, the Pink and White Terraces bordering old Lake Rotomahana were a unique tourist attraction, but in 1886, Mt. Tarawera erupted triggering a massive explosion of the hydrothermal system, burying everything under metres of mud. About 120 people died and all plant and animal life in the area was destroyed. The Lost Pink & White Terraces shows some paintings and old photographs of this area before the eruption.

Since the eruption, Lake Rotomahana has increased about twenty times in surface area...

Inferno Crater

Waimangu and Rotomahana are located in the New Zealand part of the Pacific 'Ring of Fire' where two tectonic plates meet. It's the world's youngest geothermal system - its surface activities all commenced within recent times and were the result of a volcanic eruption which can be precisely dated.

Tauranga, on the slopes of Mt. Maunganui. A visit to other members of our large family. Lots of walking and climbing on this trip...

View from the top of Mt. Maunganui. A stiff climb but rewarded afterwards by an ice-cream each.

A visit to the rifle range where their Great Uncle gave them some target practice - a first for Moozle & very excited she was!

"Education is the Science of Relations"; that is, that a child has natural relations with a vast number of things and thoughts...(and people!)

Charlotte Mason

Madame How & Lady Why by Charles Kingsley - Part 1: The Glen

". . . it is by watching the common natural things around you, and considering the lilies of the field, how they grow, that you will begin at least to learn that far Diviner mystery, that you have a Father in Heaven."

Charles Kingsley (1819-1875)

Madame How & Lady Why (MHLW) is a literary Natural History book spread over Years 4 & 5 in the Ambleside Online Curriculum. If you are a latecomer to AO with older children who haven't read the book, there is also a schedule for the book to be read over the course of a year. There are twelve chapters in the book & the link is to the older 2011 Ambleside Online schedule. One of my children did this a few years ago when we first started with AO.
Charles Kingsley, one of the most prolific authors during the Victorian era, was at one time Chaplain to Queen Victoria and also a friend and admirer of Charles Darwin. I read up on Kingsley because I knew that he sympathised with the theory of evolution and I wanted to know more about him. I found some interesting articles.

1) This one (from an Intelligent Design perspective) included the quote below from another source:

'Kingsley had misunderstood that the main point of Darwin's book was to remove the Creator from nature.'

2) An article on The Victorian Web.

3) Written from the viewpoint of a professor of palaeontology this is a review of a book in which the author discusses the literary foundations of a scientific discipline. Charles Kingsley's books are included.

So why bother to use an outdated book on science written by a person who clearly was enamoured with the work of Charles Darwin when I don't hold to the theory of evolution?
For me there are a couple of reasons.

* Home education allows me to discuss everything in the light of God's Word and there have been many situations which have come up in all sorts of areas, not just in books, which have needed to be clarified, discussed or explained. These situations have been some of the most valuable and teachable times we've had. I've become more comfortable talking about other ideas that might not fit with what we believe as the years have passed. We have to have these conversations at some stage and I'm beginning to think, the earlier the better. With older kids around the younger ones get to listen in to conversations & I usually end up having to explains things anyway.

We allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and 'spiritual' life of children, but teach them that the Divine Spirit has constant access to their spirits, and is their Continual Helper in all the interests, duties and joys of life.

A Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason, Pg xxxi

* At first I didn't like the fact that some of Kingsley's ideas were out of date but that can be said of other books on science and even the knowledge of a few years ago can become outdated. In fact, this 'disadvantage' has been beneficial in many ways as it has made me research areas of science I've been unfamiliar with. I love anything to do with life science but geology/earth science has always been a bit of a mystery, partly because when I did it at school it was just presented as information. There were no ideas that I could assimilate.

 Now that life, which we call education, receives only one kind of sustenance; it grows upon ideas.

Parents & Children by Charlotte Mason Pg 33

My daughter has just turned 10 years of age and is a very good reader but I'm reading MHLW aloud so that I can discuss things with her and demonstrate how some ideas have been replaced by others. So some history is thrown into the mix.
The knowledge of science has changed and will continue to change. Man doesn't know everything. Scientists will get things wrong and so will professing Christians such as Mr. Kingsley.

* Charlotte Mason stated in A Philosophy of Education that we need to,

present ideas with a great deal of padding - and that,

the books used are, whenever possible, literary in style

There is no shortage of beautifully presented books on science but they are often just full of facts. There is no padding and children run up against walls of information which they read and then promptly forget. No ideas are presented and nothing is assimilated.

I love this quote from Hard Times by Charles Dickens. When I started reading Charlotte Mason's ideas on education, especially in relation to the books used in teaching children, I recalled Dickens' words: 

Girl number twenty unable to define a horse!' said Mr. Gradgrind, for the general behoof of all the little pitchers. 'Girl number twenty possessed of no facts, in reference to one of the commonest of animals! Some boy's definition of a horse. Bitzer, yours.' 

Bitzer,' said Thomas Gradgrind. 'Your definition of a horse.'...

'Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth.' Thus (and much more) Bitzer.
'Now girl number twenty,' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'You know what a horse is.' 

Definitely not my idea of how I want my children to be educated!


Katie Barr and Anne White have written guides to MHLW for Year 4 and Year 5. They include suggestions for further study, background information with the occasional suggestion that a short section could be omitted.
I've put photos, videos, etc on Pinterest and will be adding to that as we continue the book. I've also included some things below that I couldn't add to Pinterest for different reasons.

The book is written from an English perspective and Kingsley mentions parts of Southern England in the book.

A Bog, South Dartmoor

The Glen

Glen - a deep narrow valley, especially among mountains




Chine - this word is peculiar to the south of England (eg on the Isle of Wight) and it refers to a valley or ravine that leads down to the seashore.
From what I've gathered from various dictionary definitions, the words canyon and gorge are basically describing the same thing, whereas a ravine is narrower and not as large. All three are formed by water erosion.
In Australia the word, gorge tends to be used.

Gorge - a deep, narrow passage with steep rocky sides formed by running water.
Canyon - a narrow chasm with steep cliff walls formed by running water.
Ravine - a deep, narrow steep-sided valley formed by running water

Barron Gorge, Kuranda, Queensland

See 27 of the Deepest Canyons You Can Explore here. Some of these are called gorges.

 White Cliffs of Dover - erosion

Glacial erosion - a very good pdf on the Matterhorn (It has one mention of millions of years.) The name Matterhorn comes from the German words matte, meaning meadow, and horn, meaning peak.

I'll be adding separate posts on the different sections in the book.

Update: these are the posts for the first half of MHLW:

Chapter 1: The Glen
Chapter 2: Earthquakes
Chapter 3: Volcanoes
Chapter 4: The Transformation of a Grain of Soil
Chapter 5: The Ice Plough
Chapter 6: The True Fairy Tale
Chapter 7:  The Chalk-carts