Homeschooling Schmomeschooling
One thing I know I’ve done is slack off on my homeschooling posts. Some of you may be relieved by that as you follow this for adult book reviews. However, this is something I plan to be more consistent about in the year 2014 (what’s a new year without resolutions to fail at?). So, I’ll start with our wonderful Christmas gifts and how that has altered our January plans for the better.
Series Title:The Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library
Title: There’s a Map on My Lap!
With her birthday money, kiddo picked out and purchased Oh Say Can You Seed? (All about flowering plants) and If I Ran the Rain Forest (All about tropical rain forests). I was so proud of my three year old, she picked them out herself without being swayed by me and she continues to select them to be read at bed time – obviously not swayed by me because bed time is when I want to read the shortest book possible.
Each one of these books includes all sorts of information, new vocabulary words, and everything a kid needs to know to get started with that particular topic. There’s even a handy glossary at the end that could later serve as a spelling word list.
So when we saw There’s a Map on My Lap we were pretty excited. And when Grandmom got her a Wall Map too – well, it was all over. We have been having ‘map time’ every chance we get.
Title: Magic Tree House
Author: Mary Pope Osborne
We did a pretty extensive Titanic unit awhile back. We read both Magic Tree House books as well as a few of those early reader books. There was a picture book we tackled, and we even found a replica of an old newspaper page from the day the Titanic sunk.
Kiddo likes history and really likes boats and ships. She built our very own Titanic out of play dough one day, which was pretty exciting.
I will not have a kid that watches the Leonardo DiCaprio movie at 16 and says, “I didn’t know that was REAL!” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/titanic-tweets-some-say-they-didnt-know-titanic-wasnt-just-a-film/2012/04/10/gIQA8fZY8S_story.html).
Even though I’m not a big fan of the movie and what it has to say morally, I can’t wait for Kiddo to see it – even if it means me letting her watch it at a younger age and fast forwarding through the inappropriate parts (you know, the ones that made the film PG-13) – because seeing the ship in all its glory is a phenomenal experience. Already, she enjoys looking at diagrams of how the ship was set up and pictures that were taken. We liked this National Geographic list and pictures too: http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/stories/history/10-cool-things-about-the-titanic/
Other Projects…
Christmas was kind to us in regards to school projects. Already we have started the year off by growing rock crystals of our very own.
This was more of a lesson in patience than anything else. She thought the science lesson was cool, but really it was about learning to go check on it every hour on the hour and how long an hour was.
We’re pretty excited about 2014 and what it has in store for us. Kiddo turns four in October and we have so many fun things to do before then.
Confessions
I had great plans for the year 2013. I do every January. I make lists, I plan reading schedules. I try to join way too many book clubs. I set unreachable goals. More specifically, this year I wanted to read through Susan Wise Bauer’s Autobiographies and Memoirs list. It’s about 25 books long, I think, starting with St. Augustine’s Confessions. It is December. I am still reading Confessions.
I’ve read Confessions before in college. It’s not a difficult read, just an important one. It’s the book I save for early mornings as I watch the sunrise with my coffee. Sometimes I read it aloud to my daughter over breakfast, a lot of times I hunker down in the early light and keep it to myself.
I’ve been keeping a lot to myself over the past few years, which goes against the very core of my being… or the very core of who I am told I am. Throughout my life I have been compared to a babbling brook. Information, life experience, anything goes in… and out it babbles in the blink of an eye. I come off extremely extroverted to people who know me least. I find this ironic because I have so much that I don’t share. I am so back and forth with what feels the most natural (hold it in or spill the beans?) that I have a hard time deciding what teachings are right (hush up and keep it to yourself or Confess?).
After reading The Sparrow and re-reading Augustine’s Confessions in the same year – in the same month, really. You’d think I’d have something deep and eloquent to say about Confession. Or, perhaps, you’d think I’d spill out a confession of some kind in this blog post…
All I’ve got for you in the form of a confession is that the first time I read Confessions was during an all-nighter 12 hours before a test for my literature class at a Baptist college. Note the sarcasm when I tell you the experience was so enriching.
Instead of a true confession, I am reminded of a previous post in which I determined I was not very thoughtful. Instead, I sit here lamenting the fact that I have hardly accomplished anything I set out to do in January at all.
I console myself by saying, hey at least I got published this year! (Which seems very anticlimactic when your book is not a Steinbeck level masterpiece.) It might not be the stunning work of art I dreamed about writing since childhood, but people seem to like it and… there’s always next year!
Again, I say that every year. And thus starts the cycle all over again: A January list of books to read and goals to accomplish. Stepping stones that I believe will turn me into a scholar with at least half a brain. I have a feeling I will lie on my death bed at 105 and say to the heavens, “No, not yet! I’ve learned nothing! And I haven’t figured out how to be thoughtful!” We’ll see. Visit me when I’m 105 and I’ll let you know. Even though I’m a woman, I suspect I might have a beard like this guy by then…
Eratosthenes
Title: The Librarian Who Measured The Earth
Author: Kathryn Lasky
Illustrations: Kevin Hawkes
I stumbled on this book by complete accident. Most my homeschooling tools I seek out or find while searching the non-fiction section with a thought in mind. This book I merely acquired and had no idea it was going to be added to our core curriculum.
Although I love the Sir Cumference books, I often wondered how I would properly include those books into a classical education for my child when studying the circumference belongs in the times of Ancient Greece. Now I have my solution. Sir Cumference will be fun re-iteration of facts learned. Where The Librarian Who Measured will definitely be a part of our first years of school.
I’m sure I learned about this guy at some point in school, but it didn’t sink in. His name didn’t even sound vaguely familiar when I started reading this story to kiddo before bed last night. But as I read, my mind raced to the day we will sit and discuss Eratothenes in context. We will talk about Ancient Greece and the ancient libraries. We will discuss oranges and circumferences. We will talk about the planet and maps of the world. We will study things in a manner in which she will remember it – as opposed to a passing one liner in a text book. This book made me happy for days of school in our future.
Introducing the Octopus… and Tolkien Week
Weekly Low Down on Kids Books and Adventures in Homeschooling with an Octopus and Tolkien…
Title: Squishy the Octopus
Author: Mary Reason Theriot
Illustrations: Zoie Mahaffey
The last few weeks have been exciting. With the start of fall and the new school year and kiddo turning three in October, we’ve been diving more heavily into “school time.” There was a video floating around on facebook, courtesy of the Libertarian Homeschooler or maybe Practical Homeschooling – not sure which, dealing with the camouflage abilities of the octopus.
The video we watched (Where is the Octopus?) is here: http://www.sciencefriday.com/video/08/05/2011/where-s-the-octopus.html.
Add in discussions of legs, all things regarding the prefix “oct,” and an a event where Mary Reason Theriot debuted her children’s books, we’ve had quite a big week!
Authors Mary Reason Theriot & Jennifer Theriot
Theriot is quite a popular novelist on Amazon. Living in Louisiana with her husband and daughter, she avidly writes spooky thrillers with a southern twist that only the home of the Cajun seem to be able to offer. But most recently, with the aid of her extremely enterprising daughter, she’s branched out and started writing children’s stories as well.
In Squishy the Octopus, a little octopus with a big anger management problem learns to control his temper with the help of his other sea creature friends. On various pages, like in the video above, Squishy changes color. My own little kiddo got really excited when this happened, “Let me see the picture!” she’d exclaim, “What color is he now?”
Unrelated to sea creatures, but highly related to our homeschooling life, is the fact that this week is Tolkien week. September 21st was the 76th anniversary of the publication of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. An day that was celebrated with the first annual Fall Festival at
Archie Rocks Acoustic, little Theriot and my own kiddo in the garden at GBITW.
Good Books in the Woods. There was a costume contest, a toast to Tolkien, Mary Reason Theriot doing a book signing, Aoristos portraits being drawn and more. It was a pretty neat event, which we wrapped up at home with the kiddo indulging in a long time favorite The Lord of the Rings cartoon (the 1978 one, we have it on VHS… and yes, we still use our VCR).
September 22nd (yesterday) was Bilbo and Frodo Baggins’ birthday! They were born in different years, but on the same day! Something, I suppose, only truly geeky Tolkien fans care about. So this week is Tolkien week.
I may work for Half Price Books, a company I absolutely adore for so many reasons, but I spend a good chunk of my spare time at Good Books in the Woods. It is definitely my home away from home these days. My kid plays in the garden and with the toybox set up in the kids section while I absorb the ambiance of a house taken over by books. If my husband ever let me, the inside of my house would look exactly like Good Books…
The Olympians
We finally finished The Lightning Thief (book one of the Percy Jackson series) a week or so ago. Man, reading that thing out loud was a bit of a doosey and took us a whole month of before bedtime reading. While reading Percy Jackson by night, bless his little adventurous demi-god heart, we’ve been going over our next Magic Tree House Adventure by day…
Magic Tree House #16: Hour of the Olympics
Magic Tree House Research Guide: Ancient Greece and the Olympics (which we just finished this morning over breakfast and coffee).
Also during this little stint we’ve read and re-read the Golden Books: Disney’s Hercules… over and over and over again. And the little Grecian wanna-be has enjoyed the movie probably too many times than can be good for her little developing brain.
The Odyssey retold by Robin Lister is a gem, but at this point – with kiddo not even three yet – we’ve only browsed through the pictures while actually reading Gods & Goddesses in the Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks. Kiddo is really into all this stuff and is still insisting we have her “Percules Birthday Party with three candles.” Which is poor people code for: all the children shall wear sheets and we’ll do a laurel wreath craft and play with cardboard swords because I’m not buying decorations. Also, it will be a good excuse to serve a lot of grapes…
All in all, tromping through this stuff now with her so little has helped me wrap my brain around the plans we have for ages 5 & 10, roughly. Keep lots of wiggle room in mind.
Ancient Greece & Rome Lesson Plan/ List Age 5
Start Latin Lessons
Haywood
Black Ships Before Troy – Sutcliffe (Iliad) along with Haywood pg. 206
The Odyssey Retold by Lister
Memorize some facts about the people listed on Haywood pgs. 50-51
Haywood pgs. 108-115 (2 crafts)
Gods & Goddesses from Greek Myths
Haywood pgs. 168-175 (2 crafts)
Haywood pgs. 228-233 (2 crafts)
Haywood pgs. 342-349 (3 crafts)
Haywood pgs. 404-411 (3 crafts)
In Search of a Homeland – Lively (Aeneid)
Haywood pg. 466 + Mosaic project
Haywood pgs. 472-477 (2 crafts)
Of course I’d like to include a trip to the museum.
Relevant Magic Tree House Books: #13 Vacation Under a Volcano, RG Ancient Rome & Pompeii, and of course #16 Hour of the Olympics, RG Ancient Greece & The Olympics
Relevant Magic School Bus during any Pompeii study: #15 Voyage to the Volcano (although this title occurs in modern Hawaii, it explains in true Magic School Bus form all the inner workings of a Volcano)
Then come age 10-ish, we will start repeating the Ancient school lessons, as per our classical education plan. We’ll re-use Haywood, do projects we may have skipped over, repeat ones she liked a lot… but add these things…
Ancient Greece & Rome Lesson Plan/ List Age 9-10
Start covering the Greek Alphabet (we hope to be pretty Latin literate by then)
Archimedes and the Door of Science
Gods & Goddesses in the Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks
The Usborne Encyclopedia of the Roman World
The Odyssey as Retold Mary Pope Osborne (to be read on her own or together as a family), the author of the Magic Tree House books.
The Percy Jackson series by Riordan
My Rundy
(This is supposed to be a review of My Antonia, HPB Humble book club selection for September’s discussion. But it’s not.)
With every book I read, I miss my high school English teacher more and more. I’m nostalgic by nature, so this should not be misconstrued as any overly dramatic longing. I only regret the times I was too exhausted to stay awake in class. I want to hear him talk about something I’m currently reading that wasn’t part of the curriculum ten to fifteen years ago. I feel desperate to hear his literary thoughts.
I miss Mr. Rundell – casually referred to in the classroom as Rundy – I miss conversations we never had. Which is ridiculous. Who misses their high school English teacher so much?
Sadly, it’s because somewhere in my seventeen year old brain, I was convinced that when I was a grown up, Mr. Rundell might be my friend – join my book clubs – hang out. I always thought that if he hadn’t been the teacher and I hadn’t been the student we would have been friends. I think everyone thought that about him. He was so cool, but super nerdy. He made being a little bit geek look fun.
At seventeen I was also convinced that I would never marry or have children. I thought this because the love of my life had me pretty convinced we were never going to be anything other than platonic. Now, we’ve been married for seven years and have a daughter. The point? What I thought at seventeen turned out to be pretty irrelevant. And the love of my life finally did fall in line with all of my heart’s desires. So why can’t my old English teacher?
I want to hit him up on facebook like I do my old college professors. Discuss random things that pop in my head as they come up organically. Why shouldn’t I? I’m still paying for the degree that’s sitting in my closet with a dog chew tear in the corner of what was probably meant to look like very expensive paper.
Selfishly, and a bit stalker-like, every few years I start googling him to see if I can hunt him down. Last time I was dying to discuss East of Eden (we read Grapes of Wrath for school) with him over a whiskey. Now, it’s Willa Cather’s My Antonia.
I watched the new Gatsby movie with a friend the other night and all I could think was, “I would have loved to see this movie for the first time with Rundy.” Even if it meant I had to sit in an uncomfortable plastic chair bolted to a crappy desk to do so.
People shape our lives in ways we do not expect. I was always a reader, I always loved literature. He did not ignite something in me that wouldn’t have already been there. But the man knew how to balance that fine line between teacher and friend. Teenagers really need to feel like someone is on their side sometimes, and Rundy had being on our side down pat. There was a rapport that made us desire his classroom and approval alongside a pure, true teacher student ambiance.
I knew he was one of my favorite teachers then and there, but I never expected to actually wonder what he was up to or hear half his lectures in my head when I re-read old classics. I especially didn’t think that I would feel the absence of his lectures when reading a title I didn’t even know about at age seventeen.
So this is not so much a review as an ode to my favorite English teacher of all time. The tall, lanky, hunched-over-geek that sat on the bottom of his spine as he leaned awkwardly into the stool beside the podium. The guy who had us write essays on Pink Floyd and Army of Darkness. The man who arched his eyebrows at my best friend and me when I told him we were just friends and said, “Sure.” I think he was the first person to get me wondering if I had a shot with the boy who swept me off my feet and became my husband.
This is an ode to the guy that made us think.
As for Cather’s work, I nearly died at a quote on page 187 by Lena: “[…] I don’t want a husband. Men are all right for friends, but as soon as you marry them, they turn into cranky old fathers, even the wild ones. They begin to tell you what’s sensible and what’s foolish, and want you to stick at home all the time. I prefer to be foolish when I feel like it, and be accountable to nobody.”
I laughed and laughed at this. Oh, Lena, how I thought that too! But that post is for another day.
The Vikings Take Over Our Library
As everyone else heads back to school, I looked over the last month and realized we really did treat the hottest months of the year like a summer vacation this year… mostly lolling around the house between events, taking extra naps after our dance parties in the living room, and mostly hiding our pasty skin from the hot, Texas sun. So I tackled cleaning out the closets, while everyone else was out buying school supplies, and organized our life the way it has always been organized in my brain… in unit studies. Of course, that got me in the mood to really tackle “school time” with more vigor and this last week or so we jumped back into the swing of things with Ancient Greece and Rome and then The Vikings and the Celts.
Viking Ships at Sunrise by Mary Pope Osborne was next in our Magic Tree House Adventures. We have not acquired the Viking research guide yet, but I believe there is one. We also re-read DK’s Eye Wonder Viking book, we had read it once before while perusing the exciting world of piracy, and a little repetition is good for a kiddo.
But the really exciting book for this particular unit study was The Hero Beowulf.
Eric A. Kimmel’s retelling of Beowulf is a pretty neat picture book add on for little people. It’s illustrated by Leonard Everett Fisher and is complete with an author’s note about the original poem in the back. Beowulf, after all, isn’t just a monster myth, it’s the “oldest surviving epic poem in English literature,” all the way from the sixth century, to your hands now.
I can’t reiterate enough how much the classical education style appeals to me by teaching so much history through the other subjects… or rather teaching all the other subjects by tackling history so thoroughly. I love that there are so many resources, like Kimmel’s picture book, to make the tales and the culture more real and the epic poem more accessible when the time comes to tackle the original work; because in classical education everything repeats at a higher level over and over again.
After reading The Hero Beowulf, kiddo ran to grab other books with Viking ships on them and said, “Look mommy, more Beowulfs!” So she doesn’t entirely get it yet, but hey, she’s two.
The Dark is Rising Sequence: Book One
The Dark is Rising Sequence started in 1965 (probably much sooner if you were to talk to the author) with the publication of Over Sea, Under Stone under the name Susan Cooper Grant. In 1973, The Dark is Rising would come out, followed by Greenwitch in ’74, The Grey King in ’75, and finally Silver on the Tree in 1977. The Dark is Rising was a Newberry Honor book (runner up to the Newberry Medal) and The Grey King actually won the Newberry Medal.
The books have stared back at me from shelves my entire life, but I didn’t actually pick them up to read until this year – my 29th year – for a Young Adult book club at Half Price Books (Humble).
Having finished Over Sea, Under Stone I can officially tell you that I’m hooked. Not only will I finish reading the series, I will be releasing my reviews of each book in a serial here on my blog and I am adding all the books to my daughter’s homeschool curriculum, with some help from a website I stumbled across: http://www.andrews.edu/~closserb/courses_211_review_studyguide.html
Title: Over Sea, Under Stone
Author: Susan Cooper
I am reading from this edition.
Genre: Young Adult/ Fantasy/ Mystery
Length: 236 (book one) out of 1082 pages (whole series)
You might wonder why a fantasy series has become a mandatory reading assignment for my daughter. If you follow my blog at all, you might have an idea. Over Sea, Under Stone is just screaming to be part of a King Arthur unit. Pendragon’s name is dropped countless times; myths, legends, fairy tales, and the search for the grail make up all the major plot points; and, it’s full of research and adventure. What better to inspire a ten year old into the exciting world of a lifetime in literature?
The following I took straight from the aforementioned site I stumbled upon re-posted here in case the link ever fails):
A writer must be able to do or manage the skills of writing fiction:
Plot–What sort of story line has Susan Cooper devised? What happens? Is it a satisfying story line? Does it seem appropriate for the story?
Conflict–What is the conflict of the story? What is at stake if the central characters fail in their quest? Who are the opponents in the story? How do they complicate the plot?
Characters–Who are the main characters in the story? What does Cooper tell you about each one of them? How does each character differ from the others? How does Cooper compare Simon, Jane, and Barney? What is each child’s personality and why is this personality important to the story? Why does Cooper choose children as the heroes and heroine of the story? Why not Great Uncle Merry?
Setting–Where does the story happen? What is the country side like? How is this appropriate to the story? Could Cooper set the story anywhere else and still make it work as effectively as it does now?
Symbols–What objects in the story take on symbolic meaning? In what way is the grail a symbol? Rufus the dog? The manuscript? Each of the characters? The rising tide or the boats? The fact that the grail is found in a cave? The standing stones?
Theme–Considering all of the elements mentioned above, what is Cooper’s point (this gets us into the third form of knowledge; see below)?
A writer must know about the Arthurian tradition in general and the grail tradition particular:
The grail is an object of great significance and importance. What did you notice in the stories you read? How does Cooper convey this concept in her story?
The grail can be found only by the most perfect of knights. What qualities do Percival, Galahad, and Bors de Gannis have? Does this suggest a reason why Cooper decided to send children rather than adults on the quest?
Grail knights always demonstrate their perfection by undergoing severe temptations. What temptations do Percival, Galahad, and Bors face? What temptations to Simon, Jane, and Barney face?
In the grail stories the heroes live by strict codes of ethics. Describe the grail knights’ value system. What rules do Simon, Jane, and Barney live by?
Grail knights always have a spiritual mentor. Who functions in this role in each story?
How do boats or other symbols like the wind, the number three, or color help to make the stories’ points?
Grail stories often center on illusion and false realities. What illusions do the three grail knights face? How does Cooper suggest that reality is not what the children believe it to be?
Grail stories fundamentally center around the quest for perfection and the test of one’s character. How does the quest test each grail knight or each child in Cooper’s story? What does each child learn from the experience?
Grail stories often involve magical, mysterious, or mystical places like castles or dark forests. Where in Cooper’s story do you notice elements of mystery?
Grail stories ultimately change how the central character views life. What is the effect of the search for the grail on each of the three grail knights? On the three children in Cooper’s story?
A writer must have a message, theme, point, or lesson to communicate.
What is Cooper message? What is she trying to say about the human experience?
In what ways might the children’s experience parallel our own experiences? What do we learn about ourselves from their experience?
What quests do we have to face? How might/should we go about accomplishing these quests? What do we learn from the children’s experiences which might guide our quests?
I love how this enjoyable fiction lends itself so readily to the study of storytelling, the King Arthur tales, the development of legends in general, religious history, as well as the kiddo’s general history lessons as we sort out documented history from legendary fictions developed over time.
Greek Mythology… with children
(Weekly Low Down on Kids Books)
Unfortunately this awesome image is not from a book. I think it’s from a video game.
The kiddo and I have been reading Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. Is she a little young to catch everything, of course, she’s not yet three. Is she following the story? Better than you might imagine. I highly recommend that parents read kids stories that are far outside the child’s reading level. By doing this they are exposed to mature language styles sooner, learn new vocabulary words, and in the case of Rick Riordan, appreciate Disney movies like Hercules that much more.
We’re not finished reading Percy Jackson, so this review isn’t about that. This review is about picture books we’ve been reading during the day in preparation for our before bed time romps with Riordan’s Olympians.
Title: Gods and Goddesses from Greek Myths
Publisher: McGraw Hill Childrens/ Peter Bendrick Books/ Octopus Publishing Group
Retold by: Pat Rosner
Illustrated by: Olwyn Whelan
ISBN: 1-57768-508-3
Typically I provide links and images to the book, where you can find and purchase it, etc. But it seems that Gods and Goddesses lives an off the grid book life. It seems to be extremely difficult to find online and I was in the middle of typing here that I could not find it when I got the idea to check hpbmarketplace.com. I purchased it from a Half Price Books a few years ago, but sure enough the marketplace wins again! As you browse through the prices, you’ll see some are quite expensive. I only paid about $5 for this at the store, I wonder if it is currently out of print. Mine is in mint condition.
The illustrations are delightful, the retold myths thorough but easy to grasp. It’s not kiddo’s favorite book, but I can tell it has helped her grasp what is happening in the Percy Jackson books. Sometimes she just flips through the Greek style pictures while listening to me read Riordan’s work.
If I were in McKinney, TX right now I’d purchase the Fantastic Creatures from Greek Mythology as well, because I like these so much and I think Olwyn Whelan is a genius illustrator. Everything she touches, I think, would be great homeschooling resources.
Other resources we enjoy:
Anakalian Whims 