Poetry and Paint
Title:The Road Not Taken and Other Poems
Author: Robert Frost
Publisher: Dover Thrift Edition
Genre: Poetry
I have a hard time reading poetry silently. When I’m reading it in my mind, my eyes tend to skip over the words like stones on water.
But aloud – that’s a different story.
Nothing calms us faster in my house (the kiddo and I) than poetry, painting, and a little Alt-J in the background. I don’t know how I survived sadness and melancholy before Alt-J was a part of my world.
The latest masterpiece – age 3.
This week we read through a Dover Thrift Edition of Robert Frost: The Road Not Taken and Other Poems. Like most people, kiddo will probably be far more familiar with The Road Less Taken than any of Frost’s other poetry. We don’t just read it out loud when we paint, but out on the trails in the woods too. Poetry is appropriate for painting, Frost is great while tromping on leaves. He just has a woodsy feel to him.
Starting a new piece during a poetry day.
I Love Dirt!
Title: I Love Dirt!
Author: Jennifer Ward
Foreword: Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods
Illustratator: Susie Ghahremani
I popped in at Half Price Books after a long season off from scheduling book signings. Tucked low in my employee cube was a book – this book – with a post it note on it from my boss.
“Andi – I thought you might like because of the woods you live by!”
I did like it, immediately. And bought it with my Christmas money.
The book starts with a riveting foreword about the nature of nature in the United States and how much we have strayed from the outdoors. Interestingly enough, the more we stray from outdoor life, the more children struggle with obesity, ADD and ADHD, as well as depression.
And the more kids spend outdoors?
“A 2005 study by the California Department of Education found that students in schools with nature immersion programs performed 27 percent better in science testing than kids in traditional class settings. Similarly, children who attended outdoor classrooms showed substantially improved test scores, particularly in science. Such research consistently confirms what our great-grandparents instinctively knew to be true, and what we know in our bones and nerves to be right: free-play in natural settings is good for a child’s mental and physical health. The American Academy of Pediatrics agrees, stating in 2007 that free and unstructured play is healthy and essential for children.”
I’m in love with this book. I already do a lot of nature activities with my child – foraging for starters. We play outside at the public park, we walk nature trails, we run, we jump, do cartwheels in the grass, hunt insects and lizards, sword fight with sticks, and sing our ABCs at the tops of our lungs by the creek. As Ward states in her introduction, “There is nothing more joyful and inspiring to watch than children discovering the world around them.”
All of the activities in this book are pretty much cost free. The only one I found that requires any kind of purchase is the bird feeding one, and that’s only if you want to do it big and don’t have spare groceries in your house. The activities are simple, like sprinkling orange peels in your yard or covering pine cones with peanut butter and bird seed to bird watch from inside when it is too cold to be outside.
The book is broken up seasonally, so you can hop in and do something no matter when you pick up the book. Each activity has a prompt or a concept to get your child thinking about the activity and world itself.
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.
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 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 heros 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:
Happy Fourth of July
The Half Price Books Humble book club read John Adams by David McCullough this month. We discussed it together Monday night, even though I had only read the first 400 pages. The best thing about holidays, for me, though is their ability to mandate what gets read off the TBR pile next. So this week, as I researched for book club, lounged with family, watched fireworks, and read to the kiddo… this is what freedom looked like:
Title: John Adams
Author: David McCullough
Genre: History
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Length: 751 pages
1001 and one things to discuss about this book, and we mostly got caught up in the assessment of the character of John Adams. Was he an ambitious man willing to run off from the family and farm at a moments notice to pursue more exciting ventures of fame? Or, was he a great man of virtue who was gifted with the sight of the big picture, willing to sacrifice personal happiness for the greater good of the establishment of our country? Before reading the book, considering my skepticism regarding ALL politicians, I probably would have said the former. But McCullough has me convinced it was the latter that held true.
Of course, I am biased, mostly by the sheer fact that Adams was a great reader. Nothing romanticizes a person more to me than their love for a good book, for the art of research, and for a passion for knowledge and action. Several times throughout the biography, Adams is quoted saying such excellent things as,
“I must judge for myself, but how can any man judge, unless his mind has been opened by reading.”
Where others in the group found him willing to cast aside his wife and children for politics, I found him endearing. He wrote to his wife avidly. He and Abigail would often refer to each other as ‘dearest friend,’ and their relationship seemed to be what kept him grounded and successful. In addition to that, it also seemed that any chance he had to take his children with him, he did. Off sailing across the pond to Europe, the boys equipped with an educated father and a personal tutor, they got first hand experience seeing how nations make peace and build relationships. Sure, Adams renounced his son Charles later in life and that relationship was never rebuilt before Charles’ death, but in my opinion Charles did not deserve anymore second chances. Charles, the favorite as a child, turned out to be the bad seed in the bunch – possibly spoiled by being the favorite to so many – as he turned to alcoholism and abandoned his family. It was John and Abigail who raised his children and looked after his wife, leaving their own son to his own devices as they tried to do right by all his mistakes.
John Adams was quite the fascinating man, one I have, until now, always overlooked in history. Having shared a birthday with George Washington my whole life, he always got my ‘favorite’ vote as a child. As an adult, the Alexander Hamilton vs. Aaoron Burr phenomena fascinated me – mostly driven by that infamous ‘Got Milk’ ad as well as Joseph Ellis’ riveting storytelling in Founding Brothers
With all this important political talk, I found it necessary to re-read the Declaration. With toddler in tow for nearly all my reading ventures, it’s important to find kid friendly things to read alongside all my own reading. That’s where Sam Fink comes in handy…
Title: The Declaration of Independence
Illustrated & Inscribed: Sam Fink
Publisher: Scholastic Nonfiction
Length: 160 pages (but only takes about 15 minutes to read aloud)
I absolutely adore this copy of the Declaration of Independence. As a homeschool mom, I love creating my own curriculum and finding unique ways to share information with my kid. Kiddos everywhere, whether homeschooled or public schooled, should find this a fun way to absorb the meaning behind the declaration and be introduced to the ideas of why it was so important for it to be made and signed.
With large print, clear illustrations, and political cartoons to accompany nearly every sentence – if not sentence fragment – Fink helps walk a kid (and even some adults) through every nuance of our founding fathers’ meaning and intention. If read often enough, you may find you have a kid who has memorized the declaration long before they are ever asked to do so for school purposes. This is just a good old fashioned fun picture book that just so happens to also be an important document to our country’s history. Sam Fink is pretty awesome and I am so glad he tackled this project.
In addition to all that,
Title: George III
Author: Christopher Hibbert
I’ve been plucking through a biography of King George III for awhile now. It’s been loitering on my TBR pile and periodically I get the bug to read a chapter or two.
I am no where near finished reading this book, Hibbert is very detailed but also very dry as a biographer, but I find it a handy reference and do look forward to the times that I decide to sit down with it.
I like having large sweeping views of history as well as the tiny details. Reading through John Adams and peeking here and there at George III this week, I was grateful to have already tackled Napoleon’s Wars recently. It helped me keep straight in my mind what was happening with the French while a few of the Adamses friends were busy getting beheaded. Another handy tool for both children and adults while reading through history is The Time Chart of History of the World
Polar Bears Aren’t Really White…
…And other fun facts you learn with your two year old while reading Magic Tree House…
So onward with The Magic Tree House Adventures. We read Ghost Town at Sundown
Then, we moved onto Polar Bears Past Bedtime
Kiddo really loves looking at the pictures of all the animals. From identifying the baby bears to asking me what “those things are on him” hanging off the lion (his testicles), we’ve had a full two weeks learning about different kinds of predators and their environment. She finds Africa vs. the Arctic fascinating and is now able to identify the two places on the map.
Yay for little tiny humans being enormous sponges for knowledge!
Anakalian Whims 