School plans for Thursday

Opening time;  Hymns; read a couple of pages from Down to Earth

Ourselves Book II: "Instructors of Conscience"

Balance Benders Level 3

Science Part One:  Play The Periodic Table Game (printable board game from Ellen McHenry)

Picture Talk:  Jan Vermeer, The Geographer

Ivanhoe: chapter 29

Prepared dictation from Ivanhoe:  It was not until evening was nearly closed that Ivanhoe was restored to consciousness of his situation. He awoke from a broken slumber, under the confused impressions which are naturally attendant on the recovery from a state of insensibility. He was unable for some time to recall exactly to memory the circumstances which had preceded his fall in the lists, or to make out any connected chain of the events in which he had been engaged upon the yesterday. A sense of wounds and injury, joined to great weakness and exhaustion, was mingled with the recollection of blows dealt and received, of steeds rushing upon each other, overthrowing and overthrown---of shouts and clashing of arms, and all the heady tumult of a confused fight. An effort to draw aside the curtain of his conch was in some degree successful, although rendered difficult by the pain of his wound.

To his great surprise he found himself in a room magnificently furnished, but having cushions instead of chairs to rest upon, and in other respects partaking so much of Oriental costume, that he began to doubt whether he had not, during his sleep, been transported back again to the land of Palestine. 

Science Part Two:  How to Make a Universe, pages 16-17, about hydrogen and stars;  pages 18-21, about elements of the earth and our atmosphere

French Smart 7, Unit 2; practice French memory verse.

School plans for Wednesday

School plans for today:

Current events: animals in the news today, including a newborn giraffe,  a rescued fawn, and a swarm of honeybees

Read a couple of pages together from Down to Earth (these are short miscellaneous pieces and poems about childhood gardens)

Gospel of Mark: read independently, keep notebook

Key to Geometry, Booklet 2: Circles, pages 7-11

(Turkey vulture found here)

The Spring of the Year - "The Buzzard of the Bear Swamp."  Look for pictures of turkey buzzards.

Handwriting:  Finish Fix It...Write.

Plutarch's Life of Cicero: lesson 7. "Is it better to be eloquent, or to be truthful? Can you be both? (Remember Lesson Three? "For Cicero only of all men in Rome made the Romans know, how much eloquence doth grace and beautify that which is honest, and how invincible right and justice are, being eloquently set forth.")"

Poems and The Grammar of Poetry (review)

French; French memory verse

Readalouds: The White Mountains

Science: How to Build a Universe 
Part One: review yesterday's work, and read pages 12-13: "The type of bonding and the way that the atoms in an element, molecule, or compound are arranged greatly influences the properties of a chemical substance and therefore its uses."
Part Two: Read pages 58-59, How fireworks work.  Watch a video about making fireworks (probably Popular Mechanics for Kids, Season 2 episode called "Boom").  Notebook possibilities...design a firework?

Chores for vacationing neighbours

School plans for Tuesday

School plans for today:

Opening time, hymn, current events
Old Testament: Book of Numbers
Gardening: read Down to Earth, by Michael J. Rosen, pages 7-16
Key to Geometry, Booklet 2: Circles, pages 3-6 (or more)
English History:  some of pages 187-194. Edward I: England at War. The Breaking of Wales.
Geography: map drills with Seterra
Shakespeare's King John: continue
Guitar practice time with Dad
Poetry: read poems aloud AND review lessons from Grammar of Poetry
Ivanhoe: chapter 27
French memory verse

Science: begin study of the elements and the periodic table, using How to Make a Universe:
• A short (graphic) introduction from DK Chemistry, and a quick look through today's paper for mentions of chemistry and elements (I noticed several!)
• Reading from pages 6-7 followed by narration
• Study the periodic table on pages 8-9, and read pages 10-11 followed by narration
•Biography (included in text): Dimitri Mendeleev
• Notebook page (self-written)

Chores for vacationing neighbour

Last four weeks of school: making plans

For those who read our blog on a reader or who otherwise don't see sidebars and headers: I added some new science notes and also an in-progress plan for the last four weeks of this school year.

If you've read Ivanhoe and want to laugh

(SPOILERS INCLUDED IF YOU HAVEN'T READ IVANHOE)

Dollygirl and I are partway through Ivanhoe, to the part where the castle is being besieged by...basically everybody who's not in the castle.  When the Black Knight was mentioned, she calmly stated, "That's King Richard in disguise."  Well, I know Dollygirl is very astute in these matters--she'd already nailed Robin Hood and Friar Tuck, but I was surprised she'd just figured that one out.  "Oh, I read it in the Betsy-Tacy book you gave me for my birthday," she said.  Oh yes...Betsy has to read Ivanhoe too.

Well, that's not such a big leap anyway, and it doesn't spoil the story at all to know who the Black Knight really is. And it's still going to take us at least a couple of weeks to finish the novel. But if you have finished it already (or your kids have) and you want something fun to end the school year, pick up a copy of Edward Eager's Knight's Castle, published in 1956.  Edward Eager, if you don't know already, was a big fan of E. Nesbit, and this is a very Nesbit sort of book: about wishes and magic gone slightly askew.  Some children playing "Ivanhoe" with a toy castle (they've just been to see the MGM movie) wake up at night to find that their props have come to life, and that they're now in the story as well.  Except that the story seems to be rewriting itself, and it's up to the children, especially the main character Roger, to fix what's gone wrong.

The book contains lots of cheesy "varlet" dialogue (what some people call Howard Pyle-esque).  It also includes a Saxon-Norman baseball game, an Ivanhoe who's obsessed with science fiction novels, a can of peas, and the U.S. Marines. There's a more serious sub-plot about the children's father who is in the hospital, and if there's anything I'm a little iffy about, it's his "magic cure" that depends on Roger's wish (granted only if the quest is successful).  It raises the ante of the plot, and I'm not saying the wish isn't well-earned, but, like those movies where children "wish" their separated parents back together, it's not perhaps very sensitive toward those whose real-life wishes don't come true.

Anyway, that complaint aside, it's very funny and has held up surprisingly well.  You really do have to have read Ivanhoe or at least seen a film version to enjoy it, and be warned that there are some Ivanhoe spoilers too--how the book ended and so on.  So keep it for an end-of-Scott treat.

(Oh, one warning for those who do not allow books with witches etc.: the two girls in the story call themselves witches and sorceresses, but only as a means of explaining themselves to the Ivanhoe characters.)

There's another review of the book here.

Raisin Squares for a church potluck

RAISIN OR DATE BARS (More with Less Cookbook)

Today we are having a potluck lunch at church.  We're taking some sandwiches, a quinoa-black bean salad, and a batch of these raisin bars, which I call Raisin Squares because they're different from the Hillbilly Housewife's Raisin Bars (those are more cake-type, these are like date squares but without all the chopping).

Make one of these fillings:

Raisin Filling:
  2 1/2 cups raisins 
  3/4 cup water 
  1/4 cup sugar 
  3 tbsp. lemon juice 
  2 tbsp. cornstarch   

Date Filling:
  3 cups chopped dates 
  1 1/2 c water 

Combine filling ingredients and cook over low heat until thick.  The recipe says to let the filling cool, but I don't usually have time and they still turn out fine.

Crust/Topping:

  3/4 cup margarine or equivalent in preferred fat or oil
  3/4 cup brown sugar 
  1 tsp. salt (seems like a lot, you could try less)
  1/2 tsp. baking soda 
  1 3/4 cup flour 
  1 1/2 cup rolled oats (I use the quick type)

Mix well until crumbly.  Firmly press half the crumb mixture into a 9 x13" greased pan. 
Spread cooled filling over top; it may seem like not quite enough, depending on how thick your filling is, but just do your best to get it spread around.. At this point I like to sprinkle the filling with a spoonful of cinnamon-sugar, but that's optional.  Cover with remaining crumb mixture, patting down lightly. 
Bake at 400 [F] for 25-30   minutes. (I bake them at 375 degrees because our oven runs hot, and they are usually done in about 20 minutes, so watch them.) Cut into bars while warm. 

Nature Walk by the Pond

The last month has seen a great change in the weather and the foliage.  Spring is still dragging itself a bit, but at least all the leaves are coming out.  We revisited the pond today, and Mr. Fixit took some photos to compare with those he and Dollygirl took early in April.  (I don't have photos of the birds we saw today: mainly red-winged blackbirds, ducks and geese.)

Dollygirl's holly bush photo taken in April (at least that's what we think it is):

Holly bush taken today:

Tamarack in early April:

Tamarack taken today:

And this is the coolest thing: I think we've found our blossoming shad bush! (Also called serviceberry: Dallas Lore Sharp's favourite sign of spring.  And if it isn't serviceberry, it''s something pretty close.)

All photos by Mr. Fixit and Dollygirl.  Copyright 2014 Dewey's Treehouse.

Back yard nature: House finch!

Outside our basement window this wet morning: at least two red house finches, industriously eating the dandelions that have gone to seed. A couple of yellow finches too.

Noontime Addition: the finches are now giving a concert.  Very chirpy-chirpy-tweeters, tuneful but extremely loud!  Father Robin is sulking on the picnic table...the runner-up in the music contest?

Photo found here.

A thought for the day: on clutter and stuff

I just read a list on Yahoo of things that people should really throw out.

Well, I'm not too guilty of keeping mateless (?) shoes or unworn clothes. My dried herbs still have their smell and taste, most of them.  I can think of only a couple of questionable jars in the fridge, and they'll probably be cleaned out quite soon.  On the other hand, I don't see the point of decanting every dry food item into glass jars because you don't like the look of cardboard boxes.  Then what would you read at the breakfast table?

Back yard, front yard, all yard nature

In back yard nature news:   the blossoms have come out on the apple trees and the maples.  All at once, making up for lost time.  Not so good for the allergy-prone, but at least the pale green is a change from bare gray.

Photo by Mr. Fixit.

How to grow a young scientist (Dorothy Hodgkin, today's Google Doodle honoree)

Have you noticed today's Google Doodle?  It's in honour of Dorothy Hodgkin (1910-1994), the developer of protein crystallography.  She developed a way of showing how things like insulin are constructed--because scientists had to be able to see the structure of it before they could work with it.

"Though born in the twentieth century, Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin had a typical late-nineteenth century upbringing. She was born in Cairo, Egypt, then a British colony. When Hodgkin was four, the family was back in England and World War I broke out. The parents returned to Egypt, leaving the children with family and governesses for four years. Hodgkin found an interest in chemistry and crystals, a popular hobby for women of leisure in the 1800s. But on her sixteenth birthday, she received a book by William Henry Bragg (a Nobelist in physics) about using x-rays to analyze crystals. She had found her life's work."  (PBS.org article)

"Her mother, Grace Mary Crowfoot (born Hood) was actively involved in all her father's work, and became an authority in her own right on early weaving techniques. She [Dorothy's mother] was also a very good botanist and drew in her spare time the illustrations to the official Flora of the Sudan. Dorothy Crowfoot spent one season between school and university with her parents, excavating at Jerash and drawing mosaic pavements, and she enjoyed the experience so much, that she seriously considered giving up chemistry for archaeology.  She became interested in chemistry and in crystals at about the age of 10, and this interest was encouraged by Dr. A.F. Joseph, a friend of her parents in the Sudan, who gave her chemicals and helped her during her stay there to analyse ilmenite. Most of her childhood she spent with her sisters at Geldeston in Norfolk, from where she went by day to the Sir John Leman School, Beccles, from 1921-28. One other girl, Norah Pusey, and Dorothy Crowfoot were allowed to join the boys doing chemistry at school, with Miss Deeley as their teacher; by the end of her school career, she had decided to study chemistry and possibly biochemistry at university."  (Nobel Prize biographical article)

"I first met the subject of X-ray diffraction of crystals in the pages of the book W. H. Bragg wrote for school children in 1925, 'Concerning the Nature of Things'. [More about Bragg] In this he wrote: "Broadly speaking, the discovery of X-rays has increased the keenness of our vision over ten thousand times and we can now 'see' the individual atoms and mo1ecules." I also first learnt at the same time about biochemistry which provided me with the molecules it seemed most desirable to 'see'. At Oxford, seriously studying chemistry, with Robinson and Hinshelwood among my professors, I became captivated by the edifices chemists had raised through experiment and imagination-but still I had a lurking question. Would it not be better if one could really 'see' whether molecules as complicated as the sterols, or strychnine were just as experiment suggested? The process of 'seeing' with X-rays was clearly more difficult to apply to such systems than my early reading of Bragg had suggested; it was with some hesitation that I began my first piece of research work with H. M. Powell on thallium dialkyl halides, substances remote from, yet curiously connected with, my later subjects for research."  (Her Nobel Prize acceptance speech)

More here.

Dollygirl's School Plans: Term 3, Week 8

"We are aware that our own discursive talk is usually a waste of time and a strain on the scholars' attention, so we (of the P.N.E.U.) confine ourselves to affording two things,––knowledge, and a keen sympathy in the interest roused by that knowledge. It is our part to see that every child knows and can tell, whether by way of oral narrative or written essay."  ~~ Charlotte Mason, Philosophy of Education

Monday:
(Daily opening time: hymns, poetry, current events)
Old Testament: Book of Numbers
Saxon Algebra 1/2
History of England: Who was Henry III?
French, using Complete French Smart 7 workbook
Apologia General Science:  how do "calories" relate to the ideas about food consumption and combustion we have been discussing?
Shakespeare's King John
Grammar: a review passage drawn from literature (but definitely easier than the last one we did)
Ourselves Book II: how reading philosophy helps instruct the conscience

"Perhaps the gravest defect in school curricula is that they fail to give a comprehensive, intelligent and interesting introduction to history."  ~~ Philosophy of Education

Tuesday:
New Testament: Gospel of Mark
Saxon Algebra 1/2
Money Matters for Teens
French
Plutarch's Life of Cicero (we are doing two Plutarch lessons this week)
Map quizzes with Seterra Onlinne
The White Mountains
Handwriting with Fix It...Write
History: work on Century Chart

"...the desire for knowledge for its own sake, on the other hand, finds satisfaction in knowledge itself."  ~~ Philosophy of Education

Wednesday:
Old Testament: Book of Numbers
Money Matters for Teens
French
History of Music for Young People: lesson on Mendelssohn we missed last week
Apologia General Science: about metabolic rates in humans and animals
Ivanhoe
A little more grammar practice
University of Waterloo Gauss mathematics competition

"These young students have the powers of perfect recollection and just application because they have read with attention and concentration and have in every case reproduced what they have read in narration, or, the gist of some portion of it, in writing." ~~ Philosophy of Education 

Thursday:
New Testament: Gospel of Mark
The Spring of the Year: chapter on phoebes that was missed last week
French
History of England: about Henry III and parliaments
Picture Talk: Jan Vermeer
Key to Geometry
The White Mountains
Handwriting

"Children recognise with incipient weariness the doctored tale as soon as it is begun to be told, but the human story with its evil and its good never flags in interest." ~~ Philosophy of Education

Friday: 
Basic Bible Studies by Francis Schaeffer
Balance Benders Level 3
Apologia General Science: finishing off Module 12, about life and energy
Plutarch's Life of Cicero
Transcription (copywork)
Ivanhoe
Key to Geometry
French History: reading more from De Joinville's Memoirs of the Crusades
Notes in the Book of Centuries

Back yard nature: the short lives of dandelions

We had a couple of early dandelions awhile back, but they're all out in full force now.  Here is what puzzles me: of those that blossomed early this week, some are already white fluff and seeds.  How can dandelions be so short-lived?

Friday School Plans: Slightly amended for a (promised) warm day

Basic Bible Studies: The Holy Spirit

Architecture Shown to the Children: finish "Gothic Architecture"

Key to Geometry: work through several pages.

How to Read a Book: conclusion of the section on "unity," summing up a book with a few main thoughts.

The White Mountains

Lots of time for blogging, sewing, going outside, and then cleaning up the dining room for a family party this weekend

Quote for the Day: St. Louis on Food, Drink, and Clothing

"Of his meat he was so sober, that on no day of my life did I ever hear him order special meats, as many rich men are wont to do; but he ate patiently whatever his cooks had made ready, and was set before him....He put water into his wine by measure, according as he saw that the strength of the wine would suffer it....[he told me that] if I drink pure wine in my old age, I should get drunk every night, and that it was too foul a thing for a brave man to get drunk.

"He said that men ought to clothe and arm their bodies in such wise that men of worth and age would never say, this man has done too much, nor young men say, this man has done too little.  And I repeated this saying to the father of the king that now is [Philip], when speaking of the embroidered coats of arms that are made nowadays; and I told him that never, during our voyage oversea, had I seen embroidered coats, either belonging to the king or to any one else.  And the king that now is  told me that he had such suits, with arms embroidered, as had cost him eight hundred pounds parisis.  And I told him he would have employed the money to better purpose if he had given it to God, and had had his suits made of good taffeta (satin) ornamented with his arms, as his father had done." ~~ Sieur de Joinville, Memoirs of the Crusades

Homeschooling, guru worship, and commitment

A local newspaper columnist published a piece today about, of all things, food trucks.  You know, mobile cafes, burgers on wheels.  She mused, "No one wants to be tied down.  Everybody wants to do what they want, when they want...Churches are selling their buildings...fewer want to subscribe to a newspaper...It's harder and harder to get a commitment for anything." What does that have to do with food trucks?  That we will grab a sandwich and go, but at the expense of sit-down places that have some "commitment" to the community.

Now, I'm not so sure that she isn't stretching the idea of bricks-and-mortar diners as cornerstones of community--after all, they can close up shop and disappear almost as easily as food trucks.  In a small town, you may get Rosie the waitress and Joe the grocer year after year, but here in the city you are more likely to find that the local coffee shop or corner store is suddenly under new ownership--again--and that all the old staff are gone as well. (Mr. Fixit's favourite family-run sub shop changed hands and is now a pale vestige of its former mayonnaise-laden self.)  And I have nothing in particular against food trucks.  But I appreciate her lament over the general lack of commitment in society.

And I hear a similar "aversion to commitment" from some homeschoolers who have trouble understanding a willingness to stick with one particular educational philosophy.  If you centre on one philosophy or method, you risk being called closed-minded.  You may be told that since what works for one child does not always work for another, there can be no overall approach that is "best." You may even have your religious faith questioned, because studying one person too much might mean you are respecting them more than God, or their books as more valuable than the Bible.

Well, it might.  It could also mean that what you have found seems to work, that it contains common sense, that it lines up with your worldview, that it enriches and supports your faith rather than distorting it.  It could mean that you are opting for focus rather than fashion.

Yes, it might mean you're not adventurous or willing to try new things.  Or it could just mean that you've found a road and that's the way you're travelling.  If we're headed to Lake Ontario, we don't have time to worry that we're not going to see Point Pelee or Wasaga Beach.

In an age of pluralism and "wanting it all" that extends, as our columnist says, across everything from  marriage to group memberships, from investments to the taco truck, embedding yourself into any particular anything or anywhere seems risky.  Choosing one thing over another implies that we have already judged the rest negatively. Public schoolers get defensive around homeschoolers, even when we haven't said anything bad about school, because we have committed ourselves, at least for a time, to a different choice.  Non-Christians can't understand how Christians can be so arrogant as to think that one belief is true and others are not.  The presence of one vegetarian can throw a wet blanket on a whole tableful of steak-eaters.

But it is not arrogance that allows commitment to an idea. It's not about us. It is simply being convinced of the value and truth of the idea itself. 

Dollygirl's Grade Seven: Plans for this week

 Jean-François Millet, The Seamstress

Daily opening time:  hymns, poems, current events

Monday

Current Events: The Ontario premier has announced an election for next month.

Old Testament: Book of Numbers. Write the best-guess date for these events in your Book of Centuries.

Handwriting, using Fix It...Write, Day 15 (the lessons are labelled by days)

Ivanhoe: Read chapter XXI (we read the whole thing), mostly about Cedric and Athelstane being imprisoned in Front-de-Boeuf's castle.  Cedric tells stories about King Harold, but Athelstane just wants his lunch.

English History: "How the Law Protects the Weak"; "Magna Charta and the Seamstress" (Dollygirl read that part to herself and then had a doll act it out)

Saxon Algebra 1/2 Second Edition, Lesson 45. Go over the new material in this lesson. Do the practice problems together. By yourself, work through the practice set problems 1-6. For Question 3, review the method for solving rate (ratio) problems. For Question 4, make sure you are clear on the place value of decimal numbers (go back to Lesson 6 if you need to review).

Literature-based grammar (review concepts covered this year).  "In the midst of this jolly company, Robin Hood and his men passed on into the town.  Here all was hubbub and merriment.  On every side were gay booths of colored canvas with floating flags and streamers, wherein cakes and barley sugar and many another good thing were for sale.  Tumblers were tumbling on the green, bag-pipes screeching, lads and lassies dancing, and within a ring in the town square a wrestling match was toward.  But Robin and his good fellows pressed on out the further gate of the town to the place reserved for the archery contest."  (My Book House)  In each sentence (where the constructions allow), cross out any prepositional phrases; underline the subject of the sentence, and double-underline the verb or verb phrase.  Look for direct and indirect objects. Look for examples of past, present or future progressive tense (forms of to be plus the present participle).

Apologia General Science: what proteins are, how they work. (pages 306, 307)

Music history: watched "Liszt's Rhapsody."

New read aloud: started The White Mountains, by John Christopher.

Tuesday (This was the original plan--but Tuesday's school is going to be cut down somewhat because we are going on a "field trip.")

New Testament: Gospel of Mark

Ourselves Book II, on History and Philosophy, pages 74-75. Why history? "He who reads history in this way, not to pass examinations, nor to obtain culture, or even for his own pleasure...but because he knows it to be his duty to his country to have some intelligent knowledge of the past, of other lands as well as of his own, must add solid worth to the nation that owns him. It is something to prepare for the uses of the State a just, liberal and enlightened patriotism in the breast of a single citizen."

"Believing that he is in the world to lay hold of all he can of those possessions which endure; that full, happy living, expansion, expression, resourcefulness, power of initiative, serviceableness––in a word, character, for him, depends upon how far he apprehends the relationships proper to him and how many of them he seizes, we should be gravely uneasy when his education leaves a young person with prejudices and caring for 'events' (in the sporting sense) rather than with interests and pursuits." ~~ Charlotte Mason, School Education

Dictation, from A History of Music for Young People (about Liszt)

Ivanhoe: finish Chapter XXI

Balance Benders Level 3

Natural History: Spring of the Year, "Palace in the Pig-Pen," about phoebes.  Look up phoebes online--what do they sound like? Look like?

Saxon Math, Lesson 45 Review the new material from yesterday. "On the board," work questions 7-10. Turn one of those questions into a word problem. For homework, do Problems 11-15.

Plutarch's Life of Cicero, Lesson 5. Cicero is put in the position of having to pass sentence on the conspirators. 

"We should like to add a word...emphasising the habit of reading as a chief acquirement of school life. It is only those who have read who do read."  ~~ Charlotte Mason, School Education

Wednesday

Old Testament: Book of Numbers.

Picture Talk: Vermeer.

Ourselves Book II, pages 75-76. Why philosophy? "The history of thought will bring us abundant evidence of the fallibility of reason; therefore, there is no certainty that what proves itself to us must be right."

General Science: pages 308-310. Finish reading about proteins.  Read the two review paragraphs and special points on page 308. Answer the two questions on page 308.  If there is time: do Experiment 12.3: Body Temperature. If you take your own temperature after getting quite hot or cold, will there be any difference in the readings? (Optional: watch "The Magic School Bus Gets Cold Feet.")

English History and Book of Centuries:  "Things New and Old;" "The Famous Fifteen"

Handwriting, Day 16

Saxon Math, Lesson 45. "On the board," work questions 16 and 17 (multiplying and dividing mixed numbers). Review the "unit multipliers" work by doing questions 25 and 29 "on the board." (No homework!)

End-of-term special readaloud: The White Mountains.

Thursday

New Testament: Gospel of Mark

Key to Geometry: work through several pages.

Map Drills: Seterra Online

Shakespeare's King John

Transcription (copywork)

Money Matters for Teens: Keeping Track of All That Money

French History: read from de Joinville, Memoirs of the Crusades.  

"Thus, in readings on the period of the Armada, we should not devote the contemporary arithmetic lessons to calculations as to the amount of food necessary to sustain the Spanish fleet, because this is an arbitrary and not an inherent connection; but we should read such history, travels, and literature as would make the Spanish Armada live in the mind."  ~~ Charlotte Mason, School Education

End-of-term special readaloud: The White Mountains.

Friday

Basic Bible Studies: The Holy Spirit

Handwriting, Day 17

Ivanhoe: Chapter XXII

General Science: pages 311-312, Calories and Food.

Key to Geometry: work through several pages.

How to Read a Book: conclusion of the section on "unity," summing up a book with a few main thoughts.

Music history: What about Mendelssohn?

Dollygirl's Grade Seven: Friday School Plans (Updated and Annotated)

And all the time we have books, books teeming with ideas fresh from the minds of thinkers upon every subject to which we can wish to introduce children. ~~ Charlotte Mason, School Education

Basic Bible Studies: The Holy Spirit. Use the NIV Bible Dictionary when needed.

Discuss Sunday reading options (or other devotional reading choices)

In this great work we seek and assuredly find the co-operation of the Divine Spirit, whom we recognise, in a sense rather new to modern thought, as the supreme Educator of mankind in things that have been called secular, fully as much as in those that have been called sacred. ~~ CM, School Education

How to Read a Book (Adler)

Handwriting practice

Spring of the Year: A list of things to hear in the spring

Ivanhoe: Cedric and his party have been attacked in the forest; "Locksley" tells Gurth and Wamba that he will do what he can to help.

I venture to propose one or two principles in the matter of school-books, and shall leave the far more difficult part, the application of those principles, to the reader. ~~ CM, School Education

First History of France, chapter 8 (we ended up reading the whole chapter): Louis VIII ("Lewis the Dolphin" in Shakespeare's King John), and Louis IX, also known as St. Louis.

Key to Geometry: work through several pages.  Be careful naming the triangles!

Apologia General Science: Reading about the positive and negative side of fats. Homework Read the online article I will send you about good snacks featuring complex carbohydrates. Choose two of the combinations that you like, and make sure we get those foods or the ingredients when we go shopping on the weekend.

I think we should have a great educational revolution once we ceased to regard ourselves as assortments of so-called faculties, and realised ourselves as persons whose great business it is to get in touch with other persons of all sorts and condition; of all countries and climes, of all times, past and present. History would become entrancing, literature a magic mirror for the discovery of other minds, the study of sociology a duty and a delight. We should tend to become responsive and wise, humble and reverent, recognising the duties and the joys of the full human life. We cannot of course overtake such a programme of work, but we can keep it in view; and I suppose every life is moulded upon its ideal. ~~ CM, School Education

School Plans for Thursday (Dollygirl's Grade Seven)

Gospel of Mark: independent reading

First History of France, and Century Chart.

Saxon Math: go over the homework questions and work on one or two of the harder problems left in the lesson.  Do problem set questions 27-30 on your own.

Poems for the First of May.

The Easy Grammar Plus: review and winding up the Nouns unit (this will finish formal grammar for this school year)

Science: quick review of yesterday's lesson, and a couple of further points about carbohydrates.  As an analogy for simple vs. complex carbohydrates, why wouldn't you just make a fire from newspapers or loose straw?  Why did Pa and Laura twist hay into tight bundles when they were short on other fuel during The Long Winter?  How does that compare with the explanation of how human bodies react to large doses of sugar?  Play "concentration" with some of our recent science vocabulary.

Money Matters for Teens

Music History: Franz Liszt.





Writing Time.

If it's nice enough for a walk (it's been rainy all week), go look and see if any trees are budding.

'Siker this morrow, no longer ago,
I saw a shole of shepherds outgo
With singing, and shouting, and jolly cheer;
Before them rode a lusty Tabrere,
That to the many a horn-pipe play'd,
Where to they dance each one with his maid.
To see these folks make such jouissance,
Made my heart after the pipe to dance.
Then to the greenwood they speeden them all,
To fetchen home May with their musical:
And home they bring him in a royal throne
Crowned as king; and his queen attone
Was Lady Flora, on whom did attend
A fair flock of fairies, and a fresh bend
Of lovely nymphs—O that I were there
To helpen the ladies their May-bush to bear!
                                                   Spenser, Shepherd's Calendar, Eclogue 5.

What's for supper, after the science experiment?

Tonight's dinner menu:

Skillet casserole made from ground chicken, noodles, and leftover broccoli-cheese sauce from yesterday (I made it to go over baked potatoes)

Instant Red Cabbage Slaw

Chocolate Mini Muffins, made with last night's chocolate pudding as the liquid

How to make Instant Red Cabbage Slaw: Buy a small head of red cabbage for science class.  Pull two leaves from it and use them for cabbage water in a carbon dioxide demonstration.  Think of things to do with the rest of the cabbage that people will actually eat.  Rinse a few more of the leaves and run them through the food processor with some carrot.  Mix with bottled Caesar dressing (or other slaw dressing of your choice).  Eat with enjoyment.

What will we talk about in science today? Carbon, macronutrients, and carbohydrates

The next section of General Science is about macronutrients, starting with carbohydrates.  However, I would like to back up a little bit, and talk about carbon.  Look at the double-spread page "The chemistry of carbon" in DK Chemistry.  Think about carbon paper, eggshells, diamonds, and chalk. (Do you remember learning about coal last year? Updated link)  Where does the name "carbohydrate" come from?

Now turn the page and look at "The chemistry of life" in the same book.  See the diagram/photograph of the carbon cycle?  What is metabolism?

Now let's read from General Science, starting on page 304, and discussing the different forms of carbohydrates (studying the diagrams there).  Work out the names for the simple and complex carbohydrates.

So where do we get carbohydrates?

SIMPLE CARBOHYDRATE:

Sugar - fruit, fruit juice, table sugar, honey, soft drinks, and other sweets

COMPLEX CARBOHYDRATE:

Starch - bread, cereal, potatoes, pasta, rice, and legumes (dried peas and beans)
Fiber - bran, whole-grain foods, raw vegetables and fruit (especially the seeds and skins), legumes, nuts, seeds and popcorn

(This list and other ideas taken from a lesson plan at Utah Education Network.)

Make a list of your ten favourite "carbohydrate" foods.  Mark down which ones are simple and which ones are complex.  (Use the chart provided.)  Does it matter to us if we eat more simple or more complex carbohydrates?  Why?  Here's one answer.

Cartoon found here.

Wednesday School Plans (Dollygirl's Grade Seven)

In the workboxes today:

1.  Old Testament:  finish the chapter of the Book of Numbers.

2.  Key to Geometry:  work several pages on your own.

3.  Ivanhoe.  Written narration.

4.  Architecture Shown to the Children:  continue the term's chapter (Gothic Architecture), reading about gargoyles and flying buttresses.  Make a drawing in your Book of Centuries.

5.  Apologia General Science.  The first of several lessons on macro- and micro-nutrients, beginning with carbohydrates.  (Coming up in another post.)

6.  Balance Benders Level 3.

7.  Shakespeare's King John: continue Act III.

8.  Handwriting practice from Fix It...Write.

9.  Map drills:  10 minutes with Seterra Online.

Stamping with fabric paint: a handicraft I'd like to try

Found on Dollar Store Crafts: looks like a great way to decorate dish towels and other fabric items.

Dollygirl's Grade Seven: Plans for Tuesday (Updated)

New Testament: Gospel of Mark:  continue reading at your own pace, making notes as you go.

Citizenship Part One: Current events.(This is what we talked about.)

Geography Game: Brainbox "The World."  We added our own variation to the game: if you roll a 5, instead of answering the question for that number, you have to find your country on a map of the world.

Citizenship Part Two: Plutarch: Cicero, Lesson 4 

"If so many people suspected Catiline of conspiring to overthrow the government, why couldn't they just arrest him?"

"Why did the Romans "mislike" to see Cicero wearing armour under his outer clothing? Weren't they glad to see he was protected?'

"When the Senators heard the proof of the conspiracy, how did they react? How did Catiline "thumb his nose," so to speak, on his way out of town?"

Transcription (Copywork):

WE should not mind so small a flower,
Except it quiet bring
Our little garden that we lost
Back to the lawn again.
So spicy her Carnations red,      
So drunken reel her Bees,
So silver steal a hundred Flutes
From out a hundred trees,
That whoso sees this little flower,
By faith may clear behold      
The Bobolinks around the throne,
And Dandelions gold.  (Emily Dickinson)

Natural History: The Spring of the Year: bobolinks, bird coverings, crows, and broken feathers.  Look up bobolinks online (I like  this site) and find out why you may not have seen any yourself.  The book has a "note to students" at the back suggesting that you could look for diagrams of bird feathers in a dictionary or bird reference book; we have the DK Guide to Birds which has good illustrations.

Math:  Saxon Algebra 1/2, Lesson 44.  Review any problems with questions 1-5.  Make up your own word problem based on question 6.  Solve questions 8-11 "on the board."   Homework: questions 12-15, 25, 26. (Re question 26: there are 5,280 feet in a mile.)

English History: "Personal Liberty and Trial by Jury."  "No man shall be punished in any way except by Law, and that whenever he be charged with any crime, he shall have the right to be tried before a jury of his countrymen before he is found guilty."  Read independently, and narrate, maybe with.a dramatization?

Poems and metre practice: "The Solitary Reaper," by William Wordsworth

French (review recent work)

Citizenship Part Three: Ourselves Book II: pages 70-73.  'But most of us have little chance of seeing men and things on a wide scale, and our way to an instructed conscience is to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest."  Some thoughts on poetry, novels, and essays.

"...this is the line that influences our living, if it speak only-- 'Of old, unhappy, far-off things, / And battles long ago.'  A couplet such as this, though it appear to carry no moral weight, iinstructs our conscience more effectually than many wise saws."  ~~ Charlotte Mason, Ourselves Book II, page 71

Ducks Like Rain (Back Yard Nature)

Or front yard, in this case.  It's a rainy morning.  Mrs. Mallard is sitting on our lawn to the left of the driveway.  Mr. Mallard is sitting on the other side.

Or they were there up till a few minutes ago.  The van pulling out of the driveway frightened them and they moved somewhere safer.  But maybe they'll be back later.

Back Yard Nature: Violets!

We are in the peak of violet season.

Photo of Taryn by Dollygirl.  Copyright 2014 Dewey's Treehouse.

Dollygirl's Grade Seven: Plans for Monday

Opening time (hymn, prayer)

Old Testament: Book of Numbers 14:1-25  (Read and narrate)

Math:  Saxon Algebra 1/2. Review order of operations and the different ways to indicate multiplication (Lesson 43). Look at new work in Lesson 44; do practice problems a-d and problem set questions 1-7.
 
Picture Study: Jan Vermeer, "A Lady Writing"
 
What do you remember about Jan Vermeer? What were his most common subjects? Read paragraph on page 126 of The World of Vermeer, that "the substance of Vermeer's paint seems as if it were made of crushed pearls melted together."

Read 'The Sea Hath its Pearls" by Heinrich Heine, translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The Sea Hath Its Pearls
The sea hath its pearls,
The heaven hath its stars;
But my heart, my heart,
My heart hath its love.

Great are the sea, and the heaven;
Yet greater is my heart,
And fairer than pearls or stars
Flashes and beams my love.

Thou little, youthful maiden,
Come unto my great heart;
My heart, and the sea and the heaven
Are melting away with love! 

Study the picture for several minutes and describe it in as much detail as you can. Read the paragraphs on page 127, about how "Vermeer shaded a blue area not by painting brown over blue as most of his contemporaries did, but by using another tone of blue, and then another—each minutely different." Also read the descriptive paragraph on page 154 (beside the painting), about light and pearls. Draw the chief lines of the composition. 
 
Easy Grammar Plus:  continue review of nouns.

English History: "The Judges of Assize"

Introduction: How did the barons become strong enough to force King John to sign the Magna Charta? What did the Magna Charta promise? (Justice to all men) What was the biggest problem with that?

Read the first paragraphs of the chapter, explaining how justice was carried out prior to this time, and what the problems were (why the justice system did not work well).

Look online at some pictures of Westminster Hall, part of the Palace of Westminster.  Why are these buildings so important in England?  What famous clock is at the end of the North Tower of the Palace of Westminster?

Read the paragraph starting, "A few years ago, anyone who went to Westminster.."   Narrate.

Read the paragraph starting, "But if everyone had to come to London to get justice..."  Continue to the end of the chapter.  Narrate.

(If you want to know where the word "assize" came from, it is related to the Latin/French words for "to sit," and to the word "session."  The courts of assize were sort of sessional courts, in the same way that some college instructors are sessional lecturers.)

General Science, Module 12

Introduction: Tell about the experiments you did last week with the candle. What did that show? What two things does combustion require? Why do we need oxygen?

Today's question: does combustion produce anything besides energy? We will perform two experiments to find out the other products of combustion.

(Follow the instructions in the textbook)

Describe what you saw in the first experiment. What product of combustion was formed? (Read the paragraph on page 302)

Describe what you saw in the second experiment. Read the explanation on pages 302-303. What product of combustion was formed?

Narration; explain what we inhale (and why) and what we exhale (and why).

Question 12.3, about carbon dioxide fire extinguishers (why they work).

Literature:  Ivanhoe

Big Book Sale

The University Women's annual book sale is having its fiftieth anniversary, so in honour of that, the prices were half what they normally charge.  Which was already pretty low, but that's even better.

So for under ten dollars, I brought home:

Oxford Book of English Verse, 1961 edition (different from the older one I have)

Fowler's Modern English Usage, with a 1939 inscription

Gods, Graves, and Scholars, 1953 hardcover

The Australia Book, by Eve Pownall, illustrated by Margaret Senior

The Wrong Box, by Robert Louis Stevenson & Lloyd Osbourne, The World's Classics Series, small hardcover with dust jacket, 1954 printing...with an inscription by one of my own poetry professors...easily my favourite find tonight.

Froissart's Chronicles, Everyman's Edition

The Golden Book of the Renaissance, adapted for young readers by Irwin Shapiro

Feeding Wild Birds in Winter, by Clive Dobson

Hands on Nature: Introducing Flowers, Ferns, Fungi, & More

Secret Laughter, by Walter de la Mare (Puffin paperback)

Fanny and the Monsters, by Penelope Lively

Rebecca's Nancy, by Joan Reimer Goman.  It's a cute little storybook about an Old Order Mennonite girl who can't find her rag doll.

For the Scholastic shelf:
Is This You?, by Ruth Krauss and Crockett Johnson
Questions and Answers About Ants, by Milicent E. Selsam
Kid Power, by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Bad, bad marketing, or, we hope you are feeling better soon.

In the category of somewhat understated business promotion:  we received the following printout in our mailbox.

Summer Landscape

Professional Trained since [year]

Lawn care

Spring cleaning

Sod removal...[etc.]

We are injured professionally trained and we make sure deliver excellent job.  [Phone]

Hildegard's Gift, by Megan Hoyt (book review)

Hildegard's Gift, by Megan Hoyt,, illustrated by David Hill. Paraclete Press, 2014.

"Consider this: For how many saints can you say that you have a playlist of audio files? But with St. Hildegard, [Pope] Benedict has amped up the ranks of Church Doctors who can teach us about what sacred music at its best sounds like." ~~ Christopher S. Morrissey, "A Beginner's Guide to the Music of St. Hildegard of Bingen," Catholic World Report 

To quote the back cover of this picture book, this is "the story of a girl who God wanted to sing." Those who know something about Hildegard of Bingen or who have heard her music will know that she is a fascinating individual in many ways.  She is included in the less than a dozen Christian saints and notables who have a planet named after them.  She also lived during the time of the fictional detective Brother Cadfael, and with their shared interest in medicine I can imagine the two of them meeting up and spending a delightful afternoon comparing notes on plants and remedies.

Megan Hoyt has also used her writer's imagination to give us a picture of Hildegard as a child and then as an adult nun, struggling with the physical pain of migraines, but daring to use her many gifts in God's service.  Her words and David Hill's illustrations are equally colourful and simple.  On first looking at the book, I actually wondered if the illustrations were a bit too childish and simple; as an adult, I see Hildegard as a very complex woman, and the somewhat random whirls and swirls of her "visions" didn't seem to respect that complexity.  However, my youngest daughter disagreed; she enjoyed the bright illustrations.  The pictures also incorporate quotations from Hildegard's own writings, such as "I sparkle the waters, I burn in the sun, and the moon, and the stars."

The book is aimed at the 4 to 8-year-old age range both in style and in reading level, although some vocabulary (such as "pallet") miight have to be explained to younger ones. (One note: my daughter also wasn't sure, after one reading, if Hildegard was a real person; that might have to be clarified for some children.) It could be a good introduction to a study of Hildegard's music, although the music itself might be best enjoyed by students already beyond the scope of this book.

There are not many picture books about female saints.  There are not many about medieval writers and composers.  And there are not many children's books about people who discover that their gift is meant to be given away.  For those reasons, I think Hildegard's Gift will earn a place of its own on many bookshelves.

"These visions weren’t fabricated by my own imagination nor are they anyone else’s. I saw these when I was in the heavenly places. They are God’s mysteries. These are God’s secrets. I wrote them down because a heavenly voice kept saying to me, 'See and speak! Hear and write!'"  ~~ St. Hildegard of Bingen

Disclaimer:  I was provided with a free copy of this book for review purposes, but did not receive other compensation.  

Well, WE liked it.

We have now finished the entire Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

Our sympathy to Helene Hanff, who reportedly was required to read the entire thing in one weekend.

"With success as a playwright still eluding her, Helene Hanff found a job in 1948 as a reader for a film studio. She had to pick up a novel or a screenplay from the studio offices at 4pm, take it home, read it, write a synopsis and return the manuscript to the studio at four the following day. She was paid $6 per synopsis, a figure which eventually rose to $10, and continued to work as a reader for the next five years. She later remembered her horror when asked to write a synopsis of J R R Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. 'I read the opening sentence of the first volume and phoned around several friends to say goodbye, because suicide seemed to obviously preferable to 500 more pages of the same.' When she handed in her invoice for reading the three volumes she added an extra $40 for 'mental torture'". (her Daily Telegraph obituary)

Mug cozy photo found on Etsy. 

Friday school plans (Dollygirl's Grade 7)

Friday

Basic Bible Studies:  beginning the study of the Holy Spirit

French History: what was going on in France during the reign of King John?

Key to Geometry

Shakespeare's King John: start Act III

Money Matters workbook

Picture Talk:  Jan Vermeer (make an entry in the Book of Centuries)

Handwriting

Ivanhoe:  finish the chapter about the Black Knight and the Clerk of Copmanhurst

Poems