Countdown to School: Five, Four, Three, Two, One...Wait!

Douglas Spaulding, twelve, freshly wakened, let summer idle him on its early-morning stream...A whole summer ahead to cross off the calendar, day by day..." ~~ Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

It's five weeks today until school starts for us.

And the greatest joke, on the day that I could be posting something about "get organized" or "list of things to do," is that the Ambleside Online Facebook page featured one of our old posts called "Don't Talk Over the Music." Seize the moment. Pay attention (like Douglas Spaulding.)  Don't interrupt.

And someone comments, "Oh my! Talk about convicting your Spirit! I am always so busy thinking about my to do list that I never take a moment! I'm putting this on our list for the new school year!"

"...there were some days compounded completely of odor, nothing but the world blowing in one nostril and out the other.  And some days, he went on, were days of hearing every trump and trill of the universe.  Some days were good for tasting and some for touching.  And some days were good for all the senses at once."  ~~ Dandelion Wine

Yes, there are notes to be written, pages to be counted, narration ideas to be scribbled on Post-It Notes, even a couple of books still to be acquired, or rounded up from people who borrowed them last year.  And I know that for some of you who start the school year even earlier than we do, the time is slipping by.  (Those of you on the year-round plan, I know you're there too--just bear with us.)

But it's still five weeks.

So don't "talk over the summer"...too much.

"Come Labor Day, we'll add up the summer and see what we got!" ~~ Dandelion Wine

Time Saving, Space Saving

The Common Room has a post full of time-and-space-saving household tips, and wants to know what ours are.

All right, in no particular order:

1.  Have a few meal-saving and/or leftover-using standbys either in the cupboard, in the freezer, or in your head.  The ones in the cupboard or the freezer might include anything from a frozen whole casserole to some precooked rice or pre-grated cheese; and the ones in your head would be anything that quickly stretches, fills out, gussies up, or finishes off a meal without your having to run to the store.  Joyce Radway might have depended on caramel junket, but I personally prefer chocolate or vanilla microwave cake if I need dessert, or the bottom half of a dessert, in fifteen minutes.  Tightwad Gazette lemonade is another auto-pilot recipe that fills in when we want a drink that's fancier than water but don't have any juice around:  1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup bottled lemon juice, 4 cups water.  (You can easily make more, just keep the same proportions.)  Of course nobody needs lemonade or cake; but sometimes a meal needs a little cheering up.

2.  Invite Lillian Gilbreth to your house to do a time-and-motion study of your storage and home routines.  Failing that, have a hard look at things yourself, and change things around even if you've been doing it the same way or putting stuff in the same place for fifteen years.  This summer I did some mega-cleanouts and changed some things around...yes, in some spots, after fifteen years.  One example:  we have only shelf in our kitchen that's tall enough for cereal boxes.  Over the past few years, the shelf gradually got taken over with tall cookbooks and kitchen binders, to the point that we kept having to drag the cereal boxes up and down from the basement cold room, or leave them out in the tiny recycling area by the porch door.  So, duh...this summer I cleaned out a deep drawer that used to hold our biggest slow cooker (before it died prematurely), and put the cookbooks into the drawer.  Now the cereal can live back in the kitchen again.

I also cleaned out a vintage kitchen cupboard in the cold room...I mean, really cleaned it out, with soap and water and all that...got rid of some vintage stuff in it like a sausage stuffer (really), along with some vintage crumbs and dust...and found that there actually was room in there to organize some previously un-organizable stuff.  Now we have what amounts to a "holiday/party cupboard," because the top part is holding things like our ice-cream maker and popcorn, the surface down below has a basket with paper plates and other picnic stuff, one of the drawers has picnic-table cloths and clamps (the other drawer has canning supplies), and the cupboards on the bottom have things like turkey pans and cake plates.

And I finally got around to safety-pinning all the pairs of mittens and gloves together, in one bin.  Think that's what King Lemuel meant by "when it snows, she has no fear for her household?"

3.  Have a spouse or kid or buddy who likes to grocery shop with you.  After this many years, I just have to laugh sometimes about the ruts Mr. Fixit and I get into, but you know what, sometimes the ruts are GOOD.  I don't have to worry about picking up vitamins or fruit or tuna or bread or laundry soap: those are part of his mental list.  He doesn't have to remember to get milk or vegetables or flour or toilet paper or coffee or...okay, you get the idea, those are mine.  We meet at the end, double-check on anything unusual we needed, and that's it.

4.  Laugh when you can.  At Mr. Fixit's birthday this month, we were out of appropriate wrapping paper; even the tissue paper was gone.  We all came up with different no-cost solutions.  I stuck magazine pictures on a packing-paper package.  Dewey Squirrel gave him a present wrapped in a Christmas gift bag and topped with a (yard-saled) sympathy card.  The Squirrelings also came up with creative wrapping ideas.

5.  One space-saving idea:  we usually like lower-tech solutions for things, but there's one development in technology we do like:  boxed DVD sets for TV programs (goes without saying that we like them even better when we can get them used or cheap).  Of course for people who watch everything on the computer anyway, it doesn't matter. But if you've been trying to store, say, VHS copies of Mission Impossible or Star Trek or Fraggle Rock or whatever, where you get about two episodes to a tape, DVD sets are a huge improvement.  Could we have imagined, years ago, that we'd go to Giant Tiger and bring back not only the whole first season of Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys, but also the entire run of Ray Bradbury Theater, for less than the cost of family movie tickets and in packages small enough to fit into a purse?  (Warning about the Ray Bradbury programs:  they are interesting stories with a great cast, but they are also capital-C Creepy, and they're full of unexpected twists, so please please please preview before watching with kids around.)

Mama Squirrel's Reading List, and a decor game

Currently in the middle of:

Alton Locke, by Charles Kingsley

10 Philosophical Mistakes, by Mortimer J. Adler (I'm only up to the third mistake so far)

Plutarch's Coriolanus

Shakespeare's Coriolanus

The July/August issue of House Beautiful, which Ponytails and I amused ourselves with one evening by comparing it with a flyer from a local bed-and-bath store.  (House Beautiful itself isn't all that expensive, which surprises me.  Some of the vintagey decorating magazines cost twice as much, which is why I hardly ever buy them new.)  It's surprising how many of the same colours and patterns trickle down from the Billy-Baldwin-quoting decorators to...er...the rest of us.

One example: this rug.  It's between $50 and $400, depending on size, which isn't yard-sale price but isn't exactly designer either, right?  About average for new stuff.  Anyway, take a good look at the colours, the pattern, the size of the pattern.  Then flip through a current decorating magazine or fashion magazine, or a sale catalogue, and see where the same colours and patterns pop up again.  Might be a dress, a shower curtain, wallpaper.  I'm wondering what that does to our minds, having certain images (that most of us don't even notice) thrust at us from so many directions.  Do we eventually start dreaming in "splashes of red against a deep black and rich browns?"

Treasures from the antique market, and a frugal thought

There are three or four antique markets in our area where Mr. Fixit goes regularly to pick up vintage radios for his business.  This weekend our Sunday afternoon family plans got changed at the last minute, so we decided to go for a browse at the two closest ones (across the road from each other).

Usually I just look at things, especially the stalls of vintage books (there can't be that many of us who actually like looking at old school books).  But this time I found one book to buy at each place.   I am much pickier than I used to be about bringing home books from anywhere more expensive than the thrift store.  They don't have to be in perfect condition, but they have to be things I don't see all the time.  They have to be either useful (like a very cool sewing book) or have something great in them to read, or be something we need for school.  Mostly, I have to like them.  If they're early-to-mid-20th-century hardcovers with paper dustjackets, so much the better.

(These aren't my photos, but they're like the books I bought.)

The White Deer, by James Thurber

Tales of a Grandfather, by Sir Walter Scott, in the Blackie's Famous Books edition.

I know the photo shows a Katy book instead, but they're all very much the same style, with the squiggly things up the sides and the list of other books on the back.  A new paperback copy of Tales of a Grandfather would cost about $30 (Canadian) if ordered through our local bookstore, because who orders Tales of a Grandfather?  This one was $10.  Sometimes antiquing actually saves money. (UPDATE: I realized later that this Tales is somewhat abridged, which does it make it less useful than I had hoped.  But I still like it.)

Quote for the Day: Charles Kingsley on self-education

That day fortnight came,--and the old Scotchman's words came true. Four books of his I had already, and I came in to borrow a fifth; whereon he began with a solemn chuckle: "Eh, laddie, laddie, I've been treating ye as the grocers do their new prentices. They first gie the boys three days' free warren among the figs and the sugar-candy, and they get scunnered wi' sweets after that.....If ye canna traduce to me a page o' Virgil by this day three months, ye read no more o' my books. Desultory reading is the bane o' lads. Ye maun begin with self-restraint and method, my man, gin ye intend to gie yoursel' a liberal education. So I'll just mak' you a present of an auld Latin grammar, and ye maun begin where your betters ha' begun before you."

 "But who will teach me Latin?"

 "Hoot, man! who'll teach a man anything except himsel'? It's only gentlefolks and puir aristocrat bodies that go to be spoilt wi' tutors and pedagogues, cramming and loading them wi' knowledge, as ye'd load a gun, to shoot it all out again, just as it went down, in a college examination, and forget all aboot it after."

 "Ah!" I sighed, "if I could have gone to college!"

 "What for, then? My father was a Hieland farmer, and yet he was a weel learned man: and 'Sandy, my lad,' he used to say, 'a man kens just as much as he's taught himsel', and na mair. So get wisdom; and wi' all your getting, get understanding.' And so I did. And mony's the Greek exercise I've written in the cowbyres. And mony's the page o' Virgil, too, I've turned into good Dawric Scotch to ane that's dead and gane, poor hizzie, sitting under the same plaid, with the sheep feeding round us, up among the hills, looking out ower the broad blue sea, and the wee haven wi' the fishing cobles--"

There was a long solemn pause. I cannot tell why, but I loved the man from that moment... ~~ Charles Kingsley, Alton Locke

How Edith pulls it together (Hidden Art of Homemaking, Chapter 14)

I haven't read other people's posts on the last chapter of HAoH yet, but I predict their reactions will be much like they were to the previous one:  "not what I was expecting."  The last two chapters of the book don't really draw the whole picture of Hidden Art together as fully as we might desire.  Was that on purpose, or did Edith just peter out?  The last chapter in particular is surprisingly short.  It's like getting to the end of a mystery book a little too suddenly...say one of the nutty ones by Ellen Raskin...and wanting to go back and comb through the final chapter for any clues that you missed.

So are there any?

First, there's one of the recurring threads:  "There is no place where one cannot plant ivy over the mud hut and put a flower on the stump....I am sure that there is no place in the world where your message would not be enhanced by your making the place (whether tiny or large, a hut or a place) orderly, artistic and beautiful with some form of creativity, some form of 'art.'"

And then the idea that "we [ourselves] are an environment for the other people with whom we work, the people with whom we communicate.  And in this sense we do not choose an art form and create something in that form; we are an art form...an art form God can use in this area of environment."

As others have pointed out, Edith always comes back to communication, a message.

Is the message we are living clear, or is it a lot of "glub-blubs?"

Are we hiding our real identities and gifts?  Leaving clues on bits of paper towel, or doing something more?

"We should be artists in...doing something practical to show that expectancy [that God can intervene]...affects the attitudes other people are going to have to their troubles."

Mr. Banks carved the turkey; the plates were passed and filled high to overflowing; and Mrs. Carillon asked Augie Kunkel to say grace.

Augie Kunkel didn't know how to say grace.  He just named the dishes and let the delicious smells inspire the proper reverence:

Patate douce, dindonneau truffée, airelles en couronne, petits oignons, pointes d'asperges au beurre, purée de marrons.

"Amen," said Mr. Banks, who didn't understand French; and the eating and the chatting and the celebrating began.  ~~ Ellen Raskin, The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I mean Noel)

Linked from the Hidden Art of Homemaking linky for Chapter 14 at Ordo Amoris.

Grace and Environment (Hidden Art of Homemaking, Chapter 14)

"[Margaret] also was a very tired woman, and her fatigue took the form of being unable to think about anything except food for more than two consecutive minutes....Except, of course, the garden....These fine autumn days were so precious...these lovely days....What in the world could they have for breakfast?"  ~~ Elizabeth Goudge, The Herb of Grace (Pilgrim's Inn)

"Surely, you begin to feel tired, discouraged, irritated, frustrated and hopeless.  Your own energy begins to ebb away.  You decide to put off the rush of getting your article written.  After all, you might as well go out for a walk."  ~~ Edith Schaeffer, "Environment" in The Hidden Art of Homemaking 

"Yet it was chiefly her body that was tired now; her mind, which had been so weary and fretted in London, had been wonderfully rested by this house that was now her home....[Nadine] stretched out a hand and laid it upon the paneled wall beside her; it was warm in the sun, as though it were alive....This house was maison-dieu, and the stripping away of all that was unworthy and the building up of new beauty was in the nature of a crusade.  And the house had agreed and collaborated."  ~~ The Herb of Grace 

"It goes without saying, too, that 'The Environment,' which is you should be an environment which speaks of the wonder of the Creator who made you."  ~~ "Environment"

"[John Adair] jumped up, went to meet David with outstretched hand, faced him squarely with his tawny eyes alight.  'Forgive the impatience of these two musketeers waiting for the third.' The extraordinary warmth of the tone astonished David, the almost blazing kindness in the eyes, the strong grasp of the hand that seemed apologizing for he did not know what...."  ~~ The Herb of Grace

What was it that allowed John Adair to move from a position of scorn and resentment, and to offer this sudden unexpected and undeserved grace to David?

A sudden flash of understanding that David was made "of the same stuff as himself."

(15th century woodcut linked from this page, although I can't find the reference)

The Bird in the Tree, by Elizabeth Goudge (Book review)

The Bird in the Tree, by Elizabeth Goudge

I'm reading the Damerosehay trilogy out of sequence; my review of the second book, The Herb of Grace (Pilgrim's Inn)  is here.

It's a slow-moving novel, full of descriptions and decisions, but without much action.  My guess after reading the second book was that you could more or less skip the first one, and I still think the first one might turn you off from reading the second, which would be too bad.  But it does have its own strong points.

This is the storyline: twenty years ago, in 1918, Lucilla Eliot bought a house by the sea, and began raising her orphaned grandson David.  For the past two years she has also cared for the three children of her son George, because George’s wife Nadine left him in India and went into the antiques business. (Lucilla can't figure out how selling Chippendale chairs means "living one's own life" more than, say, taking care of one's own house and children.) Now David confesses to his grandmother that he loves Nadine (she is only a few years older than David) and that they plan to marry.  Nadine arrives, supposedly to visit the children but really to face the music with Lucilla, and the three of them sit down for a “Talking To.”

Of course Grandmother is bossy and moralistic. Of course she should stay out of their business; technically, David and Nadine aren't doing anything wrong (Nadine and George are already divorced).  The trouble is, Lucilla's right. This relationship is going to mess not only with the already-messed-up kids, but with the whole extended family and even the ownership of the house. She also knows this from experience: she had the chance to run off with somebody years ago too, but realized at the last minute how that would affect her husband and children.

The way you can tell that this is a 1940 Elizabeth Goudge book and not a 2013 anybody-else book is that David and Nadine actually listen to the sermon, and end the story by trying to straighten things out. (Some issues aren't really resolved until the next book.)  David goes off to Europe for awhile (that doesn't sound too safe in 1938, but whatever).  Nadine takes a boat to India to make up with George. Grandmother is still stuck with the kids.

It's not big news to say that self-denial is not a popular concept in 2013. "Sticking things out" comes way behind "what I want right now" and "love is something you can't fight."  It's too bad that this book, flowery and dated as it is, isn't likely to have a lot of attraction for those young enough to get the most out of its message...but I guess we middle-aged ones can use a reminder now and then too.

"Flowers and sunsets, moon on water..." (Hidden Art of Homemaking, Chapter 12)

"I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. What does this mean? I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still takes care of them. He also gives me clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, wife and children, land, animals, and all I have. He richly and daily provides me with all that I need to support this body and life." ~~ Martin Luther, The Small Catechism

"He who created us, who created the universe, who created the fruits and vegetables, who created the flowers and 'clothed' them in beauty, is the One who is telling us that we need not worry about food, drink or clothing." ~~ Edith Schaeffer, "Clothing," The Hidden Art of Homemaking

"We who are dressing ourselves and our children, providing for missionaries or friends, making things for orphans or refugees should 'consider the flowers,' the lilies of the field, and consider it our part, as finite imperfect human beings, to be as creative as we have the talent to be!....The Christian...is the representative of a King--the King of Kings and Lord of Lords."  ~~ Edith Schaeffer

"When I gave her my stockings I forgot they were the only black pair I had without holes, but I am glad I did give them to her, because my conscience would have been uncomfortable if I hadn't. When she had gone away, looking so proud and happy, the poor little thing, I remembered that all I had to wear were the horrid red and blue things Aunt Martha knit last winter for me out of some yarn that Mrs. Joseph Burr of Upper Glen sent us. It was dreadfully coarse yarn and all knots, and I never saw any of Mrs. Burr's own children wearing things made of such yarn. But Mary Vance says Mrs. Burr gives the minister stuff that she can't use or eat herself, and thinks it ought to go as part of the salary her husband signed to pay, but never does." ~~ L.M. Montgomery, Rainbow Valley

Linked from the Hidden Art of Homemaking linky for Chapter 12 at Ordo Amoris

Back in the box: updates on Dollygirl's Grade 7 plans (updated)

Those of you who have followed along here know I have been posting (and revising) Dollygirl's September school plans on a separate page.  Like I said before, it's mostly Ambleside Online's Year Seven, but wearing a vintage dress:  substituting the P.U.S. English and French history books for Churchill's Birth of Britain, and experimenting a bit with the literature list.  I had a list of the books to use for those subjects, but hadn't gotten down to figuring out exactly how or when.

I'm also revisiting some materials that the Apprentice used in middle school, things I wasn't sure if we'd ever use again:  a first edition copy of Apologia General Science (Ponytails used that too), a second edition Saxon Algebra 1/2, and a 1999 set of Power Glide French (we hope our cassette player holds out).  All these books, the Apprentice used successfully at around Dollygirl's age, so knowing that inspires some confidence that they'll be good choices again.  One important note:  for all three of those, we'll plan on doing only the first half of the book. 

But this is the big change I'm working on.  Dollygirl still has the workboxing chart I made for her four years ago, and she asked me if we would ever be doing workboxing again.  I said no, probably not.  It worked well with our homeschooling situation that year, but that was then, this is now.  I thought about it some more, and wondered if anybody out there was even still using workboxes.  I browsed around and found this post on Hope for Homeschool: a no-busywork, simple workboxing setup and routine for middle school and up.   You don't even have to load the boxes every night or have every page number pre-scheduled; for older kids who are basically using the same books day after day, you can just check what they've accomplished (or they can) and record it on a planner page.  In which case I guess you don't call it a planner page, it's a checker page or a journal page, but whatever.

That was exactly...well, almost exactly...what we needed, for two reasons.  First,  the physical side of it made sense (although we will use Ponytails' old plastic magazine holder system instead of drawers).  We don't have a lot of floor space for drawers, or racks of shoeboxes, but we do have a cabinet where the books can be shut away when school's done.  Second, thinking of subjects in "boxes" forces me to simplify or at least nail down what we're doing.  The Hope for Homeschool family use Sonlight Curriculum, but that's easy enough to translate into our more-or-less Ambleside Online plans.

Besides the box system, I also like Merry's teacher box (I have one of those giant Easy Grammar Plus teacher's manuals too) and teacher binder.  They're really not that different from organizing tools we've used in the past, but her photos are giving me a bit of extra inspiration for the coming year.

I've updated the Grade 7 Plans page to reflect the workboxing additions.

A Canadian painting for homeschoolers!

"Playing School," by Daphne Odjig, 1981.  (Colour serigraph on paper; more here.)

(My favourite from yesterday's art gallery visit.)

P.S.  I know it's not a painting, but "colour serigraph" sounded funny in the subject line.  Happy Canada Day.
Linked from the Carnival of Homeschooling: Enjoy Reinvention Edition at Dewey's Treehouse.

The thirteenth doughnut (Hidden Art of Homemaking Chapter 11)

“The object of education is to put a child in living touch with as much as may be of the life of Nature and of thought…. a child has natural relations with a vast number of things and thoughts: so we must train him upon physical exercises, nature, handicrafts, science and art, and upon many living books….Add to this one or two keys to self knowledge, and the educated youth goes forth with some idea of self management, with some pursuits, and many vital interests.” ~~ Charlotte Mason, 1923

"...they need not just give up and 'sit', living other people's lives on the screen and 'graduating' one day to the place where they have no interest, no enthusiasm, and no excitement....the impersonal universe of man's making is one which does not produce a base for creativity." ~~ Edith Schaeffer, 1971

"A leisurely education offers freedom from the small round of busywork, opportunity to grab hold of something bigger, learning to see ourselves (including our children) more as we are in God's time and in God's universe. Living without futility." ~~ Mama Squirrel, 2010

"The kingdom of God is a party," Tony Campolo said.  When we've lost our joy, sometimes we need to get away and hear the quiet...and sometimes we need to minister to others who are feeling dull, show how parents, Christians, old fogeys like us, can do a little more.  Do you know the phrase "la yapa," which is related to the word lagniappe? It's something a market vendor throws in for free with a purchase; the same idea as the thirteenth doughnut in a baker's dozen. 

Edith says there are two different ways to think of "creative recreation": first, some activity (probably outdoors) that gets you away from the daily noise and allows you to re-energize your spirit, which will probably also give your creative batteries a boost...a short sabbatical or day off. Second, something "creative" that you come up with to re-energize others; something different, original, fun. To quote from The Hobbit, an unexpected party. Something extra.  Maybe you could call it a creative lagniappe.

On this particular weekend that includes Canada Day and our wedding anniversary, we have not gotten too ambitious. We've all been busy with a major housecleaning and other things that have left us a bit tired and not up for long hikes or big parties. It's the peak of strawberry season here, though, and we had a memorable barbecued dinner tonight with fresh spinach salad, and strawberry shortcake for dessert. "Anticipated" can be as good as "unexpected." [Update: we did go to a free local art gallery, too, which would have made Edith happy with us.  We also browsed through an antiques market, which may not be as good as contemplating nature, but it's fun anyway.]

What can you do this week to recharge your own spiritual and creative batteries?

What can you do to bring an unexpected smile to someone else?

Linked from the Hidden Art of Homemaking Linky for Chapter 11 at Ordo Amoris.

Edith Schaeffer's Subversive Family Reading (Hidden Art of Homemaking)

And first he went through Waste-paper-land, where all the stupid books lie in heaps, up hill and down dale, like leaves in a winter wood; and there he saw people digging and grubbing among them, to make worse books out of bad ones, and thrashing chaff to save the dust of it; and a very good trade they drove thereby, especially among children.  ~~ Charles Kingsley, The Water Babies

In Chapter 10 of Hidden Art of Homemaking, Edith Schaeffer writes that there are "four kinds of books."  Fantasy, realistic fiction, biographies, and the Bible.

Well, I should think there are a few more kinds of books than that in the world!  I'm not even sure where, in that list, she'd put some of the books she names elsewhere, such as books of poetry and Pilgrim's Progress.

But as a start for read-aloud books, it's not bad.

The read-aloud staples for Edith's own children included "Winnie-the-Pooh...Alice in Wonderland and The Wind in the Willows and The Water Babies...the 'Anne' books..." and "The Pilgrim's Progress on Sundays."

Interesting, interesting, interesting.  These are NOT, strictly speaking, yer usual evangelical Reformed-type favourites.  Lucy Maud Montgomery had a few religious quirks that show up throughout the Anne books.  The Wind in the Willows has a couple of chapters (like the one about Pan) that get skipped in some families..besides, it's full of talking animals. Even Charles Kingsley, dull and moralistic as his reputatation has become, was not exactly smack in the center of theological acceptability (somewhat like George MacDonald).  (According to Wikipedia, he was one of the first to publish praise of Charles Darwin's work.)  The books of Charles Kingsley and "Lewis Carroll" are fun (often), educational (sometimes), satirical, thoughtful, and definitely somewhat subversive.  Not what Kingsley called "stupid books," but not what you might find in a Christian bookstore, either, unless it's an unusually open-minded one.

Perhaps it's a good thing the Schaeffers ended their weeks with Pilgrim's Progress.

She says they also liked the Little House books, Gene Stratton Porter's books, Louisa May Alcott.  All books full of sweetness and light?  No, not exactly...how about illness and death, blatant racism, psycho landladies with knives, and a kind of Emersonian-naturish take on Christianity?  "And there is no better starting point for the father and mother to discuss Biblical answers," says Edith.  "Many of Fran's deep discussions with our own children had this very natural starting place."

Her paragraph on C.S. Lewis (the Narnia books and, later, the Space Trilogy) is illuminating too.  "Of course these are imaginative and not 'real' but C.S. Lewis's idea of what the heavenly country may be like.  Young people who are really well grounded in the teaching of the Bible will not get confused, and Lewis's approach really does something to make the supernatural seem not so far away and impossible."

Being on the Charlotte Mason end of the homeschooling spectrum, our family has explored a number of books that make some people nervous, and simultaneously avoided a few that everybody seemed to be reading.  It's only recently that Dollygirl (finishing sixth grade) has been allowed to read the Harry Potter series; we have been cautious with Madeleine L'Engle's books, and although Mama Squirrel loved The Dark is Rising years ago, it's not a series we've encouraged the girls to read.  "But you're reading me The Lord of the Rings, and the story of The Aeneid," pointed out Dollygirl.  "Look at all those wizards and goddesses and everything.  So why didn't you want us to read Harry Potter?"  Marketing, I told her.

Related posts:
Notes from a Book Talk (2007)

Linked from the Hidden Art of Homemaking linky for Chapter 10 at Ordo Amoris

Dollygirl's Grade Six Spring Exam Questions

Adapted from Parent's Union School exams for Form II.

Bible Lessons.

1. Explain one of these passages from Saviour of the World:

"Go thou to Gennesareth and cast a hook ;
Draw the first fish to land, nor pause to ask
Is't small or great ; when thou hast ope'd his mouth,
A shekel thou shalt find ; that take and pay
To the men - just Temple-dues for thee and Me."

2. "Thou think'st to stay thy life with pride and praise,
Fond braveries of the earth,
Fat things and fragrant would'st have all thy days,
Riches, renown and mirth?
Poor soul, a mystery be to thy fond eyes revealed -
Those choice things thou dost covet devour as a worm concealed."

Writing.

Write four lines of poetry from memory (in your best handwriting).

Dictation (unprepared).

Composition.

1. Tell a story in prose, or verse, about one of the following,--Aeneas, Juno, Gandalf, Treebeard.

2. Tell about a museum or other historic place you have visited.

General History.

1. What are some ways Augustus Caesar tried to restore faith in the gods of the Roman forefathers? Was he successful?

2. Tell what you know of "The Old Silk Road."

Citizenship.

1. Tell some of the low and high points of the life of Winston Churchill.

2. "Cognitive dissonance is a form of stress that happens when a person encounters a fact or persuasive idea that disagrees with his model.  The more important his model is to him, the greater will be his stress."  (Uncle Eric Talks About Personal, Career, and Financial Security)  What does this mean?  Give examples.

Geography.

1. What are some ways that “making a living” has changed in Cornwall and Devon? (What did people do in days gone by? What are the main industries today?)

2. Describe a visit to a) Redruth, b) Tintagel.

3. Define a) pilchards, b) clotted cream, c) hot pennies.

Natural History and General Science.

1. Draw and explain something of what you would see in an ancient “coal forest.” OR tell generally what you know of the story of coal.

2. Tell how a water clock works.

3. Explain why one “dead-heads” flowers. How often should this be done?

4.  Tell about the discovery of "Planet X."

Picture Study.

Describe Matthew Maris's pictures:

A "The Girl at the Pump."

B "Butterflies."

French.

1. Describe, in French, the pictures on page 76 and 80.

2. Use, in written sentences, the phrases “plus grand que,” “le roi est,” “il y a”.

3. Translate this into English: "Nous sommes en hiver. Il y a de la neige et les enfants au sortir de l’école font des boules de neige et se les jettent. Il y a deux garçons sur le mur."

Drawing.

1. An original illustration from The Lord of the Rings.

2. Abby’s Garden.

3. A man on a horse, jumping, galloping.

Recitations

Father to choose a Psalm, a poem, or a passage from the Bible Lessons.

Reading.

Father to choose an unseen passage, giving marks for enunciation.

Music.

Tell what you know about the writing of Handel’s Messiah or about the (true story of) The Water Music.

Linked from the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival at Higher Up and Further In.

What they did for Plutarch (CM Digital Archives)

I wrote a post in March describing how the Parents' Union School (Charlotte Mason's school and correspondence program) made use of certain versions of Plutarch's Lives.  At that point, seeing as I had come to the end of the Programmes on the Ambleside Online site, and (seemingly) the P.U.S. had come to the end of their versions, it was a question as to what would happen next.  (Yes, I know, the suspense is killing you.)

Anyway, this week it finally registered with this feeble brain that there are not only Charlotte Mason Digital Archives online, but that if one types in "Programme 96" or whatever, one can have all those questions answered.  Programmes galore, right up through the 1930's.

So here's what I found, based on the Form III (age 12-15) programmes.  Other Forms did Plutarch as well, and occasionally Form IV did a different one, but generally I think it was the same across the school.

From my previous post:  "In Programme 90 (spring 1921), they did Timoleon.  Programme 91, Paulus Aemilius (big surprise).  Programme 92, Form III did Julius Caesar (it fit their history) and Form IV did Agis and Cleomenes.  Programme 93, Form III did Coriolanus, Form IV did Tiberius and Caius Gracchi.  Programme 94, everybody did Brutus."

Programme 95:  Alexander, first half, using the Blackie's English Texts version edited by W.H.D. Rouse.

Programme 96:  Alexander, second half.

Programme 97:  Aristides, "teacher to read with omissions."  The (North's) version recommended was from a multi-volume set of Plutarch published by Dent.  This is the first programme I've ever seen that actually mentioned the "necessary omissions"; my guess is that the Blackie's editions had been somewhat edited for schools but that they couldn't get Aristides in an edited version.

Programme 98:  Pyrrhus, from the Dent volume.  "Teacher to read with careful omissions."

Programme 99:  T.Q. Flamininus, "teacher to read suitable parts with careful omissions," from the Dent volume.

Programme 100:  Pompey, in a Blackie edition, but it's noted "pages 1-64."

Programme 101:  Pompey,  the rest of the book

Programme 102:  Themistocles, in a Blackie edition.

Programme 103:  Pericles, in a Blackie edition (the same two-in-one book as 102).  (Form IV as well)

Programme 104:  Julius Caesar, Blackie edition (so the first repeat we have had) (Form IV as well)

Programme 105:  Coriolanus.

Programme 106:  (Could you guess?)  Brutus.

Programme 107:  Demosthenes (Blackie edition combined with Alcibiades)

Programme 108:  Alcibiades (Blackie).

So there we go.

Linked from the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival at Higher Up and Further In.

The Drama of Reading Aloud (Hidden Art of Homemaking, Chapter 10)

"Reading aloud is the best outlet that I know of for hidden dramatic ability.  It is the best development of speaking ability, and the least complicated exercise for the use of one's voice and expression."  ~~ Edith Schaeffer, Hidden Art of Homemaking

If you've read Chapter 10 of Hidden Art, you'll  know that the chapter has very little to do with drama (as in, let's put on a play) and a great deal to do with the importance of reading...aloud, together...in families.  What's often stressed these days is the importance of reading to children, which is also very important and which can be almost the same thing.  But in terms of Hidden Art, this goes beyond simply "a story for the children" and becomes an intergenerational experience.

"I could not wait to begin reading to my first child, Priscilla.  I am afraid I started before she could possibly understand what it was all about, but she enjoyed being talked to just the same.  By the time she was eighteen months old she was clamouring every night for the same poem."  ~~ Edith Schaeffer

"She talks a lot about Peter Rabbit. We had a bunny or something in our own garden a few nights ago, that chewed off some bean vines and marigolds, so the story has become more real! She talks about Peter losing his jacket and shoes...When she sneezes she says “bless you,” but she prefers me to say “bless you my little fur child” from The Little Fur Family." ~~ Mama Squirrel's journal, when the Apprentice had just turned two

"To live through these books together, to experience them as a family, is something quite vivid and real, much much more real than reading alone." ~~ Edith Schaeffer

"We read her Jack and the Beanstalk (the Stephen Kellogg version) ...We went pretty easy on the grind-his-bones stuff, and that didn’t seem to bother her. She talks about the 'logre' (ogre), the golden eggs, and 'magic beans.'  She asked me if Jesus loves the logre."  ~~ Mama Squirrel's journal, just before the Apprentice turned three

"Our children go into the world of school, newspapers, TV, magazines, conversations and modern books, and are deluged with an almost monolithic voice of unbelief and materialism.  We ought not only to 'talk'--but try to take them and ourselves back into the hearing of other 'voices' as we shut out the 'world' and read."  ~~ Edith Schaeffer

"Babar continues to interest, she talks about the characters and asks me questions. At church someone requested prayer for someone who was ill, and she said, 'like the old king.' We’re still reading the Potter books. I have begun reading the authors’ names as I begin books, so now she’ll pick up a book and intone 'Peter Rabbit…by Bay-a-trix Potter...' She says she 'loves' the Beatrix Potter stories. She knows whole lines off by heart, from the five books we have. She carries the books around too." ~~ Mama Squirrel's journal

"...the talent will be employed in making it real to others.  And, incidentally, your own need in this area will begin to be fulfilled."  ~~ Edith Schaeffer

Photos by Mr. Fixit.  Copyright 2013, Dewey's Treehouse.

Linked from the Hidden Art of Homemaking linky for Chapter 10 at Ordo Amoris

Dollygirl's Grade Six: Last Week of Classes (updated)

Most of what we're going to get to this year...we've gotten to.  The rest will have to wait, because both Dollygirl and Mama Squirrel are ready for a break.  Ponytails is also in her last few days of public high school Grade Ten, and she will also be writing exams over the next week and a half.
We're still reading The Two Towers, and that won't be done by the end of school.  Summer reading!

MONDAY

Video about Brother Andrew:



Poetry, memory work

Key to Percents

Geography
"Waterfront activities" (swimming lesson)

TUESDAY

Video about Brother Andrew:



Poetry, memory work

Key to Percents:  end-of-book test!

The Aeneid: 9 pages
WEDNESDAY

Reading from the Book of Proverbs

Amy Grant video with French subtitles (fun!)



Virgil's Aeneid, by N.B. Taylor:  we read all the way to the end!
THURSDAY

Critical Thinking Balance Benders, Level 2

A math challenge about patterns that I found online

A couple of Usborne pages about the late Roman Empire and the spread of Christianity

To communicate with...words (Hidden Art, The Writing Chapter)

If one of Edith Schaeffer's main messages in The Hidden Art of Homemaking is that art communicates...

and that the forms of homemaking art she has already discussed (such as music, graphic art, decorating, flowers, food) communicate, non-verbally, something about the Creator, something of the beauty of His creation, something generally of beauty and truth...to put it another way, they are a sort of mostly-unspoken message that communicates what we believe (that there is a Creator God, that he has created us as individuals, that we are created in His image, meaning we share some of his attributes including something of His creativity)...

then is it paradoxical that the writing chapter seems the most difficult so far to place into that framework?

Maybe it's because when we think of a home, homemaking, we think visually, not verbally.  Other than maybe a quotation on the fridge, or an embroidered or stencilled motto, or something we've stuck up for education or inspiration in the homeschooling space, words themselves don't tend to be part of the homemaking scenery, or at least the permanent decoration of a room.  Books, magazines, newspapers, yes; but words as words, no, at least in Western culture; maybe verbally, through people conversing or singing, or heard on the radio, and of course all over the peanut butter jars and cereal boxes;  but not (usually) on the wall, not on the plate, not arranged artistically and then painted or photographed as a still life.  A quilt, a tree, a vase of flowers, a bowl of apples, a piano concerto all seem to have a more fluid way of coming into our field of vision (or hearing), speaking more strongly to anyone who comes within range than, say, a sermon, a paragraph, or even a poem, that has to be read from beginning to end, top to bottom. 

And, in fact, that's a big part of what Edith is trying to get us to do with all these hidden arts of homemaking: use visual (or musical, or culinary) language to communicate that God exists, that He created the world, that individuals matter because God created them in His image, that God loves us, and that Christians care for each other. The whole point is to be able to say those things in a kind of visual and active shorthand, rather than offending or boring people with streams of God-talk. Charlotte Mason said much the same thing: that parents should reserve direct talk about God for particularly meaningful moments; not that Deuteronomy is wrong where it says that we should speak of God when we rise up, walk on the way etc., but just that it's easy to weary children (or grownups) with endless religious verbiage.

So where does that leave our poor little unpretty words?

"To try to teach literature by starting with the applied use of words, or 'effective communication', as it's often called, then gradually work into literature through the more documentary forms of prose fiction and finally into poetry, seems to me a futile procedure. If literature is to be properly taught, we have to start at its centre, which is poetry, then work outwards to literary prose, then outwards from there to the applied languages of business and professions and ordinary life."--Northrop Frye, The Educated Imagination

The words may not be decorative, but they're still important. What did people do at L'Abri besides hike in the mountains, eat orange rolls, and play guitars (and, according to Edith, do an awful lot of laundry and dishes?)  Talked.  Talked and talked and talked.  Sometimes they listened to tapes of talking.  Sometimes they read and then talked. 

Maybe, to try to combine Northrop Frye and Edith, the poetry they began with was a tea table, or the healing effects of working in the garden.  In one of the L'Abri-related books...I think maybe it was For the Children's Sake...a guest is mentioned as being struck by the children playing outside; just playing, being children.  He said that he didn't know that children still played like that.  The simple and meaningful times of life together can be seen as poetry.

But without the more prosy and ordinary words to surround those images, the poetry loses context.  According to Edith, that's where the value of brief "lunchbox" notes and longer letters to the children (and, in the next chapter, bedtime rituals and prayers)  comes in.  A picture may be worth a thousand words, but eventually you're going to need at least a few of them to say, out loud or in writing, "I love you," "I'm sorry," or "Here's why we do what we do."   This doesn't negate what I was trying to say in a previous post about the importance of writers, or about trying to turn art (including written art) into something that's just religiously useful or a tool for evangelism...although written art can be "useful" in what Northrop Frye calls a reality-is-irrelevant sense, not in a didactic or isn't-that-nice way, but in the same way as a great painting is "useful": that it speaks to us of truth, of beauty, of God, through what it is.  In the next chapter, Edith talks more about one way we use words to communicate in our homes: through reading aloud to each other, and not just "religious" books and the Bible, but all kinds of fiction, poetry and more.

But for now, in this chapter, we need to allow the words-in-the-home, the words we speak or write to each other, to have their chance to do their own work.  Life, as Marilla said, is uncertain.  If we haven't been making the time to talk to those who are close by, or write or email those who are away, then we need to find the words to do that.

"Education is a matter of developing the intellect and the imagination, which deal with reality, and reality is always irrelevant."  ~~ Northrop Frye

Linked from the Hidden Art of Homemaking linky at Ordo Amoris.

Getting all swirly: the writing chapter (Hidden Art of Homemaking)

PART ONE:  A COMPLAINT

Up until this point in Hidden Art I haven't gotten too close to any specific talent or need-to-create that Edith Schaeffer has been describing.

I like to make stuff, but I'm not a decorator.

I cook dinner, but I'm not a chef.

I play the piano, but I don't consider myself much of a musician.

I even draw sometimes, but I am very far from being an artist. I'm satisfied with doodles.

Ah, but now we get to a bit of an "ouch" chapter for me: "Writing: Prose and Poetry."  My so-called training (twenty-plus years ago) was in writing.  I pick up books about writing.  I read biographies of writers. The thing I've never figured out what to do with, myself, is writing.  I'm not a professional writer, although I've occasionally been paid for writing magazine columns, and I've done a number of unpaid projects.  I've had ideas for novels, but they've usually fizzled.  I've often used the excuse, "there are too many bad books out there already, so why would I want to add another one?"  It's been a point of guilt (I should be doing such and such) and frustration (I don't think I really can do such and such), in the same way as Edith describes.  And when she talks about "boo hoo, you couldn't go to the music conservatory" or whatever, "so use your talents to bless those around you," in the other artistic areas, I'm fine with that.  But now she's saying, "use your writing talents to write funny notes for lunchboxes. Or maybe prayers."  I'm not so fine with that.

Emily Carr, "Scorned as Timber, Beloved of the Sky"

Is that the way the artists and musicians feel about her suggestions in the other chapters, that painting a mural on your child's wall is the equivalent of having something hung in the National Gallery?  If you were meant to paint for the National Gallery, if you are Emily Carr or Mary Cassatt, you are not going to feel very fulfilled by little dibs and dabs here and there, occasional sketching jaunts to the park.  If you have the talent and drive and believe God has called you to be a serious artist, then your work deserves more respect than that.  If you have an important or uplifting or hilarious book churning to be born, then you should write it, and writing the Sunday School Christmas play is not the same thing. 

That's not to say that you can't have other responsibilities or jobs.  Lucy Maud Montgomery "scribbled" after hard days working in the post office and then taking care of her old grandmother.  Melissa Wiley wrote a post about how a busy mom finds time to write.  (Melissa said, "If I don’t write my head gets swirly with pent-up words and I am no use to anyone.")  But I think the reason this chapter gets under my skin has something to do with the fact that women artists, musicians, writers, have had a hard time being taken seriously, and taking themselves seriously.  It feels like a bit of betrayal to have Edith Schaeffer telling us that we ought to be satisfied with "just" using our creative talents to feed our families, decorate our homes, illustrate sermons.  Yes, those are very, very important places to use creativity, scatter grace, bless those around us!  But it strikes me that we need to be careful too not to think that our talents should be less...public?...just because we're women.

PART TWO:  A MEMORY

My dad's family...his aunts, grandparents and so on, so mostly before my time...seem to have been a wildly creative bunch.  Unexpectedly so, since most of them were also staunch, staid Scottish Presbyterians;they were hardworking farm people, blacksmiths, housemaids. Several of them were musicians--not professionals, just church musicians, organists, people-with-tuning-forks.  Some were writers, book people, town librarians.  (There's probably a connection with Robert Louis Stevenson, although I'm not sure how that works out.)  One of my great-aunts painted in her spare time with pastels and oils, fulfilling a dream that her (staunch staid Anglican) mother had tried to squelch years before by refusing to let her take art lessons.   My uncle was a florist. I have cousins on that side of the family who are decorators, design jewelery, make furniture (I think they probably blew glass and made candles during the 1970's too).

And there was one particular auntie...she was my great-great-aunt, so I never remember her as anything but old (she looked like Corrie Ten Boom).  But out of all of the relatives, she was known for being the most young-at-heart.  She lived to be ninety-plus, and even then she liked to make people laugh, especially with funny verses.  I don't think she ever wrote a book or got particularly angsty (see above) about her need to make art; she just created anyway.  When she was a young thing of about forty, she wrote a funny poem about an adventure she had delivering furniture with my great-aunt (the painter) and another young lady who became my grandmother (and who expressed her own creativity mostly through quilts).  It started like this:

"Lend me your ears and you will hear
A tale that I shall unfold
How three young maids without any fear
Rode off in a truck quite old.

"T’was a model of 1914, they say
And that I can well understand.
It sure could travel all the way.
But it rattled to beat the band.

"On the outside was 'Cowan’s Maple Buds'
In lettering large and red.
And on the inside-a sewing machine
And springs for an iron bed...."

She enjoyed life, she was well-loved, and the thirty years since she's been gone have been the poorer for not having her around.  Is that a resolution to the problem?--that, sometimes, those things are enough?

PART THREE:  SERVING IN GOD'S KINGDOM

Did you ever hear of Lillias Trotter?  She was a turn-of-the-last-century missionary in Algeria.  Before that, when she was young, she was a very promising painter, a protégé of the artist and critic John Ruskin.  He said that if she concentrated on her art career, she would probably become very famous.  She thought it over,  and decided God was calling her to devote her life to missions instead.  She didn't feel she could could do both.  Her story reminds me (to come back to the Schaeffers) of Jane Stuart Smith, who left a career in opera to work at L'Abri.  Lillias continued to use her art, recording desert landscapes and illustrating her devotional books.  Jane continued to minister with music, in various ways.  Talented women who "drop out" tend to be viewed as if they've betrayed the sisterhood somewhat, as if these underachievers haven't done enough to prove that they're people-not-just-women.  And that's me too, I guess.  I "dropped out" (not that I was doing all that well even "dropping in" in the first place) to do the things I've been doing for the past twenty years. 

The sermon at our church yesterday referred to the verse in Proverbs about ants who store food in summer.  The speaker (a woman!) pointed out that the true wisdom of these ants (or in Leo Lionni's mice) is in knowing what season they're in--not hung up on the past or the future, but living out the tasks that are given them today; not being unprepared for the winter, but making the most of seasons of preparation.  I think of Edith's expoundings on creativity as somewhat like that.  It isn't good  to think either "I could have done" or "maybe someday" to the point where you can't make the most of today.  Even if maybe you have to write in the bathroom or whatever.  But that doesn't stop you from thinking ahead either, maybe to times when life will change, for good or bad; in using and improving the skills you have use for future needs. 

And as for me...I have to go put the squash on for supper.

Linked from the Hidden Art of Homemaking linky for Chapter 9 at Ordo Amoris.

Rosemary Sutcliff's King Arthur Trilogy (Book Review)

The Sword and the Circle (1981); The Light Beyond the Forest (1979); The Road to Camlann (1981), by Rosemary Sutcliff.  Published in one volume as The King Arthur Trilogy or King Arthur Stories.

How do you compare the work of two storytelling masters like T.H. White (The Once and Future King) and Rosemary Sutcliff?  I recently finished Sutcliff's King Arthur Trilogy, and then went back and re-read a good part of White's version, which I'd forgotten a good deal of since reading the first two books of it with The Apprentice years ago.  (Ambleside Online recommends that only the first two books of TOaFK be read in Year Seven, since the other two are darker and more adult.)  I've been looking for a good King Arthur choice for Crayons for next fall, when she will be in Year Seven, and I'm leaning towards The Sword and the Circle. It's not that the two wouldn't be complementary, but, as a trilogy (Sutcliff) or a four-"book" novel (White), they're both pretty long.  Not to mention intense.

And this is where King Arthur, any King Arthur, becomes problematic for school reading.  White points out somewhere in TOaFK that there is a reason Malory's 15th-century Le Morte d'Arthur is called what it's called ("The Death of Arthur").  The beginning of the story is the beginning of the end, and the end, we are led to believe, is inevitable.  Friendship leads to betrayal, and laws intended for justice bring grief.  Evil women conspire and seduce, friends and family members kill each other, and knights described as gallant and gentle also destroy and are destroyed.  To take the story to its end is to explore tragedy.  But how far do you want to go with that exploration, say with a twelve-year-old?

Sutcliff's rendering--she draws heavily on Malory as well as on other ballads and legends--is more traditional and straightforward, not as satirical as White's.  It's also much less talky; White's characters have long philosophical conversations about might and right, and he spends pages trying to set straight our romanticized ideas of the "Arthurian age."  Sutcliff takes less of a world-weary tone, makes fewer all-over-the-place analogies (White compares one battle to a scene from the Wild West), and does not include White's gruesome and detailed descriptions of magic practices and other disturbing images (parental previewing is seriously recommended).  Neither is particularly explicit about the relationship between Lancelot and Guenever. On the other hand, even the first of Sutcliff's three books is full of sword exploits, bereaved maidens, and the evil half-sisters.  These are fairy tales grown large and serious, and when the wizard and the enchantress characters have faded out partway through the story, what's left is a seriously confused bunch of human beings, most of them decent-hearted but with a couple of apparent sociopaths among them to keep things stirred up.

If, like the book Peter Pan, you (and the twelve-year-old) can accept the story, in either Sutcliff or White's telling, mostly as fairy tale, as legend, as a stage drama; if you can view it as the inspiration for dozens of later storytellers, poets, painters; then probably either volume, or limited parts of it as AO recommends, will work as literature for junior-high age.

"He said then, that when Percival came to join us, it would be as though he were a herald."
"A herald?"
"A sign, then.  For by his coming we should know that within less than a year the Mystery of the Holy Grail would come--will come, upon us here at Camelot...and the knights will leave the Round Table and ride out upon the greatest quest of all."
"We shall come together again," said Lancelot, trying to console him.
"Some of us," said the King.  "But it will not be the same; never the same again....We shall have served our purpose; made a shining time between the Dark and the Dark.  Merlin said that it would be as though all things drew on to the golden glory of the sunset.  But then it will all be over."  ~~ Rosemary Sutcliff, The Sword and the Circle

Dollygirl's Grade Six: Time Traveller Week (updated)

"Camp Doll Diaries" continues this week with a "Time Traveller" theme, so we're working that into our second-last week of school.  Good chance to finish up history studies!  We will also continue reading The Two Towers.

(I am not including our regular opening times, poetry etc. here.)

MONDAY

History (Augustus Caesar's World):  "Hermann the German"
Key to Percents:  page 35.
French:  played Concentration with vocabulary words, but you had to put them into a sentence before you could claim a pair
The Aeneid, pages 170-180: lots of fighting, actually quite a violent ten pages.
Camp Crafts and Time Travelling
The Two Towers
Swimming lesson after supper

TUESDAY

Opening:  a poem by George Herbert
History (Augustus Caesar's World): "Farewell Augustus"; we watched a clip from Winston Churchill's state funeral as a comparison
Key to Percents: page 36, 37.
Balance Benders
French:  practice putting vocabulary words in sentences; write sentences using French words for "I want," "you want," "she wants."
The Aeneid, pages 181-189:  the gods all have a meeting to discuss their involvement/interference in the friction between the Trojans and the Rutulians; Venus says it's not fair, Juno says the Trojans deserve what they get, and Jove says he's staying out of it.
Camp Crafts:  made a pair of doll flip-flops plus an ink well and a clipboard for Samantha.
Camp Sports: driveway basketball with Dad

WEDNESDAY

History (Augustus Caesar's World): "The Kingdom of Heaven"
Key to Percents: page 38, 39
French
Read aloud: Tolkien
Camp Crafts and Time Travelling

THURSDAY  

Morning activity:  baking cookies at a friend's house (it's a church thing for Father's Day).

FRIDAY  

History (Augustus Caesar's World): "A New Religion for Rome" (end of the book)
Key to Percents: page 40, 41 (almost done Book 2)
Work on People Pages/timelines.
French
The Aeneid, pages 190-200
Camp Crafts and Time Travelling
Camper-of-the-week Awards

Sheer nostalgia, last post: Three vintage toys with fun names

Fuzzy Felt

Tog'L Blocks

Colourforms (Colorforms if you're American)

What's for supper? (really cleaning out the fridge, again)

Tonight's dinner menu:

Stovetop dinner inspired by a Leave-it-to-Beaver-era recipe, but using, more or less, what we had on hand:  a pound of ground beef, some macaroni,  a can of mushroom soup plus a bit of leftover tomato soup, a bit of corn, celery, and seasonings.  Definitely some seasonings.  And cheese on top.

Carrot and zucchini sticks

Fruit pie made with the end of some frozen fruit and an oatmeal topping.

Tomorrow:  groceries.

Sheer nostalgia #4: Tupperware toys

Tupperware toys were everywhere when I was a kid.  At our house, at friends' houses, in doctors' waiting rooms.  I was invited to a Tupperware party recently and noticed that they still have some of the same toys.  Too bad our kids are too old for them.

 Our kids' dentist had a vintage set of these animal toys in his waiting room.

 We had Pop-a-lot toys like this pair, but ours had a sort of snap-action instead of a squishy bulb.

Shape Sorter:  still in the catalogue!

Sheer nostalgia #3: Mis-named dolls

Sometimes tracking down childhood toys, especially dolls, can be stymied by the names we gave them; we know that we named a favourite doll after a friend or someone in a book, but we don't remember what it really said on the box.  Usually the box is long, long gone anyway.  I had a drink-and-wet doll that always went by "Bat Baby," named not after the superhero but because I had pointed at her in a store just before Christmas, when I was almost two, and asked for "bat baby."  I think she was a Horsman doll, but it's hard to tell because, like a lot of inexpensive dolls of that era, her pretty blonde hair quickly acquired the texture of a pot scrubber.

The doll with the red-and-white stripes was called Rosemary.  I have no idea if that was her real name.  (That's a visiting friend holding Rosemary and wearing the luffly hat.  I'm the one in the fedora.)

The doll in the photo below was always called "Kimmie."  I assumed that I'd named her...or someone had...after my cousin Kim.

Turns out the doll actually was a "Kimmie."  She was one of a line of very popular Native-costumed dolls sold by Regal Imports in the early 1960's.  Well, once in awhile you get lucky.

Sheer nostalgia #2: toys from our past

Found on Ebay here.

I had forgotten about this toy for about forty years.  When I started searching for "plastic steam roller," I wasn't sure I'd even remember what it looked like...and I think my grandpa might have had more than one.

But this was one of them.  Almost for sure, unless my mind is completely playing tricks and I'm thinking of my aunt's grey-and-red roller skates.

My grandpa?  He loved steam trains and steam farm equipment.  He drove a vintage steam tractor at an annual Labour Day steam fair.  Somebody probably gave him this for a joke present...and it became something for the grandchildren to play with.  Being the oldest grandchild, that would have been me, until the others came along.  On the floor, from the dining room into Grandma's kitchen, and back again.  Over the heating grate.  Back to the kitchen again.

I'd forgotten.  Sometimes it takes a picture to drag things up.

Sheer nostalgia: a toy from my past

I didn't own this push-toy.  It resided in a tiny bookcase in the dining room of a great-aunt and uncle, along with a tub of kindergarten beads and a fake book with a snake that popped out.  These were their "toys to amuse visiting children," and we pushed those piggies, strung those beads, and popped that snake many times over the years, while the adults visited.

(It's not my photo either--I found it online.)

Almost as good as a "specious family home"

Back in 2007, I posted about a real estate listing that offered a "specious family home," and that wasn't unique: a search for that phrase brought up an amazing number of "specious homes" for sale [my 2017 note].

Yesterday we saw a listing almost as good.  This one had an "expensive foyer."

Like this, maybe?  But I think they meant "expansive."