Books – Page 4

Daily Rhythm

October 16, 2014October 16, 2014by raisinglittleshoots8 Comments

I thought I would share our daily rhythm. I take a very structured approach to educating my girls, which makes me rather an oddity amongst my home educating friends, who mostly favour an autonomous approach.

How our days generally progress:

Monday – Thursday

7am – The girls get up, bring pillows & covers down to the living room & I read aloud for an hour while they eat breakfast.

8am – They read quietly. Elianna usually reads her ‘Literature’ choice, sometimes ‘popcorn’ style with me, Rose reads a science book.

8:30 – Latin with Elianna, Rose gets dressed & does her chores

9am – Rose works on her maths lesson & then she reads to me from her ‘Literature’ choice (currently Beatrix Potter) Elianna showers, dresses & does her chores.

10am– maths for Elianna, free play for Rose.

10:30 – Writing, spelling, and grammar for everyone. They work from different books, Ellie often takes herself off to her ‘reading room’ to work on this & I sit ‘elbow to elbow’ with Rose 🙂

Rose’s lessons are usually much shorter than Elianna’s, so get gets lots of chunks to play, throughout the day. She has such a vibrant imagination, I usually hear her chatting away, playing with her bears, or wooden animals, or lego figures…

11:30 -Memory work; poetry, Shakespeare, maths facts, grammar facts, and the periodic table song – but not all on the same day 🙂

12-lunch

1pm/1:30 depending on how the day is going!

Monday is usually our Pond Study day, so we are out for the afternoon.

Tuesday to Thursday are for History.

Dependant on the day, Elianna either reads from the Kingfisher encyclopaedia, outlines from what she has read, reads a primary source document & writes a paragraph about it, or reads from a history book & writes a narration.

Rose reads from a history book for around 20-30 minutes.

2pm/2:30 Free time…but no T.V. but often the girls paint, sketch, model with clay, or sew. Sometimes we do watch a documentary or film.

After dinner the girls often enjoy watching a T.V. program with their dad. Rose is tucked up in bed at 8pm & Ellie goes upstairs to read. She reads a chapter from whatever science book I have assigned.

Then she then either reads from her own choice, (currently she is taken with Greek/Roman/Norse myths, or comic books) or sketches & colours.

Fridays are completely different – we still have read aloud time in the morning, plus quiet reading time. The girls add anything they have read about in history to our time line, I have allocated time to work with Rose on anything to do with Little Passports ~ reading related books, looking places up on the map etc.then the rest of our morning is science & art. Friday afternoon is free for outings & meeting friends & family.

This year I have not got into a regular rhythm of picture study. I have ordered a few books from the ‘Come Look With Me‘ series. I will be using these during Friday morning Read Aloud time, so hopefully this will get us enjoying picture study again.

This is my guide for our days. We do not always follow this rhythm…but it gives me a structure to work with.

How do your days flow?

Autumn, Books, Learning

Week 6 ~ Out And About

October 9, 2014October 10, 2014by raisinglittleshoots4 Comments

This week we have been out & about. Elianna needed to see the GP and Rose needed a trip to the radiologist with a suspected fracture to her hand. We also stopped into our local library, where Rose was enchanted with this beautiful tapestry:

We spent a little time looking for books

And stopped at the local park on the way home

We have also been very fortunate to see the BBC’s 10 Pieces. It was truly amazing. A really good introduction to Classical Music. I believe that you can watch it for a few weeks via I-Player. Please do watch if you haven’t had the chance to see it at the cinema.

After the cinema, we went to visit with some lovely friends & had delicious scones & pancakes. Yum!

And to hold their pet Tarantula!

The rest of the week we have been ‘getting on’ with regular learning times.

Ellie is still building Jotunheim

Rose has spent every spare moment building circuits

We have dyed some wool felt, ready to make book marks, so I am hoping to work on those over the next week and Rose has begun a wonderful little ‘book’ – a naughty animal tale 🙂

We have been learning more about energy; this week photosynthesis, and also how food releases energy – we had fun burning various foodstuffs to see which released the most energy.

Banana Bread won 🙂

Some of the books we have been reading this week:

The Tales of Beatrix Potter

The Water Babies

Boys & Girls Of History

Twilight Child

Age of Fable

The Story Of The Romans

D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths

The Orchard Book Of Roman Myths

D’Aulaire’s Book Of Trolls

Why do trees change colour

Be a friend to trees

Mountains of Usborne Beginners fact books.

Various comic books

Lots & lots of poetry ~ focusing on Beatrix Potter & Walter de la Mare.

Books, Learning

On Creativity

October 5, 2014October 17, 2014by raisinglittleshoots6 Comments

There is a really great guest post by Anne White on Brandy’s blog. Part of a series, it is called “Myth: Reading and narration are the sum total of a Charlotte Mason Education.”

I first became acquainted with the ideas of Charlotte Mason when my eleven year old was a baby. Wonderfully inspired, I began to learn about, and follow her principles. As we moved into & progressed through formal education I was tempted to add other things in…the sorts of things Anne discusses in the article:

“We assume that it won’t work to simply teach the Middle Ages from a book of history, or to read an entire book about Robin Hood, and to do copywork or keep a Book of Centuries, because that’s not what the public schools do when they study the Middle Ages. We should be spending a great deal of time on the innards of castles, and doing dragon art. We should be including time-travel novels and fictional diaries of imaginary young squires or princesses, because that’s what children will relate to. Perhaps we can even have them film stop-motion videos based on those books. Or, if we’re looking for more serious work, we can buy study guides filled with questions and vocabulary, maybe a crossword or two, and assignments for research papers.”

I have found, with my own children, that when I strip back the busy work, and focus on the skills that Charlotte proposed; reading, narrating, copywork, & dictation etc, my children use the time they have available, and the space they have in their imaginations, to go on to create.

Creativity is the highest level in Bloom’s taxonomy. I see it expressed in other systems of learning too:

In Lectio Divina, a a traditional Christian practice, we see three stages of learning:scriptural reading, meditation and response in the form of prayer and action. This is discussed in the wonderful video from CAP featuring Jenny Rallens “Liturgy of the Classroom” This video is a must see! So very inspiring.

In the Trivium we see three stages; Grammar – obtaining the basic facts and skills Logic – which addresses the ‘why’ of a subject & finally Rhetoric – the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing; the ability to create a well reasoned argument.

In Reflection, self awareness & critical thinking – Ebby 2000 the three stages are shown as “self awareness, critical thinking & reflection”

In The Private Eye the stages are Explore, make analogies, theorise.

Charlotte Mason’s lessons follow a similar pattern…First read the new text, then narrate, then discuss…enter ‘The Grand Conversation’. Create in one’s mind thoughts that connect with other ideas & experiences.

This is so very exciting to me! And I am struggling to put into words the the ideas I have on this subject. But these very simple, age-old steps, lead to a great & rich education. These unadorned steps that Charlotte would have us follow, lead to creativity within our children.

Simple, though does not always mean easy. My homeschool requires a lot of effort on my part. I would like to compare my efforts to a swimming swan…serene on the surface, with a lot going on behind the scenes! I spend time pre-reading our read aloud choices, making copious notes, researching allusions etc. This gives the preparedness I need to be able to discuss ideas with my girls. Not just tick the books off the list… My youngest daughter acts out the stories we are reading with puppets & soft toys, she draws pictures & paints with watercolour. My eldest creates poetry, paintings of mythological worlds & most recently a clay model of Jotunheim.

Creativity is the highest level in these various ideas & the fact that my children are doing this of their own accord is so greatly encouraging to me!

“Self-education is the only possible education; the rest is mere veneer laid on the surface of a child’s nature” Charlotte Mason

Books, Learning

Little Passports

October 4, 2014by raisinglittleshoots2 Comments

Rosie’s first parcel from Little Passports arrived this week.

It was greeted with much excitement & fervour, opened immediately, and the activities completed within the hour!

The initial package contains a letter from Sam & Sofia; the imaginary children that are writing to your child from various destinations around the globe, a passport, boarding pass, stickers, wall map, activity sheets and finally a Little Passports suitcase. This is designed for the child to keep all of the items sent in future packages. It is sturdy & well made & Rose was soooooo excited to have one!

She first added the stickers of Sam & Sofia to her suitcase, then completed her passport, filling in her name & address, plus the other couple of questions in there which really engaged her. Next she chose to play the activities online. The ‘boarding pass’ the child receives has a special code, which allows them to access various online games, puzzles, quizzes, and other activities. Rose whizzed through these, playing them all, then she wanted to complete the activity sheets, which she had fun with. One of the games on the activity sheets lets your child know which country Sam & Sofia will be visiting next. Oooh! The excitement!

I am really delighted with Little Passports. Rose whizzed through this first package, but she is able to go back & play all the online activities at any time. I think the main benefits for me are the following; I was looking for an activity for Rose that she could work on at her own pace & have me as involved or uninvolved as she liked. The first package is of really high quality and & I pleased that this structured activity will be dropping through my door once a month.

Being a Charlotte Mason inspired family, of course there will be books! Here are the main resources I will be using to go with Little Passports:

If The World Were A Village: A fantastic, thought provoking book, which explains facts about the world’s population in a simple and fascinating way.

Material World:This book shows ‘average’ families from various countries, photographed with all their possessions.

Hungry Planet: What The World Eats: Again, a book filled with informative photographs, revealing what people eat during the course of one week.

I will also be taking books out from our local library each month, to read about the individual countries, and I plan for Rose & I to create some national dishes from the various countries.

I hope this gives a little insight into what is included with Little Passports. Here is a link that gives more information about the various packages.

Happy Weekend!

Autumn, Books, Learning

Week 5 ~ Reading & Creating

October 3, 2014October 3, 2014by raisinglittleshoots6 Comments

October is here! We have had gorgeous weather again, mixed with rainy days…perfect home schooling weather…

We read a lot of poetry here..one of our selections this week was from ‘Around the Year’ by Elsa Beskow

We ate Blackberry jam tarts and dragon bread on Michaelmas

The girls have spent a lot of time reading

Our reading time is early in the morning…7am to be precise! I get up between 5 & 6 am, have some quiet time & a shower, then I wake the girls, & everyone troops downstairs in their pyjamas. I read to them from our current read aloud & from our poetry books, then they read to themselves for 20-30 minutes. I also read with Rosie during the day. This is where Beatrix Potter is coming into our day right now. We cuddle up together on the sofa & read ‘popcorn’ style ~ taking it in turns to read a page.

Ellie tends to do her assigned reading at bedtime, with a cup of tea & a biscuit! At the moment, she is reading Twilight Child, The Story Of The Romans and Age of Fable. Twilight child is usually read one chapter a day, The Story of The Romans & Age of Fable are a couple of chapters a week. Age of Fable we read together, again popcorn style. It is an extremely ‘meaty’ book, with complex sentence structures, rich vocabulary & big ideas to consider. She is very taken with Astraea, & wants to create some art inspired by her, so we shall see where that goes. Ellie is very deeply interested in myths and has a real passion for them. She has been reading D’Aulaire’s Book of Norse Myths and D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths, which are both beautiful, classic books.

This week has brought several new books into our home…The Orchard Book Of Roman Myths & D’Aulaire’s Book Of Trolls for Ellie, these wee ‘fact’ books for Rose; Dogs, Cats and Farm Animals. We literally have heaps of these Usbourne books & Rose devours them. More Beatrix Potter books arrived too. We have all her tales in our Treasury, but Rose prefers the wee individual books. Squirrel Nutkin, The Story Of a Fierce Bad Rabbit and Little Pig Robinson all arrived.

There has also been a lot of creating going on this week…Rose has been working on her water colour, plus freeform painting in the garden.

She made monster puppets…

Masks…

Sketches…

And Elianna has been working on a clay model of Jotunheim.

Both girls are working on small tapestries; Elianna is working on something to hang on her bedroom door – it says ‘Warning! Danger’ & Rose is working on a tapestry of a wee squirrel.

I chose this one as it ties in nicely with The Tale Of Squirrel Nutkin. Rose has also enjoyed lots of imaginative playtime with finger puppets this week. Using an owl & a squirrel to play ‘Squirrel Nutkin’.

Last week I mentioned I was changing up our science plans. Building foundations of scientific understanding is the resource I am planning to use. I really like the idea of laying down foundations, mastering a topic before moving on. It does, however, require a lot of teacher prep for the science-phobe such as myself…I shall see how I get on, if I can do it, it will be worth the effort.

We began with the Physical Science thread – Energy C1 Making things go.

Fortunately as we began the lesson Rose dropped a full jar of tiny golden cake decorating balls all over the floor! This made for a great example of gravity & movement (mechanical) energy!

Can you spy the teeny golden balls all over the floor?

We worked through the lesson, then played Energy Flows, the girls wrote in their science notebooks, & we finished off by watching Bill Nye The Science Guy – Energy.

Little Passports arrived this week! That deserves a post all to itself 🙂

Some of the books we have been reading this week:

The Tales of Beatrix Potter

The Water Babies

The World of Columbus & His Sons

Twilight Child

Age of Fable

The Story Of The Romans

D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths

The Orchard Book Of Roman Myths

D’Aulaire’s Book Of Trolls

Mountains of Usborne Beginners fact books.

Various comic books

Lots & lots of poetry ~ focusing on Beatrix Potter & Walter de la Mare.

Happy Weekend!

Autumn, Books, Nature

Beatrix Potter

September 30, 2014by raisinglittleshoots5 Comments

Rosie is going through a delightful phase of being enchanted by all things Beatrix Potter. The tales were read to her when she was smaller, but now she is enjoying reading them to herself. They make for delightful reading & the sentence structure, & language sometimes challenges her.

I wanted to make the most of this interest & have come up with some ideas to keep this love burning for a little while. This is not a unit study by any means, just some ideas to enrich her reading.

Discussion

I usually ask Rose to narrate her readings & I found a handy-dandy Story Chart to use for narrations about the tales of ‘naughty’ animals. Simple, but useful for furthering our discussions about what has happened in each story.

Read

For me to read to Rosie:

My Dear Noel The story of how ‘Peter Rabbit’ came to be

Nothing is Impossible. The Story of Beatrix Potter

Poetry

Appley Dapply’s Nursery Rhymes

Cecily Parsley’s Nursery Rhymes

Writing

Copywork from her favourite tales

Have Rosie write her own simple ‘naughty’ animal story. Again, another handy-dandy story planning chart!

Art

Drawing & painting inspired by the illustrations of Beatrix Potter.

Nature Study

Time for her to observe wildlife & also our pets. As a wonderful home educator pointed out to me; Squirrel Nutkin was so hysterical because Beatrix captured what a naughty squirrel would be like & that talent came from hours just observing squirrels.

To consider:

How does Beatrix Potter’s life compare with Rosie’s life?

The personality traits of the naughty animals

The difficulties they got into

I am really enjoying infusing our days with the richness & beauty of these timeless tales and Rosie is thoroughly enjoying herself.

“Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.”

Beatrix Potter

Advent & Christmas, Autumn, Books, Learning, Nature

Week Four

September 26, 2014by raisinglittleshoots9 Comments

The week began beautifully with the scent of Autumn in the air! Tuesday was the Autumnal Equinox and the nights have begun to draw in..

But back to Monday…Monday saw our Pond study. It was a glorious afternoon, sunny & warm. We had been at the pond a little while, then suddenly a duck came scuttering out of the reeds, clearly in distress. Its head was bobbing under the water, then its whole body would follow. It was a very sad sight to see. Ellie quickly pulled of her boots & tights & waded in with a net & brought the poor fellow out.

He was in a poor state; a small wound to his neck, his head he could not hold up, and he was exhausted.

We made him as comfortable as we could in Rosie’s jacket & drove to our local vet.

The vet confirmed my fears. His neck was broken & he was put to sleep. We were all very upset. He was one of the baby Mallards. This would have been his first winter.

Rest in peace Jonathan Puddleduck

In happier home education news, Ellie took a break from her regular Latin book & worked in her Latin Words Sticker Book. She has made flash cards for the new words, so we can practice those with the rest of our memory work.

As we have been memorising square numbers, I got the girls to make a model with cuisenaire rods of the square numbers to 10. I have to confess that until recently, I did not know why square numbers were called square…

Rsoie Working On 'Hunca Munca' — Rsoie Working On ‘Hunca Munca’

Rosie has done quite a lot of watercolour this week. We had a good play with our palettes, seeing what different colours we could create.

I have decided to change up how we are studying science, so after a little research I have decided to go with the Building Foundations Of Scientific Understanding Series. I have purchased the first two books, but at the author’s recommendation, we will be starting with book one (even thought this is for K-2!) It is very parent intensive from what I understand, so I am looking forward to spending the weekend reading through the introduction & planning out the first ‘thread’ of the book that we will be following.

We have begun a demonstration from Cool Chemistry Concoctions ~ hopefully making stalactites & stalagmites!

The girls also painted their batiks that we began last week. Once they are dry, we can wash out the glue.

The White Witch's Sleigh — The White Witch’s Sleigh by Ellie

Some of the books we have been reading this week:

The Tales of Beatrix Potter

The Water Babies

The World of Columbus & His Sons

By Pond & River

Twilight Child

Age of Fable

The Story Of The Romans

D’Aulaire’s Book of Norse Myths

Various comic books

Lots & lots of poetry ~ focusing on Beatrix Potter & Walter de la Mare.

Rose is really taken with Beatrix Potter’s Tales right now. She has been playing with our old dolls house in the attic since re-reading The Tale Of Two Bad Mice. She has a little stuffed mouse that has become ‘Tom Thumb’ so I picked up my knitting needles & got cracking on knitting a Hunca Munca for her. Hopefully she will be done this weekend!

We are off to our home ed group meet up this afternoon to spend time with friends….

Happy Weekend!

Books, Learning, Nature

Week Three

September 19, 2014September 19, 2014by raisinglittleshoots4 Comments

New Earrings - Miniature Sherlock Holme's books! — New Earrings – Miniature Sherlock Holme’s books!

Another great week, but I felt more of a time pressure this week & I didn’t get either of Ellie’s two logic lessons done. What we did do was rich & productive, so I am pleased with that outcome!

We are progressing well with memory work; we are up to the first chorus of The Periodic Table Song, Oberon’s speech from A Midsummer Night’s Dream is proving to be delightful, and we are making slow & steady progress with this book for multiplication. The girls are memorising a poem of their choice. I was particularly touched by Rosie’s choice:

Some people

by Rachel Field

Isn’t it strange some people

make you feel so tired inside,
Your thoughts begin to shrivel up

like leaves all brown and dried!

But when you’re with some other ones,

it’s stranger still to find
Your thoughts as thick as fireflies

all shiny in your mind!

Last but not least, we are memorising grammar facts. This video was made a while back – we still practice these but have added new ones too.

Our local pond study is keeping us busy! This week we focused on the trees the girls have chosen to study – Ellie’s is Alder, Rosie’s is Beech.

Measuring the height of Rosie's tree! — Measuring the height of Rosie’s tree!

Measuring the circumference of the trunk

We have finished reading “The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe” and we made turkish delight to enjoy as we sat down for the final reading…never again! It was a sticky mess! But the girls said it tasted good.

The girls have also begun a ‘batik‘ inspired by our reading of The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe. Once it has dried overnight, they will be able to apply the layers of colour. Ellie is working on a scene with the White Witch, Rosie a portrait of Aslan.

A crocodile doing her maths :) — A crocodile doing her maths 🙂

Some of the books we have been reading this week:

The Tales of Beatrix Potter

The World of Columbus & His Sons

By Pond & River

The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe

Twilight Child

Age of Fable

The Story Of The Romans

D’Aulaire’s Book of Norse Myths

Lots & lots of poetry!

Finally, my copy of Norms & Nobility has arrived! I am so excited to get stuck into this book! I think it will be extremely meaty & require me to have a pen in hand, making copious notes.

Happy Weekend!

Books, Celebrating, Faith, Family, Nature, Summer

Whitsun

June 8, 2014June 8, 2014by raisinglittleshoots2 Comments

Whitsun is fifty days after Easter Sunday, also known as Pentecost.

Acts 2 tells the story of the original Pentecost:

“When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

Spring goeth all in white

Crowned with milk-white may:

In fleecy flocks of light

O’er heaven the white clouds stray.

White butterflies in the air;

White daisies prank the ground;

The cherry and the hoary pear

Scatter their snow around

Robert Bridges

From Festivals, Family & Food:

In Northern Europe the connection is also a natural one, with the blossoming of white May, Hawthorn and Lilac at this time. For children this can be the time to celebrate the blossoms, bringing a few into the home if possible, or finding white daisies to place on a saucer of water for the table or weave into chains.

Last week we harvested lots of Elder flowers to make cordial. Already the tree has replenished!

Elderflower Cordial

ingredients

~20-25 flower heads rinsed

~ 4 lemons, zested & roughly chopped

~1 KG of sugar

~1.5 litres water

~ 50g citric acid (used as a preservative, so useful, but not essential.

In a large bowl add the 1.5L boiling water to the sugar & citric acid. Stir well.

Allow to cool

Add the flower heads, lemons & zest

Allow to steep for a day or two (two days for a good, rich Elderflower flavour)

Strain through a jam strainer, muslin or an old (clean!) tea towel.

Pour into sterilised bottles.

Dilute & enjoy!

Autumn, Books, Celebrating, Faith, Family

Hallowe’en

November 1, 2013November 1, 2013by raisinglittleshootsLeave a Comment

Sunset on Samhain is the beginning of the new year in Celtic times. A time for us to set new intentions, think new ideas and formulate plans…to incubate those ideas over the cold winter months and birth them into the warm sprain time breezes…

Our Hallowe’en moments

: : Carving pumpkins

: : Pumpkin maths

: : Reading our familiar Hallowe’en stories

Mousekin’s golden house

Pumpkin

The Pumpkin Blanket

Scary Stories

When my children were younger, we kept away from the ‘scary’ aspect of Hallowe’en and focused on the Autumn aspect – hence the first three lovely, cosy books. Despite being older now, they still love to read these books (and even better, have them read aloud!) They also enjoy a good scary story and I find the last book to be perfect for their appetite.

: : Made ‘Hallowe’en Soup’ (onions, pumpkin, orange peppers, sweet potato, carrots) all served up after dark in a big pumpkin 🙂

: : Created Hallowe’en art

: : Decorated our home

: : Had oodles of fun at our local Book Cycle party

: : Trick or Treating

: : Supper with good friends

Today (November 1st) is All Souls Day. I will be remembering loved ones passed in my prayers today and we are going to visit the cemetery where a loved friend rests. We shall be tidying the graveside and Rose will be leaving a special gift.

Category: Books

Daily Rhythm

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Week 6 ~ Out And About

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On Creativity

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Little Passports

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Week 5 ~ Reading & Creating

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Beatrix Potter

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Week Four

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Week Three

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Whitsun

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Hallowe’en

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