Monday January 29
Today we went to the funeral for Dom’s Aunt Lee who died last week.
Afternoon stories: Adam of the Road, Book of Angels, Augustus Caesar’s World, Doorway of Amethyst.
Bedtime story: Howl’s Moving Castle.
Bella did math and copywork even though no one else did to earn iPad time. She’s very interested in a music app that the iPad has.
Tuesday January 30
Anthony: math, copywork, Child’s History
Ben: math, copywork, Explode the Code
Sophie: math, copywork, dictation, Child’s Geography
Bella: math, copywork, Latin
Read alouds: Adam of the Road, Story of the World, St Margaret Mary, Book of Angels.
Bedtime: Howl’s Moving Castle.
Wednesday January 31
Anthony: math, copywork, Child’s History
Ben: math, copywork, Explode the Code
Sophie: math, copywork, French, Child’s Geography
Bella: math, copywork
Read alouds: Adam of the Road, Augustus Caesar’s World, Mass Explained, Doorway of Amethyst.
Bedtime story: Three Billy Goats Gruff
Thursday February 1
Anthony: math, copywork
Ben: math, copywork
Sophie: math, copywork
Bella: math, copywork
Read alouds: Adam of the Road, Augustus Caesar’s World, St Margaret Mary, Book of Angels, North with the Spring.
Friday February 2
Anthony: math, copywork
Ben: math, copywork, Explode the Code
Sophie: math, copywork, French, Geography. She’s memorized and recited John Masefield’s poem, Cargoes, which she wrote for copywork last week. And she helped prompt me as I memorized it too. A good discussion about the structure of the poem, the rhyme scheme (not much of one), the rhythm, the parallelism. We agree that quinquireme of Ninevah is a gorgeous phrase and we love the rhythm of “sweet white wine.” I love doing poetry with Sophie, it’s so very fun. Also, we looked up Ophir and found out that the cargo in the poem is almost verbatim what King Solomon received in tribute from Ophir. And that although historians don’t know where
Ophir was, archaeologists found a pottery shard in present-day Tel Aviv that mentioned receipt of gold from Ophir. So it was a real place and gold really did come from there.
Bella: math, copywork, composition (wrote a poem). Spent time reading the bird field guide, going back and forth between that and A Naturalist Buys a Farm by Edwin Way Teale, her current natural history read. She built some birds out of linking cubes, very impressionistic, but she captured the essence of the field markings on each. She also refilled the bird feeders. And did laundry and walked to the store for milk. A very active day.
Read alouds: Adam of the Road, Story of the World, St Margaret Mary, Doorway of Amethyst, Book of Marvels– Occident.
We were intrigued by the Book of Marvels which begins with a lyrical description of San Francisco and the Oakland Bay Bridge. Haliburton cannot imagine that this, the longest bridge in the world when the book was published in 1937, won’t still be the longest bridge for the next thousand years. So the kids were curious– is it still the longest bridge? No? Then what is? So Google helped me with a list and no, the Bay Bridge is not in the top 25. I like older books like this because of these glimpses of how people in the past saw things, made assumptions about the future. How people can be so very wrong. Interesting discussions of moral questions in both Adam of the Road and St Margaret Mary. Adam’s greatest objection to the minstrels he’s traveling with is not their theft but their telling of immoral tales, not bad because they are crude and rough but because they encourage the baser side of human nature instead of inspiring the more noble. And in St Margaret Mary the idea that thwarting someone’s vocation is not only selfish but is a kind of theft, stealing from that person and from God.
“…encourage the baser side of human nature instead of inspiring the more noble” – helpful for me to see these words, for discernment in all kinds of situations and experiences – thank you.