Kara of Cape Buffalo has put together a large-scale Mother’s Day tribute featuring posts by dozens and dozens of bloggers. Grab a box of tissues and get ready for a nice satisfying cry.
This ought to whet your appetite for Amyable’s Celebration of Heart and Home on Sunday…
A raw onion is an excellent remedy for the STING OF A WASP.
—from The American Frugal Housewife
by Lydia Maria Child
This post really belongs in my comments, but it got so long I’m just going to post it here.
CityMom asked:
Here’s another question—how much of the fact that your tide has come back in do you think has to do wtih the girls being older now then they were when Wonderboy was born? I am starting to notice that my oldest will keep learning and helping us to keep on task with school routines even when I am sort of losing track of things, I would imagine that your older girls, with the true love of learning that you have instilled in them, are making this happen?
This is a point I wanted to add to my initial response to the kind mom who said:
My 5th is the same age as yours, so about 3 weeks. I have not been able to start school up again, ( of course they are always doing something educational….) I have been blessed with healthy children, so we have no unusual circumstances, and yet I look at your web site and I am flabbergasted! My oldest is 7, I have a 5YO, 3YO and a 2YO. Are you just really organized???
We have the same number of children, but where this mom has a three-year-old, I have an almost-eleven-year-old, and that is a major difference. I have an extra pair of helping hands where she has another pair of hands needing lots of help—busy, busy hands, to boot. Ten-year-olds can be an awful lot of help. (I always think about Anne of Green Gables taking care of three sets of twins before the age of ten. I mean, I know she was fictional, but Montgomery was reflecting the norm for her community.) Whenever I want to work one-on-one with any of the children, I can have either Jane or Rose entertain Wonderboy. It isn’t organization, it’s delegation.
As for CityMom’s point, I think she is absolutely on the mark: it was easy to slip back to our routine after the baby arrived because my three older children are old enough to maintain the routine without a lot of prodding from me. They know how to do their chores, unsupervised. And our lesson time together is a fun chunk of the morning which we all enjoy. We listen to our Latin vocabulary chants together (Beanie likes this best of all) and then Jane and Rose can do their Latin bookwork independently. Then Jane goes to another (quieter) room to do her Math-U-See page; if she gets stuck on any problem she is supposed to circle it and bring it to me when she has finished the page. Meanwhile, Rose sits beside me and does her math. For the most part, she completes the work without my help while I play with her brother. Both girls can check their own work against the answer keys, and together we go over any problems they’ve missed.
Those are our only formal lessons; after that work is finished, we spend the next hour or two with our various read-alouds (always accompanied by Mr. Putty, of course—Rose never lets me forget) while Wonderboy plays with Legos or Wedgits in our midst. Friday is our hands-on day for art and science: we move to the kitchen or porch for the messy stuff. Personally, I prefer the read-alouds; I had to carve out a day for the ooey gooey needs-seventeen-ingredients-and/or-a-microscope kind of activities—and commit myself by announcing it to the girls—or else I would never get around to making it happen.
Adjusting to life with this baby has been the easiest transition yet—really!—easier than when I had just one baby, or two. Having a couple of seven-and-ups makes a huge difference. And Wonderboy got off to such a rough start…probably anything would seem easy compared to that.
Speaking of the new baby, can you believe she’s a month old today? Snoozing here beside me, just as sweet as can be….
Didn’t want you to miss this comment from Leslie in Springfield:
Painting boards can be had at Home Depot or Lowe’s (or similar) for very little $$. Go to the section where they sell pegboards, etc. Get a sheet of “tile board”– it’s got a white laminate on one side and the fibreboard stuff (like what pegboard is made of) on the other. Have the store cut the sheet into pieces that are at least a few inches larger on each side than the paper you use. You can also use the plain fibreboard (without the laminate), but then you need to wax the board heavily to keep it from absorbing water. Our Waldorf-inspired HS co-op uses these boards all the time and they’re fantastic! I bought a scrap piece of the tile board for about $3 once and from it got two large paint boards (big enough for 15×22″ paper and 3 small boards (big enough for 9×12″ paper). They are sturdier than the ones from Mercurius, which are all plastic and bow in the middle when you try to carry them.
Very good to know—thanks, Leslie.
CityMom asked:
Here’s another nitty gritty question: what is in your arts and crafts cabinet? I think that this is an area in which we are lacking, and it would be good to have some things on hand for rainy summer days. Any website suggestions for craft supplies?
A while back I wrote about Waldorf art supplies and whether they were worth the money. A commenter recommended Discount School Supply as a good source for non-Waldorf materials—and I just realized that’s the same company running an ad in my lefthand sidebar at the moment. Scroll down and check them out!
My supply cupboard is pretty basic:
• Paper (White copy-machine paper for drawing, as it’s cheaper to buy in large quantities than real drawing paper; notebook paper; construction paper; and I stock up on card stock [ba dum bum] when Michael’s has a good sale, because it is so great for mini-book covers, bookmarks, paper dolls, etc etc etc. Jane has a million uses for card stock.)
• Crayons
• Prismacolor pencils (can’t live without ’em)
• Watercolors
• Markers
• Scissors
• Glue (sticks and Elmer’s)
• Stickers (I bought a big grab-bag of Mrs. Grossman’s stickers cheap at Timberdoodle seven years ago and we are still using them!)
• Sculpey
• Foam shapes (Found a tub on sale at Michael’s.)
• Holy cards
• Yarn
• Usborne drawing books—check my archives under “Art” for a list of our favorites.
For awesome liturgical-year-themed craft ideas, check out my pal Alice’s website. She is a crafting genius.
CityMom, I’ll have to save part two of your question for another post—baby just woke up!
(And I haven’t forgotten about the promised language arts post, either. Still to come.)
Time for another Carnival of Homeschooling!
UPDATE: Homeschool Country Fair.
And don’t miss this week’s Carnival of Kid Comedy.
Tomorrow will bring another Carnival of Education at HUNBlog. UPDATE: The Carnival is now up!
And keep those submissions coming for the next Carnival of Children’s Literature, right here in the Bonny Glen on May 22nd!
If the kind of education given to Shakespeare and C. S. Lewis appeals to you, you might want to swing by the brand-new Latin-Centered Curriculum website and forum.
Unlike the neoclassical approach to education favored by Susan Wise Bauer and Laura Berquist (whose books I consider extremely useful resources but whose systems or curricula strike me as bucket-filling instead of fire-lighting), “Latin-centered” or “traditional classical” education involves an intense focus on, in the words of author Tracy Lee Simmons, “Greek, Latin, and the civilizations from which they arose.” Simmons’s book, Climbing Parnassus, which I’m currently in the middle of, lays out a case for a simple curriculum revolving around Latin, Greek, and mathematics. (You can read an excerpt of his book here.)
Andrew Campbell, whose new book, The Latin-Centered Curriculum, is hot off the presses and shipping this week, describes the elements of a traditional classical education:
* Limiting the number of daily core subjects to a small number, typically Latin and/or Greek, math, and perhaps one or two others, such as Bible or music.
* Presenting English grammar and vocabulary through the medium of Latin.
* Making Classical Studies an ongoing subject, rather than approaching “Ancients” as part of a four- or five-year world history rotation.
* Teaching most subjects, such as composition, science, and history, on a weekly or semi-weekly rotation.
* Approaching science and history informally in the early years.
* Favoring writing programs based on the progymnasmata, such as Classical Writing or Classical Composition.
With its emphasis on slow and deep study of a particular few subjects, Latin-centered education lends itself nicely to a Charlotte Mason approach: one might begin the day with lessons in Latin and math; follow those studies with fine read-alouds in fiction, history, science, or poetry (perhaps rotating through several books in the course of the week, and having the child narrate some of the readings); and leave the rest of the day open for free play, nature walks, art, music, and curling up with good books.
Likewise, folks with unschoolish yearnings but who have reservations about completely letting go of structured pursuits may find that LCE offers just enough disciplined study to maintain Mom’s comfort level while allowing lots and lots of free time for a child’s interest-driven explorations.
Intrigued? Here’s more good reading on the subject:
An Apology for Latin and Math.
Multum non Multa: an excerpt from The Latin-Centered Curriculum.
Tags: homeschooling, homeschool, home education, unschooling, Charlotte Mason, classical education, classical homeschooling, Latin-centered education
Caterpillars, that is. Beanie was crushed, devastated, to discover that the caterpillar she and her sisters found on Saturday has disappeared into a cocoon. All sisterly attempts to convince her that this is an achievement worth celebrating were utterly in vain.
“But I won’t SEE him anymore,” sobbed Bean.
Jane sought to reassure Beanie by Googling up an image of the moth-that-is-to-be.
“See?” she chirped. “This cute little reddish-brown moth, that’s what your caterpillar is going to look like when it comes out!”
I stared at the title of the page, my blood running cold.
“Um, honey? Where this says ‘Eastern Tent Caterpillar’—that’s our caterpillar?”
Jane nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, you know—the kind that makes those big nests in the trees.”
Suddenly Beanie isn’t the only one who feels like weeping…
Cat poop in the bird feeder. Actually IN it. Or I suppose it is more accurate to say ON it; it’s a deck-mounted platform feeder.
We don’t even have a cat.
I’m told it’s the neighbor’s cat and he’s very friendly.
Yeah, I’ll just bet the cardinals think so.
“TEETH.—Honey mixed with pure pulverized charcoal is said to be excellent to cleanse the teeth, and make them white. Lime-water with a little Peruvian bark is very good to be occasionally used by those who have defective teeth, or an offensive breath.”
The American Frugal Housewife
by Lydia Maria Child
I assumed the honey was simply a comically counterproductive attempt to make the abrasive element, charcoal, palatable, but Jane set me straight with this quote from Jeanne Bendick’s Galen and the Gateway to Medicine
“Honey was used on almost all wounds. It was a disinfectant and an antibiotic, although ancient doctors didn’t know those words, either. (Honey breaks down into hydrogen peroxide.) But doctors knew that honey helped healing. The Egyptians used honey in 500 of their 700 cures.”
Hydrogen peroxide! Who knew? Wikipedia elaborates:
Hydrogen peroxide in honey is activated by dilution. However, unlike medical hydrogen peroxide, commonly 3% by volume, it is present in a concentration of only 1 mmol/l in honey. Iron in honey oxidize the oxygen free radicals released by the hydrogen peroxide.
glucose + H2O+ O2 → gluconic acid + H2O2
When used topically as, for example a wound dressing, hydrogen peroxide is produced by dilution with body fluids. As a result, hydrogen peroxide is released slowly and acts as an antiseptic. Unlike 3% medical hydrogen peroxide, this slow release does not cause damage to surrounding tissue.
Nonetheless, I think I’ll stick with my Tom’s of Maine.
