Everyone has one, don't they? i"m talking about a To Be Read Pile. Everyone has a pile of books by their bed or teetering on their coffee table or hidden in a closet, don't they? I mean, for me this is usual. All of the readers I know have many TBR piles languishing around their house. That is what makes reading so much fun, the anticipation of what is going to come next. Whose pages will be opened soon? What new world will we discover? What new thoughts will crowd into our brains? I love that anticiaption. It is a literary high.
I have always been in possession of a TBR pile. Ever since I can remember. The problem with this pile is that some of those books have never been read. They just stay at the bottom, yellowing and withering with age. As time passes by, I realize that I don't really want to read some of those books. My interest has waned.
This puts an added pressure onto me. I feel a need to get through the piles of books before the interest passes on. Oh, the pressure! That is too much for any bookaholic to endure.
This year, I am determined to make a dent in my pile. i am trying very hard not to buy any more books until my pile has gone down considerably. Yeah, right! Who am I kidding? That pile will always be a mile high, regardless of how much I read.
The said pile is really a box. I have a box, about 3 ft. high and 3 ft. wide, that is chock full of books. There are 3 neat piles of books in that box. I can't even hazard a guess of how many books are in that box. Suffice it to say there are lots in there. I also have a pile on my nightstand and about 10 books in a magazine holder in my room. And then there is the 3 page list of books that I want to get from the libary.
And it goes on and on and on.......
I have discovered in the last few years that I have been blessed with reading some books that reach far into my heart and have left a part of themselves there long after the intiial reading During 2008, the books that blessed me were Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and Socrates Cafe by Christopher Philips. My two books for 2009 were Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser and What is Stephen Harper Reading by Yann Martel. The words and phrases from these books are still coasting in my heart and in my mind. They have left an imprint on me.
I think I have found my book for 2010 already. Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne. Don't let the title fool you. Even my librarian commented, "That guy has it all wrong. There is nothing simple about parenting and there never will be." The title is misleading. The book is about how simplifying our lives (our stuff, our activities, information) can bring about calm and secure kids.
I have to admit that I am only a third of the way through the book but already, I have been touched deeply by his words. I agree wholeheartedly with what he says. We live in a society that thinks that we have to keep our kids busy with as many acitivities as we can possibly squeeze into a day. Our society plays on our guilt as parents that if they don't have the latest toy or tech apparatus then we have failed as a parent. In giving them all of this stuff and filling their days with all of this busyness, we have taken away their chldhood. They don't have time to just be. They don't know how to do that anymore.
Payne is a counsellor who says that the children he sees today are very similar to the children he saw in war-torn countries when he worked there. Kids today are suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, not because they have experienced a war but, rather, they are being overloaded in outside stimulus. They don't know how to handle all of the things that are being thrown at them.
Payne suggests that the best way to deal with a child who is overloaded is to siimplify their surroundings--pare down on the things, pull back on the activities. Simplify your child's life. Allow them to be, rather than do all of the time.
This book resonated deeply with me. We are already scaling back on activities but this book gave me confidence that we were heading in the right direction. There is always guilt when you scale back, but after reading the first chapter, I can throw that guilt far, far away. I want my kids to enjoy and experience their childhood. I don't want it to be an unrecogizable blur.
We have our car back from the garage. Yippie-ai-ay! It only took them a month to get it back to us. 
The car is not fixed properly either but I have places to go and people to see and, quite frankly, I am tired of fighting with them, so I will go on my merry way and pick up the fight later on.
What We Learned-- Rocky is doing a review of multi-digit subtraction. Missy is doing a great job of tracking her sounds with LiPS. It is starting to come together for her. I love this program. It is put together very well. The going is slow but I keep telling myself that slow is good. At least in the slow, knowing will come (hopefully.) This is art and science week. We did explorations with print making. It is amazing all you can do with a piece of cardboard. In printing the edge of the cardboard, the kids were able to print a flower--many different kinds of flowers. They also made seahorses and crabs with their hands and fingers. It was alot of fun. We also did the famous experiment with baking soda and vinegar. That is always a must when we do experiments. This time we added food colouring and glitter. We did a fun experiment with dancing raisins in water.. We also imitated DaVinci's Starry Night painting. The trick is to add glue into your paint. We learned alot of tips this week to aid our painting skills.
What We Read-- We are finishing up Bunnicula as our family read aloud. That is a cute litte story. Now we will start Shiloh. I am finishing up Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis. I am enjoying reading how he was educated. It has been very interesting.
What We Watched--I was able to find Season One of Hawaii Five-O on DVD at the library. Who knew that our little library had things like that in amongst it's shelves? My Beloved and I pulled out the discs after the kids were in bed and go back in memory lane while we watched Steve McGarrett. The acting was a bit cheesy but it was fun seeing how they made TV series back then.
What We Made-- Mia found an Anne of Green Gables cookbook at the library last week. She plunged right in and made some of it's recipes. She made a creamy vegetable soup that is to die for. Oh, this soup is very good. I had her make some more later on in the week, I loved it so much. We are also going to try Diana Barry's Raspberry Cordial today. Rocky is very eager to try this.
Missy also started her art classes this week. She was so excited as her previous class was such a success. She made a rock garden in her first class. it was full of feathers and jewels--a pure Missy creation.
What We Celebrated-- We are still celebrating birthdays. What with storms and dead cars, we didn't get to celebrate Rocky's birthday with his friends. So this week we went to McDonald's and had lunch and a party for Rocky. We haven't seen these friends since way before Christmas, so we had a very nice visit.
Who We Visited -- An elderly lady, who attends our church, lost her husband at Christmas time. We went to visit her on Wed. My kids have never been in an apartment before. They were shocked at how nice it was. I don't know what they were expecting but Missy kept saying that it even had a bathroom! Mia gave Mrs. E some of her vegetable soup. We also made Mrs. E some tea biscuits. We had a wonderful visit. Mrs. E. is always full of stories from her past and about missionaries overseas. My girls were dazzled by the stories.
What We Played-- The kids are still having loads of fun outside in the snow. They have brought their crazy carpets and snowshoes out to join in the fun. They have found a mini-hill in the yard and they have spent hours playing on that hill. The dog is delirious to have someone to play.
There was a question, yesterday, on one of my elists, about how to beat the winter blues. This question comes up often, most notably on homeschool lists. It seems that homeschoolers are more susceptible to cabin fever which prevails in the late winter months.
That question got me thinkning about how I handle the winter blues. This year has been a bit different for me. The thing that has beaten the doldrums is to get my car, after being in the garage for the last month. That is enough to beat any cooped up feelings. The world is my oyster now that I have my car. I can go anywhere, do anything. Ahhh! It feels good.
Here are some other things, though, that have instilled a sense of calm and comfort into my wintry days:
Tea: that does sound silly, doesn't it? But I have been amazed at how soothing a cup of tea can be. Tea slows you down and is the foundation of some good old meditative thinking. I used to hate tea, but along with the onset of cancer came the love of tea. I don't really understand why but tea has been the calming force in my days, post-cancer.
Soup: again, another silly sounding suggestion. Soup is in the same category as tea. I never made soup before. I didn't really know how to, nor did I have any desire to try. But after cancer ( it is life-changing in more ways than one) I discovered a deep-seated need to make and eat soup. A pot of soup simmering on the stove equates comfort to me. I am now quite an expert on making soup. I have a long repertoire of favourite soups that I make. We have tried cauliflower soup, corn chowder, potato soup, chicken vegetable, broccoli, tomato spice soup and, most recently, vegetable creamy soup (this one is to die for. I could eat this every week.) I look forward to my once-a-week-soup-making time. It soothes me.
Music: this always soothes me. Some music does a better job of this than others. I have written about the Casting Crown song (Caught in the Middle) before. But the last 40 seconds of that song throws me into tears. Tears of beauty and thankfulness. The strains of the violin, pure and crisp, takes me breath away. It is not very often when a piece of music works its magic on me in this way, but when it does, oh, it is worth the wait. Andrea Boccelli's self-entitled CD is another example of pure beauty. In this case it is not just one song but the whole CD. It is breath-taking. Listening to these songs refresh me.
Reading: you knew this had to be in the list, didn't you? There is nothing better than to read other people's words and sit on them for a few days, turning them over in your mind, and fitting your thoughts with the author's to see if you can expand on their ideas. Piecing together new words with words that have made a home in your brain for awhile, is invigorating. Expanding your thoughts with new thoughts is challenging. There is nothing like a challenge to beat the winter blues.
Bubble baths: I used to take a book with me when I had a bubble bath but now, I just revel in the laciness of the bubbles and the warmth of the water. I let it all slow me down. Slow. I like that word.
So there are my remedies of beating the winter blues. Some are new to me this year and some are my old stand-bys. It's nice to see how my list has expanded over the years. Just reading over the list has been comforting. 
Due to our roller coaster year, we have taken a year off from our regular studies of the content subjects. Instead of continuing on with chronological history, we have been jumping around history with literature-based unit studies. I know, in the Cclassical ed. world, this is a major no-no. I could probably be branded a classical ed. heretic.
You know what, though? This has been our best year of homeschooling. The kids have so enjoyed learning this way. I have enjoyed teaching this way. I am a natural at teaching the unit study way. There is an excitement in our house this year that has never entered our house before. I should probably say, before anyone starts erecting a cross, that when I say unit study, I do not mean that we do all subjects on one topic. Unit study for me is taking a book, like Chasing Vermeer, and studying the content subjects that are find in the book. For Chasing Vermeer, we studied art, history and science. When we start up with Hatchet, we will be doing science mostly (human body and survival skills.) We do the basics with the same curriculum that we have always used. Just doing the content subjects in this way has added a spark to our learning. A spark that has never been there before.
I have been thinking about what we are going to do for next year. Yeah, I know, I never let up. My original plan was to go back to chronological history and start with the Ancients next year. I really want to try David Hicks' curriculum which is found in Norms and Nobility. I have a strong desire to do this with Mia. This would be for her Gr. 7 year. If I were to do this, I would have to transition her next year. I would have to take next year to get her into the groove of learning this way. I would love to continue on with our lit-based units but I don't think she can have a vigorous (did you notice I did not use rigorous? 
) enough education in learning this way.
Here is my dilemma: I really want to get back into the classical way with Mia next year, but I don't want to do this with Rocky and Missy. They are still pretty young and they so enjoy unit studies. I was thinking of continuing the unit studies with Rocky and Missy and do a separate turn with Mia for the Ancients. I am wondering if that will be a sure fire way to lose my mind or if it will would be freeing for all of us. So here I sit, stuck in doubt as to how to handle this.
The good news is that I don't really have to know what I am going to do until May (so I have time to order books, if need be.) I'm just a girl who likes to know all of her options going into a dilemma. I like to have lots of time to mull things over. I also like the idea of having the time to pray about this. I need all the time I can get. 
Warning: I have to write this post in a cryptic fashion as it is too personal to share in the blog world. But I need to write about it, to get the thoughts out of my head. So if you can't handle cryptic, come back tomorrow.
I have been dealing with an issue for the last two years. I have known that a decision has needed to be made but I have been sitting on the fence, praying and praying, trying to decide which side to jump off on.
It doesn't help that this issue is mired in hurt. Hurt clouds rational thinking, hence my putting off this decision. I had finally decided what I was going to do last month. But I dragged my heels in taking action. Then this week, I think that God took action for me. Something fairly big happened and parts of my issue has disappeared from my life. I talked to someone today about my dilemma. This person was very wise in the words that he gave me. I was able to see my part in this issue and I feel like the fog has slipped away.
So, I have changed my mind yet again on this major decision but I feel good about what I have decided. I am glad that I dragged my heels as this gave God time to work in this whole issue. I had a wonderful morning with friends and I felt a freeing of the hurt and pain that I have been carrying around for a very long itme.
Now I feel my body saying "Whew!"
A friend asked me about our Morning Time and what it all entails. There is nothing I like better than to talk about MT. It's the best part of our learning time. The neat thing about MT is that it can fit any educational philosophy/method that you use with your children. For Waldorf, your MT can consist of walks, natures stories, songs and rhythmic movement. If you do more of a Thomas Jefferson Education, then your MT can be for read aloud and mom's special teaching. We lean more toward Charlotte Mason and Classical Education, so our time together reflects that.
Our Morning Time is a time for all of the subjects and books that we don't have time to get to during the day. I never seem to have time for picture study or composer study, during our learning time. Morning Time gives me that time, if I so desire. MT is just a nice way to start our day. A time to see the beauty that God has bestowed upon us throughout His Creation, His Word and through the words of others. I consider MT a time of ideas. We are not working on skill during this time, but rather discussing ideas and what it all means under God's word. This is the essential part of a Classical Education: discussing ideas.
When I was organizing our Morning Tme, I made a list of all of the things I would like to cover during this time. There were some things that I wanted to do daily but other subjects/books could be done weekly. So I made a schedule of the daily things and arranged the weekly subjects so that there was one a day. The schedule is a 5 day schedule so, obviously, we do them from Mon to Fri.
Here is our schedule of what we do. Every day, we do Bible reading, a hymn or praise chorus, poetry recitation and our family read aloud, as well as the subject for the according day.
Day 1: Poetry: Each child has their own poet for a term of 3 or 4 months. On this day, I just read a few poems from each of the poets. They recite their poems from their own poets as well. I also try to read a snippet from Plutarch's Lives to Mia on this day as well but I have dropped the ball big time on this one. I hope to pick it back up soon as I think this is very important to our learning time.
Day 2: Nature stories. Right now we are reading Among the Pond People by Clara Dillingham Pierrsons. We are just about done this, then we will move on to a Charles Kingsley book (I can't remember the title at the moment.)
Day 3: Greek Mythology. I read a myth for each child from separate books. For Mia, we are reading The Age of Fable by Bullfinch. The Wonder Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne is for Rocky and Missy is being read myths from an Usborne book. This takes a lot of time but this way, each child is learning a myth on their own level.
Day 4: Shakespeare. In a perfect world, we are to read one play per term (3 months.) This did not become a reality because life happened. We have been reading Hamlet for the past four months and it looks like we will be here for a while longer. That's okay. A MidSummer's Night Dream will still be waiting for us when we get finished.
Day 5: Canadian biography. Canadian History and I are not friends. For some inexplicable reason, I always drop the ball on Can. history, so this year, I am reading small excerpts from a biography on various famous Canadians. This is working out for us. At least my kids are finally being exposed to other Candians and getting a glimpse of its history. i will try a more formal approach as they get older and hope against hope that it will work this time.
So this is how it works in our home. It usually takes us between 30--60 mins, depending on how chatty we all are. Everyone's Morning Time is different because each family is different. That is the amazing thing about it, you can tweak it however it fits you and your kids, and it will still be an important part of your day. .
What We Learned -- This has been another rough week with power, due to snow storms we had been without power, off and on, for a few days. So learning didn't have top prioroity again this week. My mantra has become, "Maybe next week, maybe next week." Mia has started Life of Fred--Fractions and it is going well. I wouldn't use this as my sole math program but it is a fun supplement. Mia has also started Week 9 of Classical Writing--Homer. She is dividing Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit into scenes and analyzing each scene. She has returned to doing copywork with cursive. Cursive has been a thorn in her side but she is giving it another go.
Rocky is reading Magic Tree House books on his own this week. Sometimes it pays for mom to just keep her mouth shut and let the child find his way all by himself. It did me good to see him the other day sitting on my bed, reading a book. We are still working with place value for math.
As I wrote yesterday, we finished Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett for our unit study. We didn't do much with it this week except look at some Andy Warhol paintings and some other modern art. We talked alot about what makes art. The kids and I really enjoyed this unit.
What We Read-- Missy has developed an interest in Little House on the Prairie. She was given a book for her birthday and she has had me read it to her every day. During the power outage early Wed. morning,, she had me read by candlelight (this is quite a feat for menopausal eyes.) Our reading ran over into Wed. and all told we read 70 pages. We just finished 100 Cupboards by N.D. Wilson. I am still not sure about this book. It started out really good then it took a weird, scary turn. This story is similar to Narnia but, for some reason, it has a nastier feel to it. Mia wants to continue reading the next book. I think I will continue reading it to her aloud and then decide if we should read it to the other two. I finished Book # 5 --Habitrs of the Mind by James Sire. Excellent book. If I have time next week, I would like to share some of the quotes that are liberally sprinkled throughout the book. I am also reading Grace-Based Parenting by Tim Kimmel and Surprised by Joy by C.S.Lewis.
What We are Playing--Due to all of the snow that we received on the weekend, the kids have been playing outside. Even during 20 below (Celsius) weather, the hats, mittens, and scarves have been donned in order to explore the big snow drifts.
What We are Making--Well, actually, it is my Beloved who was making this week. He made deer sausage on Tues. and the kids and I helped him wrap it yesterday. All told, we will have over 40 packages of sausage in the freezer. The kids and my husband are ecstatic about this. Me, not so much. It's not that I don't like deer sausage--my Beloved makes very good sausage--it's just that a salad makes better sense to me.
What We Are Celebrating--This week we are celebrating God's goodness in our lives. We had a few God moments this week. One of them took place early Wed. morning. My Beloved made sausage at a friend's house on Tues. This is a long process, so he decided to stay over night. Wouldn't you know it, the power went off early Wed. morning. I get stressed when the power goes off because it means no water (aka no toilet flushing) and when the temps are cold (like 20 below) if the power is off for a long period of time, things could get nasty. I woke up at 3:30 Wed. morning to dark and chill. The pit of stress started to form in my stomach. At 4:00, I heard a vehicle come into the yard. Scared doesn't even cover what I felt when I saw the lights pass by bedroom window. The vehicle went on to the shop. I called my husband's cell to see, if maybe it was him. Praise God! it was! He decided to come home and as he got closer, he realized the power was off so he went to hook up the generator. This was a very good thing as the power didn't come on until well after lunch. God, as always, was taking care of us.
We finished our unit study on Chasing Vermeer. It was a success. The kids enjoyed our time learning about Vermeer and figuring out pentomino puzzles. We also learned about other mysteries in history and science, like crop circles and the disappearance of Atlantis. We talked about what makes a sculpture, a painting, a drawing, etc. a piece of art? We talked about whether there is such a thing as coincidences? We worked on our skills of sentence writing and map reading. There was great variety in this study.
Next week will be a fun week for us as we do some art projects, drawing and dabble with some science experiments.
The week after that, we will begin a new unit study on Gary Paulson's book, Hatchet. I read this book a few weeks ago and I am very excited to do this with the kids. We will be learning about the human body, survival skills and North American animals. I haven't fleshed out all of our plans but I am learning that the best plans are the spur of the moment ones. I"m living on the edge.
When I found out I had cancer in the fall, I knew that we all needed something that would fill our souls, something that would give us beauty, something that would comfort our bruised spirits. I knew right away what that something would be: Morning Time. I knew that if we did nothing else except Morning Time, we would still be okay. We would have the best part of education, as well as the best part of life.
I was right. Morning Time became our anchor for each day. When I was running around for tests, dr's appts, and then surgery, it was comforting to me to know that our day began with a bit of beauty thorugh God's Words as well as the words of the Masters (like Shakespeare, Plutarch, etc.) Morning Time did, indeed, soothe my soul. It calmed my ruffled feathers, so to speak. When I think of cancer, a picture immediately flashes in my head of sitting on the couch cuddling with Mia, reading Hamlet with Rocky and Missy on the floor nearby playing quietly. If there can ever be a good part of cancer (and I do believe there can be) then Morning Time was one of our good parts.
When I found out that the cancer was gone and I was healthy once again, I, ironically, fell apart. For a few weeks, I just couldn't deal with much of anything, not even poetry or Greek Mythology, so Morning Time fell by the wayside. I have picked up the pieces, so to speak, and feeling much better about life now, but we still haven't returned to Morning Time. This saddens me. I feel like I have deserted a loyal friend, who was there for me in the roughest times of my life. I feel a hole in my kids' education. When we were doing MT and nothing else, I still had a confidence that my kids were being exposed to the best of things of life. I knew they were still being educated in the best possible way. Even though, now, we are doing the basics and content subjects daily, that confidence has disappeared. I feel like I am short-changing my kids.
I need to make a concsious effort to bring Morning Time back into our day. This is a bit tricky as our days are quite full as it stands now. But I think I can bring it back a few times a week. On the days that the two oldest do chores (they feed the cows every other day. Enough hay is left out to feed the cows for the following day) there is no time for MT, so we will do it on the non-chore day. Even a little bit of MT is better than nothing.
I have missed MT as I would miss a dear old friend. I want to get back to Hamlet (we left him in mid-lament) Bullfinch (Age of Mythology) and Plutarch. I miss those guys.
I am reading a very interesting book. It is entitled Habits of the Mind by James W. Sire. This book is what I call a layer book. My brain cannot handle all that this man is telling me but I can grasp bits and pieces and gnaw away on them at my own pace. I know, though, that if I read this book again in a few years, then I will be able to grasp more of his thoughts on a deeper level because (hopefully) my brain will have gotten bigger and I will be able to handle more. I love these kinds of books. They offer delights way past the initial reading.
My first reading has come upon a quote on ideas. We have had a discussion on one of my e-groups about ideas. This quote seemed to be a delightful addition to the thoughts that were expressed in that discussion. This quote is actually from Jacques Barzun.
"An intellectual is one who loves ideas, is dedicated to clarifying them, developing them, criticizing them, turning them over and over, seeing their implications, stacking them atop one another, arranging them, sitting silent while new ideas pop up and old ones seem to rearrange themselves, laughing at them, watching them clash,picking up the pieces, starting over, judging them withholding judgement about them, changing them, bringing them into contact with their counterparts in other systems of thought, inviting them to dine, and have a ball but also suiting them for service in workaday life." Pg.28
Sire adds, immediately after the quote, "A Christian intellectual is all of the above to the glory of God."
This quote is definitely worthy of a commonplace entry.
We have had another week staying close to home as our car is STILL! in the garage. Oh, let me tell you a funny story. The garage called yesterday and told my husband that the part was in for our car and when would we like to bring it in so they could work on it? ????? My husband reminded them that they have had our car for the last three weeks. The mechanics response was "Oh." Well, what else could he say? I just shake my head. Ask me how much confidence I have in this garage?
What We Learned-- We have been doing alot of game playing for math this week. We kept playing Yahtzee, even though we aren't living in a hotel room anymore. Mia needs some practise in multiplying and adding numbers. Rocky is a bit stuck on place value so we have been playing games to help him in this area. For our Chasing Vermeer unit, Mia has ventured into the world of report writing. She wrote her first report on Atlantis. It was only a page long but she learned how to make a paragraph with the topic and supporting sentences. We also learned how to write an outline before the actual writing. This was very difficult for me to teach her as I have never wrote outlines before. In college, I always cheated by writing the paper first, then doing the outline. It was easier for me to figure out what I wanted to say by actually doing it. I need to show my kids, though, how to do it the proper way. Sometimes proper is painful.
What We Read-- MIssy and I finished Matlida by Roald Dahl. I absolutely love this book. I know many people do not love Dahl's books but they just give me the warm fuzzies. We are now starting The Fairy Princes by Isabel Wyant. Mia is reading the latest horse book that she acquired from the library. I finished The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley. Have I said how much I loved this book? It is so delightful. I am now entering the pages of Book #5-- Habits of the MInd by James Sire. Interesting so far.
What We Listened to-- Missy received Little House in the Big Woods on CD for her birthday this week. She is so excited to finally get a CD that is hers and all hers. She has been listening to the CDs over and over. The kids have been listening to the Adventures in Odyssey CDs. Rocky is obsessed by these. Mia is listening to Alice in Wonderland on CD. I have been listening to the Teaching Company's Shakespeare's Word and Action lecture set by Peter Sacchio. I am loving this series. I am learning so much.
What We Watched--I watched one of the lectures from Teaching Company's Masterpieces at the Louvre DVD. There was a lecture on Vermeer and I wanted to see if it was suitable for my kids to watch. It would have been suitable for them to see the actual talk on Vermeer but the lecturer talks about Rembrandt first and there is some nudity in those paintings. If the nudity had been brief, I would have still let them see it but the camera lingered on the painting longer than I could handle. So I watched the DVD for my personal viewing pleasure.
What We Celebrated--It's birthday week here on the Prairie. Missy turned 7 yesterday and Rocky will be 9 on Sat. We celebrated both of their birthdays by having supper at Boston Pizza. This is our favourite restaurant and also our most expensive so it is quite a treat when we eat there. We even splurged and had dessert. The Chocolate Explosion is to die for.
When I was a teenager, I took a distance learning course on Canadian literature. I can't remember all of the books that I had to read but I do remember that books by Farley Mowat, Stephen Leacock and Margaret Laurence were amongs them. I wasn't impressed. To my young mind, these books were the most depressing books I had ever read. The only good thing that came out of reading Stone Angel was the possibility of naming my first-born son Bram (that never happened, thank goodness.) I just could not find a spark of interest in these books.
In the years following, I kept trying to pick up the Canadian gauntlet and try other Canadian fiction. I dabbled in Alice Munroe in college (too stark for me.) I even tried another Laurence novel (The Diviners) but the verdict was the same. Boring. Depressing. This saddened me. I wanted the authors of my home country to be inspiring, witty, brilliant in the word. Looking back, these authors were all of these things but to my young (and inexperienced) mind, it just translated into boring. Back then, I was inhaling Danielle Steele. I wasn't ready for the Canadian way of writing.
In the years following, I tried other Candian authors. I just wasn't ready to give up. I tried more Alice Munro and, even though, I can't say that I loved the book, I did appreciate it. The book got me thinking. It was like a Rubrik's cube, I tired moving the pieces of the short stories around trying to make sense out of it. I am hopeless at those silly puzzles, so I didn't have much like trying to figure out the stories, but I did have fun trying to analyze it.
As the years have melted away, Canadian fiction, in my mind, has been given the label of boring and depressing. I have had no desire to read any more offerings from my home land. I know, very sad. This past year, though, my label has changed. I have read 4 books by Canadian authors which I thought were entertaining, even brilliant. I have been heartened by the offerings of these Canadian authors. I think the flow of Canadian fiction is changing.
My most amazing discovery (as I have written before) is Yann Martel. I wish this man would teach a philosophy or literature course at the University level. I would leave everything I hold dear just to go listen to him. He has an interesting mind and he is able to translate that very well into the written word. I have recently read his What is Stephen Harper Reading? Yes, the book had an agenda but I loved reading Martel's thought and words. It gave much food for thought. Martel's latest book will be out in April.
This post came about from reading another Canadian author, who I consider brilliant with the written word and who can also write a humorous and interesting story. Alan Bradley's The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is such a delight. I don't know whether Bradley has written any books in the past ( I think this is his first one) but he has a sequel to Sweetness coming out in March. I will be eagerly awaiting this book. One thing, though, about Bradley is that he is very heavy-handed with metaphors and simile's, he sprinkles them throughout his wriiing like one sprinkles salt on one's food (his simile use is rubbing off.) But if you can get past that, and just enjoy the book, then you will do well.
Other Canadian authors that I have read this past year is Dave Galloway (The Cellist of Sarajevo ) and Andrew Davidson (The Gargoyle ) These were both well-written and interesting books. All of these books have smashed the stereotype that I have pronounced on Candian fiction. No more can you associate the words boring and depressing to Canadian books. The Canadian literary horizon is changing or maybe it's just expanding. Either way, it is nice to see some new blood layered on that horizon.
In our discussion on Liberty, one of the women on my ClassEd egroup, listed being prepared to teach as an example of Liberty. I have thought a great deal about that one.
When you are prepared for each lesson, you can teach it with confidence. You are able to zip through it without any distractions or interuptions (at least, interuptions on your part.) When you aren't prepared, the child has to wait while you get your act together. You are always looking at the manual figuring out what needs to be done/said next. The lesson is stilted. There is liberty when you know what you are doing.
I have experienced both sides of the coin. More times than naught, though, being unprepared is my reality. In light of this discussion, I have been thinking about why I come to my day unprepared. This has given me pause as I have been dissecting my day.
Finding time for things hasn't really been the problem for me. I wake up at 6:00 every morning and go to sleep at 11:00, so I have alot of time to myself while the kids are asleep. I pick and choose what we commit to outside of the home. So we are home quite a bit during the week. I have instituted all of the tips that are given when more time is needed during the day. I think my problem is, not so much, in finding the time, but it is organizing what I do in that time.
I have noticed that I have become a Martha. I am always busy doing things. I am easily distracted by things that need to be done, or things that I think need to be done. I have a very hard time sitting still. I don't watch much television (when I do I rush out at commercials to do the little jobs that I think need to be done,) I never read during the day (that would be the height of laziness, woudn't it? That comment is laced with sarcasm,) I am always running around, distracted by all of those little jobs that are begging to be done. I have also noticed that I don't spend as much time with the kids like I used to. This makes me very sad.
I do not like being like this. I do not want to fritter my day away by working. Some people think this is a noble thing. I do not. There is so much more to life than working. If all I have to show for my life is work and do not have any relationships with my children or friends, then there is something seriously wrong with how I spend my days.
I have been thinking that I need to prioritize my time a bit better during the day. I need to give time for my kids, for preparing for today's lessons, for exercising, etc. I won't be able to do this every day but if I get a rhythm going and focus on what truly needs to be done (and not the busywork that I have been filling my days with) I think I could probably find more time to read the chapter book that Mia and I are supposed to be discussing or lay out the math lesson for Rocky or read the reading manual to figure out how Missy's reading lesson should play out.
There is so much to do and, if I am careful in how I fritter away my day, I think I can find the time. This is this week's challenge.
What We Learned -- We learned that when smoke comes pouring out of your power lines in the house, you need to get out and turn off the power, then you need to find other places to stay. We learned that it takes a long time to put new power lines in your house--2 days to be exact (that translated into 3 nights away from home--1 night at a friend's and the other 2 nights at a hotel.) We also learned that it is nasty having the flu when you are at a hotel, well, actually, Missy learned that little piece of wisdom.
What We Watched --lots and lots of brain-dead television. What else can you do when you are stuck in a hotel with a sick girl? Before the power blew, we did watch Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Olivier it is not, but parts of it were funny. It kept the kids busy when I noticed the smoke in the basement and had to figure out what to do. I was thankful for that.
What We Played-- due to our vacating the premises rather quickly, we didn't have a chance to pack alot of things to do so we bought Yaghtzee at WalMart (as much as I detest WalMart, it does come in handy once in a while..) I haven't played Yaghtzee in a very long time. I now remember why. I hate getting those zeroes when you can't find the proper combinations. I lost in a very dismal manner.
What We Bought-- Again, when you are stuck in a hotel room, what else is there to do but meander your way through the book store? So that is what we did. It was quite comforting. I still had my gift card from Christmas that I hadn't used yet so I was able to do some shopping for free. I bought Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Allan Bradley, Tha Last Station by Jay Parini (this is about Tolstoy's final year,) Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay (set in WWII) and The Underneath by Kathi Appelt (this is a children's book.) The book buying made homelessness bearable.
What We Read--the kids and I finished The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander (wonderful book) and have now started 100 Cupboards by N.D.Wilson. We haven't got to far into it so the verdict is still out about how good it is. Stay tuned. I was able to finish Book #3 this week. Tender is the Night by F.Scott Fitzgerald is a very dark and depressing book. A book that I did not like. This is surprising seeing that I usually like the dark and depressing ones (Wuthering Heights, Frankenstein) I guess even I have my limits. I have now moved on to Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley. So far, this is a delightful book. I am quite enjoying it.
What We are Thankful for-- We are thankful that we are now in our warm and safe house. Yay! We are thankful for God's provision during our stay in the hotel. We are thankful the temperatures hovered around 0 C. If it had been colder, we would have had a bigger mess with burst pipes. We are thankful that most of the food in our freezer was still frozen during our little fiasco. God is good.
I"m continuing with my thoughts from yesterday's post. Yesterday, i hashed around the concept that, in learning, ideas are what comes first and then skills. Even the young child can be filled with the ideas of beauty, truth and goodness. Skill is not needed to introduce these ideas. Skill may enhance the idea but it is not needed at the beginning.
Our education system, be it public or home, depends so much on skill. It is all about what little Johnny can do when he is at a certain age. We are concerned at what age he is reading, when he is writing an essay, when he is doing algebra, etc. It is all about performing. This concern carries over into an obsession with curriculum. We are focused on which program is going to give us the best bang for our buck. We bounce around from program to program trying to find the right fit for us. For some, there is a whole lot of bouncing going on because they can't find the right curriculum. Their entire focus is, not on teaching their chld, but, rather, on finding the best curriculum. Many times, the 'best' doesn't exist. Ask me how I know.
We have become enslaved to curriculum. We depend on it to teach our children, to think for us and to do our job for us. We are not able to think on our own. Rational thinking has gone out the window because we depend so much on other people's thoughts. We can't see that what the curriculum is asking of our children is just not logical for where our children are academically. We have lost the ability to think on our own.
An example of this came up on a messge board that I frequent. The mom was using RightStart Math (this is what I use with my two youngest as well.) She has been using Level B with her dd for over a year now and was still limping along. The problem was that the child could not do mental addition of two digit numbers. She understood the process. She could figure it out with the abacus but she could not do it mentally. The mom was ready to jump ship because her dd wasn't able to perform in the way that the manual said she should. As other people were asking questions to help this mom out, it came out that this girl had only turned 6 in November. She is only 6! I thought about this alot. This mom had given up her ability to think rationally (age 6 is a bit too young to expect mental math) to a math program. This poor girl had been sitting at a lesson for a few months because she wasn't performing at the level that the book said she should.
In being enslaved to curriculum, we are not allowing our children the freedom to be who they are. We are putting them in a little box. A box created by the curriculum authors--strangers, who have no idea that my children exist. We need to break out of this box and start making our own path.
Instead of letting curriculum control our being and thinking, we need to gain back some of our own control. We do this by using curriculum as a guide. We use it as a jumping off point to our children's studies. We read the lesson over for that day (week) and we incorporate those ideas into a learning style (for lack of a better word) that will work for our children. In other words, we find out the information that the curriculum is teaching then we find ways to teach it to our children in ways that will work for them.
Yes, it means alot of work on the part of the teacher. The thought of that makes me shudder (again, fodder for another post ) But isn't this why we chose to homeschool? We wanted our children to become thinkers and doers, not followers. We need to emulate this for our kids. We need to start thinking things for ourselves and not what is being fed to us through the pages of curriculum. We need to take back our ability to think for ourselves and act on those thoughts. Our children need us to do that.
I have many thoughts zipping around in my brain at the moment. You know what that means, don't you? Alot of posts with an equal number of rambling sentences. Don't say I didn't warn you.
On one of my classical education egroups, we were talking about the upcoming Circe conference in July. The theme is liberty. We began an interesting discussion about what exactly liberty meant to us. These types of conversations is what keeps me on this egroup. These women challenge my thinking in ways that I never knew possible. This discussion was no different.
One of the things that came up was something that I had come across a few times before but didn't fully understand. One wise woman stated that real education is not about skill but, rather, ideas. She stated that the reason why Classical Education has traveled down roads that were not originally intended is because people are more focused on what the child can do (skill) than what/how the child can think (idea.)
When I first heard this, I was immediately thrown into a state of confusion. This did not make any sense to me. To my way of thinking, skill and idea should go hand in hand. You need skill in order to embrace the idea. If you don't know how to read, how are you going to learn about the Great Ideas?
I asked some questions during our egroup discussion in hopes of clearing my mental fog. I think I am grasping what this woman meant. Yes, skill and ideas are both needed but you don't need skill first. Ideas can come first. A child does not need to know how to read to come into contact with the ideas of Beauty, Truth and Goodness. They can be conveyed to the child when she is quite young through literature, poetry, song, art, etc. Skill is needed but it is not the first thing. Skill helps the ideas to be expressed in an articulate manner but the idea needs to be the foundation of it all.
Education today (be it Classical Education, Waldorf, CM, doesn't matter what method you use) has become all about skill. We are most concerned about what the child can do. Can he read by the time he is 5? Can he add double digits when he is 6? Is he writing a 5 paragraph essay by the time he is 9? We have set educational milestones for our children and if they don't meet them, then we think we have failed as an educator and as a parent.
You go to an online forum and you are swept away with the myriads of posts about what curriculum to get Johhny for math, or why isn't this working for Mary? It is all about curriculum, about lesson plans that someone else has made up for your child. We need this curriculum to teach our children the necessary skills. We have become dependent on someone else's ideas about what is good for our children. I will post more about this later this week. (I told you, lots and lost of posts.)
We all need skills, that is a given but we need ideas more. Skill will make a person a good doctor, a great lawyer, a wonderful teacher, but ideas will make a person a human being of worth, a servant of Christ. That is what is most important and we are losing it.
I think, possibly, that my mental fog is slowly dissipating. Clarity is on the horizon.
We had a great week! It was a very quiet week as our car died last week. It won't be ready for another week or two. 
So we were (and will be for awhile, apparently) housebound. It was cold here this past week so inside was a good place to be. Here's what we did:
What We Learned--Mia started Life of Fred--Fractions and she learned how to do the first three steps of the Six Sentence Shuffle in her Classical Writing program. Rocky reviewed place value. It is obvious that he has forgotten lots so we will stop where we are and go over place value the living math way. I have a few homemade games that we can play, as well as some math storybooks on place value. I have to admit that I kind of like it when the kids get stumped on a concept because that means we can park with living math for awhile. He started cursive this week. He was doing well until we got to E. It has been a tense week for my boy. Missy is doing very well with addition and I introduced her to vowels this week.
Our unit study on Chasing Vermeer is goinglike gangbusters. The kids are having a blast learning about the varied things that lay in between these pages. I think Rocky's favourite thing is the Vermeer site where you can click on each of his paintings and find out the culture and history behind the objects in his paintings. It is quite fascinating. This site has oodles and oodles of info on Vermeer and his art. In the book, it has been suggested that Vermeer may have not painted all of his paintings. Today, we visited the site to see if we could find any discrepancies between his older paintings and his newer ones. Art detectives suit my children very well. We also are learning map skills. We went over the cardinal directions for Missy's sake and are now working on scale. I found an inexpensive workbook at Rainbow Resource that suits our purpose. I am usually anti-workbook but the more I homeschool, the more I am able to see that workbooks do have their place occasionally.
We are working on a poster regarding mysteries that occur in history and science. The kids wrote out blurbs on crop circles this week, as well as doing some pentomino puzzles.
What We Read--Rocky received a science magazine--Know-- in the mail so we are working our way through that. We are also reading The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander, Matilda by Roald Dahl, Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens and The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. Mia is reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. I have finished my first two books of 2010. Book #1 is Knowing God by J I Packer and Book #2 is Hatchet by Gary Paulsen (I am pre-reading this as we are going to be doing this for our unit study after Vermeer. This is an excellent book! I can hardly wait to read it with the kids.) I am now reading Book #3--Tender is the Night by F.Scott Fitzgerald. This is my classic for the month.
What we Watched-- I have a very nasty secret to reveal. Are you ready? Recently I have started watching CSI New York. I have never watched this before. I never had the desire to before. I don't know why but the desire has entered my life. Now, if it was only once a week, I could handle that but this show now comes on daily. Yep, I watch it every morning at 8:00. This is so bizarre to admit it but I find it comforting to start my day with this show. It has become my routine that I wake up, check my email, have my Bible reading and prayer time then I settle down to an hour of CSI. The last two items of my routine are a bit of a dichotomy, but so is life. There, you know my deep, dark secret.
On a lighter note, we watched Nim's Island. I have watched this movie a gazillion times but I could watch it a gazillion more times. This movie gives me the warm fuzzies.
What We Crafted--Mia has been on a crafting binge this week. She learned how to knit and she learned how to do silk screening. She received a silk screen kit for Christmas. Now she is whipping out painted t-shirts for anyone who is interested. She is very good at it.
What We Baked and Cooked-- I tried out my Rice Cooker this week. I love this thing! There are a boatload of recipes that came in the box so trying them out will be ,y mission in the next few weeks. Missy also made Double Chocolate Chip Cookies.
What We Saw--One night as dusk was settling in, I looked out our family room window and saw a group of 6 deer. This is not unusual for this time of year. What was unusual was the object following the deer. It was hard to make out in the waning light but I do believe it was either a racoon or a porcupine.
That title sounds so dramatic, doesn't it? When you are at the bottom of the pit and you think that there is no chance of ever getting out, God throws you a glimmer of hope so that you can start to claw your way out.
Again, that sounds totally dramatic. Life has not been really that hard lately, but I have been feeling extremely discouraged as of late over the kids learning differences. We have been plugging away, yet haven't seen any real progress (except with Rocky's reading and there has been huge progress in that area.) I speak mainly of Missy and her mission to learn how to read. We have been climbing this mountain for the last two years and we still haven't gotten up off of the ground. She is frustrated and I am frustrated. This just leads to a whole lot of frustration. It's just not pretty here some days.
God gave me my glimmer of hope yesterday, though. That glimmer will do me for the next little while. We have been using LiPS, a phonemic awareness program to help Missy learn her letter sounds. This program is wonderful. I am so happy that we have this as our resource. But things are still just limping along.
I decided to take the vertical path of this program. This means that we learn 3 consonant pairs, 3 vowels then take that knowledge to learn how to read and spell. We, then, go back to the beginning and learn more letters, vowels, etc. I thought this would be less intimidating for Missy. Well, we have been doing this for 3 weeks and there has been no recognition at all over the sounds. I have been ready to camp out at the bottom of my pit.
Yesterday, I hauled out all of our 'reading stuff' and laid it out on the table. Dreading yet another sesion of frustration and tears (hers and mine.) We started by laying out the pictures of the sounds and the accompanying letters. She did fine at this but she has done well with this from the beginning. Now came the tricky part, the receptive and expressive part of this exercise. I gave her a letter sound and she was to point out the right letter. Lo and behold! She did it! She pointed out every letter correctly. Praise God! Hallelujah!
Now, she couldn't tell me what the sounds were, but that's okay. I have my glimmer of light and I am going to hold on to that for all that it is worth. God showed me, yet again, that we need to just plug along. The path that we are on is going to be a very long and arduous one but He is going to prop us up every step of the way.
I thought I would give a 'day in the life' post to follow all that I had written about our new rhythm (or schedule, but I like the easy-going sound of 'rhythm.) We had a great day yesterday. This was our first day since Sept that we had a real full day. Before this, we had done bits and pieces but never everything together. I still need to work on Morning Time. In the past month, MT has gone by the wayside and I need to bring that back in full.
I woke up at 6:45 yesterday (I was hoping for 6:00 but Christmas holidays made it hard to get up that early,) and did my daily quiet time things. The kids started waking up at 8:30. I made pancakes for breakfast. I cleaned the kitchen up, then asked the kids what they wanted to do for that day. Rocky proclaimed that he wanted to go outside--no surprise there, he loves going outside--even in 20 below weather. Missy wanted to do a craft and Mia just wanted to have some quiet time. Mia had a hard night's sleep the night before and the circles under her eyes (they were more like buckets) proved it.
We had our read aloud. The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander is the first book in the Prydain Chronicles. We are quite liking this book. We read two chapters and then called it quits. The kids then proceeded to get ready to go outside. While they were out, I was able to get in a half hour of yoga, start laundry and clean the bathrooms and my bedroom. They came inside for some hot chocolate and a time of playing before lunch.
Lunch was homemade ham pockets and salad. I checked my emails then geared up for school. Mia started us off with math. She has one more lesson with MUS then she will move on to MUS Epsilon. Even though we had alot of distractions, Mia was able to finish her book in 5 months. I think that is pretty good. When she starts Epsilon, we will also supplement with Life of Fred, the fraction book. She is looking forward to that. Anyway, yesterday was spent finishing up review on volume, Roman Numerals, and long division. We moved on to her reading program. Mia is sailing through this as we don't really need it for reading but for spelling. After reading, she went off to read Tom Sawyer and write out her narrations for each chapter she read.
Rocky's turn. He, too, started with math. He did a review page from his book on multiples, adding, subtracting, and angles. Rocky is getting closer to Book 3 in his reading program. We have had to go slower with him as he needs this program for reading. He has made such great strides in his reading, though. I am so pleased.
Now comes Missy. Missy started our time off with a hissy fit. I knew that she couldn't do reading in the state that she was in so we calmed down by reading Matilda by Roald Dahl. The cuddling and reading worked, we were able to go back to our reading. I really like Missy's reading program but I can see this is going to be a very slow journey. I can feel that this journey is already being filled with doubt on my part. This needs to be bathed in prayer. Math has been going very well for Mia. I am combining both Levels A and B from RightStart. This is working. Mia did a worksheet on adding 1 to a number and she got it without using an abacus. This was a big step for her.
Missy moved off to one side of the table to play with clay while the other two came to the table to work on their writing. Rocky did some copywork with a quote from The Wind in the Willows, while Mia did Week 8 in Classical Writing: Homer. Mia separated the model (the Parable of the Prodigal Son) into scenes, then anayzed one scene using Theon's categories.
After the basics was done then we were ready to move on to Chasing Vermeer. The kids are enjoying our unit on this book. It is so refreshing to see them excited about something. I read Chp. 6 to them. There was alot to do with this chapter. In this chapter, there is a pentomino code used to decipher a letter between the main character and his friend. The kids and I figured out the letter using the code. That took awhile as it was a long letter.
The artist, Vermeer, was introduced in today's chapter. More accurately, Vermeer's painting, The Geographer, was introduced. We went on the computer and looked up the painting. I found a neat site specifically on Vermeer ( I will post the site later on this week.) When you pull up one of Vermeer's painting, you can click on parts of the painting then, at the side, expanations and background pop up about the painting. We stayed quite awhile looking at the Geographer painting and reading all of its background.
The Geographer is a painting about a mapmaker so I am taking this opportunity to teach the kids more about maps, not just road maps but topographical maps, physical maps, time zone maps, etc. I bought a few map books from Rainbow Resource last month. We read one map book then did a few worksheets on map keys and symbols.
By this time it was 5:00, time to attack the mountain of laundry that was on my bed. Five loads of laundry is alot of clothes to fold. I started folding while the kids played. A half an hour later, I was still folding when I remembered that Mia hadn't had her quiet time yet, so I declared that it was now quiet time. The kids moved off to their rooms and played quietly for an hour. We have started having a quiet time right before supper, I am finding that this saves my sanity to have some quiet while I am preparing supper and it helps the kids wind down after a heavy day of learning and playing.
I am very happy with how our first day played out. I know that everyday will not be like this ( I know, I should post about the bad days, too.) but it is nice to start off the new year on a good foot.