A Handful of Non-Fiction Picture Books

 

:: Geography from A to Z: A Picture Glossary

Maps and Globes is one of my most favorite picture books to introduce kids to basic geography (What are maps? What do maps tell us? How is the earth measured? What are the marking on maps?), and now I have a favorite picture book for the features of the earth! In alphabetical order, Geography from A to Z: A Picture Glossary defines more than sixty geographical features and weaves in another 60+ definitions and synonyms. For example, the definition of oasis is given within the definition of desert; the definitions of knob and knoll are included in the definition of hill. The added terms are in bold, so they are easy to spot.

Challenge A students are instructed to define these terms and create their own picture glossary. This is one of the projects that Levi fell behind on, and I wish we had this book at the beginning of the year. My other kids will enjoy reading and learning the terms before they hit Challenge.

:: If: A Mind-Bending New Way of Looking at Big Ideas and Numbers

We recently enjoyed a couple picture books about small things, Tiny Creatures: The World of Microbes and What's Smaller Than a Pygmy Shrew? so it was fun to go in the opposite direction and think about something big. If… is a book full of visual representations to help kids (and adults) understand mind-boggling big numbers, from our galaxy to a timeline of inventions to water and continents to energy to population. This book makes a variety numbers come to life! [Yes, there are also two pages of the evolutionary history of earth.]

:: The Perfect Wizard: Hans Christian Andersen

My boys love fairy tales and we have several beautiful picture books of fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen. I try to find biographical picture books of authors whenever possible, and this picture book by Jane Yolen is lovely. The pictures are soft and muted. I also love The Young Hans Christian Andersen, the story of his childhood (with darling illustrations) by Karen Hesse.

:: Ballet for Martha: Making Appalachian Spring

We have borrowed this one from the library before, but it was time to revisit. My boys love Appalachian Spring (because they love the original Shaker hymn, Simple Gifts), so this story is a favorite. The illustrations are wonderful! Even more exciting is that the original ballet can be viewed on YouTube!

The Hunts

I rarely buy music, but I cannot wait to purchase The Hunts’ new album, which will be released on June 9th. They are an indie-folk band consisting of seven (homeschooled) siblings. Check out their website or follow them on Facebook!

Food For Thought ~ Music and Art

 

Music

"Music, being identical with heaven, isn't a thing of momentary thrills, or even hourly ones. It's a condition of eternity."

~Gustav Holst [HT: Squilt Music]

"You can study orchestration, you can study harmony and theory and everything else, but melodies come straight from God. There's really no technique for melodies."

~ Quincy Jones, producer/arranger [HT: Jim Weiss]

:: Science Just Discovered Something Amazing About What Childhood Piano Lessons Did to You @ Mic.com

"What we found was the more a child trained on an instrument," Hudziak told the Washington Post, "it accelerated cortical organization in attention skill, anxiety management and emotional control."

:: 7 Days to Beethoven: A totally free mini-course from Professor Carol

:: Music Makes You a Better Reader, Says Neuroscience @ GOOD Magazine

“We’ve added a critical new chapter to the story about music and education,” says Kraus. “Due to the overlap between neural circuits dedicated to speech and music, and the distributed network of cognitive, sensorimotor, and reward circuits engaged during music making, it would appear that music training is a particularly potent driver of experience-dependent plasticity in the brain that influences processing of sound related to academics.”

Art

:: An Honest, Human, Amateur Art Critic @ Story Warren

In The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning said, “Quite simply, our deep gratitude to Jesus Christ is manifested…in our deep and delicate respect for one another.” Artistry cannot be objectified as something entirely separate from the person, not if it’s good and thoughtful work. Scribbles are scribbles, after all, but the pouring out of a person’s heart should not be taken lightly. The gift reflects and reveals the giver. And the giver reflects the Giver, in both image and art.

:: How Art Can Help You Analyze by Amy E. Herman [Ted-Ed]

The benefits of art study are numerous and complex, but this entertaining and short video highlights a practical benefit not often considered.

:: The Art of Cleanup: Ursus Wehrli Playfully Deconstructs and Reorders the Chaos of Life @ Brain Pickings.

This is oh, so fun. I need this book to look at on those rough days when nothing is in its place.

:: 12 fascinating optical illusions show how color can trick the eye @ The Washington Post.

“The Dress” brouhaha that made its rounds on social media disturbed me. How can it be possible that people see colors that differently? This article is fascinating.

 

If you prefer to have your “Food for Thought” reading spread out over time rather than in one huge buffet of links, follow me on Facebook where I share quotes and articles as I discover them!

Food for Thought ~ Music, Science, Math, and Memory

Or “The Cross-Pollination of Accumulated Ideas”

 

:: Music and God’s Good Timing by Caleb Skogen @ Classical Conversations [Seriously good, but convicting, stuff here.]

Music cannot be separated from time nor can the timing of music be thought of as something entirely constructed by man. Because of music’s physical and temporal character, music reminds us that time belongs to the very framework of God’s creation.

:: The Musical Root of Science @ CiRCE

If we wish to produce young men and women who are capable of thinking like Galileo and Kepler, advancing the boundaries of mathematics and science, they must be educated in all areas of study, including music as well as arithmetic, and be able to integrate the disciplines together.

:: A Post-Empirical God @ Church & Culture

There is now a battle raging over the scientific method itself, particularly between those engaged in cosmology and those pursuing the study of fundamental physics.

:: The Psychology of Why Creative Work Hinges on Memory and Connecting the Unrelated @ Brain Pickings

“A powerful and personally developed structuring of information — an active and selective memory — is as necessary for scientists as it is for poets.” [John-Steiner]

But perhaps the most potent use of memory in the creative mind is the cross-pollination of accumulated ideas and the fusing together of seemingly unrelated concepts into novel configurations — something Stephen Jay Gould, arguably the greatest science essayist of all time, captured when he said that his sole talent is “making connections.” John-Steiner quotes a similar sentiment by the Polish-born mathematician Stan Ulam:

“It seems to me that good memory — at least for mathematicians and physicists — forms a large part of their talent. And what we call talent or perhaps genius itself depends to a large extent on the ability to use one’s memory properly to find analogies, past, present and future, which [are] essential to the development of new ideas.”

Classical Conversations ~ Cycle 3, Weeks 13-24

January always sneaks up on me. It shouldn’t. I mean, my Foundations/Essentials boys will have had six weeks off. Six!! Granted, my Challenge student had fewer weeks off, with an adjusted schedule due to rescheduled classes (he had three community days at the very end, on December 1, 5, and 8), and work to complete over break which he has managed to spread out over the whole break. And we’ll be on a big family vacation during the first week back (wahoo!!), so Levi also needs to be ahead in a few subjects.

We also have Levi’s 13th birthday to celebrate on January 1st before we head to Disneyland a couple days later. So, you see, it’s difficult to imagine getting back into the swing of things on January 12th (a week late).

But come it must, and we’ll be ready.

History

We continue with United States history.

I posted a lengthy book list at this link, which includes history, literature, speeches and poetry memory work, and geography through week 24.

Geography

Again, we continue with U.S. geography.

My favorite two free online resources are:

:: Sheppard Software geography games (fantastic for U.S. and World geography in Foundations and Challenge A, and includes geographical features as well as states and capitals)…

:: and Draw the USA at Mahalo (video tutorial)

Science

We move on to chemistry for weeks 13-18 and general science topics for weeks 19-24.

[Y’all should know that those last 6 weeks of science memory work are a sneak peek and early preparation for what your student will be learning in the rhetoric strand in Challenge A, which includes the memorization of 57 similar sentences! The first 12 weeks of human anatomy memory work in Foundations cycle 3 help prepare the student for the body systems memory work encountered in the second semester of Challenge A, as well.]

Chemistry:

::  TED-Ed launches an interactive periodic table with a video for every element

::  The New Periodic Table Song. (Too fast for you? Try the slow version with captions.)

::  They Might Be Giants: "Meet the Elements"

 

::  Memorize the first 20 elements of the periodic table using mental imagery.

::  Elements and Atoms by Khan Academy

If you’re like me, and no subject is complete without a few books to peruse…

:: The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe is a spectacular book that should hold the attention of kids and adults alike. Each visually-stunning two-page spread explores a single element, including current uses. Check out the “see inside” feature at Amazon, and you’ll see what I mean. Highly recommended. I’m adding Molecules: The Elements and the Architecture of Everything to our collection, as well.

:: The Periodic Table: Elements with Style! and Basher Science: Chemistry: Getting a Big Reaction. My boys are huge fans of all the Basher Series. These books are highly entertaining and perfect for boys who would rather be reading comics. Each element or concept is defined using personification (and quirky illustrations). For example:

“Alloy. The Man of Steel. I give a backbone to spineless metals. I make them fit for purpose with properties that better suit their uses. Without me, “supermetal” would be, well, just plain old Metal…”

“Radium. I am the heaviest of the gang and a completely captivating character. I shine in any social situation. Bright and luminescent…I’m a real stunner…”

“Lead…Over the years, I’ve gained a bad rap. People say that I build up in bones as a slow poison and that I have damaged children’s development. It’s true that I have an unfortunate ability to slip easily into the food chain—from pipes and cookware, leaded gasoline, and paints to fishermen’s weights. I have also been blamed for ending the ancient Roman civilization. Not fair! These days, I am closely regulated. But I am still used as a shield against x-rays, for roofing, and in stained glass.”

:: The Mystery of the Periodic Table. Looking for a good narrative science read-aloud? Or an interesting history of science chapter book for independent readers? We have enjoyed all of the Living History Library, particularly the books by Jeanne Bendick, so The Mystery of the Periodic Table is on our list. (Levi read it independently a couple years ago and enjoyed it.)

:: DK Eyewitness Books: Chemistry is a good choice for general chemistry information in the visually-attractive (but non-narrative) style of DK reference works—perfect for researching a specific topic or for a child who enjoys poring over books with pictures and detailed captions.

:: Exploring the World of Chemistry: From Ancient Metals to High-Speed Computers by John Tiner is a Chemisty course written in narrative style from a biblical perspective. (Memoria Press uses this series in 5th-8th grades.)

Latin

The following is a video set to my friend (and son’s tutor) Mindy Pickens’s rendition of John 1:1-7 in Latin from the Vulgate. (We use the same tune to sing the verses in English.)

 

Fine Arts

 

Great Artists:

Grandma Moses, Norman Rockwell, Georgia O’Keefe, N.C. Wyeth, Lichtenstein, and Jim Davis

:: Roy Lichtenstein (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists). I’ve purchased the books by Mike Venezia that correspond with the above artist. I love his style. Entertaining (but thorough) biographical and historical information paired with hilarious illustrations and the artist’s work along with period art and photographs. My boys LOVE them.

:: Grandma Moses (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists). [I am also purchasing this version of The Night Before Christmas illustrated by Grandma Moses. It will be a wonderful addition to Christmas book collection.]

:: Norman Rockwell (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists) [I’m leaving out my Norman Rockwell's Christmas Book until after we’re through learning about the artist.]

:: Norman Rockwell: Storyteller With A Brush

:: Georgia O'Keeffe (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists)

:: N.C. Wyeth's Pilgrims. We have several books illustrated by N.C. Wyeth, but this one is a lovely picture book example of his work.

:: 20 Years & Still Kicking! Garfield's Twentieth Anniversary Collection. We may have to add How to Draw Garfield and Friends (Learn to Draw), as well!

 

Composers:

[Romantic and Modern periods] Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Stravinsky

:: My most favorite free online resource is far and away Classics for Kids. Many composers are featured (including all three of this cycle’s composers). Click on the composer’s name for biographical information. Then click the top left (green) option “View past Classics for Kids shows about _________.” The shows are radio-style with narration and music. Some are about the composer. Some are about a specific piece of music. Often there are coordinating activity sheets you can print. [These are the options for Tchaikovsky.]

:: Story of the Orchestra : Listen While You Learn About the Instruments, the Music and the Composers Who Wrote the Music! If you are wanting to purchase the single best resource for composers and instruments for elementary students that will carry you through all 3 cycles of Classical Conversations Foundations composers and instruments, this book is my highest recommendation. The first half of the book covers 15 different composers in chronological order as well as a page on each period (Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Modern). All three of cycle 3 composers are covered (and two each of the previous cycle’s composers). The biographical information is fairly short, and the illustrations are entertaining. The second half of the book covers the instruments, divided by sections of the orchestra. The accompanying CD includes short tracks for each composer and instrument.

:: Igor Stravinsky (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Composers). Again, my boys devour Mike Venezia’s biography series. We own a plethora of composers, artist, presidents, and inventors, and the boys immediately sit down to read them if I leave them out. Venezia uses a combination of hilarious illustrations and period photographs and art to complement his generous (but child-friendly) biographical information. Very informative and entertaining. Highly recommended.

:: Peter Tchaikovsky (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Composers). I just wish Mike Venezia would write one about Debussy!

:: Tchaikovsky Discovers America. My kids adore all of the Classical Kids recordings. They are radio-style full-cast stories with music. I highly recommend the whole collection.

Instruments of the Orchestra:

:: Children's Classics - Prokofiev: Peter & The Wolf / Saint-Saens: Carnival of the Animals / Britten: Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (CD). These three recordings are essential to a child’s cultural literacy. [This animated version of Peter and the Wolf is stunning if a tad dark.]

:: The Story of the Orchestra (details above)

:: Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin. A delightful picture book for younger elementary students.

:: The Philharmonic Gets Dressed. This is a charming, unexpected book. Just for fun.

 

I think that wraps up new content for the second semester! Are you ready for January?

A Few of My Favorite Things

C. S. Lewis

:: Check out these fantastic videos of his essays illustrated/animated! [I can’t pick a favorite.]

:: C. S. Lewis: The Undragoning of Eustace @ Jennifer Neyhart [So beautiful. Check out her other C. S. Lewis posts, as well.]

:: Thanksgiving and Desire, Ordinary Time and Advent, and C. S. Lewis Week @ The Rabbit Room

It takes work to see the extraordinary things in “ordinary” time: to see a sunbeam shining through a cracked door into a dusty shed as a parable for the modern world; to see praise as “inner health made audible”; to see a world in a wardrobe.

:: The Legacy of C. S. Lewis @ The Imaginative Conservative

For in both his fiction and nonfiction Lewis, like Eliot, affirmed such norms as the rightness of order, not anarchy; the desirability of cultural change coming about slowly and organically; and the high value of custom, convention, and continuity. He also stressed the importance of individual responsibility for one’s decisions and actions; the necessity of recognizing man as a flawed creature, and of mistrusting the naked human ego and all utopian talk of men being like gods; and the overarching imperative of recognizing a transcendent order in the Person of God, the Author of Joy as revealed in the doctrines of orthodox Christianity.

Fairytales

:: What If Fairytales Weren’t Fairytales After All? @ Tates Creek Presbyterian Church [go read this one!]

What if our novels and films were both untrue and true? Untrue because they are figments of human imagination; true because they are portals into another reality, a greater reality of which our physical reality is a part not the whole.

What if we tell stories because we are made in the image of a God who Himself is telling a story that we are all a part of? We certainly cannot see this God anymore than Harry Potter can see J.K. Rowling, but there are signposts everywhere that we exist within a story written by an Author.

:: Redeeming Santa @ Tates Creek Presbyterian Church

Allowing our children to encounter and even believe (children don’t cognitively believe like we believe. They have an ability to get lost in fantasy without detaching from reality. Maybe that’s what Jesus means when He said, “Unless you become like a child you cannot enter the Kingdom…”) in fantasy is one of the greatest ways to prepare them to believe in the true and better story to which all other stories point. To deprive them of fantasy is to reinforce the lie of our secular age that there is no fantasy.

:: I Saw Mommybloggers Dissing Santa Claus by Marc Hays @ Kuyperian Commentary

If myth “blurs the lines between fact and fantasy” to such a dangerous extent, why do we read stories to our children at all? And if we’ve decided to read them stories, then we would crush their imaginations by perpetually reminding them that this is not real. In fact, we read them stories because fiction is more real than not. Fiction is vicarious living, whether or not the protagonist has magical powers. Stories by humans will always teach us about what it means to be a human, and there are no stories that are not written by humans.

 

Cellos (and Music)

 

:: Why Music Theory? by Caleb Skogen @ Classical Conversations

Music theory…teaches how to communicate well through studies of order, harmony, relationships, ratios, dissonance, consonance, tension, and time. Within these studies, one is pushed passed the mere notes and ideas of a score to discover more of music’s grandiose purpose. Many of us do not generally think about music or the arts as means for understanding God, but studies in music theory can help one understand that form is important to our Creator and that it should be used in ways that reflect His character. This is an appropriate pursuit of the beauty that Plato wrote about.

CiRCE

::  How to Read a Brook: Some Notes on Creation-Literacy @ CiRCE. On Wordsworth, Augustine, and stopping reading to read well.

Books are mankind’s words about God and the world, but the world is God’s word about himself. As the Psalmist writes, the heavens “pour forth speech” and “reveal knowledge” which runs “to the end of the world.” The cosmos then is not full of unanswerable questions (as it would sometimes be convenient to imagine), but unquestionable answers—the visible, audible, tangible, smellable, tastable, altogether incontrovertible testimony of the Three-in-One.

:: The Wonder of Unexpected Supply @ CiRCE

Perhaps teaching itself is a poetic endeavor; or perhaps poetry, in it’s ability to work directly on the affections, is the purest form of education.

:: Off Stage by Tim McIntosh @ CiRCE Magazine [Read the rest of the CiRCE magazine here, or request the GORGEOUS print copy (pictured above).]

Yet the starkness of the stage highlights the incredible power of Hamlet’s yearnings. Richard Burton as Hamlet cries, “What should such fellows as I do, crawling between heaven and earth!” His longing leaps off the bare stage, an incandescent reminder that God has planted eternity in the hearts of men.

Sisters

:: Your Adult Siblings May Be The Secret To A Long, Happy Life @ NPR

"The literature on sibling relationships shows that during middle age and old age, indicators of well-being — mood, health, morale, stress, depression, loneliness, life satisfaction — are tied to how you feel about your brothers and sisters."

Education

 

"When people are bored, it is primarily with themselves." —Eric Hoffer (HT: Gutenberg College)

::  The 3 Characteristics of an Educated Man @ The Art of Manliness [This is an older article, but I thought it was fantastic.]

The real test for the modern educated man is the ability to entertain himself when technology isn’t available or is not socially acceptable to whip out. Can you entertain yourself at a boring meeting, while camping, while conversing at a dinner party? The educated man can, and he does it, ironically enough, by retaining an important ability of his childhood—curiosity. The educated man is insatiably curious about the world around him and other people. In any situation, he sees something to learn, study, and observe. If he’s stuck somewhere with neither phone nor company,  he uses the time to untangle a philosophical problem he’s been wrestling with; the mind of the educated man is a repository of ideas that he can pull out and examine to pass the time in any situation.

Books and Movies

::  First Trailer for “The Little Prince” Movie Released @ The Reading Room

 

:: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 by Jeffrey Overstreet @ Letterboxd

:: “We will need writers who can remember freedom”: Ursula K Le Guin at the National Book Awards @ Parker Higgins

"I think hard times are coming when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom. Poets, visionaries — the realists of a larger reality.”

:: 50 Best Books for Boys and Young Men @ The Art of Manliness

:: The Green Ember is here!

Poetry, Music, the Nine Muses, and More

I went down a bit of a rabbit trail earlier today, although the subject matter has (obviously) been on my mind recently.

It started while reading the language arts series by Michael Clay Thompson. I am re-reading the Island level with Luke and including Leif this time around. We diagram sentences together daily from one or another level of practice books (we have Island, Town, and Voyage), and Levi often joins us. MCT provides wonderfully imaginative sentences to analyze, and he includes fantastic comments for each one including vocabulary and Latin stems, grammar notes, and poetic devices (alliteration, assonance, etc.).

Today’s sentence was “Yes, after the ceremony the enthusiasm was manifest.” I always write the sentence on the white board incorrectly (e.g. missing punctuation, misplaced capitals, duplicate words, or misspellings), and Leif and Luke’s most favorite task is the “mechanics check” when they are given the chance to correct all my mistakes using editor’s marks. We then identify the parts of speech, parts of the sentence, purpose, structure, and pattern. After the hard work of analysis comes the delightful reward of diagramming.

After our grammar work this morning, we moved on to start the vocabulary book, Building Language, in which the author takes us back to the history of Rome and the beauty and strength of the arch as it relates to architecture. He then compares the arch to the Latin language and how it influences our own.

The boys began to construct Playmobil worlds in the front room while I continued to read aloud from the poetics book, Music of the Hemispheres. It opens with a poem by Emily Dickinson: "How happy is the little stone/ That rambles in the road alone/ And doesn't care about careers/ And exigencies never fears..." [My oldest son piped up to tell me the definition of "exigencies" as applied to logical fallacies. As hard as this life can be many days, I was reminded why we’re on this adventure called homeschooling.]

In the preface of Music of the Hemispheres, Michael Clay Thompson writes:

“Being a poet is much like being a composer of symphonies. Just as a composer writes each note on a musical staff, and composes harmonies for the different instruments, and knows when to enhance the percussion or the woodwinds, a great poet has an array of tools and techniques at hand, and puts each sound on the page, one sound at a time, in a deliberately chosen rhythm, for a reason.”

MCT talks about poetry being the "music of the hemispheres" meaning that poetry uses both sides of the brain in a way similar to music (utilizing sounds, rhythm, precise form, and creativity).

Just a few short minutes after finishing our reading for the morning, I came across the following short, entertaining, and fascinating video (thank you, Facebook).

 

I started wondering if structured dance affects the brain in the same way, as it is musical and physical. A smidge more rabbit-trailing, and I came across this video (also short, fascinating, and entertaining—oh, how I love TED). Ah, of course. The nine muses of Ancient Greece: tragedy, comedy, poetry, dance, songs, history, astronomy (music of the spheres!), hymns, and epic poetry.

 

[At this point in my rambling, I’m itching to share twenty quotes about educating the poetic imagination, music, and the history of classical education from Beauty for Truth's Sake: On the Re-enchantment of Education by Stratford Caldecott, but that would make an already lengthy blog post unreasonably unwieldy. You’ll just have to read the book yourself.]

And then I began free-falling down a rabbit hole.

::  How to Read Music (engaging introductory video, again by TED). This brilliantly sums up the current music theory unit we are studying in the Classical Conversations Foundations program.

 

::  Reading a Poem: 20 Strategies @ The Atlantic. This is a surprisingly humorous and quite helpful how-to essay.

7. A poem cannot be paraphrased. In fact, a poem’s greatest potential lies in the opposite of paraphrase: ambiguity. Ambiguity is at the center of what is it to be a human being. We really have no idea what’s going to happen from moment to moment, but we have to act as if we do.

12. A poem can feel like a locked safe in which the combination is hidden inside. In other words, it’s okay if you don’t understand a poem. Sometimes it takes dozens of readings to come to the slightest understanding. And sometimes understanding never comes. It’s the same with being alive: Wonder and confusion mostly prevail.

::  This Bird’s Songs Share Mathematical Hallmarks With Human Music @ Smithsonian. The hermit thrush prefers to sing in harmonic series, a fundamental component of human music.

::  50 Great Teachers: Socrates, The Ancient World's Teaching Superstar @ nprED. [Yes, this is a stretch, but we’re talking about education in Ancient Greece, right?]

"That's at the heart of the Socratic method that's come down to us from the streets of Athens: dialogue-based critical inquiry. The goal here is to focus on the text, ideas and facts — not just opinions — and to dig deeper through discussion."

"The Socratic method forces us to take a step back from that and ask questions like: What's going on here? What does this possibly mean?" Ogburn says. "What's important? What's less important? What might be motivating this person to say this?"

::  Researchers explore links between grammar, rhythm @ Vanderbilt University. [If this doesn’t bring us full circle, I don’t know what would.]

In grammar, children’s minds must sort the sounds they hear into words, phrases and sentences and the rhythm of speech helps them to do so. In music, rhythmic sequences give structure to musical phrases and help listeners figure out how to move to the beat.

And to reward you for your perseverance all the way to the end of this post:

Truth, Goodness, and Beauty

From around the web...

 

Compelling

::  Wisdom and Virtue are Best Learned at Home — A Response to Criticism @ Sandbox to Socrates. Whoa. And more whoa. Because I’m eloquent like that. This is a jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring, stirring, impassioned, articulate rebuttal to an article (on CiRCE, no less) about classical education. Check out the article and comments at CiRCE, as well. Much food for thought here. It plays to both sides of issues I’ve been thinking about lately, one of which is this: does criticism sting more when it’s close to home and we’re harboring doubts and insecurities or does it sting more when it’s untrue?

I was going to share a quote here, but a quote won’t do. Go read the whole thing.

::  Scarlet Letters, Waking Up, and Social Engineering @ The Imaginative Conservative.

Again, I tried to find a quote to share, but you’ll have to click the link and read the article. It is surprisingly humorous (and the end is the best bit).

::  Every Life’s Telling @ The Rabbit Room. (I’ll share a quote on this one, but that doesn’t let you off the hook of clicking on the link and reading the whole article. Grin.)

"We understand life in the context of the language that we speak. We think in words and images that are attached to words. We even have words for the wordless emotions that enrich and complicate our human existence. We live in an economy that capitalizes on words—slogans and jingles, an endless stream of marketing enticing me to buy that, go here, be this. The words never stop. Yet we lack adequate language to tell our own stories in deep truth. This is true of the most articulate among us—language will always have its limitations."

::  Why the Romans Counted Backwards by Andrew Kern @ CiRCE. Want to know how to discuss literature? This is a great place to start.

 

Fascinating

::  The Surprisingly Short History Of The Plus Sign @ Fast Code Design.

 

Challenging

::  Can You Catch These Common Grammar Mistakes? @ Huffington Post. Test your grammar skills on this 18 question quiz.

::  Vocabulary Test. This one is in an interesting format, and it took me a while to get comfortable with the typing for answers so I took it multiple times. The words are different each time.

 

Amusing

::  Brilliantly Simple Intellectual Jokes @ 22 Words. Just for fun.

 

Captivating

I am completely mesmerized by this visual and auditory masterpiece.

Mt. Hope Academy ~ New Resources and Curricula: 2013-14

(I promise I have something other than homeschooling lists in the queue. As soon as I finish these curricula posts, I will be catching up on all my pictures!)

Looking ahead to the 2013-14 school year, we have only a few small changes and additions to our resources and curricula line-up. I’m feeling confident and excited about many of the things we have been using, and I’m glad not to be making any big switches or searching for the “right thing.” (I am certain there are other excellent resources, but there simply isn’t enough time in the day, nor would it be reasonable to expect the boys to do it all!)

You can read details about all our subjects at these links:

• The Great Conversation (the driving themes behind my curricula choices)
• The Simplicity Version (my top picks for a basic core elementary curriculum)
• History (The Tie That Binds)
• Geography (the “where”)
• Literature: Part 1 (our history-related literature studies)
• Literature: Part 2 (the remaining literature studies)
• Faith
• Mathematics
• Language Arts
• Science
• Latin, Fine Arts, and Extras

New for 2013-14

This is Levi’s last year of Foundations and Essentials with Classical Conversations. The following year he begins Challenge! I’m feeling just a bit of pressure to make this year really solid for him because it will be the last year I have this much flexibility for his weekly work. CC’s Challenge levels are complete curricula. Students follow the Challenge guide to do their work at home for all subjects and then present and discuss in class once a week.

Classical Conversations:

Foundations: Cycle 2 (our second time through!!, working toward Memory Master with Levi and Luke (possibly even Leif))
Essentials (second year for Levi, first year for Luke)

Faith:

Telling God’s Story (Year 3) isn’t yet available, so we may re-read year one or two. We’ll be listening to The Heavens Declare (scripture memory songs) for our Bible memory, and reviewing past CDs. We are adding the latest video in the Buck Denver series, Buck Denver Asks: What's In The Bible? Volume Eleven - Spreading The Good News!, and reviewing the other ten DVDs in chronological order. 

Math:

The boys will continue progress through Teaching Textbooks, Beast Academy, and Life of Fred (with the new books in the series!), along with drill (games or worksheets) and critical thinking workbooks. Levi is half way through TT 6 and the plan is to have him finish level 7 by the end of next summer (and we’ll be working, working, working on his times tables so he has them down easily). Luke is currently working through TT 5, and Leif is on level 4. They’ll just move up a level whenever they finish.

Science:

CC memory work covers astronomy and physics in cycle 2. So we’ll cover those topics with our regular resources of books and DVDs (including Real Science 4 Kids). We are going to review geology (this past year’s topic) with Real Science 4 Kids, and I may have Levi start in on Chemistry in late spring (since he won’t be covering that the following year in Challenge).

P.E:

The boys are continuing with swim team (we may add in Leif this coming year), but we are also looking into a weekly archery class for Levi and Luke.

Fine Art:

Art:

I purchased The Usborne Story of Art Sticker Book for each of the boys. They will come in handy when they need something interesting to take “on the go.”

CC cycle 2 artists are Rembrandt, Linnaeus, Gainsborough, Monet, Degas, and Morisot. The following are a few books and DVDs we have in the queue:

50 Artists You Should Know (including Gainsborough and Monet, local library) 

Rembrandt (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists)

Carl Linnaeus: Father of Classification

Thomas Gainsborough Artist of England
Thomas Gainsborough: A Country Life

Berthe Morisot by Marianne Mathieu (local library)
Berthe Morisot by Kathleen Adler (local library)

I Dreamed I Was a Ballerina (a girlhood story by Anna Pavlova illustrated with art by Edgar Degas) 
Charlotte in Giverny, and many other beautiful picture books about Monet and other Impressionist artists 

 

From The Artists' Specials DVD collection: Degas and the Dancer, Rembrandt Fathers & Sons, and Monet Shadow and Light.

Music:

:: The boys will be participating weekly with a choir this coming year, and I’m very excited about the opportunity! I’m also going to do my best to have them in a routine of practicing the piano even if we aren’t participating in regular piano lessons.

CC cycle 2 composers are Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorak.

From the Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Composers series we have Ludwig Van Beethoven and Johannes Brahms.

 

Two Scarlet Songbirds: A Story of Anton Dvorak

The Heroic Symphony (Beethoven)

Audio CDs:

The Story of Dvorak In Words & Music (also the Beethoven and Brahms in the series)

The Young Brahms from the Opal Wheeler series (I have the audio CD which I purchased through Rainbow Resource, but this link is to the book versions.)

Beethoven Lives Upstairs 

Language Arts:

IEW Medieval history-based writing lessons (Levi and Luke with CC Essentials, cycle 2)
(We will be reviewing our MCT books instead of going on to the next level)
I’d like Levi to finish Writing With Skill level 1 by the end of next summer (filling in the spaces before and after CC)
I’d like to make it through All About Spelling level 5 by the end of the year (finish levels 2 and 3 for Leif)

Latin:

We’ll be heading into First Form Latin when we finish up Latina Christiana I.

Spanish:

I have La Clase Divertida level 2. We’ll see if we get to it.

Geography:

CC cycle 2 geography includes world geography (lots of Europe and Asia, Central America, and a little bit of Africa)

 

History, Historical Fiction, Literature, and Poetry Memory:

Stay tuned for the list. (The very, very long list.) It is coming up next…

Click here to view the list!

Mt. Hope Academy Curricula ~ Latin, Fine Arts, and Extras

If you are just now checking in or would like quick links to previous posts in my curricula series, this is what we have so far:

• The Great Conversation (the driving themes behind my curricula choices)
• The Simplicity Version (my top picks for a basic core elementary curriculum)
• History (The Tie That Binds)
• Geography (the “where”)
• Literature: Part 1 (our history-related literature studies)
• Literature: Part 2 (the remaining literature studies)
• Faith
• Mathematics
• Language Arts
• Science

This post should wrap it up (though I have one in the works with a few new additions for the coming school year).

Latin

I love Memoria Press. I really do. I love their products. I love their articles. I love their magalog. And I love their Latin.

We’ve (slowly) worked through Prima Latina and half of Latina Christiana I. “The plan” is to finish up Latina Christiana I and head into First Form Latin this fall. I’m really hoping Levi can finish it before he heads into Henle the following year in Challenge A with Classical Conversations. I love the prayers and songs. I love the ecclesiastical pronunciation (though CC uses classical pronunciation which drives me crazy!).

Levi and Luke have stayed together in Latin for the most part. I think I’ll be going through Song School Latin with Leif this next year since I have it on the shelf.

The boys also have memorized Latin declensions, conjugations, and some vocabulary, as well as John 1:1-7 in Latin through Classical Conversations.

Logic

We didn’t do much this past year, but I like several of the workbooks from The Critical Thinking Co. such as Balance Benders and Red Herring Mysteries. Levi and Luke will be attending a logic academic camp with CC this month, using The Fallacy Detective: Thirty-Eight Lessons on How to Recognize Bad Reasoning. I’ve purchased the book as well as the DVDs, so we’ll be reviewing and using the book throughout the year. I’m really looking forward to some interesting discussions with the boys!

Fine Arts

Classical Conversations Foundations classes include four fine arts units. Six weeks of drawing basics, six weeks of music theory and tin whistle, six weeks of famous artists and art projects, and six weeks of composers and instruments of the orchestra.

Music:

:: The Story of the Orchestra : Listen While You Learn About the Instruments, the Music and the Composers Who Wrote the Music! is a fantastic all-in-one book for learning about the instruments and composers (chronologically by period).

The Classical Kids CD series is a family favorite. Titles such as Mr. Bach Comes To Call, Mozart’s Magic Fantasy, Mozart’s Magnificent Voyage, Tchaikovsky Discovers America, Beethoven Lives Upstairs, Hallelujah Handel, Song of the Unicorn, Vivaldi’s Ring of Mystery, and A Classical Kids Christmas have delighted us all for years. The recordings include a dramatized fictional story centered around each composer, including details about the composer’s life and his music.

This year we have also been listening to Opal Wheeler’s composer series on audio book, including Sebastian Bach, The Boy from Thuringia. For an all-in-one title, The Story of Classical Music audio book with music is well-done. For silly educational fun, my boys love the Beethoven's Wig: Sing Along Symphonies audio series.

:: For free online composer education, Classics for Kids cannot be beat. Their radio shows about the composers are excellent.

The beautiful composer picture books by Anna Harwell Celenza are also favorites: The Farewell Symphony, Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, Bach's Goldberg Variations, and others.

:: The boys have not been in piano lessons this past year, but I really want them to keep up their practicing. Honestly, Lola has been the single biggest deterrent. I don’t want them practicing while she’s napping, and she simply won’t leave them alone if they are playing the piano while she is awake. We are going to work more on that discipline issue this coming year. Sigh.

Both The Artists' Specials and the The Composers' Specials DVDs have been a fun addition to our fine arts studies. The period films are fictionalized stories with historical details. (You can get the DVDs individually or discounted as a set at Rainbow Resource. Our library carries most of them.) 

Art:

My boys love the Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists series. We have a collection of them that they pour over—especially Luke. (The author also has a series of composers, presidents, and scientists!)

13 Artists Children Should Know and others in the series by Prestel are beautiful hardback books. They include timelines at the tops of the pages for history integration. Cave Paintings to Picasso: The Inside Scoop on 50 Art Masterpieces is a great all-in-one resource for studying the history of art (chronologically) with children. 

And, of course, there is an abundance of beautiful picture biography books about artists, as well as lovely books about art. It would take forever to list them all here! (Check your library.)

Poetry:

A quick mention here of poetry: Three resources I love are A Child's Introduction to Poetry: Listen While You Learn About the Magic Words That Have Moved Mountains, Won Battles, and Made Us Laugh and Cry (a fantastic all-in-one resource that explains different types of poetry and then covers famous poets chronologically—with an audio CD), Poetry Speaks to Children (Book & CD), and the Poetry for Young People series (each book covers a specific poet with a short biography, a selection of poems, and illustrations). 

Spanish

We have La Clase Divertida and Rosetta Stone. Did we ever get to them? Nope.

Typing

I really want to have Levi working through a typing program regularly, but it is another thing we just haven’t made time for…

Physical Education

Levi and Luke (and Russ) swim on a local year-round swim team. Leif took swim lessons this spring and did very well. He’s so close to being able to swim for the team.

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I think that sums up the rest of our basic curricula and resources (though I’m certain I’ve forgotten a few things).

I have a couple more posts in the works with plans for this coming school year.

Any questions? Feel free to ask in the comments.