A peaceful day

... is just delightful.



You can get the iPod App as well, like we did.

On what does Fulness of Living depend? - What is education after all? An answer lies in the phrase - Education is the Science of Relations. What we are concerned with is the fact that we personally have relations with all that there is in the present, all that there has been in the past, and all that there will be in the future - with all above us and all about us - and that fulness of living, expansion, expression, and serviceableness, for each of us, depend upon how far we apprehend these relationships and how many of them we lay hold of.

Charlotte Mason School Education p 186

It may come as a surprise to some of you that I have some rather serious gaps in my education. I have never studied politics, for example. Nor economics. If I am at a dinner party and the conversation turns to one of these topics, then I am going to appear rather dilly.

But wait - there's more. I have never studied European history, American History, Asian History, Geology, Geography, Home Economics, Woodwork, Graphics, Anthropology, Art History or Spanish either.

Until I started homeschooling my daughter, I had read only two of the Newbery winners - A Wheel on the School and A Wrinkle in Time. I have never read Mark Twain, Proust, Tolstoy, Moby Dick, The Great Gatsby, or Gone with the Wind.

So it may appear that I had a pretty poor education, but I didn't. I studied Ancient Greek and Latin and Classical history and literature with the most amazing Classics Teacher, Mr Keary. Mr 'Kiwibus' loved his subject, and it showed. And in the process we loved the subject too.

I studied Music with Mr Newnham. Hartley, we called him. He was a countertenor, and remains one of Australia's finest singers. He had a special interest in mediaeval music, and our choir sang baroque and renaissance compositions, often accompanied by his incredible countertenor, or equally beautiful bass (yes, truly. What a range.) To have been taught Voice by this man was a great privilege.

I was taught folk music, poetry and Beowulf by Danny Spooner. His repertoire of songs and his passion for folk music was extraordinary. He'd been everywhere, and done everything. Amazing, he was.

I learned other things as well. As well as Homer in Latin and Beowulf in Old English, I read Machiavelli, All The King's Men, Thomas Hardy, Graham Greene, Shakespeare, and lots of other great books and authors. We memorised John Donne, Browning and Coleridge.

When I went to uni I studied maths and psychology and chemistry and physiology and anatomy and biochemistry and genetics. Lots of biochemistry, lots of genetics. I majored in human genetics and the copper deficiency that results in Menkes Disease.

So I had a really good education. With lots and lots of gaps.

Wanna know something else terrible? I've forgotten most of what I did learn at school. I know I read All the King's Men, because it still sits on my shelves, but I can't remember the plot. I studied this book for a whole term, and I can remember almost nothing about it. I can still quote long chunks of Xanadu, but where has The Sunne Rising gone, busie old foole that he is? And don't get me started on maths - and I studied that one in uni, remember?

There you are. Gaps on top of gaps.

It comes as somewhat of a relief, then, to be able to say that I know considerably more today than I did that day that I stood in Wilson Hall with a black academic gown upon my shoulders and my new degree in my hands. It is relieving to me, anyhow.

Since I left uni, I have started to fill in the missing bits. I started to travel. To Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Slowly but surely, the Geography gap started to fill and the map began to draw itself. I became interested in South East Asian Textiles. Hey Presto - a gap that I didn't even know existed was gone. I learned Indonesian, studied French, picked up some phrases in Arabic and Chinese and Bhutanese and Italian. I studied Thai Cooking in Bangkok and Indonesian cooking in Bali.

Since becoming interested in home education I've read extensively on Charlotte Mason and educational philosophies. AO has taught me history in a way that connects it all together in my mind.

As my faith has grown I've read the Bible through. I've studied books and chapters in depth and read commentaries to learn what others believe. I've learned more about what makes me a Reformed Christian, through the history of the Reformation.

I've been able to learn all of this because back at school I was taught how to learn. I was inspired to know more. And you know, this knowledge that I learned as an adult isn't disappearing nearly as quickly because it is useful to me. I use it all the time. I build on it through experiences, and through my every day life.

Charlotte Mason believed that education was a 'Science of Relations' - a series of relationships between pieces of information that are formed by the child himself. When a child - or an adult has an intimate relationship with a piece of information - when it is useful, then it will not be forgotten. And from that foundation, a whole web of interconnecting pieces of information will be built, one on top of the other. When I became interested in Asian textiles, I also learned about the people of the Hill Tribes. I learned about natural dyes. I learned about their culture and traditions. I learned how they lived, what they believed, what they ate. All was - and continues to be - extremely interesting to me.

There will be many gaps in Jemimah's education. No matter what I am able to teach her, no matter how many relationships she forms, there will always be more to know. The important thing for me, is to engender a love of learning in my daughter. To teach her how to learn. To ensure that the initial assumption or idea is sound and that it is a good foundation for building upon.

I hope Jemimah always wants to learn more about what interests her. I want her to continue her education throughout her life, and I want her to love doing so. And I am going to continue to fill those gaps in my own education. I want to know more about textiles, more about education, more about God.

The gaps will never be filled completely. There will always be more to learn. And I, for one, am glad.

What were the gaps in your education? Do you regret them? Are you filling them now? Do tell. It has been quiet around here recently, and I'm missing our conversations.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing worth knowing can be taught.

Oscar Wilde

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest--
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men--
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

On the first day of my second year of uni, I met Ali, a girl who for several years was my best friend. Ali's father was an English professor, but he hadn't been able to work for several years before I knew her, because he was suffering from a serious mental illness. The condition made him very difficult to live with, and Ali and her siblings were afraid to take friends home for fear of what Dad might do next. It was therefore with much trepidation that I made my first visit to her family home for dinner and to 'meet the family'.

(Sounds like a first date, doesn't it? I can assure you that it was all completely innocent, but I must say I was as nervous that night as the one where I really did meet my in-laws-to-be.)

Anyhow, when we arrived, Ali's dad was in fine form, holding court in the living room. Now at this stage, I realise that I need to make a confession. When I was in second year uni I had pink hair. Not pink-rinse pink; beetroot pink. With my pink spiky hair I wore pink clothes. Pink everything. Including a pink tweed op shop coat. I was most decidedly odd looking. Actually, it is probably a toss up which of us was odder - him or me. Anyhow, in Ali and I walked to the living room. He looking me up and down, raised an eyebrow, stared disconcertingly at my hair, and told me to take a seat. Which I did.

He rose from his, stood over me, and quoted the first immortal phrase of Marc Antony's speech: Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.

Quick as a wink, from somewhere deep inside me came the reply: I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones;So let it be with Caesar.

His eyebrow raised and he glared at me. The rest of the family stopped to listen. Personally, I was astounded. Where did that come from, I wondered? When precisely in my tender 20 years had I memorised that? Anyhow, he hadn't finished.

"When is it acceptable to use 'If I was' in a sentence?" he barked. "Well, if I was a grammar scholar somewhere in the past then I certainly am no longer one now," I replied just as quickly. He started to smile. I started to smile too. His was a smile of approval; mine was a smile of victory.

There was one more test question that night. I must phone Ali and see if she can remember what it was. Regardless, whatever it was, I passed that one too.

Ali's dad and I were friends until he died. He always treated me well, and was always delighted to see me. I miss his charming repartee and his quick wit. I realise that he was a very disturbed man, but I will always remember him with affection. I cried when he died.

I was reminded of this long buried memory during this past week when I read the second scene of Julius Caesar aloud to Jemimah. It all came flooding back.

Despite having studied Shakespeare's plays since AO1, it was the first long portion of his works that I'd read aloud. We have been studying Plutarch's Life of Brutus, and I wanted to read her Shakespeare's version of Antonius/Marc Antony's speech.

"More, more," she cried when I'd finished. I want to hear more!"

When I heard that I knew we were on the right track with our Shakespeare studies. I smiled my smile of victory.

Shakespeare is not somebody to be feared - he wrote for the ordinary people, not only royalty and the educated. His words when read aloud with feeling come alive. They sparkle with wit and humour, and his characterisation is peerless. They think the same way we do. They have the same dilemmas, the same conflicts. They make the same mistakes, and as a consequence we can relate to them.

Shakespeare’s plays were written to be performed - not to be studied as part of the cannon of literature, although clearly they stand up to be used in this way...when the time comes. But not now. Not for us.

For now on, we're concentrating on getting to know Shakespeare and enjoying him. We're listening to his language, his rhythm, his poetry. We're laughing at his jokes. I think we're doing pretty well.

The romantic comedy, Much Ado About Nothing, is a terrific play to see first:

“What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?

Beatrice: Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick?”

Oh, the dripping scorn! Love it!

I was a little bit afraid taking Jemimah to Romeo and Juliet a couple of weeks ago, but I needn't have been. Although after the death of Mercutio this play is, without doubt, a tragedy; the jokes and funny elements of the first half more than compensate. Not to mention that the slap-stick comedy of Juliet's nurse appealed to my Mr Bean loving daughter from the first.

If you haven't introduced your children to Shakespeare, may I encourage you to do so? Read his stories in a version for children like those by Edith Nesbit or Charles and Mary Lamb. Read them, enjoy them, talk about them. Read other books with great literary language - Parables of Nature, Howard Pyle's stories, Charlotte Yonge, Andrew Lang's fairy books.

Then when you're ready, see a play. Chose it carefully - The Comedy of Errors or A Midsummer Night's Dream is probably better than Hamlet, King Lear or Othello. Reread the story. Discuss any interesting bits. Then just sit back and let The Bard entertain you as he has been doing for hundreds of years.

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at how easy it all is.

One day, you children might just be able to impress their friends' fathers with their impressive oratory skills. Or maybe not. At least they will have heard the stories of one of the most remarkable storytellers the world has ever known.

If you cannot understand my argument, and declare "It's Greek to me", you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in sorrow than in anger, if your wish is father to the thought, if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift, cold comfort or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool's paradise - why, be that as it may, the more fool you, for it is a foregone conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare; if you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, then - to give the devil his due - if the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head) you are quoting Shakespeare; even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I were dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded or a blinking idiot, then - by Jove! O Lord! Tut, tut! for goodness' sake! what the dickens! but me no buts - it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare.

Bernard Levin in The Story of English, Robert McCrum, William Cran and Robert MacNeil, p145

As usual, there are a few.

For school this term

The Story of John G. Paton or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals, by his brother, James Paton. The story of our very own Reformed Presbyterian missionary to the new Hebrides (Vanuatu). Three chapters a week. It's a whopper of a book - we'll be at it all year. Lucky we like it.

Howard Pyle's The Story of King Arthur and his Knights. Oh how we love Pyle's style of writing. I would not be surprised if this book were the pinnacle of my read-aloud career.

After several years of contemplation and of thought upon the matter herein contained, it has at last come about, by the Grace of God, that I have been able to write this work with such pleasure of spirit that, if it gives to you but a part of the joy that it hath afforded me, I shall be very well content with what I have done.

For when, in pursuing this history, I have come to consider the high nobility of spirit that moved these excellent men to act as they did, I have felt that they have afforded such a perfect example of courage and humility that anyone might do exceedingly well to follow after their manner of behavior in such measure as he is able to do.

At night

Jemimah and I are participating in the Newbery Challenge, reading our way through the medal winners. We've just finished William Pène du Bois' The Twenty-One Balloons, winner of the 1948 Newbery. This story about a retired maths teacher and his amazing trip to Krakatoa by balloon just in time for its eruption and destruction is sure to be one of our family's all time favourite books. We will always look at hot air balloons with a certain nostalgic affection after getting to know Professor Sherman and the alphabetical citizens of Krakatoa.

Our current Newbery is the 1956 medal recipient, Carry On, Mr Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham. This biography is also one of AO's free reads for Year 5, so we're killing two birds with one stone here. We're enjoying it.

I'm going to list our Newberys in the side bar as we finish them. Is anybody interested in joining us in this 'stress free' challenge? Listen to Mr Schu explain the challenge in this video.



The Book Bag

The Book Bag travels in the car with us, and contains four or five books. We read a chapter or two or three of each of these on our way to and fro Melbourne/Geelong most weekends. It is a six hour trip, so we get lots of books read this way. I know many people chose to listen to audio books, but I'm a read-aloud girl at heart.

Anne of Green Gables. Who can but adore Anne Shirley? We're only up to Chapter Six, and we've already seen the movies, but it is really hard to resist L M Montgomery's wonderful prose. I love introducing Jemimah to kindred spirits of mine, but when a novel is loved also by her grandmother and great aunts as this book is, that makes it extra special.

February Dragon by Colin Thiele. I do not understand why Colin Thiele is out of fashion. His writing is just a delight to read aloud, and this book of three children who face the February Dragon - a huge bushfire unleashed by the foolishness of man - is as wonderful as the others that we've read. The three Pine children - Turps, Resin and Columbine - live in a small country town half way between Melbourne and Adelaide - not too far from us, in fact. They do all the normal things that kids living in the country like to do...until the Dragon rears his head...

Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates by Mary Mapes Dodge, an AO free read, is a delightful story, full of information on life in Holland. I read the book as a child, but all I can remember is the tale within a tale of the little boy plugging the hole in the dyke with his thumb. I'm enjoying the re-reading, and Jemimah and her Daddy are amused listening to my poor Dutch pronunciation (even if there are pronunciation guides).

Leer! leer! jou lvigaart, of dit endje touw zal je le ren!

Our final Book Bag book is one we've been reading for a while, Paul Glynn's A Song for Nagasaki, the biography of Doctor Takashi Nagai, an extraordinary man converted from Shintoism to Catholicism predominantly through reading Pascal's Pensées. Nagai, a pioneer of radiology research at Nagasaki University, is in Nagasaki on the dreadful day that the atom bomb explodes over his city. The book is written for adults, and I've had to judiciously edit a bit, but the story that is told in this book is just incredible. We all hang off every word.

And that, she says, is that. So many wonderful read-alouds. So many delicious stories. So much wonderful time with my family.

I wouldn't miss it for all the tea in China.

What are you reading to your family at the moment? Please share. One can never have too many books on the to-be-read list.

Oh, and if you decide to join me in the Newbery Challenge, drop we a note. I'd love some company. We're not reading chronologically. We'll just read the books as we come across them. If we don't like one we'll stop. And if we don't approve of one, or more, we'll probably leave them out. Stress-Free, remember?

Here they all are:

We find that, while children are tiresome in arguing about trifling things, often for the mere pleasure of employing their reasoning power, a great many of them are averse to those studies which should, we suppose, give free play to a power that is in them, even if they do not strengthen and develop this power. Yet few children take pleasure in Grammar, especially in English Grammar, which depends so little on inflexion...Perhaps we should accept this tacit vote of the majority and cease to put undue pressure upon studies which would be invaluable did the reasoning power of a child wait upon our training, but are on a different footing when we perceive that children come endowed to the full as much with reason as with love; that our business is to provide abundant material upon which this supreme power should work; and that whatever development occurs comes with practice in congenial fields of thought. At the same time we may not let children neglect...(this)...delightful study. The time will come when they will delight in words, the beauty and propriety of words; when they will see that words are consecrated as the vehicle of truth and are not to be carelessly tampered with in statement or mutilated in form; and we must prepare them for these later studies. Perhaps we should postpone parsing, for instance, until a child is accustomed to weigh sentences for their sense, should let them dally with figures of speech before we attempt minute analysis of sentences, and should reduce our grammatical nomenclature to a minimum. The fact is that children do not generalise, they gather particulars with amazing industry, but hold their impressions fluid, as it were; and we may not hurry them to formulate.

Charlotte Mason, Towards A Philosophy Of Education pp151-2

A bit of a waffle about grammar for my friend, Silvia, who asked. Not that she asked about all that I'm going to tell you, but she did ask the question that got me started.

Charlotte Mason is under the impression that children are not too fond of grammar. She acknowledges this in her first book, published in 1886, and reiterates the almost identical thoughts in Toward a Philosophy of Education written almost 40 years later in 1923. Despite that, we are not to leave off the study of grammar until our children want to learn, but rather we are to prepare them for the time that they will delight in the beauty of words and will want the information that a knowledge of grammar will provide.

Perhaps because of this natural reluctance of the child to study words in any great detail, Miss mason recommends commencing grammar around the age of 10 years of age. She also recommends that "it is better that the child should begin with the sentence, and not with the parts of speech; that is, that he should learn a little of what is called analysis of sentences before he learns to parse; should learn to divide simple sentences into the thing we speak of, and what we say about it––'The cat-sits on the hearth'––before he is lost in the fog of person, mood, and part of speech." (Home Education p96)

Ambleside Online recommends introducing formal grammar in AO4, and so, being a compliant child, that's what I did. I always do what I am told. Ahem.

When we began grammar, I was keen to follow Miss Mason's recommendations fairly closely, but at the same time, I hoped to prevent grammar becoming a drudgery as much as I could. I love grammar. It is conceivably possible that my daughter might like it too.

It is perhaps because of this aim of making grammar interesting, that we have used a number of different methods already in the short while we've been studying formal grammar and I thought I'd tell you about some of them. And answer Silvia's question at the same time. Alright with you?

Simply Grammar

I introduced grammar using Karen Andreola's Simply Grammar for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the text is a revised and expanded edition of Charlotte Mason's own text for grammar, First Grammar Lessons Parts I and II. I figured that if Miss Mason wrote it, it was likely to stick rather closely to her methods. Logical, huh?

Secondly, it was recommended on the AO Yahoo group within a couple of months of my finding AO back when my daughter was four. I was still in that feverish, "This is what I need to make my whole life complete" stage that we all go through at the start. Okay, that I went through at the start. I placed my very first in my whole life Amazon book order pretty soon after, and along with a whole heap of how-to-implement-the-Charlotte-Mason-technique-in-your-homeschool-and-otherwise-change-your-life-in-ways-you-could-never-expect type titles, was Simply Grammar. And then it sat on the shelf for another five years until it was the obvious book to use when I needed to actually teach grammar.

When I finally came to look at it, I didn't like it much. Simply Grammar is basically a reformatting of Miss Mason's original books with page sized 19th century pictures added into the exercises. Personally, I dislike it when Charlotte Mason's techniques are Victorianised like this, and neither Jemimah and I liked the 'boring old fashioned pictures' (her words not mine).

Still, that's what I had, so that's what we used initially.

First Grammar Lessons I and II

In the middle of AO4 I was lent copies of the recently reprinted First Grammar Lessons written by Miss Mason herself without any alterations. You can order them here for $10.00 the set, but apparently it is hard to have them shipped anywhere outside the US. The text of these two little books is basically the same as Simply Grammar without the Victoriana - much more our style.

We used Part I in term 2 of AO4 and vastly preferred the layout to Simply Grammar. If we had had to purchase them, I liked their price better as well!

I like the fact that these original books - and the revised Simply Grammar - are written using the precepts that Mason elucidates in the quotes above. Each short lesson uses a number of predominantly oral exercises to cover subjects and predicates, verbs, nouns, adjectives, and so on, in a slow and thorough way that sinks in and makes sense. As a new part of speech is introduced, some important facts to be learned are provided. Jemimah wrote these into a grammar notebook for copywork as she came upon them.

Little Grammar People

By the beginning of AO4 Term 3, Jemimah had covered subjects, predicates, nouns, verbs and adjectives. It was time for a break and some consolidation. In this final term of the year we read through the delightful Australian book, Little Grammar People by Nuri Mass. You can read my review and how we used this book here.

The book is basically the parts of speech explained in a fairy story. We used the book very simply, reading a chapter covering one of the parts of speech each week. After Jemimah narrated, she thought of examples of each of the different types she'd been learning about, for example personal, demonstrative, relative and interrogative pronouns or common, proper, collective and abstract nouns. Before each week's lesson we review the one before. I was particularly impressed with what she retained from this book.

Unfortunately, Little Grammar People is almost impossible to obtain at a reasonable price. If you can't find it, use M L Nesbitt's Grammar-Land instead.

Mad Libs

After a successful first year, I was reluctant to return to formal grammar this term. Instead we're playing Mad Libs once a week, covering nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and plurals as we play. It is terrific fun, although we do get rather silly. Currently we're laughing our way through Happily Ever Mad Libs. Very silly grammar fun, this.

Painless Grammar

A while ago I was introduced to Painless Grammar and Painless Junior Grammar. The former is written for kids a bit older than Jemimah, who have already studied some grammar. It reviews those areas most likely to trip up young players (and some older ones as well) using humour in the best possible way. I uploaded the free sample chapters of this book onto my Kindle, and Jemimah and I have been having a bit of a read through the chapter on Nouns this week. We like it.

Painless Junior Grammar is written for kids at about Jemimah's level or slightly lower, perhaps. It uses a journey to Grammar World - a make-believe amusement park to introduce kids to the types of sentences, parts of speech, punctuation, capitalisation and abbreviations. I liked it enough to purchase the e-book. I haven't used it yet, but it looks to be lots of fun. I'll let you know.

The funnest bit of Painless Grammar... (Yes, I know that it is probably inappropriate to use incorrect grammar in a grammar post, but it wouldn't be A Peaceful Day if I didn't use at least one hyperbolic neologism, now would it? I digress.)

Anyhow, the funnest bit of Painless Grammar is that there's an iPad App to go with it. Jemimah today managed to unlock the first Cat Level, and she is pretty pleased with herself.

Take a look.

Latin Grammar

And that, finally, is about me done. Except for one last thing.

Latin grammar. Again, Miss Mason has something to say:

English grammar...depending as it does on the position and logical connection of words, is peculiarly hard for him to grasp. In this respect the Latin grammar is easier; a change in the form, the shape of the word, to denote case, is what a child can see with his bodily eye, and therefore is plainer to him than the abstract ideas of nominative and objective case as we have them in English. Therefore, if he learns no more at this early stage than the declensions and a verb or two, it is well he should learn thus much, if only to help him to see what English grammar would be at when it speaks of a change in case or mood, yet shows no change in the form of a word.

Charlotte Mason, Home Education p295

We are not yet up to the nominative and objective cases in Latin, but we have learned about nouns, adjectives and verbs. It is much easier to recognise a noun and a verb in simple Latin that it is in the types of English that we use at this level.

Yesterday we wrote out all the verbs in the little story we were reading, jumbled them up and put them back into the story. The result was a sort of Latin Mad Libs, and it was terribly funny. Recognising the subjects of the sentence and the accompanying verb was easy, and we practiced out Latin vocab at the same time.

So far, grammar is not a groanworthy subject in our homeschool, but it is still early days. Perhaps the day is coming that Jemimah too may join the tacit vote of the majority and argue about that trifling thing called English Grammar. If and when that day comes, I'll let you know.
Then I'll cry.

Then I'll pull out the old Mad libs and see what we can do.

At least at the moment, this very day, grammar is fun.

Do you like grammar? Do your kids? What sooper-dooper wonderful grammar programme have you ferreted out for use? Do let me know!

Jemimah and I went to see Arrietty, the new Ghibli animated adaptation of Mary Norton's The Borrowers, last week. We both thought it was delightful, leaping straight into our list of favourites, and we thoroughly recommend you see it.

Before you do, though, you need to know that the film is an adaptation of the books, not a faithful retelling. Mostly it tells the story of the first book, where the tiny Clock family, Arrietty, Pod and Homily, are forced to move their home from beneath the floor boards of an English manor after Arrietty is discovered by 'human beans'. In the film, The Boy is a Japanese lad named Sho, who comes to stay with his great-aunt, Sadako, whist he awaits potentially fatal heart surgery. Sadako's maid Haru, becomes suspicious about the existence of the little people after hearing a story that Sadako tells Sho one evening and decides to capture them, resulting in Arrietty and her family having left the only home they have ever known.

The Clocks are helped by Spiller, a boy who is only introduced in the second of Mary Norton's books, thus amalgamating the two books into one.

We had already read The Borrowers books prior to seeing the film, and the differences in plot did not worry us at all.

Which brings me to the film first versus book first issue. What is your opinion? Film or book first? Do you feel strongly one way or the other?

Certainly, having read the books, we were dying to see the film. On the other hand, I think if you see the film first, you'll be excited to read the books to get more of the adventures of these delightful diminutive people called Borrowers. It works both ways, I think.

Some people really, really, lose sleep over this one. Not me, though, to be honest.

In the week between Christmas and New Year, Mr Peaceful Day and went to see War Horse. We had been given Gold Class tickets by my brother and sister-in-law, and I was very excited. If you could have seen me through the wall that afternoon, you would have seen me hunkered down by the air-con, speed-reading Michael Morpungo's wonderful book before I saw the film. (I know that many of you would have wanted me too, and I didn't want to disappoint you. Honest.) By the time I sat in the Gold Class cinema, cocktails by my side, I felt like I had read a spoiler. There was no tension in the film, because I knew the plot, and I knew what happened in the end. So disappointing. For this reason alone, Mr PD enjoyed this movie much more than I did.

And so sometimes is is nice to be surprised by the plot of a film.

On the other hand, sometimes it is nice to let your imagination do the work first. Charlotte Mason believed strongly in helping children to develop a clear mental picture and in developing the powers of imagination. She speaks of allowing the child to create illustrations in his mind based on what he hears.

She, I feel sure, would firmly advocate seeing a film first. In reading a book first, without the accompanied imagery, your imagination creates something uniquely its own, different from that of other readers - and often of the author himself. When you see the story on the screen, you may see your imagination brought to life in a wonderful way, but conversely you may be angry because the screen writer 'got it wrong'. There is nothing nicer that when he 'gets it right' though.

Arrietty's borrowers don't look like Jemimah and I imagine them, but that's because they're anime characters, and...ehem...well...that's what they look like. Anime characters. Pretty ones, though. The English manor house is rather Japanese also. Does that ruin the film? Not for us, it didn't.

Sometimes it is better to have the detail that you get in a book before you see the film. Sometimes it is not. Memoirs of a Geisha is a case for the former. I think it would have been really difficult to follow that plot without having read the book first. On the other hand, it is a rare film that is able to do justice to a much loved friend of literature. Often your favourite character ends up on the cutting room floor. What we end up with is the Director's choice, and if it doesn't match with your mental image then you quite possibly won't enjoy the film. If you expect Arrietty to be The Borrowers then you will be disappointed. It is a Japanese adaptation of the books. That is all.

Seeing a movie can be a wonderful experience, and as technology improves, then film is likely to get better and better. It would be a shame if by requiring a reading before every film that you will never be surprised by a plot.

In our Charlotte Mason-esque peaceful home we attempt to read the book before seeing the film, but if we don't it's not an indictable offence, and so far the AO police have not come to drag us away. We saw the first two Narnia films before we saw the films, but we saw the movie version of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader before we read the book. It didn't destroy the book at all, although I think we would have understood the film better with C S Lewis's detail first. For us, the development of imagination, the creation of clear mental pictures using living books is paramount, but the odd movie version of a story can be pretty good as well. In an ideal world, maybe...

What do you think? Is this an area that you are strict about, or are you pretty easy going like me? What's the rule in your home?

Either way, do go and see Arrietty. It's magical. Even if you need to read the books before you go.

Today I'm reading aloud from this very beautiful book. I don't know why it is that a fine old edition like this is so much more pleasurable to read than your average modern paperback, but it so definitely is. Somehow, I can't come at the idea of Shakespeare on the kindle either.

We're reading from this today to remind ourselves of the story of Romeo and Juliet before we go to see the play tomorrow.

It's moments like this that I love our Charlotte Mason curriculum the very mostest of all.