A peaceful day

I think that one of the best decisions my husband and I made together is to live intentionally as a family. It is so easy to let work and other 'stuff' get in the way of that; to spend the weekends catching up on things that should have been done during the week; evenings working late at the office; Sundays doing things other than keeping the Sabbath.

Jemimah's Daddy is a very busy professional. it is easy for him to let his work - which he loves - consume all his waking hours. Reaching a compromise - one that worked for us as a couple - was something that we battled with even before we married. Our daughter makes this even more important.

Nowadays we seem to have settled into a very happy rhythm that mostly works. We eat dinner together (almost) every night. We eat breakfast together at weekends. We sit at a table without the telly and we talk about stuff that is important. We have family devotions together. Together we put our daughter to bed.

Weekends are family time, and we make conscious decisions about how we will spend this precious time together. Sometimes there are things that need to be done on a Saturday - things that we just have to do while we're in the city, but we don't let it take the whole weekend, and we try to make up for it in some way. A trip into the city might include lunch at The Pancake Parlour, for example, or a surprise trip to Bernards Magic Shop. We might book seats at the Opera, Ballet, or Theatre for the evening. In this way even a mundane day of chores has a special family highlight. Most Saturdays, though, we keep for us. We might go for a walk along the local creek, or go for a picnic in a National Park or meet extended family and friends for a barbie. We might stay home and watch an old movie, or have a game of Monopoly or Scrabble or cards. We might even spend a day gathering pinecones.

Some of the things we do as a family are expensive. Most aren't. We aim for these myriad different activities to have just one thing in common. We aim to make them memorable. We aim to make them part of a healthy and happy family life. One day when Jemimah is grown, I hope she looks back on her childhood as a very special member of a close and loving Christian family that love and care for each other very, very much.

That's what we're working towards.

Jemimah at the hairdresser yesterday.

And that other Cousin Itt...



There is a definite resemblance there, me thinks...

Who else loved the Addams Family?

The bestest thing about my new favourite tea, Twinings Raspberry, Strawberry and Loganberry - apart from that fact that it tastes great - is that it is pink. A beautifully deep raspberryish pink.

Perfect for afternoon tea with my girl.

We used the Crown Devon tea set, complete with tea pot - the one with pink flowers that matches the tea perfectly. Beethoven's 9th accompanied, and we talked about...stuff. Girly stuff. Like the etiquette of stirring tea (quietly and briefly; never swirled). Nice. I have a thing for table manners. Did you know?

On the table were these. They're from our garden. To me they're sublimely perfect.

Can you tell we're loving spring around here?

Even my flowers colour coordinate with my tea.

The fragrance is just out of this world.

This Guardian article about what makes a book a classic is worth a read.

So is the list of classics - both those within the article as well as the list at the end. The ones mentioned in the Comments are interesting too.

What are you reading right now?

The Borrowers Afield for us as a bedtime read-aloud. Jemimah's reading Return to Gone-Away. I've just started 44 Scotland Street and finished Passing On. Hubby is half way through Scarpetta. Together the adults are reading A Song for Nagasaki: The Story of Takashi Nagai-Scientist, Convert, and Survivor of the Atomic Bomb.

Goodies in The Book Bag include: The Last Battle, The Penderwicks on Gardam Street, Justin Morgan had a Horse, The Family at Misrule and Johnny Tremain.

There is more than a smattering of classics in there. Maybe some future classics as well?

Talk to me!

This short film commissioned by the Australian Communications and Media Authority for its "Cybersmart" campaign, is really very good.

It's tragic that it needs to be made, mind you, but it gets its point across very well.

Tagged is about a group of girls who blog images, and then a film, in order to incriminate a school boy 'because he deserves everything he gets'. Of course it all spirals madly out of control - as these things do, and the consequences are far reaching and long lasting.

Will these kids be 'tagged' for ever?

The film is not for young children. The language and behaviour of these teens is frankly shocking to me at home in my 'bubble', but it is still well worth watching. On many levels.

Take a look.

Have a browse also at the Cybersmart website. There are tabs for kids of all ages, and lots of the points are relevant even to Jemimah. I'm going to have a chat with her about some of them today.

So far, I haven't allowed my nine-year-old to 'chat' online with people she doesn't know - even within the relatively safe confines of children's gaming sites. She can't 'add friends' either. I think her on-line experiences are safe. I hope they are!

What do you do? Where do you draw the line? The world is changing, and Cyberspace will surely be a far bigger part of our children's lives than it is of ours. I don't want Jemimah to be left behind, but nor do I ever want her to experience the kinds of consequences that are depicted so realistically in Tagged.

Tell me what you think.

I want to take you on a rabbit trail through my head. Then this post will make sense. Vaguely.

Ready? Right.

It begins here at Dewey's Treehouse, where Mama Squirrel tells us to go here to read a post on Plutarch written by Cindy of the Dominion Family/Ordo Amoris, on the classical Circe Institute blog.

She tells us to read the comments while we're there, so I do. I am very compliant. In the comments Mama Squirrel tells us to toddle off here to read about how even Frankenstein's monster read Plutarch. (Whodathunkit?)

Are you keeping up?

Once here, Mama Squirrel points out that if he learns nothing else from Plutarch, the monster at least learns to write very long sentences. Certainly, he will have learned to read them, because Plutarch is characterised by his closely packed, extremely long sentences.

Apparently the post was written in response to this one, "Celebrating the Long Sentence: Winnie-the-Pooh and the Slow Language Movement" at The Wine-Dark Sea. So off I go. Click.

Here Melanie tells us that one of her very favourite long sentences of all time is this one. It's from Chapter IX of Winnie the Pooh, "In Which Piglet Is Entirely Surrounded by Water":

In after-years he liked to think that he had been in Very Great Danger during the Terrible Flood, but the only danger he had really been in was in the last half-hour of his imprisonment, when Owl, who had just flown up, sat on a branch of his tree to comfort him, and told him a very long story about an aunt who had once laid a seagull's egg by mistake, and the story went on and on, rather like this sentence, until Piglet who was listening out of his window without much hope, went to sleep quietly and naturally, slipping slowly out of the window towards the water until he was only hanging on by his toes, at which moment luckily, a sudden loud squawk from Owl, which was really part of the story, being what his aunt said, woke the Piglet up and just gave him time to jerk himself back into safety and say, "How interesting, and did she?" when-- well, you can imagine his joy when at last he saw the good ship, The Brain of Pooh (Captain, C. Robin; Ist Mate, P. Bear) coming over the sea to rescue him.

This is certainly a very long sentence. It is not, however my favourite very long sentence.

All of this introduction is because I now want to share with you my very favouritest very long sentence.

Are you ready? Okay, here goes:

Then the brutal minions of the law fell upon the hapless Toad; loaded him with chains, and dragged him from the Court House, shrieking, praying, protesting; across the market-place, where the playful populace, always as severe upon detected crime as they are sympathetic and helpful when one is merely "wanted," assailed him with jeers, carrots, and popular catch-words; past hooting school children, their innocent faces lit up with the pleasure they ever derive from the sight of a gentleman in difficulties; across the hollow-sounding drawbridge, below the spiky portcullis, under the frowning archway of the grim old castle, whose ancient towers soared high overhead; past guardrooms full of grinning soldiery off duty, past sentries who coughed in a horrid, sarcastic way, because that is as much as a sentry on his post dare do to show his contempt and abhorrence of crime; up time-worn winding stairs, past men-at-arms in casquet and corselet of steel, darting threatening looks through their vizards; across courtyards, where mastiffs strained at their leash and pawed the air to get at him; past ancient warders, their halberds leant against the wall, dozing over a pasty and a flagon of brown ale; on and on, past the rack-chamber and the thumbscrew-room, past the turning that led to the private scaffold, till they reached the door of the grimmest dungeon that lay in the heart of the innermost keep.

Impressive eh? Read it aloud. Then you'll discover how long it really is. Better still read them both aloud. I just did.

It comes from Kenneth Graham's Wind in the Willows. The reason I love this very, very long sentence, is that it comes in the book just after Toad has received his own very, very long sentence - a year for the theft of a motor car, three years for "furious driving" and fifteen years for cheeking a police officer rounded up a year to make it an even 20 years to "be on the safe side".

This strikes me as being incredibly subtly cool on Mr Graham's part, and I wanted to share it with you here.

Which I have.

The rabbit trail is why. I hope you enjoyed following it as much as I did.

Don't you think word play of this type is pure delight? I just love stuff like this.

To me this is more important than the booklist. This is what we read each week. Hope it is useful. The AO3 Booklist is coming...as much of it as I can remember, anyhow...

Year 3 Schedule

Well Sarah and Louise and Rosemary, here it is. Better late than never, eh? I'll get onto AO3 next. Sorry.

Do tell me what else you need. Don't forget to check the Our curriculum tab above as well. I update that one relatively often.

Does anybody else use my Australianised curriculum? If so, I'd love to know who you are. Please talk to me!

Bible
Grandpa's Box: Retelling the Biblical Story of Redemption by Starr Meade
Big Book Of Questions & Answers About Jesus by Sinclair Ferguson (This book would be better in AO2, but I was a bit slow. It is still good though.)

Jemimah is reading through the Gospel of Mark and keeping a Bible Notebook.

History: 1700's up to the French and American Revolutions
** ***George Washington's World by Genevieve Foster (purchase) 349 pages

Term 1 Aborigines and Discovery
Our Sunburnt Country Ch 1 The Land of the Dreamtime
The Story of Australia Ch 1 A Hidden Country and its People
CHOW Ch 71 Charles I 1600
The Story of Australia Ch 2 The Hidden Land is Found Portugal/Dutch 1605
CHOW Ch 72 Louis XIII 1601-43
The Story of Australia Ch 3 A Dutch Sailor Tasman 1642
The Story of Australia Ch 4 The British come Dampier 1699

Term 2 Captain Cook
Our Sunburnt Country Ch2 New Visitors to an Old Land Cook 1660-1761
The Story of Australia Ch 5 Captain James Cook Cook 1770
CHOW Ch 74 Prussia Frederick 1740-86
Our Island Story Ch 45 Loss of America George III 1776
CHOW Ch 75 American Revolution George III 1776

Term 3 The First Fleet, Matthew Flinders
The Story of Australia Ch 6 British Settlement 1st Fleet 1788
Our Sunburnt Country Ch 3 The Came and Stayed Ist Fleet 1788
The Story of Australia Ch 7 Trouble and Wool Bligh
Our Sunburnt Country Ch 4 Rum and Rebellion Bligh
The Story of Australia Ch8 Bass and Flinders Flinders 1795
Our Sunburnt Country Ch 5 Bass and Flinders Flinders 1795

History Tales and/or Biography
Trial and Triumph by Richard Hannula (purchase/purchase for Kindle) [note]
* Children of the Dark People by Frank Dalby Davison
**James Cook : Royal Navy by George Finkel
**Bennelong by Joan Phipson
*** The Little Wooden Horse by Mark Wilson
*** John of the Sirius by Doris Chadwick (Don't pay overinflated prices for this book.)
***Matthew Flinders by George Finkel

Geography
* **They Live in Australia by Eve Pownall
*** The Old Man River of Australia Leila Pirani
***River Murray Mary by Colin Thiele

Natural History/Science

Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley first half
* The Glen, Earthquakes;
** Volcanos, Transformations of a Grain of Soil
*** The Ice-Plough, The True Fairy-Tale, The Chalk Carts
The Storybook of Science by Jean-Henri Fabre (purchase/purchase for Kindle)
Physics Lab in the Home by Robert Friedhoffer (purchase) [note]

Penmanship/Copywork

Selections from our books, Scripture and poetry.
Cursive speed loops and print script for labelling using New Wave Handwriting Book D

Grammar

* ** First Grammar Lessons by Charlotte Mason
*** Little Grammar People by Nuri Mass (Grammarland would be a good substitute for this difficult to find book. Free online.)

Mathematics

* **Select a program that meets your family's needs. We used MEP Years 4 and 5a.
Pet Shop Maths Simply Charlotte Mason

Studied Dictation

Spelling Wisdom British Version Simply Charlotte Mason

Foreign Language

L'Art de Lire
French folksongs 3 per term
French memory verses

Latin
Minimus Primary Latin

Poetry
* Ted Hughes Collected Poems for Children
** Emily Dickinson
*** William Wordsworth

Literature
The Age of Fable by Thomas Bulfinch preface to 14 (Minerva-Niobe)
* ** The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

** *** Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
short works:
** The Drover's Wife by Henry Lawson
*** The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
*** Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
*** Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving
***Kookanoo and Kangaroo by Mary Durack

Additional Books for Free Reading
The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford
Family at Misrule Ethel Turner
Mates at Billabong by Mary Grant Bruce
The Rescuers by Margery Sharp
Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
***Meet Poppy by Gabrielle Wang
Children of Green Knowe by Lucy Boston
Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit
Mrs Frisby and the rats of NIMH by Robert O'Brien
A Book of Golden Deeds by Charlotte Yonge
Bambi by Felix Salten
The Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis
Little Britches by Ralph Moody (Read aloud to edit the language)
The Borrowers by Mary Norton
The Borrowers Afield by Mary Norton
Lassie Come Home by Eric Knight
Gentle Ben by Walt Morey
Gone Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright
Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright
Return To Gone Away by Elizabeth Enright
By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Complete Peterkin Papers by Lucretia Hale
** Calico Captive by Elizabeth George Speare
*** Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
Tree of Freedom by Rebecca Caudill
Amos Fortune, Free Man by Elizabeth Yates
*** The Reb and the Redcoats by Constance Savery (British view of revolution)
Justin Morgan had a Horse by Marguerite Henry

Okay, so now I need to post the lyrics to this one. Despite Jemimah's spelling problems, she has no worries with Mississippi. Only problem is that she - and I - need to sing the song first!!

M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I

When I was seven years of age I used to go to school,
And when it came to spelling I was awful as a rule;

I couldn't spell a single word when "S"s were concerned,
I've tried to overcome my lisp and success came in return.

Now that word "Mississippi" was awful hard to spell
But now I will convince you that I can spell it well:

M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I
That used to be so hard to spell;
It used to make me cry,
But since I've studied spelling, It's just like pumpkin pie:
M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I.

A lot of words would puzzle me - "bananas" was no cinch,
"Sas-a-pa-ril-a," that was hard, 'though I'd spell it in a pinch;

But words like "Cincinnati", "psychological" and such,
Gee, when it came to spelling those, I surely was in Dutch.

I can't spell "Cinderella," and "sausages," that's tough,
But I can spell "Mississippi", and believe me, that's enough.

Bert Hanlon and Benny Ryan 1916

Do you use this song to spell Mississippi too?

I happened to mention on FB yesterday that we were off to Wooroonook Lakes for a picnic.

Which we were.

Which lead my friend Sue to comment that there were an awful lot of 'oo's in Wooroonook.

Which there are.

Which leads me by necessity to C J Dennis and the following poem.

And so this, Sue dear, is for you:

WOOLLOOMOOLOO

Here's a ridiculous riddle for you:
How many o's are there in Woolloomooloo?
Two for the W, two for the m,
Four for the l's, and that's plenty for them.

I write about C J Dennis' excellent Aussie classic A Book for Kids 'written for children over four and under four and eighty' here. You can read it online at Gutenberg here. More than you'll ever want to know about Woolloomooloo is here.

Five nice things I've done today:

1. Picked and arranged bunches of Abraham Darby and Lady Hillington. ( I have photos, but the computer is misbehaving. This is not a nice thing, so I shall not mention it further here.)
2. Gathered delicious ripe strawberries from the kitchen garden for Jemimah's breakfast. (See what a kind and generous mummy I am?)
3. Baked a batch of Macadamia and White Chocolate Bikkies for morning teas and for other times when a sudden attack of the muchies might strike.
4. Watched a sweet little blue fairy wren attacking its reflection in the study window, chattering wildly all the while. (Him, not me!)
5. Drunk a lovely home-brewed coffee in my favourite Japanese pottery mug.

And it is not even nine o'clock. What a wonderful day this is shaping up to be!!

Jemimah was telling me about her artist study picture on Thursday. We're studying Von Guerard, and you can see his beautiful picture here. It's Warrenheip Hills near Ballarat, and it was painted in 1854.

During her narration Jemimah remarked that you could tell that it was a reproduction because of the tiles. I was somewhat bamboozled by her comments. What tiles? A reproduction of what? She went on to explain that you could tell that the scene was staged and was not painted back in the early days of white settlement because there were hexagonal and therefore man-made tiles on the river bank.

They weren't, of course, they were polygonal columnar basalt, the likes of which I had first oohed and ahhed at at The Giant's Causeway in Co. Antrim in Northern Ireland.

It was clear a natural history field trip was in order. (Yay!)

A trip to the UK being somewhat difficult to arrange for only a weekend at such short notice, we settled on the Organ Pipes National Park just outside of Melbourne. Although less well known than the Giant's Causeway, the columnar basalt formations at the park are no less spectacular, as the photos below demonstrate.

I found this video on growing up in America's segregated South fascinating.

I would like to share it with you.



Do you think we are a racist country in Australia?

Don't you just love it when things work just as you'd planned and dreamed they would?

Jemimah's first year of Australian History has worked like that so far. Which is good, because I can tell you, in a year such as 2011 has been, if it hadn'ta worked we wouldn't still be doin' it. Fact. Which is why we're no longer doing art this year. Well, nothing scheduled, anyhow. We still do handwork, and Jemimah's been doing a bit of pottery work, but that's all. No nature notebooking either. (Shhhhhhh - the CM police will be onto me there - I'll be no longer able to claim that I homeschool using Ambleside Online. They'll expose me as a fraud.) Hey, remember - I'm just holding things together by the skin of my teeth. Being a flood victim is no laughing matter let me tell you.

But back to the subject.

Australian History is good. And I need to tell you about it because my friend Sarah says I haven't written enough about AO4 and that I need to get my act together. Honestly, I've tried! This post has been in draft mode since July. I think part of the problem is that I try to fit everything into one post, and then I get overwhelmed with how long it's taking me and I stop. Without hitting publish. Today I'm going to finish.

Our AO4 Australian History topic in Term 2 was Captain Cook. Here's our booklist for the term:

Term 2 Captain Cook

Our Sunburnt Country Ch2 New Visitors to an Old Land Cook 1660-1761
The Story of Australia Ch 5 Captain James Cook Cook 1770
CHOW Ch 74 Prussia Frederick 1740-86
Our Island Story Ch 45 Loss of America George III 1776
CHOW Ch 75 American Revolution George III 1776

History Tales

James Cook Royal Navy by George Finkel 19 Chapters 1770
Bennelong by Joan Phipson 9 Chapters 1770-1813

You can see how I fitted these into AO's schedule here if you want. Basically, we read Finkel's brilliant book like a spine, one chapter a week throughout most of the term. The first few chapters of Bennelong fitted well into the time period, although his life leads on into the time of Governor Phillip and the First Fleet as well. We read it also at the rate of a chapter a week.

Each week we plotted Captain Cook's journey on our map. This was really quite easy, because earlier this year Jemimah and I made a visit to Captain Cook's Cottage in Melbourne. Truly, there is one. Actually, it is the home of his parents. James had already left home. Anyhow, it's there, and we went. While there we picked up two must-have resources. The first of these was the map that you see pictured on this page. It is a map of Cook's journeys by Lieut Henry Roberts in 1784 produced by Cartographics International for Cooks' Cottage. It shows so much - Cook's three journeys; the coastlines as they were thought to be at that time; the old names for the countries and islands; and even the incorrect longitudes that we read so much of in Finkel's book. This map was a simply marvellous tool for our studies. I heartily endorse it!

The other thing we purchased at Cook's Cottage was a copy of the ABC production Captain Cook: Obsession and Discovery. The DVD contains all four episodes of this miniseries:

Episode 1: A Likely Lad
Episode 2: Taking Command
Episode 3: Beyond Speculation
Episode 4: North West Passage

The first three of these were an excellent adjunct to out studies, and we watched each after we had read about the time period in our books. The fourth, however, the story of Cook's third journey to find the mythical northwest passage thought to exist above Canada, shows a darker side of Cook's character as well as his death. I so wish I had not shown this episode to Jemimah. In fact, I wish I hadn't seen it myself. It is not that I wish to whitewash history here, I hasten to add. I just thunk that the information contained in this episode would be best left for study in secondary school, not now. The first three episodes are great though. Teachers Notes for the series are here.

So that's basically our second term. Read the book selections, narrate, map the journey, watch the video, discuss some more, add to our timeline. History CM style in a nutshell.

Perfect. Well it was for us.

So that's our AO4 Term Two History post done. Hurrah. It didn't get finished last night because Blogger ate half my post again. Grrrrrrr -that's the third time that's happened.

I think I will look at Wordpress.

Here's a bit of the film:

We are loving, loving, loving, the Liberty's Kids series as an adjunct to our AO4 World History (with an American bias) book, George Washington's World by Genevieve Foster.

Today's story, The Not-Yet-United States, covered Shays' Rebellion. Here's the Liberty's Kids version.



We just watch them on YouTube. I'd buy them if I could though...

Thanks, Mama Squirrel, for the heads up.

There has been a mutiny in our Peaceful Home.

True.

We are now offically not going to see Opera Australia performing La Traviata in mid November. I am wounded that my husband and daughter should gang up on my in this way. Don't they know that they are ruining my grand finale, my perfect ending to the end of the academic year? Don't they understand that now the whole year is rooned and that I am clearly a teaching failure?

Don't they know that it is totally against the rules for them to 'dislike intensely' (we don't 'hate' in this formerly Peaceful Home) this opera? It is, after all, the second most commonly performed opera in. the. world. After Magic Flute. Which they both loved. Huh!

Actually, I really did feel I had failed Jemimah in teaching her opera appreciation for a moment there. Until I realised that it is okay not to like something. The fact that my 9 year old knows the music and the story of La Traviata well enough to know that she doesn't like it actually means that I've done my job rather well. I personally don't like Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, finding myself in agreement with the Boston Herald, which wrote at the time:

Who wrote this fiendish Rite of Spring?
What right had he to write this thing?
Against our hapless ears to fling
Its crash, clash, cling, clang, bing, bang, bing!

My dislike of this discordant piece though, does not make me an uncultured animal. I find nothing beautiful; nothing inspiring in its dissonance. After all, sounds are known as dissonant if they sound harsh or unpleasant to most people. And I am afraid that in this I am one of most people. This, I think, makes me discerning, not uneducated. It means that I know what I like and why.

This I realise is what my role is with my daughter. In the subject of Composer Study I am introducing my daughter to the best of the best. At the end of 13 years, Jemimah will not know all there is to know about music. She will not know all the great composers. It is unlikely, for example, that she will have studied Stravinsky. Already, though, she is demonstrating that she knows what she likes and what she doesn't and why. The fact that Jemimah doesn't like La Traviata does not mean necessarily she doesn't like Verdi (although that may, in fact prove true). Nor does it mean she doesn't like opera. In fact she clearly does. The fact that Jemimah doesn't like La Traviata means that she doesn't like La Traviata. Full stop.

Well actually, it also means that we won't be spending good money paying to see it performed by Opera Australia at the end of the year.

Which kinda mucks up my plans.

I suppose I'll recover eventually. Maybe.

The good news is that in 2012 Opera Australia are performing not one, but two of the operas we are covering this year as part of Ira Ross's Opera for Everyone series: Rossini's The Barber of Seville in April, and Madama Butterfly by Puccini in November. We're already studying Butterfly, and so far there have been no complaints from the floor. In fact, the mutineers are being incredibly well behaved so far. Both of them. I think that provided they never have to listen to the whole of La Traviata again they'll both be blissfully happy. To be honest, so will I. I've had enough of the whinging accompaniment to last me a lifetime.

Besides, I like Madama Butterfly better that La Traviata too. Don't let them hear me say so, though, will you? They may think I'm ignorant, uncultured and uneducated, and we can't have that now, can we? We'll just keep that between ourselves.

Two and two are four
Four and four are eight
Eight and eight are sixteen
Sixteen and sixteen are thirty-two

I'd always thought of Inchworm as merely a fun children's song until this afternoon when ABC FM played Frank Loesser's original version as sung by Danny Kaye in the 1952 film Hans Christian Andersen. It is quite lovely.

Apparently Loesser was incredibly proud of the seemingly simple countrapunt - the round like double tune near the end of the song. When an admirer sent him this anonymous letter using the pseudonym 'a Kansas inchworm', Loesser was so pleased that he placed a quarter-page thankyou note in Kansas' largest daily paper, prompting the writer to reveal herself.

Dear Loesser your song Inchworm makes me very happy; not only from an inchwormitarian point of view ( I know you must realize people will not be so repelled by us after this) but from the aspect of downright beauty. It is conceivable that if Robert Burns and the god Pan, and Antoine de St. Exupery, and Euclid had gotten together for three days and three nights, they might have been able to write almost equally good words, but as I see it no group of musicians nor any other one musician could have written the beautiful music. It is simple, yet it is so intricate, the harmony is perfect and the counterpoint - well it gives me a headache when I think of what it would be like to try to write it tho I suppose for you it was easy.

Frank Loesser Thomas Laurence Riis 2008

Fascinating stuff!!

Anyhow, here's the song. I hope you like it. Have any of you seen the film? It looks delightful. Is it?

Something for you to listen to along with me. If you want to, that is.

Doesn't Chyi Yu have a beautiful voice?

We're on it.

The final countdown.

Week 31 of 36.

I've arrived at that place that strikes every year about now where I'm desperate to be finished school and on summer holidays. Even if that does bring Christmas and the Silly Season with it. (Sorry Ruby.)

Of all the times, this is not a good a good one for Jemimah to be ill. I am so not willing to take a week off right now. Especially since she had last week off for Junior Camp.

So we've sort of hobbled through. A bare minimum week.

It's cruel isn't it? If she were a school kid she'd have had the week off with no qualms. As it is, though, she's worked every day. Even after two nights of three hours sleep each. We've been tired and grumpy and still she's worked. Just so we can be finished and on holidays. Crazy really, isn't it?

Our week has been just the essentials - devotions, our readings, copywork and maths. We've ticked off the things that we absolutely need to finish this week and left all the rest. We probably could have done less, but there's little nicer than snuggling together and reading books when you're ill, so that's what we've been doing. History - tick. Geography - tick. Grammar - tick. Literature - tick, tick, tick. Book by book we've done them all. Which has been satisfying. We even managed to do nature study by observing the lovely little Blue Wrens that are living just outside our study window. They are offended by the other family that lives just inside the glass, and all week they've been attacking their reflections. So funny. So sweet.

And so now on Friday evening I can say that we've finished week 31.

On Monday there'll be only 5 weeks to go.

The final countdown continues without disruption. And that is good.

Better, though, is the way we've been able to make the curriculum fit the circumstances rather than the other way around. We've finished the work with no stress and no angst. Which is just the way it should be. Especially when you've been ill, but always really. After all - that's why I homeschool - so I can tailor the experience to my daughter, not to squeeze her to fit a one-size-fits-all curriculum.

And so she's worked all week whilst she's been ill, yes. But in name only. And that's not so crazy after all, is it?

And here's the song that is probably stuck inside your head about now:



Still pretty good, isn't it? Love that hair...

Hello there, folks!

Well I must say it is nice to have time to sit down with a piece of Banana Cake, a nice cuppa Earl Grey and have a bit of a chat with you all.

Thank you all for the good wishes on my birthday. It was a lovely day. My sister hosted a marvellous AFL Grand Final Party for the family during the day, and even arranged for the Cats to win, which was very clever of her indeed. Blue and white hoops abounded; pies and sausage rolls made an appearance along with more sophisticates fare; and a close game guaranteed that a good time was had by all.

My beloved and I dined in the evening at Ezard, our favourite restaurant while Jemimah stayed with my mum. We are always most spoiled by the fantastic staff at Ezard, and this time was no exception. The free French champagne helped as well!

Since then Jemimah has been ill with a virus that she and a number of other children brought home from Junior Camp. She's been febrile even to the point of delirium on a couple of occasions, and has a nasty rattle to go with it. Bleugh. Grannie blanket has been getting a good workout during her cold times. They're interspersed with the stripping-off-to-the-bare-essentials times that follow in quick succession. Poor sweet thing. She's been really brave.

She cuddled down on Sunday afternoon to watch Caesar and Cleopatra. Unusual fare for a 9 year old, possibly, but that's what a CM education does for a girl. We've also taken the opportunity to catch up on some great books - Mary Norton's The Borrowers Afield and Return to Gone-Away by Elizabeth Enright. Both are sequels; both are fantastic. We've been reading The Rescuers by Margery Sharp at bedtime. I love this book - do you know it? Jemimah's also been reading a Famous Five title - Five Run Away Together, I think. Maybe not though - they all blend into a same-sameness after a while. You've gotta admit - Enid Blyton thought up some great books, even if she used a rather simple sentence structure and the plots all blend together. Jemimah loves them, as did I at much the same age. Twaddle's a bit like Banana Cake, I reckon. Okay in moderation.

Speaking of Banana Cake, here's the recipe we use. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

It's even better with cream cheese icing:

300g icing mixture
1/2 cup cream cheese
50g butter

Beat the icing and sugar till light and fluffy. Add the cheese and beat till well combined.

Yum. I could eat this on its own...who needs the cake?

Well, actually me. Especially right now. I need all the comfort energy food I can get.

I do wish you could grab a cuppa and come join me. That would be especially nice. I'd even share my cake with you. You do that for friends.

Mmmm. Cake.

Isn't Luis Soriano inspiring? Wow!



The new children's book, Waiting for the Biblioburro by Monica Brown based on Luis and his his two donkeys, Alfa and Beto, looks pretty good as well. Has anyone seen it?



Read more about the Biblioburro at Paper Tigers. I can't embed the link for some peverse reason known only to Blogger, but here's the address:

http://www.papertigers.org/wordpress/the-story-behind-the-story-waiting-for-the-biblioburro-by-monica-brown-illustrated-by-john-parra/

I wish I had been clever enough to post about this book last week, because the last week of September is Banned Books Week, and Kookanoo managed to get itself banned by Howard County back in 1979 for 'demeaning the self-image of black children'. Which is frankly ludicrous, but happened anyhow. So if I had blogged about it last week I would have been timely and topical and you would have all been impressed by my cleverness. Alas, I was neither timely nor clever, so there you go.

Kookanoo is a delightful picture book written by Mary Durack and illustrated by her sister, Elizabeth. It's about Kookanoo - a little Aboriginal boy living in 'The Red Heart' of Australia.

He had a mum and dad and just about dozens
Of uncles, aunts, and cousins,
And like other boys
He also had toys.
These were boomerangs and spears
(Smaller of course than the grown-ups use)
Which he threw around,
Pretending - with loud whoops and cheers -
To kill kangaroos
And bring birds down flop! to the ground.

Kookanoo is a bit too big for his boots. Fetching water and wood for the family wasn't any fun, and taking his mum's coolamon to collect nardoo in was women's work. Nothing that the grown-ups suggested interested Kookanoo until his dad had a really bright idea...

"I'll tell you what, m'lad,"
Said his dad.
(That fine, big fellow in the picture, see!
"How'd it be for something to do
If you came with me
After kangaroo?"

Now, that was more like it! Kookanoo had always wanted to go hunting with his dad.

Until his dad said,

"You are very clever, my fine young Kookanoo,
Stepping like an emu,
Running like a dingo,
And much too important to pick up nardoo,
Let us see now - just let us see,
If you are as smart as you seem to be.
You think you can do it;
Well, I'll take it easy here
And

Leave you to it!"

Suddenly Kookanoo felt very small.

But now comes the interesting part of the story, for somebody, or rather, something, was listening to Kookanoo and his dad, and this something was wise old, cunning old, old man Kangaroo.

And old man Kangaroo had a plan to bring young Kookanoo down a few pegs...

Oh dear. Poor little Kookanoo.

Mary and Elizabeth Durack's works are a little bit out of fashion nowadays with their somewhat stereotypical view of indigenous Australians, but the sisters were always sensitive to the feelings of their Aboriginal friends, and I think their books are delightful. Jemimah agrees.

We read Kookanoo is AO4, but mainly because I am trying to space out these delightful books through the Primary School years. It would be enjoyed by far younger children as well. You can read my review of The Way of the Whirlwind here. The Magic Trumpet is coming soon.

It's the AFL Grand Final. My team is playing its greatest rival.

It also happens to be my birthday :-)