A peaceful day

A chat about grammar

2012-01-24T22:39:00.007+11:00

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!

Book or film?

2012-01-23T13:39:00.006+11:00

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.

Romeo and Juliet

2012-01-20T15:22:00.004+11:00

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.

From Little Things Big Things Grow

2012-01-19T17:12:00.006+11:00

Fabulous image from here.

On our journeys to and from the swimming pool this week, Jemimah and I have been listening to Melbourne's first indigenous radio station, 3KND - Kool 'N' Deadly.

We've heard terrific music like this...

We've listened to Paul Kelly's song From Little Things Big Things Grow based on the Gurindji strike sung by a children's choir, and a wonderful song I couldn't find online, but maybe from Jimmy Chi's musical, called Along the Corrugation Road.

We've been confronted by lyrics like these:

Charcoal Pieces - Maggie Walsh
I rub my baby's skin with charcoal pieces,
so they won't come, take him away,
yeah, gamin make he skin go black with charcoal pieces,
so that my baby with me stay.

I know they come to take you away,
They come cos your skin light,
it's not my fault, I loved you,
but they're takin you tonight.

If I don't have my baby with me,
I'll lose my reason to go on,
only misery and sadness in me,
I'll lose my mind forever....gone.

Maybe one day when he finds me,
I'll be lying in my grave
but at least with charcoal pieces,
our love I tried to save.

We have listened to the National Indigenous News, full of issues important to our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, and to advertisements covering covering all sorts of interesting topics. We've listened to Aboriginal Current Affairs, and to an interview with a lady discussing land rights in a well balanced and sensitive way.

It has been a wonderful opportunity for Jemimah and me to hear our Indigenous people expressing their views about the things that are important to them, and to gain some appreciation of the richness of their unique culture and heritage. It has taught us much, and has raised many issues for discussion. We've discussed the stolen children. We've looked briefly at the Mabo Decision and what native title means. We've talked about domestic violence and respect toward women. We've talked about Aboriginal languages and the Kriole we've heard in songs. Topics like this would never have arisen in our day-to-day lives.

I believe that the path to reconciliation lies in education. Education of Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islanders to be leaders in their own communities, but also education of all Australians about Indigenous cultural identity, in the things that make our Indigenous cultures rich and vibrant. Their art, their myths, their cultural and spiritual beliefs, and their history, both ancient and recent. These are the things we need to learn. But we also need to know more about their struggles and their disadvantages as well. It is only through education that the wounds will begin to heal.

That's what I think. For what it's worth.

As I raise our daughter, I want her to know about the people who lived in Australia before white men came. This year we are reading Stradbroke Dreaming by writer and activist Oodgeroo Noonuccal, The Papunya School Book of Country and History, an account of the history of Western Desert communities from an Indigenous perspective, and Sally's Story, the first part of the Australian Classic, My Place, by Sally Morgan, adapted for young readers. Every year we will try to learn more.

All of this book learning is well and good, but it is learning about Aboriginal current affairs directly from the people themselves that I have enjoyed so much about 3 Kool 'N' Deadly this week. I feel I understand just a little bit better. I think Jemimah does too. And that can only be a good thing, can't it? It is really as the song says - it is from little things big things grow.

Elements of Style Rap

2012-01-18T20:52:00.004+11:00

Do you correct silently people's grammar when you're speaking to them, or watching them on the Teev? If you're a member of the Grammar Police, then this is for you.

What are your pet grammar peeves? Does the split infinitive get to you, or is it the floating apostrophe? Personally, I hate it when myself is used instead of me, as in: Please reply to myself or John. Argh! It drives me spare. I do not understand why people find the subjunctive so difficult, and I dislike immensely the word gotten as well, but that may be a regional thing.

Talk to me. What gets under your skin?

Love the moustaches.

Swimming 'Lessons'

2012-01-17T16:58:00.004+11:00

Every January I spend two or three weeks in Melbourne so that Jemimah can attend intensive daily swimming lessons with Vicswim. Every day I sit at the side of the pool, sometimes reading, and sometimes watching what goes on in the lesson. And it appears that every year some new lesson strikes me.

My very own swimming 'lesson', as it were.

One year I was struck with the fact that my daughter's swimming lessons were presented in a spiral programme like her maths. You can read why I thought that here. The next year as I watched her in the pool I thought about play. I was watching children being over organised by their over enthusiastic parents, which lead me to thinking about masterly activity and about playing for fun. I wrote about that here. Last year there was no swimming 'lesson' for me, but maybe that's because the lessons were so rudely interrupted by a rather large downpour of water that was to change our lives in a somewhat inconvenient fashion.

This year I'm back poolside again.

I love swimming weeks. They are a gentle lead in to the new school year - swimming all morning; school lessons in the afternoon. We try and eat out at an ethnic restaurant for lunch. Vietnamese yesterday; Chinese today. We may be back at school while everyone else is on holidays, but it sure doesn't feel like the drudgery of everyday life around here. This is homeschooling at its most relaxed, and we are at our happiest.

In Vicswim lessons, children are placed into classes according to their current ability. On enrolment, parents select a class based on the skills they believe their child has already attained. At the end of first class, the instructor shuffles the kids around to ensure that they are in the right grade for their experience. It works very well.

This year I placed Jemimah in Class Level D:

Swim 15 metres of backstroke and freestyle using efficient technique.
Be comfortable in deep water.
Tread water for 15 seconds.
Float comfortably without assistance.
Submerge and recover an object from chest depth water.

The main difference between Level D and E is that in the higher level the child swims 25 metres with an efficient technique, and in Level F the child swims continuously for 200 metres. Now Jemimah can swim both of those distances, and she has, in the past, been taken from Level D and placed by Vicswim in both those levels. The problem is, that as the level increases, the focus of the instructor moves from efficient correct swimming technique to distance swimming. Jemimah can swim the longer distances, but her endurance is not great enough, and the longer she swims, the poorer her stroke becomes. A couple of years back when Jemimah was enrolled in Level F, she developed a style fault that we referred to as a 'broken wing', and it took several months of one-on-one lessons to relearn something that until then she had been doing naturally.

I was reflecting upon this today as I watched my daughter swim. I noticed that she was one of the younger kids in a class made up of a large age range. Each of the children was swimming at a similar level. The instructor was able to spend time with each child to iron out any minor issues he or she might be having, without having to focus too hard on a weakest link, and without having to hold any child back. Nobody was made feel stupid because of their age or size.

I observed that at the distance she was swimming, her stroke was excellent. I noticed her eager, happy open face. I love watching Jemimah at swimming because she enjoys it so much. The smile rarely leaves her face. She is interested and ready to please her instructor. She listens attentively. She has fun with the other kids and easily makes friends (Phew, she is socialised after all). I am entirely glad that Jemimah is in Level D, a level that she has been in for the past four years, because each year her swimming improves, her enjoyment of the sport increases, and she has a wonderful time.

Which made me wonder why we get so hung up with levels in education. Nobody seemed to care that there were children of eight and others of thirteen in Level D today. They swam at about the same level, and so that's where they should be. By concentrating on the essentials, like stroke development, distance will come naturally as endurance develops and the child gets stronger. By keeping a child at the correct level he will enjoy swimming more, and will hopefully end up with a sport that will keep him fit well into adulthood. I swam regularly until I moved to the country where the pool was only open during summer and wasn't heated. Brrrrr. Parents may have many reasons for wanting their children to be able to swim, but surely two of the main ones must be water safety, and training for a possible future sport when the child is grown. A child who is forced into a level that is too hard will not enjoy that lesson. They won't develop good techniques, and they probably won't continue on with something they regard as little short of torture any longer than they have to.

Which brought me to education.

Now I can understand why a school teacher of a class of 25 students has to teach to an average level, but homeschoolers don't. Our kids get individual tuition. Mostly there is only one or at the most two children in any grade level. So why do we force them to conform to the same restrictions placed on that teacher of 25 students? Why do we teach to a level that is not ideally suited to each individual child? Why are we so keen to have our kids read more difficult books each year? To be above grade level at spelling? To excel at spelling or grammar or French? Why can't we be more like the swimming class, and realise that a child who is learning at the right level is likely to spend much of each day with an eager, happy open face like Jemimah's at swimming today. Some children learn to read by themselves before they begin kindergarten. Others, particularly some boys, find reading takes them much longer, and that they're still struggling at ten or eleven. Now provided there is not an underlying problem that needs to be addressed here, I suspect that by the time that child is grown, it won't matter one whit whether he learned to read at 3 or 13. What matters is that he reads at 30. It's a bit like swimming really, isn't it?

Today, the swimming 'lesson' fresh in my mind, I checked myself when I felt myself tense up at Jemimah's punctuation during dictation. I cut her some slack. She was frankly amazed. For art I encouraged her to work on her 'toilet roll family' rather than telling her that she must begin the Artistic Pursuits book that I thought she should do. At this, she was almost apoplectic. We only did half the maths questions, and ditched the rest. I think here she began to wonder if I might be ill. It was worth doing for the smile alone.

I try really hard not to get hung up about Jemimah's spelling. Really I do. Mostly I fail. Today though, I recognise that the likelihood is that by the time she is grown, she will probably be able to spell commandment and neighbour without writing them out five times first. If she can't, there's always spell checker, right?

I will never be the relaxed unschooler. It doesn't suit my personality or my family. My swimming 'lesson' from today, though, has prompted me to relax a bit and accept Jemimah as she is. I will continue trying to teach her to spell, but if she doesn't learn, then no doubt she will develop the skills to get around it. If she chooses to always draw the horizontal stroke of her 't' before the downstroke, then that's how she'll write. It doesn't really matter one way or the other in the big scheme of things.

Often I think I spend an inordinate amount of time correcting the same problem over and over and over. And it has all been one great big waste of time, for the problem is still there as big and ugly as if I had never tackled it in the first place. Maybe sometimes I need to accept that no matter what I do, that problem will never go away until one day it becomes a problem to Jemimah too, and she decides to change herself. And maybe it never will.

Maybe now I will try harder to accept Jemimah at the level she is at. She does exceedingly well at some things, less well at others, much the same way as she swims backstroke and freestyle beautifully but is hilarious at the backwards scull.

My swimming 'lesson' this year is that every child has his or her own level. And whatever it is, whether it be above or below grade level, or right on average, that's okay. As homeschoolers we have the privilege of meeting each and every child exactly where he is at. We can chose the level that we enrol our children in. And that can be Level F for reading and maths and Level B for spelling.

Sometimes parents ask me what level Jemimah is in at Vicswim. I am not ashamed when I say Jemimah is in Level D, because I know that when they see her swim they'll realise that she swims beautifully. I'm going to do my best to be the same way the next time someone asks about my child's level at school.

Jemimah is in exactly the level she needs to be in.

That's my swimming 'lesson' for 2012.

A gentle interlude

2012-01-16T21:54:00.001+11:00

From a simpler time.

My that Easter Egg is hot stuff, isn't she?!

Written narration

2012-01-15T18:58:00.005+11:00

Okay, I'll admit it. I was a bit frightened of written narration. As you know, we have had a lot of trouble with Jemimah's spelling and willingness to write, and I was frankly terrified of what she would produce. She was doing really well with oral narration, and ... well, why change something that's working?

Ambleside Online's Scope and Sequence recommends commencing written narration about now, at 10 or 11 years of age, beginning with one written narration a week. The idea is to allow the child to create a composition on paper, to write an 'essay', as it were. It was the realisation that the process was not intended to teach spelling or handwriting that spurred me on, I guess. These scary subjects are covered in copywork and dictation, not narration.

I can't remember where I read that it was helpful if the child read her composition aloud rather than handing in a written paper to be marked, but it helped me a lot. I had had visions of red marks on every word. I knew I would focus on the bad bits rather than allowing Jemimah to show me what she could do. Allowing her to read her work would allow me to hear her words, and not her spelling. It would allow her to shine.

And so on Friday we gave it a whirl.

Here below, is 9, almost 10 year old Princess Jemimah's very first written narration. I am so incredibly excited. I think it is fantastic. She does too.

Now, before you read, the spelling and the grammar are all mine. I want you to focus on the story as well. I had only two rules, in fact, when she began. One, that she capitalise the beginning of sentences and proper nouns, and finish the sentence with a full stop or other punctuation mark. Two, I expected her to spell the proper nouns correctly, since she had them written in front of her. She did manage to do both of these, but these are about the only correctly spelled words in the whole essay. We have a l-o-n-g way to go with spelling.

Still, here we have a wonderful introduction to the life of Isaac Newton. It is a full page long. It is accurate. It is interesting. It flows.

I think my young lady had done particularly well, and I am really, really proud of her. I hope you enjoy her very first composition as much as her Daddy and I do.

Isaac Newton by Jemimah

The two set out for the long cold dangerous walk to the Baroness’s house to get the medicine for the newborn son of Hannah Newton. Isaac Newton they called him, after his father. He had died a few months before Isaac had been born.

The two reached the manor in just 35 minutes and woke not just the servants with their banging; but the whole house woke to the sound of the two midwives. The lady of the house opened the door and welcomed them in. The elder of the two said how there was a baby who was too sick even to cry. As the medicine was being made, the young one said, “I tell you that the babe will not be alive when we return.

They hurried home with the medicine to save the baby. When they got home, the door was opened by Hannah’s brother. They asked, “Is he still living?” He nodded. They hurried up stairs to give the baby they medicine. The girl helper stood in awe. “He could fit in a money* jar!” she said. They gave the boy the medicine.

By and by, the boy grew a bit stronger. Now he was three. One day, there was a knock on the door. Hannah opened the door to a strange man. He stuttered out the words, “T-t-the f-f-friar w-w-wants to marry you!” “But why did he not come and see me himself?” she said. “He is shy,” he said. “I will consider it,” she said. From now on, it was all for Isaac. In the end, she said yes.

At first Isaac did not understand. He cried and wept. It felt like ages before he could see his mum.

One day, his mum did not come to see him. “Why?” he asked. “She has had a baby,” she said.

At first, Isaac did not like his step-dad, but he grew to like him. Now he had a brother and a sister. He made toys for them. He was growing very smart. His uncle came to see his work and said it was marvellous. He said he should go to a school very far away. Hannah finally agreed to let him go.

For now, anyway.

*The text said that Isaac would fit into a quart jar. My metrically educated daughter thought this referred to a unit of American money, 'a quarter', not a unit of capacity. Cute, I think!

One year on

2012-01-14T17:40:00.013+11:00

At some time in the afternoon of this day last year, after a week of the heaviest rain on record, the normally tranquil Avoca River broke its banks, disgorging putrid, brown water flooding into the already sodden streets of our peaceful Central Victorian town. At much the same time on the Western side of town, the Yeungroon Creek also began to overflow, sending its predominantly clear water to join that of the Avoca. Which came first was to assume great importance in the days that would follow.

The waters from these two water systems joined standing water from the constant rain, as well as overflowing storm water drains that were already flooding some homes.

Mr Peaceful Day had spent a sleepless night. Sometime after midnight the hall ceiling had become so sodden that it had started to collapse, and he had had to call in a builder friend to remove the sodden plaster before it fell. The kitchen floor was covered with water, and the garden was now a shimmering lake. It had been his 50th birthday the day before, and on the fourteenth he was due to travel to Melbourne to join Jemimah and me to celebrate his special occasion.

Jemimah and I generally spend two or three weeks of January in Melbourne for intensive daily swimming lessons. We're here now, in fact. That morning I was at the swimming pool watching Jemimah have her lesson, when the phone rang. It was my Beloved, Mr PD, on the phone. After the night he had just endured he wasn't sure whether to leave town or not. The signs were all good, he said. The town meeting the night before had suggested that the river was due to peak somewhere between the levels of the flood events of September and November of the previous year. Neither of those had affected us terribly much, although September had come close, and so he felt fairly confident that this time we would be safe as well. The roads were quickly becoming impassable as the rain continued to fall, and people had been advised that this was the last change to stay or evacuate. I really wanted him to be with us in Melbourne. I wanted to celebrate his birthday. We had plans. After much discussion we decided that the house was likely to be safe and he started on his way. At least we would be together, we thought.

In hindsight, this was a very bad decision.

I was still at the pool when Mr PD phoned again. The Bureau of Meteorology had revised their predictions of expected flood levels. Now they believed that the Avoca River would peak 1 metre above the September flood level.

One metre. One metre. One metre.

Our town was going under. Our house was going under. Our business was going under.

The roads were closed. The roads into our peaceful town was impassable, and there was absolutely nothing we could do.

At least we were together.

We were to say that a lot in the next few days.

We spent the rest of that day glued to the television. The news was filled with reports of the big cleanup of the Brisbane floods that had hit the week before. We heard about the inundation of Carisbrook and Beaufort, but on our peaceful town the media was silent. It was as if our community of 1200 people had disappeared off the map.

As it turns out, it almost had. Soon after the floods hit, the town was isolated. Fire tenders had at first been used to ferry people to surrounding towns when even the local flood evacuation centre began to go under, but eventually the roads became impassable in all directions. Later the electricity substation flooded causing power outages in a huge surrounding area. The telephone towers went out and mobile phones failed. Our town had effectively become a great big black hole.

In was not until the 17th that we were able to return home. We left Jemimah with my mum, and along with my brother-in-law, Mr B, we headed for home. Or what was left of it.

I can't explain to you our emotions when we was first saw the destruction that this, Victoria's greatest natural disaster, had wrought on our home and on our community. Basically everything that sat on the floor was ruined. Beds, tables, sofas, bookshelves, occasional tables, chests of drawers, bathroom and kitchen cabinets, washing machine and dryer, fridge, dishwasher. It was overwhelming.

We will never be able to repay the kindnesses shown to us during those days. Teams of people travelled more than three hours each day from our churches in Geelong and Melbourne to help us in the clean up, returning the same night because there was no accommodation for them in town. Together they tore up carpet and floor boards, moved furniture and cleaned walls. Folk hosed down garden beds, to remove the mud and save the plants that were still alive. Electrician friends checked and replaced power points. Family friends donated a power generator. As the moulds began to grow the clean-ups got harder. We cut holes in the floor to dry out the foundations. Bottles of bleach were poured onto the surfaces.

Other friends out of town accommodated us and many other flood refugees. They set up beds. They cooked for us. They listened to us late into the night as we poured out or hearts. I don't know what we would have done if it were not for these very special friends.

The magnitude of what had happened was overwhelming at this stage. We were numb with shock. Many nights, lying there in our makeshift bed on our friends' dining room floor, Mr PD and I would just hold each other and cry. It seemed impossible to imagine how we were ever going to be able to find a way out of the huge deep abyss we found ourselves in.

To be honest, I don't know how those without faith continue on at times like that. The magnitude of the disaster was too great for us to comprehend. We really had to just hold tight to God. That's all we had. I found comfort in the Psalms. I read Psalm 18 over and over:

He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
he drew me out of deep waters.
He rescued me from my powerful enemy,
from my foes, who were too strong for me.
They confronted me in the day of my disaster,
but the LORD was my support.
He brought me out into a spacious place;
he rescued me because he delighted in me.

Psalm 18: 16-19 NIV

You really learn to rely on God when it seems there is nothing else.

Gradually things began to return to what was to become a new normal. The house dried out enough to move back into. We were able to bring Jemimah home. She and I started school again. In a fashion, anyhow. We read books and sang songs and just took pleasure of being back together. Gradually her fears began to subside and she started to sleep through the night again.

On April Fools Day, Mr PD returned to work. Our family business was very different from what it used to be like, but it was good to be back. I returned full time until we were back on our feet. It took most of last year, but we're beginning to feel that there's light at the end of the tunnel.

Before the flood our home was beautiful. Long before we married, Mr PD had spent some years in Saudi Arabia. We had used the proceeds of those tax free years to renovate and restore our 1915 property, and to furnish it with Japanese antiques and my collection of South East Asian textiles. We worked hard to make it a welcoming and peaceful haven filled with throw rugs and comfy sofas and scented candles and shelves of books and flowers from our garden. We practiced hospitality regularly. We hosted a weekly Bible Study, and had many friends to stay. We had knowingly overcapitalised, planning to stay put until we retired in 15 years time.

After the floods were are faced with this renovation all over again. Only this time we have no nest-egg to finance the process. This time we have nothing but a mortgage. A mortgage on what we no longer own. Because our Insurer judged that the damage came from the Avoca River and not the storm water, we are not covered for the damage caused by the floods.

Living in a home with borrowed furniture and no floor coverings is no fun. We have mice and spiders and no way to keep them out. Drawers don't open and cupboards don't close. Sometimes it all feels overwhelming.

Still, there are signs that things will get better. A few weeks ago our Insurers finally agreed that the ceiling that fell in the day before the flood is covered under 'storm damage'. As is the resulting damage to the kitchen floors. We are saving for a new kitchen, and new dining furniture, and are working towards having this done before the end of 2012. It will be wonderful to have one comfortable room again. Little by little it will happen.

People often ask us if everything is back to normal again.

Ah, no.

We are a very, very long way from being normal. We are a long way off having carpet. And furniture. And a sustainable business. We will possibly never have a home as beautiful as we once had.

Throughout this past year, though, I have been grateful for many things. Most significantly, I am grateful for the generosity of people. People who are strangers; people who are our friends in real life; and people that we only know through the pages of A Peaceful Day. So many times we have been overwhelmed by the kindness of others. Tupperware sent wonderful care packages to 495 affected homes in our community alone. A local nursery sent rose bushes. In December, a Christmas tree store sent trees and decorations to every home with children. Every child in the community received new school clothes, stationery, school shoes and a pair of Dunlop Volleys. Richele and her family sent a huge package of magical Barefoot Books for the local kindergarten, and later sent me a bundle of Christmas books to replace some of those we'd lost. A blog reader from Sydney sent me a copy of Jostein Gaarder's The Christmas Mystery. Whoever you are, dear friend, I thank you so much.You have become indeed a Christmas mystery of your own. When a church friend noticed how sad I was over the loss of a very special Miao textile book, he scoured the Internet until he finally located one single copy. It was in China, but he bought it for me anyhow. Its cost was astronomical, but he truly could not have thought of a present that would please me more. We are so grateful to all of these people. We are thankful to those who have lent us furniture. We are thankful for those who cleaned. We are thankful for those who prayed. We are thankful to those who continue to pray.

My husband and I are very insulated people. My family accuse me of being pathologically private, and I fear that Mr PD, although being less introverted than I am, is tarred with the same brush. We tend not to talk much about how we feel, and we tend to rely on each other for emotional support. Throughout this last twelve months, though, we've learned who our friends are, and we are constantly grateful for each and every one of them. Friends are the people who step in and help you when things fail. Friends are the ones who care.

If it has taught us one thing, the flood had taught us the value of relationships over material possessions. We can do without things, we can even do without books (maybe), but we can't do without friends.

We really are so incredibly blessed.

The Mummy Song

2012-01-12T16:03:00.003+11:00

We started Jeannie Fulbright's Exploring Creation with Anatomy and Physiology book today. Jemimah is excited to be learning about the human body, and was rather disgusted to discover that today's lesson was an introductory lesson covering the history of medicine rather than launching straight into the blood, guts and gore. Oh well. Soon kid, soon.

We looked at the ancient Egyptians and Hebrews today, and I was surprised to learn how much Jemimah knew about the Egyptians and their process of mummification. She knew more than I do, that's for sure.

Well, after impressing me with her superior knowledge, she finally confessed that all she knows was gleaned here.

Yep, it's Horrible Histories - I should have known! This, I whisper quietly behind my hand, is one of my daughter's favourite shows. She likes the books too, but the telly is better, she says. I think I would be more critical of the series if it were not for the information that Jemimah has learned and retained from watching them. She knows the names of all the English kings, for example. Which is pretty impressive, me thinks, if you want a party trick.

The author of the books, Terry Deary, freely admits that his books are designed to "entertain first, and inform second", by concentrating on the unusual, the gory, the amusing, and the unpleasant. They're everything I don't like in a book, filled as they are with bottom jokes, bodily fluids and daggy jokes. Jemimah loves them. For probably the same reasons. I don't like their non-linear format, the simple language and the short chapters. On the other hand, the books are factual, and they're not dumbed down. Well, they are, but not in the way I'm given to use the phrase. They speak directly to children in a way they love and understand.

There are many modern books written with the same format as Horrible Histories that I do not encourage my daughter to read. Wimpy Kid is an example. I make an exception for Horrible Histories books and telly programmes though because Jemimah consistently demonstrates that she is learning real history from them. It may have a bias different to the one I am teaching her in school, but that can only be a good thing, I suppose.

What do you think? Are Horrible Histories twaddle to be avoided at all costs, or does the series have merit? I'm on the side of the latter. Jemimah's narration this afternoon just confirmed it for me.

I'd like to hear your thoughts, though. What do you say?

Living books

2012-01-11T10:29:00.002+11:00

And now for some light comic relief:

This is why my bookshelves get so messed up seemingly all by themselves.

I told you books were alive!!

Back where we belong

2012-01-10T09:15:00.005+11:00

And so we're back where we belong. I felt disorganised and not up to par, but Day One went well. I did feel, however, that I really should complete my planning of at least Term 1 before blogging about it, and so I made myself finish writing my timetable and term plans last night. Well, okay, and this morning. Anyhow, so now they're done and I don't need to feel guilty any more. Tra la la.

We ate doughnuts for breakfast - our Back-to-School tradition, and took First Day photographs. I'll show you those when we manage to get them off the camera - the new year has not brought with it an improvement in our computer issues, malheureusement. Jemimah unwrapped her presents - some pretty stationery, her new cartridge pen, a Molskine nature journal, a very fine set of Dickens and an equally lovely leather bound version of King Arthur, the 2012 Sing Songbooks. Stuff like that. She was very excited.

Kinda makes it fun having Back-to-School traditions, don't you think?

We took the day slowly, introducing her new Devotions program and moving straight into Copywork. A certain young miss couldn't wait for this, strangely enough. Amazing what a special pen can do. Peer Gynt on the iPod. Yummy.

Oh, what deliciously wonderful new books AO brings to each new year. Howard Pyle's The Story of King Arthur and his Knights for me to read aloud to Jemimah, and she chose Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper to read aloud to me. The 21 Balloons is our Newbery Challenge book, but I haven't told you about that yet and asked you to join me, so that probably doesn't make much sense. The beautifully illustrated Bushland and Seashore is our Australian natural history book. I'll review this soon. It is terrific, despite being written from an evolutionary viewpoint. I'll either edit, or we'll discuss why we don't agree with the author's statement. That's okay. Today's lesson reminded Jemimah and me of Pagoo and her narration was great. That's always a sign of a Living Book, I reckon. If you can't narrate from it then it ain't alive.

We started Mission Monde French and restarted MEP maths. Both went well. I'm so glad I took a break from MEP last term and did something different because this week she is finding the work easy and interesting. Hurrah!

At the start of each new level of my Australianised Ambleside Online I'm always bubbling over with excitement. Both of us are. Each day brings with it new delights and new friends. We have a whole list of new Free Reads to choose from. Anne and Marilla are there this year, along with Jo and her sisters. We have another Billabong book to read. Laura and Almanzo are back. I'll be able to introduce Jemimah to Helen Keller and Tom Sawyer, and together we'll meet Mr Bowditch and Colonel Wattie. Indigenous Australia gets a look in with Stradbroke Dreamtime and Sally's Story, and we learn about bushfire in February Dragon and Ash Road.

It's at times like this that I am reminded why we chose to homeschool our daughter. It is her father's and my hope to equip Jemimah to be a citizen of the Christian community in contemporary post-Christian Australia. We want her to be conformed more and more to the image of Christ, and we hope she will become a mature Christian woman capable of living a full and rich Christian life as a wife and mother, but also maybe as a doctor or a geneticist or a teacher or a nurse or a business woman. It is our hope that she might come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as her Lord and Saviour at an early age, and we want to equip her for doing this. We want to give her the tools for professing and living a Christian life, directed and enlightened by the infallible word of God. We want her to have the Christian perspective of contemporary issues as they apply now, but also of those that are not yet dreamed of.

To us, the liberal arts curriculum of Charlotte Mason and Ambleside Online gives us the scaffold on which to hang our lofty aims. It provides an education that nourishes the mind to accept and test ideas. It encourages individual curiosity to feed the desire for more and varied knowledge. It stimulates the mind by using only the best - the best books, the finest composers, the most beautiful and uplifting art. It provides the medium to retain the knowledge and to manipulate it to make it applicable to the problems of every day life. It teaches character and initiative and a sense of responsibility. It teaches children to be the best they can be.

And as we begin again in this new year of 2012, that's what we want for our daughter - for her to be everything God wanted her to be.

We don't half aim high.

AO5 Term 1 French folksongs

2012-01-09T09:52:00.004+11:00

And this one because it is fun and we missed learning it earlier:

AO5 Term 1 Folksongs

2012-01-09T09:28:00.003+11:00

A term of Ireland!

I'll Tell me Ma

I'll tell me ma when I go home
The boys won't leave the girls alone
They pull my hair, they steal my comb
But that's all right till I get home
She is handsome, she is pretty
She is the belle of Belfast city
She is courting one, two, three
Please, won't you tell me, who is she?

Albert Mooney says he loves her
All the boys are fighting for her
Knock at the door and ring the bell
Saying, oh my true love, are you well?
Out she comes, white as snow
Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes
Old Johnny Murray says she'll die
If she doesn't get the fellow with the roving eye

Let the wind and the rain and the hail go high
Snow come tumbling from the sky
She's as nice as apple pie
She'll get a fellow by and by
When she gets a lad of her own
She won't tell her ma when she gets home
Let them all come as they will
It's Albert Mooney she loves still

The Rising of the Moon

And come tell me Sean O'Farrell, tell me why you hurry so
Hush a bhuachaill, hush and listen and his cheeks were all aglow
I bear orders from the captain, get you ready quick and soon
For the pikes must be together at the rising of the moon
At the rising of the moon, at the rising of the moon
For the pikes must be together at the rising of the moon

And come tell me Sean O'Farrell, where the gathering is to be
At the old spot by the river quite well known to you and me
One more word for signal token, whistle out the marching tune
With your pike upon your shoulder at the rising of the moon
At the rising of the moon, at the rising of the moon
With your pike upon your shoulder at the rising of the moon

Out from many a mud walled cabin eyes were watching through the night
Many a manly heart was beating for the blessed morning's light
Murmurs ran along the valley to the banshee's lonely croon
And a thousand pikes were flashing by the rising of the moon
By the rising of the moon, by the rising of the moon
And a thousand pikes were flashing by the rising of the moon

All along that singing river, that black mass of men was seen
High above their shining weapons flew their own beloved green
Death to every foe and traitor, whistle out the marching tune
And hoorah me boys for freedom 'tis the rising of the moon
'Tis the rising of the moon, 'tis the rising of the moon
And hoorah me boys for freedom 'tis the rising of the moon

The Rose of Tralee

The pale moon was rising above the green mountains,
The sun was declining beneath the blue sea,
When I strayed with my love by the pure crystal fountain,
That stands in the beautiful Vale of Tralee.

She was lovely and fair as the rose of the summer,
Yet 'twas not her beauty alone that won me.
Oh no, 'twas the truth in her eyes ever dawning
That made me love Mary, the Rose of Tralee.

The cool shades of evening their mantle were spreading,
And Mary all smiling was listening to me.
The moon through the valley her pale rays was shedding,
When I won the heart of the Rose of Tralee.

She was lovely and fair as the rose of the summer,
Yet 'twas not her beauty alone that won me.
Oh no, 'twas the truth in her eyes ever dawning
That made me love Mary, the Rose of Tralee.

In the far fields of India 'mid war's dreadful thunders,
Her voice was solace and comfort to me.
But the chill hand of death has now rent us asunder,
I'm lonely tonight for the Rose of Tralee.

She was lovely and fair as the rose of the summer,
Yet 'twas not her beauty alone that won me.
Oh no, 'twas the truth in her eyes ever dawning
That made me love Mary, the Rose of Tralee.

Happy New Year

2011-12-30T17:11:00.008+11:00

Lots of people are posting that they have Christmas packed away for another year. Some people had it all done by Boxing Day even.

Not me.

Our peaceful home, well, my Mum's home, anyhow, still has presents cluttering the dining room floor. And the bedroom. And the library. (Yep, the library.) We're much to busy having fun to tidy up - even if we wanted to, which we don't.

It took me a few years to train my Beloved to the fact that we liked having Christmas hanging around long after the 25th. We like munching on Mince Pies. We make a wish on the first 12 pies of the season. Superstitious nonsense, you might say, but we call it Christmas magic. We eat marvellous meals. We drink too much Champagne. Can you drink too much Champagne? Really? We read books. We do jigsaws. And more jigsaws. We hang out at the beach building sand castles. We see movies. We munch on Santa chocolates. We play Christmas music. And other music when we get sick of that. We sit around and talk to each other. About all sorts of stuff. Like memories of Christmases past, and which presents we are enjoying. We spend time with friends. At their place and at ours, where we eat too much and drink too much and talk too much. We've done a bit of shopping in the Sales. Only a little bit. I've had a haircut. Jemimah's taken photos on her new camera. Front of dogs. Back of dogs. Dog coming. Dog sleeping. Dog eating. Dog jumping. Close-up of dog. If you have a child with a new camera I guess you might know what I mean.

Some time soon after New Year we might get sick of picking our way through piles of wrapping paper to make our way from bed to bath. Then it will be time to tidy up. We'll pack the Christmas tree away in its box and find spaces for all the presents to live.

Then all the magic will be gone for another 11 months. Eleven months of reality. I'm not ready for that to come too soon. Not on Boxing Day. And not even today. Maybe next week. If we have time.

For the time being, we're just busy having fun and being a family and building memories of a happy and magical childhood. Reality can wait.

2011 has not been an easy year for our family. We've had far more lows that highs. But through it all we've learned to depend on each other, to be kind to each other, to be each other's bestest friend and greatest encouragement. Throughout the year, God has been good, and he has been faithful. He has kept us safe through all our tribulations. He has given us strength and wisdom and perseverence. He has given us family and friends. He has answered our prayers. He has been so very good to us.

Only he knows what is in store for us in 2012. Only he can rule the weather and the rains. Whatever it is though, he will be there with us, and with him by our side we will succeed.

Thank you all for your prayers, friendship and support throughout the past year. May the Lord bless you and keep you all through 2012, my friends, and thank you to each and every one of you from me.

For everything. But mostly for being you.

Happy New Year!

Japanese lit reads 2011

2011-12-30T10:26:00.009+11:00

I suppose it was inevitable really, that a love of Japan and a love of books would some converge into a love of Japanese literature, but it hadn't ever really happened until this year. Oh, I'd read a number of books about Japan, some of them were even written by Japanese authors. I loved The Book of Tea by Okakura Kakuzō, and In Praise of Shadows by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, for example, but both of those were really essays on wabi sabi aesthetics rather than J-lit per se. I also have a kinda pash on geisha, so I've read lots of geisha books too.

It took A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami - one of my 2010 book club choices to introduce me to the J-lit genre. And with this one novel I was seriously hooked. I started reading my way through this intriguing man's surreal and mysterious works, one by one. Then on to other authors.

And now it's the end of 2011.

And here is my list of Japanese books read in 2011:

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto

Moonlight Shadow by Banana Yoshimoto

The Housekeeper and The Professor by Yoko Ogawa

After the Quake by Haruki Murakami

The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto

The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino

Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

The Girl who Leapt through Time by Yasutaka Tsutsui

The Stuff that Nightmares are Made of by Yasutaka Tsutsui

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

Some of them were better than others. If you want to try some J-lit yourself, The Housekeeper and The Professor is marvellous. I loved The Lake as well. The Girl who Leapt Through Time is okay for kids. Despite all of the hype, 1Q84 is a big disappointment. Apart from that one, though, Murakami is invariably pretty good. Dip your toe in and see if you like it.

People read for various reasons. Some read for self improvement. If I read this book it will make me a better person. If I read that one I will be a better Christian, even. Others read through a sense of obligation. Reading is good for you, so I must have three servings every day regardless of whether I like the taste of what I'm reading or not. Some read only what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy. Some read to learn. I read for all these reasons, but most of all I read because I love to read. It gives me great pleasure to settle down with a good book. It is one of these bestest things in my peaceful world.

When I read J-lit I learn more about a country that intrigues me. I learn what makes this sometimes closed and enigmatic people tick. I learn about a different world view. I learn what they think about me as a gaijin. I learn what they think about about my Christian God. I love the sense of gentleness that pervades these books. They make me feel nice and peaceful somehow. They transport me to another world. (And with Murakami, then sometimes that's literally another world!)

Currently I'm reading Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore. Oh yes, I realise again why I like this man's work. And why 1Q84 is hopefully an aberration. Kafka is full of Japanese literary references. It's even set in a beautiful library:

Before coming to Takamatsu I found out some wealthy man from an old family in the suburbs had renovated his personal library into a private library open to the public. The place has a lot of rare books, and I heard that the building itself and the surrounding garden were worth checking out. I saw a photo of the place once in Taiyo magazine. It's a large, Japanese-style house with this really elegant reading room that looks more like a parlor, where people are sitting with their books on comfortable looking sofas. For some reason that photo really stayed with me, and I wanted to see this in person if someday the chance came along. The Komura Memorial Library, the place
was called.

Japan, Books and Murakami. What's not to love?! (Well, except the cat scene.)

If you want to know more about J-lit, In Spring it is the Dawn is my very favourite blog on the topic. Start there. She taught me everything I know.

While there you might want to join the Haruki Murakami Reading Challenge for 2012. I have. Next year I hope to read After Dark, Pinball, 1973 and South of Border, West of the Sun. Which will make me a Sheep Man. Maybe I'll even read more. I'll see. What about you? Wanna be a Hajime and read one book? Or maybe more?

Maybe like me, this will be the start of something new and exciting. I hope so. I'd love your company!

Magical Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T12:42:00.005+11:00

We awoke this morning to New Year's Eve. Possibly my favouritest day of the year. The whole family is on holiday for 17 delicious days. The Christmas period looms ahead with all its magic and excitement, and we are home alone. Lovely.

For breakfast on Christmas Eve we eat Julegrøt, (Yule Porridge), the traditional Norwegian Christmas Eve breakfast of creamy rice pudding with butter and sugar and cinnamon . This festive breakfast has wonderful associations for me of a marvellous Christmas spent with cousins in Norway. My first white Christmas. (You can read more about it here, if you like.) In one bowl of porridge will be an almond. Much like the charms in the Christmas Pud. The finder of the almond traditionally wins a marzipan pig, but the marzipan pigs we find in Australia are yucky, so we substitute with a chocolate animal. This year, for the first time, Jemimah found the almond. She was delighted to put an end to Daddy's winning streak.

Elves in Scandinavia are called Nisse. They're naughty, mischievous little imps and can cause all sorts of trouble around your home and property if you don't care for them properly. They move all the animals around, braid the horses' tails together, pranks like that. Naughty. All sorts of trouble happens if you don't care for the nisse. Fortunately, they don't ask for much. All they require is a bowl of risengrynsgrød with a knob of butter set outside your kitchen door or in your barn on Christmas Eve. Don't forget the butter, though, or else. Of course, you know what happens if you put creamy rice outside - the cats eat it. Of course they do. The nisse know this too, so you always accompany the rice with a wooden spoon. Not for eating the pudding with, although it helps, but for beating the cats away with. Once done, you can be assured of another year with well behaved nisse. Well worth the trouble. We don't have a barn here in our Melbourne home, but the bowl of risengrynsgrøt is sitting outside as we speak. Just in case we have nisse here in Australia as well. Can't see why we wouldn't. The bowl always comes in clean anyhow, and it can't possibly be the cats. Can it?

After breakfast we open the presents around the tree. A few years ago we realised that gifts from family and friends tended to get lost in the flurry of Christmas Day, and so we started our tradition of opening them on Christmas Eve. I love it. It is just the three of us. We open each present slowly and enjoy it. Best of all, there is still the anticipation of more to come, so if a present is not 'exactly what was hoped for', then it is still possible it might arrive tomorrow. I have never known anybody to be disappointed by a Christmas Eve gift. No expectations - that's what I love about today.

Later this afternoon we will travel down to Mum's in Geelong for our traditional Christmas Eve meal of Roast Ham, Boiled Potatoes dripping with butter, and Asparagus with Hollandaise Sauce. Summer Pudding for Dessert. We began this tradition a few years ago to justify the purchase of the ham. It seemed crazy to buy a whole ham just for a slice each on Christmas Day, and weeks of leftovers. This way we enjoy two meals out of it, and still have a little left over to eat with lettuce and cranberry sauce in fresh white bread rolls on Christmas night. This evening family friends will be joining us. I am looking forward to it very much.

Right now Jemimah and I are watching The Polar Express. We are sipping on Hot Chocolate served just as the song begins. You know the one. No, it doesn't matter that is is 34°C outside. Some things you just gotta do. Tradition, right? Daddy is doing secret wrapping business in the kitchen behind closed doors and listening to John Rutter. Since the only gifts he wraps are mine, then I believe that it is highly important to leave him to it. For as long as he takes. You just can't hurry things like that.

We're munching on shortbread and chocolate from the gifts under the tree. Jemimah is still nibbling on her chocolate rabbit. She's finishing up a few gifts that need a bit of painting, and is wearing a Santa hat. And the tee shirt and shorts she's worn every year since she was three years old. This year the shorts look like cycling shorts and the tee shows a bit of midriff if she raises her arms, but she looks really, really cute. And happy. And excited.

I'm happy and excited too. Can you tell?

Happy Christmas Eve, everyone.

Hobbiting

2011-12-22T14:07:00.004+11:00

The trailer for the new Hobbit film appeared yesterday, tempting and teasing us over a movie with a release date that is still a year away. It looks wonderful!

While you're waiting, you may want to do the Charlotte Mason thing and read the book.

These two are my favourites:

This gorgeous edition is sumptuously illustrated by Michael Hague, one of my favourite illustrators of children's books. I like the fairytale non-scary element that characterises his works for kids, and besides, this is the edition I read as a child, which will always make it a sure favourite. I am such a nostalgic girl. Each year my Mum and Dad would give us one of Michael's books for Christmas. This one was in my brother's stocking, but it didn't stop all three of us reading it and poring over the pictures. Delightful.

This edition illustrated by Allan Lee is a bit more frightening and otherworldly, but equally lavish. I didn't get my hands on this edition until much later.

Either is beautiful. Of course, you could always go the unillustrated route and let your imagination go wild, but in my very humble opinion these two editions are too good to miss.

While you're waiting for your book order to arrive, here's something fun to get you in the mood: Type 'The Shire to Mordor' into Google Maps (click the pedestrian option first) and see what happens. Go on - you'll be glad you did. Or at least, I thought it was funny. (Thanks Nathan for this piece of frivolous Middle Earth fun.)

Moving right along

2011-12-21T07:47:00.002+11:00

This mostly-peaceful-but-not-recently blog has been far too controversial of late. You all know how I crave your approval, and so I tend to stear clear of talking about things that upset you, honest I do. I want you all to like me!

Fortunately, alongside celebrating the 'C' word, I've also been beavering away at our homeschool preparations for AO5 beginning in only a few weeks at the beginning of January. Probably most of you re far too busy doing, well, other stuff, and are entirely disinterested in what I've planned, but I thought that I would post it here if only to put a little distance between things that upset people and...well, things that they're not interested enough to get upset about.

I'm excited about next year. The books have been arriving through the last few days, and we've had a lot of fun having a little bit of a preview of what we'll be studying. John Gibson Paton, Beatrix Potter, George Washington Carver and Lillias Trotter are amongst the wonderful personalities we'll be getting to know, along with my Grandfather, the WWI hero, Sloan Bolton. We'll be reading Oliver Twist, Little Women, Kim, Anne of Green Gables, Norah of Billabong, and other wonderful, wonderful works of literature. All years of Ambleside Online are splendid, but AO5 is shaping up to be truly exceptional!

Many think of AO as being only a booklist, but implemented well, it is so much more than that. I thought that in this post I would give you an idea of the other things that we'll be doing in our Australianised AO5 to transform this list of books into a curriculum that is as close as possible to that which Miss Mason used in her own schools, and which bore so much good fruit.

Sound good? Okay, let's begin with Language Arts, shall we?

Copywork

Finally next year we get to make use of the Downunder Copywork that I purchased before Jemimah even commenced in AO1. Despite having purchased the complete set, we've never used it because I subsequently decided that I preferred the Victorian font to the NSW style foundation font used in the books. Finally in AO5, Jemimah's handwriting has developed to such an extent that she no longer needs to copy the font to form the letters neatly and correctly, and I think she will manage to utilise the excellent Australian copywork selections provided in the latter books without compromising on precision. At the age of ten, little girls, particularly, enjoy developing their own distinctive style of handwriting, and I can already imagine Jemimah adding in a few of the flourishes from the old fashioned manuscript style as well.

In past years Jemimah has written using an HB pencil. Commencing next year she will begin using a cartridge style fountain pen. I remember how incredibly thrilled I was when we graduated to using fountain pens in grade four, although ours were the old fashioned ink well type, and not a few terrible accidents happened as a result. I wonder if mine was the last year to use ink pens. Certainly my brother who is only two years younger was introduced straight into using ball point 'biros'.

Writing with a nib is a skill. No doubt Jemimah will use a conventional ball point in the future, but next year, at least, I want her to experience the old-fashioned pleasure of pen and ink copywork.

Studied Dictation

We'll continue on with Simply Charlotte Mason's Spelling Wisdom (British version) for this subject. We have noticed a significant improvement in Jemimah's spelling merely by our diligent application of Miss Mason's methods using this book. We may also utilise some of the Downunder Copywork selections next year. I'll see how we go. We usually do two dictation lessons each week.

Narration

Oral narration will continue on all selections. Occasionally we skip this as a surprise treat, and occasionally she does novelty narrations, but for the most part she simply tells back what's she's heard.

Written narration will commence next year, much to Jemimah's disgust. We'll begin with one written piece per week, and increase it once the rebellion dies down. Initially I'll allow her to read her piece aloud, and I won't even look at it. Later we might look at correcting punctuation and layout, but I can't imagine that being in the first two terms, to be honest.

Grammar

After two terms of grammar this year we spent the last term reading Nuri Mass' excellent Little Grammar People. We both learned heaps from this book. Next year we plan on a nice easy-peasy beginning to the year by using Mad Libs, a game popular in North America (or so I'm lead to believe), but almost unheard of in Australia. I've ordered a few of these books from Amazon, and they've not arrived, so I've yet to see one in reality, but they appear to be a fun way to consolidate the parts of speech we learned this year. In term two we'll use Charlotte Mason's First Grammar Lessons again, and maybe read Nesbit's Grammarland in term three.

Typing

I meant to do this in 2011, but it just didn't happen. 2012 is the year. I'm going to use the programme my two nephews are using, but I can't remember what it's called. I'll ask my brother and let you know.

Maths

We loved our term of Simply Charlotte Mason's Pet Shop Maths at the end of this year, and feel refreshed and ready to head back into the rigours of MEP5 next year. We'll do a few of the introductory revision lessons at the beginning of MEP5 before taking up where we left off midway through the year.

Latin

We really enjoyed Minimus Latin this year. We finished Book One, but I don't think we're ready to commence Book Two quite yet. I've ordered the series of MiniBooks readers that accompany Book One, and we're going to use these to get a better grasp on our vocab before moving ahead to Book Two later in the year.

French

I'm really excited to be beginning Mission Monde French in AO5. The books arrived during the week, and they look wonderful! We're doing Mission Monde Level One, which is Grade Four standard. In addition to this we will continue to read and narrate little stories from G Gladstone Solomon's books, Je Sais Lire and Le Français pour Les Jeunes, both of which use short phrases of French that build on each other to form a short story, similar to M. François Gouin's method explained by Charlotte Mason in Home Education (p 303).

Our French Psalms are taken from two Psalters: Chantons au Seigneur by Eglise Réformée Evangélique and Psaumes 1-50 d'aprés la Version Poétique de Clément Marot et Théodore de Bèze. We sing and then memorise three per term (or, rather, Jemimah does. I am not nearly as good at this as she is), as many verses as we can master. Next term we will continue with Psaume 23.

We are also memorising this Psalm from the version d'Osterveld Bible that Jemimah's Great Granddad won as third prize from Moffat Road Sunday School back in 1916. We memorise as many verses as we can. When one is mastered we move onto the next.

French folksongs come from this Youtube channel. J'adore this resource! We learn three per term by heart. I haven't chosen these yet...watch this space.

Performing Arts

We've resubscribed to the Season of The Australian Ballet again next year. Highlights include traditional versions of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and Onegin. It's the company's 50th Anniversary in 2012, and it looks to be an extraordinary year of dance.

We're a little disappointed by the Shakespeare offerings in Melbourne in 2012. Bell Shakespeare are performing only one full length play - Macbeth - in July, so we'll study that in second term and see it performed. Later in the year they're performing a concert of highlights from Romeo and Juliet along with the MSO. Perhaps we'll see this. Don't know yet.

We're excited to be attending Victorian Opera's traditional pantomime performance of Cinderella in the spectacular Her Majesty's Theatre in January. I haven't been to a panto since I was a little girl, so I hope it's what I remember, with lots of buffoonery, slapstick and audience participation. If it is, Jemimah will have a ball.

Opera Australia are performing Gioachino Rossini's The Barber of Seville in April. This a great opera for kids. It's on our list. Pucini's Madama Butterfly is a maybe as well.

Citizenship

Plutarch's Marcus Brutus in Term One, using Anne White's indispensable study guide. These are fabulous. I would like to read Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to set the scene as it were and compliment our study. This may be a little bit optimistic, but I've put it on the timetable. We'll see. Perhaps we'll just watch it on DVD.

Art and Picture Study

We dropped art in 2011 after the floods, and I'm keen to pick it up again. I've ordered Artistic Pursuits Book 3 because Jemimah is desperate to study sculpture, the focus of this particular book. I haven't seen the books yet. Hope they arrive soon - I'm looking forward to checking them out!

Fragonard is our artist for picture study. This artist fits in with our history period for Term 1(almost!), and I think the paintings that the AO Advisory have selected are beautiful. We have our pieces printed professionally onto photographic paper, and mount them in our Book of Masterpieces. It is a much treasured book of old friends, this.

Music and Composer Study

Jemimah is super keen to study violin, but unless a teacher drops out of thin air between now and January 1 then this ain't gonna happen, kiddo. Sorry. In the mean time we'll continue on with recorder using Enjoy The Recorder by the Scottish Composer, Brian Bonsor. His arrangements for even the earliest levels of recorder playing are always interesting, and we have enjoyed the many traditional folksongs included in these books. I'm learning along with Jemimah, and we have great fun playing duets together!

Our first composer for 2012 will be Edvard Grieg. We'll read the Sybil Deucher Biography, Boy of the Northland, as well as listen to the Classics for Kids radio shows. Apart from that we'll just listen to the music. What a hardship - 12 weeks of this!

Singing

Three folksongs, three short French folksongs, three Psalms, three French Psalms. Yet to be decided, basically.

Handwork

Embroidery using Doodle Stitching: Fresh & Fun Embroidery for Beginners. Looks fun don't you think?

Science

We'll be using a vastly simplified and slowed down version of Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology by Jeannie Fullbright. We'll leave out the busy work, but we'll read, narrate, and experiment from this book. In addition we'll be using Anne White's study guide to cover the second half of Kingsley's Madam How and Lady Why, a book that we began last year. This book is difficult, and I think the study guides will help us get alot more out of each lesson. Isaac Newton as a science biography, reading from Isaac Newton - Inventor, Scientist, and Teacher, by John Hudson Tiner. We'll do a few experiments from Physics Lab in a Housewares Store if we have time, but only because we love these books.

Having used Nuri Mass' Wonderland of Nature as a field guide for many years, next year we are going to read through it and do some of the activities from Homeschooling Downunder's Nature Journal. I purchased this, along with the copywork books that I mentioned above, before Jemimah started school. I know - sometimes I'm slow. Some other plans for Nature Study as well, but I will need to tell you about this after...that C word... because it might spoil a little girl's surprise if I talk about that now.

Kitchen Garden

We continue to grow, harvest and cook each Wednesday afternoon. We'll be using Cookery the Australian Way next year. How many of you grew up cooking from this old standard. It's a keeper.

Faith

I've been keen for a while now to try transitioning Jemimah into her own personal Quiet Time each morning and night as her father and I do, instead of having Devotions together at the start of the school day. It concerns me that she tends to think of this as a school lesson, rather than as a skill of everyday life, and I want her to value this time alone with God and his Word.

I'll write about this more in a separate post, but with this as our aim, next year we will be using the Child's Story Bible Reader published by The Board of Christian Education. This little book lays out a series of Bible readings in the mornings, and then in the evenings a story read from Catherine Vos' Child's Story Bible becomes a commentary on the child's reading for that day. There are activities to 'think and do' and verses to learn. Better still, the whole process should only take five minutes of so. I do not want this to become a burden.

While Jemimah consolidates these skills we will commence an afternoon tea read aloud together on the topic of practical religion, beginning with Mabel Hale's Beautiful Girlhood. Later we will look at some of Edith Schaeffer's books. Both Jemimah and I are excited about teatime.

We will continue memorising the Westminster Shorter Catechism in 2012. We're up to Q87 of 107. Twenty to go. We also revise five earlier questions a day. We'll also continue memorising Psalms and Scripture (in French and English), but I've not decided these yet. Revision of the Books of the Bible is the plan as well.

And that, I think, is that. Except for that reading list. Therein is another whole post. There you will find history and geography and literature. There also is where the need to Australianise is greatest, and I'm still working on that. Getting there though. I'll post our revised and Australianised booklist soon.

Am I done? What have I forgotten? Ah yes, poetry. Our Aussie-ised poetry rotation is here. Kipling as per the AO recommendation in first term using the AO selections from the website.

Anything else? PE.

Jazz and Tap again next year. Jemimah won a medal for Most Consistent Dancer at her end of year concert, so she is inspired!! Swimming lessons in first term, basketball, badminton and tennis with her friends from town. Bike riding and skiing with Daddy. A bit of horse riding. Some bush walks. Sounds heaps when written out like that, but PE is pretty relaxed around here. Call it 'socialisation' if you want. We aim for three hours of physical exercise a week.

And now we're off as a family to a CPR course. Jemimah included. You can never be too young to know how to save a life.

I'll try and post pics. If I can. This computer is driving me spare. That's why there are no pictures to accompany this long and boring post. Please try to imagine pictures of piles of books and kitchen gardens and Jemimah cooking and other interesting stuff like that. That's what would be there if I could get them there. Sigh.

Has anybody actually read this far, or am I typing to myself? At least I'm not being too controversial anyhow. Bye. I'm gone now.

Mad scientist creating!

2011-12-20T15:45:00.004+11:00

Sometimes pre-packaged 'Chemistry' sets can be pretty fun. This one makes superballs. It was a gift from a lovely friend.

Superball-cool, eh? What are you and yours up to this fine summer holiday Tuesday?

Wallis and Matilda and Banjo

2011-12-19T18:25:00.005+11:00

I was struggling to free myself from the Sandman's clutches yesterday morning in time to get ready for church. I was struggling because...well, never you mind, but I was. Anyhow, I was lying there listening to the bedside radio when suddenly the following song started playing.

Suddenly I was wide awake. This song - a real blast from my past - is the wonderful Banjo Paterson poem, Clancy of the Overflow set to music, and I just had to know who sang it. The announcer kept me in suspense for another three songs until the end of the set, but then finally reminded me that the band was named Wallis and Matilda. Which you may scornfully already know I guess, but I'd forgotten in my haze of early-morningness.

I couldn't wait to leap up to google to discover whether the band had set any other Paterson poems to music, which it turns out they have. Dozens of them. Oh joy!

It strikes me that these will be a fantastic adjunct to our poetry studies, and I hope they might help some of you too. (Please listen to Paterson's words carefully. Many of his poems contain blasphemy and other profanity that make them unacceptable for my family. You may also be concerned by the drinking and gambling contained in some.)

We only have to think of all the songs we know word perfectly to to realise that setting text to music facilitates memorisation. Unfortunately, it also appears that the melody and text are learned as a unit, which makes learning Scripture to music slightly less than desirable, unless you always want to sing your verses to remember them. Try reciting the National Anthem without the tune, and see if you have trouble preventing yourself at least rehearsing by singing it silently first, to see what I mean. (Shameful admission: I remember the books of the Old Testament by singing them under my breath. Shhh.)

To me this linkage of melody and lyrics to not nearly so important with poetry. I really don't mind if I need to sing to words of Clancy of the Overflow in order to remember them, really I don't. I also don't mind if Jemimah does. And so, as she goes around singing snatches of Clancy today merely from me playing the song a couple of times yesterday while learning about the band and another couple of times just now whilst writing this post, I feel really quite excited about the possibilities.

I now have a couple of Wallis and Matilda albums on my wish list. I reckon they'll be great.

Here's another tune to get you interested:

(Please don't be angry at me for the questionable theology contained therein.)

As an aside, during my wanders on the Wallis and Matilda site, I also learned about this reply to Clancy of the Overflow written by the real Clancy, Thomas Gerald Clancy in 1897:

Clancy's Reply

Neath the star-spangled dome
Of my Austral home,
When watching by the camp fire's ruddy glow,
Oft in the flickering blaze
Is presented to my gaze
The sun-drenched kindly faces
Of the men of Overflow.

Now, though years have passed forever
Since I used, with best endeavour
Clip the fleeces of the jumbucks
Down the Lachlan years ago,
Still in memory linger traces
Of many cheerful faces,
And the well-remembered visage
Of the Bulletin's "Banjo".

Tired of life upon the stations,
With their wretched, scanty rations,
I took a sudden notion
That a droving I would go;
Then a roving fancy took me,
Which has never since forsook me,
And decided me to travel,
And leave the Overflow.

So with maiden ewes from Tubbo,
I passed en route to Dubbo,
And across the Lig'num country
'where the Barwon waters flow;
Thence onward o'er the Narran,
By scrubby belts of Yarran,
To where the landscape changes
And the cotton bushes grow.

And my path I've often wended
Over drought-scourged plains extended,
where phantom lakes and forests
Forever come and go;
And the stock in hundreds dying,
Along the road are lying,
To count among the 'pleasures"
That townsfolk never know.

Over arid plains extended
My route has often tended,
Droving cattle to the Darling,
Or along the Warrego;
Oft with nightly rest impeded,
when the cattle had stampeded,
Save I sworn that droving pleasures
For the future I'd forego.

So of drinking liquid mire
I eventually did tire,
And gave droving up forever
As a life that was too slow.
Now, gold digging, in a measure,
Affords much greater pleasure
To your obedient servant,
"Clancy of the Overflow".

I did not know this before, and I think it is really cool. Do you?

Is swearing wrong?

2011-12-15T10:21:00.003+11:00

Yesterday at 5.00 pm saw me unexpectedly standing in the back room at work, raised hand clutching a (lovely little old red Stewart tartan) Bible and swearing in the presence of the Lord as witness that I was who I said I was, and what I said I was doing was what I'd done, "so help me God". As I was reading the words of the oath, two little verses flashed through my mind. The first was this:

Above all, my brothers, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your “Yes” be yes, and your “No,” no, or you will be condemned. James 5:12 NIV

The second was this:

Fear the LORD your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. Deut 6:13 NIV

My words faltered as I began wondering to myself - which is right? Should I be doing this? As I found my mind wandering from the solemn and serious words that I was saying, I drew myself back to the task at hand, but still I pondered.

Later, I was thinking through what I had done. I found myself recollecting a fine English Presbyterian couple that I know who a few years ago decided that they would take up Australian citizenship. Feeling very strongly that their "Yes" should be yes and their "No" no, they chose to take an affirmation rather than swearing an oath on the Bible. To their wry amusement, during the ceremony and watched on by family and Church friends, they found themselves grouped with the predominantly Muslim non-Christian minority watching on as the rest swore with God as their witness to be good Australians. Funny, but sad, they thought, but to them they had done the right thing. To them swearing is wrong.

The Westminster Divines would disagree with them. The Westminster Confession of Faith in Chapter XXII says:

Yet is it a sin to refuse an oath touching anything that is good and just, being imposed by lawful authority.

I found the experience of swearing an oath on the Bible to be a solemn and weighty matter of extreme importance. I believe that I treated the matter with seriousness it deserved, and I do not belive I did wrong, but I did not enjoy the feeling of being placed in the uncomfortable position of doing something serious without being entirely sure it was what I believed. I will not find myself in that position again. Next time I shall be sure.

What do you think? Is swearing right or wrong? Do you know what you believe? Have you ever taken an oath? How did it make you feel?

Do share. Please.

This is the rest of the section of Westminster Confession of Faith on oaths:

CHAPTER XXII
Of Lawful Oaths and Vows

A lawful oath is a part of religious worship, wherein, upon just occasion, the person swearing solemnly calleth God to witness what he asserteth, or promiseth; and to judge him according to the truth or falsehood of what he sweareth.

Deut. x. 20; Exod. xx. 7; Lev. xix. 12; 2 Cor. i. 23; 2 Chron. vi. 22, 23.

II. The name of God only is that by which men ought to swear; and therein it is to be used with all holy fear and reverence. Therefore, to swear vainly or rashly, by that glorious and dreadful Name; or, to swear at all by any other thing, is sinful, and to be abhorred. Yet, as in matters of weight and moment, an oath is warranted by the Word of God, under the New Testament, as well as under the Old; so a lawful oath, being imposed by lawful authority, in such matters ought to be taken.

Deut. vi. 13; Exod. xx. 7; Jer. v. 7; Matt. v. 34, 37; James v. 12; Heb. vi. 16; 2 Cor. i. 23; Isa. lxv. 16; 1 Kings viii. 31; Neh. xiii. 25, Ezra x. 5.

III. Whosoever taketh an oath ought duly to consider the weightiness of so solemn an act; and therein to avouch nothing, but what he is fully persuaded is the truth. Neither may any man bind himself by oath to anything but what is good and just, and what he believeth so to be, and what he is able and resolved to perform. Yet is it a sin to refuse an oath touching anything that is good and just, being imposed by lawful authority.

Exod. xx. 7; Jer. iv. 2; Gen. xxiv. 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9; Num. v. 19, 21; Neh. v. 12; Exod. xxii. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.

IV. An oath is to be taken in the plain and common sense of the words, without equivocation, or mental reservation. It cannot oblige to sin: but in anything not sinful, being taken, it binds to performance, although to a man's own hurt. Nor is it to be violated, although made to heretics, or infidels.

Jer. iv. 2; Ps. xxiv. 4; 1 Sam. xxv. 22, 32, 33, 34; Ps. xv. 4; Ezek. xvii. 16, 18, 19; Josh. ix. 18, 19 with 2 Sam. xxi. 1.

V. A vow is of the like nature with a promissory oath, and ought to be made with the like religious care, and to be performed with the like faithfulness.

Isa. xix. 21; Eccles. v. 4, 5, 6; Ps. lxi. 8; Ps. lxvi. 13, 14.

VI. It is not to be made to any creature, but to God alone: and, that it may be accepted, it is to be made voluntarily, out of faith, and conscience of duty, in way of thankfulness for mercy received, or for the obtaining of what we want; whereby we more strictly bind ourselves to necessary duties; or to other things, so far and so long as they may fitly conduce thereunto.

Ps. lxxvi. 11; Jer. xliv. 25, 26; Deut. xxiii. 21, 22, 23; Ps. l. 14; Gen. xxviii. 20, 21, 22; 1 Sam. i. 11; Ps. lxvi. 13, 14; Ps. cxxxii. 2, 3, 4, 5.

VII. No man may vow to do anything forbidden in the Word of God, or what would hinder any duty therein commanded, or which is not in his own power, and for the performance whereof he hath no promise of ability from God. In which respects, Popish monastical vows of perpetual single life, professed poverty, and regular obedience, are so far from being degrees of higher perfection, that they are superstitious and sinful snares, in which no Christian may entangle himself.

Acts xxiii. 12, 14; Mark vi. 26; Num. xxx. 5, 8, 12, 13; Matt. xix. 11, 12; 1 Cor. vii. 2, 9; Eph. iv. 28; 1 Peter iv. 2; 1 Cor. vii. 23.

Christmas fairy bread

2011-12-13T18:52:00.008+11:00

I was quite taken with the Christmas fairy bread that Carolyn posted on Facebook this morning. You all might have thought of this ages ago, but I hadn't, and I thought it was a marvellous idea. Such a simple, fun and effective activity for the lead up to Christmas. Yummy too.

Jemimah cut them out using our Christmas cutters and decorated them with different coloured sprinkles. Then we ate them for lunch. Of course.

Which lead Jemimah to enquire how come I was letting her eat such an unhealthy meal. To which I had no reply.

Excepting that it is Christmas.

And perhaps that's the best answer of all. Later this afternoon we both had tummy aches from too much junk. Ah well. We had fun anyhow, and Christmas comes but once a year.

Ho Ho Ho.

Book deliveries!

2011-12-13T08:11:00.007+11:00

Did you know that it's now over a year since all of our camera equipment was stolen from the back of our car?

Yup.

I knew at the time that I was going to find it difficult to blog without it, but I didn't realise that we would be without it so long. One day we'll be in a position to replace it again, but in the meantime I'm using a point and shoot that fits on to a clever piece of equipment hubby uses at work. It works quite well, but our computer is on the way out and the camera photos won't upload anymore (among many other problems) which means I have to wait for my clever husband to do it for me when he gets time. Often the inspiration that I have to write a post relating to an immediate event evaporates and I find myself lost for words. So there you are.

I couldn't let the Annual Delivery Of The Book Orders pass without so much as a Hurrah, despite all the problems, so I snapped a piccy of yesterday's stash lying on the floor and posted it to Facebook using Instagram so that I could cut and paste it here. And here they are. Don't they look delicious? Oh, this time of year is just so scrummy.

Some of these are from Amazon; others came via Abe, but they all arrived yesterday. Oh the pleasure those little red and white Australia Post cards can bring to a girl - it's criminal, really.

It is always a bit of a lucky dip purchasing books online. I so much prefer leafing through my books in a real life bricks and mortar bookstore. Jemimah is disappointed by the lack of pictures. Thems the breaks, kiddo, when you grow up. There are a few disappointments for me too. The hardback edition of The Family Under the Bridge that I ordered to replace my flood loss is a poor quality letdown, and a couple of the others are amateurly printed, but these are strongly outweighed by all the beauties. I am particularly inspired by Hillyer's A Child's Geography of the World, which you can see in the foreground. I'll definitely be using that in AO5.

Despite my concern about using Jeannie Fulbright's Apologia books as part of Ambleside Online because of the sheer bulk of work contained therein, as well as the chatty veneer on what is effectively a series of textbooks, I went ahead and ordered the Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology text, believing it would be a great fit for Jemimah's interests right now. I am delighted with it. It is, if anything, even more work than her other books, but I think that by being very selective in the parts of it we use, in will be marvellous. Jemimah has a very well developed 'Busywork' meter, and so I will allow her to chose which, if any, of the myriad activities she will do. I will not expect written narrations from this book, and nor will we plough through it at the incredible pace that Fullbright recommends. I've yet to decide where we will do the Christian Liberty Nature Reader that is part of AO5, or whether that will be overkill. I'm inclined to think that it may be, but I haven't looked closely at the reader yet.

I've been working hard on my plans for AO5. Despite appearances, it is now only a few short weeks before we begin the new year on January 9th, and I'm not ready. I'll post the schedule when it's done. I'm finding the Australianising of this year difficult to be honest. I've finally decided on Term 1: Expansion and Exploration, Term 2: Gold, Bushrangers and Federation, Term 3: WWI, but I haven't get managed to fit it all together. I haven't decided on the history bios to include either - nor which books in the AO line-up to replace.

Having the books here to look at will help in that I feel, although it is frustrating to purchase books and not use them. Many of these I will add to the Free Reads pile though, so we will get some use from most of them.

I am reluctant to talk to you about Christmas since it appears to distress many of you so. We have been reading some lovely books together each day - some new to us, others much beloved old friends. We have particularly enjoyed Madeleine L'Engle's The Twenty-Four Days Before Christmas as new-to-us this year. Today we are decorating gingerbread Christmas tree ornaments. So much fun! We're baking flapjack as well. We are listening to Paul McMahon singing Gaudete! with Aussie chamber choir, Cantillation. So beautiful. It is on this CD.

This isn't them singing, but this version is similar. Lovely.

Enough about Christmas before I get hate mail.

I am expecting some further book deliveries in the next few days, along with the arrival of our Mission Monde curriculum and the Minimus readers. I shall post on both of those separately when I've had a chance to have a look through them.

Until then the kitchen and the gingerbread call. Enjoy the music, my book-loving friends.

Love to you all from me.

The Bucket List

2011-12-09T17:34:00.006+11:00

Before I became a mother I'm afraid I was rather harsh on the children of others. My child would never cause mayhem like that little boy. If my child has a tantrum in the middle of Myer then I'm just going to leave him. He won't try that on me. She should get some control. My child would always be respectful of her parents. She would never talk back or be rude or smart. She would always say please and thank you. That child's far to old to be speaking to her father that way.

As time has past, of course I've had the wool pulled from my eyes.. My child is not perfect. She does talk back and she often forgets her manners. She is sometimes untidy and lazy and she has lots of other less than desirable habits as well. We're working on them; she's getting better, but there you are. I was wrong. My child would do those things. Most of them. (Okay, she never had a tantrum in the middle of Myer, but the rest. I am far easier on my friends who are parents now as well.

Recently I received a text from a close but childless friend complaining about some behaviour of Jemimah's that she found less than desirable. I cried when I received the text. It seemed so condemning, and was so harsh put in writing like that. I wondered what I was supposed to do with the information. The incident had happened several weeks prior to the text, so it was too late to discipline my daughter, although I would have done so had known about her actions at the time. It appears from the few words of the message that nothing was damaged or broken, so my friend didn't expect compensation. It is not that I don't care - I do. I just don't know what on earth what she wants me to do next. Why did she even tell me about it in the first place? Am I supposed to have done better perhaps? Am I a failure of a mother? Would she have done better if it were her hypothetical child?

When Jemimah was just a little dot her father and I began writing a bucket list. We didn't call it that, of course - the film had not yet been produced - but that is in effect what it was - a list of attainments we wanted for our daughter before...well before it was too late.

Some of the items on the list are obvious. We wanted her to come to know Christ as her Lord and Saviour at an early age. We wanted her to be catechised and to have hidden God's word in her heart. We wanted her to glorify God. Others are skills - to be able to play tennis, a great social sport available in towns and cities of all sizes. We wanted her to be able to swim and to ride a horse. Her ex-champion ballroom dancing father wanted her to be able to tango and foxtrot and waltz, unlike her mother. We wanted her to be able to eat out at a top restaurant and know the correct cutlery and etiquette. We wanted her to feel comfortable and know how to interact with all echelons of society. Some items are specific only to us. We wanted her to have a working knowledge of French - some of our closest friends speak that language. We wanted her to love Asian travel and people of all races and religions. We wanted her to be mission minded. We wanted her to be able to behave appropriately at an Embassy Ball. "Eh what?" you ask, and yet her father in his three years living in Saudi Arabia spent many evenings at such events and saw how important it is to teach your children this stuff early. He was continually grateful that he also had been taught this behaviour while young.

There are many more items on our bucket list as well.

To me, the wonderful thing about this list is that it is not condemning. It is positive - I want her to be able to... rather than negative - She will never do... . To tick an item off the bucket list Jemimah's daddy and I need to work towards making it happen. In order for Jemimah to learn to swim we had to take her to the swimming pool. Regularly. We had to enrol her in swimming lessons. We had to arrange transport. It is up to us. In order that Jemimah feel comfortable at restaurants we had to eat out with her - not at Michelin restaurants, but at places with place settings and napkins. We had to explain what to do with her knife and fork, how to eat with her mouth closed, how to politely interact with the waiter. It is up to us. In order that she know her catechism we had to begin early and we had to persevere and we had to keep going when it got hard. And at some stage when you are learning - and remembering - 107 Questions and Answers it's gonna get hard, believe me. It is up to us.

As Jemimah nears her tenth birthday we are beginning to tick things off her list of attainments. In other areas she has - and therefore we also have - a way to go. On our list of attainments is the behaviour that my friend was so condemning about in her text. We're working on it. Jemimah is improving. One day soon, I hope, I will be able to put a tick next to this item as well. But only if I keep working on it. Only if I persevere. On our list this behaviour is a positive not a negative. It doesn't say she will never do this specific thing. It says she will behave in this way. And one day she will.

I don't know yet quite how I am going to reply to my friend's text. It is taking some time because I am prayerfully working to get the answer to say what it needs to say, but I hope my friend comes to understand that being a parent is wonderful, but it is also hard, and is full of disappointments. I love my daughter completely, but she is not the paragon of virtue I expected and fully intended that she would be. I am not the perfect parent, and sometimes I fail. On the other hand, every so often I get to put a tick on our list. Every so often I do enough right as Jemimah's mother that she is able to achieve something valuable. One day she might just turn out to be alright after all.

Maybe.

By the grace of God.

In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart; for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.

Philippians 1: 4-11 NIV

On audiobooks

2011-12-08T20:39:00.009+11:00

I wonder what you all think of audiobooks. SCM seem to think that a lot of homeschoolers use them. Do you?

My brother loves them. Enough that he even bought a specially designed waterproof iPod so that he could listen to books while he swims laps. (He says it works well, but that the water makes quite a lot of background noise. In case you're interested.)

One of my bloggy pals, a single mum, homeschooled her two children whilst working full time. They covered a significant proportion of the AO literature list by listening to audiobooks in the car to and from work. Without them she would have struggled to find time to cover the curriculum. Nowadays the drive to work is done alone, but my friend, a voracious reader, continues to listen to many of her books in the car. She often comments that a particular narrator has enhanced her pleasure in a particular series, or conversely that a poorly selected narration has destroyed the book for her.

I haven't used audiobooks much, but we do have two. The Loaded Dog and more Classic Favourites by Henry Lawson is read by Colin Friels. Friels has a great voice - strong and distinctly Australian, without becoming a parody of Australiana.He articulates well, and I find him a pleasure to listen to. My only criticism of this audiobook comes from the author himself, Henry Lawson. When I read these stories aloud, I do some judicious editing to remove the profanities and blasphemies, thereby making the classic Aussie stories acceptable for their 9 yo audience. Colin doesn't do this, and I find his use of God's name unacceptable. Sadly.

The other audiobook is also read by Colin. C J Dennis' A Book for Kids. This one is great, and I highly recommend it if you can get a hold of it somewhere. The problem with this one, for me, is that the print version of this book is one of our dear friends, and I'm afraid Colin just doesn't read the poems right. He doesn't know when I pause, and when I-read-really-fast-and-run-all-the-words-together and when I wait for Jemimah to fill in the missing word. He doesn't know because he is not my daughter's mummy. I am.

They tell me that there are a lot of advantages to audiobooks. Apparently they improve reading comprehension and critical thinking skills. Your auditory processing improves, as does your memory. Apparently you are better able to analyse a book that you listen to rather than one you read. They will get your non-reader interested in reading. They will develop vocabulary and pronunciation, and encourage and nurture a love of reading.

Apparently.

Some of these claims may, indeed be true, in that the audiobook is simply a story read aloud. The skills that Jemimah has attained from read-aloud books are impressive, particularly in her vocabulary, auditory comprehension and listening skills. Jemimah's ability to listen to the spoken word developed from a one time reading, translates to so many situations - the sermon in Church on Sunday; a list of instructions by her parents (pick up your clothes, brush your teeth, refill your drinking glass and hop into bed, please. Let me know when you're ready for a story.) All of these skills apply directly to audiobooks as well, I feel sure. Other claims I am less convinced about. I can't see how a child's reading comprehension improves, for example, by listening to a book on tape (or its modern equivalent!). Most importantly, I do not see that audiobooks nurture a love of reading. In fact, I am inclined to think they do the opposite, cultivating a lazy child who is not willing to master the mechanics of reading for himself. Miss Mason speaks of this in Home Education:

We must remember the natural inertness of a child's mind; give him the habit of being read to, and he will steadily shirk the labour of reading for himself; indeed, we all like to be spoon-fed with our intellectual meat, or we should read and think more for ourselves and be less eager to run after lectures.

Home Education p228

Later she says:

A child has not begun his education until he has acquired the habit of reading to himself, with interest and pleasure, books fully on a level with his intelligence...Once the habit of reading his lesson-book with delight is set up in a child, his education is - not completed, but - ensured; he will go on for himself in spite of the obstructions which school too commonly throws in his way. ibid p229

The real reason that I don't use audiobooks is because one day when I'm dead and gone, I want Jemimah to remember my voice when she thinks of the Triantiwontigongolope and recites it for her own children. I want her to pause where I do: So try. (pause) Tri (longer pause) Tri-anti-wonti- (even longer pause, and then running quickly together:) Triantiwontigongolope! That's the right way to say it, Colin Friels. Why? Because that's the way I know it, and that's the way I want my daughter to know it. That's all. It's just right.

A friend recently was reminiscing over the audiobook of Jonathan Toomey: "I hope you got Jonathan with the cd - it is wonderful in the car at night to hear such a lovely story...we lost our cd in a car accident, but I can still hear it in my mind 'pish posh...'" See, this is my point. I don't want to remember the sound of a narrator utter Jonathan's 'pish posh'. That's my part. I want Jemimah to remember me saying it. I make him sound all English. He's not of course, but my Jonathan Toomey has quite a plumy English upper class accent. Don't know why, but he does. That's just the way it is.

Speaking of which, I can see an advantage of audiobooks with accents. I would love to have read the Brer Rabbit book by Joel Chandler Harris to Jemimah in the original African-American dialect:

"'Hit's so much trouble fer ter kindle a fier,' sez Brer Fox, sezee, 'dat I speck I'll hatter hang you,' sezee.

"'Hang me des ez high as you please, Brer Fox,' sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, but do fer de Lord's sake don't fling me in dat brier-patch,' sezee.

"'I ain't got no string,' sez Brer Fox, sezee, en now I speck I'll hatter drown you,' sezee.

"'Drown me des ez deep ez you please, Brer Fox,' sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, 'but do don't fling me in dat brier-patch,' sezee.

"'Dey ain't no water nigh,' sez Brer Fox, sezee, 'en now I speck I'll hatter skin you,' sezee.

"'Skin me, Brer Fox,' sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, 'snatch out my eyeballs, t'ar out my years by de roots, en cut off my legs,' sezee, but do please, Brer Fox, don't fling me in dat brier-patch,' sezee.

"Co'se Brer Fox wanter hurt Brer Rabbit bad ez he kin, so he cotch 'im by de behime legs en slung 'im right in de middle er de brier-patch. Dar wuz a considerbul flutter whar Brer Rabbit struck de bushes, en Brer Fox sorter hang 'roun' fer ter see w'at wuz gwineter happen. Bimeby he hear somebody call 'im, en way up de hill he see Brer Rabbit settin' crosslegged on a chinkapin log koamin' de pitch outen his har wid a chip. Den Brer Fox know dat he bin swop off mighty bad. Brer Rabbit wuz bleedzed fer ter fling back some er his sass, en he holler out:

"'Bred en bawn in a brier-patch, Brer Fox-bred en bawn in a brier-patch!' en wid dat he skip out des ez lively ez a cricket in de embers."

Nope, Sorry, this white Aussie girl ain't gonna attempt that. No siree, I sez. An audiobook of Brer Rabbit would have been marvellous. An audiobook of Rabbie Burn's poems would be too. I just can't roll my Rs like my Dad.

Apart from examples like these, though, I'm going to stick with read alouds. As the time I have left to read to my daughter diminishes as her skill in reading increases, I'm going to make the most of every minute I have left. I'm going to snuggle together on the sofa with my daughter and read, read, read. I'll edit the American grammar (and references to 'barfing' - what kind of a word is that, I ask you?) in The Penderwicks, and remove the profanities in Little Britches. I'll omit the references to evolution in our natural history books, and edit the brothel scene in Playing Beatie Bow. I'll make Granny Tallisker sound Scottish, and Abigail (formerly Lynette) sound like an Aussie. My Jonathan Toomey will be English. Rosalind, Skye, Jane and Batty speak like nice Australian girls, their Professor father sounds absent and dreamy and pronounces his Latin the Classical way, like we do. I'll attempt the Yorkshire accent in Lassie. Sometimes when it gets exciting I run-all-the-words-together-into-a-big-long-phrase-with-no-punctuation. When it gets scary I pause. When it gets predictable I expect everyone to guess what happens next. When the suspense is killing I stop in the middle of a chapter. Hah! I'm cruel.

When she is grown, I hope Jemimah remembers these days with pleasure. I hope she will be able to hear her old friends speaking aloud to her, each in her own special voice. And behind it all, I hope she hears the love in her mother's voice as she says, Try. Tri. Triantiwonti. Triantiwontigongolope.

Many Christmas Carols

2011-12-03T10:15:00.007+11:00

I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.

Their faithful Friend and Servant, C.D.

December, 1843.

School Library Journal posted yesterday about some of the new versions of the classic Dickens tale, A Christmas Carol. Zip off and have a read, and then come back, okay?

Remarkable Reads: 'A Christmas Carol'

Right then. Comfy?

They are remarkable reads indeed, are they not? Most of them (four of the five) leave me with a dreadfully sour Scrooge-like disapproving look on my Charlotte Mason face. We have an abridgement - "less threatening to those who tend to avoid the classics". There's a graphic novel collection of classics by well known authors including Mark Twain, O. Henry and Willa Cather as well as Dickens - "Teens won't be able to walk by the spooky cover without picking it up!" There's a version with a twist - Scrooge is a broken hearted teen, and it's set on Valentine's Day. (Wonder what they've done with Tiny Tim's "God bless us, everyone"?) The final offering is a doozy. It's called It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Zombies: A Book of Zombies Christmas Carols. Need I say more? I won't. SLJ say that it's "A great jump-starter for a teen program during the winter break!" Apparently it's hysterical. Bah Humbug!

There is so many versions of this classic Christmas tale that it's impossible to make a list of them all. There are a dozen different movies - including this one, which I do like:

I love this 1910 silent version by Thomas Edison as well:

There are also some wonderful books. I'd like to, if I may, show you three of the versions contained (still) in our Basket of Delights. They are, all three wonderful.

I'll begin with this one:

This unabridged version is one of my favourite Carols because of the divine illustrations by P J Lynch:

The pages open well, the paper is rich and creamy, and it's well bound. The perfect read-aloud version, this one. It's out this year in an affordable paperback version as well.

The next Carol is this one that I posted about last year.

It's Chuck Fischer and Bruce Foster's magnificent pop-up version. It's also unabridged - the whole story is included in five richly illustrated booklets (A sixth provides a bio of Dickens and an interesting essay entitled "The Enduring Appeal of A Christmas Carol"). Jemimah and I poured over this one last year - and no doubt will again this season, but this is probably not the version I'd chose as a read-aloud, at least, not more than once. As an adjunct, though, Foster's paper engineering makes it incredible!

This final Carol is my favourite. You can't imagine how happy I was to discover that it had survived the flood.

It's a tiny - 7x10cm leatherette version with gold edged pages. It's old, I don't know how old, but I doubt that it was ever read.

Here are the illustrated endpapers:

Contented sigh, I just love this dear little book.

Anyhow, those are my three favourite print versions of A Christmas Carol. If I had to add a fourth it would be this one illustrated by Robert Ingpen, but I don't have a copy, and so I haven't talked about it. I like it though.

To me, all of them are better than the SLJ offerings. Ugh.

Which is your favourite version of A Christmas Carol? Do share.

Start your AO library

2011-12-02T18:18:00.006+11:00

Amazon have a special on the wonderful Puffin Classics 16 Book Set. It's a great way to start a library of living books, I reckon! The whole kit and caboodle for A$51.65. (That's just over 50 bucks Australian. Plus postage if you live in Australia. That always hurts a bit. Okay, a lot.)

Anyhow, check it out.

This is what you get:

AO1 Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
AO2 The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
AO3 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
AO3 A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
AO4 Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
AO4 The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
AO5 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
AO5 King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table by Roger Lancelyn Green
AO5 Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
AO5 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
AO5 Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
AO6 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
AO6 The Call of the Wild by Jack London
AO6 Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne
White Fang by Jack London
The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

If you live in America you just can't go wrong with that little lot. Just in time for Christmas too. Ho Ho Ho

1/2 a Basket of Delights

2011-12-01T17:26:00.006+11:00

The Christmas Books are back in my sidebar, where they belong for the month of December.

Only this year it's sort of false advertising, because this year they show the books that were in the Basket of Delights before the flood, not those that remain. Which is about half.

I no longer have Bush Christmas, Little Grey Rabbit's Christmas, Christmas at Longtime, A Bush Christmas, Father Christmas, The Mysterious Toyshop (terrible sob) or The Christmas Mystery. Lots of other lovely titles are gone as well. Including Jemimah's favourite, which we can't remember the name of and so we can't replace. (Funny, I thought all of our Christmas books were included in that list, but I was wrong. There are many titles that don't appear.) She is upset about that. But not as upset as I am. I was really dreading opening the Christmas boxes this year, but I think the losses from the books are worse that ever I dreamed.

Richele somehow knew how heart wrenching unpacking the Basket of Delights was going to be. A few weeks ago she sent me a beautifully wrapped parcel. You can see what was inside it above. Christmas books and music. I was overwhelmed. I am just so blessed to have friends like Richele. Bloggy friends like you that I've never met. Thank you for caring for me.

Tonight we're playing New Orleans Christmas as we decorate our tree. We'll drink Glögg and eat mince pies and shortbread. We'll unpack the Christmas boxes and discover what we still have and what we don't. It's gonna be really hard, I know that already.

I'm putting the Basket of Delights in my sidebar not as some primitive form of torture, but because that's where it belongs. Some of you might even find some new ones amongst them.

I snuck a few of the missing titles onto my Amazon order yesterday. It just ain't Christmas without Jonathan Toomey. Perhaps eventually I'll replace them all.

And thanks to Richele, this year I even have a couple on new ones to read as well.

The Aussie AOer

2011-12-01T08:24:00.008+11:00

To be a successful Ambleside Online user in Australia necessitates a passion for books that is outside the realms of what may be defined as normal well adjusted human behaviour.

Bibliophilism may not yet have its own DSM-IV listing, but it surely must come close to an illness in the lives of a true Australian AOer. The AOer must enter every bookshop she sees. She must organise her travel itinerary around second-hand bookstores and enter every-single-one. She must allow at least an hour - preferably more. The Aussie AOer must be on a first name basis with Abe, and be well acquainted with Amazon and The Book Depository, whilst holding a special affection for her very own Independent Bookseller. She must mourn the closure of Borders as Australia's foremost stockist of American AO type books, and celebrate the glorious rising from the ashes of Reader's Feast. She must allocate a significant portion of the household budget to the ongoing accumulation of books whilst foregoing other less important frivolities, like clothes and food. (Chocolate is a necessity, not a frivolity.)

The Australian AOer must recognise the exciting possibilities offered to her by the advent of the Kindle and the iPad and the whole phenomenon of ebooks realising that finally she may be able to splurge a little on new underwear and shoes for herself and her family; whilst still harbouring an affection for the smell, feel and sound of the printed page and continuing to maintain and add to her large and highly varied paper based collection of children's literature, Australian natural history books, reference tomes, Scripture study guides, pedagogological treatises and Charlotte Mason ephemera. She will recognise that the Australian environment - its humidity and bright sunlight - is toxic to books whilst being highly desirable for children, so if there is room in the home for only one of the two, then it is the children who should sleep outside with the family pet and not the books.

Whilst acknowledging the need to Buy Australia Made, the Antipodean AOer must realise that obtaining the books of the AO booklist in any way, shape or form is her primary objective, and if that means that she must purchase online from an American megastore, or even upload an electronic copy onto her ereader, then well, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

The Aussie AOer will recognise instinctively that the advent of the ebook does not spell the end of literacy as we know it; that reading print off the static screen of a Kindle or iPad is still reading, with the added capacity of being able to increase font size for her developing or emerging young reader. She will understand the distinction between ebooks that you read and book apps that you play with. She will embrace technology, excited about the possibilities of accessibility to out of print books immediately and cheaply, and the portability that the ereader allows. Imagine - all of those deliciously lovely AO books in your handbag when you're waiting at the doctors, or on a trip away.

The Aussie AOer will be forever thankful for sites like Project Gutenberg Australia with their wonderful collection of free ebooks on topics like Australian history and geography, as well as primary sources and Australian Classics. She will look forward to the day that many more Australian books will be available online, but in the meantime will be grateful for the lists at Aussie Book Threads, From Wonder...to Wisdom, and CMandFriends.

Above all, to be a successful Aussie AOer, one must show one's undying appreciation for those intrepid homeschoolers that have gone before - for the AO Advisory, for parents at AmblesideOnline, the lovely community at Aussiehomeschool - and for those wonderful Aussie CM bloggers that share what goes on behind the doors to their homes. Without these lovely people, all those difficult to find AO books would be just a disease - bibliomania, perhaps, instead of a rich, liberal curriculum of the highest literary standards where the whole child is taught to be the best that he can be using great books and great ideas.

Thank you all for helping me to be a successful Australian AOer. I couldn't do it alone.

I'd still have a passion for books though.

Goodnight Bloggers

2011-11-29T23:39:00.000+11:00

See you in the morning.

Keeping up appearances

2011-11-29T20:47:00.000+11:00

I realise that we fail miserably in our responsibility of behaving like homeschoolers.

We have only one child to begin with. That, of course, is probably our biggest failing. Not only that, we immunise her. Against almost everything. We are proponents of mainstream western medicine, and we don't embrace naturopathy, osteopathy, homeopathy, biomesotherapy, Buteyko, Chi nei tsang, kinesiology or ear candling, although my husband does visit a chiropractor occasionally, and we are fond addicts of both remedial and relaxation massage and of incense - not for its aromatherapeutic properties but because it smells nice. I worked for more than ten years for huge multinational pharmaceutical companies, and do not regard them as harbingers of evil.

We eat white rice, white bread, MSG, red meat, dairy products and sugar, although we do prepare most of our foods ourselves and rarely purchase it pre-packaged in a carton, tin or jar. We do not eat them all in the same meal. We drink wine. And champagne. And soft drink. And Diet Coke, full of chemical additives. We all like McDonalds.

We are Sabbath observers. We practice exclusive Psalmody and we sing no hymns. We believe in a young earth. We do not celebrate Christmas or Easter as religious holidays, but Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy are all parts of childhood fun. We read about fairytale witches and magic, but not the occult or new age religions. We are very afraid of books like this.

We have a television, and we listen to modern music. And classical, and Kitaro, which some call New Age, but we call nice.

We like Growing Kids God's Way and Garry and Anne Marie Ezzo, but we continually evaluate and refine our parenting methods, depending more on God's grace than on the expertise and ingenuity of others.

Three times I have started the next paragraph, but I think it is too controversial and I think you will un-follow me if I leave it, so I won't.

I will leave you with a photo of our new season's Birkies. Mine, and Jemimah's. Soon hers will be bigger than mine, but so far I win. In this, at least, we look like homeschoolers. In this our behaviour is typical.

There had to be something.

What's your traveller IQ?

2011-11-28T13:03:00.004+11:00

The Book Chook posted a link to this frustrating geography challenge this morning.

Here's my result if you want to challenge. Yes, I know - below 100. It is hard!

And I thought geography was my strong suit.

Sing-along with Rolf

2011-11-25T21:21:00.004+11:00

I'm not quite sure whether I love Sing-along with Rolf Harris primarily because it takes me back to the idyllic days of my own childhood and singing loudly in the car with my beloved family on the way to Melbourne, or whether I love it most because it is warm, wonderful, singable and iconically Australian music sung by a living national treasure. Either way, this is one of our favouritest children's CDs of all time.

The collection includes all of the songs that are supposed to be there - Two Little Boys, Jake the Peg, Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport, Six White Boomers, and Sun Arise. Of my favourites, only The Court of King Caractacus is missing (why is this so?). In addition there are other great, and imminently addictive songs including Pavlova (Australia's favourite fruit), and Along the Road to Gundagai. You'll hear the didgeridoo, the Jews Harp, the stylophone, and, of course, the wobble board. Oh, this CD is a seriously major big-time blast from my past.

Rolf Harris is part of what it means to be an Aussie - he's part of our musical heritage. The fact that he takes me for a nostalgic wander down memory lane helps a lot as well. I'm sure your family will love singing along with Rolf just as much as ours does.

Here are a few tunes to get you started:

And this one because I love it so:

One Thousand Gifts - the app

2011-11-25T08:46:00.004+11:00

You may be aware that just quietly and between us, I am not a fan of New York Times bestselling author Ann Voskamp's book, One Thousand Gifts.

It is the purple prose that gets me (browse here to get an idea of what I mean). Ann's book doesn't have purple patches or purple passages - it is the purplest of purple from start to finish. It irritates me immensely.

Which is a shame, because the premise behind the book is marvellous. In One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are, Ann teaches us to count our blessings by intentionally counting one thousand gifts. I like it.

That's why I am excited by the new One Thousand Gifts app for iPhone/iPad and Android. The free app helps you to count and share your blessings one by one all the way to one thousand.

I've uploaded it to my phone this morning, and I going to start numbering my blessings today. Will you join me?

Count your blessings
Johnson Oatman Jr.

When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your blessings, see what God hath done!
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

Are you ever burdened with a load of care?
Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?
Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly,
And you will keep singing as the days go by.

When you look at others with their lands and gold,
Think that Christ has promised you His wealth untold;
Count your many blessings. Wealth can never buy
Your reward in heaven, nor your home on high.

So, amid the conflict whether great or small,
Do not be disheartened, God is over all;
Count your many blessings, angels will attend,
Help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.

More purple prose from Ann here. (Is it called prose when it's spoken? Possibly not...)

Why, oh why?

2011-11-24T21:37:00.003+11:00

Why, oh why would they release magnificent hardcover, full-colour retro editions of Enid Blyton's most loved books,The Enchanted Wood and The Magic Faraway Tree and then add the revised modernised text?

The Magic Faraway Tree without Dick and Fanny and Jo and Bessie just doesn't do it for me, I'm afraid. You?

I feel like having Dame Slap give these editors a good dose of corporal punishment, I do.

Except there's no slapping in these versions.

It's Dame Snap now, you know.

It's all so awfully peculiar.

Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T16:46:00.005+11:00

In 1612 in Amsterdam, Henry Ainsworth published The Book of Psalmes: Englished both in Prose and Metre with Annotations (Amsterdam, 1612) for the use of Protestant separatist congregations in Holland. The Psalter contained 39 tunes, of English,Dutch and French origin.

This Ainsworth Psalter was brought to Plymouth Colony in 1620 by America's Pilgrim Fathers, and was used there for a generation until the printing of the Bay Psalm Book, The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre, in 1640 - the first book to be printed in the colonies.

It seems timely on this, America's day of Thanksgiving, to read from the pilgrim's Ainsworth Psalter, Psalm 100 - a psalm of thanksgiving for his mercies to us:

Psalm 100

Showt to Jehovah, al the earth.

Serv ye Jehovah with gladnes: before him come with singing-merth.

Know that Jehovah he God is:
It’s he that made us, and not wee,his folk, and sheep of His feeding.

Oh with confession enter yee
his gates, his courtyards with praising:
Confess to him, bless ye his name.

Because Jehovah he good is;
his mercy ever is the same:
and his faith unto al ages.

(You can sing it to the tune of Old 100th.) Listen to Psalm 4 from the Ainsworth Psalter sung here. Be patient - it comes after the Latin Ubi caritas.

This Thanksgiving I give thanks:

For the mercies of our loving and faithful God and for the saving grace of his son, Jesus Christ.
For overwhelming gifts of kindness from both friends and strangers since the flood.
For my precious family and for the privilege of having been raised in a loving Christian home.
For the ability to homeschool Jemimah and for wonderful ladies of the AO Advisory.
For enduring friendships, both virtual and real life.

P.S. I learned about the Ainsworth Psalter here.

A dream job or two

2011-11-23T13:04:00.005+11:00

Oh what a lovely lot of interesting comments came from my last post. I so love talking about books.

I've been suffering from writers block for a while now, and yet today I'm bubbling over with interesting ideas for things to talk to you about. Sadly, I'm working and I really, really can not spend the day blogging about books and libraries, however tempting that is, but I thought I would just drop in and say how much I'm enjoying the discussion.

Lisa suggests that I should be a librarian. She says that she can see me working in rare books or in an Art Museum library. What do you reckon?

Actually, if I ever were to be a librarian there are two places I'd absolutely love to work. One is in Melbourne working with the SLV's Children's Collection. Take a look see:

Now to me, this would be the bestest wonderfulest most swoon-worthy job in the whole country. Sigh.

Excepting one.

Working at the National Library in Canberra cataloguing their Marcie Muir Children's Collection. That would have to be nearly as good as being a homeschooling mum.

Nearly.

What other wonderful children's collections do you know of? Does your local state library have a special collection? Do you live in Amherst near The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, for example? Or near Dromkeen? Or the Cotsen Children's Library? Do you get along to the Fay B. Kaigler Children's Book Festival each year? Tell me where else I'd love to work if I were a librarian.

Oh, I do love talking about books.

Lisa likes talking about books too. I get lots of my book recommendations from her blog, Hopewell Takes on Life. Get along and have a look around. Lisa reads even more than I do, I think. What's more, she's homeschooled using AO. She can cook. And guess what? Lisa really is a librarian. Yep. In real life. I think you'll like her blog. I do.

The Home Library

2011-11-21T16:37:00.008+11:00

One of the few exciting things to come out of the January floods was the recent realisation that we could turn our guest room into a library. We'll still want to be able to accommodate family and friends mind you, but freed from the constraints of existing furniture, we'll be able to do that with a sofa bed, and let's face it - every good library needs a sofa to snuggle into anyhow, so that's an advantage, not a problem.

We already have lots of bookshelves, of course. You can see some of them here. Up top is the study shelf. It houses literature and poetry and cookery books. You can see another photo of that one here. It's pretty big, but it is also very full. But wait - there's more! There are two 5x5 Expedits in Jemimah's room. One is for picture books. the other is for children's literature. That one is below. And one 5x5 Expidit in the Sitting Room. It's full of books on the Decorative Arts - textiles and gardens and interior decoration and Japanese aesthetics and crochet. That's the pic above. And a 2x12 in the study. It's for reference books and for books on books and art books. And a smaller one in our bedroom. Christian books and my 'to be read' pile. There are cookery books in the kitchen, of course, and there's a built in bookshelf in the loo. As you do...don't you? Short stories and magazines there mostly.

Still there are piles. Piles and piles and piles of books. Much loved but without a home to call their own. And without a home they're hard to find. And I don't like being unable to lay my hand on just the book I'm looking for just when I want it.

When you take into account the fact that each year of AO adds an extra metre or so of books just on its own, the homeless problem is just going to get worse and worse (or is that better and better?) Hence the idea of the library.

I'd love my book room to look like this:

Then again, Brazenhead is really the antithesis of the wabi sabi style we adhere to in our Peaceful Home, and would probably drive my family half mad. I'm more likely to end up with a neat room, I think. Lately I've been pouring over my copy of At Home with Books. Subtitled How booklovers live with and care for their libraries, this lovely book - one of my favourites - was first published in 1995, and contains photographs of some of the most beautiful private libraries on the planet. This is my definition of an inspirational book.

I have plenty of time to dream and to plan. We have many many tasks to complete before my book room will come to fruition. Walls to straighten and replaster and paint. Carpet to lay. Doors to replace. Still, dreaming of my book room is giving me lots and lots of pleasure. Imagine - a library of my very own.

I am not naive enough that I do not recognise the imminent demise of the printed book. Mine is likely to be the last generation that venerates paper books like I do, I realise that. Still, for me the printed book will always reign supreme. I love my iPad and Kindle, but for me the pleasure I get from pouring over the pages of At Home with Books can not yet be replicated by either of my e-book readers. The videos of Brazenhead come close though.

What about you? How do you store your books? My fellow biblioholic friend, Erin, has one of the most beautiful libraries I've ever seen. I've been pouring over her blog as well. Here's the link if you too want to covet. Do you have a library that I need to peruse? If so, please do share the link. I'd so love to have a gander. Do you think printed books will survive? Have they already been usurped in your home? Come and talk to me - chatting about books is one of my very favourite pastimes. I really, really do want to hear what you have to say.

The Gift of Music

2011-11-16T17:15:00.001+11:00

So very, very beautiful. Don't you agree?

Strawberry Fair

2011-11-16T16:28:00.005+11:00

As I was going to Strawberry Fair,
Singing, singing, Butter-cups and Daisies
I met a maiden taking her ware,
Fol-de-dee!
Her eyes were blue and golden her hair,
As she went on to Strawberry Fair,
Ri-fol, Ri-fol, Tol-de-riddle-li-do,
Ri-fol, Ri-fol, Tol-de-riddle-dee.

"Kind Sir, pray pick of my basket!" she said,
Singing, singing, Butter-cups and Daisies
"My cherries ripe, or my roses red,
Fol-de-dee!
My strawberries sweet, I can of them spare,
As I go on to Strawberry Fair."
Ri-fol, Ri-fol, Tol-de-riddle-li-do,
Ri-fol, Ri-fol, Tol-de-riddle-dee.

I want to purchase a generous heart,
Singing, singing, Butter-cups and Daisies
A tongue that neither is nimble or tart.
Tol-de-dee!
An honest mind, but such trifles are rare
I doubt if they're found at Strawberry Fair.
Ri-fol, Ri-fol, Tol-de-riddle-li-do,
Ri-fol, Ri-fol, Tol-de-riddle-dee.

The price I offer, my sweet pretty maid
Singing, singing, Butter-cups and Daisies
A ring of gold on your finger displayed,
Tol-de-dee!
So come- make over to me your ware,
In church today at Strawberry Fair.
Ri-fol, Ri-fol, Tol-de-riddle-li-do,
Ri-fol, Ri-fol, Tol-de-riddle-dee

I'm afraid you just have to face facts, city mice friends. There are some things that we country mice just do better. Like Strawberry Fairs. Can you really imagine a Strawberry Fair in the city? Really? Ahem, I didn't think so.

Some of the ladies in the Uniting Ladies didn't want to run it this year. Because of the flood. They were over-ruled by the other Uniting Ladies who said that they had to run it. Because of the flood. As you do. Anyhow, they did run it and it was as wonderful as ever. I'm ever so glad that they were re-United. Sorry.

I'm also sorry I didn't take my camera, so you have only two lousy photos, and those taken with my phone, but imagine, if you will rows of tables each covered with hand embroidered tablecloths and little bunches of delightful spring flowers. The tea candles are in glasses, each with its own hand knitted jacket of baby blue.

There are rows of beautifully dressed ladies of a certain age, or older, eating from delightfully non-matching plates of mixed sandwiches - nothing fancy, just the old reliable fillings that they've always had - egg, ham, tomato and onion, devilled ham paste, coleslaw (who else but the Uniting ladies do coleslaw sandwiches, I ask you). Anyhow, I think you have the idea. Six points and a sprig of parsley. The curly type. (Is there another?)

Later on, cut crystal bowls of strawberries and vanilla icecream. Cups of coffee or tea. Lots of laughter.

Afterwards you can take your pick of plants from the plant stall, or fill your basket with punnets of ripe red strawberries to take home. I did both. You can browse the craft stall, or just sit in the sun and chat to the ladies. I love talking to ladies of a certain age, or older. So much wisdom. So gracious. So appreciative. So complimentary.

Sometimes I so love being a country mouse.

So come- make over to me your ware,
In church today at Strawberry Fair.
Ri-fol, Ri-fol, Tol-de-riddle-li-do,
Ri-fol, Ri-fol, Tol-de-riddle-dee

Pet Shop Maths - the verdict

2011-11-15T13:34:00.004+11:00

So the Pet Shop made a profit. $6884.98 profit to be exact. Which isn't too bad over the 'year'.

I last spoke to you about Simply Charlotte Mason's Business Maths Pet Store on Day One of the course - right back at the beginning of term. We were pretty excited. Now that we're at the end I thought you might like to know what we think now.

And we're still happy. For us, this programme was a perfect choice. Let me remind you that I was becoming concerned that Jemimah was moving too far ahead in MEP maths. At the beginning of term three of AO4 she was more than half way through MEP Year 5. I could see her love of maths waning, and I really didn't want that. A term of maths practice seemed a perfect solution.

That's what Pet Shop Maths was for us - maths practice. Now at the end of term Jemimah's adding and subtracting of columns of decimals has improved dramatically. She is able to calculate a percentage by changing it to a decimal and multiplying. She can calculate a percentage increase. She can maintain a ledger and knows what one is for. Most importantly, she has regained a love for maths, and has some idea of how it is used in every day life. The programme was fun and quick. Most days we could get the work done in five minutes, allowing time for some multiplication practice in a quick game of Timez Attack, or to just relax.

In case you're wondering, Pet Shop Maths isn't a full maths curriculum. The skills I mention above are pretty much all it involves. It is best regarded as an adjunct to a regular maths curriculum - or a break from one - rather than as a stand -alone maths programme.

Each 'month' the tasks are the same. By the end of the book Jemimah was bored by them, but by then it didn't matter, she had mastered them and we were done. What she most loved was the random Chance cards that added an element of risk to each month. Would the card be a goodie or a baddie? Would it put us into debt or increase sales? Jemimah loved picking Chance cards.

For me the best bit was removing the angst that seemed to be accompanying maths lessons. I loved the way the books were set out, and I loved how quickly we could get things done.

For us, Pet Shop Maths served its purpose very well indeed.

Little Fish

2011-11-14T22:50:00.003+11:00

Another one of my favourites to share with Jemimah. So many wonderful, wonderful folk songs; so little time.

And three versions of the lyrics. Which one do you remember?

The Little Prince

2011-11-14T12:50:00.007+11:00

This is our summer read-aloud. Isn't this pop-up The Little Prince just divine?

Personally I dislike the existential philosophy that pervades this book - the plight of the individual in an unfathomable universe. The book tells us that only children know what is important in life and that you can find the truth if you want it with all your heart.

On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux. ("It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.")

The little prince searches for meaning in a seemingly meaningless universe, but as Christians, we know the chief end of man - we know why we're here. We have the Bible to tell us right from wrong. We know what is important. We regard God as the centre of the universe - not man.

The philosophy of this book stopped me reading it to Jemimah for a time, and yet, despite my misgivings, I really wanted her to know and to enjoy the good bits of this story - the delightful characters, for example - as well as to consider some of the questions that the book raises - from a Christian point-of-view not an existentialist one. Still, I dithered.

The Little Prince was voted 'Best Book of the 20th C' in France, and sells over a million copies a year, almost 60 years after publication. It is the most read and most translated book in the French language. It is much quoted, and has been adapted to stage, screen, ballet and opera. Eventually it was this significant link with French cultural identity that persuaded me to at least give it a go. It seemed an integral link for a full study of French language and culture.

So far we're enjoying it. We've looked at some important questions - What is the difference between reality and make-believe? Can a child's perception of something be more real than an adult's? What is Jesus saying in Matthew 18?

And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. Matthew 18: 3-5 NIV

What about the words of the Teacher in Ecclesiastes?

“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” Ecclesiastes 1: 2 NIV

Significantly, when I asked Jemimah what the picture was of she said it was a snake that had eaten something. To me it looked like a hat. What does this say? Are adults blind to the truth? (Was blind but now I see...)

Have you read The Little Prince to your kids? Did they like it? Did you? Did it raise interesting questions? Is it okay to read books to your kids that espouse a philosophy different from your own? Talk to me.

Lest we forget

2011-11-10T18:43:00.005+11:00

Just in time for Remembrance Day, my family is incredibly excited about the publication of journalist, Peter Rees,' latest book, Desert Boys.

Using letters, diaries, interviews and unpublished memoirs, Desert Boys tells the intensely personal and gripping story of two generations of Australian soldiers, providing us with a unique insight into their thoughts, feelings and experiences.

One of the stories Peter Rees explores in depth throughout Desert Boys is that of my grandfather, Sloan Bolton. Have a read of the beginning of the book here:

The armed guard thrust a bayonet at the two men outside the Geelong drill hall. The men backed off. But they wanted to enlist, so they approached again, and explained why they wanted to join the army. This time the sentry jerked his rifle and waved them through. Sloan Bolton and one of his mates were on their way to the Great War. Sloan had been nicknamed 'Scotty' by mates who mistook his northern Irish accent for a Scottish one. He didn't object. It was early spring, 1914, He was between jobs chaff cutting and had pulled into Geelong for a week's break before heading back to the farms to work. As Scotty walked the city's streets, he couldn't help but notice the many men wearing the khaki uniform of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF). He began to think about going to the war that had been declared just a month earlier...

And so Alea iacta est - the die is cast.

The situation we read about in this very first paragraph would change the future for my grandfather forever. He would return home from that war both as a hero and an invalid. He would be awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal, the army's second ranking award for gallantry, but he would also spend nearly two years in Caulfield Military Hospital learning how to walk again on not one, but two, artificial limbs after receiving a direct hit from a military shell only a few weeks before armistice was declared. He would live to become a husband and a father and a champion cattle breeder, but he would also die at 53 years of age. I would never know him.

War would never be as exciting in reality at Sloan expected it to be that day in Geelong with his mate, Jack. It never is.

And so today on the 11/11/11 we remember. We're excited about Desert Boys because to us Grandpa Sloan 'Scotty' Bolton was a real hero, and we need to remember him and the other boys in this book. We remember them, though, not to glorify war, but to honour the young men and women who served and who fought to defend our freedom. We remember, and we give thanks to God for their lives and their bravery.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.
Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

Lest We Forget

Self indulgence

2011-11-10T17:04:00.000+11:00

An unknown red floribunda in the Red and Green Garden.

Looking up into the canopy of trees in the courtyard.

Rosa 'Madame Isaac Perriere' with happy little 'Johnnie-jump-ups' in the background.

The splendour of 'Abraham Darby' lining the front fence.

Rosa 'Pierre de Ronsard' covers the pillars of the front verandah. If only he were scented, he'd be pretty near perfect.

Butterfly catching in the Side Garden near the front steps.

Callistemon 'Kings Park Special' and other bottlebrushes in the Native Garden. The firepit in the distance.

The English Garden - notice the concentration on Jemimah's face. The Small Citrus Butterfly, Papilio anactus is proving difficult to net.

The cluster flowered Hybrid Musk Rosa 'Buff Beauty' hedge is more than 30 metres long. It is underplanted with blue Agapanthus.

The lovely once flowering Rambler Rose - Rosa 'Albertine'.

The front steps.

Peaceful greens in the Front Garden.

Broccoli, cucumbers, courgettes, mixed lettuce, basil, coriander, tomatoes, Thai basil, rocket, strawberries, silverbeet and chives vie for space in the Kitchen Garden along with the apple trees and pots of herbs. The Children's Garden and Jemimah's cubby in the background.

The Native Garden again.

The White Garden.

And again close-up. Rosa 'Heideschnee' at the back.

This was so pretty I went a picked a bunch of these blooms after seeing this photo. They're sitting at the table as we do maths. Larkspurs, 'Love-in-a-mist', 'Kiss-me-quick' and a David Austrin rose that I can't remember the name of.

More larkspurs in the English Garden.

And again.

' Albertine' again smothering the concrete tank in the Courtyard.

'Buff Beauty' as seen through an arch of Rosa 'Clair Matin'.

This is the post where I shamefacedly show off my garden in its spring glory.

In reality it is not all beautiful. There are many areas where the flood has left its mark - lovely tall trees are dead or dying; the native garden in particular has taken a beating. Natives really do not like getting their toes wet.

This post, though, is not about that.

My garden right now is giving me incredible pleasure each and every day. This post is about the good parts.

I hope these pictures of my Peaceful Garden will give you a bit of pleasure also.

Who's that man?

2011-11-09T23:29:00.003+11:00

It's Remembrance Day on Friday.

Spring delights

2011-11-08T17:47:00.001+11:00

Is there anything, anything, anything more delightful that a freshly picked herb salad in a blue Japanese bowl for dinner?

I am getting such incredible pleasure from my garden this spring. Despite losing many plants and established trees in the flood, our garden right now is looking just divine. If I must say so myself.

Our herb salad - mixed lettuces, mint, Thai basil, Italian basil, coriander, and Vietnamese mint is all home grown. We're eating it it with a dipping sauce of Nam Pla Prik - salty, sour and spicy - with chillis and limes from the kitchen garden, alongside a main dish of Beef and Asparagus braised with Cassia and Star Anise. I didn't grow the asparagus, but a neighbour did, and that's almost as good.

I can't wait to show you photos of our spring garden. I can't wait to tell you about our wonderful weekend of horseriding. I can't wait to tell you about our holiday to Daylesford. I can't wait to talk to you about the books I've bought. I can't wait to tell you what's gone well and what hasn't in this last term of school. In a couple more days we'll be on holidays and I'm going to tell you about all of this. Can you wait that long? I almost can.

There is one thing better than collecting all these wonderful ingredients from our very own garden, and it's pictured below. A punnet of homegrown deliciously sweet strawberries each and every day. Mmmmmm. There's not much better in life than that.

Except eating them of course.

Minerva and Arachne

2011-11-08T17:30:00.000+11:00

By Jemimah

Minerva was the goddess of wisdom and creativity and she was very competitive. Once she was in a competition to win a city, and it was to see who could make something most useful. She made the thing that the gods said was most useful. It was olives. The other god made horses, but they were deemed not as important. So she won the city of Athens because her name in Greek is Athene.

There was another contest too. Minerva was well known for the fact that she was a brilliant weaver. There was also another woman, who was a mortal, named Arachne. She was also a brilliant weaver, and challenged Minerva to have a competition. Minerva changed herself into an old lady and visited Arachne. She gave her some friendly advice and said, “Do not challenge this god. She is powerful and she will beat you. Maybe, if you apologise she will have pity and forgive you." But Arachne got furious and shouted, “Let her come to me. I will have a match against her.” Then Minerva said in her disguise, “She comes,” and dropped her disguise. The girl was shocked but she stood firm. She would not back out.

They started the match and Minerva was sure that she would win. She knew that she was a talented weaver. Arachne, too, knew that she was a good weaver, but was not quite so sure. Minerva wove a tapestry showing how foolish she thought humans were and Arachne made one showing how foolish she though gods were, and she illustrated a few of the faults of the gods. Minerva did likewise, and Minerva was said to be the winner. Arachne was so sad that she died. Minerva took pity on her and said, “Have life.”

Then she turned into a spider. That is why spiders always weave.

Matthew Flinders

2011-11-08T13:19:00.003+11:00

A narration by 9 year old Jemimah as part of her Final AO4 examinations. I think she's done really well, despite a few factual errors.

Matthew Flinders

Matthew Flinders’ father was a doctor, and like most fathers he wanted his son to take on the family job of medical work. But Matthew and his brother had different ideas. They both wanted to be seafarers. But their home was so far away that it would be impossible for them to get a proper seafaring education. But Matthew Flinders and his brother didn’t care. They were going to be sailors no matter what their father wanted.

One day his father took him down to a beach. Matthew was entranced. Now he was sure that he wanted to be a sailor. His Uncle John was a seafarer, but he started late, and certainly didn’t have enough time in his life to become a Captain and make him his Cabin Boy, but he could recommend a man who did have enough power to make him Cabin Boy, and he pointed him in the direction of Captain Pasley.

Captain Pasley invited Flinders to come on a short trip on the Bellerophon. Matthew Flinders had always wanted to sail around the world. He had heard about Captain Bligh and how with incredible fortune he had been able to go right around the world. He had also heard about how he had amazingly managed to survive a mutiny when his sailors wanted to go back to Tahiti because they liked the weather so they captured him and put him in a little boat that was about the size of a row boat, gave him five days worth of bread and water and cast him out. Now you would have though that was the end of Captain Bligh. Not true. Captain Bligh managed to reach Timor safely in 45 days. Captain Bligh was renowned for his crazy personality. He was known for whipping a man for not eating or not eating the lime that stopped him getting scurvy, and yet a couple of minutes later he would be talking to his orange trees. Yes, talking. At one point he put the sailors on rations so that the breadfruit trees got enough water.

Matthew Flinders therefore was fascinated by this man and was amazed when he was offered the chance to sail with him. Of course he said,” Yes,” and he was a brilliant help to Captain Bligh. He sailed for Tahiti and was amused to see that Captain Bligh was delighted with the fact that the orange trees he had planted a small while before on his previous voyage were growing brilliantly. Especially one, which he pronounced delightedly, was thriving! Captain Bligh had been elected to pick up some breadfruit trees and take them to the slaves in the sugarcane plantations because the slaves didn’t have enough food. Matthew Flinders survived the rations in order to keep alive the breadfruit trees and came home to Captain Pasley.

He had not known that while he was away, a war had begun with France. So he and Captain Pasley went out on the dangerous seas to fight. In that journey, Captain Pasley got shot in the leg and was in a serious condition for a while, but he survived. Matthew Flinders went home, amazingly with no injuries, and met a pretty girl called Anne. He fell in love with her, but he was offered the chance to go to Australia with Captain Hunter, and since this was his dream, he could not refuse.

While he was on the ship, he made friends with the ship doctor, George Bass. Mr Bass brought on board with him a tiny boat, only seven feet long called the Tom Thumb. He was planning to use it for exploring, but had been denied the privilege by the Captain, who from kindness more than anything said, “You will surely be dashed to pieces in such a small boat.” But he, with the help of Matthew Flinders convinced him to let them both go in the boat and sail around Tasmania. In doing so they proved that Tasmania was not joined to the mainland. Another thing happened on this voyage – a sad thing. Bass got shot in the arm by a bullet and his arm got infected. It got infected to badly that he was dying. He was on the operating table about to have his arm amputated in a wild effort to save him when he died.

Matthew Flinders was very sad about his friend and he missed him greatly. When he returned home he married Anne, and was dismayed to find out he was leaving again for Australia two days after his marriage. He was very sad, but they comforted themselves by saying that they would meet each other soon – in one year. He wrote many letters to her, and made up a pet name – Beloved Friend.

One of the things that nobody knew at that time was whether Australia were one country or two, and Flinders wanted to prove that it was one. So he went to Joseph Banks and asked him if he would be interested, but he convinced him by using his weakness…more plants. Everyone knew that he loved to discover more plants. Matthew Flinders too advantage of this and explained that if Australia were two continents, there might be different plants on each. He immediately agreed, giving him the permission to have his own ship and he arranged a passe-port to be made so that he might be able to go through the different ports and the war ports without being arrested. Matthew Flinders set off and sailed back to Australia. He proved that it was one country, but he got ship wrecked on his way and with his strong will and some men, in a tiny boat, he managed to sail all the way to Sydney. They gave him a boat and he sailed back to rescue them, but while he was gone they had been making a boat because they said to themselves that if he doesn’t make it we will have wasted all this time. So as a backup they made their own boat. They still used his boat though. Then they went around the other bit of Australia and proved that it was one island.

Matthew Flinders was eager to get home to Anne, so he started the long voyage back home. He knew fine well that the bottom of the boat was rotting and the steel cap on the bottom would not help the leaks, so he stopped off in Mauritius, which belonged to France. Despite his passe-port, the Frenchmen put him in gaol because they thought he was a spy coming to steal their plans for war. He was left in gaol for many years. Finally Joseph Banks convinced them to let him go, although for a long time they had been ignoring him. While he was in prison Matthew Flinders got sick. He was an extremely unhealthy man waiting for someone to care. He had gall stones and sometimes it was so bad he sweated with pain.

He finally arrived home and was glad to be home. His wife was sent a letter saying he was home and she came immediately. While she was travelling, she met a man that had worked with her husband. He warned her that he was not the same as he used to be, and it was a good thing that he did. He was frail and sickly. He was only 36, but he looked 50 and he felt 70!

He started to have his life story written since he knew he was dying. The doctors could do nothing to help him but give him medicine to ease his pain. His wife had a baby. She too was called Anne after her mother. But Matthew was so sick he could not enjoy her much.

Anne did not cry when she heard he was going to die – she had cried enough earlier when he had left her many years in ships and fought battles. He was unconscious and dying when the finished book was placed underneath his hand. He would never know that his book had been finished. He died aged only 40.

Matthew Flinders is also well known for discovering a problem with the compass. He discovered that when metal things were close to a compass they made it change directions. He therefore invented a sort of box with a bar across the back and a round lid on the side. It would block off the magnet and in a way become a magnet itself, therefore stopping the compass giving the wrong directions, therefore making it possible to adjust the compass to correctly point north.

The Keeper

2011-11-08T10:07:00.003+11:00

Anybody else remember this folksong? It is such fun!!

The lyrics are here.

The chorus is the catchy bit. It'll get stuck in your head, it really will...

Jackie boy! Master! Sing ye well? Very well!
Hey down, ho down, derry derry down, among the leaves do green-o!
To my hey down down! To my ho down down!
Hey down, ho down, derry derry down, among the leaves do green-o!

Do you sing in the car like we do? Well, we sing everywhere really, but also in the car. This song is great for closet car singing.

I forget that some people are not singers like we are. We were travelling on the weekend with one of Jemimah's little friends, The Princess Ing, in the car with us. I think she thought we were quite loopy as we burst into song at every opportunity. We were bellowing out 'She'll be coming around the mountain', only we were changing the lyrics as we went along to suit our own particular situation as we travelled along the mountainous roads of Victoria's High Country. I asked Princess Ing why she wasn't singing, didn't she know the song? "Sort of," she replied, "but our version has different words."

Oh well, we had fun anyhow.

Go Aussie Homeschool Bloggers!

2011-11-08T08:21:00.009+11:00

Thank you to the kind person who nominated A Peaceful Day in The Best Homeschool Variety Blog category of the Homeschool Blog Awards. I consider it a real honour that one of you would think me worthy of nomination.

I would love it if any of you care to vote for me. You can do that by clicking on either of the links, or on the button above.

There are some other Aussies there as well. Ruby from Mumma's Place has been nominated in the Best Encourager category; Renelle from Dove's Rest is there in the Favourite Homeschool Mums. Kendra from Aussie Pumpkin Patch is also in the Best Variety category. Can anybody see any others?

Wouldn't it be exciting if an Australian Homeschool Blogger won an award? Oh my!

More Aussies: Eight Acres of Eden has been nominated in the Favourite Homeschool Mum category. Defying Gravity is in Best Nitty Gritty. Thanks, Erin! Rebecca tells me that Sparkling Adventures has been nominated in the Best Methods category. These three are new blogs to me. I'm off to check them out right now.

Go Aussies, Go!!

What have I done?

2011-11-03T18:49:00.004+11:00

I am beginning to think I may have made a terrible mistake.

Tomorrow we are going here. To do this.

Two long days on horseback. Gulp.

If you're missing us this weekend, imagine us here. Doing this.

Well, actually, we won't really be going down Kate Cameron's Peak. We will be visiting it though. I'll take pictures.

On Sunday night I suspect I will be eating my dinner off the mantel piece. That's if I live that long.

Oh my.

Gathering pinecones

2011-10-26T19:48:00.000+11:00

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.

Cousin Itt

2011-10-26T10:14:00.003+11:00

Jemimah at the hairdresser yesterday.

And that other Cousin Itt...

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

Who else loved the Addams Family?

Let's take tea

2011-10-23T15:52:00.004+11:00

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.

What makes a classic?

2011-10-22T17:05:00.004+11:00

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!

Tagged

2011-10-22T08:20:00.004+11:00

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.

On very long sentences

2011-10-21T17:12:00.006+11:00

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.

AO3 Schedule

2011-10-20T17:29:00.002+11:00

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

AO4 Booklist

2011-10-19T17:35:00.012+11:00

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

M-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i

2011-10-19T16:29:00.005+11:00

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?

Too many 'oo's

2011-10-19T14:35:00.002+11:00

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.

5 nice things

2011-10-17T09:08:00.002+11:00

Five nice things I've done today:

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.)
Gathered delicious ripe strawberries from the kitchen garden for Jemimah's breakfast. (See what a kind and generous mummy I am?)
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.
Watched a sweet little blue fairy wren attacking its reflection in the study window, chattering wildly all the while. (Him, not me!)
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!!

Organ Pipes National Park

2011-10-15T19:21:00.020+11:00

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.

Tessellated Pavement

Organ Pipes

Rosette Rock

We packed a picnic lunch. As you do. Sushi, sashimi, pull-apart breads, vanilla slices, doughnuts, champagne... Too much food, but picnics always have too much food. Right?

We enjoyed the beauty of the natural park.

We spotted lizards and beetles and dainty fairy wrens and wagtails and grey fantails. We found an Eastern Blue-tongue Lizard and some curious Swamp Wallabies.

Being proponents of the Young Earth Theory of Creation we are none too happy with the explanations of how these amazing basalt structures are formed. Instead I told Jemimah the story of the Irish giant, Finn McCool, and how he built a causeway to Scotland to fight his arch enemy the Scottish giant, Fingal. Fairy tales are far more satisfying in cases like these! If you don't know this story you'll find one version here.

I'm sure we did enough school to be able to include this as a field trip. We did geology and natural history and botany and zoology and physical education as well. (Did I tell you the walk back to the car was all up hill?) But it wasn't school really. Our trip to the Organ Pipes was an opportunity for us to spend quality time together as a family. And in that the day was as perfect as a day can be.

John Piper speaks on racism

2011-10-14T08:37:00.002+11:00

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?

In search of James Cook

2011-10-13T11:40:00.001+11:00

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:

Liberty's Kids

2011-10-11T18:31:00.004+11:00

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.

Musical mutiny

2011-10-11T08:04:00.004+11:00

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.

Inchworm

2011-10-09T18:34:00.002+11:00

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?

Saturday music

2011-10-08T08:48:00.002+11:00

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

Doesn't Chyi Yu have a beautiful voice?

The final countdown

2011-10-07T17:28:00.002+11:00

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...

Just a catch-up

2011-10-05T09:33:00.007+11:00

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.

Biblioburro

2011-10-04T17:17:00.003+11:00

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/

Kookanoo and Kangaroo

2011-10-03T17:18:00.010+11:00

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.

May the Best Team Win!

2011-10-01T11:46:00.003+10:00

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

It also happens to be my birthday :-)

Fairies and their bottles

2011-09-29T07:40:00.000+10:00

When I was a child, youngish, but not so young that I didn't know what I was doing, little fairy martins used to build their lovely mud bottle nests under the old bridge near my grandmother's home. My cousin Vee and I used to ride our bikes - old bone shakers with no chain guards so you had to wrap your bell-bottoms around your leg and secure them with lacky bands or else risk coming a cropper half way down the great big hill on the way to the bridge when the denim got stuck in the chain - and take pot shots at the nests.

We'd gather stones and then line up several yards away and just let fly. You'd get one point for hitting a bottle; two for putting a hole in it and five for completely dislodging it from the bridge leaving just a muddy ring to show where it had been.

Oh the shame!!!!!

Now I don't remember ever hitting a nest with birds still in it, but I wouldn't put it past us. I can certainly remember the little birds swooping and wheeling in flight above our heads while we were there, so it is quite likely, in fact.

Last week these giddy little birds started building their magnificent bottle nests above the door of the Catholic church across the road. Jemimah and I have been watching their colony grow with great delight. They way these little birds construct their neat homes out of pellets of mud is just marvellous to witness and it pleases me that Jemimah is so protective of the martins and their homes. There is no likelihood of a repeat performance of my wanton vandalism in this generation, at least.

I wish I could show you a photo of the martins themselves, but they are such busy little things that they are impossible to catch on film. I can show you the fairy bottles though.

Aren't they clever?

How could I be so foolish as to damage the likes of these?

What on earth was I thinking of?

Rolling in the Deep

2011-09-28T17:26:00.002+10:00

From my friend, Melisa's, facebook page. Beautiful.

Baring my soul

2011-09-28T15:18:00.006+10:00

People share books they love. They want to spread to friends and family the goodness that they felt when reading the book or the ideas they found in the pages. In sharing a loved book, a reader is trying to share the same excitement, pleasure, chills and thrills of reading that they themselves experienced. Why else share? Sharing a love of books and of one particular book is a good thing. But it is also a tricky maneuver, for both sides. The giver of the book is not exactly ripping open her soul for a free look, but when she hands over the book with the comment that it is one of her favorites, such an admission is very close to the baring of the soul. We are what we love to read, and when we admit to loving a book, we admit that they book represents some aspect of ourselves truly, whether it is that we are suckers for romance or pining for adventure or secretly fascinated by crime.

On the other side of the offered book is the taker. If she is at all a sensitive being, she knows that the soul of the offering friend has been laid wide-open and that she, the taker, had better not spit on her friend’s soul...

Nina Sankovich Tolstoy and the Purple Chair

When I was a fresh faced and eager 18-year-old living away from home in student digs, I had a saying on my wall that read like this:

I do not show you who I am, because if I show you who I am and you do not like me, then that's all that I have.

I don't remember now why I found that so profound. I don't know who I was afraid of revealing myself to either - surely not everybody?

I do think, though, that this is what Nina Sankovich is saying in this quote from her recent book, above - that some things define us in special ways, and if they are taken away or otherwise scorned then it makes us feel that we have been slighted as people. We are what we read. There are books on my shelves that have helped define me as a person in some way or another, and they say something about who I am and what I feel and what I believe. If I recommend one of these books to you, then I will be baring my soul just a little bit. What if you don't like it? What if you don't like me?

Because if I show you who I am and you do not like me then that's all that I have.

Normally I am not afraid of sharing books with friends. My friends know that I read voraciously, and they often come to me asking for recommendations. I am also not afraid of sharing books on my blog. If you don't like a book that I recommend then probably another reader will. There are a few books, though, that I recommend only rarely, and Nina's words in the quotation above explain why.

Recently I've been involved in a project putting together lists of folksongs. Like books, this is a subject dear to my heart, and even more so than books, in the lines of many of those songs are captured memories of my life, my childhood, my family. These words contain people, places and events that are unlocked when I listen to them sung, and even when I listen to the music that accompanies them.

When one of my colleagues would say that they didn't like a song I had suggested then I found myself feeling personally affronted. How dare they not like that song? My Dad used to sing me The Northern Lights! That song there is my Grandmother's song - don't you dare say Danny Boy's no good! That one was the song that The Celtic City Sons always played - you can't take out Ride On! No, you can't remove The Volga Boat Song - I sang that one in Primary School. It was Mr Montgomery's class, and he was my favourite teacher!! Don't you know that he had long hippy hair and drove a red 550 Spyder and we called him Sir? You can't remove that song!

Oh, what I pain I was being.

For me, being aware of these feelings was the main part of dealing with the problem solved. Once I realised what was happening I was able to remove myself a little from the decision making process and allow myself - and the rest of the team - to move on to other more important things. I'll suggest songs, they can accept or reject them as they like.

Within reason. There are some songs that are just not negotiable. Those songs are good!! Nothing that you say to the contrary will make me change my mind!!

You hear me?

Here's Paul Robeson singing The Volga Boat Song. He's good. It's good.

No, you can't not like this song. If you do, you'll kindly keep your inappropriate thoughts to yourself.

You had better not spit on my soul.

Old Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all

2011-09-27T12:08:00.008+10:00

I hadn't heard of the English folksong, Widdecombe Fair before I bought the book. Which is surprising, because apparently it is one of the best known English folk songs, and I know an awful lot of songs.

Anyhow, the song is about a man. Tom Pearse.

This is Tom.

And here are the friends who ask to borrow Tom's old grey mare: Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney, Peter Davy, Dan'l Whiddon, Harry Hawke, old Uncle Tom Cobley and all, old Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

Anyhow, the men borrow the mare to go to Widdecombe Fair, and off they all ride.

The Grey Mare was never heard of again.

Have a listen to Burl Ives singing the song.

Here's a radio play.

And here's info on the real Widecombe Fair.

Look out for the book - it's a ripper. I defy you not to get the song stuck in your head once you've heard it a few times as well. It is easy to see why it is one of England's most favouritest folk songs.

Christine Price tells us in the book that Uncle Tom Cobbleigh was a real person, living and dying two hundred years ago not far from Widecombe-on-the-moor in Devonshire. In those days, apparently, the fair was a big thing, happening, as it is now, in September each year.

Many had to travel to Widecombe over the moor - wild and lonely country, the haunt of goblins, ghosts and fairies. Even today, strange things can happen on the moor, especially on stormy nights, as anyone can tell from the story of WIDDECOMBE FAIR!

On Dance and the Arts

2011-09-26T16:41:00.010+10:00

I don't necessarily like Graeme Murphy's radical reworking of traditional ballets. Sometimes I do, just not always. His Tivoli, for example didn't do it for me. Neither did Swan Lake. Nutcracker, on the other hand was pretty good. It all depends, I guess, on whether he leaves in the bits I expect to see. If they're not there, I get grumpy.

No matter what you think of Murphy's work though, there is no denying that they are always spectacular productions. The scenery, the choreography and the sheer artistry of the dancers is always in a class above other productions.

On Saturday we went to see The Australian Ballet dancing his production of Romeo and Juliet. It was with a little trepidation - would we like it? Would Jemimah?

Well the answer was Yes - but with reservations.

Certainly Murphy's interpretation of this ballet was marvellous for its entertainment value. The translation of the traditional marketplace scene into an Indian Bazaar provided the most wonderful opportunities for colour and movement that highlighted both the dance and the story as well as working well with Prokofiev's sublime score. Somewhat more strange was the need to New-Age the ballet by the inclusion of Japanese temples, a bed of skulls in the dessert instead of the traditional crypt and the strangely blended Buddhist/Hari Krishna hybrid monks. I was saddened by the overt signs of Australia's post-Christianisation, and the replacement of Franciscan Friar Laurence with an Eastern Holy man failed to resonate with us at all.

We resubscribed to new season of The Australian Ballet a couple of weeks ago. Unlike past years it was not a straightforward decision. A year's subscription for a family - even with only one child - is a significant financial investment, and we needed to consider carefully whether we were wise to invest this money in something that many people consider classist, frivolous and unnecessary when we are still living in a flood ravaged home with little furniture, our possessions packed in boxes, and borrowed beds.

The inclusion of the Visual and Performing arts as part of our children's education has often come under scrutiny. Is a study of literature, dance, music, opera, painting and theatre as important as our acquisition of skills like reading, writing, science and mathematics?

Certainly the arts have, since primitive times, occupied an important part in the lives of man. Jubal was making musical instruments - the harp and the flute - back in Genesis 4, and throughout the ages men have recognised the pleasure that the arts can introduce into our lives. The arts are a mirror into the hearts of man, and our appreciation of the arts and culture is one of the characteristics of being human, making us different from animals. As I watch Graeme Murphy's Romeo and Juliet, I view a profound expression of his understanding of human existence and of his religious commitment, and I gain an appreciation of Australia's new values and beliefs - beliefs very different from my own.

It is not only the secular communities, though, that recognise the importance of the artistic expression. Throughout history Christians have produced a wealth of art, both liturgical and non-liturgical. The singing, music, dance, the beautiful vestments and the fine decoration of the temple, are all hugely visible in the Old Testament. A study of the arts of man provides us with some of the clearest manifestations of human religious beliefs throughout the ages. We see clear evidence of their values, beliefs, and the importance they place on them.

These then, are some of the reasons that we include the arts in our children's education.

I would like to say that Jemimah's father and I considered all these things when we weighed up whether or not to renew our subscription to The Australian Ballet's 50th Anniversary Season. I'm afraid, though, that the most important factors of all in our decision were the fact that we love the ballet. We love getting dressed up and eating out. We love the music, the dance, the spectacle. We love the memories. The ballet is one of the things that we do as a family, and we all enjoy it very, very much indeed. I'm so glad we're going again next year.

Darby and Joan

2011-09-26T10:58:00.004+10:00

Eugenio Zampighi Darby and Joan

Jemimah is off to Junior Camp with Church this week leaving her father and me at home as Darby and Joan. It's rather a strange feeling having nobody to worry about but ourselves.

When I was young my uncle and aunt had a little model of Darby and Joan. It was a weather-glass hygrometer, and whenever Darby was out of his little house, rain was approaching whereas when Joan appeared, sunshiny days were imminent. It used to worry me that when Joan was out, Darby was in and when Darby was out, Joan was in and they were never both at home nor abroad at the same time. I did not feel that that was the recipe for a happy marriage at all...which is what the Darby and Joan figures were supposed to signify.

Anyhow, Jemimah's Daddy and I will make perfect proverbial Darby and Joans this week - a happily married couple content to lead a quiet shared life together.

There are many lovely Darby and Joan poems. One of my favourites is this song by J L Molloy:

Darby and Joan

Darby dear, we are old and gray,
Fifty years since our wedding day,
Shadow and sun for ev'ry one
As the years roll on:
Darby dear, when the world went wry,
Hard and sorrowful then was I.
Ah! lad, how you cheer'd me then.
"Things will be better, sweet wife, again!"

Chorus
Always the same, Darby my own,
Always the same to your old wife Joan,
Always the same to your old wife Joan.

Darby dear, but my heart was wild
When we buried our baby child,
Until you whispered "Heav'n knows best!"
And my heart found rest;
Darby dear, 'twas your loving hand
Showed me the way to the better land;
Ah! lad, as you kissed each tear,
Life grew better and heav'n more near:

Hand in hand when our life was May,
Hand in hand when our hair is gray,
Shadow and sun for ev'ry one
As the years roll on;
Hand in hand when the long night-tide
Gently covers us side by side:
Ah! lad, though we know not when,
Love will be with us forever then:

You'll find the sheet music here.

I shall enjoy some quiet time with my husband this week. It is all too easy to neglect your partner when there are small people around - particularly when you're homeschooling. You run the danger of living parallel lives - same objective, similar paths, but rarely intersecting for quality time together.

All too soon Jemimah will be grown and gone. I am going to take advantage of the time this week to ensure that when she does the man with whom I will continue to share my home and my life is not a stranger but my dearly loved best friend.

Now. What should we do first?!!

Listen with me...

2011-09-20T17:44:00.004+10:00

...to this beautiful music from the movie Totoro. It's by Joe Hisaishi.

So, so peaceful with a cup of chamomile tea.

A Panoramic Method of Geography

2011-09-20T08:51:00.003+10:00

The panoramic method...(of geography)... unrolls the landscape of the world, region by region, before the eyes of the scholar with in every region its own conditions of climate, its productions, its people, their industries and their history. This way of teaching the most delightful of all subjects has the effect of giving to a map of a country or region the brilliancy of colour and the wealth of detail which a panorama might afford, together with a sense of proportion and a knowledge of general principles.

Charlotte Mason Towards A Philosophy Of Education p228

You all know, I guess, that geography is one of our very favouritest subjects.

Our Australianised geography study this final term of AO4 is the Mighty Murray River. We're reading a couple of wonderful living books: Colin Thiele's River Murray Mary and Leila Pirani's Old Man River, both of which I have plans to tell you about in detail shortly; and mapping things on our river map as we go. We've already made a visit to Swan Hill, and Echuca is on the agenda.

We've also been doing a bit of work on the first Murray River residents - the Aboriginal People. Poppy's mother in the marvellous Our Australian Girl series is from the Bangerang People near Echuca, and we've been reading our way through her story as each book appears. (Not to self: must post on these as well.)

Today we watched this lovely Aboriginal Dreamtime story, Thukeri, from the Ngarrindjeri people who live in the lower River Murray area of South Australia.

It's starting to sound a little bit like a unit study, right? The kind of study that Miss Mason denigrates so strongly in Volume One, right?

Or are we?

Right, I mean?

Does Miss Mason really disapprove of integratory methods like this, or is this exactly what she's talking about as the Panoramic Method of Geography above?

Miss Mason talks a lot about her geography methods in Volume Six. She describes how her students learn first about their own region and country before moving onto next to their continent of Europe and later on to the rest of the world.

She writes that the youngest children..."are engaged with the counties of England, county by county, for so diverse are the counties in aspect, history and occupations, that only so can children acquire such a knowledge of England as will prove a key to the geography of every part of the world, whether in the way of comparison or contrast."

This is what we're trying to do with our River study. The Murray River is the biggest river in Australia. It is also one of the longest in the world. It forms the natural boundary between our State of Victoria and New South Wales. It has been the home of the Aborigines since before history was recorded, and was explored by many of our first explorers. Paddle steamers carried wool, wheat, and other goods up and down its length. It's a dream region for a geography study. It also happens to be local.

Jemimah dips a toe in 'New South Wales'

I love it when geography comes together like this. The book spines we're reading all term are the glue. They bring it all together. The other stuff though - the visits to the region; the free read novels and the videos are what makes The Mighty Murray more than a name. They're the things that make this study of local geography "a key to the geography of every part of the world, whether in the way of comparison or contrast."

If we could visit very geographical region we wanted to study, then we probably wouldn't need books at all. If not, then this panoramic method does a pretty fantastic job of unfolding a 'panorama' of the region in our mind's eye.

Once again, Miss Mason hits the nail right on the head. She always does, doesn't she?

If we read her right.

Being a 'Shorter Catechism Girl'

2011-09-19T08:44:00.009+10:00

Jemimah's up to Question 85 in the Westminster Shorter Catechism. 22 left to go. What a phenomenal achievement!

She first started memorising Scripture when she was two years old. True. We started the catechism when she turned four. Kids of that age have absolutely phenomenal memories, and while they don't understand what they're learning, at least they're doing the ground work for later on. I know this isn't particularly Charlotte Mason in its pedagogological approach, but when it comes to hiding God's word in our hearts, I believe the earlier we begin the better.

Now that we have so many past questions to revise each week, Jemimah's progress on new questions is getting slower. It's still steady though. We revise five past questions each day, and if we get stuck on a particular answer we revise it over the next day - and the next - until it goes back into the memory where is belongs. We always have a new question on the go. At first I just read the question and answer aloud. When she feels she can, Jemimah inserts the words she know until she can say the whole lot. Once a question is learned we practise it every second day for a while before it is added to the 'learned question' rotation.

It requires constant effort to commit the entire Shorter Catechism to memory. I tried as a kid, but I only got part of the way through. Even now, learning them along side Jemimah, her recall of them is far, far better than mine. I don't think there are even very many tricks - excepting hard work and commitment. She does have the Westminster Confession Flashcard App on her iPod touch, which we use occasionally to vary the lesson, but mostly we just practise, practise, practise.

Sometimes I wonder whether all the hard work and concomitant angst is worth it, but when I do, I like to read the little piece by Princeton's Professor Benjamin Warfield called Is the Shorter Catechism Worthwhile?, which is found in the back of our catechism book. It's all inspirational reading, but this little story is worth quoting in full:

What is ‘the indelible mark of the Shorter Catechism’? We have the following bit of personal experience from a general officer of the United States army. He was in a great western city at a time of intense excitement and violent rioting. The streets were over-run daily by a dangerous crowd. One day he observed approaching him a man of singularly combined calmness and firmness of mien, whose very demeanor inspired confidence. So impressed was he with his bearing amid the surrounding uproar that when he had passed he turned to look back at him, only to find that the stranger had done the same. On observing his turning the stranger at once came back to him, and touching his chest with his forefinger, demanded without preface: ‘What is the chief end of man?’ On receiving the countersign, ‘Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever’ — ‘Ah!’ said he, ‘I knew you were a Shorter Catechism boy by your looks!’ ‘Why, that was just what I was thinking of you,’ was the rejoinder.

It is worth while to be a Shorter Catechism boy. They grow to be men. And better than that, they are exceedingly apt to grow to be men of God. So apt, that we cannot afford to have them miss the chance of it. ‘Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he will not depart from it.’

One day Jemimah will grow to be a woman. My greatest hope is that she will grow up to be a woman of God. If learning the catechism helps her to achieve this then all the angst and hard work will all have been worthwhile.

Happy Saturday

2011-09-17T17:41:00.004+10:00

Hello. What are you doing this fine sunny spring Saturday? We've been doing lots of nothing. Isn't that the bestest sort of Saturday?

Here's some of what we've been up to:

Listening to this CD of songs and music from Bonnie Prince Charlie's campaign to Prestonpans in 1745. We're all big Scottish folk-musicophiles around here. We've also been learning a bit about the Prestonpans Tapestry from here. Wouldn't it be wonderful to see it?
Planning a bit of a holiday over Christmas/New Year.
Hanging out at the playground in the glorious spring sunshine.
Painting the clay bowls we made last weekend (pictures coming).
Doing a little bit of clothes shopping now that the new season is here. What did I wear last year?!!
Grabbing up a couple of good books from Readings Bargain Book Table - this little book, The Tale of the Unknown Island by Nobel-laureate novelist, José Saramago, and this bigger one, The Literature of Australia. I also bought a copy of Eve Garnett's The Family from One End Street for Jemimah. I loved this book as a child.
I was unable to keep my nose out of a conversation that did not concern me at Readings too, when I overheard the seller recommending Captain Underpants to a ten year old boy who had just read all of Roald Dahl and Andy Griffiths. Surely there is something better than Captain Underpants?? They left with a copy of Finn Family Moomintroll - a significant improvement over underpants.
Tonight we have reservations at Kumo Izakaya. I've high expectations, especially after perusing their online menu.

Days like this are just the best, aren't they?

Oh yes, I also did a few loads of washing and drying and ironing, but we won't mention that, I don't reckon.

What are you up to?

Going for a walk

2011-09-15T18:33:00.004+10:00

I guess ours is not the only homeschool to suffer total hissy-fit-melt-down. Today is was over George Washington's World. If England won the war, how could they become a huge Empire on the very nextest page? Why would Spain care about a rock? (That was Gibraltar.). Why did the Royalists want to live in French speaking Quebec? Who cares anyhow?

There's not much I know of that can prevent an episode like this becoming a huge loud battle of wills between strong willed mummy and her even more strong willed progeny except getting out.

Fast.

Which is what we did.

We turned right. Without speaking to each other. By the first intersection we were holding hands. By the horses we were talking. Tersely, but definitely communicating. By the llamas we were narrating the story. True.

Or were they alpacas? The long necked ones. Ah yes, Llama-long-necks.

By the time the mamma magpie started swooping us we were shrieking with laughter. Then with fear. We ran along past the Driver Ed Centre where we recovered our breath.

Then we turned for home. She narrated George. Excellent. And correct. And It Couldn't Just Happen. Again. Much better. And Baby Island by Carol Ryrie Brink. They were all great narrations.

By the time we reached home we were ready for maths.

Crisis averted.

Sorry there are no photos. In a melt-down situation there is no time to grab the camera.

Shame really - that maggie was kyoot. Now it is, anyhow.

Jemimah's pretty kyoot again now as well...

Remembering to remember

2011-09-15T08:29:00.006+10:00

...Every evening they would all sing one round. Mr. Boast's tenor would begin, "Three blind mice," and go on while Mrs. Boast's alto began, "Three blind mice," then as she went on Pa's bass would join in, "Three blind mice," and then Laura's soprano, and Ma's contralto, and Mary and Carrie. When Mr. Boast reached the end of the song he began it again without stopping, and they all followed, each behind the other, going round and round with words and music.

"Three blind mice! Three blind mice!
They all ran after the farmer's wife,
She cut off their tails with a carving knife,
Did you ever hear such a tale in your life,
Of three blind mice?"

They kept on singing till someone laughed and then the song ended ragged and breathless and laughing...

Laura Ingalls Wilder By the Shores of Silver Lake

By the Shores of Silver Lake is Jemimah's current read aloud selection (the one she reads aloud to me so I know which words she pronounces incorrectly and so that we can work on her read-out-loud skills.). We've read one of Laura's books each year of AO, and like many others before us, they're amongst our favourites.

We love it when Laura includes Pa's old songs, and we love to sing along with those we know. Already in last Friday's chapter we'd sung along to Billy Boy and Campdown Races when we came to that old nursery favourite, Three Blind Mice. Well, I was almost gob-smacked to discover that Jemimah couldn't remember the words!! Of Three Blind Mice!! What a failure of my position of Hander-Down-of-Traditions I've been.

Of course once I'd sung it through once, she did recall the words after all, and we spent much of this past weekend singing Three Blind Mice as a round with Daddy with almost as much hilarity as the Ingalls clan, but I have been reminded anew of the need to keep practicing those things we want our kids to remember to adulthood so they can teach them to the next generation. That includes nursery rhymes, songs, poems, Scripture verses, catechism questions and lots, lots more.

The list of nursery songs I compiled yesterday for the Deputy Headmistress contained twenty of the most important nursery songs for children (in my opinion). How many do your kids know by heart? How many will they be able to croon to their littlies in the middle of the night? (I always sang Shuttie eyesy-eyesy-eyesy-eyesy-eyes, Give Mummy a Big Surprise to the tune of If You're Happy and You Know it when I was singing to Jemimah in situations like that, but I digress.) I'm going to test Jemimah today by singing them through. I think she'll know them all, but then again she couldn't remember Three Blind Mice, so I may be wrong.

Incidentally, she does remember the version of Three Blind Mice that goes like this:

A trio of sightless rodents, a trio of sightless rodents;
Observe how they perambulate, observe how they perambulate;
They all pursued the agriculturist's spouse,
Who severed their caudal appendages with a culinary implement;
Have you previously observed such a phenomenon in your existence
As a trio of sightless rodents?

She knows this one as well. Do you?

Propel, propel, propel your craft,
Placidly down the liquid solution.
Ecstatically, ecstatically, ecstatically, ecstatically;
Existence is but an illusion.

Every time I meant to type Three Blind Mice in this post in this post it came out Three Bling Mice. Does that say anything about me - other than that I am mummy to a glitz-obsessed tween, that is?