Mary Jones and her Bible

Do you ever find yourself wanting your kids to know the same heroes that you do? I think back to the really special friends of my youth, and I so want Jemimah to be special friends with them too. Like Annette and Lucien and Danny. Remember them? Their very names take me back instantly to my grandmother's place, to early mornings milking cows, to carefree days building maze-like cubbies of corrugated iron sheeting, and wonderful times climbing trees and riding Freckles and Prince the ponies. Just thinking of those names takes me right back to the farm.

My cousin was staying with me last week. Despite the fact that he's 17 years older than me, he says that Patricia St John's Treasures of the Snow is the book that reminds him most about our Grandmother as well. Except for the Bible, of course.

Mary Jones was another of these friends of my childhood. I was surprised that Cousin Dee couldn't remember her as well, but he couldn't. I narrated her story in my best CM style, and although he thought it sounded sort of familiar he didn't feel any bonds of affection at all.

Jemimah and Mary are good friends now though. Jemimah finished reading Mary's story yesterday, and she hasn't stopped talking about her amazing tenacity since.

The story of how young Welsh Mary Jones saved for six long years for enough money for a Bible and then when she was 16 walked 25 miles to the home of Thomas Charles to purchase one is really quite inspirational when you're nine.

Jemimah read Mary Jones and Her Bible, Mary Carter's 1949 revision of Emily Ropes' original 1892 book because that was the version that was dear to me from my childhood. In fact, she read the very same copy! If I were going to recommend a version to you, Emily Ropes' original, The Story of Mary Jones and Her Bible is the better book. It is back in print and is available from Amazon here. You can read it online, or upload it to your Kindle for free here.

And for those of you who haven't yet met my very special childhood friend, Mary, here is her story for young children. It is worth watching, even if just to listen to the narrator's beautifully lyrical Welsh accent.

I hope you love her too.

The Curse of Mr Henshaw

There is a day looming large in the future that I am not prepared for.

It's a day that I know is coming soon but I'm trying not to think about, because it makes me sad. It's a day that I can't imagine the consequences of. It's a day that Alice Ozma's Dad in the first chapter of her book, The Reading Promise refers to as the Curse of Mr Henshaw (You'll need to read the book to discover why...). (Read an excerpt from the book now, but it won't explain the curse.)

It is the day that I have to stop read aloud to my daughter.

And like Alices Dad, I don't want to stop reading aloud to my daughter, because reading aloud to my daughter is what I do best.

And I don't want to stop.

Our day is filled with read-aloud opportunities. We have family read-alouds; bedtime read-alouds; free read-alouds; school read-alouds. We even have read-alouds that she reads to me. Despite the fact that they make my voice so hoarse and scratchy that I can barely talk, I love them all. I don't want to miss a single page of a single book. And I don't want to miss a single minute of the time we spend together in reading them. Although we are not slaves to a routine, each of these has its own special place and its own special traditions. Family read-alouds are in the car. Bedtime read-alouds include huggle-time, and lots of time to talk over our day. Free read-alouds are on the kitchen sofa. Mostly. These are the most variable, probably. School read-alouds happen in the sitting room by the fire in winter and in the kitchen or outside on the deck in warm weather. Almost every single day we spend time reading together. And we love it so.

So far, the only books I've 'allowed' Jemimah to read alone are ones we've already read, or books I'm not interested in, and there are relatively few of those - the 3rd and 4th of the Boxcar Children series; the later Ramona books by Beverley Cleary; The Clarice Bean books by Lauren Child; the second two books of The Fleurville Trilogy by Sophie, comtesse de Ségur. I let her read the third of Elizabeth Enright's Melendy Quartet in a moment of insanity, and have been trying to find time to catch her up ever since. Likewise Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh and Speedy by Colin Thiele. Why was I silly enough to let her read those without me?

Can you see my problem?

See, I can't even bear her to read her school texts without me. Well? Would you if they included Robinson Crusoe and Kidnapped and The Family at Misrule and Mates at Billabong and James Cook, Royal Navy by George Finkel and Bennelong by Joan Phipson? Could you leave her to read these alone? Now I am not entirely a failure. I do allow her to read It Couldn't Just Happen by Lawrence Richards and George Washington's World by Joanna Foster, but this is only because I so far manage to pre-read these each day before her so that when she comes to me to narrate I can discuss knowledgeably with her what she has learned. (Of course that's the reason!) She reads her read-aloud to me too...

The day that this delightful state of affairs must end is looming large. While I hope that like Alice's Dad I am able to continue nighttime reading aloud to Jemimah for many many years yet, this selfish habit of mine has to stop. And soon.

Here's what Charlotte Mason has to say:

The most common and the monstrous defect in the education of the day is that children fail to acquire the habit of reading. Knowledge is conveyed to them by lessons and talk, but the studious habit of using books as a means of interest and delight is not acquired. This habit should be begun early; so soon as the child can read at all, he should read for himself, and to himself, history, legends, fairy tales, and other suitable matter. He should be trained from the first to think that one reading of any lesson is enough to enable him to narrate what he has read, and will thus get the habit of slow, careful reading, intelligent even when it is silent, because he reads with an eye to the full meaning of every clause...

...It is a delight to older people to read aloud to children, but this should be only an occasional treat and indulgence, allowed before bedtime, for example. 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.

Charlotte Mason Home Education p 227 (emphasis mine)

Now I am quite capable of ignoring the well-meaning advice of others if I don't think it applies to me and my situation, but I'm afraid Miss Mason has hit the nail on the head here. Doesn't she always? (Wry grin.) These words resonate with me, and I know she is right! And I don't want my daughter to shirk the labour of reading for herself. I don't!

So far, Jemimah does read. And so far she loves to read. I like to think both her parents have been a good role models there. But I can also see that soon I must pass the responsibility of reading over to her, and hang onto only the vestiges of this wonderful time for myself. It makes me want to cry, writing that.

Alice and her Dad's Reading Streak lasted an amazing 3218 nights. That's consecutive nights of reading. It was a wonderful time of togetherness for this Dad and his daughter. The streak was okay because it was only a bedtime read. Sometimes it was only ten minutes long. It's what I need to aim for: One or two read-alouds a day.

One day soon it is going to happen.

But not now.

Not today.

Today I'm just going to pretend that everything is okay.

Because it is. Right now.

I'm currently reading The Reading Promise. Not aloud. To myself. I recommend it. Which is not surprising. You know I love books about books.

You can learn more about it here.

Alice's blog is here.

Do you like reading aloud as much as I do?

Maybe I'm ill.

Do I need psychological help?

Chocolat

Hubby and I are munching on this.

Pretty, isn't it?

Yummy too.

The Death of Reading

From Jeffrey Deaver's website.

Grab a cuppa and enjoy when you have a couple of minutes spare. It is very clever.

The Death of Reading

By Jeffery Deaver

I've got what I think is the very best job.
I have no commute; I can dress like a slob.
I get paid to make up things — isn't that neat?
Just like at the White House and 10 Downing Street.

Only in my case there's no dereliction.
In fact, lying's expected when you're writing fiction.
So imagine my horror, imagine my fear
When I read in the press that the end was near.

But not Armageddon or crazed terrorists.
No, the death of reading was the article's gist.
Teachers and parents and critics all share it:
That like Monty Python's proverbial parrot

Reading is dead, deceased, pushing up daisies.
People are growing increasingly lazy,
lured by the siren of electronic toys
That fill up their lives with meaningless noise.

Play Stations, Facebook, big-screen TVs
And mobile phones smarter than I'll ever be.
We pray at the altar of our brand-new God,
Who's powerful and wise and whose name is iPod.

Now, if people are no longer going to read,
Then writers are something that nobody needs.
This made my heart tremble and made my hands shake
And I considered what other jobs I might take.

But looking for work to find something new,
I decided that I all I could possibly do
Involved making lattes and learning to say,
"Let me tell you about our specials today."

So before heading off to my overpriced shrink,
I decided it might be best to rethink
these terrible rumors that we've all heard
About the demise of the written word.

Now, if truly readers are dying off fast,
That suggests there were masses of them in the past,
But I can hardly imagine when that might have been.
Who had, after all, any time to read when

You were fighting off lions with your bare hands
And wandering nomadic across desert sands.
True, reading wasn't past everyone's reach,
But stone tablets weren't popular reads at the beach.

In ancient Rome, yes, people read more,
But not mass-market scrolls from their local drug store.
And Latin, oh, please . . . once your lessons were done
Your life span was over, and your neighbors were Huns.

In medieval times, there was always the hope
That you might learn to read — if you worked for the Pope,
Or you were a royal or other elite,
Which left most of Europe up illiterate creek

Then Gutenberg invented movable letters,
Making access to books a little bit better.
Though another small problem existed, of course,
That the smallest of books cost more than your horse.

Victoria's queen; tuppence novels arrive.
And everywhere interest in reading thrives.
But despite what the doom sayers might be wishing,
The data show Dickens sold far less than Grisham.

Well, if the past hardly proves what the critics say,
Then how 'bout the state of reading today?
To find out if no one reads anymore
I went to — where else? — my local book store,

Which I couldn't help notice was jammed to the gills,
And virtually every shelf was filled
With books on more subjects than I knew existed
And dozens of posters on which were listed

Upcoming visits by writers galore,
Who'd read to their fans right there in the store:
Lit'rature, poems, true crimes about killers
And self-help and travel, and — oh, yeah — thrillers.

And if crowded stores turn you into a grouch,
You don't even need to get off your couch.
Click on Amazon's site and browse online
For ten million titles, all day long, any time.

A few years ago when I was downtown,
Doing some shopping, just strolling around
I nearly died in a massive stampede
Of children, no less, in desperate need

To purchase their latest heart's desire,
No batteries required, no software, no wires,
A book's what they sought and they'd waiting all day.
Who's this Harry Potter guy, anyway?

We love reading so much that the books we now see
Are changing from what they used to be.
Paper and ink have just been transformed,
Into shiny new books in digital form.

Why, I got on an airplane the other day
And I heard this announcement on the PA:
"Welcome aboard, we'll soon be underway.
Please put telephones, eBooks and Kindles away."

Instead of meeting some horrible fate,
Last year book sales rose a respectable rate,
while most trades were in complete disarray
Which I know for a fact from my 401(K).

So forgive me, the ghosts of Lake Windermere,
And all other poets that we hold so dear,
Not to mention the late and the great Dr. Seuss,
For my rhyming transgressions and rhythmic abuse,

But I simply couldn't sit back and ignore
This lie that nobody reads anymore.
And I'll share some more proof that there's nothing to fear:
Why, just look around at our gathering here.

We could be golfing or napping or hanging in bars,
Or watching reruns of Dancing with Stars.
But we've managed to get here, whatever it took,
For something immortal . . . the passion for books.

© 2006 Jeffery W. Deaver

The Drover's Wife

The Drover's Wife 1945 Russell Drysdale

The two-roomed house is built of round timber, slabs, and stringy-bark, and floored with split slabs. A big bark kitchen standing at one end is larger than the house itself, veranda included.

Bush all round--bush with no horizon, for the country is flat. No ranges in the distance. The bush consists of stunted, rotten native apple-trees. No undergrowth. Nothing to relieve the eye save the darker green of a few she-oaks which are sighing above the narrow, almost waterless creek. Nineteen miles to the nearest sign of civilization--a shanty on the main road.

The drover, an ex-squatter, is away with sheep. His wife and children are left here alone.

Four ragged, dried-up-looking children are playing about the house. Suddenly one of them yells: "Snake! Mother, here's a snake!"

The Drover's Wife Henry Lawson 1892

I'm glad Henry Lawson wrote The Drover's Wife in the third person, because women like her don't talk much. They're like the mother in Lassie - quiet, almost taciturn, speaking only when necessary and not indulging in unnecessary sentimental small talk just for the sake of it. Not that she's not feminine enough in her way - she even takes pleasure in the fashion plates of the Young Ladies Journal when she has the opportunity, but the drover's wife is a survivor.

She doesn't talk much because she doesn't think much. If she did she couldn't survive out there all alone in that shanty in the bush. And she has to survive because of the children. She loves those children more than life itself, and she has no option but to kill that snake before it kills one of them...

Henry Lawson's The Drover's Wife goes a long way toward explaining why he remains one of Australia's best known and most loved sons 90 years after his death. His prose is precise and understated, and yet at the end of the story you really feel like you know and understand this brave young Australian wife and mother. She is alive. You want to gather her into your arms and just hold her.

Which is just what Tommy does:

"Mother, I won't never go drovin'; blarst me if I do!" And she hugs him to her worn-out breast and kisses him; and they sit thus together while the sickly daylight breaks over the bush.

We read this beautiful short story in AO4. It works as well at 9 years of age as it does at...um...my age.

You'll find it online here. It is included in Short Stories in Prose and Verse (1894) at Gutenberg here.

I'll never complain about my life again. Never.

On the box

His name was Jeremiah Johnson, and they say he wanted to be a mountain man. The story goes that he was a man of proper wit and adventurous spirit, suited to the mountains. Nobody knows where abouts he come from and don't seem to matter much. He was a young man and ghosty stories about the tall hills didn't scare him none. He was looking for a Hawken gun, .50 caliber or better. He settled for a .30, but damn, it was a genuine Hawken, and you couldn't go no better. Bought him a good horse, and traps, and other truck that went with being a mountain man, and said good-bye to whatever life was down there below.

Anyone else remember this film?

Y'know, Robert Redford really was pretty dishy back in the day. Even with a bushy 7os beard.

Anybody else agree?

Cultivating a love of the arts

Only through art can we get outside of ourselves and know another's view of the universe which is not the same as ours and see landscapes which would otherwise have remained unknown to us like the landscapes of the moon. Thanks to art, instead of seeing a single world, our own, we see it multiply until we have before us as many worlds as there are original artists...And many centuries after their core, whether we call it Rembrandt or Vermeer, is extinguished, they continue to send us their special rays.

The Maxims of Marcel Proust 1948

It has been a fine couple of weeks of arts appreciation in our family: Elegy at The Australian Ballet; Bell Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing; The 20th Century Gallery at the Bendigo Art Gallery with its beautiful Cossington-Smith paintings and the work of John Olsen and Arthur Boyd.

This weekend we're off to see The Australian Ballet again - this time performing the exquisitely divine The Merry Widow. Jemimah is thrilled and very excited. In fact, we all are.

It might seem extravagant to some, but nurturing Jemimah's appreciationof both performing and visual arts is a normal part of life chez nous. It happens naturally and without much planning, and we have been including our daughter in our performing arts forays since she was five or six years old.

What about you? Are you cultivating a love of the arts in your kids? Do you think it is important?

Why or why not? I'm interested in your opinions on this one...

Knitting woes

Noro Scarf is now over four feet long. That leaves less than two feet to knit. A weekend's worth easily.

Except for one problem. Noro Scarf has come to a grinding halt due to a nasty case of tenosynovitis in my left thumb. I can't write. I can't lift a saucepan. And I can't knit.

Not two feet's worth anyhow. My limit is currently two lousy rows a night.

Slowly.

And in pain.

Cruel really, isn't it?

Tonight I find myself at a total loss. I have three unfinished knitting projects that I can't do. I have been separated from my current book, Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle since last weekend. (It is probably sitting on my bedside table in Melbourne, which is not helpful to me now.) My erudite choice, The Scottish Covenanters by Johannes G Vos is far too...well... erudite...for tonight. Which leaves me with The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, which will do. With a hot cup of tea and a chocolate and a hot water bottle.

It is actually a terrific book if you're in the mood, but really I'd rather my scarf.

Has anybody seen the film?

Great Aussie Poets

It is likely that harm has been done to a proper appreciation of Australian poetry by the inclusion of poor Australian poems in school anthologies. Lawson's "Out Back" for example, is not a good poem, and it could be agreed that the inclusion of such poems in our anthologies has done a disservice to poetry in general, and Australian poetry in particular.

A K Thompson, Living Verse, 1954

There was clearly a time not so very long ago when Australian poetry had rather a poor reputation. A K Thompson, Chief Lecturer in English at the University of Queensland though so, anyhow, in the preface to his anthology, Living Verse.

Prominent Australian academic, Walter Murdoch, back in 1926 was only a little more forgiving. He says this in the preface to The Poets' Commonwealth:

To understand what poetry means, we must see it applied to the life we know. The poets of Australia do not include a Milton or a Shelley, but to us Australians they do give us something - and something valuable - which the very greatest of other lands cannot give us.

Walter Murdoch, The Poets' Commonwealth, 1926

It is difficult to discover much nowadays about the controversy that was raging in these early times over the value of Australian poetry. Personally, I wonder whether it raged more in the hallowed halls of the Universities rather than on the streets, where Henry Lawson was greatly loved as Australia's 'Poet of the People'. I wonder, also, whether it was due to the balladic metre favoured by Australia's early poetry rather than more the more classical approaches to verse of those great English poets enjoyed at the time.

Interestingly, Wikipedia's entry of Australian Literature lists amongst the very greatest of Australian poets, these three: Henry Lawson, Adam Lindsay Gordon and Christopher Brennan. Why is it that I have never heard of Brennan then, I wonder, despite many critics regarding him as Australia's most important scholar and poet?

Cyberspace gives me a few ideas. Firstly, he was unresponsive to the forces of nationalism that dominated Australian society at that time, and his poetry therefore lacks the Australian identity that was as widely popular then and it is now. In an interview back in 1909 Brennan said:

I'm afraid I'm very unpatriotic. I've written nothing about the horse or the swagman. As far as "national" traits go, I might have made my verse in China.

Christopher Brennan, quoted in Australian Classics by Jane Gleeson-White

Secondly, Brennan was not a balladist and wrote in what is variably described as an 'obscure' or 'individual' style. Even his most highly regarded collection, Poems (1913) was not highly popular at its publication, and between 1932 and the '60s, his works were difficult to obtain. Even even today it is not easy to find his works in bookstores. Only a few can be found online.

Regardless of the reason for Brennan's obscurity, it is the nationalistic balladic story type style of many of Australia's poets that make them so very ideal for children, and really, this is what I want to talk to you about. All this other stuff is really just a waffly prelude to the important bit, which is our Australianised version of Ambleside Online's Poetry Rotation.

For those of you who are interested.

If you're not, you may care to read Clive James on Christopher Brennan. It's fascinating.

For the rest of you, here is AO's poetry rotation as written:

Year 1Child's Garden of Verses Robert Louis Stevenson
Now We Are Six and When We Were Very Young A.A. Milne
Oxford Book of Children's Verse Iona and Peter Opie

Year 2
Walter De La Mare
Eugene Field and James Whitcombe Riley
Sing Song by Christina Rossetti

Year 3
William Blake
Sara Teasdale and Hilda Conkling
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Year 4
Alfred Tennyson
Emily Dickinson
William Wordsworth

Year 5Rudyard Kipling
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
John Greenleaf Whittier and Paul Laurence Dunbar

Year 6
Robert Frost
Carl Sandburg
Alfred Noyes

Here is our Aussie-ised version:

Year 0
Any of the fantastic poetry picture books of single poems. Short list here. More comprehensive list of titles coming.

Year 1Child's Garden of Verses Robert Louis Stevenson
Now We Are Six and When We Were Very Young A.A. Milne
A Book for Kids C J Dennis (online here)

Year 2
Walter De La Mare
The Animals Noah Forgot A B 'Banjo' Paterson (online here)
Sing Song by Christina Rossetti

Year 3
William Blake
60 Classic Australian Poems edited by Christopher Cheng (in print)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Also The Magic Trumpet by Mary Durack for a comparison of a classic Aussie poem written in similar metre. (OOP - available here)

Year 4
Ted Hughes Collected Poems for Children ill Raymond Briggs (Not Australian but English, but how could you leave this out of a poetry study? There is plenty of time for Tennyson later on, IMHO) (in print)
Emily Dickinson
William Wordsworth

Year 5Rudyard Kipling
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Around the Boree Log "John O'Brien" (online here)

Year 6
Robert Frost
Carl Sandburg
Henry Lawson Stories & Poems ill Dee Huxley


In secondary school we'll probably study Brennan. We'll also study Adam Lindsay Gordon. There are so many great Aussie poets, some of whom need two time slots - Paterson and Dennis to name two. We'll need to fit in another anthology or two as well - maybe in Years 11 or 12, maybe.

In the mean time, AO6 is as high as my little brain carries me. That introductory stuff was just that - stuff. The contents of my over-worked and rather addled brain. Scary, really.

Anyhow, this is our poetry plan. What about you? Are you altering AO's schedule to fit in your favourite poets? Who are you including? My favourite poet of all time is Rabbie Burns. We'll need to do a term of his poetry. A term of Robert Fergusson would be wonderful as well. Gotta love those Scots.

Isn't it good that we don't stop learning at Year 12?!!

Today...

...I am knitting. What are you up to this wintery Saturday afternoon?

MEP Reflections

Yesterday Jemimah completed Year 4 of MEP. Hurrah!

(She is nine years old and is in Year 3 (Her 4th year of formal education in Victoria)).

The initials MEP stand for "Mathematics Enhancement Programme" - a maths programme (obviously) developed by the CIMT - Centre for Innovation in Mathematics Teaching - at the University of Plymouth in the United Kingdom. It is the curriculum I've be using with Jemimah since the beginning, and today seemed an opportunistic time to touch base with you about how we are liking the course four years in.

Is it comprehensive in scope?

Firstly and importantly, it is a rigourous curriculum effectively covering most of what Jemimah would be studying at public school. Today as I write, Jemimah is tucked up in the room we currently use as a store room (you can see her above) completing examination papers. At the end of each term MEP has students complete an IPMA test - yes, the course is jargon and acronym heavy - short for International Project of Mathematical Attainment. According to the Coordinator's Manual:

The tests are designed to assess progress on key mathematical topics and concepts over a yearly period of time. Further questions are added each year to the original questions. In this way we hope that there will be sufficient new and relevant questions to assess progress, whilst having at least some questions on the test paper for children who are progressing slowly.

The test covers only the key mathematical concepts covered in the previous year of study, and as such I have found it reasonable to expect Jemimah to attain 100% each year. This expectation has proved achievable each year so far - including today. Go Girl!!

(The test is only moderately useful as placement test for parents who look to use MEP in place of another curriculum choice in their homeschool, since the course itself is far more comprehensive than the test indicates. Still, it could be used as a placement test if parents give the whole test and look at the stage at which their pupils baulk at the questions. A summary of the number of questions relevant to each year level and age is included in the Coordinator's Manual.)

In addition to the IPMA tests, Jemimah is today also sitting Australia's NAPLAN tests for Years 5 and 7 (Remember, she is in Grade 3 here.).

National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) testing commenced in Australian schools in 2008. Every year, students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are assessed on the same days using national tests in Reading, Writing, Language Conventions (Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation) and Numeracy. Many of you, I know, use homeschooling curricula that regularly test your children's progress in major subject areas. Those of you who like me choose the Charlotte Mason method of educating and testing will be less sure where their children fit in relation to their State educated peers, especially since MEP only tests using the IPMA test once a year. There is no obligation for me to use these tests with my homeschooled daughter, but it is always encouraging to me to see that her mathematical learning level is at or above that of her peers. I chose the Year 5 and 7 levels rather than Year 3 because I am confident that she is familiar with the vast majority of the material included in both of these year levels. That gives me incredible confidence to continue using the MEP course in the future.

(As an aside, she also sat the Year 3 Language Conventions paper. Her English grammar and punctuation were perfect; her spelling was 'atroshus' - as usual. Sigh - what more can I do?)

After all that testing, this is her brain food reward of choice - Kool Mints.

Is it teacher intensive?

Those parents using lower levels of MEP will be reassured, I am sure, to learn that the level of daily parental input into the programme decreases somewhere through Year 3. During this past year I have spent only a few minutes at the commencement of each lesson covering the material contained in the Lesson Plans before Jemimah completes the Worksheet for that day. She is free to come to me for help, but often all I do is go through the sheet with her after she has completed it alone.

How long does it take?

Lessons at this level take between 20 minutes and half an hour. This is in line with Charlotte Mason's guidelines, since her students spent 30 minutes on arithmetic in Years 4-6. Do not allow procrastination!! Generally we cover all questions on all worksheets, but if a lesson is taking far longer than usual we may hold a question or two over to the next Friday's lesson. Friday's lesson is worksheet based only and takes less time. We like this at the end of a busy week.

Do you still use manipulatives?

At this level manipulatives are used far less often, but we still use counters and Cuisinaire rods occasionally. Dice and coins are used for probability at this level. Sometimes it is fun to use lollies as manipulatives. Smarties are fun. Maths is far more interesting when you can eat the answers!!

Do you print everything?

We continue to print all paperwork including all copymasters. Jemimah prefers to use the larger sized copymasters when they are available, even when they are reproduced on the worksheet. Each Year Level is divided into a and b. Each of these is further divided into three sections. We print one section at a time and put the sheets into a folder. At this level she completes most of the sheet in pencil with a rubber available to correct mistakes, but she always has a few textas to brighten up her day a little!

Do you prepare the lessons?

Aside from pre-printing the materials I do very little lesson preparation. I generally glance over the lesson plans in the morning before school starts to see if any manipulatives are required so that I can gather them together. This takes no more than a minute or two most days. (Well, unless somebody has borrowed the dice for a board game, that is.)

Does Jemimah like maths?

Maths is not Jemimah's favourite subject, but nor is it her least favourite - studied dictation takes that ticket! Generally she just gets on and does it.

Generally if she doesn't understand a new concept the first time, MEP's continual cumulative review will give her many more opportunities to master a process later on. This removes much of the stress that children can often feel with mathematics as a subject, in my experience.

MEP Maths is not an issue either way to Jemimah.

I like it though, four years in. Does that count?

Feel free to let me know if there is anthing else you want me to cover. I'd be happy to oblige! There are plenty of other posts on MEP in the archives as well. You'll find them under Mathematics in the right sidebar.

If you have had experience with MEP how did you find it? Are your experiences similar to mine?

Do tell.

Aaaaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhh!!!!

Just lost a whole post!!

I don't have time for this stuff!

Meh...computers - who needs 'em?

Maybe I'll try again later.

Perhaps nobody is still reading my blog anyhow. I never post anymore anyhow.

Need coffee.

Now.

Shakespeare in a word

(M)y kids and I have come to the conclusion that we are probably the groundlings...we attend the free performances and laugh most heartily at the low-brow humor. The academic crowd may say what they want about Shakespeare; I say he's funny! :)

Charlotte Mason in the City

This quote in the comments of my previous post sums up our first family Shakespeare performance just about perfectly (except the free bit - it wasn't). Bell Shakespeare's contemporary interpretation of the original romantic comedy - Much Ado About Nothing was laugh-out-loud funny from the very first line. Toby Schmitz and Blazey Best were perfectly cast as the sharp tongued but loyal pair Benedick and Beatrice, and they owned the bard's archaic language as naturally as if it was their own.

Jemimah was on the edge of her seat for the entire performance, and Max Gillies' depiction of the bumbling Dogberry had her in tears of laughter. It was worth every cent of the ticket price just to see her sheer pleasure in being there.

As we travelled home in the car after the performance, I asked my family for a word to describe Shakespeare.

Jemimah :: Hilarious.
Daddy:: Entertaining.
Mummy:: Successful.

What more can I say? We'll be doing it again.

Much Ado About Shakespeare

Neither the professor nor the actor has a monopoly on Shakespeare. His genius is that he wrote texts to be studied and scripts to be performed.

Leonora Eyre

Did you ever stop to think that maybe William Shakespeare didn't really mean to say all the clever stuff that our English teachers made us neatly write in the margins of our Hamlet texts in Year 12 English Lit? Did it ever occur to you that maybe he was just trying to write a play that actors would perform and that audiences would enjoy?

Call me a cynic, but I reckon that more than half of what I wrote in those margins and dutifully regurgitated in end-of-term exams was invented by English professors in the hallowed halls of some University or another, and that most of it never even occurred to the playwright himself. Imagine how boring it would be marking those papers, seeing the same insights being repeated over and over and over again!

Now, before you all lynch me, I am not advocating that we all chuck our Shakespeare texts in the rubbish-bin here - there is merit in a study of the works of the greatest English writer of all time, the author whose words are quoted more than any other. What I am proposing, though, is that a study of Shakespeare should be a pleasant experience, not a chore. I am suggesting that maybe the ultimate goal is to actually enjoy Shakespeare's plays performed rather than just being able to understand and dissect the words that he wrote.

This weekend we are going to see our first Shakespeare play as a family. It's Bell Shakespeare's contemporary interpretation of the Bard's comedy, Much Ado About Nothing, and so I dare say it'll be rather different from the version that theatregoers saw back in the late 1500s.

Which makes me a little nervous about taking our nine-year-old.

Still, I'm reassured by reports that unlike some of John Bell's productions this one is neither majorly gimmicky nor radically unconventional, and I'm hoping that the setting of 1950s Sicily and the modern costumes and minimal scenery will actually enhance Jemimah's introduction to Shakespeare's acted works. Fingers crossed.

We've done our homework. Jemimah has studied Shakespeare's own story, and the life and times in which he lived and wrote. She's been to his birthplace of Stratford-upon-Avon and visited his family home. We've chosen a comedy for our first foray, and Jemimah knows the story well. We've read both Lamb's and Nesbit's retellings, and we've discussed the characters. We've talked about the themes of deception and self-deception, of love and hate. We've talked about how reputations can be destroyed by rumours and gossip, and how people need to trust those they love more. That's all. Now we're going to see the story acted. On stage. For real.

We're really excited.

Maybe later on we'll have a bit of a look at the text of Much Ado. Maybe we'll read sections of it aloud or act a short scene. Perhaps one day we'll even get out our pens and write notes in the margins. But I hope that the words Jemimah writes are her own thoughts and ideas not those of the well-known professors. I hope she writes them because something she has read has struck her as interesting or funny or relevant, not because she needs to write them for an exam.

I'm really hoping Much Ado About Nothing is going to be only the first of many, many Shakespeare plays we enjoy as a family. I'm hoping that Jemimah enjoys the production for itself, and not just because she is studying it for school. I'm hoping that this production will arouse in her the same wonderful feelings that the ballet and the opera do. I am hoping she remembers this night out with affection as a special evening with her Mummy and Daddy and one where her love for the words of the Immortal Bard were brought alive for her forever.

This weekend I hope that Jemimah becomes a Shakespeare lover, not just a Shakespeare student.

I'd be really, really happy about that.

Random thinks I'm thunking

1. I am very tired and I should be in bed, not thinking with you. Even if they are random thinks.
   


2. I am reading Murakami's classic, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. It is very good, but then I think all the books by this author - excepting maybe his non-fiction book about long-distance running - are terrific, so that's not saying much. I have just finished Fred Hollow's inspiring autobiography and The Road Home by Rose Tremain. I would recommend them both, but especially the latter. It was unputdownable.
   


3. I am studying Acts using this book by Gordon Keddie. It is very good, and really makes me think. Which is pretty hard when you're tired and would rather be sleeping than thinking.
   


4. I am inspired by Eve Anderson, retired headmistress of a PNEU school in Oxford. I have been watching the videos of her teaching narration, picture study and nature study over the last few days, and am relieved that I am not doing anything terribly different. I am keen to do more dry brush painting using the techniques she demonstrates.
   


5. I am saddened by the things I read in this article about YA literature. My daughter will be the intended audience demographic for these books in only a few short years. I hope she never reads books like the ones I read about here.

   Now, whether you care if adolescents spend their time immersed in ugliness probably depends on your philosophical outlook. Reading about homicide doesn't turn a man into a murderer; reading about cheating on exams won't make a kid break the honor code. But the calculus that many parents make is less crude than that: It has to do with a child's happiness, moral development and tenderness of heart. Entertainment does not merely gratify taste, after all, but creates it.
   
   If you think it matters what is inside a young person's mind, surely it is of consequence what he reads. This is an old dialectic—purity vs. despoliation, virtue vs. smut—but for families with teenagers, it is also everlastingly new. Adolescence is brief; it comes to each of us only once, so whether the debate has raged for eons doesn't, on a personal level, really signify.

   In our peaceful home our philosophy is encapsulated in this verse from Philippians:

   Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things Philippians 4:8 NIV.

   This article makes me sad. What makes me sadder is to see the backlash it has caused this weekend amongst YA authors and specialists. Personally I agree with most of what Meghan Cox Gurdon writes. I might not be a YA specialist, but I am a mum, and an auntie, and a friend to many young people. Surely that counts for something.
   
   What do you think?
   


6. I bought some books for Jemimah at the Borders closing down sale on Saturday. There has to be a silver lining, doesn't there? I picked up copies of The Nargun and the Stars by Patricia Wrightson, Avi's The Secret School, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster and Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis. Happy with all of these picks, oh yes I definitely am. Strange, isn't it that all the twaddle has already sold, and all the Newberry winners are just sitting there waiting for me! What does that say about the discernment of Melbourne's bargain shoppers?
   


7. Speaking of great kids' books, Jemimah is reading Speedie by Colin Thiele having just finished Harriet the Spy. Her bedtime read-aloud is The Borrowers. We are both enthralled by this choice. I remember I was as a kid as well, but it is still good. Our super-dooperly-fantastic family read-alouds include the first of the Penderwick series, The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy . This is definitely evidence that great living books are still being written! Hurrah for Jeanne Birdsall. (Great name...) As well we're reading Black Beauty, Calico Captive and Little Britches. Oh my, I am so blessed to be reading literature of this quality aloud to my family. I love being a homeschool mum!!
   


8. I'm exceedingly impressed by Nadia Wheatley's new book, Playground - a compilation of Australian indigenous stories of childhood. I'm reading it right now, and will blog about it shortly. I can definitely anticipate being able to incorporate this fascinatingly original picture book into Jemimah's studies at some stage.
   


9. Now that I've finished thinking out loud I'm going to take myself off to bed. What are your thinks that you're thunking about books? What are you reading? What appeals and what doesn't? What do you think about YA literature that includes such topics as kidnapping and pederasty and incest and brutal beatings? What is pederasty anyhow? Come and talk to me! I love talking books. In case you didn't realise. You can talk about other stuff too, if you like. Actually I just like listening to you. Whatever it is you want to talk to me about...well, maybe except long distance running.

It's a Book

So the final Borders stores will close by the end of July...sad.

Don't know if I find the vid funny either. Bittersweet, maybe. Maybe this day is closer than we think.

Quality Mummy-Daughter Time

Almost every day you'll find Jemimah and me together somewhere. You may find us cuddled together on the sofa, or talking animatedly around the dining table, or working side-by-side at the kitchen counter or in the garden. With the sound track turned down low you would assume that ours is the perfect mother-daughter relationship. Close, comforting, supportive.

Listen closely though, and you'll discover that when we're at the table we're discussing long division; at the kitchen bench the talk is about dissolving the flour in the fat before adding the liquid so that the gravy won't be lumpy; on the sofa the subject is the mapping of the Australian coastline; in the kitchen garden it is crop rotation. We're just doing school.

Jemimah and I spend a lot of time together. Most of most days, in fact. We have quantity time down pat. Quality time, on the other hand is a little more difficult to master.

Quality time is that time that lets my daughter know that, aside from the one I have with her Daddy, my relationship with her is the most important of them all. Quality time lets her know that I love her as a daughter, value her contribution as a young lady and enjoy her company as a friend. Now this is not stuff that she would easily be able to glean amongst the tares of maths and history and narration, important as these things are. Quality time clears away all the gumph that consumes our everyday life and just lets us enjoy and nurture the very special bond that is between us.

Every month or so Jemimah and I have mummy-daughter nights. Sometimes we grab a pizza and watch a movie together. Sometimes we play a game of Monopoly or do a jigsaw. Sometimes we bake patty cakes, ice them, decorate them, and eat them. Mmmmmm. Once or twice a year though, we plan something extra-special. A super-dooper-mummy-daughter-date-time.

Last weekend we spent the day in Melbourne together at the National Gallery of Victoria's von Guérard exhibition, Nature Revealed.

Now this display of Eugene Von Guérard’s meticulously detailed landscapes of Victoria in the mid-1800s provides plenty of scope for including educational content in our day and making it a perfect Charlotte Mason inspired field trip, but this is precisely what I was trying to avoid, and I hope these pictures (taken before I discovered that I wasn't allowed to take them) give you an idea of just how much my delightful young companion enjoyed our visit. The second photo is of her observing closely the landscape, Castle Rock, Cape Schanck, 1865, depicting the area where her father and I first met. I wonder what she is thinking about?

The exhibition of over 150 works included a number of the artist's beautifully illustrated sketch books, and as a keeper of nature notebooks herself, these were probably Jemimah's highlight, although she also loved the detail in his pen and ink drawings. For me the best bit was his exquisitely rendered painting, View of Geelong. There is something special about paintings of things familiar and dear to you, isn't there? Especially when they are as beautiful as this one is:

Afterwards we took ourselves off to the charming Hopetoun Tea Rooms in the Block Arcade for Scones with Strawberry Jam and Cream and the ubiquitous pot of English Breakfast Tea. We couldn't help but wonder whether Eugene von Guérard had done the same with his friends, for the tearoom, open since 1892, was certainly around even in his day.

I wonder if you can see the pleasure etched on that young face?!

Over tea we discussed life, death and the universe. We discussed the exhibition too, but only in passing. There was no educational stuff on the sound track today. Instead we discussed our dreams, our hopes and our disappointments. We talked about us.

We had a wonderful time.

It might be a while before we have time for another Mummy-daughter Date as special as this one, but we will do it again. Spending Quality Mummy-Daughter Time with Jemimah is one of the most important things I can do as her mother.

Hopefully if I continue making time to just hang out together and talk about the mundane things of life important just to us, she will also continue to come to me to discuss the not so mundane and the far more important. I hope she will continue to feel comfortable talking to me about her problems, or when she is confused, worried or in trouble. I hope that she remembers that I am there for her and that I listen to her and that I really do care and that I love her very, very much.

Because I do.

How we both win at Scrabble

Jemimah and I play a lot of Scrabble. Do you know why?

Because we both win every game. That's why.

Discover how we manage this in the latest Literacy Lava, out today.

The 9th edition of this great free mag is literally bubbling over with great ideas for helping our kids build their reading, writing...and spelling skills. I particularly like Rebecca Newman's ideas for mapping - we will definitely be embracing our inner pirates around here this week. Joyce Grant and Jen Robinson's reasons why adults should read children's literature offer food for thought as well.

Grab your free copy right now. Perhaps you'd like to discover your inner pirate as well!

While you're over at the fantasmagorical Book Chook's site, pick up a copy of her mini e-book, Literacy in the Playground. It's full of skipping and clapping rhymes, chants and songs and it is really good nostalgic fun. I reckon it is anyhow!