What We're Reading :: September

Sneaking in at the very end of the month with what we've been reading this September...

Me

Berry's Jayber Crow (still!)

C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters (in bits here and there)

Pearl Buck's The Good Earth (for our local book club)

Charlotte Mason's Volume 6 and Macaulay's For the Children's Sake (for our CM study group using Brandy's Start Here)

To the Big Kids

Sewell's Black Beauty (just finished on audio--a Year 4 free read that I mentioned here)

Salten's Bambi (another Year 4 book--the three of us just finished reading it in tandem and I'll have more to say about it soon!)

Speare's The Sign of the Beaver (put this on hold to finish Black Beauty, so we're still at the very beginning)

Vincent, age 9
Seredy's The White Stag (a re-read)
Masefield's Jim Davis: A High-Sea Adventure (free for Kindle!)
Pyle's The Book of Pirates (another birthday book)

Gianna, age 9
Pierson's Among the Forest People
MacDonald's The Light Princess (MacDonald is a big favorite of hers)
Nancy Savage Carlson's A Brother for the Orphelines (with lovely illustrations by Garth Williams)

To the Middles (Cate, age 6, and Xavier, age 5)

The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh and The Complete Beatrix Potter Treasury (our scheduled Year 0 books)

Neumann Press' First Communion Days (I'm half reading this and half letting them listen to the Librivox audio)

For this week's reading lessons: Stevenson's "The Cow" (for Cate) and the first set of Bob books (for Xave)

To the Littles

Zimmerman and Clemesha's Trashy Town (one of the Big Kids' favorites when they were obsessed with the trash truck -- I picked this up with Xave in mind but my girls giggle like crazy over Mr. Gilly!)
McLerran and Cooney's Roxaboxen (a long-overdue new addition to our home shelves)
Hall and Cooney's Ox-Cart Man (their current favorite from Xavier's kindergarten shelf)

In the mailbox...
A couple of my longtime PaperbackSwap wishlist books finally came up, so it was nice to get those in the mail this month, along with another batch from my favorite Instagram sellers.  And there are a couple in the middle from the new for-sale table at Mass and a couple library sale rack finds too:

All About Moths and Butterflies (to add to my collection of All About books, which are sadly oop)
de la Mare's Rhymes and Verses
Buff's The Apple and the Arrow
Weils' Red Sails to Capri
Bishop's Twenty and Ten (from the AO list of free reads)
de la Mare's The Voice (haven't had a chance to look through this one yet)
Komroff's Marco Polo (we used the free Towle version when my Big Kids went through Year 3, but I'm looking forward to trying this one for Cate in a couple years)

Pope's Reptiles Round the World (a cheap garage sale find from last weekend)

Go In and Out the Window (finally got to the front of the line at PaperbackSwap for this one!)

My Catholic Faith (the vintage text our Traditional Latin Mass community uses for catechism--lovely!)

Tan's A Manual of Practical Devotion to St. Joseph (on my list for a long while)

a Botticelli book for art study images

The Oxford Illustrated Book of American Children's Poems (because I can never pass up a nicely-illustrated poetry anthology)

The Fireside Book of Love Songs (because I can never pass up a vintage songbook!)

We also brought some new books into the home for my birthday girls...but I'll save those for next month. :)

What are you reading lately?  Any fun garage sale scores or boxes in the mail?

{This and That}

Well, we are finished with Term 1, and so far so good!  My new narrator started out a bit shaky but has shown great improvement over the past month, my Year 4 students are rising to new academic challenges, and my kindergartener's only complaint is for me to do math and reading every day with him rather than just twice a week each.  We are still on track with the overview I posted at the beginning of the year, so I haven't had to make many adjustments to our plans yet.

But I have made adjustments to our daily schedule--or at least how often we use it!  When we're home, our daily schedule is working wonderfully.  But with three days out of the house each week (plus another morning consumed by piano and art lessons), I am having a difficult time fitting in all I need to do.  So it's not so much changing that schedule as relying on our weekly checklist more than our daily schedule for the time being.  We're getting things smoothed out as I get used to more car-schooling and weekend work.  It's a short-lived stage, though, and besides, I wouldn't trade our beach days for anything!

But the funny thing is that when this baby arrives and we're back at home most days of the week, I think it will actually be easier to fit in our schoolwork rather than more difficult, as it usually is with a newborn.  So go figure.

This week we're doing exams and next week we'll jump into Term 2.  I'll be posting our Term 2 Morning Basket plans soon!  Some selections will spill over from Term 1 but most will be new.

~~~

We have three September birthday girls in our house: Bridget's was earlier in the month, Gianna's birthday was last week, and Clara's is this week.  That means lots more books in the house! ;) But more about that another day, after Clara opens hers and I can share some photos.


Most of Gianna's other gifts centered on a theme...

Lots of writing goodies!  She has always been an eager writer, and although we don't do much writing for school (just one written narration a week), she uses a lot of her free time in that pursuit.  She's currently busy writing a stage version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  And a few short stories about princesses (who happen to all have lots of siblings).  And some Redwall fan fiction.  And letters to penpals.  And a list of spiritual resolutions.  And a prayer book!  Like I said, she keeps very busy.  I enjoyed writing as a kid too, and so I find that part of her personality very fun.

And do you see the quote on those notecards?  I didn't even notice, but she did right away and remarked with a grin, "That sounds just like something he would say."  Ha.

~~~

To mark the beginning of fall, I wanted to share a few of our favorite fall picture books from a few years ago.

It's still in the 90s here, but we won't talk about my feelings on that.

~~~

Thanks to that hot weather, however, we had a picture-perfect day at the beach last week...

It reminded me of a Carnival Cruise ad.  That is if people with piles of small children went on cruises.  I have a feeling we're not quite their target market.

But my kids loved checking out the "ocean liner," as they called it.  Where is that term from, by the way?  Byron Barton? Lois Lenski?  Richard Scarry?  It feels old-fashioned to me, but I can't place where they picked it up.

ETA: Nevermind, I asked Vincent and he grabbed the culprit from the shelf: Lippman's Busy Boats!

~~~

My husband and I were talking about how I used to crimp my hair as a girl (dating myself as a child of the 80s/90s here), and Gianna was wondering what crimping was.  I told her it was a method of curling hair and was just a fad from when I was younger.

Then she asked. "What's a fad?"  I tried to think of an example she would understand, and I was surprised that the only one that came to mind was the wigs worn during the Revolutionary Period.

No, no, we are not stereotypical homeschoolers at all. ;)

~~~

With our recent trips to the beach, we've been listening to a lot of audiobooks.  We just finished Black Beauty last week.  Halfway through, my husband finally said, "Wow, this is really a downer."  Ha!  It really had been up to that point!  Thankfully it ended happily.  But I feel like it should have a warning on the cover: "An equine Oliver Twist."  (It probably didn't help that our book before that was Pollyanna.)

I can't decide what we'll listen to next.  I just requested Peter Pan (a re-listen for us from Year 1) and The Railway Children (from Year 4, but the big kids have already read it on their own) from the library to have on deck.  But what I really want to listen to next is Swallows and Amazons.  It's the only Year 3 free read we didn't get to last year simply because our library doesn't own the audio, and I feel like it will benefit from a good reading with a nice British accent. ;)  I am hesitant to buy it before previewing or at least hearing raves from people I trust.  So, friends: Swallows and Amazons on audio--worth buying?

~~~

I wrote last week all about our nature study group's plans for this year.  One thing I forgot to mention is my favorite advantage of meeting in a group, whether for focused study or just exploration: the conversations.

As an example of the kinds of chat that make me very thankful for our group of interested moms and students, I'll share an ongoing "wondering" from the past couple weeks:

:: One of the moms notices that some of the live oak acorns have sap within the cap that oozes out and onto the picnic tables below.
:: I (showing my cluelessness here) wonder if all acorns have sap--maybe it's just something I've never noticed?  Maybe the sap is the agent that releases the nut from its cap?
:: We look at different examples and find that some have sap and some don't.  Hm.
:: I look it up online when I get home and read about "drippy nut syndrome," which happens to target the particular variety we're looking at (coast live oak).
:: I bring that information to the group, and we check if any of the acorns from the other oak variety we're watching (valley oak) has the same problem.
:: A friend then notices that the valley oak doesn't seem to have any acorns at all--just the caps!  Hm.
:: And we notice that the walnuts there also are not bearing fruit either, although the ones near my house have plenty of nuts already.  Hm.
:: And then another mom notices that the blackest live oak acorns seem to have the most sap--they're practically drenched in it.  So is the disease turning the acorns black?  Or are they riper than the other acorns and therefore have had more time to get drippy?  Hm.
:: Then today I get a text from a friend with a "mystery acorn" photo and a request for me to share the website I mentioned to her distinguishing all the various live oaks in the area.  (And no, this acorn didn't have sap.)

And it just continues from there!  We often generate more questions than answers, but it's nice to have other people to bounce ideas off of.

I think it's great too for kids to see their mom and other kids and adults wondering, researching, and taking an active interest in nature study.

~~~

After I shared some picture book favorites a couple weeks ago, a sweet homeschooling e-friend whom I really admire asked if we had Roxaboxen on our shelves since we had a couple other Cooney titles listed.  I said we didn't and would add it to our Christmas list.  Well, guess what arrived in the mail a few days later?  Thank you, Kimberlee!  Her daughter even decorated the envelope with ink drawings of "things that fly"--birds and helicopters and more.  The best.

(Psst: if you haven't checked out Pondered in My Heart yet, do yourself a favor and head over.  This Catholic homeschooling family is full of amazing artists and musicians doing all sorts of lovely living and learning.  One of her daughters is an illustrator of children's books, and they also have a family Etsy shop with many charming wares.  It has been one of my favorite blogs for years.)

~~~

Thank you for the wonderful posts linked so far at this month's Keeping Company collection.  I'm also noticing lots of new people tagging #KeepingCompanyCM over on Instagram--keep them coming!  It is so inspiring to see your work.  I'll post the new month's invitation next week!

Nature Study Outing :: This Year's Nature Group

I haven't posted much about our nature study outings lately, which is rather strange because we have been spending more time exploring outdoors than ever!

The timing has been perfect for adventuring: the beaches are less crowded now that kids are back to school, the weather is still summery, and we don't yet have a newborn in tow.  And as I mentioned before, my husband's schedule also just got way more flexible, so he's available to come along with us or keep the toddler at home while I take the bigs.  Ideal!

So for the past couple months, we've been going to the beach a couple times a week with my husband and then hitting our regular weekly nature study outing with friends too.  I am soaking up the many outdoor hours before the weeks of hibernation that the new baby may bring.

More on our latest beach finds another time.  Today I want to talk about how we're structuring this year's nature study outings with friends.

~~~

We have been doing a weekly nature study group outing faithfully for several years now.  Old friends have left and new friends have joined over the years; right now we have a fairly big group of local homeschoolers interested in Charlotte Mason's methods, and I can't describe what a treat that has been!

Our group has run differently depending on the families and the seasons.  One year, we arranged topical lessons for our littles and met somewhere new each week.  Another year, we were completely open-ended and let the kids run wild the whole time, always at the same county park.  Whichever way, we've always learned much more than I expected and had lots of fun.  The keys for us have been to refrain from too much "talky-talky" (love that CM term!), to encourage exploration and discovery, to provide some structure but not so much that it becomes a chore, to create a littles-friendly environment (most of us have toddlers along too), and to make it happen.  (That last one is the most important one of all.)

This year, our group has a wide range of ages involved (high schoolers down to newborns), and my kids are getting a bit older and are ready for some lightly-scheduled study.  But the two of us informally charged with organizing the meetings were both due with fall babies (my friend had hers a few weeks ago, and I'm due in a few weeks with mine), so we needed something simple.

We decided to choose a focus for the year--trees--and spend one outing a month on that focus.  At our August and September meetings, we introduced six of our local native trees, ones most of the kids were familiar with from previous study.  In each subsequent month, we'll make notes on changes, and we'll also consider things like oak galls, insects and birds that nest in those trees, branching patterns, lichen, leaf structure, and more.  All the children--and the moms too!--bring their journals and spend some time nature journaling.  After that 20-30 minutes, they're free to run around and discover on their own.

~~~

On the other 3-4 weeks of the month, we don't have a planned lesson.  But a smaller group of us still meet at the same spot, explore, observe, and chat about our findings, then do our nature journals at home afterward.  I'll admit, I personally privilege these meetings over the other kind because the kids just seem to find the most amazing things:

For example, after our journaling session for this month, during which we sketched the shape of our trees before they lose their leaves, two of the boys spotted a dead red-eared slider legs up in the pond and hauled it out for everyone to take a look at.  You can imagine the excitement that produced...though we moms were a little concerned it might explode at any moment because it was so bloated!

keeping their distance!

On another of our "off weeks," a few of the kids spotted this garden spider among the reeds at the pond's edge.  And then, wouldn't you know it, we read about epeira just a few days later in Fabre's Story-Book of Science!

Another week, they found a dead but well-preserved Anna's hummingbird.  We were able to look at the amazing iridescence on the feathers up close.

And perhaps our rarest spotting from the last few months: a piano!

I didn't even need my field guide to help identify that one. ;)

Several weeks this summer were spent catching (and releasing) tadpoles, minnows, water boatmen, frogs, mosquito larvae and more.  The kids have scooped half-eaten crawfish from the creek to take a closer look.  They have listened to the kingfishers call to each other from the cottonwoods that line one side of the pond to the sycamores that line the other.  They have watched a palm-sized bullfrog tadpole skirt the banks.  They have built forts with dried reeds, then wondered what kind of reeds they were.  They have walked through poison oak more times than I can count (no reactions yet, somehow!).  They have noticed when all the coyote mint was in bloom and waited for the stems of the water smartweed to turn red.  They have scattered seeds from the sedge, watched the rangers prune the field, wondered at the curly fireweed pods, seen spittle bugs for the first time, and so much more.

And my Baby Girls come running to me with "treasures" (empty snail shells, cracked acorns, or bits of peeled-off sycamore bark) asking if I can "please bring it home to draw" every week.

No matter how many times we frequent this spot, and no matter whether we have something planned or are just venturing out to explore in the fresh air, we always learn something new.

~~~

So that's enough from me.  How has nature study been going for your family this year?  Are you meeting with a group?  Do you prefer exploring on your own?  How often do you incorporate formal study versus casual walk-and-talk?  Do you journal in the field or at home afterward?  I'm always looking for ideas to try out with our local friends, so please do share!

I hope to go back to regular little nature updates here, and I'll definitely write soon about what we've seen lately on our beach trips.  Hint: some new birds, another trip to the aquarium, and more connections to Madam How and Lady Why!

Favorite Picture Books and Audios for Kindergarten :: On Xavier's Shelves

I've been wanting to put together something on this topic for ages but documenting Xavier's kindergarten shelves finally spurred me on!

Before this school year began, I pulled some of my very favorite picture books onto a couple special shelves for reading aloud to Xavier during his kindergarten year.  These are ones I read to my older three over and over, and I wanted to make sure I hit them all with him as well.  The nice thing about these is that of course they span a variety of ages.  So the Baby Girls (ages 4 and almost-3) happily join us too, as does my first-grader.  (And who am I kidding--my Big Kids eagerly listen in on most of these as well!)

This list is not meant to be exhaustive.  I'm sharing what is on Xavier's kindergarten shelves right now.  There are lots of other wonderful books that are not!

(I'm also not duplicating the AmblesideOnline Year 0 list.  The ones I have linked here are our family recommendations; the ones listed but not linked can be found on the AO Year 0 page.)

Picture Books

If I could only choose two fiction books for kindergarten, they would be:

The Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter and The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh

But his shelves hold more than just those...

Eloise Wilkin Stories (THE most requested picture book in our home over the years)

Virginia Lee Burton - Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel, Katy and the Big Snow, The Little House, Calico the Wonder Horse, Choo Choo, Maybelle the Cable Car
Don Freeman - Corduroy, Dandelion
Robert McCloskey - Make Way for Ducklings, One Morning in Maine, Blueberries for Sal

Marjorie Flack - Wait for William, Ask Mr. Bear, the Angus books, The Story about Ping

Bemelmans' Madeline books (we have both Mad About Madeline, which collects the original six books, and the same books in individual copies just because we love them so!)

H.A. Ray's original Curious George books

Virginia Kahl - The Duchess Bakes a Cake, The Perfect Pancake

Patricia Thomas' Stand Back, Said the Elephant, I'm Going to Sneeze!

Barbara Cooney - Ox-Cart Man and Miss Rumphius (two all-time favorites of mine)

Beatrice de Regniers' May I Bring a Friend?  

Margaret Wise Brown - The Little Island, The Little Fireman

Elsa Beskow's Pelle's New Suit

Paul Galdone - The Owl and the Pussycat, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Henny Penny, The Little Red Hen, and other folk tales

Tony Johnston's Yonder

Mary Ann Hoberman - A House is a House for Me, The Seven Silly Eaters

Wanda Gag's Millions of Cats

Margaret Mahy's 17 Kings and 42 Elephants

Esphyr Slobodkina's Caps for Sale

John Vernon Lord's The Giant Jam Sandwich
Arlene Mosel's Tikki Tikki Tembo
Jean de Brunoff's original Babar books

Lois Lenski's "Small" and "Little" books - Cowboy Small, Policeman Small, The Little Train, and more

And a few more in specific genres...

Folk Songs (Xavier's personal favorite) - Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night, You're a Grand Old Flag, The Glorious American Songbook, The Star-Spangled Banner, Frog Went A Courtin, The Rooster Crows ... (I've documented well our love for folk song picture books if you're interested in more!)

Non-Fiction Picture Books - the Smithsonian backyard series (my oldest son particularly likes reading him these)

Poems and Rhymes collections that have as lovely illustrations as they do text - Lavender's Blue, The Glorious Mother Goose, The Barefoot Book of Classic Poems

Audiobooks

Cate and Xavier listen to a bit of an audiobook most days of the week.  Here are the ones we're hitting this year:

:: Beatrix Potter collection, read by Nadia May

:: Winnie-the-Pooh collection, read by Peter Dennis

:: A Bear Called Paddington and More About Paddington, both read by Stephen Fry

:: Little House collection, read by Cherry Jones (this is one AO free read that I don't save for the scheduled years--my littles have listened through several times along with the older kids)

:: a few Jim Weiss CDs: Uncle Wiggly's Storybook, Tell Me a Story, Animal Tales, Famously Funny, Arabian Nights, Giants!  (I avoid the ones that are retellings of books we'll be reading later on for AO, which is why I only have selected ones listed here)

:: records from Arts Reformation, including Mother Goose Songs, A Child's Introduction to the Orchestra, and more

:: Peter and the Wolf narrated by David Bowie, along with The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra and The Carnival of the Animals
:: Catholic Children's Librivox (I'll admit I am not a huge Librivox fan, but it is nice to have these religious books available!)

Keeping Company :: September Link-Up

Welcome to the Keeping Company link-up for September!

As always, thanks for sharing your Keeping posts for others to enjoy and learn from.

By the way, do you know someone who would appreciate the links here?  Or have you seen any great posts recently that someone should add?  Feel free to share the link-up with those you think would benefit!

A few favorites this month's #KeepingCompanyCM shares on Instagram:

top (l to r) - ariellegj - mrs_stephanie.shepherd - obispo98 - hollieann84 - vlcjrogers
bottom (l to r) - ladydusk - homeschool.connections - our_simplelife - msjschole - stoppingforbutterflies

Instructions:

:: For bloggers: You should see the linky below.  Click on the "Add my link" button, and it will prompt you to include the information for your post.  Once you submit it, your link will be added to the list, and others will be able to click over and read what you have shared.

:: For Instagrammers: Tag related photos with #KeepingCompanyCM to join the link-up.  (You can also add individual Instagram photos via the linky if you prefer.)

Guidelines:

:: Remember to link to a specific post and not to the homepage of your blog.  

:: Any posts about CM-style Keeping are welcome!  The prompt is optional.  Your post can be as simple as a photo of your commonplace book.  And please don't feel like you have to be an expert.  We are all looking to grow in these habits together. :)

:: Feel free to add more than one post.  The link-up will be open for a month, so you can come back and add more if you are so inclined.

:: You can grab the button over there on the sidebar if you'd like to add it to your post or site.

As always, looking forward to checking out all the Keeping your family has been up to!

An InLinkz Link-up

{This and That}

Hello there!  We had a busy week last week and a busy weekend too, but I'm looking forward to catching up a bit here over the next couple days...

Up this week: the Keeping Company link-up for September will be posted tomorrow afternoon, so get your posts ready!

And later this week, some favorite books and audios for preschoolers and kindergarteners.  This one has been sitting in my draft folder almost finished for over a week now, so it's time to polish it up and publish!  Coming soon.

~~~

Part of our busy-ness the past couple weeks was a trip to the aquarium, which we hadn't been to in a couple years.  The aquarium is always a treat, and they have a current exhibit of octopi and jellyfish that was amazing.

The kids' favorite was a toss-up between the puffins and the two-story deep sea tank.  Pardon the following super-blurry photo (phone camera in low light), but I wanted to share just how impressive the latter is...

Those are gigantic tuna, surrounded by silvery clouds of sardines.  I've stood in front of that tank ever since I was a kid and it never ceases to awe me.

We got a membership (it was literally cheaper than paying for one visit for our big crew!) and are looking forward to heading back.

~~~

We also had a birthday last week: Bridget turned four!  She is the first of my three September birthday girls and has been counting down her birthday for months.  Among other treats, she received--surprise!--a few special books.  I'll share a peek at those later this month when I get a chance to recap what we're reading.

~~~

I'm 32 weeks pregnant and feeling every bit of it!  But it has given me the perfect opportunity to start running with my older three kids while I'm going slower and shorter.  We have been doing three miles on Saturdays and an occasional weekday morning run too.  They're getting a little faster every week, so I'm guessing they'll be outpacing me shortly. ;)  And that'll be just about the time baby arrives and Daddy can take over running duties while I take some postpartum time off!


I have a feeling running is going to be a family activity moving forward, which makes me really happy.  I grew up running with my parents, but since having babies, I have been a solo runner for the most part.  I'm excited to share this hobby with my kids as they get old enough to join in!

~~~

From my e-mailbox:

Several friends have written over the past couple months asking for field guide recommendations and suggestions for identifying what they see out on nature study outings.

My first tip: the more local your field guides, the better.  We enjoy our national field guides (especially my lovely Golden Guides--I collect the vintage editions) for drawing from, but for identifying, we pretty much only use our California/Bay Area books.

So--a few of my favorite resources for my more local readers:

I pretty much always carry this comprehensive California guide with us while out.  It's not the most useful, but it has a little bit of everything, so it's the best all-in-one resource I have found.  (Ours got dropped in the pond a couple weeks ago by a certain unnamed toddler, but I was surprised by how well it dried out!  So you can take it on my word that it's pretty durable too. ;))

I picked up this tree guide at a local nature bookshop and like it a lot.  It's actually part of a series: Mammals and Berries are available too for this area.  (And if you're in the Midwest or East Coast, the series has even more options.)

I haven't even bothered looking for a wildflower field guide because this county parks website is all I need!  It's fantastic and I refer to it almost every week in the spring/summer months.

And for crawlies: this Peterson First Field Guide for Insects and Butterflies and Moths are the ones the kids grab most often.

I also have various laminated field guides (including this one for birds and one for butterflies), and although they are necessarily limited, they are a great option for eager toddlers.

If you have personal favorites, I would love to hear about them!  I pick up field guides at thift stores and book sales so we have a big stack to pull from as we discern which styles and publishers we like best.

~~~
I notice a lot of families are starting up their new school year this week--wishing you a wonderful one!  We're on Week 10 of Term 1, so I've started jotting down exam questions here and there and thinking about what I need to get done before Term 2 begins...

See you back here tomorrow to link up your Keeping posts!

{From My Commonplace}

Sharing two selections today from my recent commonplace entries...

First, Charlotte Mason quotes John Stuart Mill's words on patriotism in Volume 6, and it has had me thinking about how we present heroes to our children:

"Of course there is a great deal to criticise in any country, and I should be the last person to suggest that the critical faculty should not be exercised and trained at school. But before we teach children to criticise the institutions of their country, before we teach them to be critical of what is bad, let us teach them to recognize and admire what is good. After all life is very short; we all of us have only one life to live, and during that life let us get into ourselves as much love, as much admiration, as much elevating pleasure as we can, and if we view education merely as discipline in critical bitterness, then we shall lose all the sweets of life and we shall make ourselves unnecessarily miserable. There is quite enough sorrow and hardship in this world as it is without introducing it prematurely to young people."

-- John Stuart Mill quoted in Charlotte Mason's A Philosophy of Education, p. 126

And this next quote from Volume 3 made me feel oh so much better about my boisterous, "rough-and-tumble" household!

"...it is questionable whether the conception of children as cherished plants in a cultured garden has not in it an element of weakness. Are the children too carefully tended? Is Nature too sedulously assisted? Is the environment too perfectly tempered? Is it conceivable that the rough-and-tumble of a nursery should lend itself more to the dignity and self-dependence of the person and to the evolution of individual character, than that delightful place, a child-garden? I suppose we have all noticed that children show more keen intelligence and more independent thought in home-play and home-talk than one expects of the angelic little beings one sees at school."

-- from Charlotte Mason's School Education, p. 56-7

Keeping Company :: September Invitation

Hello, friends!  September is here already, and with it, a refreshing change of season and a recommitment to schooltime habits.  I have loved sharing in the Keeping you have been doing during summer days, but I'm looking forward to reading more about how fall looks in your homes and your notebooks.

I've already seen lots of great entries describing new autumn Keeping habits and lots more.  If you haven't yet had a chance to check out the August link-up, please do!





Monthly Feature

There were a few posts in the last link-up that happened to be on the very same topic: butterflies!  With the end of summer comes the end of butterfly's favorite season, but hopefully you still have some around your area to enjoy as the hot days taper down.

Carol at Journey and Destination shares about Australasian butterflies through a few books they have been slowly savoring and nature journal entries from her children.

from Journey and Destination

Lisa at Olive Plants All Around My Table has a butterfly bush outside that's getting a lot of attention--but not just from the butterflies!  Are you considering how to make nature observation and recording an self-driven activity for your older students?  Take a peek at her daughter's inspiring work.

from Olive Plants All Around My Table

(And Amy at ...these are a few of my favorite things... just happened to include a lovely picture of a butterfly alongside her commonplace entry.  A coincidence?  Probably, but I couldn't resist!)

This month's optional prompt

I thought I'd ask this month about other kinds of notebooks.  We have talked quite a bit here about the Book of Centuries (or timeline, for younger ones), the nature journal, and the commonplace--the "big three," as Laurie Bestvater categorizes them in The Living Page.  But she also goes through so many others that come up in the context of Miss Mason's schools: foreign language notebooks, Calendars of Firsts, poetry collections, self-made homekeeping manuals, math and science notebooks for the upper grades...

We don't know as much about some of these--whether they were common among CM students or just a simple project by a classroom or two, whether they were meant to be lifelong or just for a term, and so on.  But I do think we can judge that there is room for more than just the Big Three for certain homes and certain students.  Have you had any success with other kinds of notebooks?  Are you adopting an extra CM-style notebook this year?  Do you have students keeping a music notebook, a Book of Mottoes, a Way of the Will chart?  I'd love to hear about it!

I'll be back here next Tuesday, September 8th, to post the next link-up.  Until then, feel free to add your posts on any CM Keeping topic to the August link-up!