Nature Study Outing :: Bark Study

This week was one of our scheduled "tree study" days, the week of the month when our weekly nature study group does a slightly more formal observation-and-drawing session together.  This month our focus was bark.

It was a very simple session planned by my friend: we started with a grid-drawing exercise, and then set up grids on the six trees themselves.  Everyone took their journals around to each tree to sketch the square of bark exposed into squares on their page.

 

Drawing the bark from those little boxes rather than from the whole tree made it much more focused and successful an observation.  The kids mentioned several times how--apart from the always-conspicuous sycamore bark--they had never noticed the great differences in color and texture.

Cate's completed grid

And then, of course, the kids got distracted by fort building, cottony insect egg saks, horse chestnuts falling from the uppermost branches, and coots calling!

What We're Reading :: October

Thank you, kind readers who emailed to see if my quiet here this past week meant that baby had arrived.  Sorry for the false alarm!  I am still here--no baby just yet--but busy working on a bunch of different posts without time to actually publish any of them.  But I figured I had to at least get my monthly reading round-up up before October passes us by! :)  Hoping to be back tomorrow with a bit of nature study chat!

Me
Aldrich's The Lantern in Her Hand (just started for our local book club)
Speare's Calico Captive (gulped this down on my own even though I'm supposed to be reading only a chapter a week alongside the kids--whoopsie! :))
Charlotte Mason's Volume 6 and Macaulay's For the Children's Sake (for our CM study group using Brandy's Start Here)

Vincent, age 9
Animalium (a birthday book from Grandma--I have a round-up of favorite Big Books About Animals coming soon!)
Kipling's Jungle Books (a re-read from AO Year 3)

Cate, age 6
Syd Hoff's Sammy the Seal and Arnold Lobel's Small Pig (she's starting to take off in reading to herself!)

Xavier, age 5
Go Dog Go! and Hop on Pop (he's Seuss-obsessed)
...and he finished his first set of Bob Books in a couple days so I think I need to grab a harder set from the library!

Reading aloud
Barrie's Peter Pan (just finished--a re-listen for us in the car on the way to and from the beach)
Nesbit's The Railway Children (the Big Kids read this independently a few years ago, but I hadn't yet)
Speare's The Sign of the Beaver (moving along slowly, but I have such fond memories of this book!)
E.B. White's Charlotte's Web (a Year 1 free read - on audio read by White himself)

And the birthday books for my birthday girls, which has consumed most of their reading lately...

For Gianna, age 9

Walter de la Mare's Tales Told Again

Louisa May Alcott's Flower Fables

Cecily Mary Barker's The Complete Book of Flower Fairies

Marguerite de Angeli's Yonie Wondernose

For Bridget, age 4
de Regniers' May I Bring a Friend (found a copy of our own after borrowing the library's many times!)
Walter Crane's An Alphabet of Old Friends (this is a lovely copy)
Favourite Winnie-the-Pooh Stories (seems to not be available on Amazon, but this is just several unabridged original stories with original illustrations in the miniature form little hands love--hurrah!)

For Clara, age 3 

Margaret Wise Brown's The Good Little Bad Little Pig illustrated by Dan Yaccarino (I think this particular edition is out of print, sadly, so no link--the other illustrations don't look nearly as engaging, unfortunately)

Wood's The Little Mouse, the Big Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear

Golden Books' Animal Babies

Gianna also got some new favorites from Grandma...

George MacDonald's The Golden Key and The Light Princess
Burnett's A Little Princess on audio (we listened to this version last year and loved it!)

More used finds...
And naturally, I picked up a few at the local library and thrift store this month...

First, a pile of from "The Real Book About" series.  I'm not familiar with these, but is anyone else?  They were selling them for fifty cents each, so I couldn't pass up the set, but I haven't had a chance to dig into them yet to see if they're worthwhile.

Donald Hall's The Oxford Book of Children's Verse in America (another for my shelves of poetry anthologies)
Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days and Estes' Ginger Pye (both hardcovers to replace what we already own in paperback--from AO lists)
Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (we already own this one too, but I couldn't resist a version with Rackham's illustrations for Term 3)
Blake's Early Airplanes (more non-fiction for my oldest son)

What are you reading, friends?

Some Favorite Children's Poetry Collections

A friend asked recently about some of our favorite children's poetry collections.  I went to dig up a link from my archives for her, and it seems that I somehow haven't written a post on this yet!  I'm a little shocked at this glaring omission because poetry is one of my very favorite things.

So in the interest of righting this wrong: a few of our favorites in no particular order...

The Barefoot Book of Classic Poems
Lush and vivid illustrations by Jackie Morris.  A wonderful selection of classic poems, most of which were written with adults in mind but appeal to children as well.  One of our very favorites.

The Oxford Illustrated Book of American Children's Poems 
Not as classic a collection and mostly black-and-white illustrations, but a pretty book worth owning and has lots of variety.

The Random House Book of Poetry
Jam-packed with lots and lots of great poems and Arnold Lobel's whimsical drawings.  More geared toward children than some of the others books but still a nice selection.

The Golden Treasury of Poetry 
Very comprehensive, including classics short and long.  And lovely line drawings grace most pages, in both black-and-white and color.  A really beautiful collection.

Sing a Song of Popcorn 

A fun one with drawings by a variety of famous children's illustrators.  Again, this is more child-directed collection but there are enough classics mixed in to keep the volume from being overly silly.

Talking to the Sun
A lovely volume illustrated with art from the Met.  The kids pull this one from the shelves often because it is a delight to look through--and read from too.

A Small Child's Book of Verse
This volume, edited and illustrated by Pelagie Doane, is another out-of-print book with a non-descript cover, but the Tasha Tudor-esque drawings are delightful and it is full of pleasing selections.

Favorite Poems Old and New
Although I tried to limit myself to more heavily-illustrated versions, I had to include Ferris here too. Weisgard's accompanying line drawings are few, but I have read to my littles from this volume for years and it will always be a family favorite.

And, of course, you can't go wrong with A Child's Book of Poems, scheduled in AmblesideOnline Year 1.  Gyo Fujikawa's charming vintage illustrations, an appealing layout on the page, and a wonderful and extensive selection of poems.

~~~

Last but not least, a question for you all: any favorite choices for thematic poetry collections for children, like an a book of poems specifically about birds, or about animals, etc?  My friend is asking and I'd love to pass along your suggestions to her, because I haven't found any themed collections that we have loved.  Thanks in advance!

Morning Basket 2015-2016 :: Term 2

First, a note: I use the term "Morning Basket" to refer to all the work we do together as a family, even with the littles. Even though I call it Morning Basket for organizational purposes, it is really broken up into two parts: one done over breakfast, and the rest done at the end of our Naptime School block.  Our Morning Basket is still very much the same as we have done it for the past few years, so if you'd like to read more specifics about how it works for us, you can read about how we structure it and prior selections.

A look at our Morning Basket plans for Term 2 of this year...

Over Breakfast

Calendar Work - in English and Italian (daily)

Poetry - a poem from our poets for the term, Emily Dickinson for Year 4 and A.A. Milne for Year 1 (daily)

Short Reading - from one or more of the following:
:: Hillyer's A Child's Geography of the World (two chapters per week)
:: Hillyer's A Child's History of Art (section on Corot)
:: Flos Sanctorum (verses for the week based on the liturgical year)
:: The New St. Joseph Baltimore Catechism No. 1 (one section per week)
:: Amy Steedman's Legends of Italy (one chapter per week)
:: Amy Steedman's Read-Aloud Book of Bible Stories (New Testament chapters)
:: The Epistle of St. James from the Douay-Rheims Bible (bit by bit)

Read-Aloud - with any breakfast time I have left before the babies start fussing, I read from one of our scheduled read-alouds: Speare's The Sign of the Beaver and Moody's Little Britches.

In the Afternoon

Memory Work (daily) - includes review of that day's items from our memory "notebook" as well as time spent on our current selections:
:: Hymns - Dona Nobis Pacem (finishing up); St. Michael Prayer in chant; Veni Veni Emmanuel; Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence
:: Folk Songs - The Ballad of Davy Crockett (finishing up); Red River Valley; Lavender's Blue
:: Bible - ongoing memorization of The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:2-17), continuation of the infancy narrative from Luke 2 from last year
:: Prayers - O St. Joseph (finishing up); Apostles' Creed in Latin (just reviewing)
:: Poetry - For Cate, Stevenson's "The Cow" and poems of choice from Milne; For the Big Kids, "Evening, "The Book," "Summer Shower," and poems of choice from Dickinson
:: Shakespeare - A Midsummer Night's Dream 2.1 (Oberon's "I know a bank" speech)

We move on to a new selection once we have the previous selection memorized rather than on a regular schedule, so our plans are just that--plans.  I update our Memory Work index with the ones we cover as we go along.

Italian Memory Work (daily) - The older three and I cover new concepts, games, and conversation during naptime, but we usually do our Italian memory work with the littles around:
:: Rhymes - "I dodici mesi" from Filastrocche Italiane
:: Songs - "Silent Night" and "Jingle Bells" from Teach Me Everyday Italian
:: Series - "I am an active boy/girl!"

Picture Study on Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot (once weekly) - two weeks for each piece, alternating between observation/narration and a picture sketch
:: Chartres Cathedral, 1830
:: A View Near Volterra, 1838
:: The Eel Gatherers, 1860-5
:: Orpheus Leading Eurydice, 1861
:: Man in Armour, 1868-1870 and The Letter, 1865
:: The Bridge at Nantes, 1868-1870
(very similar to AO's Corot selections)

Music Study on Franz Schubert (once weekly) - including attentive listening and discussion
:: Piano Quintet in A
:: Symphony No. 8
:: Ave Maria
:: Der Erlkoning and Heidenroslein
:: Die schone Mullerin
:: Symphony No. 9
(very similar to AO's Schubert selections)

Keeping Company :: October Link-Up

Welcome to Keeping Company's October link-up, your chance to read and share posts about Charlotte Mason-inspired notebooking.  Thanks for visiting, and be sure to check back all month for inspiration.

And if you'd like to link to a Keeping post of your own, just follow the directions below!  We'd be happy to have you join us.

This has been a busy month on Instagram!  To share just a sampling of the lovely #KeepingCompanyCM entries that have rolled in over the past few weeks...

top (l to r) - our_simplelife - camilem - msjschole - athena_amidstthereeds - rjnsix

middle - jenphethean - mrs_stephanie.shepherd - jeffsjessie - sarah.e29 - cmnewby

bottom - obispo98 - ladydusk - homeschool_dk - saraplew - vlcjrogers

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.

Thanks for giving us all a peek into the Keeping going on in your home this fall!

An InLinkz Link-up

{This and That}

We are finished with term exams and have launched into Term 2.  Exam week went a little rockier than usual because we all got hit with a bad cold (me on down to the baby).  We got a nice light day of exams in on Monday and then crashed.  By the end of the week, the kids were well enough to take their exams back up again, but I wasn't well enough to administer any but the written portions and some audio-recorded questions.  It will be funny to look back on these recordings, with my barely-there voice and the kids' raspy, nasal replies.  So it was a lighter rounds of exams this time but still successful, I think.  I'll share more about them another day.

I always schedule a special teatime to celebrate the end of the term and of exam week, but this time I was too sick to manage it and the kids were asking me every few hours when we were having our treat a tad disappointed.  But we finally got around to it a few days later, when in my sick-and-tired state, I stumbled upon these at the store and popped them right into my cart:

It was the perfect post-nature study snack.  Thank you, Trader Joe's!

~~~

We read this line from Age of Fable today and I immediately thought of my girls:

"Their faces were not all alike, nor yet unlike--but such as sisters' ought to be."

I see very little resemblance other than hair and eye color, actually, but we get comments all the time on how similar they look.  (And often we're asked whether they are two sets of twins--I definitely don't see that!)

I took my girls for birthday treats (above) and then haircuts (below) this weekend and we had such a fun time.

I love that all four of my girls are old enough to enjoy a (very rare) outing alone with Mommy!

(And the short hair is perfect for the triple-digits weather we're having this week.  You know, just in time for fall. ;))

~~~

We also spent a few minutes over the weekend planning All Saints' Day costumes.  Since my due date is All Saints' Day, I'm not planning a party this year (like I have in the past), nor am I entirely sure we'll even make it out trick-or-treating the night before.  So I strongly encouraged them to pull out the ones from last year so that they don't get too disappointed if not much celebrating (other than Mass, of course) happens.  We went through the bin and are reusing all of them, so I just need to assemble a veil and crown for St. Bridget of Sweden and we should be set.

I am, however, promising them coloring pages and apple cider either way, and they can dress up all they like here at home!

~~~

Another bit from this week's reading that immediately struck me, this time a section on the brown pelican from O'Dell's The Cruise of the Arctic Star, which we're reading for California geography/history this year:

"Two years ago when you sailed along this part of the coast early in the morning, you would always find them skimming the sea, ten or twelve birds in a flight.  They flew without moving their wings, in a long glide and one after the other, along the line of the surf where the waves were just beginning to crest, so close to the water that they were at times covered with spray, touching the water now and again with the tips of their wings, so close that you marveled that they did not crash.  It seemed that they were not searching for food, nor were they on their way anywhere.  It was a flight of pure joy."

See that line along the horizon?  We comment on them just about every time we're at the shore.  They fly in single file all morning long and are beautiful to watch.

~~~

The cold put me behind a bit in my nesting plans, but I did get my big project for this pregnancy finished and I couldn't be happier about it.  I spent a long day cleaning out the garage, really for the first time since we moved into this house four years ago.  My saintly husband, who always puts up with my crazy nesting schemes, pulled down just about everything from our storage shelves so that I could sort through them, took a huge load to the dump, pulled another couple loads of donations and recycle to the curb for pickup, and just generally served as my heavy lifter.  It feels like we cut the garage clutter by half and I am so happy every time I walk through there that I almost don't even care that I haven't done much else on my nesting list yet.

Almost.  I'm a bit behind, but now that I'm not sick, I'm back on the warpath!  This week: sewing Christmas gifts, preparing Italian activities for Terms 2 and 3, and going through the filing cabinets.  Wish me luck!

(I know I have quite a few pregnant friends right now: anyone else in crazy-nesting-energy mode?)

~~~

Have I mentioned Mother Mary Loyola?  Oh, I have?  Like a thousand times? 

Well, I can't help but mention her again!  We just began Hail Full of Grace for my 4th graders' spiritual reading for Term 2 and it's fantastic.  The introduction alone ignited my kids' excitement about our daily rosary, and they are highly anticipating our journey through her meditations on the mysteries.  As always, the depth of her insights on the topic are rich and her writing both simple and literary.  And it's the perfect length to enjoy over a school term.  

I also picked up Forgive Us Our Trespasses for this Lent, which should coincide nicely with our Term 3.

(By the way, you can also find her works free online also!)

~~~

I'll be back early tomorrow with this month's Keeping Company link-up.  Looking forward to chatting about notebooking with all of you!

{From My Commonplace}

"In a word, the nature and experience of things dictated to me upon just reflection that all the good things of this world are no farther good to us that they are for our use; and that whatever we may heap up indeed to give to others, we enjoy just as much as we can use, and no more.  I had now brought my state of life to be much easier in itself that it was at first and much easier to my mind, as well as to my body.  I frequently sat down to my meat with thankfulness and admired the hand of God's providence, which had thus spread my table in the wilderness ... and this gave me sometimes such secret comforts that I cannot express them; and which I take notice of here, to put those discontented people in mind of it who cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given them because they see and covet something that He has not given them.  All our discontents about what we want appeared to me to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have."

 -- from Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe

Keeping Company :: October Invitation

Hello, friends, and welcome to October!  Popping in to invite you once again to our monthly link-up for all Charlotte Mason-style notebooking.  As always, thanks so much to those of you who have contributed to our September collection!  And if you haven't yet, what are you waiting for? ;)

Monthly Feature

Last month, I asked about notebooks other than the "Big Three," and several of you shared some rich and fun student-led options that have served as fodder for my own creative planning...

Kristyn and Carol both shared their children's foreign language notebooks, one with younger students learning Spanish and one with older students learning French .

Spanish notebook from Beraca Valley Academy

French notebook from Journey and Destination

Speaking of foreign languages, the students at My Peace in the Puzzle have been busy with a creative approach to note-booking word roots.

Roots notebook from My Peace in the Puzzle

And for a look at how a student's passion can drive his Keeping, check out Barbara's son's World War I notebook.  It's brilliant work and just the kind of project I love to see spring from my own kids' interests!

WWI notebook from Maria Magdalena Academy

This Month's Optional Prompt

The change in seasons always makes me feel a bit introspective, so I thought I'd ask a more contemplative set of question this month for this so inclined.

What part of Keeping do you find the biggest challenge--either personally or in encouraging Keeping habits in your children?  What part do you find the most enjoyable?  And further, for those that have been Keeping for a while now: what is the biggest benefit you have found to your Keeping over the years?  What has been the hardest habit to form or maintain long-term?





I'll be back here next Tuesday, October 13th, to post this month's link-up.  Until then, feel free to add your posts on any Charlotte Mason-style notebooking topic to the September page!