{This and That}

First, some exciting news: Amy Snell and I are teaming up again in Philadelphia this July: we'll be the speakers once again for the annual CMEC summer retreat! Last year's event was the highlight of my summer, so I am thrilled to be heading back.

This year's theme is "The Beautiful Person Within: A Living Approach to Character Formation." We will be considering the formation of character from many angles, both practical and philosophical. How does the curriculum itself -- the feast, the structure of the lesson, the methods Mason used -- have character-formation built right into it? What role do notebooks play in that process? What does Mason ask of us as mothers: when is the time for direct instruction, when is the time for us to stand aside, when do we need to model by our own good habits? How do the Way of the Will and the Way of Reason combine toward virtue? How do we leverage the atmosphere of the home in raising children? We'll be talking about Citizenship, including immersion lessons for Mason's Ourselves and for Plutarch. We will offer hands-on workshops on habit training in both the early years AND in the upper years. Interspersed, there will be mini-immersions in drill, poetry, singing, and more. Afternoons will include brush-drawing lessons and a handicraft project, and we'll enjoy dinner together with a stimulating evening lecture and lots of time for fellowship.

We have already begun preparing our talks -- completely new content! -- and are so excited about this rich theme that gets to the heart of our desires for our children. I have already learned so much.

Registration is now open! If you are on the East Coast (or even if you aren't 😉), I hope you'll join us!  More here: CMEC 2019 Annual Summer Retreat.

(In case you are interested: the talks from last year are still available for purchase here. We think of this year's program as completely fresh and yet in some ways of a continuation of some of the ideas we introduced last summer.)

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Next week is our last week of school! We're doing a slightly-short Term 3, then Exams during Holy Week and then we'll be done for the year. It's perfect timing, because I'm heading to Motherwell on Easter Wednesday. It will be nice to have things pretty much wrapped up before leaving town. When I get home, I'll do a few days of reflection, then file our paperwork for the term and finalize summer plans. We all have lots of projects we want to work on, so I don't think we're going to have any trouble at all staying busy! In the midst of that, I'm planning to get a wrap-up post on this past school year here.

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We just finished the last of the second-year projects in Paper Sloyd for Primary Grades. We'll be stopping here for the year, then move on to the third-year projects next year. (You can see where I talk about sloyd here.)

The last project was a bit of a mystery. It was called a "Pen Box" but as you can see, was a tad too small for pens! Gianna thought perhaps it was meant for pen nibs for fountain pens. We have those too, but instead the kids tucked these into their sewing kits for bits and bobs. They close very snugly and stay closed thanks to that lip around the inside. (The instruction for that lip, in fact, were surprisingly vague. But we figured it out and are pleased with the results!)

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Guess who got glasses?

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Friends that lend books are the best friends... Sarah Kim of the fantastic Reshelving Alexandria is letting us borrow her (signed!) copy of Squanto this term since Xavier is in AO Year 3. I did The Landing of the Pilgrims with all my other children, but now that we have this one, everyone is listening in and loving it. So engaging.

Can you tell he was super excited to start it? He painted this card for me to show her when we did the hand-off.

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Ever since the time change (gah!), Damien has been waking up super early in the mornings. I used to wake at 6 for a half hour of free time before he would reliably wake up at 6:30, but it has been earlier for him now, so I have been dialing back my wake-up time to get some quiet in. It has been a bit rough. But I'm grateful this stage is coinciding with the end of our school year. I find it easier to wake up when I'm jumping right into a project of choice rather than lessons.

(Note: he sleeps through the night, so it's just a matter of getting into a new habit and not a matter of losing sleep. Otherwise, I would definitely be sleeping in guilt-free!)

The cutenss of these two makes up for the early mornings, though. They puff out their cheeks and pretend to be puppies, demanding that I pet them and let them crawl all over me. Deal!

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This girl has really hit her stride in reading aloud. She has been getting lots of practice: it seems like every time I turn around she has a captive audience of a sibling or two...or three!

The book of choice last week was The Trumpet of the Swan. Several passages made their way into her Commonplace Book!

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I'll be back early next week with some Holy Week and Easter reflections -- including our liturgical living plans and Easter basket ideas!  See you then.