The February Slump

It's February...that time of year when we are all tired of school! It seems like spring is a thousand years away and nothing will be fun ever again! I've been homeschoolig a long time and I'm no longer taken by surprise by mid-winter malaise. This year we have put Latin and Algebra in stasis and are reviewing Latin songs and prayers and the twins are doing the tests from Saxon Algebra by way of review as none of us can stand the thought of stuffing our brains with any more new concepts!!
Hopefully, we will be refreshed and ready to resume rigorous studies in March.

School Days

We've been hard at work here in Hobbiton. Working on the three L's--Latin, logic and logarithms. We've been studying plants and bugs including this dangerous and disgusting one that has taken up residence in the pond in the back yard. They have been eating our frogs and polliwogs. It squeaks when caught. (use gloves!!)We've been reading our way through Churchill's The Birth of Britain, The Brendan Voyage, and The Merchant of Venice. (I love the Ambleside site although I don't really follow it...)

I really like Traditional Logic
from Memoria Press. I bought the DVD's and we are moving along quite nicely. Although one of the hobbits will keep writing "sillygism".

Our days are also full of chopping wood, archery, nephew/grandbaby adoring, and of course lots of reading!

What we've been up to

We started school a few weeks ago and have been trying to establish a routine. It is going pretty well so far. We had a good routine going last year and it has been fairly easy to fall back into it. We are moving ahead in Latin with Latina Christiana II. I meant to add more English grammar but there doesn't seem to be enough time in the day so for now this will have to cover that too. I'm hoping to cover about 500 years of history--1500 to 2000--this year. However, the Renaissance is impossible to rush through! We'll see how it goes.
The high school years are looming ahead of me and I want to use as many of G.K. Chesterton's books on authors and saints as I can fit in. To that end we are reading (or are going to read) alot of Stevenson, and Dickens. Kipling, too. The hobbits are already familiar with St. Francis and St. Thomas Aquinas. And of course, Chesterton himself. More Father Brown, definitely and maybe some of his other fiction. Napoleon of Notting Hill perhaps. No point in over planning!!

Time passes....quickly

We've been busy this summer! Soccer followed baseball. We've been to the beach, the amusement park,and the water slide park. We've mowed alot of grass, pulled alot of weeds (not enough, though!). We've painted a room and shifted alot of furniture. We've read alot of books. We've played alot of high intensity capture the flag (with sword fighting and jousting included)with the neighbors. We've taken our turn at cleaning the church. (Alot more floor space to clean since they added that social hall!). We've hunted fireflies and shooting stars.

Now it's time to ease back into some education! After a few weeks with their peers, phrases such as "That is like way so cool!" have slipped into the hobbits day to day conversation. We are hoping to fix this by evening Shakespeare readings. (Dad is doing this with As You Like It. He is great at singing the songs!) And reading something other than the Percy Jackson series or Eragon. Wind in the Willows for Ken, Robert Louis Stevensen for the twins. Next week we will ad some math and latin review. Amo, amas, amat....

WWCT?

What would Chesterton think? Of the times? Of today's Church? I only wish he were here to say. But I'll assume he would tell me now to read Belloc for history and economics and himself for entertainment. I will read Belloc but I'll read GK for guidance as well and first up is The Napoleon of Notting Hill. I read this book on a camping trip recently and was delighted with it. I think it perfectly sums up the two side of GKC-- the slightly cynical, mostly jovial King and the idealistic, myopic young "Napoleon" who wants to re-instate the Middle ages. I would like to, also. I believe civilization peaked in the 13th century give or take a few decades. I can't replicate a scholastic education, I haven't the know-how for one thing and these times call for something different. What that something is for my family I am trying to develop. That it will center around Latin, the liturgical year and Medieval history is my beginning premise. I've run these ideas past my son, Sam, who just finished his first year of college. I wanted his input on whether this was just hiding our collective heads in the sand and I would be making my boys incapable of moving on to the "real" world. He said he didn't think so. "Keep them innocent as long as you can, Mom." I want them to know that once the world had morals even if it always had sinners, to have an idea of what we lost so that we at least know how disordered things are now and aren't like the frog on the stove becoming inured to hot water and slowly boiling to death.