Poetry Monday

Summer Drought
by J.P. Irvine

Yet, ere the moon, as brass the heaven turns,
The cruel sun smites with unerring aim,
The sight and touch of all things blinds and burns,
And bare, hot hills seem shimmering into flame!

On outspread wings a hawk, far poised on high,
Quick swooping screams, and then is heard no more:
The strident shrilling of a locust nigh
Breaks forth, and dies in silence as before.


Note: I found this gem in the Hawk section of Comstock's Handbook of Nature Study.

Nature Study--Snapper

The boys found this guy (gal?) in the road this morning. Actually, I think it might be a female as I read that they tend to migrate a bit (for a turtle) to lay their eggs. We relocated her (him?) in the pond out back. I'll let you know if we have little turtles later!!

Poetic Knowledge Chapter Two/the second half

In this half of the chapter James Taylor wraps up his apologia for poetic knowledge. To be honest, it is pretty tough going in spots! But a few things resonated with me. This quote from page 31 states:"Unlike the scientific mode of learning that proposes methods and systems for acquiring knowledge, the tradition that has been thus far reviewed reveals rather a way of knowledge, like a path or winding road, with interesting detours off the road, more than the super highway of modern education." Now, this sounds like a discription of rabbit trails to me. I love rabbit trails...but I've learned to keep them to summer months or other slow learning times.What Melissa Wiley calls Tidal Homeschooling. This is in keeping with my mentor, Charlotte Mason's advice. In A Philosophy of Education she lays out some guidelines in the introduction that include," There is no selection of studies , or of passages or of episodes, on the ground of interest. The best available book is chosen and is read through perhaps in the course of two or three years." And also this," No stray lessons are given on interesting subjects; the knowledge the children get is consecutive." So in my homeschool I now resist rabbit trails and also stick to a slow schedule of reading. This is harder than it sounds because there is a great temptation to race through good books, and also to feel bogged down in a book, as in, will we be reading about the Kon-Tiki voyage forever?

But this quote from Poetic Knowledge seems to validate Miss Mason's curriuclum,"The pre-Christian audience of the Homeric and Virgilian epics and the unlettered peasants of the Christian pre-modern world could never have grasped, as they did, the spirtiual dimensions of the poets in the first case and the supernatural teaching of the apostles and disciples in the second, had they not already read deeply in the book of nature." I chose to believe this gives me licsence to take time off when the weather or the mood (oh, but don't call it a rabbit trail!) hits us to tramp outside for nature study. It is the keystone to all learning!

James Taylor goes on to discribe monastic learning and this quote about Saint Thomas Aquinas struck me,"Certainly to be considered is the fact that Thomas was placed with the Benedictines of Monte Cassino at an early age. This would have been largely a musical education in all the respects spoken of by Socrates. Music was all the monks taught young boys, the Latin and chant of the schola cantorum, a school of song drawn from Psalms and history of the Old Testament..." I confess, here is an area where I feel our homeschool is realy lacking. We dabble in singing folksongs and the odd Latin chant but it has no consitency. My music ability is sadly non existant and I never could go much beyond F A C E or E G B D F in reading music, so this beyond my ability to teach. The hobbits have chosen sports over music lessons so I have to let this subject go. Alas.

Salamander

Joe found this beauty yesterday...

Moonflowers

We're shifting gears a little here at the Hobbit homeschool. Baseball is finished for the year and soccer has begun.(Soccer is much more low key!! No travelling to games!!)School paperwork is in the future. So is canning tomatoes. I guess I could be weeding but I'm going to pour myself a glass of iced tea, sit on the deck, and read Planet Narnia by Michael Ward It has been a lovely summer so far. And the moonflowers are blooming!

My Family and Other Animals

This is the best read aloud for boys who think they are too old for read alouds! It's great for summer too. This is my second time reading this one aloud...I only hope I retain my composure during the part about Widdle and Puke better than I did last time!

Tale of a Monarch

We found a Monarch caterpillar early in October quietly munching milkweed on the edge of our church parking lot. This was pretty late in the season but we took him in and fed him fresh milkweed and waited for the amazing transformation from pretty caterpillar to stunning chrysalis. And waited and waited. And finally he morphed. But still he didn't hatch for weeks not the usual 10 or so days. We really gave up on him. But low and behold one day he split his chrysalis and emerged. It was snowing! So we brought in a potted mum and resigned ourselves to letting him live out his short life in the house. But luck was with our little friend and we had a span of absolutely lovely November weather and we released our Monarch into the wild.

Nature Lover's Book

This was an impulse purchase last Autumn when I saw it at The Bookworm. It's a beautiful book and my only quibble is there is not an illustration for every flower like there is for birds and trees...and the illustrations could be in color but other than that it is delightful and I've been waiting for January to start using it for nature study. Today is the day, cold and rainy but not snowy so we can see what there is to see growing in the yard. We had a thaw before Christmas and our 146 inches of snow compacted into about 6 inches of crust so the walking was easy. We didn't find too much growing....some strawberries were bravely showing through the snow and Joe spotted a squirrel's nest high up in a beech tree. It was fun and we came in and had cocoa in front of a roaring fire. Just the thing for January blues.