Ocular Athletics

It's been awhile but here is the return of Ocular Athletics.

A Pencil
by Ken

A pencil is very useful. For instance if no one invented pencils would I be writing this? Another example, if no one had invented pencils I'd have to do my math in pen so it would take up a lot more space, wouldn't it? You see, pencils are very useful.


Snow
by Joe

Snow is cold, wet, white, and needs to be shoveled. At the moment we have about 45" of the stuff and I am sore from shoveling it all. However, it is really fun to play in it. Sledding is my favorite but I actually use a snowboard without any straps instead of a sled. Snowflakes are about as big as this period . and it takes a large amount to get 45".


Play
by Adam

I find that the word play can mean several things. Play can just mean make believe, a child wandering off to his own favorite place, by himself or with another, it makes no difference. Play can also mean the absence of work to some, sitting on the couch not doing anything can be loosely defined as play to the practical mind.

All these points can be said to be true, especially the first one. But play, real play, is the simple joy of doing simple things. Say it's winter. You start out sledding, speeding down the hill as fast as you can. As the participants get bored with this and if there are no inadvertansome grownups around, sledding can quickly turn into speeding down the hill trying to break through the sled wall at the bottom. Which can't exactly be considered for its brilliance, but I must confess to finding it particularly enjoyable. This in turn will soon turn into a form of warfare game. Boys being what they are will probably get kind of rough, with much pushing, shoving, hearty laughter, and many awkward positions. It is not arranged this way. It's just the way it is . Play, real play, is such intense enjoyment that you stay out untill dark just doing the simplest things. That is real play.

What we've been doing

We've been hunting and Christmas shopping, baking and cooking and shoveling snow (lots of snow!)tending chickens ( we're even getting a couple of eggs already! My how those little chicks grew fast!) and sometimes we conjugate latin verbs and solve for X and try and figure out the Boer War. We also are reading the Iliad out loud. Try that sometime if you want to twist your toungue around all those Greek names. Truly gives new meaning to it's Greek to me!

Wild Geese

Wild Geese
by Elinor Chipp

I heard the wild geese flying
In the dead of the night,
With beat of wings and crying
I heard the wild geese flying.

And dreams in my heart sighing
Followed their northward flight.
I heard the wild geese flying
In the dead of the night.

Betsy-Tacy

Every now and then I visit the Bonny Glen to see what's up in literature. The hobbits and I get caught up in swash-buckling adventures and it is good sometimes to see what the gentler folk are reading. Or to put it another way--sometimes I want to read something girly. I participated in the Betsy-Tacy read last October without blogging about it and thoroughly enjoyed all the books from the beginning when Betsy-Tacy meet to Heavens to Betsy which gets her through her freshman year of high school. This year I am reading Betsy in Spite of Herself, Betsy was a Junior, and Betsy and Joe. If you would like to participate stop by the wonderfully named blog--A library is a hospital for the mind and sign up. Or just start reading! These are very sweet books and will have you making fudge and singing along at the piano (or wishing you were).

The School Year

It was a rocky start this year. It seemed every time we got a routine going it was interrupted. I know this is the theme for homeschooling but it was even worse than usual this year. Things have settled down a bit and this is how our weeks are going...
Everyday we do math and Latin. On Monday we do poetry; on Tuesday we do art and Botany and Earth Science; on Wednesday it's music and Nature study; on Thursday it's health; and Friday it's geography. On most days we read, have spelling lessons and try to cover some history. Missing this year is Ocular Athletics and we all miss it. so I'm trying to fit it in somewhere.
I'll be blogging in more detail about the different subjects. Some things are going really well,like geography, some things are endured like spelling and some things need serious adjustment like music (not our best subject unless you count memorizing the lyrics to Toby Keith's greatest hits---which I don't!!)

Salamander

Joe found this beauty yesterday...

Summer Drift/Poetry Monday

We wrapped up school at the end of May and spent two glorious months enjoying the best summer weather for the last few years. After two wet, rainy summers this one has been hot, mostly dry, with one beautiful sunny day following another. But then drift set in.. Our days languished... Hobbits grew bored... So I started school which surprisingly was well received and we have finished one week already and today is the first Poetry Monday of the new school year (we started last Tuesday).

Piping Down the Valleys Wild
By William Blake

Piping down the valleys wild,
Piping songs of pleasant glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:

"Pipe a song about a lamb!"
So I piped with merry cheer.
"Piper, pipe that song again";
So I piped: he wept to hear.

"Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe;
Sing thy songs of happy cheer!"
So I sang the same again.
While he wept with joy to hear.

"Piper, sit thee down and write
In a book that all may read."
So he vanished from my sight;
And I plucked a hollow reed.

And I made a rural pen,
And I stained the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs
Every child may joy to hear.