Hobbits to House Elves

The hobbits have been transformed into house elves this week and have been very busy cleaning, baking, decorating and shoveling snow! We went to confession last night so even our insides are ready for the coming of the Christ child. Merry Christmas!

A Christmas Carol by G.K.Chesterton

The Christ-child lay on Mary's lap,
His Hair was like a light.
(O Weary, Weary were the world,
But here is all aright.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary's breast,
His hair was like a star.
(O stern and cunning are the Kings,
But here the true hearts are.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary's heart,
His hair was like a fire.
(O Weary, Weary is the world,
But here the world's desire.)

The Christ-child stood at Mary's knee,
His hair was like a crown,
And all the flowers looked up at Him,
And all the stars looked down.

Our Mr. Chesterton

This post by The Blue Boar reminded me of the first time I read The Ballad of the White Horse. It was a few years ago and the littlest hobbit was only 5. I was multi-tasking, as usual, and while waiting for his older brothers to finish their Tae Kwon Do lesson I was reading the ballad in the hopes of keeping up with my highschooler and having a rousing literary discussion later. Little Hobbit was bored so I started reading outloud to him. He was enthralled! That night at bedtime he asked for the ballad instead of stories. It took a couple of days but we made it through the whole poem and twin hobbits joined us. Baby Chestertonians were born!

Narration

The littlest hobbit is making fine progress in written narration. We have been reading Padraic Collum's Trojan War. Here is his first narration:
Odysseus was king of Ithaca. He was quite content in Ithaca. He got a message from Agamemnon that said,"Help me fight Troy!" Odysseus did not want to fight Troy so he yoked an ass and an ox and plowed a field. The messenger thought he was mad so he put Odysseus's son, Telemachus, in front of the plow. Odysseus steered out of the way proving he was not mad.

Here is the latest one: Menalaus told Telemachus that after the seige of Troy he had been stuck on the island of Pharos for many days. But a nymph came and told them how to catch the old man of the sea. When the sun is at its highest he comes up on the beach and counts the seals that come up to him. If there are one too many or one one not enough he will not go to sleep. If there are just enough, he will go to sleep. You must pick the three of your men that you trust the most and meet me at dawn. So he did what the nymph had said. At dawn the nymph came out of the sea and dug four holes and Menalaus and his three companions lay in the holes and covered themselves with seal skins. The old man of the sea came up and counted all the seals and went to sleep. Menalaus grabbed him and seeing that he could not get away he answered all of Menalus questions.

This was hurriedly finished after a solid 30 minutes of writing and I told him to get a move on. Short lessons, you know? I'm sorry I stopped him now!

Ocular Athletics

A Ruler by Joe

A ruler has 12 inches on one side and 30 centimeters on the other. (If you want to you can use millimeters which are about this long -). centimeters or cm are half an inch long and an inch is about this long -------. I use rulers to draw sword blades which is my hobby, other than getting hurt by my twin brother.

Comparing my Cats by Adam

I should have made cats singular because my family really only owns one cat, Frodo and Mooch came mooching around. Mooch and Frodo do have a cat scuffle every now and then. Mooch is pretty much the exact opposite of Frodo. Mooch is skinny, Frodo is nice and fat. Frodo is orange with tan stripes not unlike a tiger, while Mooch is gray with a black back and stripes on his sides. Frodo was really nice when Mooch wandered in. Now Mooch is as snug as a bug in a rug in Frodo's spot. So naturally, they had a fight. It was hard to say who won because we broke them up, but Mooch has been following Frodo around picking fights. I have thought to the extent of my capability (which is not much) and I can't think of any thing else to write about cats. I don't even seem capable of an ending sentence. So I will end with a plea for more ideas.

Ocular Athletics

A Lego
by Joe

Today I am writing about a lego. There are many types of legos. I am writing about the most common, an eight dot brick. This type of lego has two rows of four dots. It is about one centimeter tall and one and a half inches wide and half an inch thick. On the bottom are three holes big enough for a dot to go into. You use them for building things like towers, spaceships, cars, etc. I like to build spaceships and boats. Right now, I am building a ship.


A Dog
by Adam

A dog is man's best friend as you probably know if you have one. It can be a life saver, a friend to play with, or a guard, although I would not train it to be a guard. A dog needs company, it needs people around. If it is not treated carefully it becomes mean and will bite. So treat a like like a friend you can play with. There are hundreds of different kinds of dogs from the St. Bernard to a poodle. People often say a dog is the mortal enemy of a cat but that is not true. My dog, who is a Golden Retriever and very playful,(although a little lazy because we don't take him out enough)and named Zeus and the cat, Frodo get along very well. In fact, they are the best of chums. I wish I could say that Frodo was our friend too but he seems to have a cold heart for everyone except Zeus. Most dogs are worth having around. Do you have one? If you don't, bring the topic up with your mom or dad. They may want one too. I will see you next time I do a report. I may do cats or maybe something much more complicated. Until then, see you.

What's working

I just finished the quarterly report required in New York State and so this seems like a good time to review and see what is working. Surprisingly, quite a lot. There has been significant tweaking done since this post but not as much as some years.
The self propelled Bible study never got off the ground and the twins are working through Bible History by Johnson,Hannan,and Dominica and Ken is reading The New Catholic Picture Bible. The rest of the religion outline is working although we are behind with The Adventure of the Amethyst. The boys love this book and sit rapt every morning as I read aloud the further adventures of the Lovell children. Today the older three were baptized. (the youngest was baptized earlier during an illness). Tomorrow--First Holy Communion. As converts ourselves this book really hits home and also the children ask the real questions of their friend the Bishop that my boys would ask. Is it a sin to spit in your brother's bath water? Are all Christians Catholic? Is there any salvation outside of the Church and what is hell really like? (Tough one). This book is great and we are loving it.
Latin is going well and I have resisted tweaking here. We are on lesson 16 of Latina Christiana (second conjugation!). Lingua Mater didn't make it though. The twins just aren't ready for a composition course yet. Instead we are working through the writing part of Voyages in English 7. Today they gave talks they had written on how to tie knots. For some reason I can't fathom they are not giving me any grief about this. We are also continuing Poetry Monday (copying of poetry into a lesson book, memorization optional)Ocular Athletic Thursday, and narration Friday (they are narrating The Trojan War and Adventures of Odysseus by Padric Collum--even Ken). Spelling is going amazingly well with the Seton workbooks and awhile back the boys declared spelling their favorite subject. I guess that fit I pitched was for nothing.
Math was switched to Saxon 7/6 as less confusing and time consumming. Ken is reviewing 3rd grade math with the new Seton Math 3. He likes that book so much he has been seen to pat it. I think it is the art work but he likes that it only does one thing a day. I didn't realize that the Saxon method of doing several math topics a day was confusing him. String, Staightedge and Shadow is going well and we read from it once a week.
History has completely changed. The Old World and America just didn't cut it here and we are now using The Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer. This is really sticking--Joe aced all the ancient history on Jeapordy a couple of nights ago. Okay, it was teen Jeapardy but still, he's only twelve!
So, thanks mostly to Seton workbooks (I can't believe I'm typing this!)this year is going very well and another benefit has been that after this week's stomach bug everything just fell back into routine. There was a routine to fall back into!

Ocular Athletics

A Sword by Adam

A sword is one of man's deadliest weapons. They all have a blade, most have a sharp point for stabbing. Others have curved blades for slashing. Those are the two basic styles. Other swords are straight with zigzag patterns for cutting. Others, like the Greek sword, are short with curved sides. And finally, the Japanese Kitana:curved blade then straightens to form a stabbing tip. The handle helps you weald the blade accurately and comfortably. Guards across most sword blades creates protection for your hands. All these added together makes man's most deadly weapons. All through the ages mankind has updated the sword with stronger metal and better balance. It takes months to make a sword and much care and a lot of devotion to make a good one. Swords now have been replaced with guns but I will miss swords.

NB: This came with many illustrations of the type of swords discribed.

And for something completely different---

Rosary by Joe

A rosary is a thing to keep track of your prayers. A rosary has 59 beads, 53 Hail Mary beads, 5 Glory Be/Our Father beads, and one just Our Father bead. Rosaries always have one Crucifix and one image of Mary on them, The Crucifix is always on the end of the rosary and the image of Mary is always five beads before the Crucifix. My rosary is black with a cup with a piece of bread in it. The bread has 3 letters--IHS.