Zoo

Yesterday was one of those absolutely perfect autumn days that we could not bare to face Latin declesions. So we headed to the zoo. And if my dial up wasn't so horribly slow I would post pictures!

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!!

The Very Quotable Charlotte Mason

I've been reading A Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason. I've dipped in to this book many times before but this is the first time I've attempted to read it cover to cover. I'm finding it irresistible. It accompanies me to the beach, to soccer. I'd take it shopping if I could. She is at her feisty best in this one. An example on a carefully prepared "child environment": "We had thought that the terrible succession of blows inflicted by the War had changed all that; but, no; the errors of education still hold sway and we still have amongst us the better-than-my-neighbor folk, whose function, let us hope, is to administer the benefits of adversity to most of us. What if parents and teachers in their zeal misread the schedule of their duties, magnified their office unduly and encroached upon the personality of children? It is not an environment that these want, a set of artificial relations carefully constructed, but an atmosphere which nobody has been at pains to constitute." Well, no fear of a carefully maintained environment here!

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....

Quiet Time

It is that time between -- baseball is over and soccer is yet to begin. We are all lost in the world of the Last Olympians.

Saint Anthony

All loving God,
You have given us St. Anthony,
the patron of the lost,
as an intercessor of those
who are in need of your mercy.
Listen to his voice as he calls
out to You on our behalf,
and grant those things which
will help us grow in Your love.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Cricket!

A commenter (you know who you are!) has suggested I don't know a bowler from a wicket keeper! I'll have you know I watch a lot of British TV!!! Doctor Who is a wicked good Cricket player! Actually, you're right. Baseball is confusing but Cricket is in a league of its own.