language & literature

potw: i like to see

Posted by on Nov 14, 2011 in homeschooling, language & literature, poem of the week | Comments Off

potw: i like to see

This poem is so Fisher. He would live outside exploring, discovering, and pretending, if only I would let him. But nothing compares to that moment when his papa gets home. Fisher’s devotion is completely focused on his papa and nothing else can take Richard’s place. He follows him around like a little lost puppy ready and willing to do anything his papa asks. It is pretty heart-warming, but I must admit, I sometimes wish I could get the same level of devotion! I like to see flowers...

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fiar: the clown of God

Posted by on Nov 10, 2011 in FIAR, homeschooling, language & literature, pics | Comments Off

fiar: the clown of God

Fisher and I are reading The Clown of God by Tomie de Paulo this week. Tomie is one of our favorite authors. If you haven’t read The Art Lesson and Nana Upstairs, Nana Downstairs, run to your nearest library and check them out today! They are such lovely ways to connect big ideas into our little ones’ hearts. So far, we have we learned how to say “arrivederci” and that it means “till we meet again” in Italian. Ironically, he can say it pretty well! We have...

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potw: my friend the monster

Posted by on Nov 7, 2011 in homeschooling, language & literature, poem of the week | 1 comment

Our poem this week is taken from Favorite Family Devotional Poems by LaDawn Jacob, one of our absolute favorite poem books (unfortunately it has been lost for awhile!). My Friend The Monster by Janet R. Balmforth Our vacuum is a monster Who gobbles up the dirt. He gulps up paper, strings, and grass As if they were dessert. He pokes his nose in corners And under every chair, And all the little cookie crumbs Had better just beware! He roars across the carpet And flips his tail behind; Then...

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phonics

Posted by on Nov 1, 2011 in homeschooling, language & literature | 14 comments

I am a big fan of phonics. In the how-to-teach-reading-wars, I side firmly on the side of phonics. I have spent many hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours studying phonics, whole-language, The Spaulding method, The Charlotte Mason method, the Hopkins method, and a gazillion other methods. I love phonics…but they don’t always work. I taught Blythe phonics when she was three and four. She could look at any letter and tell you what it said and what the rules were governing that...

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copywork notebooks

Posted by on Oct 25, 2011 in homeschooling, language & literature | Comments Off

As we finished up The Phantom Tollbooth, there was a goldmine of quotes I wanted to impress upon our hearts. I had the thought “we can’t let these get away”, so I decided we are each going to have a copywork notebook where we write down in our best handwriting a quote of the day. Each day a different person will get to share a meaningful quote or scripture and then we will write it down in our notebooks. I will write it down on our dry-erase board in the morning and we can...

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fiar: how to make an apple pie

Posted by on Oct 24, 2011 in books, FIAR, history & geography, homeschooling, language & literature | 6 comments

fiar: how to make an apple pie

Our FIAR book of the week is How To Make An Apple Pie and See The World by Marjorie Priceman. Fisher and I are in love. The market is closed so the girl must travel the world to find her apple pie making ingredients. She traveled to Italy to find wheat for the flour, France for elegant chickens to lay the best eggs, Sri Lanka to find kurundu bark for the cinnamon, England for a cow with the creamiest milk, Jamaica for sugar cane, and Vermont for apples. What a trip! Then we finished off the...

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book bonanza: the phantom tollbooth

Posted by on Oct 18, 2011 in book bonanzas, homeschooling, language & literature, something to ponder | 2 comments

We started this book as a family read-aloud eons ago. It has taken us fffffoooooorrrrrrrreeeeeevvvvveeeeerrrrrrrrrr to get through it. I don’t know why exactly. We have all thoroughly enjoyed it. It is hilarious. It has humor that made Richard laugh so hard he cried. It has math and language and culture and human nature and so much more. It still took us forever…actually we still aren’t done. We have two more chapters, but we are determined to finish in the next few...

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potw: comfortable old chair

Posted by on Oct 17, 2011 in homeschooling, language & literature, poem of the week | 5 comments

Our poem this week is taken from Climb Into My Lap: First Poems to Read Together. “On Top of Spaghetti” was from this collection also. I remember reading oodles of books each week while curled up in our tan recliner. I would read and read and read some more. I read so much my mom would say “Why can’t you be normal and watch TV or something?” I still read a lot, to myself and to my children, and I’m still not normal, so nothing has changed all that much....

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potw: try, try again

Posted by on Oct 10, 2011 in homeschooling, language & literature, poem of the week | Comments Off

My house is still sleeping. I wish I was, but I am up working on Make It For Maggie and planning out our learning time for the next few days. I should have made my plans yesterday, but I was too tuckered out from a 3 AM Make It For Maggie working session with Kat on Saturday night to be able to think straight. I did teach my lesson at church and I did fellowship my fellow church-goers, but that is all I was able to do…the rest of the day was spent in a non-thinking mode! Sometimes, some...

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book bonanza: nobody rides the unicorn

Posted by on Oct 4, 2011 in birthdays, book bonanzas, children, homeschooling, language & literature | Comments Off

Keziah’s birthday book this year is Nobody Rides the Unicorn. It is about an orphaned, servant girl who is tricked into beguiling a unicorn so the king can capture it. She is outraged that she has been used to commit this evil act and by risking her life, she sets the unicorn free. I love the courage the young girl shows and her determination to do right no matter the cost to herself. The artwork is soft and lovely. I hope Keziah treasures it. It must be out of print or something because...

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