Saturday, March 30, 2013

Dollygirl's Grade Six: School Plans This Week

The first week of Term Three--a four-day week because of Easter Monday.  "Afternoon work" includes reading time (including poetry); all art lessons including drawing, calligraphy techniques, and picture study; composer study; time for composition; crafts and skills (including workshop time with Dad); outdoor time; work in ongoing notebooks or "people pages."  Swimming lessons are Monday nights.

The biggest change in this schedule is that almost all the read-aloud books (the "'fun" ones such as Fellowship of the Ring; the retelling of The Aeneid; and the poetry), plus writing (compositions) and fine arts subjects, are unscheduled and have to wait for the afternoons.  This is both a good and a bad thing:  good because it's flexible, but bad because we have to make sure they get done and that everybody doesn't go off to do something else.  I'm writing in a tentative plan for this week's afternoon work.

If this schedule doesn't work well, I'll re-integrate the afternoon subjects.


New Testament (20 minutes):  "The Journey Northward," two printed-out pages from Saviour of the World (photo:  Mount Hermon)

Arithmetic (30 minutes):  review work this week, because we won't have the new books (Key to Percents) until the conference this weekend.  We might use Clue Finders 5th Grade Adventures.

Natural history (30 minutes):  "A Piece of Coal"

Singing, break  (total 30 minutes)

Memory work  (10 minutes):  begin working on a poem

History (20 minutes):  Story of Greece, "The March of the Ten Thousand"

"Writing" (copywork) (10 minutes)

French (30 minutes or as decided)

Afternoon work:  Picture study; readalouds; written work;  outdoor time weather permitting


Natural history  (20 minutes):  Stars and Planets (read and narrate)

History (30 minutes):  Augustus Caesar's World, "Out of Persia," pg 170-174

Studied dictation (30 minutes allowed for study and then writing)

"Drill"  and break  (30 minutes allowed)

Memory work

Geography (20 minutes):  Study of Cornwall.  Map questions to be answered and places to be marked on outline map before reading.

Writing (copywork)


Afternoon work:   Volunteering at thrift store


Old Testament:  readings from The Book of Adam to Moses, "with necessary omissions"


Grammar (30 minutes allowed):  Continue with "Case closed," and maybe do a fun activity too

French songs, break  (30 minutes total)

Memory work

History (20 minutes):  Story of Greece

Writing (copywork)

Shakespeare play (30 minutes)

Afternoon work:  Composer study; readalouds;  introduction to calligraphy techniques


New Testament:  two printed-out pages from Saviour of the World


Cititzenship (30 minutes):  start book about Winston Churchill, Never Give In

"Drill", break (total 30 minutes)

Dictation  (unprepared--10 minutes allowed)

Grammar (20 minutes):  How to Speak Politely


Singing and Memory Work  (30 minutes total)

Afternoon work: Art time; readalouds; short calligraphy practice time; writing assignments; plus discussion of "weekend reading" and personal Bible study.


Mom goes off to play.

Friday, March 29, 2013

Good Friday: of grief, loss, and flattened faith

I recently read a Globe and Mail essay that left me both aching for one hurting soul...and wondering how Jesus would respond to his pain. 

Basically the author is saying that although he believed that his Christian faith was solid, he got the wind so knocked out of him by the senseless death of his mentor that, within another year or so, he had "stopped" being a Christian.

I don't know this person, so I can't guess how deep his faith went, or the amount of grief he had to deal with.

But if the same logic applied to all Christian believers, then there would have been no Christian believers.  Ever.  Because that's exactly what happened on Good Friday.

Of course the disciples had the Resurrection to boost them up, a few days later, just as we have the promise of eternal life.  But all the same, would they ever forget the grief, failure, abandonment, betrayal that that Friday meant?  Yes, they saw Jesus alive--but did that end all their questions about the God who allowed His Son to suffer? 

If the same logic applied to me, my faith would probably either have been still-born...or killed off as well.  In some ways, it has died, more than once, through sin, stupidity, apathy, failure, disappointment, discouragement, betrayal.  (Sometimes other people's, sometimes mine.)  Every time we've had to make the decision to leave a church, some of my belief in God's people has been shaken.  I've seen Christians I trusted charged with criminal acts.  I've known others who should have been and weren't--which was worse.  I've seen Christian marriages, those that were an example to me, fall apart because of addictions; and ministries break apart over greed and power struggles.  I've often felt, like the author of the essay, that if we lose whatever or whoever most symbolizes Christ to us, then is there a point to continuing?

It seems that the body of Christ, once again, failed to see, to offer support and help where it was most needed...or maybe it was there, and this grieving Christian just didn't see it or couldn't receive it.  I don't know.  But even when the last friend has gone, the last mentor or reason to stay in the church has been taken--each Christian is still on his or her own journey.  Whether with welcome (or unwelcome) company, or alone for a stretch, the road is our own.  If that sounds like something from The Pilgrim's Progress, that's exactly what's on my mind, because that "Christian" had a mentor and best friend senselessly taken from him as well...and yet he continued on, I think, in part, to honour the memory of one he had loved.  And for a much greater reason: because it was his journey.
They therefore brought [Faithful] out to do with him according to their law; and first they scourged him, they they buffeted him, then they lanced his flesh with knives; after that, they stoned him with stones, then pricked him with their swords, and last of all, they burned him to ashes at the stake.  Thus came Faithful to his end.

Now, I saw that there stood behind the multitude a chariot and a couple of horses waiting for Faithful, who (so soon as his adversaries had dispatched him) was taken up into it, and straightway was carried up through the clouds with sound of trumpet the nearest way to the Celestial Gate.  But as for Christian, he had some respite, and was remanded back to prison; so he there remained for a space.  But He who overrules all things, having the power of their rage in His own hand, so wrought it about that Christian for that time escaped them, and went his way.  And as he went, he sang, saying:

"Well, Faithful, thou has faithfully professed
Unto thy Lord, with whom thou shalt be blest.
When faithless ones, with all their vain delights,
Are crying out under their hellish plights.
Sing, Faithful, sing, and let thy name survive;

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Exam responses: Bilbo's Party

Book studied:  The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien

1. Write about Bilbo’s eleventy-first birthday party!

Everyone in the Shire was going to come; it was going to be one of the biggest celebrations in years! Everybody loved Bilbo’s birthday parties; he always had the best games, decorations, food, and PRESENTS! And so, the day of the party came, all of the hundreds of guests were there (they wouldn’t miss it for the world), and they had lined up outside of Bilbo’s cozy little Hobbit hole. Bilbo came outside, and started distributing the presents. Several Hobbits kept coming back for more and more presents! And then the feasting started. And Bilbo stood up to make his speech. He said a few kind words, and then he said “Well, you were nice to know, bye!” and vanished! What he had really done was slipped on his ring with his “Bye!”, but everybody was chattering about it the whole evening!

Exam responses: Archimedes' War Machines

Book studied:  Archimedes and the Door of Science, by Jeanne Bendick

1. Tell all you know about Archimedes’ war machines.

Archimedes liked using science for nice purposes. He hated war. So when the king asked him to make war machines, he said he wouldn’t. Eventually they wore him down though. So Archimedes made war machines, and he taught men how to use them for several years. Then finally one day came when they were attacked. There was great pandemonium throughout the city. So Archimedes set up his machines, and put them to use. There was a claw that picked ships up and shook them around like they were toys, and so many more. So in that way the enemy retreated and the Syracusens were safe.

Exam responses: Antony, Cleopatra, and Herod

From Dollygirl's spring exams (as written, uncorrected).  Book studied:  Augustus Caesar's World, by Genevieve Foster.

1. Tell the story of Antony’s meeting with Cleopatra.

One day Cleopatra sailed over to see Antony. She invited him to dinner. So he came sailing over, and found that she had prepared a feast for him! So after he had come over a couple times he came one night and found a feast like no other! During that feast Cleopatra took a pearl off of her necklace and dropped it in her golden goblet of wine. It melted, and Antony and all of the other guests stared at her. Antony thought it was amazing that she could be so rich!

2. Tell what you know of Herod.

When Antony left, Herod came rushing into Cleopatra house, “I must see Antony!” he cried. “What is the matter?” Cleopatra asked, “Antony’s gone!” Herod was very upset. So he told Cleopatra his story. His land had been invaded and the high priest’s ear had been cut off. He had to see Antony! So finally after much traveling he came running into where Antony was staying. “Herod, what in the world are you doing here?” asked Antony in bewilderment. Herod hurriedly told Antony his situation. Antony finally told him that he could rule over Judea.

Up in a tree: Dollygirl's exam response

This is Dollygirl's illustration (done in Paint) of Miss Dunbar, the tree-climbing governess in Crystal Mountain.  Right now she is doing some deep thinking with her hat over her face.

Dollygirl's Grade Six: More spring term plans posted (and a quiz)

For those of you checking in by reader, I wanted to let you know that I've posted pages on "A Piece of Coal", a chapter from The Fairy-Land of Science; and on the pieces of music we'll be using for a study of Handel.  The Coal page has a little coal-in-literature quiz I made up--want to try it?

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Easter things to make (food and crafts)

Well, at the Treehouse there are always Kiffle.

And maybe Coconut Chicks, though probably not this year.

I like the Easter Cross Centerpieces at Mad in Crafts.









The sentence below shows you why


Loeb Classical Library, 1920, by Bernadotte Perrin:


Quote for the day: In defense of reluctant writers

From Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene (1906), by G. Stanley Hall, , Ph.D., LL.D., President of Clark University and Professor of Psychology And Pedagogy 
Closely connected with this, and perhaps psychologically worse, is the substitution of the pen and the scribbling fingers for the mouth and tongue. Speech is directly to and from the soul. Writing, the deliberation of which fits age better than youth, slows down its impetuosity many fold, and is in every way farther removed from vocal utterance than is the eye from the ear. Never have there been so many pounds of paper, so many pencils, and such excessive scribbling as in the calamopapyrus [Pen-paper] pedagogy of to-day and in this country.  Not only has the daily theme spread as infection, but the daily lesson is now extracted through the point of a pencil instead of from the mouth. The tongue rests and the curve of writer's cramp takes a sharp turn upward, as if we were making scribes, reporters, and proof-readers. In some schools, teachers seem to be conducting correspondence classes with their own pupils. It all makes excellent busy work, keeps the pupils quiet and orderly, and allows the school output to be quantified, and some of it gives time for more care in the choice of words. But is it a gain to substitute a letter for a visit, to try to give written precedence over spoken forms? Here again we violate the great law that the child repeats the history of the race, and that, from the larger historic standpoint, writing as a mode of utterance is only the latest fashion.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Sigurd the Volsung and Charlotte Mason


I mean, this is Cinderella.  Right?
This is Peter Pan.
And this is Ambleside Online's recommended edition of Pinocchio.

Or maybe this?
All right, let's be serious.



Then I looked at the Longman's edition on  It's from a series called Longman's Class-Books of English Literature.  The title page explains it all:  "With portions condensed into prose by Winifred Turner, B.A., and Helen Scott, M.A."


All right--that we could do.

                    *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
How he wakened Love on the Mountain, and wakened Brynhild the

And the latter world's confusion, and Sigurd gone away.

Dante Quote for the Day

From The Divine Comedy: III. Paradise, Canto V, translated by Dorothy L. Sayers and Barbara Reynolds.  Beatrice describes two cases of misguided men (Jepthah, in the Old Testament, and Agamemnon) who, by keeping their vows, caused grief.  She warns, "Keep your oath / But not with stubborn wall-eyed foolishness."  Then she goes on to say:

Christians, be steadier in what you do,
Not blown like feathers at the wind's discretion,
Nor think that every water cleanses you;

You have both Testaments in your possession,
You have the Shepherd of the Church for guide;
So let these things suffice for your salvation...

Behave like men, and not like witless sheep...

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Some weekend thinking: from Dante's Paradise

From Dorothy L. Sayers' translation of The Divine Comedy, III: Paradise, Canto IV.  Dante has been questioning Beatrice, his conductress through the heavenly realm, about some of the things he has seen so far.  Sudddenly it makes sense to him, and he bursts into thanks.

My love's whole store is too diminutive,
Too poor in thanks to give back grace for grace;
May He that sees, and has the power, so give!

That nothing save the light of truth allays
Our intellect's disquiet I now see plain--
God's truth, which holds all truth within its rays.

Intellect, like a wild thing in its den,
When it has run and reached it, there can rest,
As reach it must, else all desire were vain.

Hence, at the foot of truth, the undying quest
Springs like a shoot, and doubt is still the lure
That speeds us toward the height from crest to crest.

Dollygirl's Grade Six: Term Two exam questions

Bible and Christian Studies

1. Say or sing as much of the Apostles’ Creed as you can. What does it mean to say that God is “our Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth?”
2. God’s Smuggler: Tell about a) the time that Brother Andrew met with a pastor in Eastern Europe but had no interpreter, or b) one of his other adventures.

Dictation (unprepared): to be assigned.


A) Choose one of the following scenes from The Fellowship of the Ring and write an account of it for one character’s diary—your choice whose.
1. Bilbo’s eleventy-first birthday party.
2. The reunion of Bilbo and Frodo at Rivendell
3. The meeting with Tom Bombadil

B) Crystal Mountain: Describe, in written form OR as an illustration, one of the scenes featuring Miss Dunbar.


B)  The Pushcart War:  Describe, in written form OR as an illustration, one of the scenes featuring Frank the Flower.

English Grammar

1. How many cases does English have? Give two examples of the nominative case (write sentences and mark the words in the nominative case).
2. Explain what is wrong with: “The two of us, Abby and me, were born on the same day.”


1. Tell a) the story of Themistocles’ meeting with King Artaxerxes, or b) Antony’s meeting (holiday) with Cleopatra.
2. Tell what you know of a) Herod, b) the Aeneid.
3.  You are a Spartan visiting Athens, during the Golden Age.  What things about this city (what it looks like, how people live) are different from your own?  Which would you prefer?

Natural History and General Science

1. Tell all you know about a) Archimedes’ war machines (used to defend Syracuse against the Romans), or b) how Archimedes solved the question of King Hiero’s crown.
2. Tell what you know of a) the uses of a hydrometer, b) the center of gravity (e.g. of a long board or a spoon).
3. Tell all you know of the life story of a primrose. Include as many parts of the plant as you can.


1. How did most people traditionally make a living? What was the “prosperous employee model,” and how did it change peoples’ lives? OR, What are some things you need to study or learn about if you want to have a successful business someday?


1. Find the average of 87, 76, 91, and 79, rounded off to the nearest whole number.
2. Write in scientific notation: a) 3,200,000 b) 0.0871
3. Crissy bought 4 posters for $13.50. Find the cost of each poster, to the nearest cent.

French (oral)

1. Give the French for a donkey, the horse, the fish, a long neck.
2. Use in sentences: “je veux,” le cavalier, le train.
3. Explain this sentence from Le Voyage de Monsieur Perrichon: “C'est toujours comme ça quand elle n'a pas pris son café.”


You have been assigned a paper-flower-making table at VBS. What supplies will you need? What steps will the flower-makers need to follow?

Sheila Burnford Quote for the Day (last one): No Little People?

From The Fields of Noon, by Sheila Burnford, 1964.  In "Pas Devant le Chien," Sheila and her daughter inadvertently convinced their dog (really, just don't ask) that there was a little man living inside the workroom heater, and this has turned into a problem--the dog is obsessed, can't sleep, seems to be waiting for whatever he thought they put into the heater to come back out.. 
...This made me think...of a friend who is a retired psychiatrist and has a pack of decidedly neurotic poodles   I rang him up, long distance too, and explained our problem.  Very, very interesting, he said, after a long expensive pause, it was a classic case of Canine Fixation.  The patient's suspense must be relieved....In other words, he explained in bright, kindly tones, murdering little male thermostats meant nothing to a dog, we must install instead a real little tenant in our heater.  He said that he was sorry, sizewise, that he was not able to move in himself, it sounded cosy; but he thought that there must be plenty of tenant material at the Bottom of the Garden if we inquired around, or knocked on the doors of a few toadstools--with this present cold spell as an added inducement there must be many who would be only too delighted to move into a heated apartment.  We might consider Lilliput too.... 
 Spoiler coming--how did they finally solve the problem?  Sheila's daughter disappears in the car for an hour, then returns, "modestly triumphant." 
Ten minutes later he lurched through the doorway, heading blearily for the heater.  I unscrewed the back, and he watched with polite interest.  Then Jonny inserted her hand and slowly drew out a fat, placid hamster, clutching a peanut in its pink hand....The dog was enchanted.  In a quivering ecstasy he watched Jonny open the door of a neat green cage with a kind of treadwheel inside....It curled up in a corner in a snug ball, yawned hugely, and fell asleep.  A minute later there was another cavernous yawn, and the dog slowly folded into a vast inanimate heap under the table.

Friday, March 22, 2013

Dollygirl's Grade Six: School for Friday

The last day of the term!

O Canada

Flower Fairy poems

Life of a Primrose, final lesson, including some talk about cowslips and oxlips

"The Lucky Bag," by Alison Uttley, a story about two girls, Tom Thumb, and a lucky oxlip

Break time!

Finished Key to Decimals, Book 4.

Finished Archimedes and the Door of Science.

Did the second grammar lesson in "Case Closed."  Discussed why it sounds funny when you say "It is I."

Cleaned out a miscellaneous box of who-knows-what.

Went to visit a friend who is home because her school got  two weeks of March Break.

Thursday, March 21, 2013

We're supposed to like school? (Philosophy of Education)

Well, if not school, at least learning.

"...they never got so far as to learn that knowledge is delightful because one likes it; and that no effort at self-education can do anything until one has found out this supreme delightfulness of knowledge."  ~~ Charlotte Mason, "Too Wide a Mesh," epilogue to Towards a Philosophy of Education

And in that sense, according to Charlotte Mason, the education of the Grenfell twins was a failure.

Check that off your list of standards.

Sheila Burnford Quote for the Day: Don't try this in a crowded place.

From The Fields of Noon, by Sheila Burnford, 1964.  In this essay, Ms. Burnford recalls her attempt to imitate the vocalizations of various forms of Saskatchewan wildlife. 
At last, listening one morning to the tantalizing clamour overhead, I realized where I had gone wrong.  I had tried to be a chorus of geese.  I had been attempting something like singing all four parts of a quartet simultaneously.  Now I listened carefully and isolated a contralto of about my range in the flock, who kept up an obliging steady honking.  I threw back my head, to make my neck as long and gooselike as possible; opened my throat as though I were about to pour something down it, then fooled it at the last moment by howling like a lovelorn wolf--and out came a perfect yelping honk.  My contralto friend answered, an echelon of her relatives joined in, so did the dog; and as I crouched there, howling my heart out, wingless but ecstatic, the long V wavered, then turned, and our unlovely duet rose and mingled at last in the wild harmony above as they flew directly over us.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Playing around with Charlotte's geography books



Saturday, March 16, 2013

Life of a Primrose, Part 7: The Golden Crown (end)

These lessons are adapted from "The Life of a Primrose" in Fairy-Land of Science, by Arabella B. Buckley.  You might start today by reviewing the parts of a flower, e.g. stigma, stamens.  There will be a general review at the end of the lesson.
But why should the primroses have such golden crowns? Plain green ones would protect the seed quite as well. Ah! now we come to a secret well worth knowing.
1, Primrose with long pistil, and stamens in the tube. 2, Primrose with short pistil, and stamens at mouth of tube. (Diagram from Fairy-Land of Science)  See also diagram here (scroll down to Primrose) and the photos and diagrams in this really good post about primroses and cowslips.
Look at the two primrose flowers, 1 and 2, and tell me how you think the dust (pollen) gets on to the top of the sticky knob or stigma.


Look at a withered primrose, and see how it holds its head down, and after a little while the yellow crown falls off. It is just about as it is falling that the anthers or bags of the stamens burst open, and then, in No. 1, they are dragged over the knob and some of the grains stick there. But in the other form of primrose, No. 2, when the flower falls off, the stamens do not come near the knob, so it has no chance of getting any pollen; and while the primrose is upright the tube is so narrow that the dust does not easily fall.



Where the bee sucks, there suck I:
In a cowslip's bell I lie
~~William Shakespeare, The Tempest
This is a good place for narration.
And now let us see what we have learned.  We began with a tiny seed, though we did not then know how this seed had been made.
We saw the plantlet buried in it, and learned how it fed at first on prepared food, but soon began to make living matter for itself out of gases taken from the water and the air. How ingeniously it pumped up the water through the cells to its stomach—the leaves!
At this point we might have gone further, and studied how the fibres and all the different vessels of the plant are formed, and a wondrous history it would have been. But it was too long for one hour's lecture (or seven natural-history lessons), and you must read it for yourselves in books on botany.
We had to pass on to the flower, and learn the use of the covering leaves, the gaily colored crown  attracting the insects, the dust-bags holding the pollen, the little ovules each with the germ of a new plantlet, lying hidden in the seed-vessel, waiting for the pollen-grains to grow down to them. Lastly, when the pollen crept in at the tiny opening we learned that the ovule had now all it wanted to grow into a perfect seed.
(Photo found here--read the blog post too!)

A fun followup:  The Magic School Bus, Episode 11: "The Magic School Bus Goes to Seed," (available as a book as well)

Friday, March 15, 2013

Life of a Primrose, Part 6 (Natural History Lesson)








  Students to narrate at this point.


Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Life of a Primrose, Part 5 (Natural History Lesson)






Now on to the lesson.



Narration to follow.


Narration to follow
(Primrose Flower Fairy doll found here.)



Related posts:
Charlotte Mason, Beyond Us


Friday, March 08, 2013

Tools of an old homeschool mom: "Key To" Math and more

Tomorrow night is our homeschool support group's annual curriculum show-and-tell; parents talk about new (or old) materials they're using, or just put it out on tables for others to look at.  It's kind of a lead-in to spring conference-and-catalogue season.

Remember how a couple of years ago I was wearing my "dinosaur t-shirt" over the discovery that Cuisenaire Rods were no longer such a hot curriculum item?  Well, tomorrow night I'll be wearing it again, I guess: I'm doing a five-minute talk on Miquon Math's big brother, the Key-To series, which has been around, seemingly unchanged, since 1971.  I heard about these worktexts when we started homeschooling, but we got into other post-Miquon math programs and didn't have a use for them until about three years ago, when Ponytails got to middle-school age and Mr. Fixit was teaching her math.  Since then I've also used parts of Key To Fractions and Key to Decimals with Dollygirl, and I'm thinking of ordering Key to Percents--one of the only ones we don't have.

So for show-and-tell night...other years I've brought the materials for a typical year of Ambleside Online (whatever year(s) we were doing at the time), or things we received during the year we were on the Review Crew.  This year I was thinking of bringing some stuff to celebrate our "veteran" status...this may also have something to do with the fact that I have a birthday sometime soon, and although it's not a particularly significant one, it's still edging me closer to that big double-digit. 

What would you bring to prove that you were homeschooling during the '90's...or the '80's?  What are the dead giveaways?

1.  Your set of Calculadders is not via download, not on CD-Rom, but stored in a file folder (unless you still have the cardboard box, like Carol).  (I plead guilty, although I have to say that we've only used them off-and-on.)

2.  Your Timetables of History goes up to only 1990.  (Guilty as well...but that's because I bought ours at Goodwill.)

3.  Your Timechart History of the World goes up to only 1998.  (And when I bought that one, it was new.)

4.  Your Saxon math books are all hardcovers.  (We have just one: Algebra 1/2).

5.  You have a set of Powerglide French stashed away...all on cassettes.  (Yes.  We do.  We got it used, The Apprentice used it, and I let her write right in the workbooks since I got such a good deal on it.  Now, of course...I can't get any more of them.)

6.  When you started buying books at friends-of-the-library sales, they were still clearing out books from the '50's and '60's (or even before).  (This is true...although I didn't have kids yet.)

7.  You still have some of those books.

8.  You still use some of those books.

9.  Your copy of For the Children's Sake looks like this:
10.  Or maybe like this.

How about you?

Linked from the Carnival of Homeschooling.

Little Green Cells, Part Four (Natural History Lesson)

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

Part One:



More from Arabella Buckley: 



Narration to follow.

Part Two:





Thursday, March 07, 2013


Overheard in the doll corner:  "We are dolls! We do all kinds of things!  We go sailing, we go through tesseracts, and then we dress up and have tea parties."

The shortest thing you'll ever hear Charlotte Mason say about curriculum: Philosophy of Education, Chapter 10

Knowledge of the Universe 

(c) Physical Development, Handicrafts

It is unnecessary, too, to say anything about games, dancing, physical exercises, needlework and other handicrafts as the methods employed in these are not exceptional. [Footnote:  For details see the Parents' Union School programmes.]  ~~ Charlotte Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education, chapter 10

Well, maybe not to her!

(Please ignore the rude comments below the video.)

She does elaborate a bit more here:

"We have tried to show how pictures and music, birds and flowers and trees, geography, local history and geology, the atmosphere of great men (and what village is there which has not bred one great man?), public readings like that we have listened to on "George Borrow," the drama, useful and beautiful handicrafts and physical exercises, dances and songs, may become, some home delights, others the joys of the village community. A village Hall or public room and the Carnegie Library are all that citizens brought up in our schools require to make them in every sense, mental, moral and physical, self-supporting." ~~"P.N.E.U., A Service to the State," by Charlotte Mason

A few books to check out: 

Clay Modelling for Schools

Simple Repoussé Work for Juniors, by Elizabeth J. Bradford, used up through at least Form IV (grade nine-ish)--this one seems to have disappeared into the ether, other than one short mention in a journal that I found yesterday and that doesn't come up today--search engines are a bit capricious sometimes, no?

The syllabus of physical exercises for public elementary schools, printed for H.M.S.O. by Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1909.  Page images available in the U.S. only.

Tried favourites cookery book, available on, discussed here on Kym's Kitchen.

Educational Needlecraft, by Margaret Swanson and Ann Macbeth, which appears to be an earlier version of Swanson's Needlecraft in the School, used through at least Form IV

The Little Girl's Sewing Book, ed. by Flora Klickmann (editor of the Girl's Own Paper), published by the Religious Tract Society (R.T.S.)

The Little Girl's Knitting and Crochet Book, same as above (blog post at that link, but not the full text).  The P.U.S. programme misnames it as The Little Girl's Knitting Book.

3 Antique sewing magazines, plain sewing, drawn thread and darning/mending
(First Lessons picture found here)

Related posts:
Aunt Mai Update
Less Glitter to Clean Up

Tuesday, March 05, 2013

Life of a Primrose, Part Three (Natural History Lesson)


Narration to follow ("explain osmosis").
