2009-2010 Library Listings now linked on the blog

After spending a day in late August with three other women going through the entire WHHE library collection, there were bins of books stacked in my living room, front porch and hallway! Now all 30 bins of books have all made it to Karen's home and have been subjected to the first sign-out time of the school year.

Thanks to those who worked on inventory with me: Sandra, Laurel, and Sandy. And thanks to Helen for stepping in to fill some of the void in library management.

If any of you, as members of the group, are willing to volunteer for library tasks (one time or ongoing), please leave a comment or email me (talsma at cyg dot net). We need help with set-up, check-out, clean-up, ordering missing parts for games, book repair, etc. Please indicate what kind of involvement you'd like to have, and we'll match you up with the right position.

There is now an up to date listing of WHHE books available for you to look at. It is organized by genre or subject and I hope you will find it easy to locate what you are looking for. Sign out of books will continue to be first come first served after the meeting - no holds will be permitted. Please look through the list, and if you are interested in a particular item that you don't see listed, put it in a comment on the blog and we'll do what we can to order it if it is suitable for a Charlotte Mason library. (Please note that we do not have books which are easy to find in the public library system - Dickens, for example.)

This morning I managed to get the current listing of library books uploaded to Keep and Share. This is a file sharing website that allows anyone to view a file, but not edit the shared version. To access the Library Holdings file, click the link in the right side-bar and Keep and Share will open, asking you if you want to download the file. It isn't a big file, and on my non-high speed Internet connection it took less than 30 seconds to download, so it shouldn't be onerous for most of your computers to handle.

In Which Sandy Rusby Bell Gives Us Oodles of Links for Greek Myths, Fairy Tales, and Poetry

What a wonderful meeting last night. As always, the atmosphere in Karen's home was warm and welcoming. And the cake!! We have some amazing bakers in our midst.

Thank you Liz for leading the discussion about the Will. It was not an easy chapter but you explained it so well.

I promised to send out some recommended resources that relate to our practical discussion last night. Here they are.

(Note from Jennifer: All items in colour are hyperlinks that will take you to a new website. If you want to open it in a different tab and keep this blog open, right click on the link and select "Open link in new tab.")

To look more deeply at the “Instructors of Conscience” that we spoke about see Charlotte Masons 4th Volume “Ourselves”, specifically Chapters 12-15. If you don't own a copy you can find it free online here. There is also a wonderful paraphrase of the volume in Modern English here.


Greek Myths

I'm only going to mention my favourites. You can of course find more in our library. If you'd like to see what we have in our library, remember, you can scroll down the right hand side of this blog and find a link to a “Keep and Share” document with a listing of our library books.

I've included a link so you can have a look at each book.

Black Ships Before Troy by Rosemary Sutcliff – This is my very favourite retelling of the Iliad. We have this in the WHHE library.

The Wanderings of Odysseus by Rosemary Sutcliff- This continues the story describing, well, the wanderings of Odysseus!

Jim Weiss storytelling CDs: The Greek Myths and He and She Adventures in Mythology and Heroes in Mythology (which I forgot to mention last night).

The Heroes by Charles Kingsley. You can also read The Heroes free online .

Tanglewood Tales and The Wonderbook by Nathaniel Hawthorne -As I mentioned, I particularly like these books for after the student already has some familiarity with the myths. Hawthorne plays with the stories and makes some funny changes that kids love to be able to catch. Tanglewood Tales can be read free here. You can see the book and reviews here.

I don't think A Wonderbook for Girls and Boys is in the public domain yet, weird! But you can see it here.

Greek Myths by Olivia Coolidge. Woo Hoo! Last time I looked this book was out of print. It's expensive but at least it's available again.

Mythology by Edith Hamilton. This is a standard University text and is suitable for high school students. It has virtually all the “important” myths and very helpful explanations. “The Introduction to Classical Mythology” section is worth the price of the book (especially if you find it a library discard sale for a quarter as I did!).


Fairy Tales

In case you weren't convinced last night, or even if you were, please read the beautiful, beautiful blog post by Lori Lawing called “The Shout of a King”

Jim Weiss Storytelling CDs:
Best Loved Stories in Song and Dance
Fairytale Favorites in Song and Dance
Giants! A Colossal Collection of Tales and Tunes
Famously Funny!
Tell me a Story!
If you've never listened to Jim Weiss's stories, watch out, they're addictive!

I mentioned that I wrote a blog post about the moral imperative of developing imagination in our children. It is called, to my children's horror, “Naked and Blue at My Back Door”. You can read it here. (And I'd love it if you'd leave comments, hint, hint.)

Andrew Lang's The Blue Fairy Book is the one with “Beauty and The Beast”. It can be read free here. Make sure you scroll down, when you first click on the page it looks like you can only purchase it. The Red Fairy Book is also available free here. We have some from this series in our library. I found this Wikipedia article about Lang's books very helpful:


Poetry

Remember there are two components to this: poetry reading and poetry memorization.

For Poetry Reading

I showed the “Poetry for Young People” series. You can see the the Robert Frost book here: You'll also see links to others in the series. We have several of these in our library.

We have a great selection of Poetry books in our library.

The Grammar of Poetry is wonderful for late elementary or early high school.

The Roar on the Other Side is also for late elementary or high school. It's probably best after The Grammar of Poetry.

For Poetry Memorization

I wrote a blog post on Composition for ChildLight USA. In it I discuss the importance of poetry memorization for writing skills. I refer to the article “One Myth, Two Truths” by Andrew Pudewa. Important stuff.

I recommend Pudewa's program “Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization”. It is pricey and not necessary. It has been tremendously helpful for me though. We actually do poetry memorization now. We have this in our library.

Unfortunately we ran out of time last night and we weren't able to discuss how Charlotte Mason actually did poetry memorization. It is quite different than you might expect. This article, “Memorization “Learnt without Labour” by Tina Fillmer explains it nicely. Jennifer has written well about her family's experience on her blog. Click on the 'memorization' topic on the left.

Whew, I hope I haven't missed anything!

May I just say that I came home so excited and energized last night. I am inspired by all of you incredible women. I look forward to hearing all of your insightful contributions every month. Thank you for sharing this journey with me. Every one of you is a gift.

I look forward to hearing about the High School breakout session last night. Please send us a note.

Warmly,
Sandy Rusby Bell

Books and Links - Now Updated

Below are new titles in our WHHE library and links to some of the websites that were mentioned in the meeting. Please let me know if you have other links, especially for the service opportunities. The side-bar link to the library listings will be updated in a few days.


Books
Le Francais Facile (See the sidebar for links to the website for samples, etc.)
Did Fleming Rescue Churchill?: A Research Puzzle - James Cross Giblin (Thanks for the info I forgot, Sandy)
This Country of Ours - H.E. Marshall
The Travels of Marco Polo
The Story of Mankind - H. Van Loon
Van Gogh and the Sunflowers - Laurence Anholt
Kon-Tiki - Thor Heyerdahl
Kon-Tiki for Young People - Thor Heyerdahl

::

Websites mentioned at the meeting:

Charlotte Mason
ChildLight USA blog post by Carroll Smith about his visit to a CM school.


Service Projects
Knitting Blankets
Blankets4Canada
If you google "donate knitted blankets" you'll probably find others for international donation.

Crocheting sleeping mats from milk bags
An article from 2007 about one aspect of the project
If you google "crochet sleeping mats milk bags" you'll come up with links to lots of articles like this one. Within the articles contact people are often named, so you can follow-up that way. In my very quick search I didn't find a link to a specific organization or specific instructions.
UPDATE - Stratford Parents Online, an email group in my town, just had a posting about this project. If you want a contact number for a pattern and such, let me know.

Read-A-Thon
Follower's Book Corner

Poetry Post and Read-Alouds

There's an interesting new post on the ChildLight USA blog about composing poetry and having children write narrations (exams, actually) in poetic form. The author, Bonnie Buckingham, includes two examples of the poems produced by students in grades 11 and 12.

I've been reading a lot from Jim Trelease's book "The Read-Aloud Handbook", and I'm so encouraged to keep on keeping on with lots of reading, lots of reading aloud, lots of literature time, lots of poetry. These can be dark days of discouragement as we enter into the full impact of the new school year, the changing season, the burden of all our responsibilities coming to bloom. Reading something that is affirming what we do in a CM education, that validates so much of what we believe and know to be true about how children learn has been vital to me as I flounder around with "What am I doing" and "Why am I doing it" kind of questions. (Also vital has been interacting with other home educators and being honest about how overwhelmed and inadequate we are feeling right now - if that describes you, know that you are not alone!)

"The Read-Aloud Handbook" is in our WHHE library and is worth the time it takes to read. Part One builds the case for reading aloud to children, even very big children, providing the theory and research in a really readable form - very engaging, very thought-provoking, very well-written. Part Two is a "Treasury of Read-Alouds" covering Wordless Books (yes, for reading aloud!), Picture Books, Predictable Books, Reference Books, Short and Full-Length Novels, Poetry, Anthologies, and Fairy and Folk Tales. He includes several themed short lists as well, such as "Jim's Favorite Kindergarten Novels," "Out-of-Print Novels Too Good to Miss," and "Jim's Favorite Dog Stories." This book is a treasure.