Using the Handbook of Nature Study

Barb at the Handbook of Nature Study blog, has just posted an excellent piece on Nature Study in Home Education and making use of Anna Botsford Comstock's wonderful resource, Handbook of Nature Study.

Fall is a great time of year to give nature study a try if you haven't already been doing it, and a wonderful season to explore more deeply if nature study is part of your family's identity already.

Comstock's book is full of narrative descriptions of plants, animals, and insects, but did you know that she even has chapters on soil, minerals, and climate?

You can find Handbook of Nature Study through most home education retailers, on Amazon, and, for those of you who want to take a look but aren't ready to buy, you can get a free download of entire book from Internet Archive, including the diagrams and illustrations!

A New Link

Sadly, it looks like LindaFay is no longer going to be blogging at Higher Up and Further In. (I'm not sure if this is a temporary stop or a forever one; you'll have to ask her that.)

She has, however, set up a website to help those getting started with a CM education. She calls it Charlotte Mason Help. You might like to check it out. It has links to articles she's written for Higher Up and Further In that relate to Charlotte Mason, as well as a history schedule for 12 years, yearly booklists, and weekly schedules for each year. She also has a link on her website to Leslie Noelani Laurio's modern English version of Charlotte Mason's volumes.

Art and Music Appreciation - Free plans available

Are you looking for a simple, prepared composer and artist study to use with your children? Barb at Harmony Art Mom has several such resources, and she has made one of them available free this summer! Here's what she says about it:

How would you like to have some relaxed plans for art and music appreciation this summer? I have pulled together six weeks' worth of ideas for you to use with your family. I have chosen an artist and a composer for you and put down some specific plans for listening, viewing, and follow-up for each.

I have packaged them all up into a neat little PDF for you to download for free.

The plans introduce the music of Felix Mendelssohn and the paintings of Claude Monet in this mini-unit. The plans also include every print I suggest and you can view them in the PDF, online, or you can print them out if you wish. I have created simple artist biography and composer biography notebook pages for you to print out as well.

To access the pdf, go to her blog post about the resource, and you'll find the link to click on. That will bring you to a Lulu page of ebooks, etc., that Barb has available, and the free summer art and music appreciation one is at the top of the list. (At least it was when I checked a minute ago!) From there you can download the ebook pdf onto your computer.

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

Why Do You Homeschool?

If you've heard this question asked you might like to visit Holy Experience and see Ann Voskamp's post on Why We Homeschool. Lovely reading. Inspiring reading.

ChildLight Charlotte Mason Conference 2009

June 10-13, 2009

ChildLight USA will be hosting the annual

Charlotte Mason Conference

at Gardner Webb University in Boiling Springs, North Carolina.

This is an internationally attended conference with speakers from England, the United States, and Canada who are veritable experts on Charlotte Mason. All have spent a good part of their lives studying Charlotte Mason's writings, and each brings his or her own personal expertise to bear on the practical and philosophical aspects of a Charlotte Mason education, and, whether that experience be in educational psychology, school administration, curriculum planning and design, home education, or so much more, these speakers know how to bring life to a CM education.

One exciting thing about this conference is that it brings together home educators, school educators and administrators, and researchers on equal footing. Workshops are led by individuals of any background who are particularly specialized in the field on which they present. The mix of people attending and presenting is a wonderful cross section, bringing together all who are interested in a CM education without bias in any direction, be it home or school.

Another thing to note about the conference is the low price. This is a 4 day international conference being offered for $79 per person or family (early registration with a group of 3 or more). That is a great price for a conference of this calibre! Accommodation is reasonable ($25 or less per person per night) and a meal plan at the university dining hall is available, as well.

If you are interested in attending and want to have more information here are the links:

Conference General Information

Tentative Schedule

Registration Form

There are several people from our group already planning to attend. If you would like to associate your registration with ours in order to take advantage of the group rate, please email me (talsma at cyg dot net), and I'll make sure you are in the loop. If you'd like to have some specific feedback about previous conferences, you can email me about that, too, and I'll hook you up with someone who has attended and you can get more info that way.

Early registration is until April 30, but to make that deadline we'd need to have all the information in earlier than that.

Please take a look at the ChildLight website to find links to audio files of some of the workshops from previous years, too.

Spring Outdoor Hour Challenges: Birds

Handbook of Nature Study has two new posts that you might be interested in checking. Both are related to the Outdoor Hour Challenge, a guided nature study time that Barb offers on her blog. With spring in the air, one of the first things that is noticed around our yard is an increase in bird activity. (Has everyone spotted the robins yet?) Well, Barb has begun a bird focus for this next set of Outdoor Hour Challenges, and the first challenge involves three birds that I see every year: the robin, the cardinal, and the house finch. While we haven't seen the cardinals yet this spring, I know they'll come because they nest in the neighbour's cedar. The other post that she's published this week is links to audio files of the bird calls from this week's focus.

All Barb's Outdoor Hour Challenges include a reading from Anna Botsford Comstock's Handbook of Nature Study, and outdoor challenge, and a follow up indoor activity, usually relating to entries in a nature journal.

This is a great challenge to participate in to ramp up your Nature Study times with your children now that the weather shows potential for cooperation. Even if we do get more cold weather, these challenges don't usually involve a great deal of outdoor time, making them very accessible for all kinds of families.

Enjoy the link!

Engaging Students in Artist Study

Linda Fay has a new post on Higher Up and Further In about Artist Study and Art Appreciation. It's a simple, interesting way to get your children engaged.

I particularly liked this idea she presents:

At the end of the term, I show my kids some more pictures from the artist we studied that term. These are the ones that we didn't get to but I thought they might like. Together, we download their favorites and put them on a flash disc, take it to Walmart and have each printed for about a quarter each. Then the children get to add them to their personal artist albums.

I can hardly wait to start my own children on their personal artist albums!

By the way, after you've read her post, you might like to click the link she has at the bottom to see her post titled Our Picture Studies. In that post Linda Fay gives a more extensive description of the proccess.

On Narration

In case you've never visited "Higher Up and Further In", I'd like to point you in that direction. Linda Fay has a terrific blog that covers all sorts of things educational from a CM perspective, as well as branching into other areas of life.

This week she put up a post called "Narration Thoughts from a Highschooler." These are her daughter's responses to questions about narration. It's interesting to read the student's perspective on the value of narration and to see how much she has come to appreciate the discipline of narration.

Why don't you take a moment to visit this post by Linda Fay and then, if you've never been there before, you might want to spend some time browsing. Her sidebar list of "Starting Points" might be where you'd like to begin looking. Or maybe you'll scroll down to "Categories" and pick one of those to dive into. Whichever direction you take, I know that you'll be inspired by her wisdom and enthusiasm.

Happy New Year!

I hope you've all enjoyed the holidays, time with loved ones, celebrating faith and hope. Now a new year is upon us and we have much to look forward to. As you look ahead, consider reading this post by Leslie Noelani Laurio on the ChildLight USA blog. Leslie is inspiring, as always, and it would be so good to be inspired in the direction she is addressing.

Enjoy!

And see you in a couple of weeks: our next meeting is Tuesday, January 13, 2009 at Karen's home. Contact me if you need directions.

Self Education

The philosophical portion of our meeting in January is supposed to be spent discussing 'Self Education'. An intriguing topic for anyone involved in education of any sort.

With perfect timing, Christine has posted an item about Self Education on her blog, The Real Life Home, as part of her Charlotte Mason Basics series on Fridays. You might like to head over to The Real Life Home and have your appetite whetted for the meeting that's to come. As always, Christine is direct, humourous, and engaging, while offering lots of valuable insight into the subject.

Other than this, I'm pretty sure this blog will be quiet until after Christmas, or maybe into the new year, so, on behalf of the entire leadership team:

Blessed Christmas to all.

New Nature Study Post at ChildLight USA

Deborah and HollyAnne Dobbins have a new post on the ChildLight USA blog, addressing common Questions and Answers about Nature Study, particularly when it is done as a formal Nature Study class incorporating dry brush watercolour once a month or so.

Reality: A Link

Many times, our plans are wonderful, but reality is quite different. We need to learn to let the children, our students, guide some of their own learning, to build on their own relations. Barb, at Handbook of Nature Study, has a post that reflects this idea, particularly as it relates to Nature Study. May I encourage you to hop over and read it?

Links from ChildLight USA

• Education is Formation, Not Information - a ChildLight USA blog post by Naomi Heidorn
• Teaching Nature Study - Listen online to the 2007 ChildLight USA Charlotte Mason Educational Conference lecutre given by Deborah Dobbins and Holly Ann Dobbins. This link will bring you to the ChildLight USA website, where this lecture is being featured at the top of the page. Click on the "Listen Now" button.

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