Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Morning Time September 2011

Artist: Durer

We have been reading Joyce McPherson's excellent children's biography of Durer, Artist of the Reformation.

This week, Alex and Andrew each picked out 5 Durer works for their notebooks.

Here is one of Alex's picks:



Here is one of Andrew's pics:



I printed them from the Internet.


Composer: Chopin

As soon as we finish the Durer book we will begin Opal Wheeler's childhood biography of Chopin. In the meantime we just have a Chopin play list on Spotify.


Shakespeare:  I have canceled, maybe, Richard III and we are trying to decide which play to do next. 

Plutarch: Lycurgus  This is turning out to be a relevant and interesting 'Life.' Lycurgus was called the Lawgiver of Sparta but it sounds like he was basically a Marxist or maybe I should say the Marx was a Lycurgusist. Much food for thought. I will not claim that the children love Plutarch, but it is really not something I would ever want to skip. We just read small sections at a time since the ideas are dense and we stop and discuss vocabulary frequently.

Mother Tongue II: The children are all doing separate grammar programs this year but I am continuing our oral working through this book. Some of you may have noticed that it is going on 3 years. Little drops of grammar make the mighty man. The reason this approach is valuable is something that I have just stumbled upon and has greatly encouraged me as a teacher. Between small amounts (Remember Charlotte Mason's short lessons?) of written grammar daily, Latin, oral discussion and written narrations corrected, each only a tiny bit at a time, a symbiosis is created which increases retention far beyond the use of any one method or workbook or text.

Bible: Right now we are reading with discussion through the Epistles. This is a departure from our usual readings of Proverbs but it is going very well. 

Review this week: The 12 Tribes of Israel, Psalm 100, Phil 4:4-8, Psalm 104

Poetry: Just finished, finally, Sea Fever, a poem I highly recommend. Not sure what we are doing next. I want to concentrate on the Preamble to the Constitution for a while.  We also are continuing to read through the poems in 101 Famous Poems. We read and discussed Hamlet's Soliloquy today.

Review this week: The Destruction of Sennacharib, A Little Brother Follows Me, Breathes by Walter Scott, King Alfred's War Song, Recessional by Rudyard Kipling.

Misc:Continuing through the Civics Question of the Day. There are all sorts of wonderful, easy to use Civics resources on the naturalization site. Today we discussed question 64: What special group advises the President?  Answer: The Cabinet. I also moved on to questions 65 and asked, "Which President is called the 'Father of our Country'?"  Alex, in spite of the fact that we are reading George Washington's World, said tentatively, "George W Bush?" and then quickly seeing my face, "God?" 


Review: Preamble(Daily), Amendments 1-5 this week.

Reading Aloud:
George Washington's World by Genevieve Foster



George Washington's World



The above mentions bio of Durer.


Artist of the Reformation: Albrecht Durer


And we are finishing from last year and really loving, The Marsh King by Walter Hodges, a story of King Alfred, a book I highly recommend for boys. It is a bit slow going at first but it gets better.

We were working on our 13th school day of the year and we have completed 11 Morning Times. Yesterday we didn't even get started until 12:00 because of various interruptions.