I had never read the Hobbit by Tolkien before! Can you believe it? I had heard little bits and pieces when my husband read it aloud to the kids (once with the older kids, once with the younger) and for a while the kids really liked to take out a radio play on audio from the library and I'd hear bits and pieces when they were listening. But for some reason, I never really got the storyline, though I knew about Bilbo and Gandalf and that some dwarves were involved, dwarves with funny names that I never could keep straight.
So about two weeks ago I set out to remedy this hole in my education by reading The Hobbit. I found it very charming and delighted in J.R.R. Tolkien's writing style, so quaint and cozy. Halfway through the book though I began to wane. So many twists and turns and adventures out of the blue. I have trouble with fantasy in that it doesn't hold my interest very much. I keep looking for some deeper meaning, wanting to see it as an analogy for something else. I have been expanding my fantasy reading. I enjoyed C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce, for instance, because I felt there was a lot of rich theology there for the plumbing. But it seems to me that The Hobbit is just a yarn set in a landscape inhabited by goblins, wargs, dwarves, elves, men and a wizard and a dragon. It is a wonderful yarn, but for me it could have been told in half the amount of time. I simply lost interest as the book went on. I kept flipping ahead trying to figure out why the book was taking so long to end!
I'm glad I read it. Now I know Bilbo much more intimately than before. I'm looking forward to seeing the movie with my kids when it comes out. I had no idea what the Lord of the Rings was about when those movies first came out. For some reason my parents never got into Tolkien and so I didn't grow up reading them. I guess that is the reason I was so ignorant! The first time that I heard of him was in college, where the same guys who owned bongs and played Dungeons and Dragons raved about this series of books. I thought they were 'druggie lit' so to speak and never paid a bit of attention to them. So it wasn't until I was in Catholic homeschooling circles that I learned they were considered wonderful, good literature.
Lately, I've been reading a lot of what I think of as boys books. I just finish Treasure Island and I'm in the middle of reading Journey to the Center of the Earth. Along with The Hobbit, there is nary a woman in any of these. Is there one female character in all of The Hobbit? I don't think so. Interestingly enough I was just in an online conversation about the lack of good books for boys. What? I think people just aren't looking hard enough.
And my final comment is that October is a wonderful month to read The Hobbit in! It was enjoyable reading about goblins and other fairytale like characters presented in a way that wasn't modern day creepy.
If you want more books reviews, please visit this: www.read52booksin52weeks.com (once again I can't seem to link! Grrr! Very frustrating!).
Monday, October 31, 2011
Friday, October 28, 2011
What We've Been Up To - 10/28/11
It was a rough week emotionally. We had a messy occurrence when a family we'd been having trouble with abruptly decided to pull out of our Aquinas Learning Center. Since we are such a small group this had a very bad impact on the whole thing. Basically, Becky's 4th-6th grade class collapsed. The whole reason I got involved in this was for Becky, so she could do 'school' one day a week. She loved it. So big, huge bummer there all around. Really quite heartbreaking.
Monday - being so stressed out about what was coming down in re our Center, I played hooky from Latin class. I'd done all the homework and everything, but I just was way too tired (bad insomnia from stress) and I just needed a mental health day to slow down and do stuff at home. The weekend had been very busy and I just feel like I'm running, running, running constantly. So Monday was nice. I read aloud a lot to the younger kids, we did some math and Latin. I've started reading A Little History of the World by E.H. Gombrich to Sean and we are both enjoying it. It was nice to have a slow day. We even managed to clean bedrooms and tidy up the house a bit. I went grocery shopping while Becky was at her American Heritage Girls group in the afternoon. That was something that usually happens on the weekends but didn't because we were so busy.
Tuesday - Josh had Chemistry and x country, Becky had art. Gee, I can't really remember Tuesday other than that!
Wednesday - made it to Latin. Great class. Josh had CLC. Becky did not have band class which was wonderful! LOL!
Thursday - we went ahead and had our Aquinas Learning day as the K-3 classes are still good. I wound up being the preschool teacher the whole day. Did I mention the preschool leader (a teenage girl we hired) no longer can make it. Her parents want her to focus on her studies. Seems being gone all day Thursday was just taking too much time. Plus one of our mentors was sick! So it was a crazy day, but I think we pulled it off well. I left all three kids at home all day. I can't do that anymore. Sean was so bored and depressed by the end of the day. Josh slacked off. Only Becky seemed okay with it. I called home at one point and asked her what she was doing. She said she was writing a novel! She'd only got as far as the first paragraph though! She read it to me. It is about 4 kids; one of them is in a boarding school! She also was reading Life of Fred off and on all day. And she says when playing by the pond out back she saw a coyote! Scared her to death! We do have coyotes in this area, so, wow! Josh went to x country. And then about 8:30 p.m. Sean and I headed over to a local church that had the relics of St. Margaret Mary Alocoque visiting. We just went in, stood in line, prayed for about half a minute before the relics and then came home. Sean was so sad from being bored all day. He again is wondering if he should go to school.
Today is Friday - the weather has gotten much cooler. We are supposed to have tennis today, if the weather allows. Seano wants to do the Trunk or Treat with the parish youth group tonight. Josh was supposed to go to the postponed corn maize trip with the teen homeschool group, but instead he is going to stay home and try and get back on track with his precalculus class. He's falling behind. At this rate he'll be doing precalc for two years, like he did Algebra II! Yikes! The kid is a master procrastinator!
Monday - being so stressed out about what was coming down in re our Center, I played hooky from Latin class. I'd done all the homework and everything, but I just was way too tired (bad insomnia from stress) and I just needed a mental health day to slow down and do stuff at home. The weekend had been very busy and I just feel like I'm running, running, running constantly. So Monday was nice. I read aloud a lot to the younger kids, we did some math and Latin. I've started reading A Little History of the World by E.H. Gombrich to Sean and we are both enjoying it. It was nice to have a slow day. We even managed to clean bedrooms and tidy up the house a bit. I went grocery shopping while Becky was at her American Heritage Girls group in the afternoon. That was something that usually happens on the weekends but didn't because we were so busy.
Tuesday - Josh had Chemistry and x country, Becky had art. Gee, I can't really remember Tuesday other than that!
Wednesday - made it to Latin. Great class. Josh had CLC. Becky did not have band class which was wonderful! LOL!
Thursday - we went ahead and had our Aquinas Learning day as the K-3 classes are still good. I wound up being the preschool teacher the whole day. Did I mention the preschool leader (a teenage girl we hired) no longer can make it. Her parents want her to focus on her studies. Seems being gone all day Thursday was just taking too much time. Plus one of our mentors was sick! So it was a crazy day, but I think we pulled it off well. I left all three kids at home all day. I can't do that anymore. Sean was so bored and depressed by the end of the day. Josh slacked off. Only Becky seemed okay with it. I called home at one point and asked her what she was doing. She said she was writing a novel! She'd only got as far as the first paragraph though! She read it to me. It is about 4 kids; one of them is in a boarding school! She also was reading Life of Fred off and on all day. And she says when playing by the pond out back she saw a coyote! Scared her to death! We do have coyotes in this area, so, wow! Josh went to x country. And then about 8:30 p.m. Sean and I headed over to a local church that had the relics of St. Margaret Mary Alocoque visiting. We just went in, stood in line, prayed for about half a minute before the relics and then came home. Sean was so sad from being bored all day. He again is wondering if he should go to school.
Today is Friday - the weather has gotten much cooler. We are supposed to have tennis today, if the weather allows. Seano wants to do the Trunk or Treat with the parish youth group tonight. Josh was supposed to go to the postponed corn maize trip with the teen homeschool group, but instead he is going to stay home and try and get back on track with his precalculus class. He's falling behind. At this rate he'll be doing precalc for two years, like he did Algebra II! Yikes! The kid is a master procrastinator!
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Strewsday Tuesday - 10/25/11
Found about this on the Well Trained Mind board - NPR has started a kids book club. The first author is Neil Gaiman. You can listen to him read his book The Graveyard Book. Then he'll be interviewed on the radio. Sounds cool!
Here's info about it: http://www.npr.org/2011/10/21/141473961/read-graveyard-with-our-new-back-seat-book-club?sc=tw
I strewed this for Seano, the 12 year old. Maybe Becky will enjoy it too. She loved Coraline. (she loves anything spooky!).
Here's info about it: http://www.npr.org/2011/10/21/141473961/read-graveyard-with-our-new-back-seat-book-club?sc=tw
I strewed this for Seano, the 12 year old. Maybe Becky will enjoy it too. She loved Coraline. (she loves anything spooky!).
Monday, October 24, 2011
Great post at Pat Farenga's site
Further, unschooling is an option for families, not a mandate. You can try it and adapt it as you see fit; your kids can move in and out of school as necessary; you can do it for any amount of time. It is NOT school, which is why it is a true option for children who hate school, or don’t fit in, or find class too boring, or find class too challenging. I wish the experts had considered these issues instead of finding fault with unschooling because it does not follow conventional school techniques; that is the point, after all. As noted earlier, people often come to unschooling because their children were not flourishing in school, or because even though they did well in school (as the adult Bentley’s say they did in their segment) they want an education that is more involving for their children than marching through the steps of standardized curricula.
I just pulled this out of a longer post Mr. Farenga did in response to a six minute TV interview with an unschooling family. You can read the rest of the post here, along with the very interesting comments.
NB: For some reason I can't seem to link directly to the article that contains the above quote. So once you get to Pat Farenga's blog, please scroll down to the title: Unschooling Formatted for TV.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Treasure Island - Book 44
We read Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson out loud to Becky for her Good Books class at Aquinas Learning. She started off by listening to it on audio. We got this version, which I thought she would like. But she could not understand the antiquated language, so she got frustrated with it. So I wound up reading it aloud to her. At the end, though because we were under a time crunch, my husband began reading it aloud when I wasn't available. Then I'd snatch it up and read quickly to catch up when I had a moment or two.
Treasure Island is a classic for a reason. Robert Louis Stevenson, in spite of the old fashioned language and all the seamanship terminology, still manages to tell a most gripping story of Jim Hawkins and his adventures with pirates aboard the Hispaniola. This book is scary! It has lots of terrifying moments and memorable characters. Starting with Billy Bones, the blind beggar/pirate Pew, Long John Silver, of course, Doctor Livesey, Squire Trelawney and Ben Gunn, the book just rollicks along with all kinds of exciting twists and turns. Jim's life is in danger more than once, and there is a lot of violence for something that is now considered a children's book. In fact, this book was supposed to be the family read aloud for our program, but most of the parents have younger children just in first or second grade and they found they could not read the book aloud to them. Either the kids just couldn't understand it or it was way too scary for them. They wound up reading abridged versions or watching the Disney movies (which is quite good) or the Muppet Treasure Island (also quite good and very silly!).
I think Treasure Island makes an excellent read aloud for a nine or ten year old, so my advice is wait until they are old enough to appreciate it and won't find it quite so frightening. Be prepared to stop and explain the language. Luckily my husband knows all those technical boating words so he could define them for us. Otherwise we'd have been at the dictionary trying to satisfy Becky's curiosity. I, myself, have read this book several times before, and simply glossed over all the technical talk. You can still pick up the action of the story without understanding those terms precisely.
Our book was illustrated by Milo Winter. I do think that since this book is such a classic, it is nice to have it in hardback with great illustrations.
For more book reviews go to 52 Books.
Treasure Island is a classic for a reason. Robert Louis Stevenson, in spite of the old fashioned language and all the seamanship terminology, still manages to tell a most gripping story of Jim Hawkins and his adventures with pirates aboard the Hispaniola. This book is scary! It has lots of terrifying moments and memorable characters. Starting with Billy Bones, the blind beggar/pirate Pew, Long John Silver, of course, Doctor Livesey, Squire Trelawney and Ben Gunn, the book just rollicks along with all kinds of exciting twists and turns. Jim's life is in danger more than once, and there is a lot of violence for something that is now considered a children's book. In fact, this book was supposed to be the family read aloud for our program, but most of the parents have younger children just in first or second grade and they found they could not read the book aloud to them. Either the kids just couldn't understand it or it was way too scary for them. They wound up reading abridged versions or watching the Disney movies (which is quite good) or the Muppet Treasure Island (also quite good and very silly!).
I think Treasure Island makes an excellent read aloud for a nine or ten year old, so my advice is wait until they are old enough to appreciate it and won't find it quite so frightening. Be prepared to stop and explain the language. Luckily my husband knows all those technical boating words so he could define them for us. Otherwise we'd have been at the dictionary trying to satisfy Becky's curiosity. I, myself, have read this book several times before, and simply glossed over all the technical talk. You can still pick up the action of the story without understanding those terms precisely.
Our book was illustrated by Milo Winter. I do think that since this book is such a classic, it is nice to have it in hardback with great illustrations.
For more book reviews go to 52 Books.
Friday, October 21, 2011
What We've Been Up To - 10/21/11
Good things: poetry, Knox's The Creed in Slow Motion (my kids LOVE this; starts many great, deep discussions), Exploring the World of Physics, reading Sunday scripture out loud on Fridays.
All of the above happen in the morning over breakfast.
Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery - Sean, Josh and I are all enjoying this.
Read alouds: finished The Penderwicks and Treasure Island this week. I've decided to start reading aloud to Sean. Rick's been reading to Becky and that seems to be their province now, but Sean still needs a good read aloud at night, I've decided. Sean told me he's started reading a book at night! He has not picked up a book on his own for months! It's The Gospel According to The Simpsons. He says it's pretty good.
Copy work for Becky - the copy work from Aquinas Learning is going well with her. Her cursive is coming along nicely. I've decided that Sean also needs to work on his penmanship. In fact, I'm back to all three of the kids doing this. Josh voluntarily wanted to and I got him the Write Now book to work from. He wants to be able to write faster and he wanted to do connected italics instead of cursive.
Sean is writing on the computer a lot. He comes up with ideas and the words for his friend's comics. His friend draws them and then they put them up on their Deviant Art account.
Journey to the Center of the Earth. Sean and I are still battling through this book. I can't wait til it's over and I can say that Sean read a bona fide classic. I think, in spite of the struggle, he'll be proud of himself.
Sean keeps saying he wants to study history. I can't activate my This Week in History Account but I sent an email in, hopefully they can fix that and we'll start next week.
I'm thinking of getting a math tutor for Sean. Let's face it, I'm a lousy math teacher and I'm so distracted I don't keep up. We are really thinking of sending Sean to school next year, therefore I really think it is necessary for him to stick to both math and Latin. This week he took all morning to take his math test and he didn't do well. He just wasn't focusing I could tell and that's probably most of the problem. But he truly needs structure. For the older kids, having a tutor once a week was great at making them sit down and do their math. And in the end they were grateful for this bit of discipline inserted into their lives. The tutor has to be able to come to the house though. I just can't drive one more place every week! I'll snap like a rubber band! Or I might as well move into the car permanently!
Becky tried out band class again. She was crying as we went in so I told her we could bail. This was supposed to be fun and not something she dreaded. But to my surprise she said she'd do it. She's completely overwhelmed by it and all the other kids are more advanced than her. I'm thinking we drop it and again get someone to come to the house to teach her. We'll see. I'll let thing percolate for a couple days and then we'll talk. If she voluntarily starts practicing then I know she's into it.
Latin is hard but going well. We are really getting deep into Latin, deeper than I've ever gone into another language. But it is hard and I know I should be spending an hour a week just reviewing everything learned up to this point. We are getting ready for a test soon, so that will help with the review stuff. Josh has sort of woken up and started to participate more. I think, as painful as it is, meeting for class twice a week, instead of once, is really a boon to study. But it is very challenging.
Aquinas Learning - Becky was loving the social component of this, but there was some big blow out yesterday among the 4-6th grade kids, with Becky ending up in tears. She was in a terrible mood for most of the day. I don't know what happened. Sigh, the joys of socialization! I do like the structure it gives our week. She's good at doing her activity sheets. We don't go over the memory sentences like we should. I have to say I am coming to hate IEW. It is the most unnatural way to learn writing that I can think of. And it treats children like they have no innate writing ability whatsoever. Writing has to be broken down absurdly and presented in a rather silly fashion. And the little paragraphs that the kids have to rewrite are not particularly well written. Give me Susan Wise Bauer's Writing With Ease any day of the week over IEW.
Josh truly seems to enjoy both Chemistry and Psychology. He's neutral about PreCalc. Shakespeare, he wants to like but the amount of work is overwhelming and he let himself get behind and hasn't caught up, so it has become a drag. I helped him with his homework yesterday. And he's working on performing his Monologue tomorrow for class.
He's sticking in there with his cross country. He doesn't practice at home like he should though. He's got his next race this coming Sunday. I'm helping which means a long afternoon (4 or 5 hours). I"m bringing a folding chair! I can't stand for that long!
Today I hope to play catch up with stuff that has slid through the cracks. Josh gets to sleep in a bit this a.m. Chemistry doesn't start until 10 today instead of 8:30.
All of the above happen in the morning over breakfast.
Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery - Sean, Josh and I are all enjoying this.
Read alouds: finished The Penderwicks and Treasure Island this week. I've decided to start reading aloud to Sean. Rick's been reading to Becky and that seems to be their province now, but Sean still needs a good read aloud at night, I've decided. Sean told me he's started reading a book at night! He has not picked up a book on his own for months! It's The Gospel According to The Simpsons. He says it's pretty good.
Copy work for Becky - the copy work from Aquinas Learning is going well with her. Her cursive is coming along nicely. I've decided that Sean also needs to work on his penmanship. In fact, I'm back to all three of the kids doing this. Josh voluntarily wanted to and I got him the Write Now book to work from. He wants to be able to write faster and he wanted to do connected italics instead of cursive.
Sean is writing on the computer a lot. He comes up with ideas and the words for his friend's comics. His friend draws them and then they put them up on their Deviant Art account.
Journey to the Center of the Earth. Sean and I are still battling through this book. I can't wait til it's over and I can say that Sean read a bona fide classic. I think, in spite of the struggle, he'll be proud of himself.
Sean keeps saying he wants to study history. I can't activate my This Week in History Account but I sent an email in, hopefully they can fix that and we'll start next week.
I'm thinking of getting a math tutor for Sean. Let's face it, I'm a lousy math teacher and I'm so distracted I don't keep up. We are really thinking of sending Sean to school next year, therefore I really think it is necessary for him to stick to both math and Latin. This week he took all morning to take his math test and he didn't do well. He just wasn't focusing I could tell and that's probably most of the problem. But he truly needs structure. For the older kids, having a tutor once a week was great at making them sit down and do their math. And in the end they were grateful for this bit of discipline inserted into their lives. The tutor has to be able to come to the house though. I just can't drive one more place every week! I'll snap like a rubber band! Or I might as well move into the car permanently!
Becky tried out band class again. She was crying as we went in so I told her we could bail. This was supposed to be fun and not something she dreaded. But to my surprise she said she'd do it. She's completely overwhelmed by it and all the other kids are more advanced than her. I'm thinking we drop it and again get someone to come to the house to teach her. We'll see. I'll let thing percolate for a couple days and then we'll talk. If she voluntarily starts practicing then I know she's into it.
Latin is hard but going well. We are really getting deep into Latin, deeper than I've ever gone into another language. But it is hard and I know I should be spending an hour a week just reviewing everything learned up to this point. We are getting ready for a test soon, so that will help with the review stuff. Josh has sort of woken up and started to participate more. I think, as painful as it is, meeting for class twice a week, instead of once, is really a boon to study. But it is very challenging.
Aquinas Learning - Becky was loving the social component of this, but there was some big blow out yesterday among the 4-6th grade kids, with Becky ending up in tears. She was in a terrible mood for most of the day. I don't know what happened. Sigh, the joys of socialization! I do like the structure it gives our week. She's good at doing her activity sheets. We don't go over the memory sentences like we should. I have to say I am coming to hate IEW. It is the most unnatural way to learn writing that I can think of. And it treats children like they have no innate writing ability whatsoever. Writing has to be broken down absurdly and presented in a rather silly fashion. And the little paragraphs that the kids have to rewrite are not particularly well written. Give me Susan Wise Bauer's Writing With Ease any day of the week over IEW.
Josh truly seems to enjoy both Chemistry and Psychology. He's neutral about PreCalc. Shakespeare, he wants to like but the amount of work is overwhelming and he let himself get behind and hasn't caught up, so it has become a drag. I helped him with his homework yesterday. And he's working on performing his Monologue tomorrow for class.
He's sticking in there with his cross country. He doesn't practice at home like he should though. He's got his next race this coming Sunday. I'm helping which means a long afternoon (4 or 5 hours). I"m bringing a folding chair! I can't stand for that long!
Today I hope to play catch up with stuff that has slid through the cracks. Josh gets to sleep in a bit this a.m. Chemistry doesn't start until 10 today instead of 8:30.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Strewsday Tuesday - 10/18/11
Right now my two youngest are downstairs recording their own songs on the computer and having a blast.
So I guess the gradual accumulation of computer/recording equipment, fueled by older brother's love for music and daddy's penchant for anything electronic strewed that for them. Very unconscious on anyone's part!
Consciously though, I did e-mail my 12 yo a link to Homeschool Connections' new Middle School Writing Class. It looks good to me and I was hoping he'd think so too. He seems favorably open to the idea but I haven't sign him up yet or anything. January is so far away!
Any strewing going on around at your place?
So I guess the gradual accumulation of computer/recording equipment, fueled by older brother's love for music and daddy's penchant for anything electronic strewed that for them. Very unconscious on anyone's part!
Consciously though, I did e-mail my 12 yo a link to Homeschool Connections' new Middle School Writing Class. It looks good to me and I was hoping he'd think so too. He seems favorably open to the idea but I haven't sign him up yet or anything. January is so far away!
Any strewing going on around at your place?
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