Everything’s coming up…

rhubarb.
I was hoping for a larger photo to better show the leaf detail, in all its unfurled promise, but this is as big as I could get it.

Lucky number eight

Daniel is eight today, and we’ve been celebrating his birthday (and continuing to celebrate mine from the other day) with waffles, sunshine, Lego, books, and flowers. His plans for today include working on the fort he and Davy started the other month in Tom’s shop, and which finally made its public debut the other day [...]

Poetry Friday: Arbor Day edition

Appropriately enough, we had word from the county yesterday that our 900+ new shelterbelt trees will be ready for pick up by May 9th. Tom phoned to borrow the county’s tree planter, which make the process much easier, and we’re getting some fabric mulch this year so that the kids and I don’t have quite [...]

Shades of gray

Well worth reading.
Brava.
And thank you.
(Also, as of tomorrow, worth a look. Good timing, eh?)

Fun with gunpowder

Last summer I wrote about my brief thoughts on The Dangerous Book for Boys (American website here); I said at the time I thought that for our purposes Daniel Carter Beard’s classic, The American Boy’s Handy Book, was a better book for our purposes.
Now, with the news that my father is sending a copy [...]

Earth Day: Wild in love with the planet we’ve got

The frogs are singing loudly now from the ditches, dugouts, and sloughs, the ducks — especially the goldeneyes — are pairing up, the grass is greening, gophers are running about, hawks swoop around overhead, and the prairie crocuses are up.
I missed Poetry Friday again — too many visitors here and places to be there. We [...]

The little ghouls of Anatevka

Today at rehearsal it was time to experiment with makeup for the graveyard scene. Even more exciting, the posters are starting to go up around town.
And yes, it was great fun to swan around the supermarket after rehearsal in full makeup.

Some (precious little) comfort

I spent a couple of hours yesterday evening at the college in town, where the kids had rehearsal for their play after dinner. I listened to the muffled sound of a janitor’s vacuum cleaner, students whispering over their homework, far-off children singing and shouting, and thought about the events of the day which, really, could [...]

Bet you didn’t know I read "Chemical & Engineering News"

Just for the articles, though.
Three of them, in fact, from tomorrow’s issue. The first is on homeschool science curricula, especially high school chemistry:
It’s Monday night at the Strouds’, and David is at the dining room table with his two daughters, Fisher, seven, and Ripley, nine. On this particular evening in February, David is [...]

Good Guardian

article on home education in the UK, primarily a very even-handed profile of the Newstead family, who have, along with many other UK home educators, “simply tried the mainstream and found it wanting.”
Best quote from the home educating father,
People say ‘Isn’t socialisation a problem?’ And we say, ‘Yes it is, which is why we’ve taken [...]

Supersize me?

“Please accept my resignation. I don’t care to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.”Groucho Marx, The Groucho Letters (1967)
“Include me out.”Samuel Goldwyn
Earlier this week, I discovered I’d been nominated for a blogging award, but being the crabby type and a Marxist (Groucho, not Karl) as well as a Goldwyn Girl, [...]

Classic children’s literature, revisited: a special place in the heart

At the Yahoo nonsectarian Charlotte Mason group I started the other year (and where I tend to feel like a Well-Trained impostor), some members were discussing Horn Book editor Roger Sutton’s recent post about The Baldwin Project and Charlotte Mason, and one member, Julie, wrote,
I use the AO [Ambleside Online] program. I also make substitutions [...]

Poetry Friday: Bedgraggled but determined

Since the beginning of the month, we’ve had days pelted with snow, wind, and a bit of rain. But we’ve had two sunny, warm(ish) days, the snow is gone from much of the yard and the fields, the meadowlarks are back and singing, and the bluebirds are back and flying around, and in town at [...]

Tapping toes and teaching to tests

Go on to sleep now, third grader of mine.The test is tomorrow but you’ll do just fine.It’s reading and math. Forget all the rest.You don’t need to know what is not on the test.
Each box that you mark on each test that you take,Remember your teachers. Their jobs are at stake.Your score is their score, [...]

Getting there is more than half the fun

I had meant to write about our new game (and a bunch of other things) shortly after returning from our trip the other month to visit my parents, and now that it’s homeschool convention/ curriculum fair season, I thought I’d better get moving.
On our trip we were lucky to get the chance to catch [...]

Keeping it clean

Thanks to Liz at A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy, I just learned about a new blog, Deliciously Clean Reads, from Emily at Whimsy Books, where she writes “about picture books, motherhood, and writing”. Emily, who’s looking for contributors for the new blog, describes its mission this way,
All reviewed books at Clean Reads [...]

Some weekend questions for homeschoolers in general, and Charlotte Mason types in particular

from a couple of children’s literature blogs I enjoy:
The first bunch from Roger Sutton, editor of the Horn Book, from his blog Read Roger; and the second bunch from Liz at A Chair, A Fireplace, and A Tea Cozy.
My blogging has been sporadic as it is, likely even more so over the holiday weekend and [...]

Poetry Friday: Dazzling mud and dingy snow

I’ve fallen off the Poetry Friday bandwagon (and a number of other virtual bandwagons as well since real life has speeded up considerably) with rather a thud, for which, if anyone is in fact paying attention, I apologize. Last week I managed to post a poem, but didn’t realize until a few days ago that [...]

Barbarians, paragons, and March and April fools

Just in time for April Fool’s Day, one hopes, The Telegraph’s education correspondent reported yesterday,
Lessons in Latin and Ancient Greek have been deemed detrimental to the learning of foreign languages in schools.
A secret document sent to Government officials by the Dearing Languages Review, an influential inquiry into language teaching, reveals that Latin and Greek [...]