Pictionary is fun, especially for a group. And I second Monopoly. Clue too. My son is a huge fan of board games (Risk is one of his favorites) so I'll be watching this thread to see what other people suggest! We also have a big book setting out the rules for hundreds of card games, which is great. Do your kids play cards?

I also was wondering about those squares I hear people talking about! @aggieamyI'm glad your daughter is ok!

I did not know this about medieval sleep patterns! That makes so much sense. I couldn't understand why people talk about the Benedictine rule as so sensible when it involves all that broken sleep. The middle ages are such a fascinating time -- not only in terms of events but in terms of how people actually lived. I guess that's part of why I'm enjoying Catherine of Siena; it's a very human kind of history. The Barbara Tuchman book about the 14th century, meanwhile, has sat on my shelf for literally years gathering dust and waiting to be read.

I think I do a lot of what I'd call gentle complaining with those I'm closest to. I spent the morning with one of my oldest friends the other day. Our conversations almost always go the same way: "I talked to so and so and they said x thing which upset me..." "The plumber came and now we have x problem with the water..." "Pizza is three times more expensive now than when we were kids..." Then we talk about it. Why did it upset you? Why would this person do that? Who else acts like this? One of us makes a joke. I find this very cathartic. I do this with my mother, with my female cousins, and with some of my other friends. (Somehow this conversation doesn't work the same way with men.) To me, this kind of complaining is a harmless way to lighten our loads. If I wanted to get pretentious (and I do) I'd compare it to an old blues song or a tragic poem, the kind that's so well-expressed that it cheers you up. I mean, I am not talking about grand tragedies here -- just the little things in life -- but I handle them better when I can share them.

Happy Sunday, all! I've been reading slowly -- it's been a busy week for me and I'm still on Catherine of Siena, the biography of Saint Catherine by Sigrid Undset. The writing is very gentle and simple and a little bit impenetrable. I was starting to get very frustrated because I felt like I was watching a story unfold from behind plexiglass -- I wanted to be moved by the book, or to argue or, you know, get emotionally involved SOMEHOW, but the book just went on talking about gigantic miracles in a very placid tone. Luckily just as I was getting irritated and making notes in the margins, Undset took a step back and started talking about her own experience of writing the book -- the difficulty of writing about Catherine's inner life, for example. And (I loved this) the idea that there's no particular reason that a historian should disbelieve eyewitness accounts of miracles. I'm almost halfway through now and the story is getting intermixed with the broader history of Italy as Catherine goes out into the world more. I'm enjoying myself. Oh, I'm editing to say @SereneHome-- How to Stop Time is such a great title for a book!

That's how I feel too, at least for now!

Please do! I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

I am pretty haphazard about teaching my kids French, so obviously a different situation from you guys with Russian. But the other day, we were taking a walk and I was speaking to them in French and they were both being SO GRUMPY about it. It suddenly occurred to me that they must feel insecure about the language. I translated a few things into English, praised them for the things they still remembered and all of a sudden they were MUCH happier and we all started having fun with it.

I totally empathize, and I bet everyone who's ever had an 8 year old (or a 7 year old, or a 9 year old) will empathize too : ) It's weird and confusing when a bright, capable kid just wants to dig in their heels and resist. Both my kids can be like this in different ways. I've dealt with it by making school pretty structured and not worrying too, too much about whether it's fun or not. I mean, hopefully we also have fun; I plan things that we'll all enjoy, I listen to them when they express interests, and above all, I make sure the kids also have lots of free time. But I try to make it very very clear what they have to do, and what my expectations for their work are. Then I try to stay really unemotional about their responses to things. When they complain, I either tease them, ignore them, or (if I'm cranky that day) I warn them that I'm going to lose my patience pretty soon. They are also old enough to understand things like "if you make my life miserable this morning, I can't do [x fun thing together] later on because I'll be busy recovering." Editing to add that obviously, from every one of your posts, you are obviously a great teacher and parent : ) I think this is all just a very normal part of life which, yes, can feel awful.

I started reading Catherine of Siena, a biography of Saint Catherine by Sigrid Undset. I bought this book by mistake. I'd meant to order Kristin Lavransdatter, by the same author, after @Penguinhad recommended it on a different thread. But here I am with Catherine. This book appeals to me enormously but also leaves me feeling like I'm on strange territory. I am not religious and in fact I was raised by pretty committed atheists. I am not an atheist at all, but a book like this one still makes me feel how much of the world I dont know about. It's hard to explain! I'll read more 🙂

This makes sense. And if they're narrating every day, you must feel almost as if you've read the book yourself!

Every year, I make a list of subjects I plan to study with the kids. I also make a list of books for each subject. (The kids can have as much input as they want on both lists.) Honestly, this sounds way more orderly than it is -- in reality the list is constantly changing and the subjects can change if people want. But the books on that list are what I call school books.

Yeah, I'm the same way-- I dont pre-read the stuff that we read together. I'm thinking of when the kids get older and read more of their school books on their own.

This makes so much sense. And by picking the books yourself you can also make sure it's something YOU want to read and talk about. I'm a fast reader too, and I also read a lot. Only 2 kids, but other than that I really relate to this 🙂

That's a really fun way to read -- I love buddy -style reading. Thanks.

Thanks. What do you do about history and science readings, for example? Do you discuss with them without having read the books? Do they ever misunderstand something or miss something in a reading? This is all new to me because until recently we were doing most things as read aloud:)

Like the title says 🙂 when you ask your kids to read a book, do you also read it? Or reread it? And, how far ahead of time do you read it? Do you make notes so that you don't forget things? Do you have a system, or is it more hodgepodge? With my 2nd grader, we just read out loud and then discuss. And she also talks to me about the books she's reading for fun. I do that with my 4th grader too, but he also reads some history and literature on his own. I've been reading those books also, because I want to be able to talk about them with him. At this point, his books are easy and fast reads, so it's kind of fun. I guess I'm just curious how it looks when kids get older and are reading more books. Do you read everything ahead over the summer, or do you just stay a few jumps ahead of your kids? Do you get books jumbled in your head when you're reading multiple books for multiple kids?

I love that spelling is also a record of history. I had always assumed that spelling bee contestants were just stalling for time when they asked for word origins! This makes so much more sense.

Thank you! This is so interesting. The theories about WHY this happened are fascinating too -- "An opposing theory states that the wars with France and general anti-French sentiments caused hypercorrection deliberately to make English sound less like French.

I was totally off before. But anyhow now I've learned something... https://sites.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/vowels.html Beginning in the middle ages, there was a total shift in the way English speakers pronounced their vowels, but the spelling of words generally stayed the same. The a sound went from "au" to "ay," roughly. So words like "strange" or "change" or "manger" were originally pronounced "chaunge" or "maunger," but by the early modern period shifted to a long a sound. The spelling stayed the same. they explained it well here too: https://www.readingrockets.org/article/six-syllable-types

Love this question. Interesting that the middle English was "straunge," which would've been the same vowel sound as the French. This is just a weird incoherent guess, but maybe the pronunciation evolved in order to differentiate the English from the French? Today, British English pronounces a lot of French-origin words oddly. They put the emphasis very markedly on the first syllable of the word, like, GA-rage for garage, or BE-rry for beret, or CAFF-fay for cafe. In French the emphasis naturally falls on the last syllable of a word, so the British pronunciation of those borrowed words is very distinctive. Sorry that is a total ramble but I wonder if somehow it's connected! Also, grange has a long A and also comes from French.

I don't usually get involved in these threads 🙂 Some people are never going to have much public "success" because they have very different goals. Some of my favorite people are (were) brilliant, creative, and yet struggle to pay their bills because they are just not very good at the kind of work that pays well. (I don't mean they aren't talented enough -- I mean maybe they dont want to be managers, or they arent interested in a desk job, or they don't have the patience for further education.) Some of them do valuable work indeed, as home health attendants or tutors. Others make art, organize to help recent immigrants, lots of things. I think some people have the luck to fit in easily with their surroundings and with society's expectations. Those people rise relatively easily. Others tend to be on the outside. I don't even know if this is good or bad, but it's different, and I don't think it has much to do with academic skills, or interpersonal skills, much less good intentions or hard work.

That's the one! I dont remember when exactly Beethoven came in but it did. One day I'll go back and finish it. One day...

I was just thinking about Magic Mountain! I never finished it but the part I read really stuck with me. At least, if I'm thinking of the right book...I remember a lot of analysis of Beethoven and how it works on our emotions? That's on my long- term list.

Thank you! I look forward to exploring these. I didn't know any of these names -- well Charlotte Yonge, but I only knew her as a children's author. I've been reading her Little Duke to my kids. I couldn't stop reading North and South and finally finished it very very late last night. What a joy of a book. I won't say it's perfect and there's plenty of fantasia there, but it's so rich and full. There were even some interesting bits and pieces about education, including a brief discussion of the merits of home schooling vs sending kids to the village school. (The downside of homeschooling, at least in the little southern village, is that kids end up believing in some disturbing superstition; the downside of the village school is the smarmy, unimaginative vicar's wife.) In all, a lovely book. Next week...I've ordered a few books and am waiting to see what arrives first.