Jump to content

Menu
Giving You and Your Child a Road Map to the Best Possible Education
The Well-Trained Mind Community

Mommy to monkeys

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    780

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by Mommy to monkeys

    Radical Minimalism: June 2015 Check-In

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    It's too much for me right now, too. But minimalism is a larger concept than the radical form I choose to adopt at this time.

     

    If a room doesn't echo, now, I feel smothered.

    See, I do enjoy the feeling of an empty room, but the echo is a definite downside. The echoing voices of 6 small people can unfortunately feel smothering to me at times. Mama likes clean, serene, and quiet.

    • Like 1

    Radical Minimalism: June 2015 Check-In

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    I found this picture online. No this is not my apartment. :lol: My shelves are white like the walls. But this is minimalism with lots of books.

     

    0a7f3d4127f40be80b55b5bf21d68c1f.jpg

    I'd love this with white bookcases/furniture and minus the flowers. I'm one of those crazy people that doesn't like plants in the house.

     

    I've been slowly doing the 2015 challenge from the Nourishing Minimalism blog (getting rid of 2015 things this year).  I flew through our first 1,000 things but have really slowed down. I think I just needed a breather.  My kitchen desperately needs to be pared down. My tupperware is suffocating me. I'm not ready to say goodbye to anymore books, though. I love the look of empty space but with books.

    • Like 1

    Math is sucking the life out of me (CLE 6th grade)

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    The end of 4th and beginning of 5th were really tough for my oldest two kids. For my oldest we ended up going back several light units and starting afresh. With my daughter we just slowed down, did half lessons along with extra long division and multiplication problems. Both kids got over that hump and are doing exceedingly well now. My 12 year old is in the early 700's and my 10 year old in the mid 500's. I'm glad we pushed through instead of jumping ship.

     

    • Like 1

    JR Tolkien question

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    The Hobbit can easily be read as a stand-alone. It was written first. It is an adventure tale that Tolkien wrote, inspired by the stories he made up for his children. The tone and complexity is closer to that of children's books (although still a lot of great vocabulary words and beautiful, in-depth descriptions of the world of Middle Earth).

     

    Chronologically in the world of the books, the events of the Lord of the Ring take place years after the events of The Hobbit. The Lord of the Rings trilogy volumes do not stand alone. The tone and complexity is much closer to an adult epic, such as The Iliad, or Beowulf.

     

    While the publisher asked for "more hobbits", Tolkien really wrote Lord of the Rings not so much as a sequel, but as a way to express the history, languages and culture of the world he had created -- Middle Earth. There are many references and side tales about peoples and events from the ancient history of Middle Earth. There are songs written in Elvish (a few with no translation). The trilogy is written from the point of view of the hobbits, who are simpler, more child-like people. As they travel on their quest, leaving their simple hobbit land of The Shire behind, they encounter far older cultures with high, ancient lineage and rulers, and the language of the writing subtly changes and becomes more "high" and formal. In addition, a deep unspoken thread runs throughout the work of Tolkien's Christian-Catholic faith, adding subtle and powerful themes to the work.

     

    All of this works to create a rich and wonderfully deep and complex world and work of Literature that is a lot more difficult for little ones to appreciate or have the patience for it as a read-aloud. Totally agree with Pegs who suggested some wonderful other read alouds to explore if your family enjoys The Hobbit. Perhaps by waiting a year or two, then your older two DC could enjoy doing Literary Lessons from the Lord of the Rings together as they explore he Lord of the Rings. :) Here are more ideas:

     

    more by Tolkien:

    - Letters From Father Christmas

    - Farmer Giles of Ham

    - Smith of Wooton Major

    - Roverandom -- for younger children

    - Mr. Bliss -- for young children

     

    more Christian fantasy

    - The Chronicles of Narnia (Lewis)

    - The Princess and the Goblins (MacDonald)

    - The Light Princess (MacDonald)

     

    more wonderfully-written fantasy

    - The Rescuers, Miss Bianca, The Turret, Miss Bianca in the Salt Mines, Miss Bianca in the Orient (Sharpe)

    - The Ordinary Princess (Kaye)

    - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll)

    - The Reluctant Dragon (Grahame)

    - Book of Dragons (Nesbit)

    - Five Children and It; The Phoenix and the Carpet (Nesbit)

     

    And after reading those last 2 by Nesbit, read Edward Eager's series, who gives tribute to Nesbit in the books: Half Magic, Magic by the Lake, Knight's Castle.

    I very much appreciate this explanation and this is a fantastic list.  Very helpful.

    • Like 1

    Moving from WWS to Writing & Rhetoric

    in Logic Stage & Middle Grade Challenges

    Posted

    I am using W&R instead of WWS. I didn't want to put my then 10 yr old into WWS. I wanted to wait until he was a year or so older. Well, I am loving W&R. It's the perfect combo of WWE/WWS with Sentence Composing and a bit of creative writing. 

     

    Now, I'm asking myself if I will go back to WWS with him or continue the series with CAP.

     

    Which level of W&R are you using and for what age/skill level?

    SCM Stories of the Nations

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    I found this searching for scm threads. ;)

    We have volume 1 of Stories of Nations and Stories of America.

    They do make good independent reading. My son prefers Stories of the Nations to Stories of America simply because the American stories are just so familiar already. I personally liked read  them aloud better than SOTW.

    I'm tossing around the idea of doing the SCM Early Modern module next year.

    What education-ish stuff are you loving on Netflix right now?

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    We are watching "How the States got their Shape" and loving it.

     

    What are you watching?

    Yes, this is so good! We love it.

     

    We also watch Brain Games (does that count?), Magic School Bus, and some Nature Documentary stuff.  

    After we finished The Little White Horse we watched Secret of Moonacre and did a compare/contrast. That's kinda sorta educational, right?

     

    I'd love more suggestions too. :)

    Climbling to Good English users

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    We've used it off and on over the years, and it really did get the job done, but I'm honestly at a point where I don't ever want to see it again. My kids did okay with it, but never liked it. Don't even get me started on the alphabetizing sections. . .

    I do REALLY like the writing instruction from 5th up, but OY! That font. . .my eyes. It is awful. 

     

    I'm considering going the other way. ..TO RS English, but at a slower pace. I want to do more writing across the curriculum. If I can do more composition with them in other areas, I don't care if RS English lessons are spread over two days OR if my big kids take turns doing their English lesson with me (Ie Monday ds, Tues dd, Wed ds, Thurs dd).  I really do want to simplify a bit. For me that means I really REALLY want to ditch some of the workbooks. 

    Fun Poll: How often do you go to the library?

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    Once weekly to our local library. That is about a fifteen to twenty minute drive.

    Once every other week to the big library which is a three hour round trip.

     

    We have a super awesome library about 45 minutes from here. The kind where you hear angels sing when you step off the elevator onto the children's FLOOR. It has crossed my mind to start going on a regular basis now that my youngest ones are a little older. We could make a day of it.  Spend all morning in heaven (at the library) and have lunch and enjoy our afternoon at the super awesome playground.  Then hopefully have everyone sleep on the way home. :) My only fear is the FEES.

    • Like 3

    Fun Poll: How often do you go to the library?

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    I didn't vote because we go in spurts.

    We avoid going anywhere we don't have to during the frigid snowy winter.

    Right now we've been going every week.

    I have a love/hate relationship with the library.  It's a smaller library, so we do have to request books from other libraries. It's nice that they do this, BUT you only have 48 hours to pick up your hold.  That makes it a bit of a pain as the holds come in at different times and we are not that close to it (about 20 minutes).  Everywhere else I can remember, they gave you a whole week.  :glare:

    • Like 1

    What are you doing for 7th grade?

    in Logic Stage & Middle Grade Challenges

    Posted

     

     

     

    If you are doing CLE 700, are you taking two years for pre-algebra?  I love CLE and hate to switch, but I don't want to take two years for pre-a. We are starting level 700 shortly and we skip the first unit, so we should be well into 800 before the end of next year.  I hate the idea of 2 years for pre-alg also, and contemplated all kind of combos but ultimately I'm sticking to the "If it ain't broke. . " philosophy.

     

    If you are doing Apologia General Science, are you using the notebook? No, we have an older edition and are going to be using the materials from Donna Young's website

     

     

    • Like 1
×
×
  • Create New...