ladydusk
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Posts posted by ladydusk
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FWIW I'm using WWE3 and WR and it has been great :)
Me too. Only we're all working on W&R together. It's quite a stretch for my little one (I'm scribing for her a good bit), but the other two are doing pretty well so far - on Fridays and very slowly.
I do think we're going to go to the WWE Strong Fundamentals book with our History, Science, and Literature readings (the hard part is coordinating that for three kids in three different places) and do W&R a bit more often.
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We did the plants unit and I, personally, disliked the cutting and gluing and keeping all the parts and pieces together. The experiments worked and were good and the rest was fine, but the cutting and gluing drove me crazy.
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I thought it was a bit snoozy and their handling of scripture was suspect. There were some helpful things, but I never ever refer to the book.
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My daughter was writing thank you notes to her basketball coaches. Her first impulse for the closing was, "Yours," She's nine.
(I convinced her to go with "Thanks again," for the rest)
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(and Dawn is NOT pronounced like Don--it's the AWWWW sound in Pennsylvania's accent! lol)
Trust me, for 41 years it's sounded like Don.
When I was in High School, I worked at a Sister's Chicken and Biscuits. I had a manager named Don and an Assistant Manager named Ron. It was very confusing all the time.
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I have never liked my name. Dawn. Rhymes with Yawn. Sounds just like a boy's name: Don. In 8th grade, I went to pick up my schedule and when the lady asked my name she actually wrote Don. (I will admit to having short hair, being tall, skinny, and flat as a board. But still. That was 25+ years ago and I still remember the very popular girl who was standing behind me observing the whole thing.)
Anyway, I have a lovely middle name. My favorite name. I tried to change to it in the middle of 1st grade. I just started writing it on my papers. My teacher wouldn't let me. "Your mommy and daddy wouldn't know who you are." Bleah. It's too late now.
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Dove Sensitive Skin soap - or as Onceuponatime said no soap at all.
Pat the skin with a towel, no rubbing. Leave damp and lotion. I use Lubriderm or Eucerin Cream.
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What's Wisdom and Eloquence? My library doesn't have N&N--going to stop by Friday and see if they can interlibrary loan it for me.
Wisdom and Eloquence - Written for Classical Christian Schools, has some good ideas about what this Classical Christian Education thing can look like ... I like it quite a lot, but am liking The Liberal Arts Tradition by Jain and Clark (from Classical Academic Press) better.
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I was expecting a much thicker book than the one that came! But perhaps that means I'll get through it. :D
Depends on your definition of "thick" Excellent, but difficult.
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Wordless: Lady Buckeyes with Friends
Wordy: Pious Life with Well-Ordered Habits a passage from The Liberal Arts Tradition
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Newbie here but I saw Wisdom and Eloquence mentioned - I've read it (and am working through TWTM), and it resonated in many ways - can I request a recommendation for "what next" along these lines? (And FTR, I also have N&N already, ironically (a hand-me-down from a friend))
Classical Academic Press' new The Liberal Arts Tradition would be a great follow up to W&E. I'm loving it.
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You might like AG Sertillanges, The Intellectual LIfe after N&N.
Or James Sire's Habits of the Mind. Christopher Perrin recommends it along with Sertillanges :)
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We do the poetry in FLL. We do IEW poetry memorization. We read poems from anthologies - like Mother Goose and A Child's Book of Poems - and I love the Poetry for Young People series.
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Dawn, you are absolutely right. Why aren't these things obvious to me?
Well. I used Cursive First with three kids before I figured it out, so maybe you're in good company? LOL
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My girls, ages 8 and 9, have been learning and practicing Getty-Dubay Italic now for a couple of years. They have both expressed interest in learning a "loopier" cursive. Does anyone know of a good free resource for one of these styles. I'm really not too picky as to which one, obviously. I'm just trying to pick my battles and give them something they like. :chillpill: :huh:
Do you know cursive? I would just start teaching them how you form letters. I bought Cursive First and all of my kids have had success with it, but, frankly, just finding some lined paper and having them trace and practice letters, then practice joining them, then practice words is all my mom did when she taught me cursive before I learned at school. You could even find an alphabet you like, print it out, and laminate it.
Sometimes, I think things are harder than they need to be. I'm more guilty than the next mom :huh:
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Remember that MEP is designed for classroom use. Often the logic problems are designed to be worked on by a team of students.
I usually print the logic problems from the Classroom Masters and put them in a dry-erase pocket and let my child choose whichever color dry erase marker they want to use.
Then, I really get them going through the problem, step by step, with more help than the teacher guide gives - as if I were a fellow student (sometimes I am! some of those are hard!)
Sometimes they copy the answers onto their worksheet, sometimes they save the pocket to show Daddy, sometimes we take a picture of it and erase it immediately.
I have a child who likes to throw their pencil across the room when frustrated. I'm working on stopping that.
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The Rich are Different and The Sins of the Fathers are very satisfying novels, but the Starbridge series swept me away. When I have told people that I highly recommend a series of chunkster novels describing the 20th century history of the Anglican Church, eyebrows are raised. These books can be read as a saga of a group of characters over time--the various movements within the church can certainly be ignored. But the backdrop adds such a richness to my mind.
Same with The Rich and Sins. We know the Shakespearean plays but to have them "performed" in a modern context reminds us that greed and those who seek power for power's sake remain with us.
Howatch is such a fine writer and storyteller. Ladydusk and I are groupies.
I should clarify that I think of the Historical/Family Sagas as just as separate entities from the Gothic Romances as from the Starbridge/St. Benet's books. I wouldn't recommend them in place of the Starbridge books - I just found them first and didn't read the Starbridge books until I was an adult (with a newborn LOL).
Anyway, Howatch, IMO, has three distinct eras to her writing - Gothic Romances, Family Sagas/Historicals, Starbridge/St. Benet's. They are all intriguing on their own merits. Where the reader starts depends upon their interests.
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The four PHP books(Who in the World?) written to go along with SOTW2 have all been hits here.
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This talk about Susan Howatch, etc., puts me in mind of MM Kaye's The Far Pavilions and Elizabeth Goudge's Green Dolphin Street - not gothics, but romantic novels st in exotic places I read when young. I turned my ancient edition of Green Dolphin Street over to my daughter, but she is disinterested... sigh...
Neither in my library :(
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Phone post while I sit in the car waiting for ds to finish piano lessons so I can't bold your last bit but any recs on those family sagas paralleling historical events?
Wiki - redeems itself on Susan Howatch. I've read all of these at one point or another:
The Rich are Different and The Sins of the Fathers are based on the plot structure of the lives of Julius Ceasar and Mark Antony and Octavian and Cleopatra. They're set in the 1920s-1960s Wall Street, New York City. Fantastic Probably my favorite of the historical family sagas.
Penmarric is based on the early Plantangenets and set in 1860s Cornwall. Next favorite
The Wheel of Fortune is some later Plantangenets. I don't remember its setting, also Cornwall-ish? but later, 1910s
Cashelmara is based on Edward I and II set in 1800s Ireland - but I can't in good conscience recommend it. There are some very very dark, disturbing, sordid scenes in that book that I wish I could erase from memory.
The Starbridge and St Benet's books are great and set in the Anglican Church. These are listed by SWB as some of her favorite fiction.
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Ladydusk has read more of the earlier Howatch stuff but there is a later change from the Gothic romance to family sagas that parallel historical events or people.
True, although I did read the family sagas first. I'm convinced that I *did* *not* understand certain scenes in Cashelmara [shudder] as a teen and wonder that it was on the high school shelves at all.
Sometimes, though, once I find an author I like, I read whatever I can get my hands on by that author ... and her earlier work is definitely good.
I notice, also, that I like British authors of gothic romance - only Phyllis Whitney is American - I think that attraction is added to by the exotic foreignness ... and the Brits write so well.
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I was a big fan of both Phyllis Whitney and Victoria Holt when I was a teen. I often wonder if I would enjoy them now.
I think I also read Susan Howatch as well.
The ones I re-read as an adult because I liked them as a teen have held up pretty well, I think ... and I don't think it's just nostalgia. I think I've understood more of the mystery and enjoyed the romance as much. You should choose one you remember liking and give it a try; they're quick reads and will pad your totals if nothing else ;)
If you haven't read Howatch since being a teen, try out her later series work; it's fantastic! Hey, Jane in NC, another Howatch reader :) (I found Susan Howatch because she was on the shelf below Victoria Holt in the high school library; the titles drew me like a moth to flame: Penmarric, Cashelmara ...)
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For more musings on Gothic novels, this is a book I read at uni and am thinking I'll reread, 'The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar. I love their "revolutionary realization in the 1970s that "the personal was the political, the sexual was the textual." I read a lot of Victoria Holt in high school, 'Mistress of Mellyn' being most memorable.
I also really like Holt's The Shivering Sands. Some of her later books were better than the earlier: The Silk Vendetta, The India Fan. Well written and engaging. I have a box in the basement with a bunch of Holt, Whitney, Howatch, and Stewart books ...
But I'm reading C S Lewis this year. I *am*.
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I just put This Rough Magic on reserve at my library. I don't know that I've read any Gothic romances ... what makes something Gothic?
Hmmm ... I looked up "Gothic Romance" on Wiki (that source of all sources LOL) and it wasn't particularly helpful. I think of the genre as one where there is a mystery or suspenseful plot, a love story (generally "clean"), confusion, a dark or confusing setting and some mythical/imaginative solution.
The first big one was The Mystery of Udolpho which Jane Austen parodies in Northanger Abbey. The helpful part of the Wiki article lists some mid-century authors who write in the style:
"Gothic Romances of this description became popular during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, with authors such as Phyllis A. Whitney, Joan Aiken, Dorothy Eden, Victoria Holt, Barbara Michaels, Mary Stewart, and Jill Tattersall. Many featured covers depicting a terror-stricken woman in diaphanous attire in front of a gloomy castle, often with a single lit window. Many were published under the Paperback Library Gothic imprint and were marketed to a female audience."
I don't like the sentence I italicized. Perhaps that's true, but I don't think that's a defining character of the genre. I would've never read that kind of book when I was younger; my rule was that I read romances that I wouldn't be embarrassed to show the cover to my mom.
Susan Howatch's early work would also be Gothic Romance, IMO. Generally, I find the mystery/suspense as engaging but not frightening or scary. (I don't do thrillers or Stephen King style books)
In this This Rough Magic, there is a Castello with hidden passages and caves beneath and some other unbelievable plot devices. In my favorite Victoria Holt book, Pride of the Peacock, has an English Manor House complete with spinet built in the Australian wilderness ... and poisonings. Fun! Many of them are set in the past; particularly Victoria Holts, but not all authors wrote historically, and all of Stewart's that I've read were contemporary when written.
I read lots of Phyllis Whitney (she got a little too new-agey for me toward the end of her career) and Victoria Holt when I was in high school. I don't know about some of these other authors.
They are different from, say, Georgette Heyer's mystery Why Shoot a Butler? because there's no mystical, supernatural-old haunted (but not ghosts!) element to that.
For me, they're fluffy fluff ;)
Bluedorn reviews? (aka leaving CC)
in General Education Discussion Board
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Maybe. I've written all over my copy. It's fantastic. On the kindle, I'd underline a lot but my joy would be in sharing with my friends.