I seem to be depressed about homeschooling lately, but managed a not-very-detailed weekly report here.

Thank you so much, this will be very helpful!

I did this as an independent study in high school also, rather than taking a traditional English class. I wouldn't say that it has helped me, since I remember very little of it! (I do, however, remember that I enjoyed it thoroughly.) Lately I've been considering putting together a British children's literature class for myself. I frequently do this based on whatever it is I'm interested in & it's easy enough to do. I generally start by looking for course syllabi online & then compile something from there, though sometimes I also just pull together a reading list & skip the formal plan.

I'll second that ~ I loved this book! I hadn't planned to attempt "52 Books" this year because I failed miserably at it last year. However, I've done enough reading lately to make me re-think the idea, though I'm horrible at writing reviews. The list of books I've read this year can be found on the side bar of my blog. Thus far, in the past week I've read: Possession by A.S. Byatt ~ A classic, I suppose. I didn't enjoy the book half as much as I'd hoped. I found myself impatient and frustrated with the diary pages, letters, poems, etc. that were interspersed throughout the book, disrupting the plot. Harriet and Isabella by Patricia O'Brien ~ A novel about the falling out between Isabella Beecher Hooker and the Beecher family during Henry Ward Beecher's 1875 trial for adultery. This was a good, quick read that I found very interesting. The Dower House by Annabel Davis-Goff ~ A novel about an orphan growing up among the Anglo-Irish aristocracy during the 1950s & 60s. Initially I found this book nearly impossible to read, it jumped around a lot! After the first 40 pages or so, it got better & was in all, a fairly good read. The Thief Taker by Janet Gleeson ~ I adored this book & it is, in my opinion, a near-perfect historic mystery.

This would be us & we've got around an acre too. We've raised goats, rabbits & ducks in the past, but at the moment we only have baby chicks. We live just on the outskirts of the city, so not really rural, but not urban either. We may add a few goats within the next year again, and we'll be adding 2 beehives next spring. We established a small orchard this past fall, planting 20+ semi-dwarf apple trees and a handful of pear trees - we've got a good mix of heirloom varieties for eating fresh, storing & cider. We've got 20+ additional apple trees, plus a few more pear, cherry & peach trees coming this spring (oh, and a medlar tree!). We've got a variety of berry bushes started: blackberry, raspberry, blueberry, gooseberry, currant & lingonberry. Also a couple of grape vines, but I've kind of given up on those being useful. We have a large veggie garden in the spring/summer/fall & will be adding a huge herb garden this year as well. We started on a pit greenhouse last fall, but then DH got a job out of state & lost all interest in the project. Now he's talking about tearing it out (which makes me SAD!) & putting in a pond instead. Hmmm...that's all I can think of at the moment, though I've got a list of things I'd *like* to do that's about a mile long! ;) Homesteading Today is one of my favorite places to hang out, aside from this site of course!

Not necessarily *so* odd, but here are 3 favorites that came to mind immediately: The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories by Susanna Clarke (also, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, but I had a harder time getting through this for some reason) The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake - a classic! Oh, also, Kelly Link definitely fits the bill. Here are two of hers that I've read: Stranger Things Happen & Magic for Beginners

I went ahead & did a weekly report, even though we've had no school due to illness. We had a few other exciting things to share, including new baby chicks & the gorgeous old house we're going to look at tomorrow (at this point, it's probably just a dream, but feel free to take a peak & dream with me!).

According to this (from 2006), he's already got the land: There's no sign welcoming visitors to Pearl's Church at Cane Creek. Getting there means driving down a steep ridge where the Tennessee foothills begin fading to plains. Then, it's a left at the hand-painted signs advertising vegetables, crafts and furniture. As the blacktop turns to dirt, a bridge leads to the Pearls' farm. At the foot of a cow pasture, on the bank of a rippling stream, Pearl's loyal base gathers on Sundays. A private property warning is tacked to a sturdy oak at the foot of the church: a weathered red assembly hall perched on 10-foot stilts to survive floods. On a crisp Sunday morning earlier this month, Pearl, in muddy boots and a bright orange shirt, chirped “good morning” to a wobbly toddler as he strode to the front of the drafty room. Debi Pearl, his wife of 35 years, hugged every neck and patted every little head in sight. Three dozen or so locals, a third of them Pearl's kin, settled into plastic garden chairs in the one-room sanctuary. Debi Pearl, perched delicately beside her husband, smiled brightly as her granddaughter fished for a raisin from a snack bag. Older children sat as still as statues. Interesting.

I've debated about this for several years & finally started building our boxes last fall. I'm nowhere near done building boxes, but my goal is to grow all of our veggies & herbs this year using the Square Foot method. We have lots of land here, so it isn't a space issue - I'm just attracted to the idea of everything being relatively neat & orderly + less weeding! I'm eager to see how it goes.

Absolutely disgusting - how nice that they're all able to "laugh" in a situation like this. I find it especially repulsive that he had the nerve to pitch his book at the end.

Oh congratulations! I got my nose pierced 3 years ago & *loved* it. Unfortunately, my nose didn't love it quite so much, LOL. I had numerous problems with the piercing, so finally had to remove it last year. I really miss it.

Very seldom is our table covered, it makes school work much too difficult! I usually have a plant or flowers in the center of the table, perhaps something like that would work to disguise the spot?

My experience is very limited, but we used to have 1 Pygmy goat & 2 Boers. The Pygmy was a superb escape artist, but fortunately she always stayed on our property because she never wanted to stray too far from her buddies. She was also pretty high-strung/nervous (and very skittish about people petting her), which I've been told is normal for Pygmy goats - however, she was very social toward the other animals (cats, dogs, chickens, rabbits). All in all, she was a real sweetheart & we miss her.

I'm terrible about the snooze button - I set two alarms each morning - one for 5:20 & one for 5:30. I hit snooze on each of them until 7. I had to do the math just now, but that makes a total of 12 times that I'm up & down hitting buttons, LOL. Somehow though I totally sleep through most of this (despite the fact that my alarms are at two opposite corners of the bedroom, as far from the bed as possible). My husband hates the snooze button & when he's in town, will just shut my alarms off, which makes me crazy! (Though I guess I can't blame him either.)

I'm currently reading 3 books also: The Real Oliver Twist: Robert Blincoe: A Life That Illuminates a Violent Age Amelia Dyer: Angel Maker English Children's Books 1600-1900 (sporadically) I expect to finish #1 & #2 this week. There's waaay too many on my TBR pile to recount, but by the time I finish these I'll likely want something a bit lighter/more cheerful. A week or so ago I started Diary of a Provincial Lady, so perhaps I'll finish that.

Wow, that's crazy! Your blog isn't bad *at all,* so I would simply try to ignore the hurtful comment. Really, you should blog for yourself first and foremost. I know I post things at times that I'm sure won't interest anyone else, but that's perfectly fine with me.

I would be inclined to use one of the older readers or story books, or of course, books. When I was in elementary school we still used the McGuffey Readers, but there's lot of other options too. Here are some good choices, though some might be a wee bit too old for a 2nd grader: - For the Children's Hour by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey (this is the 3rd/4th grade reader) - The Children's Second Reader, The Children's Third Reader by Ellen M. Cyr - Book of Nature Myths for Children by Florence Holbrook - The Riverside Readers, Book 1, The Riverside Readers, Book 2 - The Book of Fables & Folk Stories by Horace Scudder - The Book of Legends Told Over Again by Horace Scudder - Fifty Famous Stories Retold & Thirty More Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin And of course there's *lots* more at Google Books (and cheaply printed at the Harvard Book Store!). You can also check the Ambleside book lists for inspiration. :-)

Playmobil is popular here too & we have the HABA Roman Arch set from last year ~ I'd meant to get the others, but then never did (some of the sets are more affordable than others). We have the Lego Medieval Market set for this year and I'm contemplating a Hirst Arts project or two (if made with dental plaster, the finished sets will be quite durable to play with). We're big on board games that tie-in to history too ~ Bruno Faidutti's site has some excellent lists, organized by themes & settings.

AWESOME news! Wow, congratulations!!

Our week is up ~ a short week, though pretty good.

I've found this chapter: Fables, Myths & Fairy Tales from The Children's Reading to be very helpful. Granted it is a bit dated, but I think most of the suggestions are quite sound & the books she recommends are all excellent (and nearly all of them are public domain). I'm loosely following her proposed reading plan in the chapter Ballads, Epics & Romances & have been quite pleased with it.

We've always done the complete lesson per day - textbook pages + applicable workbook pages.

I get: Living Crafts, Martha Stewart Living, National Geographic & The New Yorker However, seldom do I have time to read any of them - so they all go in an enormous stack! The kids get: Muse, Cricket & Calliope

I would not say that the books are overtly religious at all. We're using Christine Miller's updated Story of the Middle Ages this year & it is good, though now that I know better, I'd probably opt to have the Harvard Book Store print a copy of the original (it's much cheaper & would work just as well). Overall I'm very happy with the books & have even sought out other books by Mrs. Guerber. Her books can be viewed via Google Books.

Yikes, looks like we're late! Ours is up. :)