This isn’t a very fascinating post for the first day of a New Year, but I have a few things on my plate today, including a 10th birthday party for my first-born son. Maybe I’ll have some fascinating, inspiring, colorful posts this coming week (or not), but for now this is it.
Making Men without Chests: The Intellectual Life and Moral Imagination by R. J. Snell
Where does such courage come from? Or honesty? Generosity, magnanimity, dignity, liberality, patience, industriousness, modesty, forbearance, good humor, nobility, and reverence? Where do these come from? All these virtues we need to live well—where do we get them?
They don’t come from argument. And they don’t come from theory. They come from imagination, or a certain kind of imagination which some have called “moral imagination.” They come from stories, theater, images, symbols, ideals, character types and archetypes, and, in an eminent way, from liturgy. From knowing the stories of David and Bathsheba, Samson and Delilah, Joseph and Potiphar’s wife.
The Gospel According to Sleeping Beauty by Angelina Stanford
When sleeping beauty awakens, her entire kingdom awakes as well: her attendants, the horses and dogs, even the flies on the wall. Likewise, when Christ calls for His bride, the whole of Creation will be redeemed as well.
All in the Timing: Why reading ahead of your grade level isn’t necessarily a good thing by Dashka Slater
As a children's book writer who has yet to outgrow the habit of reading picture books for pleasure, I find all of this a bit disturbing. Of course it's wonderful that children are reading, and wonderful when they read complicated books. But in the fuss about literacy and reading levels and school achievement, something fundamental gets lost: the pleasure of the book for its own sake.
Between Christmas and illness, we didn’t do much formal school work
Christmas:
Storybook Land
St. Nicholas Day Celebration
Lots and lots of Christmas books
Faith:
The Handel's Messiah Family Advent Reader
Math:
Teaching Textbooks
The Critical Thinking Co. math workbooks
Life of Fred (all 3 boys; finished Apples, Butterflies, Cats, Dogs, Edgewood, Farming, Goldfish, and Honey)
Science:
Nada, unless you count Sid the Science Kid, Wild Kratts, and How It’s Made
P.E.:
Swim Team (Levi)/Swim Lessons (Luke)
Fine Arts:
Monthly Fine Arts Study (Handel, Rockwell, and Christmas Poetry)
Piano lessons (Luke)
Language Arts:
MCT Vocabulary and Grammar (+sentence diagramming) (just a little)
Writing With Ease (just a little)
All About Spelling Level 2 (just a little)
Handwriting Without Tears custom worksheets (all 3 boys)
Geography:
BrainBox USA and World games
Place the State online game
History/Literature/Historical Fiction:
The Story of the World: Early Modern Times (chapters 22-23
DK Children's Encyclopedia of American History
Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes (Levi-IR)
Mr. Revere and I by Robert Lawson (Levi-IR)
Sam the Minuteman by Nathaniel Benchley
Phoebe and the General by Judith Berry Griffin
Where was Patrick Henry on the 29th of May? by Jean Fritz
And Then What Happened, Paul Revere? by Jean Fritz
Let’s Ride, Paul Revere by Peter and Connie Roop
The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, graved and painted by Christopher Bing
The Many Rides of Paul Revere by James Cross Giblin
Yankee Doodle Boy: A Young Soldier’s Adventures in the American Revolution by Joseph Plumb Martin (Levi-IR)
Why Not, Lafayette? by Jean Fritz (Levi-IR)
Guns for General Washington by Seymour Reit (Levi-IR)
Traitor: The Case of Benedict Arnold by Jean Fritz (Levi-IR)
Can’t You Make Them Behave, King George by Jean Fritz
…If You Lived at the Time of the American Revolution by Kay Moore
When Mr. Jefferson Came to Philadelphia: What I Learned of Freedom, 1776 by Ann Turner
The Matchlock Gun by Walter D. Edmonds
Revolutionary War on Wednesday by Mary Pope Osborne
Independent Dames by Laurie Halse Anderson
Farmer George Plants a Nation by Peggy Thomas
When Washington Crossed the Delaware by Lynne Cheney
The Revolutionary John Adams by Cheryl Harness
George Washington: A Picture Book Biography by James Cross Giblin
Liberty’s Kids (Netflix streaming)
Literature Study:
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (unabridged, Levi-IR, part of the Michael Clay Thompson Time Trilogy Literature Study)
The Juniper Tree and Other Tales from Grimm selected by Lore Segal and Maurice Sendak (Levi-IR)
Levi’s Reading:
More All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor
All-of-a-Kind Family Downtown by Sydney Taylor
The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz
The Road to Oz
The Fire Within by Chris D’Lacey
Icefire
Fire Star
The Secret Zoo by Bryan Chick
Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick
The Jack Tales: Folk Tales from the Southern Appalachians Collected and Retold by Richard Chase
Parzival: The Quest of the Grail Knight by Katherine Paterson
The Mouse and His Child by Russell Hoban
Luke’s Reading:
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson
Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
Pippi Goes on Board by Astrid Lindgren
My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
Leif’s Reading:
Twister on Tuesday by Mary Pope Osborne
Night of the Ninjas
Civil War on Sunday
Pirates Past Noon
Polar Bears Past Bedtime
and a bunch more!
And a bunch of wonderful picture books from the library and books from our Christmas collection.
1 comment:
The gospel according to sleeping beauty sounds very interesting!!
I finally fell to peer pressure and ordered Life of Fred - Apples for my 3 younger students, Pre-Algebra for the 2 high school students. I read 2 chapters of Apple to the youngers and I have to say I am hooked, it is a fun book! I kept reading moms praising it on the hive boards, but as I am not a Math person, I kept resisting...could anything be more ill-conceived to a non-Math person that a Math story book??
-I see many interesting picks on your list, I will have to come back for ideas...
Happy New Year!
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