:: Life is good.I’m in a really good place today. Full of contentment and hope. Full of joy. I love my husband. I adore my crazy boys. I am so blessed with an incredible circle of family and friends.
I went to bed early yesterday evening with a book, slept all night, and slept in this morning. Maybe that has something to do with my good mood. Grin.
Today will be a quiet, foggy, rainy day of enjoying home life. The boys are playing creatively in their (clean!) room with playmobil and animal figures. I’m working on laundry and dishes. A little later we’ll snuggle on the couch and go over some lessons. We’re sure to sneak in a bunch of reading, as well.
:: Learning happens.
Sunday afternoon, Leif found a cork lying about the house and was reminded of a science experiment he watched on one of his Discover and Do DVDs. He recruited Luke to recreate the experiment with him. They got a bowl of water, several items (some from the video, some they thought of on their own), and a science journal to write down their discoveries. Sink or float.
:: Classical Conversations is an early success.
We’ve had two weeks of classes and lessons, and I’m pleased to say that I think that Classical Conversations was the right choice for us this year. The classes have been very productive. The tutors have been excellent, and just right for each of the boys. I’m so impressed with the work and preparation they’ve put into their classes. The boys have really been learning and digesting the material. Review has been enjoyable and very easy…. It is something we can do anywhere, at any time. Even while waiting in line for prescriptions at Costco!I’ll share more about CC as we progress through the year, I just wanted to give it an early two thumbs up.
:: Food for thought (Really great stuff. Don’t miss this opinion article!):
How to Raise Boys Who Read
Hint: Not with gross-out books and video-game bribes
The Wall Street Journal
Education was once understood as training for freedom. Not merely the transmission of information, education entailed the formation of manners and taste. Aristotle thought we should be raised “so as both to delight in and to be pained by the things that we ought; this is the right education.””Plato before him,” writes C. S. Lewis, “had said the same. The little human animal will not at first have the right responses. It must be trained to feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and hatred at those things which really are pleasant, likeable, disgusting, and hateful.”This kind of training goes against the grain, and who has time for that? How much easier to meet children where they are….
One obvious problem with the SweetFarts philosophy of education is that it is more suited to producing a generation of barbarians and morons than to raising the sort of men who make good husbands, fathers and professionals. If you keep meeting a boy where he is, he doesn’t go very far.