Sweet 16!

It can’t be. But ‘tis true. My niece Ilex is sixteen. And she is fabulous. Just completely lovely and kind and intelligent and a joy to be around. She is more like a 25 year old than a 16 year old. And really, really tall. I’ve lost my status as the tallest girl in the family.

(Can you believe this was my first photo session with her four and a half years ago?! I can’t wait to take her senior pictures!!)

She had a lovely birthday celebration a week ago.

(I’m behind on all my pictures. Waaaay behind. And now they’ll be all out of order. But I’m determined to get more posted!!)

More Easter Cheer

Someone doesn’t like the feel of grass on her toes….

 

She loves playing up the serious angle for the camera….

Easter

(Leif and Bambi made the butterfly cake together.)

 

The Boys

So. Many. Photos. to post. So little time.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

As most of you know (especially those of you who have been around for the past FIVE years of Mt. Hope Chronicles), I’m a homebody. I rarely go anywhere. The last time I took a trip on a plane was when I went to Las Vegas with Russ a few years ago. Other than that, we’ve been on a couple trips to Washington and California. A jet-setting adventurer I am NOT.

You also may know that I am a HUGE fan of Susan Wise Bauer and The Well-Trained Mind. That book was the catalyst for my homeschooling adventure over 11 years ago (before I was even pregnant with Levi!)!! I also had the privilege of listening to Susan Wise Bauer speak four years ago when my sister and I traveled up to Washington for a homeschool convention (for the sole purpose of listening to her lectures).

During the past five years of this homeschooling adventure, we have used so many resources written by Susan Wise Bauer or offered by her publishing company, Peace Hill Press.

Imagine my delight the squeals and screams when I received an email inviting me to spend a weekend in Virginia to see Susan Wise Bauer and tour Peace Hill Press with four rock star bloggers (I am the token mom-next-door-blogger). And stay at a B&B. And spend a day at Colonial Williamsburg.

Yeah, there was NO WAY I was going to turn THAT down.

The tickets have been purchased. I am going on an adventure. Only two weeks to wait oh-so-impatiently.

You know you are going to have to hear about it for the rest of my blogging days.

There will be pictures, of course. And give-aways. It will be all sorts of awesomeness.

The count-down begins.

Memory Master

I just completed the Memory Master challenge for Classical Conversations!

This year our director opened up the Memory Master opportunity for any interested parents. I think it was a fabulous idea.

It gives a parent the opportunity to set a good example of setting goals and working toward them. It allows parents to experience the process first-hand and empathize with their children going through the same process. It also fosters an atmosphere of camaraderie and encourages parents and children to work together toward a mutual goal.

What does a Memory Master accomplish?

Four proofs (reciting ALL of the memory work to another adult in one sitting). Mastery (but not perfection) is required. Self-correction is allowed, but the Memory Master must be able to recall all of the information with prompts but no hints or help.

Cycle 3 memory work (which is probably the easiest of the 3 cycles):

*22 U.S. history sentences with dates

(e.g. “In 1917, President Wilson asked Congress to declare war on the Central Powers two years after German U-Boats sank the Lusitania, killing American citizens.”)

*The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights (simple list form)

*160 timeline events (in chronological order) from early civilizations to modern America

*All 44 presidents in chronological order

*37 Latin vocabulary words

*3 Latin rules

*John 1:1-7 in Latin (from the Vulgate) and then translated into English

*12 human body systems (lists—about 52 items)

(e.g. “Bones that make up the axial skeleton are cranium, vertebrae, ribs, and sternum.”)

*2 chemistry definitions, parts of an atom, and the first 12 elements of the periodic table by number, name, symbol, and mass (rounded)

*6 sentences about science and scientific theories

(e.g. “Uniformitarianism is the belief that Earth’s past geological changes can be fully explained by current processes.”)

*All 50 states and capitals and more than 70 U.S. geographical features (mountains, lakes, rivers, trails, territories, canals, etc.)

*8 English grammar definitions

*Verb principle parts, sentence structures, and sentence patterns

*13 Irregular verbs (principle parts: infinitive, present, past, present participle, and past participle)

(e.g. “to lie, lie(s), lay, lying, lain”)

*Skip counting/times tables 1-15 plus squares (up to 15x15) and cubes (up to 10x10x10)

*4 measurement conversions, 5 geometry formulas, and 4 laws

(e.g. “The Distributive Law states a(b+c)=ab+ac.”)

And I think that’s it. Whew!!!

 

Congratulations to my friends Char and Christina for taking on this challenge, as well! And their kids at 7,8, and 9 years old!

A Thought for the Day

(I started this blog post ages ago and found it today when I was going through all my unposted drafts. I love this quote too much to delete it, so I’m sharing it today.)

I was wasting time on the net, pinning on Pinterest and reading a plethora of miscellaneous articles about this and that. I followed a weaving trail of links to end at a very interesting review of the book So Much More by Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin at Charity Grace. On that blog is posted this quote:

The opposite of consumption is production. It takes far more time and energy to create
something than to consume something. It takes a novelist a year to write a book that someone can read in a few days. A cast and crew of thousands spend years to create a film that will be viewed in two hours. Often our only recreational activities are actions of consumption. What an alternative it is, then, to rediscover the wonder and delight of creativity. ~Albert Hsu

Isn’t that just lovely?

Easter Baby

Beauty for Truth’s Sake

Oh, how I wish for an education and intellectual skills that would allow me to write an eloquent review of this book. But I am only at the beginning of the journey, walking with ever so small footsteps.

Beauty for Truth’s Sake: On the Re-enchantment of Education by Stratford Caldecott is a deeply inspirational book that takes a look at the quadrivium (‘arithmetic being pure number, geometry number in space, music number in time, and astronomy number in both space and time’) and how God reveals Himself through these disciplines.

(The author writes from a Catholic perspective, which I did not find off-putting, but your mileage may vary.)

This book may take several readings over the course of several years to truly sink into my mind and heart. So many passages are underlined and marked in my copy, but I’ll pick and choose a few to share with you.

pg 28

Symptoms of our educational crisis, such as the fragmentation of the disciplines, the separation of faith and reason, the reduction of quality to quantity, and the loss of a sense of ultimate purpose are directly related to a lack of historical awareness on the part of students. An integrated curriculum must teach subjects, and it must teach the right subjects, but it should do so by incorporating each subject, even mathematics and the hard sciences, within the history of ideas, which is the history of our culture. Every subject has a history, a drama, and by imaginatively engaging with these stories we become part of the tradition.

pg 29

After all, science, like poetry, begins with a search for unifying principles, and the unifying factor in creation is its relation to God.

pg 112

Kepler’s breakthrough came because he introduced a “why?” question where the astronomers of his day didn’t see the need for one. He sought physical causes for heavenly motions. And that was not because he believed less in God as the case of everything, but because he had more respect for the physical world as God’s creation and as the image of God’s mind. It was the first step toward Newton’s cosmos, in which the same universal laws (such as gravity) governed both the earth and the heavens.

pg 113

This is an example of the right way of doing things: to look at what really happens, and discover the beauty in it.

pg 119

Science can discover the laws of nature, but not why they are that way, nor why there is anything to obey them. That is why cosmology leads only to the threshold of theology.

pp 123-124

The modern person feels himself to be disengaged from the world around him, rather than intrinsically related to it (by family, tribe, birthplace, vocation, and so forth). He is expected to forge his own destiny by an exercise of choice. He is concerned less with what is right than with what his rights are, or rather he grounds the former on the latter. The world for him is just a neutral space for his action, his free choice, and the greatest mysteries lie not outside but within himself.

pg 125

What defines secularism more than anything is an inability to pray, and the modern world in its worst aspects is a systematic assault on the very idea of worship, an idea that begins with the acknowledgement of a Transcendent that reveals itself in the Immanent.

[I loved his closing thoughts on gratitude. It made me want to read One Thousand Gifts all over again.]

pp 129-130

Liturgy therefore starts with remembrance. We do not make ourselves from nothing. To be here at all is a gift, and a gift (even if we are at times only obscurely aware of the Giver) evokes a natural desire to give something back to someone. We have only what we have received, but included in that gift is the capacity to transform what we now possess into something that is truly our own. Futhermore, the more grateful we are, and the more conscious of the greatness of the One, the source who gave us existence, the more beautiful we will try to make the gift.

 

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For another perspective, read Dawn’s review at ladydusk.

Stratford Caldecott has a blog called Beauty in Education if you are interested in reading more.

And a few videos along the theme, just for fun.

“The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God.” ~Euclid

April 6th, 2012

A clean house, Beatrix Potter, ‘social’ sentence diagramming, a new friend, Mortimer Adler, waffles, Porgy and Bess, Latin stems, Telling God's Story, Pinocchio, The Story of the World, The Charge of the Light Brigade, Langston Hughes, laundry, an ice-cold Dr. Pepper, math, a nap for the cutest little girl in the world, Old Navy, pizza, sunshine, spelling, grammar, Winnie-the-Pooh, family swim night, grocery shopping, blogging, a late night snack, cleaning house, dishes, laundry...

She bonked her head and was all sorts of sadness. So she asked for her blankie. And then her pillow. And then her water cup. And then a book. And then everything was right with the world.

The Garden of the Bishop’s Close

I am FINALLY posting more pictures of our girls’ weekend in Portland. I know, about time.

On our first afternoon we decided to take advantage of the sunshine and visit The Garden of the Bishop’s Close at Elk Rock in Lake Oswego. We have a slight fascination with the landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, and this house was sighted by John Olmsted, of the Olmsted Brothers Landscape Architects firm, to take advantage of the view of Mt. Hood. It also overlooks the Willamette River.

The Simple Life

We are having typical Oregon spring weather. Sunny. Rainy. Cloudy. Sunny. Snow. Torrential down-pour. Sunny.

I still have endless pictures to post and no time to edit and post them. But I’ll get there.