I’ve had by boys doing copywork, or transcription, since the age of 6. Basically, I type a quote from their literature (I use the font QMF from the Queensland style found through EFI Fonts using three rules), print it out, and have them copy it into their composition notebook. Copywork is not just handwriting practice, […]
So we had a reading lesson a la Charlotte Mason style today. Turner is five and a half and has learned his sounds and letters. We have listened for rhymes and similar sounds in words, played with words by changing the beginning or ending sounds, but this morning we tried a First Reading Lesson according
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When you hear children talking about games, you can usually expect it is something indoor and played on an electronic screen. But some kids will still play simple outdoor games when you give them the opportunity and let them be. Like chase. At Peter’s Canyon in Orange, after admiring a sundog in the sky, enjoying
Nature study doesn’t have to be far from our own surroundings. While I was making lunch today, the boys went salamander hunting in the backyard. It was a successful search. Mama and baby salamanders under the big rocks scarlet pimpernel growing in the grass Mexican sage Butterfly bush (with pretty bougainvillea in the background) attracting
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Isn’t Spring just beautiful in all her ways? Artichoke Thistle (Cynara cardunculus) Prickly Pear (Opuntia) Some type of Cicada Golden Star (Blumeria crocea) California Buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum) Vista Point Santiago Peak, Santa Ana Mountains, Orange County Elevation 5687ft Indian Paintbrush (Castilleja) Vernal Pool Vernal Pool reflecting bright yellow Black Mustard Black Mustard (Brassica nigra) Black
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At our local CM meeting this month we discussed Self Education, which Charlotte Mason wrote about in the first chapter of Vol. 6. For the sake of brevity, really, I will try, I will highlight a few of my favorite quotes and say just a few things: The gist of it, I believe, is that
You can find the recipe here. I love a thin crust pizza, and I love cilantro. And making pizza dough fits in to handicraft! Doesn’t it? It was… okay. The crust just didn’t work out the way I’d hoped. It was thin, it was crispy, but it tasted a lot like flour. I replaced the
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A friend brought me these tulips. Aren’t they lovely? We might expect that the Lady Tulip would be a stately flower, if we should consider her history. She made her way into Europe from the Orient during the sixteenth century, bringing with her the honor of being the chosen flower of Persia, where her colors
But much may be done with sparrows. A friend writes: — “Have you seen the man in the gardens of Tuileries feeding and talking to dozens of them? They sit on his hat, his hands, and feed from his fingers. When he raises his arms they all flutter up and then settle again on him
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Doesn’t this movie look adorable!? The film is a documentary by French filmmaker Thomas Balmès that follows the first year in the life of four babies born into four very different homes: a mud hut in a Namibian village, a yurt in the Mongolian steppes, a skyscraper in Tokyo, and a townhouse in San Francisco.