Fast, Fast the Fall doth Fly

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My goal for regular blogging has meet my schedule and regular hasn't happened. What happens is that we start the week out have a solid day of homeschooling on Monday, go to Classical hit Conversations on Tuesday, have staff meeting on Wednesdays, have our in -home co-op on  Thursday, hit Friday, at which point we have no food in the fridge, I'm behind on work, the kids have papers and lab reports due, there is no laundry in anyones drawers and we are hitting the week-end, which is its own kind of special busy. So, yeah. We are mainly keeping up. Sort of. 

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Cub and Flower finished their Bridgeway Academy on-line classes this week. Cub just finished up a 1/2 credit Chem Lab and Flower finished up Architecture with Brick Building The Chemistry Lab was every minute worth a 1/2 a credit. The Architecture class was just that and twenty over 7 of the 20 principals of Architecture- both classes included homeschoolers from around the globe, knowledgeable, encouraging teachers and challenging coursework. If you'd like to know more about BW's Learning Labs and get a discount code for the next couple of sessions: 

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The Grammar of Poetry is still a blast. So far, we have gone through the following tropes: personification, pun, simile, metaphor, synedoche, and iambic, trocahic and anapestic meter. Found William Shakespeare's Star Wars by Ian Droescher in iambic pentameter. Thanksgiving break read-aloud for word nerds.

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So, the kids have been blasting through books- Cub has read The Giver (after seeing the movie, which he liked), Tuck Everlasting, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Doom Wyte. Flower has read Little Women, Little Men, Ana and the King, the Narnia series, and is currently making her way through Pride and Prejudice, Lydia, Indian Captive and Alone Yet Not Alone. I have read very little but book reports of late.

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The kids and I went to see Interstellar yesterday. Great CGI, fine acting, fantastical tale that stretched believability over and over again, relying heavily on deux ex machina for one false ending after another. Personally, I thought the graphics and the thought experiments on time were worth the price of admission, even if the story left a lot to be desired believability wise. Some interesting dialog on mortality and family thrown in for good measure. A fun holiday flick.

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Classical Conversations continues to rock our week. Foundations is what it's always been - a rock solid memory program that gets the kids memorizing a ton of facts in 7 subject areas. New time line cards this year, but the CD is worth it's weight in gold. 

Essentials is where we are all really growing. The charts are brilliant- making a LOT of information completely accessible to anyone who can write. We are learning a ton and (generally) having a great time diagramming complex and complex compound sentences. 

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Latest finds for fun: Byrdseed for amazing academic helps. We've been doing mental math, ala Essentials daily, and there are some great exercises on here! 

I've been kind of going nuts with free printables lately- my desperate search for a creative outlet in my little world of staring at the computer screen. 

There are so many gorgeous graphics out there and are perfect for simple decorating as he couple of Secret Santa's exchanges we are part of .

Silly but good, clean, simple fun, I'll be making coffee filter pom poms with to compliment the coffee filter snowflakes she created for the windows (yes, we've had snow already). 

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

@Golden Grasses 2008-2013. All photographs, artwork and text are the property of the owner unless otherwise stated. Don't miss a thing! Subscribe to Golden Grasses and get our articles right to your inbox!

Why Poetry?

I am teaching the Grammar of Poetry every week to a group of kids ranging in age from 8 -15.Really, why? Who needs poetry? What is the importance of Iambic, Trochaic and Anapestic meter? Tropes? Does anyone even know what that means anymore?  These kids do. I quiz them every week. They are learning difficult words and more importantly, they are learning what they mean. They are owning them.

It's all about beauty. It's all about understanding the music in words and making them sing. It's about rhythm and beat, dance and song and how even really young kids can use words as tools to express their hopes, dreams, and world within.

The kids are writing and working together and reciting and reading poems out-loud and laughing together.  Beyond all of that they are working really hard. Some of them don't get it. Some of them feel pushed. And they are. Which is good. Because they are being stretched beyond what's comfortable, they are learning that words and tropes and rhythm are tools to be used to express joy and pains, sorrow and beauty.

Poetry is an educational must-have.

@Golden Grasses 2008-2013. All photographs, artwork and text are the property of the owner unless otherwise stated. Don't miss a thing! Subscribe to Golden Grasses and get our articles right to your inbox!

Copywork as a Tool

My kids did copywork when they were younger. Then SWB published Writing With Ease and it was just part of the curriculum. Love that.

This year we are deep into Essentials. Guess what? They are copying charts. We aim for 2 a day. They are learning stuff. It's easy, it's painless, it's almost like they aren't really doing homework it's so simple. They just get the chart out, copy it down.

I had an epiphany. Why not do more of it? So, I printed off a chart converting common fractions/decimals/percentages. Because, you know, it is so helpful to just have those conversions available to you when you need them. Which, of course, is the joy of memory work- you own what you know. Pop the page into a page protector,throw some dry erase markers at the kids and you are ready to go.

Simple. Effective. Inexpensive. Love that.

@Golden Grasses 2008-2013. All photographs, artwork and text are the property of the owner unless otherwise stated. Don't miss a thing! Subscribe to Golden Grasses and get our articles right to your inbox

Redeemed

43 ^1-4 But now, God’s Message,
    the God who made you in the first place, Jacob,
    the One who got you started, Israel:
“Don’t be afraid, I’ve redeemed you.
    I’ve called your name. You’re mine.
When you’re in over your head, I’ll be there with you.
    When you’re in rough waters, you will not go down.
When you’re between a rock and a hard place,
    it won’t be a dead end—
Because I am God, your personal God,
    The Holy of Israel, your Savior.
I paid a huge price for you:
    all of Egypt, with rich Cush and Seba thrown in!
That’s how much you mean to me!
    That’s how much I love you!
I’d sell off the whole world to get you back,
    trade the creation just for you.

Isaiah 43:2 (The Message) 

@Golden Grasses 2008-2013. All photographs, artwork and text are the property of the owner unless otherwise stated. Don't miss a thing! Subscribe to Golden Grasses and get our articles right to your inbox!

Leaf Love Part 2

More pics of 2 cutie patooties. Both W and Flower are the youngest kids of large homeschooling families. They have a lot in common, including a love of kittens, good books, nature, art and being together! 

Aren't they gorgeous?

Jumping for joy! 

#1 Pile Leaves

#2 Jump off tramp

#3 Thank God for young knees! 

#4 Smile immensely and pose adorably!

Love these 2, and sweet Jannell, who is as gifted with a needle, and in the kitchen, as she is with a camera.

@Golden Grasses 2008-2013. All photographs, artwork and text are the property of the owner unless otherwise stated. Don't miss a thing! Subscribe to Golden Grasses and get our articles right to your inbox!