Archive for the 'Connections' Category
June 28, 2007 @ 7:09 am | Filed under: Connections
I guess it started with an episode of The Pink Panther. That blue aardvark must have put the song in my head: I found myself humming an old Sesame Street tune. I couldn’t remember more than the first line. I’m an aardvark, and I’m proud…
On the YouTube page, there was a link to the clip where the orange is rolling around the kitchen, and stuff flies out of drawers to become its face: the rubber-band mouth, the mop hair. Naturally, the second the orange has a complete face, it sings an aria from Carmen. That’s what fruit secretly lives for, you know: the chance to perform opera. Every orange is a secret diva.
Of course after that we had to watch The Rabbit of Seville and Kill the Wabbit. Ain’t YouTube swell?
(Speaking of YouTube, Sandra Dodd has just posted a page with clips of an Animaniacs geography song. The words are the names of every country in the world. One clip shows the countries on a map; the other shows flags. Cool! Other neat stuff on that page too.)
May 27, 2006 @ 9:07 am | Filed under: Classical Education, Connections, History, Literature, Rule of Six
The Sabine Women, Jacques-Louis David, 1796-99
Over at Bonny Glen I’ve been talking about the connections my kids are making during our read-aloud of Famous Men of Rome. This is for me one of the best things about homeschooling: watching the light bulbs go off, seeing pieces of the big puzzle of Life, the Universe, and Everything fit together in the kids’ minds.
We just started reading this book last week. Today Romulus finished building his city and then had to do a little creative marketing to find inhabitants. On the lam? Facing criminal charges? Australia doesn’t exist yet, so give Rome a try! It’s got a wall and everything! River views available. The world has never had a shortage of scruffy, disenfranchised males, it seems, for a paragraph later Romulus’s town is bustling with happy outlaws. Oops, not so happy after all: it seems no women answered the cattle call.
I get this far in the reading and Rose gasps. "It’s like the rabbits!" she shouts. For some reason, connections must always be shouted around here. "It’s like Watership Down!"
Scott is reading them Watership Down at bedtime. Last night they reached the part where Hazel & Co. have just gotten nicely settled into their digs on the down, and they suddenly realize their new warren has no future if they don’t find some nice lady rabbits to join them. Rose is right: it’s the founding of Rome all over again.
The bunnies, however, are a little more gentlemenly with the ladies, as my girls will discover a few nights hence. When I continue the early Romans’ tale, the kids are outraged by the abduction of the Sabine women. Then Beanie says, "Hey, this remembers me of a movie," and Jane shouts, "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers!" That charts our course for the rest of the morning: we hunt for the DVD and eventually remember where we left it. A short bike ride to the neighbors’ house later, Jane is brandishing the movie in triumph and we eat lunch to the tune of "And the women were sobbin’, sobbin’, sobbin’…"
The last week of May might seem like a strange time to start a history read-aloud. We don’t keep a traditional school-year schedule; we tend to follow a seasonal rhythm with our studies. For the new readers who are just getting to know me here at ClubMom, I thought it might be helpful if I gave a bit of background on our homeschooling style. Here’s how I have explained it before:
People often ask me what kind of homeschoolers we are: Classical? Charlotte Mason? Eclectic? Delight-Directed? Unschoolers? How, they want to know, does learning happen in our home? Am I in charge, or do I let the kids lead the way? And what about math?
Over the years I have written with enthusiasm about the Charlotte Mason method (which is highly structured) and unschooling (which is not). These educational philosophies seem to have intertwined themselves in my home, so that the what we do—read great books, study nature, dive deeply into history, immerse ourselves in picture study and composer study—is highly influenced by Charlotte’s writings and their modern counterparts; and the how we do it—through strewing and conversation and leisurely, child-led exploration—is influenced by the writings of John Holt, Sandra Dodd, and other advocates of unschooling. But I couldn’t say we’re "real CMers" because I don’t carry out Miss Mason’s recommendations in anything like the structured manner she prescribed; and I probably do too much behind-the-scenes nudging for us to be considered "real unschoolers."
The truth is, I couldn’t find any label that completely fit my family, so I made up my own. I call us "Tidal Learners" because the ways in which we approach education here change with the tide. Now, this doesn’t mean that we’re flighty or inconsistent, changing direction haphazardly. We aren’t Fiddler Crab Homeschoolers. What I mean is that there is a rhythm to the way learning happens here; there are upbeats and downbeats; there is an ebb and flow.
Lately I have been reading a lot about Latin-centered classical education, and I am increasingly convinced of the merits of steady and intensive Latin studies. Because we have such a relaxed approach to the rest of our learning, it is no burden to make Latin lessons a regular part of our day. When planning our family routine—whether it’s the summer routine revolving around the neighborhood swimming pool or the winter routine which must allow for abrupt changes of plan in the event of good sledding weather—I keep a loose "rule of six" in the back of my mind. There are six things I try to make a part of every day:
• meaningful work (this includes household chores, which are "meaningful" because they make our own and others’ lives more pleasant; it also includes pursuits requiring daily practice, such as piano and, yes, Latin; and of course for Scott and me, writing is meaningful work)
• good books
• beauty (art, music, nature)
• big ideas (discussions about what we’re reading or encountering in the world)
• play (including time spent with friends)
• prayer
Honesty compels me to admit that for myself I privately add a seventh component to my daily Rule of Six:
• a footrub from my incredibly sweet husband
Oh, and also:
• chocolate.
But for the family as a whole, the top six items are what shape our days. So this summer, Romans and Sabines and Latin and bunnies will be waiting for us whenever we come home from the pool.
March 13, 2005 @ 9:39 am | Filed under: Connections, Fun Learning Stuff, Methods of Home Education, Who We Are
I love that we use the word “links” to describe internet sites cross-referenced on a web page. I wonder who coined the term. It’s a perfect metaphor for the interconnectedness of all knowledge. Each thing to know is a link in the chain; each link I click on binds a new idea to those I have already encountered.
I’ve always loved to play the game of conversational backtracking, where you try to retrace your steps to see how on earth you started out talking about, say, the Olympics and ten minutes later found yourself deep in a discussion about iodized salt. Sometimes, after a busy day with the kids, I try to make a list of the links we encountered in that day’s discovery chain. I can never remember all of them. And the chain isn’t a straight line; it sprawls out in a dozen directions—but all of them are linked.
Like yesterday’s breakfast conversation. It began with poetry, as breakfast usually does. This led to a rambling discussion which encompassed:
—Our favorite poets
—Emily Dickinson in particular (Jane’s favorite)
—Our favorite books about Emily Dickinson:
Poetry For Young People
, edited by Frances BrolinEmily
by Michael Bedard, beautifully illustrated by Barbara Cooney
The Mouse of Amherst
by Elizabeth Spires—an absolute gem of a book!
—Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, Illustrated Edition
—Back to our favorite poets: Rose announces that hers is “the guy who wrote that poem about the fairy queen. Edmund somebody.”
Me: “Do you mean Spenser? The Faerie Queene?” (Knowing full well she has never read it and frankly surprised she’s even heard of it.)
Rose: “Yes, that’s the one. It’s in that ‘Green Grass’ book. It says Edmund Spenser wrote ‘Roses are red, violets are blue,’ and that’s my favorite poem.”
—Brief digression into the unsurpassable humor (by 6- and 9-year-old standards) to be found in the pages of And the Green Grass Grew All Around
—Back to Faerie Queene—do we have it? Yes, parts, at least, in my old college Norton Anthology. We read a few stanzas describing Britomart, the heroine.
—This reminds Beanie of K-Mart. Possible side-discussion squelched by older sisters.
—Britomart is compared to Minerva. Who knows the Greek name for Minerva? Jane knows but graciously allows Rose to answer, in consideration of Rose’s current passion for Greek myths.
—Instead of answering, Rose re-asserts her claim on all things related to Ancient Greece.
—Cue argument: Jane wants to learn Greek, like Rose is doing. Rose doesn’t want her to–she likes being the only student of Ancient Greek in the house.
—This sparks a debate about whether it is whether it is possible to “own” a subject.
—Argument grows heated and (despite being quite an interesting idea to explore) is summarily quashed by mom. Back to Minerva, aka Athena. Now Rose wants to hear a story about Athena.
—Serendipitously, a used copy of Padraic Colum’s The Children’s Homer
—When the name Helen is mentioned, Beanie interjects: Helen! My saint! No, dear, not that Helen. Not St. Helen of the Cross; Helen of Troy. Story is put on hold while Jane and Rose explain the Trojan War to Beanie. She asks for more cereal. Priorities. We return to Colum’s Homer and read the first two chapters of the Odyssey.
—Rose remembers we haven’t yet read a picture book she checked out of the library: Count Your Way Through Greece
—Another book in the library basket catches Beanie’s eye: Candace Ransome’s When the Whippoorwill Calls
—After the story, we look at a map of the Park online and discuss its proximity to our town.
—Then we listen to a whippoorwill song at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s All About Birds website.
And that brings us to about ten in the morning.
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