Robinson Crusoe

Mariel used the picture on the cover of Sister Wendy's Story of Painting to help her envision this close-up portrait of Robinson Crusoe soon after he is shipwrecked.

Her exam narration on the story thus far:

Robinson Crusoe ended up on this island because he didn’t listen to his parents. His parents said, stay in England, but he didn’t listen to them and he ended up as a slave to the Medes[Oops, it’s actually the Moors], I think it was, and he escaped with a little boy named Xury. They got away on a boat and they went up until they came to Africa, and they killed some animals there, and the people on the shore gave them the meat of the animals, but one of them was fit for nothing and so they threw it overboard. Then they saw a Portuguese ship and they fired a distress signal and the captain let them in and he wanted to keep Xury and the boat and everything that Robinson Crusoe had on it, and Robinson Crusoe consented and they went to the Brazils and there at the Brazils Robinson Crusoe bought a plantation, but it didn’t go that well, but he thought to himself, “At least I’m not on a desert island!” And that exactly came to him! Because he was going to make his fortune and he got shipwrecked on a desert island, but he managed to get lots and lots of things off of the ship before it sank, and he’s been on there (where we are) for over a year, almost. And he hasn’t met Friday yet.

Homemade Christmas

Mr. Honey and I decided to skip the stress and cost and rush of purchasing gifts this year and go homemade with our Christmas, the only rules being that if we give it, it must be made by one of us using a limited amount of money for supplies; and we cannot force this change on any of our extended family.

(They wouldn't let us if we tried, lol!)

And since I cannot have you thinking my little family is blessed with superior virtue, I must reveal that a family trip has cleaned out the ol' Christmas fund-- we are making gifts simply to keep from perpetuating debt. We were a little depressed at first, but now that we are getting into the spirit of the thing, it is quite fun! I have all kinds of plans in my head, and projects going on in secret, which I really want to show you all, but I have to wait until after Christmas because my family reads my blog. What is really going to suffer this Christmas is the housekeeping, because we are going to use all our spare time in making gifts, lol! So if you come over, please ignore the dust. We'll try to keep the lights low so as to make it less noticeable. ;o)

Well, last week we were at the library picking up some things, and as I looked through the Christmas stacks I found some World Books that detail Christmas in other lands-- the traditions, the history, the music, the crafts, the food. What a gold mine!

(Do you remember the World Book Encyclopedias and Annuals? I relished our family's set as a kid, in those dark ages before Internet research.)

I just finished Christmas in Britain, which was even more interesting to me in light of what Triss is studying for history (ancient/medieval Britain). And Mariel and I read about the reign of Cromwell last year, but I hadn't thought about what a dampening effect the Protectorate must have had on celebrating anything, especially Christmas. And did you know Dickens had a lot of positive influence on Christmas once the Cromwellian years had blown by?

I started Christmas in Scotland last night, which is mainly about Hogmanay, their New Year's celebration. They moved their festivities from Christmas to New Year's during the time of the Covenanters-- those folks forbade (forbad?) Christmas as Cromwell did, for a lot of the same reasons. The Scots gradually turned their winter festivities from religious celebrations to secular, and now they have Hogmanay.

I'm really glad we don't live in a place where Christmas is forbidden. I know some Christmas festivities have their roots in pagan festivals, and I am not one to follow customs blindly; but I hope the traditions we indulge in are brief illuminations of the joy and goodwill that ought to be a part of the Christian life daily, and that our Christmas is just a special way to remind ourselves to "reflect redemption" in our everyday lives. (The Year of Jubilee Is Come, after all, and we do well to remember it.) The glow of it tends to linger and have an influence at our house for at least a couple of months after.

I only grabbed three of these books, the last being Christmas in France. These are the three countries, aside from the United States, that we currently read the most about in history at our house. After we are done with these three books, I'm going to get some of the others. There was a shelf full.

I find that reading about the traditions of the countries we have been studying is really bringing home the daily influence of historic events on the lives of these people. It is so easy to view history as a list of dates and battles. Reading about different historic events and their effects on the celebration of Christmas really illustrates for me the pervading influence of history on the lives and customs of regular people and its lingering effect on folks today.

Thoughts on the New Term

(A partial list of what to keep and what to change, beginning after Thanksgiving.)

a. Continue Triss in Apologia General Science, following the prescribed schedule. That is working well.

b. Switch Mariel and Cornflower to Considering God’s Creation for Science/Nature—work with them together once per week, then have them complete the notebook pages during their independent time. Do one lesson per week. Need two new workbooks @ 13.95 each. This will eliminate It Couldn’t Just Happen for Mariel and help compensate for eliminating Madam How and Lady Why. She can read It Couldn’t Just Happen in 6th or 7th grade. If Triss is caught up on her school work, consider having her teach the lesson while I do chores and listen in.

c. Continue using Exploring His Earth for Mariel and consider having Cornflower listen in. It is more of a geography book and I am counting it as such rather than science and eliminating the other geography book.

d. Eliminate ice skating lessons and have nothing on Thursdays but staying home. The kids can ride their bikes around the neighborhood several times per week for exercise.

e. Mariel is doing fine on her history—moving a little slowly, but I think we will be able to compensate for that in the summer. Continue her history as before.

f. Have Triss do Grammar of Poetry during her independent time and discuss it with me during her hour.

g. I need to have a checklist of things to discuss each day with the girls regarding their independent work. The only thing is, the checklist will change each day, so I have to make it up the night before. I need a checklist template, which I can alter each night. I need planning time each night also. I need to be more dedicated to doing what I ought rather than what I want. Erg. How can I be dedicated to doing the regular, mundane things without being rigid and controlling? This is quite a challenge for me. Either I am a drill sergeant, or we float through life, airily neglecting essentials. Some of my friends think I am too rigid when I am trying to keep to what we should be doing. Perhaps I am, but I have to hold on to schedules and plans with both hands or else they easily slip from my grasp. Oh, why am I thus tossed?

h. Redo the schedule thus:

i. 8:00-9:00 Breakfast Meeting: breakfast, Bible, memory work, singing, Copywork, review Spanish, and read any articles I have found that I want to share with the kids.

ii. 9:00-10:00 Housekeeping Hour: For December, this will be when we work on our Christmas projects and I will do chores as I can between helping the kids with schoolwork later on. Beginning in January we will do dedicated Flylady-style and/or Large Family Logistics-style cleaning during this time. I would really like to fit in some Charm lessons once a week, but I need to think more about it and plan out all of the lessons in advance. That really fell apart this term. Also, wouldn’t this be a good time to write letters and thank you notes? I have been trying for years to get us going with regular correspondence and it has never worked out

iii. *10:00-11:00 Cornflower’s Hour: This is when I work with Cornflower on anything she needs help with—math, readings, phonics all happen during this time.

iv. *11:00-12:00 Mariel's Hour: This is when I work with Mariel on what she needs me to help with. This time is just not long enough. I can only fit math and part of one reading into an hour of help-time with Mariel. Where can I get additional time? If we eliminate ice skating, there will be a whole afternoon of additional time. I can add another hour each afternoon but Tuesday if necessary.

v. *Note on the two above hours: Do Considering God’s Creation and Exploring His Earth once per week from 10:30-11:30 with both children. Is this going to be doable, or will it be a challenge because it alters the weekly schedule? Flexibility is a quality to be desired.

vi. –During all of this time, Triss will be doing her work independently. She is very good at that, which is excellent. I can have her teach Considering God’s Creation once per week as long as she isn’t feeling frazzled and behind. I think she will enjoy it, and it will be good review for her.—

vii. –Also during this time, musical instrument practice will be rotating in and out, thusly—

1. 10:00 Mariel/violin
2. 10:30 Triss/piano
3. 11:30 Cornflower/piano (this is a change from 11:00 to accommodate the CGC and EHE lessons)
4. 1:00 Mariel/piano
5. Hey, I would like to have a regularly scheduled piano practice time, too! How to work that in, I wonder. Perhaps have it scheduled regularly, but give it over if one of the kids needs additional schoolwork help.

viii. 12:00-1:00 Lunch. We really enjoyed doing artist/composer study during lunch, and having poetry tea once in the week, but I wasn’t as consistent with that as I should have been, and so for the last few weeks we missed composer and artist study, and we have only done poetry tea three or four times (hey, that’s almost half the term, better than nothing.) What caused me to set it aside? Well, I ran out of my preparation, partly. I need to have everything ready in advance so I can simply pull it out at lunchtime. The other things that factored in were wondering what we would have for lunch, having places we needed to go at lunch, and the living/dining room tables being messy and in need of clearing. We stack books on them. So I need to have poetry, artist and composer completely prepped for the term ahead of time, and also need to be organized where decluttering tables, planning the lunch menu and prep is concerned.

ix. 1:00-2:00 Triss' Hour.

x. 2:00-3:00 Mariel's other hour.

xi. 3:00-4:00 Take a break unless we have evening plans and someone hasn’t finished schoolwork.

xii. 4:00-5:00 Chores.

xiii. 5:00-6:00 Dinner prep/relaxing

xiv. 6:00-7:00 Dinner

xv. 7:00-10:00 Evening activities, or relaxing at home until each person’s bedtime, or finishing what absolutely must get done for the next day (chores or schoolwork).

xvi. The Spanish lesson is on Tuesday during the time I teach piano, and Latin has been relegated to Triss alone, so she can do it during her independent time.

xvii. All music lessons take place on Tuesday, as well as nature study. We tried to have family geography lessons on Tuesdays as well, but we needed a little more wiggle room for piano lessons, so that fell by the wayside. Triss is reading the Brendan Voyage and doing mapwork for that and history on her own, and I will combine Cornflower and Mariel in EHE once per week. Cornflower is also reading some of the Holling books this year.