Adventures in Mama-Land

  How are you doing for poems lately? Craving a really good one?     I first came across this poem in Garrison Keillor's anthology Good Poems for Hard Times , which we've been choosing poems out of to read randomly at family dinnertimes since corona hit -- for no reason whatsoever. And as a sometime

   Three FOUR sites, a quick roundup: Chronicles of Narnia – many books in the series (Christian site), fully downloadable FREE.  I just found out about this one and I’m pretty excited, I must say.  The site may be swamped because of a mention on Homeschool Freebie of the Day a couple of weeks ago.   Kiddie Records .com – digitized LPs of many older children’s classics, including Carol Channing reading Winnie the Pooh, Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel, the Story About Ping and Caps for Sale, Babar, and many others.  Recordings aren’t all perfect, but they will immerse you in a world of nostalgia.  Spend some time at the site and you will turn up many winners, I promise.  All on “unbreakable” mp3’s!!   Librivox.org – Free, public-domain recordings of free, public-domain children’s literature, including treasures like A Little Princess and the Just So Stories .  Their main index is horrendously tough to navigate.  If you...

We finished reading Stuart Little tonight, and what a weird kids’ chapter book it is.  I hadn’t realized how close we were to the ending, because the plot wasn’t really going anywhere or winding down – and then, all of a sudden yesterday, we were one chapter away from the end, and it STILL wasn’t going anywhere. Well, I hate to ruin the ending for you, but… well, it never did. And I thought, how are the kids going to take this?  Even the seemingly neverending Little House books always come to some kind of resolution at the end of each book, and yet this weird little story about a crazy jovial mouse, well, it doesn’t.  He just keeps on journeying. So I asked the kids, “do you think he’ll ever find Margalo?”  Naomi most definitely said he wouldn’t .  “Because he’s on the ground and a bird is high up.”  Most logical indeed.  But a couple of minutes later, out of the blue (I was just about to start reading something else), she said, “I think t...

Hobbling around on two feet now – mostly without crutches!  (but also mostly sitting down…) Today was a relatively “bare-bones” school day:  JUMP math, HWT handwriting, ETC3 phonics, First Language Lessons, and then our kind-of-weekly (haven’t done one in two weeks, though!) Literature Pockets.  Happy feeling of the day – I pulled out Explode the Code and Naomi Rivka said, “Yay – phonics is FUN!”  We never ever ever ever would have gotten that reaction with Spelling Workout.  It puts my soul at ease knowing I did the right thing pulling out of that program.  And frankly, she’s learning just as much spelling, with more words and more continuity, in ETC.  Note to self:  never doubt myself again! This week’s nursery rhyme is “To Market, To Market,” for which we made yet another puppet and clearly haven’t practiced the poem enough, as you can see from the mostly-silly video of the kids rehearsing.  As much as I feel like all these puppets...

Yet another happy rant about this big, fat eBook ( Literature Pockets:  Nursery Rhymes ), which we’re still chugging our way through. Today, I want to kiss it (but it’s a PDF, so I can’t without wetting my hard drive) for being SO brainless and easy that I can accomplish it even on a day when EVERYTHING is difficult. This week’s poem (song) is Sing a Song of Sixpence, and it always amazes me how many of what I’d consider important rhymes of childhood I have simply failed to expose my children to. I guess I figure they’ll pick them up somehow, but here they are, 3.5 and 6.5, and they’ve just never heard it before. For this poem, we did two activities:  a cut n’ paste where you stick the king in his counting-house, the queen in her parlour, the maid outdoors to hang laundry, and a little blackbird in the last scene to nibble her nose (it’s kind of a horrid poem that way); the second activity involved creating a construction-paper “pie” with blackbirds inside.  ...

A few weeks ago, I blogged about “ winning a gift card .”  I was joking, but guess what???  I won!!!  I got my card in the mail this week, and tonight, had some fun choosing and ordering homeschool books – what else? – online from Chapters / Indigo . I’m SO happy, I just want to tell all Canadian homeschoolers to go check out their site one more time.  Remember, the first issue even has an article by me in it!  (more to come if I can get my act together to write for their issue topics / deadlines…) So what did I buy???   Ancient Science , by Jim Wiese, as recommended by Michelle at Lionden Landing .  Before she was a homeschool mama, she was a science teacher who really knows her stuff!  I’m very excited about this book. Science Around the World , by Janice VanCleave, as suggested by our Grammar-Stage Elemental Science curriculum.  And finally, just to use up the gift card… Just So Stories , by Rudyard Kipling, bec...

For a brief background on this printable poetry curriculum, please read the March post . Read April’s poem below or download a booklet of poems from March to June (including additional “elective poems” for each month, plus biographies of Robert Louis Stevenson, Anyonymous, Robert Browning, and – for this month’s poem – William Shakespeare . Read it below or download the entire printable PDF from my General Studies printables page here .  Scroll down to “Poetry”. For Limudei Kodesh (Jewish Studies) printables, click here . June ARIEL’S SONG from The Tempest by William Shakespeare Where the bee sucks, there suck I: In a cowslip's bell I lie; There I couch when owls do cry: On the bat’s back I do fly, After summer merrily. Merrily, merrily, shall I live now, Under the blossom that hangs on the bough!

For a brief background on this printable poetry curriculum, please read the March post . Read April’s poem below or download a booklet of poems from March to June (including additional “elective poems” for each month, plus biographies of Robert Louis Stevenson, Anyonymous, William Shakespeare, and – for this month’s poem – Robert Browning . Read it below or download the entire printable PDF from my General Studies printables page here .  Scroll down to “Poetry”. For Limudei Kodesh (Jewish Studies) printables, click here . May PIPPA’S SONG from Pippa Passes Robert Browning The year’s at the spring And day’s at the morn; Morning 's at seven; The hillside’s dew-pearled; The lark’s on the wing; The snail’s on the thorn; God’s in his heaven — All’s right with the world!

For a brief background on this printable poetry curriculum, please read the March post . Read April’s poem below or download a booklet of poems from March to June (including additional “elective poems” for each month, plus biographies of Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Browning, William Shakespeare, and – for this month’s poem - Anonymous ;-)). Download this printable from my General Studies printables page here .  Scroll down to “Poetry”. For Limudei Kodesh (Jewish Studies) printables, click here . MY NAME IS APRIL Anonymous     My name is April, sir, and I Often laugh, as often cry ; And I cannot tell what makes me, Only, as the fit o'ertakes me, I must dimple, smile, and frown, Laughing, though the tears roll down. But 'tis nature, sir, not art. And I’m happy at my heart.

(but now I remember – thank you, Internet!) The Elephant and the Bad Baby by Elfrida Vipont  Here’s a review I wrote of it on Amazon almost ten years ago: This is one of our perennial read-aloud favourites. As a previous reviewer points out, it IS a little strange; in our house, that's what makes it stand out from the run of the mill. You never know exactly WHY the baby is called a "bad baby" even before the story begins -- but that makes it even more intriguing for kids. And of course, the art does look dated and peculiar, and the words ("crisps," "sweet shop") are all kind of funny to my kids. Also, because we're Jewish, when I read it, I say "meat store man" instead of "pork butcher," so as not to offend my kids' kosher sensibilities! But all of these quirks just make it more fun to read and -- judging from their reactions -- all the more fun to listen to. The story is straightforward and fun -- a baby an...

Searching for a very light poetry curriculum for young kids that a) included real poetry, and b) gave a little information about authors, just as our music and art studies do, I kept coming up empty-handed.  (if you know of one, let me know) I did find a copy of an old public-domain book called Three Years With the Poets and started adapting its suggested poetry – formatting it nicely, including “Victorian” clip art and writing a little blurb about one author a month. The result is a loose curriculum called “A Poem Every Month.”  As the original book suggests, each month includes a short main selection along with three “elective” poems.  These can be used for memorization, but so far, we’re just reading the main one together a couple of times a week.  My kids have been fascinated by the brief biography of Robert Louis Stevenson for March.  It’s always nice to be able to put a name and a few facts together with a poem, and there are some truly great au...

Hosted at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns – my first time participating, and I don’t know yet whether it will become a regular thing, but I was about to post a reading list anyway, so why not? By way of intro, without boring regular readers to tears, I’m homeschooling my 2 youngest:  Naomi Rivka, who’s almost 6, and Gavriel Zev, who’s 3.  We’re following a Charlotte Mason / Well-Trained Mind Classical inspired curriculum, and I’m trying to avoid “ twaddle ” for our main readings. We’re reading through the Little House books, but after finishing On the Banks of Plum Creek last Shabbos, we’re taking a break before Farmer Boy, which will probably be our next selection.  (drat, just realized I was supposed to buy it at the bookstore tonight and I totally forgot and bought a bunch of other stuff instead!!!) (senior moment) So here’s what we’re reading together instead: Matilda by Roald Dahl I love Roald Dahl, and I have always loved sharing his writing with my children....

Yet another big-time Rainbow splurge.  I love these folks!  They ship quickly, for reasonable rates, and because they mark the boxes as educational and/or books, not one of their shipments has been stopped at the border or COD’d for customs charges. So… this was definitely a splurge! You might say at least I’m buying BOOKS for my KIDS… not crack cocaine.  But, as everybody knows, books – used correctly – are far more dangerous than anything else anyone has ever come up with.  (Up with which anyone else has come?) Here’s part 2 of my Aliyah Education Plan , by the way:  though it may sound cruel and diabolical, I’ll taking advantage of the fact that we have so few vacations to “do school” year-round.  We’ll take off for Pesach and Sukkos and maybe lay low in late December and the hottest bits of summertime, when nobody feels like learning, but as it is, I anticipate formally starting Grade 1 in June or July and finishing a few months before the “sch...