Inspiration

27 January 2012

Reading, reading and more reading. I have been reading The Lonesome Gods by Louis L'amour as well as Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling Series Volume 1 Home Education. I have to admit I am making much better headway on Louis L'amour's book than on Charlotte Mason's. Most likely because I am taking notes on the Charlotte Mason book. It is filled with very truthful and valuable information. I fear I will never be able to get through all six books in the series. Ah well, for now I need to focus on reading the books on my assigned reading list from TJ Ed, I have six books I need to read for that alone and hopefully do so in a 2 month time frame.

I also read a little bit more of Dracula by Bram Stoker to the kids today. We came across another food "Robber Steak" and decided to make it for dinner tomorrow night because we would have to go grocery shopping to get the ingredients and I wasn't in the mood to pack up the kids to go to the grocery store that late in the day.

Four years ago my husband and I were introduced to The Dave Ramsey Show on the radio and we soon bought his book. It was so full of common sense ah-ha's for us that it changed our lives forever and we spent the next thirty months getting out of debt living as God would have us live. When I read A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver DeMille and as I read Charlotte Mason's book(s) I have the same feelings. Charlotte Mason has so much information in her book it sends my mind reeling but gets me excited. This is down to earth, practical information that makes an enormous change in our well being, mentally, physically, and spiritually. I feel like I want to shout it out to the world from the tops of the highest peaks. My soul weeps knowing that an overwhelming majority of people will not accept such knowledge when it is presented to them and even more will not seek for it.

Whether or not people accept the knowledge is not up to me, however I can do my best to be an example and mentor to others so that they might see the fruits of my labors and want it for themselves. The old saying "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink." has a whole new meaning to me now. I may not be able to make him drink, but I can inspire him and let him choose of his own accord what he will do.

Heritage in Transylvania

24 January 2012

We read some more of Dracula by Bram Stoker. Based on the passage we read these are the activities we engaged in.

• Learning the German alphabet letters and the sounds they make.
• Located Transylvania on a map.
• Discussed the descriptions of the way people dressed.
• Looked up the recipe for Mamaliga and Impletata to have for breakfast tomorrow.
• Discussed punctuality.
• Looked up the meaning of various words such as missals.
• Talked in brief about levees and floods.
• We talked about twilight, dawn, dusk, sunset etc.
• We discussed what it is the siege a location.
• We talked about the fact that we have maternal lineage from Transylvania.
• We watched some tutorials about beginning family history searches.

Today was also our Free Computer day, each kids was allowed 2 hours of screen time to play on their favorite flash games websites. All in all not a bad day, but maybe not as productive as yesterday. I will finish up my reading of A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver Demille and then I will print out the pages I will be needing from my PDF copy of The Checklist by Cindy Downes. After tying up a few of these ends our lessons will be a little bit more focused. 

Dracula and Cinderella

23 January 2012

Today was our second day in our new homeschooling routine. Ra and I discussed the book we read yesterday, Cinderella by Henry W Hewet. Ra was quick to point out that their were differences between the book and the Disney movie. I explained to her that the movie was based on the story; the story was written first, then Disney made their own version of it. I explained to her that there are a lot of stories and movies that were originally written a long time ago and because it was such a well loved story, other people rewrite it and make it their own by changing little things. I will list the differences we came up with here.

• Cinderella's father was still alive in the book.
• The Step Mother did not play as big of a role in the book as she does in the Disney movie.
• Cinderella does not have friend mice in the book, she collects mice and rats and lizards from around the estate at her Faery Godmother's request.
• Cinderella goes to the ball on two different nights, not just one. 
• There is no backstory for the Prince in the book.
• In the book, Cinderella's Step Sisters begged for forgiveness when they found out it was her at the ball.
• Cinderella invites the Step Sisters to live in the palace and arranges for them to be married to dukes in the book. 
• The biggest difference we found was that Cinderella was extremely patient and loving in the book, even more so than the movie. Cinderella did not even so much as sigh at the tasks she was given to do. She happily helped her Step Sisters get ready for the ball and even showed them great kindness and went out of her way to be generous with them at the ball when they did not know who she was. An ultimate example of "turn the other cheek" and forgiveness.

The discussion that many stories we have now are adaptations of great literary works started Ra thinking. She loves the kids series Monster High, which if you don't know has a cast of adapted familiar characters. Some of them are Draculaura, Frankie Stein, Cleo DeNile, Deuce Gorgon, etc. She asked about them and I told her that they are all based on stories of monsters. Some are myths, some are novels, and some (Cleo and Nefra) are based on real historical figures. She asked if we could read Dracula and so, after warning her that it will get scary she sat next to me and we began reading.

• We made a map in Google Maps "My Maps" program that showed all of the cities Jonathon Harker stopped at on his was to Romania. 
• We talked about which geographic direction Harker was travelling. 
• We located the Danube River and the Carpathian Mountains on a map. 
• We talked about the difference in how long it takes to travel between the time this story was set in compared to modern days.
• We discussed the difference between dinner and supper because he makes a point of correcting himself in the journal entry.  
• We talked about what he meant when he said that the meal "was very good but thirsty."  
• We noted that "Mina" is probably his wife.
• We looked up the recipe for Paprika Hendl and Dumplings and made them for dinner.

All of that in the first three paragraphs of the book! I am extremely excited for this new approach to teaching. I will have to read ahead tomorrow before reading it with the children so that I can be a little better prepared. Other than these activities I had fun spending more time with the kids than I usually do. I decided that I would play with them and not tell them "no" unless there was something that I MUST do. It was an extremely fun day today.