flynn057

Dear friends, You know by now how I love to integrate English with history!  The 5th-6th graders in our home school co-op are using the Mystery of History Volume 2 text (by Linda Hobar) on the time period of the early church up through the Middle Ages for their history class.  One of the lessons this past week was about St. Francis of Assisi.  I decided to shape my literature and writing assignments around that. In class on Monday, I read the  picture book Saint Francis of Assissi: A Life of Joy by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  There are many pictures books about St. Francis, but this is my favorite, and the author (son of Bobby Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy) has had a keen personal connection with his subject since childhood.   Charlotte Mason would say that's the best kind of author to read! Our main literature resource this year is The Book of Virtues edited by Dr. William Bennett, so I assigned "The Sermon to the Birds."  Francis is...

Dear friends, In honor of President's Day this week, I assigned a literature study on the topic of honesty to my home school co-op English class.  In addition to the assignments and discussion notes below, you will also find very useful lists about honesty at  http://www.k12.hi.us/~mkunimit/honesty.htm Discussion: What is honesty? ·          Honesty is telling the whole truth , in your words, actions, and intentions.  It is being accurate . (That does not mean that someone who tells wrong information is lying.  If they sincerely think it is true, they are not being deceptive, just mistaken. There can still be negative consequences for this, especially if the person should have known better, but there is a difference based on their intention!)   Being honest does not mean you need to tell someone information that is none of their business, or that they would use to harm other people, or that is unnecessarily hurtful...