flynn057

Dear friends, My English class at our home school co-op was a bit of a mish mash today.  My assistant Dawn (who is actually now my co-teacher) presented a grammar lesson on conjunctions and interjections, and then I took over for the rest of the class.  In their history class earlier in the day, my seven students are learning medieval history, with lessons on St. Columba, St. Gregory the Great, and Japan in their assignments this coming week.  I decided to put my laptop computer to use to turn their history lessons into English lessons too.  (I love to integrate the school subjects with related literature!) For poetry, we read "The Prayer of St. Columba."  The chants and prayers of the early church were passed down from century to century, a potent form of devotional communication.  While reading this prayer, we talked about the use of repetition ("Let me...") and parallelism in the first four stanzas.  We also talked about the historical context (the ...

Last week I started a new blog series, Image & Imagination , to  explore how to stimulate our children's curiosity with pictures .  I like to integrate fine art and Biblical themes when I teach, whether it is in my own home or in our home school co-op English or history classes. Our 5th and 6th graders have been studying the early church in history class and reading through the book of Acts in English class.  In class this week, I showed them several pieces from the huge volume of  Great Bible Stories and Master Paintings by Owen S. Rachleff, which was a gift from my late father-in-law in our early home schooling years.  I wish we had more time to take a long look at them!  Maybe next week...  You can look up these paintings on-line, keeping in mind that there are variations in titles.  I have linked some of them here: “ The Pentecost” by El Greco (Spanish, 1541-1614) “ The Stoning of St. Stephen” by Fra Angelico (Italian, c. 1400-1455) “...

The Apostles' Creed I believe in God the  Father , Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth: And in Jesus Christ, his only  begotten   Son , our Lord: Who was conceived by the  Holy Ghost , born of the Virgin Mary: Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead and buried: He  descended  into hell: The third day he rose again from the dead: He  ascended  into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty: From  thence  he shall come to judge the  quick  and the dead: I believe in the  Holy Ghost : I believe in the holy  catholic  church: the  communion  of  saints : The forgiveness of sins: The resurrection of the body: And the life  everlasting . Amen. Vocabulary: begotten  - born descended  – went down ascended  – went up thence  – there quick  – living Holy Ghost  – Holy Spirit catholic  – universal or whole (not the same thing as the Roman ...

Friends,   In our home school co-op, the 5th-6th English class that I teach is reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe from the Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis.  We do about two chapters per week, and I am creating the study questions, writing assignments and activities as I go.  There are 17 chapters in the book, and so far I have finished up through chapter 8.  I'll post the other 9 chapters later on! (Edit to add - many years later, I never did!) The study questions are a mix of simple recall and deeper reflection.  Occasionally, I refer to vocabulary words, grammar, punctuation, or literary devices.  Some of the writing assignments are geared for practical real life application, while others stimulate imagination and creativity.  If you have study questions or writing assignments to suggest, please add them in a comment! At the bottom of this post, I have included several links to other on-line study guides for this book.  Som...

It's a rip stick, right? Left by a child on the  concrete patio at the play ground,  it's ready to roll. Or is it El Raton,  the ominous rat  with beady eyes and a furled brow? In coming posts, lets talk about Image and Imagination .  Let's explore how to stimulate our children's curiosity with pictures, whether it is photos like the one above, or masterpiece art, or advertisements, or even random doodles. I think we can get some good writing prompts going!  I'd love to hear your ideas!   P52 Photo Project    this week's  theme  " Hobbies" Yes, I confess!  I posted two pictures for P52 this week!  You can find the other at on my www.comewearymoms.blogspot.com at  On Clouds, Hands, Oysters and Messy Humanity .  

Dear friends, A couple of days ago, I wrote a post on www.startwellhomeschool.blogspot.com  about  What We're Doing for Elementary School This Year .  We're also home schooling two middle school students: a son in 8th grade and a daughter in 6th grade.  My son has always been home schooled, while my daughter attended a public elementary school for the last four months of the last school year. Our family is continuing with the home school co-op that we've been in for several years with the exception of one year we just home schooled - at home. Here is a run down of what we're doing in and out of co-op. My daughter is taking 6th grade math, with only one other student in her class. They are using the McDougal Littell text, along with a student notebook volume.  For science and history, she is in mixed level classes with 4th-6th grade students.   The science class is using the Apologia text about flying creatures , which is mainly birds and insects but include...

Preparing Our Children for the Storms of Life by Virginia Knowles (excerpted from my archives) The storms of life will come and go, but will your child be prepared or be blown away? In some ways, home schooling shelters children from many storms of life – appropriately so!  In other ways, it can prepare them to be even more effective in dealing with challenging and disappointing situations.  This process takes effort on the parents’ part as they try to discern the balance of sheltering and preparing.  There are many ways any parent can help prepare a child for weathering the storms of life. Cultivate a sense that God is in control, no matter what happens.  Show how faith, hope, and love can conquer depression, fear, and anger.  We don’t always understand what is happening, but we can trust a sovereign God.  In showing God’s providence and our need for perseverance, you can use Bible stories (such as Joseph, Ruth, or David), Bible ve...