a little learning

So what are we doing this year, for school?
Some of you asked, perhaps foolishly, but maybe you know best.
Hmmm....well.....

For poetry Elphine and Alouicious will be memorizing a couple of Tennyson poems--"The Eagle" and "The Flower in the Crannied Wall" even though I think its been identified as one of the worst poems ever written (where did I read that?)--and working through the new Roman Roads Media Grammar of Poetry, the first three lessons of which have been fun and interesting. Romulus and Gladys will go memorizing poems we happen to come along that we like. Right now those are "The Owl and the Pussycat", "The Puffin" and "Custard the Dragon".

For Grammar and Writing we're using Classical Writing again. The two oldest are doing the Aesop books. Romulus will be working through Memoria Press' Story Time Treasures if he could just.... remember... the..stupid....alphabet. We're already behind because its either been fall behind or run screaming around the yard from frustration. I jest, but only a little. Romulus reads just fine when he chooses to remember the letters. His intelligence is matched almost perfectly by his indolence.

For literature/vocab we're using Memoria Press Lit. Guides. Elphine is starting out with Heidi. Alouicious is finishing King Arthur from last year because it's really a fifth grade guide and he needs a lot of help. After those we'll do The Trojan War by Olivia Coolidge and then they can pick what they'd like to do next.

For history we're listening to The Story of the World volumes one and two, carrying on with the Veritas Press history cards in chronological order and doing both Memoria Press' Famous Men of Rome and D'Aulaire's Greek Myths.

Are you bored yet? WE AREN'T. We are mesmerized by the beauty of all these books and the chance to read and read and read and read and read and write and write and write some more.

For geography we're doing Memoria Press' Middle East, North Africa and Europe with a constant soundtrack of Geography Songs to pep it up.

Math, what can I say, we ditched Singapore Math and jumped into the Life of Fred boat. And what a marvelous boat it is. The constant squabbling over who gets the book when is charming.

But we didn't totally drop Singapore, we're using them for Science, overlaid with Lyrical Science songs.

As for foreign languages, Marigold, Gladys and I are dabbling in Pimsleur Mandarin, Elphine and Alouicious are whining their way through Visual Latin and all of us together are doing French with the Memoria Press Student Guide as a base but that's just so we'll do it.

On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays we say Morning Prayer (rite two, 1979, and believe me, I feel guilty every other day) with The Shorter Catechism for Young Children (not the Heidelberg, yet, sorry Matt) and John 3 plunked in instead of lessons and singing instead of the psalm (things like "O the deep deep love of Jesus", "New every morning", old ICA songs, and "Jesus loves me") . Don't worry, we read the bible in the evenings...sometimes...when we don't have to be somewhere.

On Fridays we'll do art and music, even if it kills us.
And that's about it.
(OH! Elphine and Alouicious are having proper piano lessons as well.)
As if that wasn't enough.