Thoughtful Thursday

God be in my head,

And in my understanding;

God be in mine eyes,

And in my looking;

God be in my mouth,

And in my speaking;

God be in my heart,

And in my thinking;

God be at mine end,

And at my departing.

~Anonymous 

New Phone Photo Fun

For my birthday last weekend Jason got me an iPhone (yeah!) and the kids have had a great time playing with one of the photo/camera apps.

Thoughtful Thursday

He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

Psalm 91:4

Autumn Fires

As part of our Ambleside curriculum Carson and I are reading a poem a day from A Child's Gareden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson. This is the poem we read yesterday:

AUTUMN FIRES

In the other gardens
And all up the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
See the smoke trail!

Pleasant summer over
And all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
The gray smoke towers.

Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
Fires in the fall!

Thoughtful Thursday

Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.

~Psalm 119:11 (KJV)

Freed

Yesterday Jordan and I read Chapter 21 of Tree in the Trail by Holling Clancy Holling, and I loved this part:

"Seems funny not to see her spreadin' above us, don't it?" said Jed. "But if a tree could think, I'll bet she's mighty glad to be a yoke, swingin' along, tinklin' pretty. That tree was too held down. Always pointin' as if she wanted to follow us on the Trail. Now she can go beyond her hill, away out yonder - farther than she ever dreamed.

"Maybe it's that way with people, sort of. They git rooted down, too. Along comes disaster, or what looks like it, an' they feel lost. But maybe, if they only knew - all that's happened to 'em is that they've been freed. Freed to go farther then they ever thought. Maybe they's bells waitin' for them, too. Bells that will tinkle inside 'em somewhere...."

Artist: Fragonard

In addition to the composer study we also do an artist study each term, and I go about finding books in the same way. For artist studies the best books feature one artist, are oversized, and contain lots of big pictures of the artist's work.

This term's artist is Jean-Honore Fragonard and until now I had never heard of this artist before (not really surprising although I did take four years of French in high school and he was a French painter).  Unlike the composer for this term there were not very many resources available at the local libraries. The two books* we are using are:

Jean-Honore Fragonard: Life and Work by Jean-Pierre Cuzin
Jean-Honore Fragonard by Jean Montague Massengale

If books on a particular artist or composer are hard to come by the internet can be a good resource for finding photos or samples of an artist's or composer's work.
I found four good photos of Fragonard's paintings available for viewing on the web:
The Reader (my favorite)
Inspiration 
Blind Man's Bluff 
The Stolen Kiss

*Note: Some of this artist's paintings contain nudity.

Composer: Mozart

As part of our Charlotte Mason based homeschool we do a composer and an artist study each term, and since I know next to nothing about the famous artists and classical composers I am learning right along with the kids.

For each composer I start by scouring the online library catalogs for juvenile biographical books and musical CDs of the composer's work (I also use Amazon as a search tool to find titles and if I see something that looks good I search the library's catalog for it). If there are lots of options I narrow them down to the top 4-6 and those are the ones we use for the term.

This term's composer is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and in this case I waded through tons of hits. Here are the books and CD that made the cut:

BOOKS
Amadeus Mozart by Ibi Lepscky
Young Mozart by Rachel Isadora
Mozart by Ann Rachlin (Famous Children Series)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart by Barrie Carson Turner (Famous Childhoods Series)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Musical Genius by Steward Ross (Famous Lives Series)

MUSCIAL CD
The Very Best of Mozart Naxos

Thoughtful Thursday

A friend posted this on her blog and I loved it so much I had to copy and repost it for this week's Thoughtful Thursday:

"[God] changes not because thou changest. Nay, He has an especial tenderness of love towards thee for that thou art in the dark and hast no light, and His heart is glad when thou dost arise and say, 'I will go to my Father.' . . . Fold the arms of thy faith, and wait in the quietness until light goes up in thy darkness. Fold the arms of thy Faith I say, but not of thy Action: bethink thee of something that thou oughtest to do, and go to do it, if it be but the sweeping of a room, or the preparing of a meal or a visit to a friend. Heed not thy feelings: Do thy work."

 

~George MacDonald

Walk the Walk

And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says "I know him" but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and  the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

~1 John 2:3-6

A Tale of Two Narrations

A few times a month I type out the kids' narrations to keep as a record and to see how far they've come. Here are two of Jordan's:

Fall 2009 - Narration from the story of Jonah:

God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and he didn’t obey so he ran away and got a ticket to go on a boat that headed toward Spain. And there was a storm when they were going there and they even threw things overboard so that it would make the ship lighter. And Jonah told them to throw him overboard and they prayed to God and asked that they would not drown, and then they threw Jonah overboard and the storm stopped. And then God sent a big fish to swallow up Jonah. Jonah was in the fish for three days and three nights then God told him to unswallow him. And then the second time God told him to go to Nineveh and that time he obeyed. And it took him three days to get in there, and they wore sackcloth, and they turned away from their sins so God did not destroy them. 

August 2011 - Narration from Our Island Story chapter 31

Thomas a Becket was Henry’s chancellor. He got a lot of stuff for him and he had servants, and he had rich food and he had nice clothes. He was almost more powerful than the king. He and Henry played a lot, like little boys after they finished working. Henry made him an archbishop of the church and so he lived at the church, he lived in a cell, and he and Henry started to quarrel because he and the Pope were on one side and Henry was on a side. They quarreled and quarreled until Thomas a Becket fled and then he came back, but then they started to quarrel again. He stayed in England though. The four knights heard him; he was very angry and he said that he wished that he would leave, and the four knights heard him and wanted to please their King and so they went to Thomas a Becket’s house and told him/asked him if he would obey their king or he would have to flee. And he said I do what my God wants me to because I am one of God’s servants and he is higher than the king and I will only obey him.And so they got angry and they said we will be back and Thomas a Becket said you will find me here. And two monks didn’t want him to stay there; he said I told them they would find me here. Then it was time for church and so he went out and the four knights got in because the people wanted to bar the gate so that he wouldn’t get hurt and he wouldn’t let them. And they came in and they killed him. And then they ran away frightened.

I love it!