Six Weeks In

We've just closed up 6 weeks of Term 1 for the year! It has gone fast and been very good to get into a routine again, to sharpen our brains and to learn so many great things.

Some highlights around here:

First official nature walk of the year

Shakespeare drama group at this awesomely old building

Nature Journal entry about our recent monarch birth

And as for the nitty gritty... we are really doing well.

The habits of discipline and accountability from Y7 have carried over and made the transition to Y8 mostly smooth. While I still feel like there is a jump in difficulty with Y8 (compared to Y7), it is manageable if you have been disciplined with reading assignments, writing narrations and not skipping out on the harder readings from Y7. AO definitely does a good job of building up the muscles of reading and thinking over the years.

I'd say the hardest books for Y8 so far are: Utopia, Bacon's Essays, and The New World (simply because Churchill packs a lot in). Utopia, wow... I'm not sure I completely understand what is all being said but we do our best. I think Kailyn can follow it better than I can. Bacon's Essays- wow again. This is serious food for thought. Kailyn is really doing very well in grasping his thoughts and providing about a half page of narration which is good. This quote really stuck out to me in the last essay (On Revenge):

"Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince's part to pardon. And Solomon, I am sure, saith, It is the glory of a man, to pass by an offence. "  -Sir Francis Bacon, On Revenge

We watched A Man for All Seasons a few weeks ago, since it is a play and was meant to be watched. I found the movie very well done and now I am having Kailyn read the play over the next few weeks (15 min at a time). I just want her to mull it over a bit more.

Louisa (in Y6) is reading Never Give In  with me right now (about the life of Winston Churchill) and what I find interesting is that he is so similar to Teddy Roosevelt in that they were both self-educated men who read a TON; and they were both excellent leaders. Churchill read 4-5 hours a day and if I remember correctly Teddy was very similar. They both had about 4-5 books going at a time, too. They both had to overcome childhood difficulties (I'd say more Teddy though) and really led by example and character. What is also interesting about Churchill is that he says he knew so little of history from his schooling, so he read everything his mother could send him (while in India) and then he ended up writing SO much English history that we are reading now currently!! I know that neither of these men were perfect, don't get me wrong, but they had amazing lives and high moral standards and were extremely important people in the history of the English speaking world.

I love Y6 because of the history cycles- it's fun to learn about the modern times and also great to start on the ancients BUT I do wish there was a way to slow down Term 1. I feel like it just zips through the World Wars and everything afterwards that it is hard to pause and reflect on what was really happening. I have been trying to supplement with additional books for free reading time so that Louisa can get a better picture of the history. Some of these have been Landmark books (about World War I and II); others are: The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy, The Chestry Oak by Kate Seredy, The Hiding Place (Young Reader's Edition) by Corrie Ten Boom, Six Days in October by Karen Blumenthal, and The Wall Came Tumbling Down by Jerry Bornstein.

Louisa has also started a Book of Centuries that she is really enjoying adding to each week. I just encourage one drawn entry and one written entry each week during one of our afternoon Circle Times.

The girls have joined a Shakespeare drama group that will be performing Henry V at the end of October. Since they are doing this, we are temporarily suspending our current Shakespeare read-through of Twelfth Night.

And that's about it for the first half of Term 1!