Piney Woods Homeschool

Here are some thoughts I had while reading Chapter 18 of Volume 2. This part really reminded me of one important reason why we go outside, and why we make the effort to go to beautiful places: "We have in these few lines a volume of reasons why we should fill for children the storehouse of memory with many open-air images, capable of giving them reflected sensations of extreme delight. Our constant care must be to secure that they do look, and listen, touch, and smell; and the way to this is by sympathetic action on our part: what we look at they will look at; the odours we perceive, they, too, will get." CM spends quite awhile talking about Wordsworth’s poem "Tintern Abbey" and what that has to say to us about how important memories of beautiful places can be, and how those memories can evoke later feelings that have a positive effect on us even if we don’t realize it.  (You know, when *I* read "Tintern Abbey" in college, I just thought it ...

This year I decided to prepare for Easter, much as we prepare for Christmas by doing Advent activities.  Lent is the official season of preparation for Easter, but since our church doesn’t observe Lent, and we’ve never really observed Lent in our home, I wasn’t prepared for a full-blown observance of Lent this year.  My favorite church seasons book, Celebrating the Christian Church Year with Young Children, suggested using the story of the Good Shepherd throughout Lent to help small children prepare for Easter.  This seemed doable for us, so I used the book’s template to make paper Good Shepherd and sheep figures for each of the girls, and then gave them each a sheepfold made from a shoebox.  The girls are enjoying playing with their sets.  I have told them the story of the Good Shepherd, quite casually, a few times, and we’ve sung some hymns/choruses about Jesus-as-Shepherd.  I think for the 3yo especially, this approach will work much bette...