Marco Polo :: Reading & Mapping

"...let him follow the adventures of a traveller..."

-CM, Vol 1: Home Education, p 275 

Komroff's Marco Polo is such a great read. And it's one of those that my Year 3 budding-reader can begin to read parts for himself. I am striving this year to wean Royal into more independent reading. The free reading time I allot for him on a daily basis is sure-fire training ground for becoming a more confident reader! (See the Royal's Reads tab above for his running log). He is also not complaining as much anymore about getting tired when he reads for more than 10 minutes.




Royal is able to narrate quite well whether I read to him or he reads by himself. And I find it satisfying that while he reads independently, sometimes from the other room he yells out something interesting he has just come across. (self-directed narration maybe?) Sometimes he narrates orally. Other times, he incorporates a drawing. He loves drawing.

As this selection is in the Geography coursework, we also use it for studying the route of legendary Marco Polo's travels from Italy to Cathay (ancient China). As we read through the text, I underline in pencil new places mentioned. Afterwards, or another day, we get out a blank map I have printed from the Internet, and we search for these locations. Sometimes we use a giant picture atlas book; however, more often than not we end up having to research online, as many of the place names from Marco Polo's time are old names, which now have updated titles. (i.e. Persia is Iran; Kashgar is Kashi; Peking is Beijing)



























Since we have now entered into reading Polo's travels across China, I printed a map of China only. For this portion of mapping, I had him trace the outline of the country himself. He really enjoyed this and decided to go ahead and add the surrounding countries as well!

"...a sketch-map following the traveller's progress..."

-CM, Vol 1: Home Education, p 275

(Oh, and he was inspired to sketch a compass below to make it more official.)

"...geography should be learned chiefly from maps..."

-CM, Vol 1: Home Education, p 278

Mid-Winter's Flowers

This has been a full week.

Full of cleaning.

Full of preparation.

Full of excitement.

Full of much-anticipated fellowship.

It was wonderful & blessed!

~A mid-winter's flower~

Planned lessons took a backseat to this fullness of life, spending precious moments with friends we last saw three years ago.

Hearts were reunited. Souls were warmed.

~A mid-winter's flower~

And then they were gone.

...........................

Enjoying the last bit of daylight in our yard, we discovered new beauty.

~A mid-winter's flower~

Henbit.

Shepherd's purse

Low Hop Clover

{Keeping} :: Royal's Timeline

For the past few weeks Royal (AOy3) has been working on his Personal Timeline. It is one of the Time Tools highlighted in Bestvater's The Living Page. She calls it The Child's Own History. This is one of the earliest forms of vitality (or notebooks) introduced to a child in order to help them begin to understand history.

By age seven or eight, it is clearer to him that things have happened before his time and the child goes on to develop the notion of a century, and only after that the vastness of all recorded history and prehistory. -Bestvater, The Living Page, p44  

... 

We began with the present, which, at the time, was back in the 3rd quarter of 2014. After December finished, we updated that square with a highlight from the last quarter of the year. So most entries are continuously looking back. I have to say that I am SO glad I am a photo-journalist of sorts... or shall I venture to say photo-keeper? Anyway, if I did not have photos to look back through (albums or digital pictures), I really don't know how I would jog my memory as to what happened during any given time in the past!

Here is what H.B. wrote in History: Teaching Practically Considered in a Parent's Review article:

Our knowledge of time preceeds not from the past into the future, but the present is our starting point--time as directly known to us proceeds from the past, it is necessary, by repeated acts of the imagination, to work arduously backward from the present, till a secure pathway has been trodden out, and safe landmarks and finger-posts erected.

I notice H.B. uses the phrase "to work arduously backward." Well, I imagine without photo or written documentation to jog one's memory, this would be quite an arduous task! 

...

After a bit of reading, it appears there are varying ways to organize the timeline: 

• month-to-month
• quarter by quarter
• every 4 months 

...and in making entries there is another choice:

• written
• drawn

Royal chose to draw:

Dorothea Beale's Parent's Review article The Teaching of Chronology appears to give parents a pass to be a bit creative in the development of these Personal Histories:

I am sure parents will devise some very beautiful horoscopes which may take the place of those wonderful framed samplers of old times, which it will be a joy for their children to look at in later life, as they remember the birthday addition each year, the sorrows and the joys there noted down, the prayers of the family for each new-comer, and the marriage days.

A sample of her idea:

...

One comment Bestvater made that struck me regarding the where of this Time Tool:

The chart needs to be highly visible, a type of wall art. -p46

I had previously been keeping it in a large binder along with pages to complete for our future Book of Centuries. Oops. So just last night I removed it and the chart is now displayed on a large bulletin board in our schoolroom area:

But why is location so important? 
What does it matter whether or not this historical layout be kept in a binder or on exhibit?
Perhaps it is akin to the crux of many aspects of a Charlotte Mason education: to be able to see with the mind's eye.
To see with the mind's eye is a treasure. If you have really seen (paid attention), you will be able to:

• recall a word's spelling
• peruse beautiful works of art whenever you fancy
• locate easily where certain geographical sites are in the world
• identify and discuss things of nature at an intimate level
• and perchance even know when particular events happened in time?

...all because you were made to visualize these things 
...and because objects from this varying subject matter were readily available to observe.


Just some of my thoughts.

What are yours?

...

Linking up with Celeste at Joyous Lessons for this month's Keeping Company

{Nature} :: Two Birds and some Stones

Ok, this really has nothing to do with the idiomatic phrase Kill two birds with one stone, but we did come upon two dead birds today on a nature walk.
And they were lying on stones.

Anyway!

Yes, we came upon two birds. One in the creek bed. Definitely a buzzard:

Can you see that tiny skull, center-left?

It is smaller than I imagined a buzzard-head to be.

The other bird, still intact ... an Inca Dove (placed in our yard for photo):

                                                                                                                                                                         

 

Aren't the inner rufous-colored feathers pretty?

So into our Nature Notebooks went the drawings of the Inca Dove, or Columbina inca.

The kids used this image to copy a bird in flight:

Here is Alice's (AOy1) entry:

And Royal's (AOy3):

{Handicrafts} :: Bug House

This little DIY project set was a gift from some good friends of ours awhile back: a bug house to build.

I am trying to find practical handicrafts for Royal and Alice ... things that they both will enjoy. 
So I figured after the hand-stitched cards, I had better look for something more boyish. 
But, as it happens, both kids really like trying their hand at these seemingly gender-specific handicrafts.

That is the capital charge against most schools.

The teachers underrate the tastes and abilities of their pupils.

-CM, Vol 6: A Philosophy of Education, p 52

Our aim in education is to give children vital interests in as many directions as possible 

-- to set their feet in a large room -- 

because the crying evil of the day is, it seems to me, intellectual inanition.

-CM, Vol 3: School Education, p 231

...

So we talked about sanding, and how you need to take note of the direction of the wood's grain. 
(Oh, and what is "grain"?)
 So we defined that, then decided which way we should sand before getting to work...

After preparing a nice, smooth surface, we used a little wood glue and nailed the frame together.
We talked about how to hold a hammer properly to get maximum power out of your swing.

Don't you just love Alice in her Little House attire?

So after the wood glue dried, Royal went on to paint the house camouflage...

And then after tacking the screen around, it was finished.

Now just to wait for spring when bugs abound!

{Nature} :: A Stroll in the Park

Even for Texas, our winter seems to be unseasonably warm.
We have been enjoying lots of wonderfully spring-like temperatures and beautiful days...
which lends itself to some nice nature walks!

One we went on not long ago was at a local park along the river's edge.

Here we enjoyed seeing a variety of trees ... and even a blue heron rather close. It flew away before I could get my camera out, but it was impressive to see how large these birds really are!

Anyway, back to the trees.

One we have been noticing more this time of year is the China Berry.

So Royal wanted to enter this one into his Nature Notebook:

As you may notice in his book, the China Berry (or Melia Azedarach) is a native of the Himalayas.
How cool to think that Marco Polo might have noticed these trees those oh-so-many years ago along his route to Cathay!








































Another day while having a picnic in our front yard, we saw these tiny little pearl-like berries that had dropped onto our blanket. A little while later, Royal noticed they were from the mistletoe, which enjoys residence in our cedar elm trees.

Alice decided she wanted to sketch the American mistletoe (or Phoradendron flovescens):

And we continue to add our collected specimens to a centerpiece vase to enjoy throughout this year...

{Keeping} :: My Commonplace ... and some reflections

I have just begun a fun-for-me read entitled: Between Worlds: Essays on Culture and Belonging

I was drawn to this for a couple of reasons:

1. I love learning about & experiencing other cultures and hearing other people's stories about living abroad.

2. We were missionaries for 6 years, and although I did not grow up abroad, I definitely began to have a sense of being in between worlds ... like I didn't have a place of real belonging, either in the States or in Latin America. It was a strange place to be, so I can totally imagine what a Third Culture Kid (TCK) may sense.

(Oh, and #3: it was free for Kindle the other day!) teehee :-)

So the author, Marilyn R. Gardner, was an MK (missionary kid) in Pakistan. Her parents began their work there in 1954.

Here is an excerpt of a portion of one of her essays of the many memories she holds dear while away at boarding school:

I've written before that there can be strength in remembering. 

And the Chai Shop is a memory that gives strength.

... ... ...

Rumor has it that the building that housed the chai shop has been torn down - one more brick taken out of our wall of memories. 

Perhaps writing helps keep some of the bricks intact, because memories are precious and, if used properly, give strength for the present.

I can't help but connect what she reveals here with the idea of Keeping. She is keeping her memories alive by writing them down and reflecting on how her past has had a profound impact on her present.

I am really enthralled with this idea of keeping notebooks, and in The Living Page Laurie Bestvater expresses well what Miss Mason proclaims about the "blank page":

[It] secures personhood by slowing us down, causing us to reflect, choose, sort, and ruminate.

-p 112

And isn't this similar to what Mrs. Gardner has done in her essays? She has apparently done much reflecting, choosing, sorting and ruminating in order to secure her personhood.

...

Would that we all look back ... Or even better yet, start now to make notes of important, vital happenings, thoughts, quotes, poems, hymns, natural discoveries, and everyday observations. And in this writing, perhaps it will also help us to keep some of the bricks intact.