Paddy’s reading:
Paddy has been interested in this Harper Collins Treasure of Picture Books. I got it on a bookstore remainder rack and it’s a nice book, though the quality of the selections vary. His favorites right now seem to be Harold and the Purple Crayon, and Caps for Sale. In the past he preferred Goodnight Moon. Personally, Harold has always made me feel a bit dizzy, like I was going into an existential tailspin. What’s this about nothing real around him except what he draws with his crayon? I still feel an echo of the vertigo I felt as a child when I realized he would not actually get back to any kind of real home — he would have to draw his own home. I guess that was when I first confronted Descartes and Kant and became a material Aristotlean…. LOL. But Caps for Sale is one of my all time favorite stories. Everything about it is perfect… it has clarity, completeness and balance. * All my kids have loved it too, particularly the pattern oriented ones.
He has been asking for stories twice a day so I am probably reading to him for close to an hour and a half per day. He has been having lots of meltdowns recently so I wonder if he is on the verge of one of those developmental leaps. Those often seem to accompany or precede or sometimes follow growth. Another explanation could be the spring weather or the increased responsibility he has nowadays with his T ball and having to pick up after himself. Or maybe it is the fact that we have had more sweets around the house since Easter. So difficult to tell sometimes.
The boys have accomplished their checklists. In the outlining book, Sean is at the point now where he reads a paragraph and then decides which of the topic statements best represent what the paragraph is about. This has been difficult for him in the past but obviously he’s moved ahead in his reading comprehension ability because now he picked it out without difficulty.
Kieron and I are on adjectives, in Simply Grammar. SG classifies articles as adjectives… Hmm. And copulas as verbs. Hmm. I wonder if that will be confusing later on. I think this is one reason why I always dropped the book previously, with the other kids. But I think I will keep going this time and then go from there later on with something more analytical, like Harvey’s. Just pondering. Kieron enjoys making up his own sentences in the book’s exercises though of course, like most 11 year old boys, he wants to make up silly sentences. I wonder if Charlotte Mason knew this about boys that age.
Aidan has been using the V Tech Phonics board to spell words.
*(NB — found this Waldorf article about painting when I was looking for the Aquinas requirements for beauty– which is, in case you are interested:
“For beauty there are three requirements: First, a certain wholeness or perfection, for whatever is incomplete is, so far, ugly;
second, a due proportion or harmony;
and third, clarity, so that brightly colored things are called beautiful.”
