homeschool daybook: Wilberforce, Shakespeare & monks' theatre
October 7, 2011
After lunch Natalie spent her afternoon starting to work on deductive thinking skills exercises in the Mind Bender workbook, catching up on math workbook pages, sitting in the yard sketching, looking over some of the paintings in chapter 4 of this gorgeous book: The Story of Painting by H.W. Janson.
It seemed fitting to end our day by reading Shakespeare out loud together. We're going to be reading and watching different adaptations of the play all month so we started with the exquisitely illustrated Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet adapted by Michael Rosen and illustrated by Jane Ray.
Our first Friday and we were busy trying to check off all the projects and to-do's on our assignment list. One thing I've learned already is that Natalie seems to do better managing her own schedule from a list of assignments rather than have me give assignments out one at a time. I think it energizes her and helps her set goals for her day and week. As a bonus, it's also easier for me!
Natalie read from the Gospel of Matthew, chapters 6 & 7 and journalled. We didn't talk too much about the reading together today, but on our way home from the classical guitar concert yesterday we had a great discussion inspired by the Sermon on the Mount. All initiated by my 13-year-old. If nothing else goes well for the rest of this year, I think it'll be worth it for these little "teachable moments" that pop up when we have more one-on-one time together.
I read out loud chapter 1 of Josh McDowell's Evidence That Demands A Verdict. The chapter covers a wide variety of supporting evidence that the Bible is unique in all of its many facets: work of literature, historical record, didactic treatise and so forth. I found myself inwardly cringing a bit as I read, imagining all the ways each point could be refuted by skeptics. Also, remembering all the ways the phrase "inerrant, irrefutable Word of God" was used as hammer over the heads of my fellow Baptist-school classmates. But McDowell's enthusiasm feels fresh and exuberant, rather than dogmatic. It was good for me to read these words and ponder these truths again.
To wrap up her week in History, she studied the timeline of the abolitionist movement in The Wall Chart of World History. Then we watched together the documentary The Better Hour, on the life and work of William Wilberforce. Again I say, if nothing else goes well this entire school year, it'll be worth the time just to learn about people like this man.
To wrap up her week in History, she studied the timeline of the abolitionist movement in The Wall Chart of World History. Then we watched together the documentary The Better Hour, on the life and work of William Wilberforce. Again I say, if nothing else goes well this entire school year, it'll be worth the time just to learn about people like this man.
Natalie needed to write a two-page summary from her history reading this week. She was inspired by the documentary to write her summary as a historical fiction short-story from the point of view of a West African woman in danger of being shipped to Britain the very morning that Parliament's vote to abolish the slave trade went into affect. I hope Natalie will never forget the story she imagined from the history she's learned this week.
To round out the week, she read the chapter on the introduction of theater in English Literature for Boys and Girls by H.E. Marshall and we loved learning the origins of theater in the earliest days of monkish plays.
And no matter how many times and how many ways we've heard it, doesn't some magical pain stab at our hearts when we read:
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life,
Whose misadventur'd piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.