How to read The Faerie Queene; or, You are already qualified to read Spenser's masterpiece

Many of you know that last school year I taught a year-long class on Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene. To help prepare myself for the classes, I spent hours and hours reading commentaries and scholarly essays on the poem, because I wanted to give my students (mostly adults, but a few high schoolers as well) value for their money. If you’re going to pay for a class, you should get more out of it than you can get just by reading something on your own.

Before deciding to teach the class, I had read The Faerie Queene aloud with my children three times over the previous several years. I loved the poem and wanted to share it with other homeschool families, so that, in my opinion, was my main qualification for teaching it—I was familiar with it and I loved it.

But what qualified me to read it to my kids in the first place? I don’t have a college degree, let alone a degree in English. I didn’t have any specialized knowledge of Edmund Spenser or Elizabethan England or of the kind of poetry Spenser was writing.

The only qualification I had was that I wanted to read it. And I wanted to read it because I loved C.S. Lewis, and he loved The Faerie Queene.

The only specialized knowledge I had was that I knew the Bible pretty well, I was fairly familiar with Greek and Roman mythology, and with fairy tales and the legends of King Arthur. Really you can’t even call that specialized knowledge. All of that is what every child ought to have been listening to from birth, “building blocks of story,” as Angelina Stanford says, summarizing Northrop Frye and his brilliant commentaries on literature.

So, how do you, dear Homeschool Mama, begin reading this glorious masterpiece to your own children?

Here’s what I did with my four children who were still at home with me—my fifteen year old daughter, thirteen year old son, and eleven year old daughter, plus my nineteen year old special-needs son.

Charlotte Mason suggests having younger children read from Charles and Mary Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare before reading the bard himself so that they will be familiar with the stories. I felt it was even more important to do this with Spenser’s Faerie Queene, since the language in his poem is more difficult than in Shakespeare’s plays.

Most of us are familiar with C.S. Lewis’s mention of first reading The Faerie Queene from a large illustrated volume on a rainy day. Here is the quote in full:

Beyond all doubt it is best to have made one’s first acquaintance with Spenser in a very large—and, preferably, illustrated—edition of The Faerie Queene, on a wet day, between the ages of twelve and sixteen; and if, even at that age, certain of the names aroused unidentified memories of some still earlier, some almost prehistoric, commerce with a selection of “Stories from Spenser,” heard before we could read, so much the better.
(“On Reading ‘The Faerie Queene,’” in Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature, p. 146)

I had been reading Margaret Hodges and Trina Schart Hyman’s gorgeously illustrated edition of Saint George and the Dragon since before some of these children were born, and Lewis’s words here spurred me on to find another high quality children’s edition of the whole story, for he says that that’s where even the mature reader must start, if not with the children’s versions, at least with the child’s unjaded appetite for stories like “Jack the Giant Killer,” and his lack of awareness of any allegory or moral purpose. In the same essay, Lewis says,

It may not be necessary for all readers at all stages of the narrative to know exactly what the poet means, but it is emphatically necessary that they should surrender themselves to the sense of some dim significance in the background—that they should feel themselves to be moving in regions “where more is meant than meets the ear.”

 

I found two beautifully written editions that served us well. The first and shortest is Stories from the Faerie Queen by Jeanie Lang. Her book is just a few chapters long, roughly one chapter per book of Spenser’s FQ, each taking 15-20 minutes to read aloud. The second is Mary Macleod’s much longer Stories from the Faerie Queene. The chapters are all “read-aloud” length, like Lang’s, but Macleod’s book covers the poem in much more detail than Lang’s book.

Our method was to read a chapter of Lang one day (kids narrating), then in the following days I would read aloud the corresponding chapters from Macleod (again having the kids narrate). Then I read aloud from my Penguin edition of The Faerie Queene (pausing occasionally for narrations). In this way we worked through FQ, one book at a time.

If your kids are much younger than mine were, say all under twelve, you could read aloud the whole Lang book, and later read aloud the whole Macleod. Do be sure to have your kids narrate both books. This way they’ll be so familiar with the basic outline of the story that when you get to Spenser they’ll be able to follow the Elizabethan poetry without trouble in the way that Lewis describes.

In my next post, I’ll give some tips for reading the full edition of The Faerie Queene.

 

My math collection

 

I haven't done a math post in ages! Several years ago I got really busy with other studies and had to set my math studies aside, but I've been able to take them up again recently, reading Introduction to Arithmetic by Nicomachus of Gerasa with my friend Esther, who blogs at Dappled Things. She suggested I return to the topic here and I have a few ideas for future posts, but in the mean time I thought I'd share a peek at my shelves, and mention a few favorite titles.

My youngest is a senior this year and is using The Teaching Textbooks, so a lot of these books and games are things we used when she and her siblings were a lot younger, but I've kept them out because I still refer to them from time to time.

The middle shelf is mostly manipulatives and decks of cards. The basket is full of Math-U-See blocks. The cardboard box has pattern blocks. We hardly ever use the manipulatives any more -- they're just here because I don't want them separated from everything else. We don't really play "math games" much any more either, but we do play card games sometimes. The white bottle in the red sleeve is a bottle full of pennies for using when we play our family's favorite card game, Continental. 

The top shelf is mostly books for my own study and use. I pulled the Ruth Beechick book out so you can see it better. It's just a tiny thing, but so important. If you're just getting started, I can't recommend it enough. Behind it are the textbooks and CDs I got from The Teaching Textbooks, when we were doing it that instead of using their subscription service. Asimov's Realm of . . . books are kind of a history of the development of math. They make great read alouds with middle school and older kids, if taken in fairly small doses. Give you lots to talk about. 

 

 

The bottom four are books for me on child development and teaching as it relates to math. The top four are Denise Gaskins' excellent series of math games for all ages. The yellow one is a program that I started then abandoned -- it seems like it would be really good for young kids but I got it too late to use with my younger set. I'm thinking I should revisit it with my special needs son, and see if he takes to it. It starts with counting on the fingers, based on some interesting brain science -- there's actually a part of the brain that connects the fingers with numbers. The ones on the right are all "living" math books -- a few biographies, a history of counting. Picture books for younger kids but still very interesting.

 

 

Bottom, three ancient college textbooks -- I don't remember where they came from. The blue paperback is the text to a Great Courses class I took several years ago. Standing on top of the stack is Horace Grant's Arithmetic for Young Children, out of print, but an excellent resource. It's standing on his Second Stage of Arithmetic, also excellent and out of print -- I sent the google doc of the book to a custom printing service and got it that way, which wasn't as expensive as it sounds. The only other option would have been to print and bind it myself and I didn't want to spend time on all the formatting. The colored books are Life of Fred, which are fun and helpful.

See my math label for earlier posts describing some of the things I was doing with my children and learning on my own.

Easing back into school -- the rest of the week, or "Not Nearly as Pretty as Day One"

Things went so well on Monday that I overdid it and went to bed too exhausted to sleep well and didn't wake up Tuesday morning until almost 9:30, so I spent the morning grouchy and annoyed, and by the time I'd eaten and gotten some work done and had time to call everyone to Morning Time I had to go into my room for an attitude adjustment first.

We start the school day off with prayers, so, well . . . .  The good news for my kids is that we don't start the school day when Mama is feeling grumpy.

So then it was time for lunch.

Finally around one o'clock I rang the bell for Morning Time, and since it wasn't morning any more we turned to the page for noontime prayers in our prayer book (I know I've mentioned before how much I love using the Book of Common Prayer; let me just say it again -- I love the prayer book!).  The verses were especially meaningful to me after my cranky morning.

At Noon

From Psalm 113
Give praise, you servants of the LORD; *
   praise the Name of the LORD.
Let the Name of the LORD be blessed, *
   from this time forth for evermore.
From the rising of the sun to its going down *
   let the Name of the LORD be praised.
The LORD is high above all nations, *
   and his glory above the heavens.

A Reading
O God, you will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are fixed on you; for in returning and rest we shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be our strength.
Isaiah 26:3; 30:15

Prayers may be offered for ourselves and others.

The Lord’s Prayer

The Collect
Lord Jesus Christ, you said to your apostles, “Peace I give to you; my own peace I leave with you:” Regard not our sins, but the faith of your Church, and give to us the peace and unity of that heavenly City, where with the Father and the Holy Spirit you live and reign, now and for ever. Amen.

After that was Poetry (I've decided to read through Ambleside Online's list of poems for Year 6).  I read Sir Philip Sidney's "His Lady's Cruelty," which is the one that starts, "With how sad steps, O moon, thou climb'st the skies," and that sparked a lot of discussion on whether the poet was justified in ascribing his own feelings to an inanimate object.  For the record, my position is that it's correct, when done properly.  If the poet had been saying, "With how sad steps, O lightening bugs, thou light'st the night," or some such, then either he's trying to be funny, or it's just bad poetry, and I'm not talking about botching the sonnet's meter.

Then we reviewed the grammar terms we'd covered earlier in the spring.  I'm using an ancient copy of Kittredge and Arnold's The Mother Tongue, Book II, recommended by Cindy, and it's perfect for my needs, but some clever ladies have published an adaptation for modern students, which is also recommended by Cindy, so you might want to check that out.

Next we read our chapter of The Wanderings of Odysseus, listened to narrations, discussed stuff, and sent everyone outside to play.  End of Day 2.

I think that took two hours.  Because we talk too much.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Wednesday we had an unexpected scheduling conflict that meant we couldn't do lessons in the morning, and in the afternoon the three oldest girls had an engagement and the two younger boys had outside work, so we couldn't do school then.  That left me and my youngest alone in the house for most of the afternoon so we played card games together.  In between rounds we quizzed each other on tricks for counting the score rapidly in our heads.

In the card game we were playing, 2s are wild and are worth 20 points each. Face cards are 10 each and the rest are their face value.  I asked her, "If you have three cards that total ten points and one is a four, what are the other two?" At first she said she couldn't do that (this one is shy about answering new problems aloud), but when I asked her to take four away from ten, then figure out how to make the leftover number out of two cards [remember, since 2s are 20 each, there was only one way to do it -- two 3s], she answered correctly.  Then she made up a question for me.  The questions got more complicated as we went on.

I'm learning how to do this kind of thing by reading the Let's Play Math and Talking Math with Your Kids blogs.  You should check them out if this something you need help with too.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Thursday was prettier.  We started roughly on time -- generally I shoot for ringing the prayer bell at 9:00, and I think we were within half an hour of that.

First we did a spot of pseudo-Swedish Drill because after seeing the video that Brandy linked to a few days ago I'm thinking about including it, or some variation thereof.  I have serious issues with some of the postures in the only handbook I've spent much time looking at, but I think a few minutes of the kind of mindful movement talked about in the video would be good for all of us.



Next we sang a hymn.  Normally we would have had prayers before anything, but one of the children was cranky and I wanted to give the child some space to cheer up a bit before we started.  Now that I write this out it makes me wonder if that's really the right way of going about it -- am I inadvertently teaching my children some sort of works-righteousness?  Hm.

Our Scripture reading for the day was from Luke 23 about the veil in the Temple tearing when Jesus was crucified.  I don't usually have a sermonette during Prayers, but this time I decided to ask them what they knew about the arrangement of the Temple and the role of the veil.  One of my children was really excited when she figured out the significance of the veil's being torn -- that now all of God's people can come into his presence, not just the high priest, and not just on one day of the year.  So that two minute digression was well worth breaking my usual habit.

Another poem, another interesting discussion.

A brief section from The Mother Tongue, which sparked yet another discussion that ranged from nouns to languages to Charlemagne and I don't remember what all.

The next chapter of Odysseus, narration, and more discussion.

New memory verse begun -- Psalm 103.  I started by having everyone read the first five verses aloud with me, then they closed their Bibles and I read the first verse, phrase by phrase, with them repeating after me.  Then I read the whole verse, all but the very last word, which they supplied. Then I read it again, leaving off the last two words, then the last three, and so on.  After about five words were done this way, I asked them whether they could say the whole verse from memory yet, and most of them could.

Outside time.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Today, Friday, the boys had a lot of outside work to take care of in the morning so we didn't start till eleven.

Rex, gnawing on Sunchokes during our morning walk

Gratuitous Cute Kid and Animal shot,
also taken during our morning walk

Did a bit of pseudo-Swedish drill while waiting for everyone to assemble.

Said Morning Prayers, including reading the rest of Luke 23, and Psalm 106 (Psalms are read responsively by the half-verse).

Sang hymn.

Read poem for the day, Donne's "Death be not proud."  Lovely discussion.

Grammar lesson with lots of input from the children, including my special needs one, which is encouraging.

Another chapter of Odysseus -- The Archery Contest -- with interesting discussion from my 15 year old, who took Angelina's excellent Great Books I class last year.  Chapter concluded to a loud chorus of, "NOOOOO!" from the children, because I wouldn't read the next chapter.

It was noon and I was hungry, so we finished.

Rats.  Just realized we forgot to do memory work.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Overall, I'm satisfied with the week and looking forward to several weeks in a row of uninterrupted studies.

How are things going for you?  Have you started back to school yet?

Apraxia Awareness Day

My nineteen year old son, the one who takes care of the animals and milks the goats, was diagnosed with Childhood Apraxia of Speech a few months before his fourth birthday.  When he was seen by a specialist at nine years of age, the specialist said that it was the severest case he'd ever had, and described some other problems that we knew he had, we'd just never had them actually named before.

I've never blogged about this because I try to respect my children's privacy, so I rarely mention their weaknesses unless I have something useful to say to moms about raising and educating children, and I can do it discreetly, which is obviously impossible to do when writing about the only child in my family who has an actual medically diagnosed handicap of a rather profound nature.

So, for now, I want to point you to an article that nicely summarizes the condition and mentions some of the difficulties faced by these children and their families -- What Is Apraxia and Why Should You Care?

If this is something that y'all would find helpful for me to blog about, then I'll try harder to figure out how to write about it.  Until now I've only mentioned it in a generic "learning differences" kind of way, both because I don't know how my son would feel about me being more specific, and because that way the information might be useful to any mom.

Let me know what you think.

Most popular posts on poetry

In honor of National Poetry Month...

I get more hits for two poems I've posted in the past than for anything else I've ever posted -- the fun  Mummy Slept Late and Daddy Fixed Breakfast, by John Ciardi, and the delicate A Mongoloid Child Handling Shells on the Beach, by Richard Snyder.

In Time, Death, and Poetry, my most popular post about poetry, I compare Edward Lear's "Calico Pie" and Tennyson's "Break, Break, Break" and describe some conversations my special needs child and I have had, and mention how poetry gives us words to talk about what we're feeling.

My personal favorite is the series I did in April of 2008.  I posted a poem a day all month long.  I wish I could get the archives to arrange things from oldest to newest instead of the other way around, because they need to be read in the proper order, so if you click that link, go to the bottom of the next page and start with April 1.  That year I set myself a challenge:
1) Every poem had to be one I already knew and loved (with one exception I'll mention later);
2) Each poem had to connect in some way to the one that came before (style, theme, mood, author, contrast...);
3) Each Sunday's poem had to be a Psalm;
4) There had to be something special for St George's Day on the 23rd; and,
5) The one exception, Dana had challenged me to post something by a poet laureate from my home state, so I had to find something new that I could love and that would naturally follow the previous poem.

At the beginning of the month I'd already decided on the first three or four poems, but after that it was kind of an adventure, finding each new day's poem.

What is your favorite poem?

“What do you DO with your kids if they don’t learn to read before age 10 or so?” Part 2

(Here is Part 1:  What I did with my older kids, and the post that sparked this series, Different children learn to read at different ages, and that's okay.)

I'm sorry it took me so long to get to part 2 of this series.  I pretty much hibernate in the winter, and my brain is just starting to shake off the winter fuzziness.  Has it actually been five months!?!  Golly, I'm sorry!

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Part 2: What I'm doing with my younger children

Last time I wrote about these basic elements that made up my older children's school year:

• plenty of outside play time
• Nature Study
• Bible, history, and literature
• talking about what we're reading
• math
• classical music
• hymns

I'll run through them in the same order so you can see how things have changed over the years.

Probably the biggest change involves their time spent out of doors and Nature Study.  In 2005, my husband retired from the military and got a job in rural Virginia.  We bought a house on a little over three mostly-wooded acres.  Over the years we've accumulated goats, chickens, geese, ducks, guinea fowl, cats, and a dog, so my younger children have outside chores that my older children never had -- we never even had a pet while Mike was active duty (except for a tankful of fish for a few years) because of moving so often, and having babies regularly, and my husband being out of town for a week or more at a time on occasion, including one time when he was gone for a year, and I just didn't want the added responsibility of looking after an animal.

Having the animals has been a good thing in many ways, besides the obvious benefit of having fresh, raw goat milk, fresh eggs, and meat we've raised ourselves.  The biggest benefit is giving meaningful work to my second son, who is nineteen years old and profoundly delayed in many ways.  He'll never be able to read, to live on his own, to drive, or to do most of the things that an adult needs to do in order to fit into our society.  I doubt he'd be able to hold down any kind of a job, and anyway I wouldn't really want him working away from home unless it were with a family member since his ability to communicate is so limited -- if he were ever mistreated he'd have a hard time letting us know about it, and he wouldn't be able to defend himself.

Second Son has faithfully milked the goats every day for two or three years.  We bred the does last fall and they're expecting in another few weeks and we dried them off (that is, quit milking them) last month, so he's getting a break right now, but he loves this work.  He also collects the eggs each day, makes sure all the animals have food and water, and just generally keeps an eye on them.  If they get out of the pasture the other children have to round them up for him because he doesn't have the speed or dexterity to handle them when they're on the loose.  Mike and two of the other younger children keep the goats' hooves trimmed, and doctor them if they need it, but Second Son is the one who looks after the animals' daily needs.

Whenever we butcher animals (which hasn't been very often this past year) most of the children help their daddy with the processing, and he's good about letting them do a lot of the work themselves, and teaching them the names of the organs and pointing out other interesting things.

Hopefully, learning to pay attention to the animals and anticipate their various needs will help them grow into the righteous man of Proverbs 12:10, who "regardeth the life of his beast."

I still occasionally ask them to describe something they've seen, and we've been in the habit of watching the song birds that visit the birdbath and the feeders ever since Ambleside Year 1.  We've even added Nature notebooks, though checking them just now I see that they've only got one entry each.  One August day I put a pretty little bird's nest that my youngest daughter had found that morning on a dish and sat it in the middle of the table and had them sketch it.  A pleasant activity, and I don't know why we haven't done anything more like that.  Always room for improvement.  :-D

Bible, history, and literature have been very much influenced by our use of AmblesideOnline.  I used Years 1 through 3, and by then had gotten over the rough patch I was going through with my health, so I'm mostly branching out on my own, while bringing with me what I learned from AO and still using some of the suggestions.

Our Bible readings are included in our Morning Prayers, which I've blogged about here and here.  In a nutshell, we start off with the greeting and response:  "The Lord be with you."  "And with thy spirit." "Let us pray."  This is followed by a selection from Psalm 51 ("Open my lips, O Lord / And my mouth shall proclaim your praise. . ." ).  Then we read the passages for the day.  Some years we follow the lectionary, but lately we've being going straight through the Psalms, reading a passage from Luke, and a chapter of Galatians.  Then we say the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and finish with a benediction, followed by "Go in peace to love and serve the Lord."  "Thanks be to God."  We say this even though they're going to be sitting down and starting school, not actually going anywhere.  When the older kids are home, they join us for prayers and stay if they have time, or leave if they need to.  Eldest Daughter particularly likes to stay when it's a Plutarch day.

Next on the agenda is poetry.  I read one selection and then we talk about it.  The conversation is always better when Eldest Daughter joins us.

These two things we do each school day.  The next three items we do once or twice a week, depending on how much time we have.  My third daughter's violin lessons have been moved from Tuesday afternoon to Monday morning and I haven't really adjusted to the change yet.

Plutarch -- we're using Anne White's study guide from AmblesideOnline as we read the Life of Nicias.  I have to stop often to let someone narrate.  Generally I ask, "What's he talking about here?" or "What just happened?"  Stopping often while reading Plutarch is necessary because the sentences are long and complex.

Then we move to Homer.  We're about half way through The Wanderings of Odysseus.  At the end of the chapter I ask, "Who would like to tell this part of this part of the story?"  Usually someone volunteers, but if needed I'll just tell someone to do it.  After the narration I'll usually ask whether anyone else wants to add anything.

I don't really know how to categorize this next item -- history, music, art. . .  It's all that.  We're studying through Professor Carol's Early Sacred Music course.  If #1 Son is home, this is what he's most interested in.  Much of the early part was filmed in Jerusalem and describes the worship at the Temple during the time of Christ.

Next is math.  I think I will need to write a post just on this subject since we're doing a lot of different things.  I've been learning a lot about teaching math and I'm pretty excited about it.  But one of the things I'm doing with my two youngest and with Second Son, is reading through the Life of Fred books.  There are math games that I play with the two youngest, together or one on one.  Also, the two youngest do a lesson from the Teaching Textbooks most days.

Something new we're doing is oral composition, using James Selby's Classical Composition series, which isn't meant to be done orally, but I don't see why delayed reading and handwriting skills should stop a child from thinking about stories and composing variations in his head.  So far I'm following his order fairly closely -- I'll write a separate post on how it works if anyone's interested.  When it's time to "write" the assignment, my eleven year old daughter wants to type it on the computer, and my thirteen year old son wants to recite the story into an audio file which I then transcribe. So far I like the way it's working.

What we're missing -- we haven't been singing hymns much lately and that's a shame.

Also, I've been using the cursive handwriting program from The Logic of English, but we haven't picked it back up yet since Christmas break.  This doubles as reading lessons because phonics instruction is built in to and I can easily add more phonics practice to this time if needed.  Obviously, as we progress with the program, it also serves as spelling lessons.

I mentioned in the "Different children read at different times" post that my then-twelve year old son had suddenly started reading, and over Christmas break, my daughter turned eleven, and started reading too.  Youngest Son has been reading several books for school on his own, but Youngest Daughter isn't to that point yet.

Our Book of Centuries

Actually, we have four of them, one for each of the four younger kids.  I've had a couple of wall timelines over the years, but they never lasted long, the first because we moved and it just never got put back up again, and the second because the pictures kept falling off the wall.  I wanted to do a timeline book, but you know how they say that the perfect is often the enemy of the good?  It's true.  I couldn't figure out how to make one that would be absolutely perfect, so I put it off for years.

Finally, I just decided the heck with it.  All I need is a notebook they can glue pictures in.  So I bought four 1 1/2" 3-ring binders, the heavy-duty kind with D-rings because I like the way the pages lay, and a package of 8 1/2 by 11 cardstock.  Just before I started punching holes in the paper, I decided it would be nice to have lines on one side of the two-page spread, so we could write things in chronological order, so I ran the sheets through my printer, copying a sheet of notebook paper onto one side of each.

Note that "A.D." is in its proper place BEFORE the year.

You can just barely see the lines on the left page, but they show up well enough in real life to serve my purpose.

For each two-page spread I labeled the top and bottom outside corners of the left page with the first and last years of the century.  As you can see, this is the page where we write down the person or event, along with the correct date.  Generally, we have people listed by year of death.  On the right hand page the pictures are placed higher or lower depending on where they belong in the century, but it's pretty subjective.  The header names the century, and the number in the top right corner is just to make it easier to flip through the book when looking for a particular century.  That note is present on all the pages, even where we haven't added any information yet.  We fill in the other stuff as it comes up.

The early part of the book, up to 1500 B.C., has five centuries per two-page spread, but I think I could have gotten away with a millennium each, because there's not much of anything recorded before then.  The earliest date we have recorded is 4004 B.C., which is the date of creation according to Bishop Ussher, but there's a note that current creationists date it at c. 5000 B.C.  We don't get into the whole old earth/young earth debate until the kids are a lot older.

We've been using these for about three years, and the pages are still pretty sparsely populated.  Ideally, we'd add figures once a week or so, whenever a noteworthy person or event comes up in our reading, but we really only do it once a month or less.  Still, this is better than what I was doing before.

Here we are late Saturday afternoon, adding figures of Mozart, whom we studied last school year, Homer, the Trojan Horse, George Washington (whom we studied ages ago), Hannibal crossing the Alps (we're reading about Fabius, the Roman dictator who fought him, in Plutarch's Lives, but this was a funner picture), and Tennyson (our current poet).

Mike is not doing timeline stuff.  He's doing Computer God stuff.

The advantage to adding figures months or even years after studying them is that the kids can tell you what they remember while we're doing it, so it all works out in the end -- even if it's not perfect.

Time, Death, and Poetry

or, Interesting and Sometimes Awkward Connections Made in Poetry Class

To get the full effect of this poem, you really need to read it aloud.

Calico Pie
~Edward Lear (1812-1888)

            Calico Pie,
            The little Birds fly
Down to the calico tree,
            Their wings were blue,
            And they sang ‘Tilly-loo!’
            Till away they flew,
And they never came back to me!
            They never came back!
            They never came back!
They never came back to me!

            Calico Jam,
            The little Fish swam
Over the syllabub sea,
            He took off his hat
            To the Sole and the Sprat,
            And the Willeby-wat,
But he never came back to me!
            He never came back!
            He never came back!
He never came back to me!

            Calico Ban,
            The little Mice ran,
To be ready in time for tea,
            Flippity-flup,
            They drank it all up,
            And danced in the cup,
But they never came back to me!
            They never came back!
            They never came back!
They never came back to me!

            Calico Drum,
            The Grasshoppers come,
The Butterfly, Beetle, and Bee,
            Over the ground,
            Around and around,
            With a hop and a bound—
But they never came back!
            They never came back!
            They never came back!
They never came back to me!

My second son tends to latch onto a particular topic and want to discuss it over and over again from every conceivable angle... for years. It used to be ambulances and fire trucks and police cars, then it moved to the movie “Darby O’Gill and the Little People,” particularly the fight scene between Michael and Pony. He still loves those and we still talk about them regularly, but his current passion is time.

Four years ago he started taking me to the calendar every morning so I could show him what day we were on and tell him the name of the day. Then he wanted to know the names of all the days of the week. We’d spend five or ten minutes, several times a day going over all this. He’s just about gotten them all memorized in order now, and I think he understands yesterday, today, and tomorrow, although he calls them, “last day,” “this day,” and “next day.”

This last year his questions have gotten harder. He wants to know where the days go when they leave.

When he first started asking me that I’d tell him, “They fly away like the little birds, and they never come back! They never come back, they never come back, they never come back to me!”

He liked that for a long time and would say the lines with me, but a few months ago he seemed to be wanting something more, so I told him that Sunday is the engine of a train and the rest of the days are the cars. He loves that one. Saturday is the caboose. He wanted Monday to be a special car, so it’s the coal car. Then, this Monday he asked me if “next day” is the next coal car, but I said a train would only have one coal car, so we decided that Tuesday is a freight car. “What does it carry?” I asked him. “Boxes,” he said.

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One of our poems in Dr. Taylor’s poetry class Monday was Tennyson’s “Break, Break, Break.”

Break, break, break,
    On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
    The thoughts that arise in me.

O, well for the fisherman’s boy,
    That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
    That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on
    To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
    And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,
    At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
    Will never come back to me.

As you read this poem aloud (and you should) you can hear and feel the poet’s grief as he talks about missing this loved one. I hear an echo of David’s resignation to his baby’s death, “I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.” But I’m sure you can imagine how hard it is for me to read that last line with the proper seriousness—my voice gets all sing-songy of its own accord, and it feels so irreverent, like giggling during prayer, because of course it reminds me of those lines in “Calico Pie,” which I’ve been reciting for years now.

That kind of connection is so embarrassing that I didn’t mention it in class. I wondered if Lear and Tennyson knew each other, or read each other’s works—whether one of them had borrowed from the other. They were contemporaries, so it’s possible.

Well, I’ve been thinking about it since then and I’ve decided that it’s not inappropriate. Both poems are describing loss, and in “Calico Pie” you get a feeling of inevitability as that repetitive refrain comes back again and again. Of course, Lear’s poem is lighthearted at first, but it starts feeling wistful by the time you get to the end of it. It’s right that it should feel that way.

And I’m glad that I’ve been using “Calico Pie” to talk about the days, about how, once they leave, they’re gone forever. Children should have a large store of words for giving voice to these feelings. They should feel comfortable using them in lots of situations, even when we’re only talking about a small loss. I think that being able to talk about the small losses will help them when the really painful losses start happening to them.

How I use Ambleside Online’s curriculum

Kelly P asked me in the comments to the post below to describe how I used AO’s Year 1 schedule, and in thinking about what to say, I thought I’d better make something clear first. I have a nineteen year old daughter at home who helps with breakfast and supper, makes lunch every day, and makes sure the kitchen is cleaned up at all times. This means I’m able to spend a larger chunk of my morning with the younger kids than I ever could when my older kids were eight years old and younger. After about the first two weeks of officially homeschooling, I decided that my academic goal for that year was to have my first grader reading, so I dropped most of the lessons recommended by the curriculum I was using. Maybe I’ll post that background info some time… why I homeschool the way I do, and that sort of thing.

When I started Ambleside Online* in July of 2007, my four youngest children were: 4yod, 6yos, 8yod, and my 12yos, who has severe developmental apraxia [original linked page has disappeared -- apraxia usually refers to lack of speech, but in my son's case it affects not only his oral motor abilities, but also his fine and gross] and is functionally extremely delayed, and may even have some mild mental retardation. These four are still studying together (ages now are 6, 8, 10, and 14), and it’s been a very good thing for us.

Let me give an overview of what an ideal day looks like for us:

Before breakfast everyone has to help out somewhere, whether milking the goats, straining and chilling the milk, letting the chickens out of the coops, collecting eggs, taking the scraps bucket out to them, checking water for all the animals, helping with breakfast… After we eat, everyone is supposed to stay in the general area (the kitchen, breakfast room, and living room make one L-shaped space) and either help clean up from breakfast or make sure the living room is tidy and vacuumed for Morning Time.

What we call Morning Time is for all the children, even the oldest three – 19yod, 18yos, and 16yod. Ideally we start at 9:00 and finish by ten or fifteen minutes till 10:00. Not so ideally, we start late, and cut the hymn and Plutarch so we can still finish before 10:00.

Hymn: sometimes something we’re learning to sing during Communion (our family is the choir and I try to have something we can sing once a month), sometimes an old favorite. I don’t really have a plan for learning particular hymns.

Prayers and Scripture: We started using the 1979 Prayer Book for morning prayers about five years ago when we were attending an Episcopal church, and love it as a framework for our prayer time. We vary what we do a little bit, which I won’t go into now, but I want to later to show how everyone is able to participate. For Scripture readings, we’re using the lectionary in the 1928 Prayer Book, since that’s what our current Anglican church uses. Everyone who can read takes a turn reading.

Plutarch’s Lives: we’re reading the bio on Poplicola, and using the study notes provided at AO’s website. First we review the previous lesson, then those of us who can read aloud well take turns, reading one or two sentences before passing to book (the sentences are very long and complex), and then we discuss the new material.

After this, I send the younger kids outside to run around for a few mintues, go to the bathroom, and get a drink of water, while I go into the school room to make sure I have everything in order for our AO time. The older kids stay in the living for their Japanese lesson together and then go to their individual studies or work.

AO time with the younger kids:

Bible memory passage: we have a new passage we’re learning that we work on each day, plus several that we’re reviewing. I put every passage on an index card and have a file box set up to keep track of the Scriptures we’re working on. I’ll explain the system more in depth later.

Poetry: every day I read one poem from the current author, and one from Ambleside’s collection that is taken from the Oxford Book of Children’s Verse. And, as I mentioned in the last post, there are always requests that I reread old favorites and sometimes one or more of the children want to recite something they have memorized.

French lesson: Just do the next thing using The Learnables, though we talk a little about the weather, and I like to ask them questions that they can answer, all in French.

History: There’s a chapter from Our Island Story nearly every week, so we do that on Monday. Librivox has it for a free download, read by Kara Schallenberg, and that’s what I use. The other history books for year 1 are Trial and Triumph, Fifty Famous Stories Retold, and Viking Tales. In the first part of the year there’s one chapter from 50FS per week (not all of the chapters were scheduled), and in the second part there was one chapter from Viking Tales per week. I read those chapters on Tuedays. The chapters from Trial and Triumph come up about once every four weeks – nine chapters are assigned in year one – so I usually read those on Wednesday, or wherever they fit in best in that week. After the chapter I’d have one or more children narrate it to me. More on narrating later.

Literature: Generally there are two of Aesop’s fables each week and I did them wherever they fit best in the week, which was usually Wednesday. When there was a story from Shakespeare or the Blue Fairy Book, I usually needed to read a little bit each day for the whole week. Kipling’s Just So stories could be read in one or two sittings, ditto the stories from James Herriot’s Treasury for Children. Again, narrations are requested after I finished the day’s passage, but I usually let them have paper and crayons when listening to everything but Aesop. With Aesop, I’d stop after a couple of sentences and ask someone to tell me what was going on – the sentences aren’t terribly long, but they are very dense, and I wanted to use them as a kind of training ground for what I expected in a narration.

Nature and geography: Thursday is for nature, using the Burgess Bird Book. I also have a Peterson’s guide to birds and a disc of recorded bird calls that we listened to. And of course we watched the various birds that turned up at the birdbath and the feeders. Years 1 and 2 also include chapters from Parables from Nature, but I found them so syruppy sentimental that I quit using that book after the first two chapters. I have no problem with the fairy stories (witches, giants, dragons, and all) in Lang’s fairy tales (which evidently some moms have since Ambleside has an apologia for including them in your child’s literary diet) but I cannot stand pietistic moralizing little cutesy stories featuring talking flowers and insects. If anyone knows a good reason why I ought to be foisting these things upon my poor innocent children, please let me know. Friday is for geography (Paddle-to-the-Sea). We have maps on the wall in the school room and followed Paddle’s progress. It took him four years to make his journey and I’m happy to report that it didn’t take us quite that long to read about it! We also located people we were reading about on the maps and placed flags for them. Slightly off-topic, but we have a timeline along three walls of the room and we located people on the timeline, too, and placed flags for many of them and sometimes a picture or something too.

That sounds like a lot of work, and it really is a lot of information, but we were usually done by 11:30. The kids go back outside till lunch, which is noonish. They eat quickly and usually go back out, or if the weather is bad they can play in the attic or basement.

After lunch is when it gets tricky, since that’s when I need to work on their individual studies – math, reading instruction, etc. I don’t have that down pat, yet – sometimes I keep 10yod in after AO time, but other times I work with her after lunch. The three others get squeezed in where I can fit them. I’m not happy with this and need to figure out something better.

Around 1:00 we have a read-aloud time when I read a chapter or two (or three or four depending on how much time we have and how much clamoring for more they do) and the children are allowed to color or play quietly or lie on the floor or whatever, as long as they’re quiet, during this time. No narration required for these stories. Older kids really come in handy here since they can read if I need a break, or on Tuesday, which is music lesson day for three of the children. Last year we read Little House in the Big Woods, Farmer Boy, Heidi… and I’ve forgotten what else.

After read-aloud they’re free the rest of the afternoon (except for chores that have to be done before supper). They have to spend the first hour in Quiet Time, which is time alone. The 10yod has QT in the girls’ bedroom, 6yod in my room, 8yos in the boys’ room, and 14yos can be in the school room or in the living for my colloquium with the older kids. After that first hour, they’re allowed to go back outside, or play together indoors as long as they’re quiet and don’t disturb us Big Folk.

HTH

Update: Seeing the “AO time with the younger kids” section written out reminds me of how daunting AO looked to me before I started doing it. I looked at that site off and on for at least two years before I decided I would just make myself do it, since I need a better structure to our days. Once I made a kind of chart, planning what I would do when, I realized that it’s not really too much after all — you’re spending anywhere from five to thirty minutes on any given topic, so you really cover a lot each day. It’s just like eating an elephant — one bite at a time.
;-)

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* In their license agreement, Ambleside Online asks users only to link to their main page, not to individual pages within the site, which makes it a little awkward since I can’t point you to certain useful pages at the site. I’m sure they do this because they really want newcomers to the site to familiarize themselves with Charlotte Mason’s ideas. Just following the AO book schedule will give you plenty of interesting things to read to your children and will certainly be worthwhile, but it will NOT give your kids a Charlotte Mason education. You do need to read over their site and familiarize yourself with CM’s ideas if you’re going for a CM education.