Poetry, History, and A Sprained Toe

I’ve been neglecting this blog lately. I feel like I’ve lost all sense of homeschooling rhythm. However, when I read my previous entry and reflect on what she’s done in the meantime, I see that we are chugging along albeit at a slower pace these days.

                Her poem for this week is Maya Angelou’s “Awaking in New York.”  She has copied it in cursive into her notebook.  The goal is for her to read it aloud a few times throughout this week.  She also did cursive copywork from Emily Dickinson’s poem “To Make a Prairie” last week which is a very short poem. 

                Seneca’s artist for this term is Henry Ossawa Tanner.  Here’s a link to the biography that she read on him. https://www.amazon.com/Henry-Ossawa-Tanner-Boyhood-Dream/dp/1593730926/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1523973307&sr=8-5&keywords=henry+ossawa+tanner

                For history, Seneca read Who Was Daniel Boone? from the Who Is/Was series.  She types her written narrations. I’m fine with her doing it this way because typing is a much-needed skill and this gives her good practice.  She prefers typing to writing.  Her Daniel Boone narration cracked me up. Here’s an excerpt of what she wrote: He built a coffin for himself because he knew he was going to go soon. He would also polish it (which is very weird) he kept it in his sons house, at age 84 he died his last words were quote “My time has come.” end quote. He even said before he died that he had very good naps in it.

 Joke time- can you imagine you knocked on some old guys door and you kept knocking then he finally answers and he says “Sorry I was late at coming to the door you see I’m old and my now life is really awful and you see I’m going to die soon and so I built a coffin for myself and I just was taking a nap in it.” 

Please note that I am very aware of the grammar mistakes. I’m sharing her original typed response.  These written narrations help me to gauge how well she is or is not applying grammar concepts.  It also helps her to just get into the habit of writing. 

Seneca continues to work on multiplication and three-digit addition and subtraction. 

Our big event here was that she was in a ballet production of The Wizard of Oz at the Opera House!  The show was amazing.  They brought in professional dancers to dance the roles of Scarecrow, Tinman, and Cowardly Lion, but all of the other roles were done by the students of the school.  It is so new that the choreographer (Vadim Fedetov) and the composer were both able to come take a bow at the end of the show.  Speaking of bows, Seneca missed the bow because she hurt her toe in the second dance that she did.  Everyone was so proud of her for holding it in on stage and not letting on that she was hurt.  Back stage the tears started, but seemed to subside.  It was when she got into my car that the floodgates opened.  I took her to the hospital for an x-ray. Nothing is broken, but she did perhaps sprain it so no dancing for a couple of weeks. 

First Day of Fifth Grade!

  Fifth grade homeschooling year has officially begun!

  For history, S read from Benjamin Franklin by Ingri and Edgar Parin D'Aulaire.  I had some hesitation about her reading it because although it is not from a religious book publisher, it is clearly a Christian book.  Our homeschool is secular, but I don't want to exclude religion or there's also the argument for having religious (Judeo-Christian) knowledge as part of cultural competency.  The books itself was written in 1950 at a time when it was taken for granted that everyone in America was a Christian.  That, in and of itself, is a great teaching point.  For now, our approach is to be aware that this book was written by Christians for Christians and we will discuss those implications as they arise.  For example, S read about the Franklin family saying grace before a meal. That made no sense to her at all.  I had to explain that to say grace means to say a prayer.  She asked if using the word grace like this was an old-fashioned expression. I said it wasn't so much that it's old fashioned, but since we're not Christians we don't ever use this expression.    One old fashioned expression in the book that had her completely thrown was "knee high to a grasshopper."    "Huh?! What?! Okay, this book makes no sense."
        For science, I pulled a book off of one of our bookshelves that had been bought a little while back, but not used as much as I would have liked. It's a reference book on sharks from the Usborne publishing company.  It is definitely not a living book or a book that would meet Charlotte Mason criteria, but it's in our house, so we are using it.  It's a good book and very informative.  I just don't think it would be considered a Charlotte Mason book.  I think if we were to use it along with a book, such as a biography of shark scientist Eugenia Clark then it would lend itself to being more of a Charlotte Mason resource. For now, our book on Sharks will do for science reading.
     Our artist this term is Edmonia Lewis.

Seneca listened to the first ten minutes of lecture on Edmonia Lewis.  In the lecture, it says that her date of death is unknown. However, I looked up Lewis on her Wikipedia page and it gave a specific date of death. At this time, I don't know why there is such a discrepancy.  Here is link to the lecture that we are watching.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e74ImAzS38  We will continue watching the rest of the lecture next week.
     Ballet is back!   Ballet is three days a week for two hours per day.  She will also have jazz class one day a week, pointe class, and Russian character dance class.  This means four pairs of dance shoes! We have two - ballet and pointe.  In fact, we had to stop at Payless (which has amazing deals on ladies shoes at the moment) and buy a new pair of ballet shoes.
    Our poet this term is Joyce Kilmer. His poem "Trees" is Seneca's favorite poem.  I read aloud some general information about Kilmer.  He was killed in World War I. I told Seneca that this was the war in the movie "Wonder Woman." Her response, "Wait. That was World War I?  That couldn't be because in the movie Steve said that that was the war to end all wars, but then there was World War II."    I couldn't believe that she had remembered that line.  We had a discussion about how there really was a saying that World War I was to be the war that would end all wars.    
    As to the poem itself, S read it aloud five times and almost has it memorized.  We'll aim for a daily reading of the poem.  She is the one who wanted to keep reading it over and over again.  I only asked for two readings.
  I'm going to jump in here and mention our use of technology in our lessons.  On the one hand, I don't want us to become dependent on screens for learning, but they can be a huge money-saver.  We will look at pictures of Lewis's sculptures and access Kilmer's poems online.  We also are listening to the lecture on Edmonia Lewis because it has been posted online.  Free online material is also a time-saver.
   We really should have done some math, but we were too exhausted.  Not only is ballet a two hour class, but it's a forty-five minute drive from our house when the traffic is good.

Human Rights/Social Change: Why Isn't This a Required Course?

Human Rights/Social Change 

            I cannot understand how schools can require a credit for PE and not require a credit in Human Rights.  It's hard for me to even form an argument for such a thing because in my mind it goes without saying.  

Y's study of human rights and social change consisted of discussions and research of the events of The Peasants’ Revolt, the massacre at Wounded Knee, the Trail of Tears, the Armenian genocide of ,the Jewish genocide of World War II, the genocide in Cambodia, the Rwandan genocide, the Bosnian/Serbian conflict, the Civil Rights Movement including the murder of the civil rights workers in Mississippi, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the murder of Emmett Till,  the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, and the founding and effects of Amnesty International. I recommend going directly to AI's website for more information and for ways to get involved in human rights.

Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction by Andrew Clapham,

Night by Elie Wiesel

Left To Tell by Immaculee Ilibigiza

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Y used various online sources to study the events listed above.

Some recommended movies:

"The Killing Fields" (Cambodian genocide)

"Hotel Rwanda" (Rwandan genocide)


For more information on human rights or to become involved, please visit: https://www.amnesty.org/en/

African American Literature (High School Literature)

African American Literature 

Books: Narrative of  the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave by Frederick Douglass, “My Escape From Slavery” Essay by Frederick Douglass, Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington,  A Raisin In The Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, and Having Our Say by Sarah and Elizabeth Delany.

Poems: “On Virtue” by Phillis Wheatley, “His Excellency General Washington” by Phillis Wheatley, “On Being Brought From Africa to America” by Phillis Wheatley, “Dreams” by Langston Hughes, “Cross” by Langston Hughes, “April Rain Song” by Langston Hughes, “Easy Boogie” by Langston Hughes, “Enemy” by Langston Hughes “On the Pulse of The Morning” by Maya Angelou, :”Phenomenal Woman” by Maya Angelou, “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou, “Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou, “Touched By An Angel” by Maya Angelou, “Alone” by Maya Angelou, “Midway” by Naomi Long Madgett, “Woman With Flower” by Naomi Long Madgett, “Alabama Centennial” by Naomi Long Madgett

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Artist Study: Diversifying our homeschool

In a traditional Charlotte Mason school or homeschool, a student would study one artist per term ( 1 term = 12 weeks, 3 terms per year) and their works of art.  Most of the artists studied are White Europeans or White Americans.  I'm not saying that students shouldn't be exposed to these artists or their masterpieces.  I did become concerned by the lack of diversity among the artists recommended by some of the Charlotte Mason curricula.  I believe that superiority - racial, national, religious, etc. is accidentally transmitted by showcasing the best of (in this case) Western culture because it inadvertently demonstrates that best (in this case artists) are White (mostly men) with ties to European cultures and traditions.   I do not think that curricula that includes a large part of his program on White artists is racist or part of some White nationalist agenda.  I am concerned that an unintentional message of superiority is received when a student constantly hears words like, master, masterpiece, genius applied again and again only to European artists or those artists of European descent. I believe that the student slowly begins to internalize a sense of superiority associated with white culture.  Again, this does not mean that we do not study European artists or art history.  We simply make an effort to include a more diversified list of artists and their work to our homeschool.  Below is a list of books read for Artist Study in elementary school so far.  We will repeat some of these over the years as repetition leads to a higher probability of retaining the information.  This is not an exhaustive list. It is merely what we have done so far.  This issue of lack of diversity is one that I am happy to say does come up in secular Charlotte Mason discussions online.  People are sharing booklists and names of artists with each other, so that we can make our Artist Study more inclusive and see the genius of many cultures and peoples.

Artist Study in Elementary/Primary School Years

A free Ebook on Native American Pacific Northwest art and artists!  http://supplies.thesmartteacher.com.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/exchange/Pacific%20Northwest%20ebook.pdf

Misty Copeland: Ballet Dancer  “A Ballerina’s Tale” documentary

Seneca observed the self portraits of Frida Kahlo.

Getting To Know The World’s Greatest Artists: Diego Rivera by Mike Venezia

“The Grinder” by Diego Rivera 1924

“Creation” by Diego Rivera 1922-23

“The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City” by Diego Rivera 1931

“Agrarian Leader Zapata” 1932

“The Flower Carrier” 1935

“Allegory of California” 1931

Georgia O’Keefe

Seneca watched an edited version of a short biographical film on Georgia O’Keefe

“Oriental Poppies” 1928

“Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1”

“Ram’s Head With Hollyhock” 1935

“Petunias” 1924

Getting To Know The World's Greatest Artists: Mary Cassatt by Mike Venezia

Henry Ossawa Tanner: His Boyhood Dreams Come True by Faith Ringgold (African-American painter)

Getting To Know the World's Greatest Artists: Van Gogh

Getting To Know the World's Greatest Artists: Monet

In Her Hands: The Story of Augusta Savage (African American sculptor)

Artist: Jacob Lawrence (African American painter)
The Great Migration: An American Story by Jacob Lawrence
Harriet and the Promised Land by Jacob Lawrence