Reading, Comprehension, and Knowledge Do you enjoy reading? I do. I grew up reading voraciously — new books, old books, books set in the city, the country, in foreign lands, and many books that featured characters that lived lives very...
We had only three days in Beijing, but like Chengdu, it was a living kaleidoscope of sights, scents, and sounds. On every corner it seemed there was something out of the ordinary — dozens of red lanterns, exotic street food...
I had the extraordinary privilege of traveling to China in May for the Chengdu Homeschool Conference plus a few days of sightseeing. I spent the first part of the trip in Chengdu, which is in the Sichuan province. After the...
Never be within doors when you can rightly be without. Charlotte Mason I have always loved Charlotte Mason’s idea of keeping nature notebooks, and tried different ways of doing it with my boys. We were never able to make a habit of...
Most of my favorite childhood moments took place outside. I remember hours of playing with neighborhood children — skating, riding bikes, playing hopscotch, and acting out stories around my swing set and playhouse. Other happy hours were spent with my grandfather...
In honor of Independence Day 2015, here is a classic poem about the nickname of the American flag. Use it as copywork or just enjoy it! I’ve also included a stirring rendition of America the Beautiful and few pithy quotes....
We are preparing for the WHO conference in Washington state and GHC in Ontario, California and as I always do when going westward, I start thinking of classic poetry, western songs, and big beautiful sky. For me, it is a way...
I have a habit of adding great articles to my reading list, so I can read them more than once. Sometimes I don’t get back to them for awhile, and usually when I do, the delight remains. Some of the...
What is an argument? An argument is an attempt to persuade someone of something. It is prompted usually by a disagreement, confusion, or ignorance about something which the arguers wish to resolve or illuminate in a convincing way. In the … Continue reading
The daguerreotype, an early photographic process, was invented by French artist and photographer Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre. Introduced in 1830, it was the first publicly available photographic process but was superseded by less complicated processes in less than fifty years. To make … Continue reading
Washington Irving by Petri Liukkonen (1783-1859) – pseudonyms: Dietrich Knickerbocker, Jonathan Oldstyle, Geoffrey Crayon American author, short story writer, essayist, poet, travel book writer, biographer, and columnist. Irving has been called the father of the American short story. He is best … Continue reading
Robert Louis Stevenson poetry ranges from children’s nursery rhymes to poems of travel and adventure. Here are a few samples for your enjoyment. From A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885) This collection was one of my childhood favorites, and I … Continue reading
William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (1770-1850), an English poet, was born at Cockermouth, on the Derwent, in Cumberland, on the 7th of April 1770. Wordsworth’s family and childhood He was the son of John Wordsworth (1741-1783), an attorney, law agent to … Continue reading
