Poems

Elbow - not prone to writing of any sort - came up to me the other day and said, "I have a poem I want you to type for me." This is rare for her so I sat right down to type. Here's her offering:

The Beautiful World and Jesus Christ

I love to watch the birds high up in the blue, blue sky

I like to watch the bees that work near the flowers

I love the beautiful world here that You made for us

Why do I deserve to live here?

Because You sacrificed Your life for us

Died on the cross, were buried in a tomb

Risen to heaven and seated at the right hand of the Father

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

You will come again

When the world should end

And judge the living from the dead

The living rise with you to heaven

And live forever in Christ.

This afternoon I asked Bobo, who has penned more poems and short stories than I can keep track of, to write a poem in response to her reading from The Tale of Troy.  Here's her offering: (I have thoroughly corrected her spelling, which left LOTS to be desired).

THE SIEGE OF TROY

In the belly of a wooden horse

hidden and tucked away

hide 12 soldiers - hopes as bright as day.

Waiting, waiting ,waiting for the signal light

To lead them to Troy

The light that conquered Troy town

That brought the end to the 10 long years of pitiless revenge.

The attack came, boiling hot

And Meneleus ravaged and sought

For the one who started it all

With a smile her heart did fall.

But woe is Hellen - pityless fright

Hiding in the shadows of night.

But soft and pure is her love

So Meneleus, do spare her!

The right deed done by her love-bearer.

And so my friends

This story ends

With the love unbroken twixt two people

Many years of fighting have just gone past,

But I am sure their love will last.

Back in the Habit...

I have gotten out of the habit of recording narrations around here, primarily because my oldest now writes hers on her own.  I'm re-reading A Charlotte Mason Companion though, so I've been convicted that we need to get going again.  I always have them narrate to me over lunch or while we're doing other things, but I haven't taken the time to record anything recently.  So, this morning, I had Elbow narrate Thomas Edison: The Wizard of Menlo Park, which she read a few weeks ago:

Thomas Alva Edison was a famous inventor. He invented the light bulb; he invented the telegraph. He used to live in Menlo Park, but then they moved, so Thomas Edison built a new factory. His office was huge!

When he was little, he went to school. But only for three months. He only went to school for three months because he asked too many questions; the teacher got too angry. So his mother took him out of school and home schooled him. So he was able to ask all his questions and become and good inventor.

When he had built that huge factory, a few years later, there was a fire. Someone in the inventing room had blown something up! But the factory did not burn down.

Early in the morning of October 18, 1931, Thomas Edison died. The reporters did not want to bother Mrs. Edison. Mrs. Edison promised to tell them when Thomas Edison died. She would signal the reporters. The signal would be: when Thomas Edison died, she would turn off the electric light that he made.

The Narrator

I couldn't resist snapping a picture of my girl in messy braids, her TKD uniform, practicing away. That about sums her up: classical, feisty, our "Little Brown Braid."

Note: when I look through my labels on my sidebar, I see the only narrations are from Bobo's pleasure reading a few years ago. I'm not sure why I did that - we don't narrate pleasure books at all anymore and I honestly don't remember that we did it then.  Funny how that happens. We now narrate from the Apologia science books - since they written with the Charlotte Mason method in mind - and from our history books.  

Summer Reading

We haven't been keeping up with Bobo's pleasure reading narrations - primarily because when she was into the fairy books (the Disney Fairy books and the Flower Fairy series) - I couldn't keep up with her! But now that her pace has slackened a bit, I hope to continue on.

Here's her take on an old favorite:

"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is another fantastic and wonderful book. I like it because it is strange, but fun to read. There are oompa lumps and golden tickets. Charlie's just a poor boy that found a golden ticket in a chocolate bar. It turns out that he gets all of the chocolate that he's ever wanted and he's the new owner of the chocolate factory. It's a funny and silly book. I think you'll really like it."

The Trouble With Tink: A Narration

Bobo finished another book in the Pixie Hollow series. Here's her narration of The Trouble with Tink.

Tink is a pots and pans fairy. She loves to fix pots and pans. But in a game of fairy tag - which is similar to tag, but you do it with fairies. Well anyway, she lost her hammer. And of course she got sad. So Tink went to Neverland with Terence to see if she could get her spare hammer from Peter. (Peter Pan of course, if you know about him). And luckily, Peter had found it. When Tink went back she got the honor of fixing the queen's bathtub, like she had always wanted to. The Trouble with Tink is a great book. It's fun to read and has exciting pictures. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do.

Beck and the Great Berry Battle

Bobo is still plugging away on the Pixie Hollow series. Here is her latest narration:


"Beck is a animal talent fairy. She can understand what animals say and do. But her friend, Twitter, a hummingbird, tells her that there's a berry battle. The hummingbirds think that the chipmunks have taken their nests. And they're using berries for defense. It ends up to be that Grandfather Mole is using the nest as a hat. Beck has settled another battle."

Indepent Reading

When Bobo first learned to read, it took me quite a while to realize books with lots of pictures distracted her and slowed her down. I got all sorts of early readers from the library, the ones with few words on the page and lots of pictures. I thought she'd breeze through them.

She never read these books as well as I knew she could. When we would do her oral reading from McGuffey's Ecletic Reader, she would zip right along. Give her a fun picture book, however, there was no zipping. Not really any moving actually. "Wait, let me look at the pictures..." she'd say, which lasted the whole reading time.

I decided to try the Happy Little Family books for her pleasure reading instead. Like McGuffey, there were few illustrations and the ones present were simple and in black and white. This worked marvelously, as Bobo was less distracted and focused on the words instead of the pictures.

The Pixie Hollow books are a good fit too right now. The pictures are in color, but they're only every few pages...

Bobo's narration of Vidia and the Fairy Crown:

"Vidia is a great book, and a great mystery too. All the fairies in Pixie Hollow blamed Vidia that she stole the crown. But Vidia actually finds the crown and gives it back to Queen Ree. Vidia almost became the villain but turns out to be a good fairy. When Vidia found the crown, she almost stole it. But Prilla knew what was going to happen, so Vidia gave it back. Vidia and the Fairy Crown is an awesome book. It has ten chapters that are all exciting, you hardly even want to stop. Vidia is always on some sort of goose chase but she's also in some kind of mood."

With Faith and Trust and Pixie Dust...

As narrated by my six year old, after reading Lily's Pesky Plant from the Tales from Pixie Hollow series:

"I think this is a good book because there are good fairies in it. Lily has a plant - one that at first is pesky. But then, it turns out to be a Ever Tree. Ever Trees grow fruit and once you take one fruit away, another fruit grows immediately in its place. When the fairies tasted the good fruit, it tasted like ice cold lemon on a hot summer day. Lily would sit and watch the fairies eat the good fruit. She loved that fairies were coming back to her garden. Lily is a good friend and a good fairy to read about. "

Considering she jumped right into the next book, I'd say they're a hit!