Mother/Daughter Tea

I had the privilege of attending a Mother/Daughter Tea last week. Tables were elegantly decorated, food daintily prepared and I wore lipstick. (Trust me, that was a major achievement toward elegance for me.) A delightful time greeted everyone as we chatted and made new acquaintances. In fact, I’m now inspired to implement tea time into our school day.

Charlotte Mason’s world was one in which “tea time” was the norm. People paused in their day, rested and reflected. In her Original Homeschooling Series she mentions tea. Not necessarily as a time to enjoy a snack, but as an opportunity for prayer.

Regularity in Devotions.––The habit of regularity in children’s devotions is very important. The mother cannot always be present, but I have known children far more punctual in their devotions when away from their mother, because they know it to be her wish, than if she were there to remind them. They may say, like a little friend of mine, aged four, ‘Mother, I always worship idols.’ ‘Do you indeed, Margaret? when?’ ‘Why, when I say my prayers to the chair.’ But it is a great thing for all of us to get the habit of ‘saying our prayers’ at a given time and in a given place, which comes to be to us as a holy place. The chair, or the bedside, or the little prayer-table, or, best of all, the mother’s knee, plays no small part in framing the soul to a habit of devotion. In this connection it is worth while to remark that the evening prayers of children and of school girls and boys should not be left until the children are tired and drop asleep over their evening exercises. After tea is a very good set time for prayers when it can be managed.

Charlotte Mason’s Original Homeschooling Series vol 3 pg 142

 

Her words once again flow into my mind and form a call to action. I don’t know exactly what our tea time will look like, but I do have some vague ideas. I’ll try to keep you updated on our “Tea Experiment” in the weeks ahead.

Winter Yukkies

In the efforts to eliminate the Winter Yukkies we will continue to pursue scientific experiments in the mornings and adjust our day accordingly. I’m seeing a few Yukkkies still hanging around, but many of them have already ran from the house screaming.

 

 

Ambleside Online is our primary curriculum, we are currently in week 28.

Click on images of text to go to Google Book.

History

• Viking Tales: Olaf’s Farm
• Buffalo Bill by Ingri Parim D’aulaire 

Literature

• Aesop’s Fables: Three Bullocks and a Lion
• Aesop’s Fables: Mercury and the Woodman
• Peter Pan

Natural History/Science

• Burgess’s Bird Book : Bob White and Carol the Meadow Lark
• Mother Westwind “why” stories: Why Miner the Mole Lives Under Ground

• Astronomy
  • The Big Dipper and You by E.C. Krupp: Pages 24-25
  • The Stars: Perseus, Bull, Ram
  • The stars and their stories: a book for young people-The Royal Family

Geography

• Paddle to the Sea: Chapter 22
  • Google Earth tour – (direct link)

Poetry

• The Naming of the Cats- T.S. Eliot 
  
• The Naming of the Cats-CATS the Musical (video)

 

Art

Georges Seurat (French, Post-impressionist, 1859-1891)

• Sunday on La Grande Jatte (A Sunday on La Grande Jatte)
• Google Art Project-Sunday on La Grande (zoom in to view paint strokes)
• Complete works of Georges Seurat

Composer

Gioacchino Rossini

• Biography
• Overture to La cenerentola (Cinderella)
  

 

Bible

• Devotions
  • Creation Moments
• Memory Verse
  • AWANA
• Bible: Luke 5:1-11 (The story of the fishermen)

 

Hymn Study

Copywork

Handwriting Worksheet Creator

• “Yes!” cried Harald, jumping to his feet. “And had a joke into the bargain. Ah! sometime I will make a brave vow like that.”
• But Alfred was wise and saw how much better it would be to stop the Danes before they landed at all. So he built ships and went in them to fight the Danes on the sea.
• Then one day the Bullocks had a quarrel, and when the hungry Lion came to look at them and lick his chops as he was accustomed to do, he found them in separate corners of the field, as far away from one another as they could get.
• The happy Woodman returned to his home with his treasures, and soon the story of his good fortune was known to everybody in the village. Now there were several Woodmen in the village who believed that they could easily win the same good fortune.
• “I hope not. I certainly hope not,” cried Mrs. Meadow Lark in an anxious tone. “I never would have another single easy minute if I thought you would tell a living soul about my nest. Promise that you won’t, Peter. Cross your heart and promise that you won’t.”