Seven Quick Takes on 22 Pick Up, Cinderella, Writing Curriculum, and More!

:: 1 ::

Afterthoughts will be closed next week for Holy Week. We take a break from school, and I also try and take a bit of a break from blogging. It’s become a tradition for me, and I hope you all enjoy your week next week!

:: 2 ::

22 Pick Up is saving me these days. We used to do this a lot when the children were younger, and then for a while picking up was habit enough that I didn’t feel like I had to say anything beyond the occasional “clean up the living room, please,” or what have you. But this spring — oh my! It seems everyone is leaving everything everywhere … and I’m as much a guilty party as the rest of them. I tend to not notice my surroundings until it gets really bad, and then I seriously do not know what to do. That’s when it dawned on me that a return to 22 Pick Up could be my solution. I may not know what to do on a larger scale, but I can definitely pick up 22 things and put them where they ought to be.

So, that’s what we started doing. Each day, everyone has to pick up 22 things and put them up. My house is oh so much tidier since we began. I’m wondering why we ever stopped. I suppose perhaps we got so good at it that there weren’t enough things to put away? Anyhow, if you think about it, this is a pretty quick fix. Five people each picking up and putting away 22 things means 110 things were tidied up. Not bad for a few minutes’ time commitment!

:: 3 ::

I think I mentioned that we went to see Cinderella on Enrichment Friday last week. Can I just say that I fell in love with this movie? I want to buy it, and I rarely buy movies. It was just so. great.

Here’s the trailer:

:: 4 ::

This week’s links collection:

• Chesterton and the Meaning of Education from The Imaginative Conservative
  • This reminds me of why I like Chesterton so much.
• Believing in Science by David Hicks
  • What’s your source of authority?
• Ancient d20 die emerges from the ashes of time from C|Net
  • I thought it was cool that the guy who thought of it this time around wasn’t the first one to think of it.

:: 5 ::

So I’m reading aloud more … and also less. Basically, the timing of everything has changed, what with baby goats and puppy training and all that. I’m reading The Fellowship of the Ring aloud to my children for the second time. The first time I did this, all but the oldest were really too young to appreciate it. This time, it is just too. much. fun. I love the way A-Age-Ten can’t get enough. I love that all of them are finally meeting Frodo and Sam and Tom Bombadil and Strider and all the rest.

The problem with me is that I could read these books over and over, to the exclusion of most everything else.

:: 6 ::

We completed two lessons from our Leviticus study this week. Not sure if that was too fast, or just about right, or what. I’m still experimenting with how to do it. Anyhow, it is a hit with the children, which is what I was hoping for. A-Age-Ten in particular is asking a million questions. {She is basically stuck in the three-year-old “why?” stage.} It was exciting to see her face as she listened because it betrays many of her thoughts.

After our first reading, she asked why we don’t do that anymore — why we don’t sacrifice animals. Instead of answering, I told her to think about it, and that the reading would tell us more the next day. I’ve been breaking the lessons into two parts, so far. The first is more descriptive — what the part of the law we’re reading was like, what it required, and a bit about why it was required. The second part {and there aren’t formally “parts” quite like this — it’s just a transition I’ve noticed in the first two lessons} focuses on how Jesus fulfilled that part of the law. On those days we are usually reading some passages from the New Testament that complement the portions of Leviticus we read the previous day.

:: 7 ::

Answering your questions:

• Question: You mentioned “Lost tools of writing” I am contemplating using this and I am wondering if you have any experience with how it might be used with AO/CM. Or, are you are planning on sticking with James Selby?
  • Answer: For this coming school year, I plan to move on from Selby to The Lost Tools of Writing. I am glad I waited longer than I originally planned, and I think I am more ready than I was before, plus the new edition is supposed to be a lot more teacher friendly. It helps that I also bummed Jennifer Dow into saying she’d help me if I got confused. It’s not cheap, though, so I’m currently saving up!
• Question: Why Plutarch?
  • Answer: The best answer to this question I’ve ever seen is from Dr. George Grant. He graciously allowed AmblesideOnline to host his answer so that we could all read it over and over as needed. 🙂