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Your Words Matter
For the last few months, I’ve tried to consistently and emphatically teach this truth to Samuel. When we are at home, Samuel chatters almost non-stop. He likes noise and noises, especially bodily-function-related noises (and words). He is a five-year-old boy who makes his presence known at all costs and at all times. I frequently wrap him in my arms and remind him that his words matter. When I think about the importance of the words we say, a couple prominent Bible passages come to mind. James 3 reminds us that we can both bless and curse with our tongues, and many times we do both in the same conversation, maybe…
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Classical Conversations: Cycle 1, Week 15
This week we studied the painter Angelico and how fossils form. Angelico worked with gold to add halos and other details to Bible passages he painted. We discussed the difference between the two types of fossils (cast and mold) and how sediment is involved in the formation of both. The music that goes along with our History sentence for this week (Prince Henry of Portugal) is one of my favorites. I like the broken chords on the guitar. I set the featured image for this post as the art project we did about Angelico. I don’t know who created the image of the angel, but, as usual, all the credit…
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My Cleaning Schedule
I talked with a couple friends last night about how we take care of our homes. Each of us had different ideas about cleaning, but we all agreed on one thing: something doesn’t have to be spotless to be clean. We also agreed that sometimes cleaning should not receive the highest slot on our list of priorities. I enjoy hearing about how other people keep their homes tidy (and even how other people define the word), so I thought I’d share with you how I accomplish this somewhat daunting task. We follow the same cleaning schedule every week, with a few deep-cleaning days thrown in as needed. Here’s what we…
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Be Still, Momma!
I am amazed by how fast children can go from playing well together to playing like they hate each other’s guts. (Sorry for the elementary school language!) I find myself all in one sentence praising Samuel for doing something well, then reprimanding him for doing something malicious. Things can deteriorate fairly fast around here! That goes for me, too. Sometimes I feel like I even begin the morning on a sour note (hence my new year’s resolution for this year). Other times we begin the morning well, something goes wrong, something else goes wrong, and I end up crying in the bedroom. Events in our household tend to pile up…
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Classical Conversations: Cycle 1, Week 14
We enjoyed our Community Day this week! We discussed how to take a core sample, how to identify a rock or mineral, and we made art like the goldsmith Ghiberti. Below are two songs I used in our new grammar this week. The first song covers Latin noun cases. You may notice that the second song does not include my usual thank-you/copyright tag at the end. “This Old Man” is, of course, a well-known song, but I have no idea who first put the melody to the Helping Verb English sentence. If you know who first did this, please let me know! I give all the credit to him or…