Gladdest Hours

Learning Update & Booklist

We're a couple of weeks away from finishing up our "Winter Term." I can't believe it's almost spring!  Madeleine and Erika have transitioned into doing a lot more of their reading on their own. 

Read-Alouds Together:

Finished: Door in the Wall (audio), By Truck to the North, Ginger Pye (audio), Lion-Witch-Wardrobe, Saint Thomas Aquinas: the story of the dumb ox.

In Progress:  The Little Duke,  Favorite Medieval Tales, Canterbury Tales,  Our Island Story,  Joan of Arc (Stanley), Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, (this will take us forever, but we're reading with audio in little bits with Pete, and we're liking it), Burgess Animal Book, The Princess and the Goblin (audio), A Family Journey with Jesus Through Lent, American Tall Tales (audio), Little Pear.

Read lots of Snow,  Winter and Medieval Picture books.  

Madeleine, 8.5 yo ~

• Finished: Schoolhouse in the Woods, Sword in the Tree, Otto of the Silver Hand, A Prairie Boy's Winter, The Young Life of Pope John Paul II, Minstrel in the Tower, The Story of Helen Keller, Family Under a Bridge, Favorite Norse Myths, Sarah Plain and Tall, Angel Food, various MTH & Boxcar Children books.
• In Progress: The Little Flower, Ginger Pye, The Way of the Cross-a story of Padre Pio, Up and Down the River, Caleb's Story, Among the Forest People, Plain Girl, The Cabin Faced West.

Erika, 7.5 yo~

• Finished: True Stories for First Communicants, Otto of the Silver Hand, A Prairie Boy's Winter, Minstrel in the Tower, Fantastic Mr. Fox, All-of-a-Kind Family, Sword in the Tree, St. Rose of Lima, Family Under a Bridge, Along Came a Dog, Favorite Norse Myths, Story of Rose of Lima,  Angel Food, various MTH & Boxcar Children books. 
• In Progress: Misty of Chincoteague, Black Beauty, Young Life of Pope John Paul II, Among the Forest People, More All-of-a-Kind Family, Sarah Witcher's Story.
  
• She's also continuing preparation for First Communion in May, continue working on FHC Notebook! She's doing such a great job, and we're so excited!
  

Other Notes:

1. It's Lent, so we're living the Lenten season of the liturgical year.
2. We took a break from Math-U-See back in December, and just started "Gamma" (mulitplication). Playing lots of games.
3. In the middle of following The Iditarod!  Reading a few books and following the race. 
4. Nature Study - focusing on just getting out in little 15 minute spurts together, observing, talking, drawing. Getting them used to looking things up on their own in their field guides.
5. Each girl picked an animal a few weeks ago and they've been reading and learning about it.  Madeleine-Siberian Huskies.  Erika-Penguins.  Dorothy Jo-Deer. 
6. Charting our Sunrise/Sunset Data for Journey North.
7. We've learned the Table Blessing in Latin and we're working on The Our Father. 
8. Pete does "Map Skills" with the girls a couple times a month. 
9. Continued daily copy work and simple dictation sentences. I've started asking for simple 1 or 2 sentence  narrations about 1/week.  And random journaling & written stories are happening more and more.  They are both working on cursive on their own "for fun."
10. Girls go to Mrs. Asel's house for some heavier-duty Art Projects once a week.  They are working with CLAY right now.  We do an occasional Artistic Pursuit project. Other than that, art just "happens" while I'm off "creating" in the kitchen. 
11. Shakespeare - MacBeth
12. Poetry - No poet this term.  Got caught up in lots of winter poetry, and now are working on What Robin Told
13. Composer: Haydn
14. Artist: Beginning Winslow Homer next week, will go into next term.
15. Piano - Continuing with our home-lessons.  Dorothy Jo is showing interest....may start her pretty soon. 
16. Choir - continued choir program at the Cathedral, which has exceeded ALL expectations!  It is AMAZING!
17. Irish Dance - Madeleine, Erika and Dorothy Jo continue their lessons. 

Little Ones

• Colors with the Little Ones (and big ones too!). We've been painting up a storm and mixing colors and playing with the color wheel with the older girls.   Lots of color books for the little ones!
• Reading picture books, drawing, painting, cutting/pasting, outside play, puzzles, practical life activities and games. Caroline and Jacqueline play well together for the most part, except when Jacqueline wanders off and...........   :-) 

Lenten Reading Plan

I'm cleaning off my bookshelves and book baskets, putting everything away except for my designated books for Lent.  The shelves and baskets will be sparse.  Otherwise, I get distracted and start "perusing" the million books at my bedside and then it's all downhill from there.  

I remember reading several years ago about selecting a reading plan for Lent to fall into 3 categories: Something for the Mind, for the Heart, and for the Soul.   

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For the Mind (something about Church History, the Sacraments, ethics, dogma, scholarly life of Jesus, or encyclicals).   I'll be listening to the audiotape of Lord Have Mercy: The Healing Power of Confession, by Scott Hahn and making my way through Pope Benedict's Encyclical SPE SALVI . 

Here are a couple other titles that have been on my list.  Maybe for future years?   A couple of these would probably be more "soul." (maybe)

• Jesus of Nazareth 
• The Passion of Jesus and its Hidden Meaning 
• Sermons of Saint Francis de Sales for Lent 
•  The Foot of the Cross 
• Any books by   William Thomas Walsh  -One of these years, I really want to FINISH one of these. 

 

For the Heart (biographies of the saints or stories reflective of Lent) I will be reading: 

• Helena by Evelyn Waugh- I've wanted to read this for several years!!
• The Secret Diary of Elisabeth LeSeur - I pick this book up every other year or so, and find it's perfect for Lent.  

Here are some others that I would like to read some year during Lent, or have read: 

• Blessed Marie of the Presentation - new book by Tan that I really want to read.  Maybe next year.  
• Lent: An Uncommon Love Story - Would love to see this book, but haven't yet.  By the same author as a favorite picture book The Jesus Garden.
• Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light .  I read this last year, and it was a perfect Lenten read.
• Saint Monica 
• St. Rita of Cascia 
• The Life of Blessed Margaret Costello .  This is one of my favorite saint books.  I've read it several times during Lent over the past few years.  
•  Madame Royale by Elena Vidal - A magnificent historical novel about the daughter of Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI.  The role of suffering in Marie-Therese-Charlotte's life makes this an amazing Lenten read.  

For the Soul (spiritual reading from works of the saints or saintly writers, prayer books, religious poetry, of the life of our Lord)

• The King, Crucified and Risen by Fr. Benedict J. Groeschel
• Christians at the Cross  - I think one of the ladies at 4real recommended this, and my library has it.  
• In Conversation with God, Lent and Easter 
• Lent and Easter with Mary - I found this from the Paraclete Press website.   

Haven't read these, but they are going on my list for future years: 

• What Jesus Saw From the Cross 
• Small Surrenders
•  The School of Jesus Crucified 
• The Power of the Cross: Applying the Passion of Christ to Your Life 
• The Open Door: Entering the Sanctuary of Icons and Prayer 

• First Fruists of Prayer - A forty day journey through the Canon of St. Andrew.  Read this the past two years, and highly recommend it.   
•  Dolores Passion of Our Lord - have read parts of this, but never during Lent.  One of these years, Michelle will let me borrow her copy during Lent.  *hint*

  Other Prayer Books in my Basket: 

•  Ignatius Study Bible (Mark) 
•  Mother Love 
•  Praying with Saint Maria Faustina 
•   Thoughts and Sayings of Saint Margaret Mary, Sept & Nov (focusing on Detachment, Love of Cross, Suffering) 
•  The Aquinas Prayer Book
• Prayer: the great means of grace   
• Suffering Prayer Leaflet 

In my PURSE:  

•  The Agony of Jesus 
•  Thoughts of the Cure of Ars 
•  Blue Pieta prayerbook 
• Devotion to the Sorrowful Mother

Cookbook Reading: 

• From a Monastery Kitchen 

Listening to: 

• Tenebrae of Good Friday 
• Passiontide at St. Paul's 
• Rachmaninoff: Vespers 

Some Movies I like to watch during Lent:  

• Babette's Feast
• Shawshank Redemption
•  Joan of Arc 
•  Molokia: the story of Fr. Damien 
•  The Passion of Joan of Arc 
•   Under the Sun of Satan
•  The Tree of Wooden Clogs 
•  Au Revoir Les Enfants 
•  The Ninth Day 
•  Monsieur Vincent 
•  Teresa de Jesus 
•  St. Teresa of Avila 
• The Passion of the Christ 

Now.......for the booklist for the girls and family!

On the agenda for this Friday

• We start counting birds today for the Great Backyard Bird Count
• A simplified version of Kimberlee's St. Augustine's Hearts for St. Valentine's Day. Listen to Donna Cori-Gibson's song "Restless" (by St. Augustine) and dance around the house.  
• Watch The Song of Bernadette  to finish our celebration of Our Lady of Lourdes
• Finish current read-aloud  Owls in the Family and order owl pellets to complete our little Owl "rabbit trail"  that we've been on for the past couple weeks....complete with an evening Owl Walk with a local-owl-expert!
• Finish narrations of said-owl-walk. 
• Sunday Prep 
• Go for a Walk outside if it's nice 
• Go through freezer, organize and revise inventory.     
• Evening of Recollection, if I'm not completely dead by 7:00 

Saturday we are celebrating Abraham Lincoln's Bicentennial with a few fun things to top off our Abraham Lincoln month-long-extravaganza!  It's technically TODAY, but we are saving this for Saturday, since Daddy is a big Lincoln fan!

• Build pretzel-log-cabins
• Make black hats
• Penny Toss
• Little Debbie Swiss Rolls for dessert 
• Centerpieces for dinner will be our beautiful log cabins, lots of pennies and our infamous paperdolls.  They are going to be so excited to be front-and-center, instead of relegated to the floor or a shelf.  Pete's Lincoln picture that hangs downstairs in the Cowboy Room may have to be brought upstairs for the day, replacing the precious Pete at the Summit of Denali photo.  
• Madeleine and Erika are each "performing" their personal favorite picture book about him.   

We have about 3 more Lincoln books to read, but I think I'm losin' my audience.  There are about 25 picture books about  Ol' Abe in this house right now, but the natives are getting restless.  I think Pete and I will be reading those on our own on Saturday evening.  What a great way to spend St. Valentine's Day! 

Visit here for more great links and ideas for celebrating this Bicentennial!!!

Hope you have a great weekend!  Happy Bicentennial and St. Valentine's Day, everyone!

Family Read-Alouds 2008

I started keeping track of  our reading last year in 2007 .   And, did it again this year for our family read-alouds, but slacked a bit with mine and Pete's.  

I'm so glad I did this!  It makes me feel like we actually "DO SOMETHING" over here at the crazy, always-seems-like-a-party-and-constantly-spinning-our-wheels House of Gallus!  

And, this is the first year we have independent readers too, so the girls have their own lists too!  Life is just SO EXCITING!  *wink*

Here are the Read-Alouds from 2008:

1. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory 
2. The Adventures of Peter Cottontail 
3. More All-of-a-kind Family 
4. Blessed Imelda 
5. The Borrowers 
6. Children of Fatima 
7. James and the Giant Peach-2nd time 
8. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's Farm 
9. The Year of Miss Agnes 
10. Understood Betsy 
11. The Penderwicks 
12. The Boxcar Children 
13. Heidi 
14. Runaway Ralph 
15. My Father's Dragon 
16. Ben and Me  
17. Surprise Island 
18. Dolphin Adventure
19. Ramona, Age 8
20. The Mouse and the Motorcycle
21. The Seagull and the Cat who taught it to fly
22. Thimble Summer 
23. Felicity Learns a Lesson
24. Sarah, Plain and Tall
25. Miss Hickory
26. Sebastian Bach: The Boy from Thuringia
27. Happy Birthday, Felicity! A Springtime Story
28. Stuart Little 
29. Meet Felicity
30. Farmer Boy
31. Boxcar Children: Mystery of the Spider's Clue
32. Saint Martin de Porres, Windeatt
33. The Song of the Christmas Mouse
34. Abel's Island
35. Mary Poppins
36. The Lion in the Box
37. The Real St. Nicholas

And, we're off to a good start in 2009 with Saint Catherine of Siena .  And,  Little House by Boston Bay , first of a series of books by Melissa Wiley about Laura Ingalls Wilder's grandmother, Charlotte.  

Here's to a another year of Happy Reading Aloud in 2009!

Books in 2007

I kept track of books we all read this year.  I used to do this during high school, college and in my early 20's, then stopped.  I can't find those lists....grrrrr.   I'd LOVE to have them. 

I can see from my list that I obviously needed a break from reading non-fiction: how-to's about parenting, home education, home management and political books....which have dominated my bookshelves over the past several years.  I returned to simply reading for pleasure and devouring book after book.  In a way, I thank Elena for this.  Her blog reminded me of some of my old interests and she had a few recommendations (along with her own books, of course) and voila! 

These are in no particular order, except the first four were my absolute favorites and plan on reading them again someday.

Suzanne - 2007

• In This House of Brede, Godden
• Madame Royale, Vidal
• Trianon, Vidal
• Katherine, Seton
• Dragonwyck, Seton
• Green Darkness, Seton
• A Miracle for St. Cecilia’s, Valentine
• A Woman Clothed with the Sun, Delaney
• First Fruits of Prayer
• Montessori in the Classroom, Polk
• Royal Road to Fotheringay, Plaidy
• St. Philomena: the wonderworker, O’Sullivan
• Talking to Fireflies, Shrinking the Moon: Nature Activities for all Ages
• The Cure of Ars: the priest who out-talked the devil, Lomask
• The Story of Saint John Vianney, Windeatt
• The King’s Pleasure, Nora Lofts
• The Lost King of France, Cadbury
• The Scarlet Pimpernel, Orczy
• True Devotion to Mary, de Montfort
• Real Learning, Foss (re-read)
• Look Back All The Green Valley, Chapell
• Anne of Green Gables (re-read)
• Saint Margaret Mary, Windeatt
• Pauline Jaricot, Windeatt
• Siblings Without Rivalry
• Light on Snow, Shreve
• Broken and Blessed: A Life Story, Adamkiewicz

Read-Alouds with the Girls (part of 2006-2007)

• James and the Giant Peach
• Kirsten’s Surprise
• Mr. Popper's Penguins
• Little House in the Big Woods
• Little House on the Prairie
• On The Banks of Plum Creek
• Raggedy Ann
• Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle
• The Little Flower, Windeatt
• Pippi Longstocking
• The Courage of Sarah Noble
• All-of-a-kind Family
• All-of-a-kind Family Downtown
• Old Mother West Wind
• Happy Little Family, Caudill
• Holly and Ivy, Godden

Started, but didn’t finish:

• A Bear Called Paddington
• There’s an Owl in the Shower
• Blessed Imelda

Pete – Lots of baseball books this year and the usual history and war reading:

• Guadacanal, Hoyt
• Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig in his Time
• The Last Commissioner: A Baseball Valentine
• The Teammates, Halbertstam
• Three Years Among the Camanches, Nelson Lee
• With These Hands, L’Amour
• The Queen’s Man, Penman
• Last Days of Summer, Kluger
• Clemente: the Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero, Maraniss
• Culture Warrior, O’Reilly
• The Cure of Ars: the priest who out-talked the devil, Lomask

This year, I plan on reading a few from Elena's lists of Novels with Catholic Spirituality and British and American Catholic Novelists.

Happy Reading in 2008!

It's a......

GEEEEEEEL ! 

For those of you who don't speak "four-year-old-eze"  that would be....GIRL!

Yep.  A Girl!  (of course!)  Pete used to be famous for climbing mountains and how much he could bench.  Now he's famous because he's going to have FIVE DAUGHTERS. 

We all went to the ultrasound on Thursday, except Caroline....she got to stay home with Grammy Anne and smear a St. Nicholas Chocolate Gold Coin all over her face.   

Everyone was sitting at my feet during the ultrasound watching the screen, Erika and Dorothy Jo on Pete's knees and Madeleine sitting on another chair.  About 15 minutes into it, the ultrasound tech said, "OK, I have a good view here.  Are you SURE you want to know?" 

A very loud "Yeeeessss!" was heard.  She turned around to look at them and said, "Oh, well, let's see....hmmmm.....I see 3 little GIRLS here...."

Dorothy Jo and Madeleine chimed in, each trying to out-talk the other "...and there's one more at home!  She's just too little to come here.  So, there's really FOUR girls in our family!" 

"Oh? Four!" she said, feigning surprise, as she already knew that.  "Well, it looks like there is going to be ONE MORE GIRL!" 

Loud cheers went up from the peanut gallery, while Pete chuckled to himself and grinned. 

"Now we will be JUST like All-of-a-Kind Family!" exclaimed Madeleine.

Erika added, "Except we have different names and we are Catholic and not Jewish!"

(Nevermind the fact that they lived in New York city one hundred years ago.)

Debates immediately ensued about what this little baby's name would be.

And, my favorite quote from the past couple of days took place while the girls were telling one of the neighbors that it was a girl. "Nope, there's no little boys in our family YET!"

Girls, girls, girls! 

Picture Books About Going To The FAIR

"It's the day of the Fair.  For miles around, people are getting their prize animals, their vegetables, their cakes and preserves ready to display.  Before the sun is up, everyone in the Martin family is out and about. What a lot of bustle!"  ~Come to the Fair, Janet Lunn/Gilles Pelletier

We're off to the Fair sometime within the next week.   So, we've started diving into a few of our favorite picture books....... 

• Come To The Fair, Janet Lunn.  Dawn mentioned this one last year, and it is now our FAVORITE!  We read this over and over last year and spent hours looking at the pictures, as there is always something new to discover in them.
• Corgiville Fair, Tasha Tudor
• Old Thunder and Miss Raney, Darrow / Brown
• Oh, Look! , Patricia Polacco
• Mrs. Rose's Garden, Elaine Greenstein
• County Fair, Little House Book
• Country Fair, Gail Gibbons
• Minerva Louise at the Fair, Morgan Stoeke
• Country Fair, Elisha Cooper
• Maisy at the Fair

Enjoy your trip to the fair!

Summer Reading

For once I'm going to blog about my reading, instead of all those crazy children's picture books that I get so excited about. 

I have been on a fiction-binge this year.  I attribute this to Elena, author of Trianon and Madame Royale, two masterpieces which I absolutely devoured and recommend whole-heartedly to EVERYONE.  Every Catholic should read these books!  Especially Madame Royale.  I am in the process of re-reading Madame Royale with my OWN COPY, so I can mark it up!  If you can't buy these books from Neumann Press, request them from Inter-Library Loan, if your library won't obtain its own copy (tsk, tsk).  They are definitely worth the search.  But, believe me, you will want to own your own copy.

Historical fiction has always been a favorite, especially about England, France and Russia.  Now I have someone RECOMMENDING good novelists, so it's no longer a guessing game like it used to be.  Elena gave me eight titles of her favorites, so that's what I'm reading this summer.  I finished The King's Pleasure, by Nora Lofts, about Henri VIII's first wife, Catherine of Aragon.  I'm almost done with The Royal Road to Fotheringay, by Jean Plaidy, the first book about Mary Stuart, the Queen of Scots.  And, I have these two ready and poised for the Minnesota trip:

• Captive Queen of Scots, by Jean Plaidy.  The second of two books Plaidy wrote about the Queen of Scots, following the Road to Fotheringay. 
• Katherine, by Anya Seton, written in 1954 about Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. Set in the14th century during the Plantagenet reign of Edward III, the Black Prince, and Richard II.

Next up will be Thomas Costain's Ride With Me and Rosemary Hawley Jarman's We Speak No Treason. 

Here are other books I've read in 2007 in no particular order:

• In This House of Brede, my new favorite work of fiction!  20 on a scale of 1 to 10!
• A Woman Clothed With The Sun - a marvelous compilation of several Marian apparitions.  Engaging and a fast read. Thanks Jenn!
• Saint Philomena the Wonder Worker
• Sharing Nature With Children
• Talking To Fireflies, Shrinking the Moon
• Anne of Green Gables
• The Cure of Ars
• The Cure of Ars: The Story of Saint John Vianney
• The Lost King of France  I didn't actually MEAN to read the whole book, but I started perusing and just couldn't put it down.
• Scarlet Pimpernel  I can't believe I was a French majorin college and I never read this book.  Shame! Shame!
• First Fruits of Prayer  Read during Lent.  Great.
• True Devotion to Mary

Works in progress:

• Charlotte Mason: Home Education Vol. 1
• Charlotte Mason: Philosophy of Education, Vol. 6
• Real Learning: Education in the heart of my home It's even better the second time!
• Gospel of Luke: Ignatius Catholic Bible Study
• Teaching Montessori In The Home
• Basic Montessori

Monastic Etiquette

I am reading In This House of Brede right now, and found this post by Don Marco on Monastic Etiquette fascinating. 

Names and titles are the expression of much deeper things. Etiquette matters, in the Church and everywhere else.  ~Don Marco

HT:  Elena, Tea At Trianon

The Authentic Catholic Woman

Elena at Tea at Trianon wrote a review of Genevieve Kineke's new book The Authentic Catholic Woman .   

Chez Ouiz (with whom I compare exceedingly funny notes about our college French curriculum and professors, among other things) also read this and posted about it. 

I am seeing this book all over the place.   Hmmm....it may have to move up a couple of notches on my reading list. 

Tea at Trianon

This is one of my new favorite places to enjoy my cup of tea these days.

Tea at Trianon

Elena Maria Vidal is the author of Neumann Press'  books, Trianon and Madame Royale.  Both are books surrounding the French Revolution, which was actually one of my favorite subjects before cloth diapering, modesty, NFP, home birthing, home education, home improvement and children's literature and picture books entered the scene. 

This is from her "about me" profile:  Wife, mother, historian, etiquette instructor, and wedding planner. Author of the novels TRIANON and MADAME ROYALE. A member of the Secular Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel since 1986.

She combines Catholicism, the saints, beautiful art, French history/culture, politics, the liturgical year, fascinating literature, Catholic Films and so much more! 

Do pay her a visit.