Autumn: beauty and botany

Autumn has been dragging its crimson and golden feet this year.  The colors have been gorgeous for an entire month, and I have been awestruck, mostly without camera in hand.

Moonshine and I started her botany study this month.  There is no more perfect a time to begin botany than in the autumn when the mushrooms just can't help but burst from the ground at every turn.  This is especially true in England.  For some of us, the mushrooms want to also grow inside the house... but I digress.

Botany is perfect for ten and eleven-year-olds.  At a time when they're turning inward again, feeling a bit off-balance, plant study turns their attention outward to the growth of nature around them.  It's almost as if you can hear them saying, "Hey, I'm not the only thing that's growing around here."

My resource books for this block include Charles Kovacs' Botany, Gerbert Grohmann's The Living World of Plants, Comstock's The Handbook of Nature Study, and Klocek's Drawing from the Book of Nature.  What I love about both Kovacs and Grohmann's books is that they both approach plant growth in parallel with a child's growth.  In my opinion, Kovacs is the better story-teller, but they are both giving the message that growth and knowledge go hand in hand.  Embrace them.  Be proud of how far you've come!

It's exactly what children at this age need to hear.

Moonshine went for a little walk in the garden to look for mushrooms.  Even I was surprised at how many different kinds she found!

We harvested five kinds and tried to do some spore prints on the back steps.  The wind had other ideas, and both mushrooms and paper were scattered in all directions within an hour.  The wind came up so fierce that afternoon that it cracked our eucalyptus tree in half.

We'll try it again in a couple of weeks when we have a nice sheltered place from the weather.  For now though, it's fun just to look.  Isn't the purple mushroom stunning?

 

Her heart is really into this lesson, and already her main lesson book is turning out beautifully.

Way down here...

It was a quiet week here. A blah week. My Spring allergies are in full force, and I've had all the get-up and go of a large stone. So it seems kind of fitting that we spent most of it not soaring with the birds, but cruising the forest floor. What delights we discovered there!






Growing up in the desert, I was mesmerized by the magical beauty of the mosses. My enthusiasm for each little leaf paled in comparison to the kids delight when they discovered this moss-covered stump. They were sure this was the exact place where the fairies get married-- services down below and the dance hall reception on top. I can almost picture it.




While we were at it, we explored the lichens, too. They were hard to miss.








This little guy was hard to miss, too. He politely waited for me to snap a picture before he hopped out of sight.




Since we're in the midst of our botany studies, I asked Sunburst to collect a few specimens and put together a moss garden. It's just an old baking dish we've re-purposed with soil, moss, and other items--- bark, rocks, etc. I think it turned out pretty nice...





Sunburst has been poring over it with a magnifying glass. There's so much more to see when you have adequate lighting... there's a whole 'nother world in there! Such fun!!

Mushroom hunting on Saturday

Mushrooms by Sylvia Plath

Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly

Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.

Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.

Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,

Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,

Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We

Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking

Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!

We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,

Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.

Discovering Atlantis

Sunburst and I are thoroughly enjoying our study of Ancient India. I'm finding the Kovacs book, Ancient Mythologies, to be superb.

I like to start out each year with a symbolic marker. This year, since we were beginning with the destruction of Atlantis and Manu's voyage to India, I presented Sunburst with a few beans. Fifth grade is just brimming with new lands, new people, and new ideas. To me, they're like seeds. We plant them and see where they go.



She was a little bewildered when I told her to keep them safe, that she would need them. She pestered me on and off about them and was dying to know what they were for. Wait and see, I said.

And then we discovered Atlantis.



I had this rough idea for making a little Atlantis out of clay. I presented the vision of Atlantis, described by Plato as an island of concentric rings, and Sunburst just took off with it. She immersed herself fully in it and worked on it for a couple of days. It's regular pottery clay worked on the bottom of a pizza pan covered with parchment paper, and her creation far surpassed my expectations.

When she's ready we'll fill it with water, which will essentially destroy it... It seems a shame to trash something she took such care on, but isn't that kind of the crux of Atlantis itself? If it's true, it was supposedly an amazing, advanced civilization. In Kovacs' book he describes the Atlanteans as being capable of magic-- making cows small or men into giants. It seemed a bit far-fetched to me when I first read it, but the more I think about it, the more I wonder if he was referring to science. We're doing some pretty wacky magic these days ourselves-- cloning animals, putting fish genes into our tomatoes, and I'm sure we don't even know the half of it.




When I told how the god Brahma brought Manu out of the flood waters to India with the seeds he had saved from Atlantis, Sunburst was also given some soil. She planted three of her beans, and luckily, one of them sprouted. It doesn't matter how many times we plant seeds, its always feels miraculous to watch them grow. We'll be exploring botany in the spring, and watching this bean unfurl sort of sets the mood for that. And after a story of destruction, it seemed important to have something tangible begin growing out of that.

Another year, another new beginning.

The BOOKS are here!

I just received a new batch of homeschooling books in the mail today. I actually hooted when Einstein brought them in the door. I hadn't expected them for at least another week... even overseas, Bob and Nancy's bookshop ships FAST!

I've been pulling my hair out a bit about teaching fifth grade-- there is SO much to cover this year! India, Persia, Babylon (or is it Mesopotamia?), Egypt, Greece, Botany, Geometry... it makes my head spin! Living in a German-speaking region, we have zilch available locally. And as far as I know, I'm the only Waldorf-inspired homeschooler east of the English Channel, so I can't even have a peek before I buy... unless it's online somewhere.

Now that my first two shipments have arrived, I'm happy to report that I've made some very good, albeit blind, purchases:

Ancient Mythologies
by Charles Kovacs

I love the way Kovacs' books read. It's like you're listening in on lessons, and you are, essentially. He goes through various myths of India, Persia, Babylon, and Egypt in this conversational, talking to ten-year-olds way. The stories evolve fluidly in the conversation, and the conversation itself appears to be the red-line that ties everything together. The only downside is that you have to follow the conversation to really know where you are.... which the more I look at it, the less it seems like a bad thing. His stories really suck you in. I adored his Man and Animal book, so I'm sure I'll get a lot of use out of it.



Chapters in Ancient History (in a biographic vein)
compiled by Dorothy Harrer

To be honest, I'm not very fond of spiral-bound books. It's a pet-peeve, I know, but some of the ones out there are just hard to navigate through, and regardless of the content, harder still to find on the bookshelf. They just all look the same! However, I am so glad I purchased this! It contains stories from India, Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Greece. It even contains biographical tales of the major figures in Ancient Greece, which means that I may not have to purchase any other texts... like a separate copy of Gilgamesh. I can just boot that sucker out of my Amazon wishlist (along with all those Ancient Greek biographies) and move on. The best part is that each section comes with a quote (presumably from an ancient text of that time) along with a summary of the relationship between the people of that time and the celestial sphere, or heaven and gods. I find that simple explanation priceless, because honestly, this is all new material to me.

The language of these stories is very different from the Kovacs book mentioned above. Harrer's stories have more of an ancient feel to them, which is sometimes great and sometimes just plain wordy. Her sections for each cultural epoch are fairly small, and with few exceptions, different stories than what is included in the Kovacs book. I think I'll have to pick and choose between them.



String, Straightedge, and Shadow: The Story of Geometry
by Julia E. Diggins

I took Geometry my sophomore year in high school, and I simply loathed it. It bored me to tears, and perhaps because of the way it was taught, has since been this abstract thing I've felt absolutely no kinship with or interest in. That said, I can tell you that this book looks fantastic! It tells the story of geometry, from the oldest times through its progression to Ancient Greece. It's packed with eye-candy drawings, both of geometrical relationships and the people who used them (guys in butt-flaps and togas) and how they used them. It looks so interesting, that I'm confident this book is going to change everything for me!



Botany
by Charles Kovacs

I haven't yet given this the attention it deserves. But from first glance it appears to be great, in Kovacs conversational-style, and packed with information. The text includes all the different plant families, plants used by people (grains, coffee, etc.), and a bit about bees. Unlike his Man and Animal book though, it doesn't have accompanying artwork, so I'm less apt to delve in immediately. I appreciate the simplicity of his writing-style though, so I'm sure I'll get a lot of use out of it... though honestly, at first glance I like the following book better.



The Living World of Plants
by Dr. Gerbert Grohmann

This book is talked up as THE book to use for teaching botany, and really, it is THE book. It's written for children, so the language is simplistic (but not stupid) and to the point. Better yet, there are pictures; throughout the book are simple line-drawings corresponding to the discussion at hand. I appreciate that. It looks excellent! Essentially, this book has the same textual feel as Kovacs book, only with pictures.


I'm planning to combine these botany books with the beautiful drawing help in Drawing from the Book of Nature.

. . . . .

Since I'm talking fifth grade, a review of this book already on my bookshelf seems necessary...


Teaching History I: The Ancient Civilizations and the Fourth Cultural Epoch
by Roy Wilkinson

I bought this for cheap a couple of years ago from a local homeschooler who was cleaning off her shelves. It's good, it's interesting, but it's not enough by itself. This is the "how-to" and "why" guide to teaching ancient history. It has the cliff-notes version of the stories and gives a lengthy summary of the places and times at hand. There's even very small biographical summaries of the major Greek folks. But I wouldn't call it enlivened. It's dry and informative in that Roy Wilkinson style, which, the more I look at it notice is the point. And that has it's place. It's the kind of reading for me that takes a bit of concentration and note-taking... the kind you can't do with kids jumping on the couch. If I get some quiet moments, maybe I'll read more of it.