tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200476062024-03-14T01:18:35.309-05:00Baby StepsA Classical Homeschool BlogRitsumeihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06283473059747130843noreply@blogger.comBlogger1785125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20047606.post-32472880831200625192023-07-17T15:24:00.006-05:002023-09-01T17:53:19.125-05:00Stories for the KidsRitsumeihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06283473059747130843noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20047606.post-56686225967957886022019-10-10T11:16:00.002-05:002019-10-15T17:53:14.076-05:00Mobeus MathThe other day, this video came through my Facebook feed:
It was really interesting, but it was late, and I wanted to do it with the kids. So I waited until they were awake. And we got out the tape and scissors and colored scrapbook papers (which helped with seeing the different things that happened as we were cutting, and made it easier to understand than it is with his that are all one Ritsumeihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06283473059747130843noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20047606.post-59135231540818537152019-10-01T23:50:00.000-05:002020-02-08T11:35:07.146-06:00Psalm 17: A Cry For Help
It's been almost two years since I wrote about the Psalms. There are a number of reasons for that. The biggest, I suspect, is that I just didn't get this Psalm, for all that I'd studied all the words, and I didn't really want to move on until I understood. So I reread it from time to time. And waited. Tonight, I ended up doing scripture study late with the kids, so rather than reading a Ritsumeihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06283473059747130843noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20047606.post-90743267697352413562019-09-21T17:43:00.001-05:002019-09-28T09:50:20.232-05:00How to Really Learn a Language
Though languages are required subjects, and most Americans study a
foreign language for several years in school, relatively few of us can
actually speak or read the languages we studied. Over the past several years, I've given a lot of thought of how to really learn a language. I've tried a number of approaches, ranging from regular classroom instruction, online classes such as Mango and Ritsumeihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06283473059747130843noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20047606.post-72327867796560746852019-09-02T22:58:00.001-05:002019-09-23T22:37:06.397-05:00Charlotte Mason: A Thoroughly Christian Education
It is of utmost importance that our children should in the first place, be taught faith in God. This cannot be left out of our system of education. Every child in our midst should be taught how to obtain a knowledge of God, this should be the cornerstone and foundation of ALL education.
-George Q Cannon, quoted in A Meeting With the Principle, p5 (emphasis added)
By the time Ritsumeihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06283473059747130843noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20047606.post-77565273207714797712019-08-02T07:00:00.000-05:002019-08-02T09:31:08.065-05:00Commonplace: July 2019
A commonplace is a traditional self-education tool: as you read, grab
a notebook. Write down things that embody Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.
Write down notable quotes, with or without your own thoughts about them.
Write down the questions you have as a result of the text you are
reading. You will find the book becomes a record of your own growth, and
it becomes a touchstone for Ritsumeihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06283473059747130843noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20047606.post-87672747731238274122019-08-01T13:35:00.000-05:002019-09-02T23:21:37.097-05:00Principled Education: Ideas
I've been taking a look at Teaching in the Branches again, where Miss Mason lays out a couple of foundational principles of education. It's obvious that she must have spent a great deal of time, not only teaching, but also thinking about teaching: these three principles really are foundational, but like all profound truths, it's pretty easy to go along for a long time without ever really Ritsumeihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06283473059747130843noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20047606.post-84722615987065522062019-07-30T22:58:00.000-05:002019-08-01T13:33:20.395-05:00Principled Education: Authority
It's interesting: this is the third time that I've read Miss Mason's Teaching in the Branches, which is an essay Charlotte Mason read at one of their meetings about the principles that their schools run on. The second time through, I felt like I'd entirely missed the point the first time. And this time, while I do think it would be going a bit far to say I'd missed the point the second time, Ritsumeihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06283473059747130843noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20047606.post-20067691443167885942019-07-15T22:17:00.001-05:002019-07-15T22:17:29.479-05:00Nature Journal: BogsHonestly, I was pretty skeptical about the whole Nature Journal Thing when I started. I mean, Nature Study, yes, that makes a lot of sense, and I was excited. We started to do it pretty early, after a fashion: we'd go outside and look for Interesting Things. It wasn't until much later that we started to carry sketchbooks with us, and even then, there was a while where dragging them around was Ritsumeihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06283473059747130843noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20047606.post-80703376782516921602019-07-01T07:00:00.000-05:002019-07-05T19:53:47.269-05:00Commonplace: June 2019
A commonplace is a traditional self-education tool: as you read, grab
a notebook. Write down things that embody Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.
Write down notable quotes, with or without your own thoughts about them.
Write down the questions you have as a result of the text you are
reading. You will find the book becomes a record of your own growth, and
it becomes a touchstone for Ritsumeihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06283473059747130843noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20047606.post-27578203540414675962019-06-17T17:50:00.001-05:002019-07-31T15:22:23.887-05:00#GraphTheWeatherEarly this month, I saw a post on Facebook from a lady that was doing something to track wildfires in her nature journal; I wasn't real clear on what it is that she was doing: wildfires are not a thing in our neck of the woods. But she had it in a circle, and it was colored different shades of red, and it was really quite striking.
I thought, what if I did that with the daily temperatures?
So IRitsumeihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06283473059747130843noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20047606.post-11808847244937120862019-06-12T17:27:00.000-05:002019-07-31T15:21:55.502-05:00Claim Their Anointing
Scripture study is a funny thing. In the middle of following this question, I'll realize that it's related to that thing over there, and next thing you know I'm lost in the "rabbit hole" --but typically happy as a clam about it.
That's kind of how it went this time. I got to the adult session of Stake Conference early, and was thumbing through my Scripture Journal, and decided to fill in Ritsumeihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06283473059747130843noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20047606.post-53579941823705908192019-06-07T22:11:00.000-05:002019-06-23T16:05:05.846-05:00Making it Safe to Not Know
I no longer remember precisely what it was that got me thinking about it, but:
It's really important that we create an environment where it is safe to not know something.
Not in a neglectful kind of way, where we're complacently not trying, but in a the sort of way where it's ok not to know yet, and it's so ok to ask questions, to try out incomplete ideas, to say the sentence half in your Ritsumeihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06283473059747130843noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20047606.post-11664825045248785652019-06-01T07:00:00.000-05:002019-06-01T08:04:53.261-05:00Commonplace: May 2019
A commonplace is a traditional self-education tool: as you read, grab
a notebook. Write down things that embody Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.
Write down notable quotes, with or without your own thoughts about them.
Write down the questions you have as a result of the text you are
reading. You will find the book becomes a record of your own growth, and
it becomes a touchstone for Ritsumeihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06283473059747130843noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20047606.post-58330012980255741712019-05-31T23:06:00.002-05:002019-05-31T23:23:03.348-05:00Math as a Window to God's Character
I got asked today about how it is that I came to see math as a window into the character of God. I'm not sure how to show what I've learned, other than to tell how I came to know it.
* * *
I did not enjoy math in school.
The way I was taught, math was arbitrary: a never ending pile of largely unrelated formulas that must be memorized perfectly and then worked flawlessly. Close doesn't Ritsumeihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06283473059747130843noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20047606.post-16809036266216324582019-05-01T23:19:00.001-05:002019-05-01T23:59:26.495-05:00Commonplace Book: April 2019
A commonplace is a traditional self-education tool: as you read, grab
a notebook. Write down things that embody Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.
Write down notable quotes, with or without your own thoughts about them.
Write down the questions you have as a result of the text you are
reading. You will find the book becomes a record of your own growth, and
it becomes a touchstone for Ritsumeihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06283473059747130843noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20047606.post-13080843418780720352019-04-16T00:14:00.001-05:002019-05-31T23:24:15.515-05:00Death and Rebirth: Easter Ponderings
So, Palm Sunday I didn't feel well. Actually, for several days before that I wasn't feeling very good: stress headaches, migraines, insomnia followed by nightmares... my emotions clearly had the upper hand, and I was quietly freaking right out, which is not my norm; my best friend once laughingly observed that I tend to be "a drama-free zone". And I do try. But last week I had drama enough Ritsumeihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06283473059747130843noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20047606.post-48278390229331673842019-04-02T18:06:00.000-05:002019-04-02T18:06:36.131-05:00Commonplace Book: February & March 2019
A commonplace is a traditional self-education tool: as you read, grab
a notebook. Write down things that embody Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.
Write down notable quotes, with or without your own thoughts about them.
Write down the questions you have as a result of the text you are
reading. You will find the book becomes a record of your own growth, and
it becomes a touchstone for Ritsumeihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06283473059747130843noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20047606.post-10532657231690551402019-03-24T16:40:00.000-05:002019-05-31T23:24:07.299-05:00More on Conversion
After what I learned about conversion last time, I wanted to know what kinds of words had been translated as "conversion" when the New Testament came to us from the Greek. I'd found that our one word, conversion, had been translated into Japanese into four different words, which each brought their own interesting layers of meaning to the concept, and I wondered what kinds of Greek words Ritsumeihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06283473059747130843noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20047606.post-46145300797045864092019-03-21T22:36:00.000-05:002019-05-31T23:24:33.981-05:00Repentence and Conversion
When I came home from Japan, I was surprised by a prompting to do the Come Follow Me readings in Japanese, and then even more surprised to realize how much Japanese I learned reading the Book of Mormon for the challenge from President Nelson: the first chapter I read wasn't half as hard as I'd expected: I have to read it from a paper edition, which means no copy and paste into my dictionary, Ritsumeihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06283473059747130843noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20047606.post-72373033969402943212019-03-11T22:39:00.000-05:002019-03-11T22:39:13.826-05:00I've Gone to JapanSo, I haven't been posting much, and won't be for a little while yet, but I have a good excuse: I'm in Japan right now. For those who are on Instagram, there's pictures there. Especially trains, because my nephews love trains. I'm just photographing ordinary stuff: I'm here taking some classes. So I haven't done much at all of the typical touristy stuff. I'd hoped to, but things are so busy; someRitsumeihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06283473059747130843noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20047606.post-56927021389826892392019-02-24T22:05:00.000-06:002019-05-31T23:24:54.669-05:00A Day in the Life
7:30: I hear the kids moving around, pulling out their sketch books and digging for something to eat, and I wake up too. The Daddy has long since gone to work. The littlest comes and climbs in bed with me, and brings a story: Three Samauri Cats. The other two jump (literally) onto my bed, and I read the story from the bottom of a pile of people.
8:00: I remind the kids that they've got aboutRitsumeihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06283473059747130843noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20047606.post-72017944324289496982019-01-15T17:16:00.000-06:002019-05-31T23:25:16.659-05:00Come Follow Me: The Nativity
Ok, it feels... weird to be studying the Nativity in January. I'm all set to be working towards Easter, and here's Christmas again.
But we had this thought in our conversation about Zacharias and John the Baptist (our family's discussion sort of glossed over Elizabeth; not where the kids' attention was, this time around), and I'm still kind of mulling it over:
John the Baptist and Ritsumeihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06283473059747130843noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20047606.post-37516229858323982812019-01-06T23:21:00.000-06:002019-05-31T23:25:30.740-05:00Scheduling our Charlotte Mason Homeschool DayI think that one of the things that's hardest for me to work out as we homeschool is: how much work will fit in a day? I spent a fair amount of time trying to figure this out over Christmas break as I worked up our new schedules. It's an important question: Hero is getting to the point where I need to start helping him to develop the skills to organize himself; he needs to start being a touch Ritsumeihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06283473059747130843noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20047606.post-61179687724335239202019-01-05T23:10:00.003-06:002019-01-05T23:11:16.499-06:00Come Follow Me: Trust and Temples
The first time I sat down to do it with the kids, it was rough: changes to routine always are, and although we've done scripture study of various types, this was just a little different from them all, and there was some static over it.
Honestly, I wasn't sure what to do with the first lesson.
I love that we're responsible for our own learning. And the quote from Brother Bednar is Ritsumeihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06283473059747130843noreply@blogger.com0