I've been reading CM's vol. 3 well, the appendices anyway. I am planning to read through this volume soon.

If you scroll down about half way you will see:

APPENDIX IV
EXAMINATION OF A CHILD OF TWELVE, IN THE 'PARENTS' REVIEW' SCHOOL, ON THE WORK OF A TERM

This exam is amazing to me. There is no way I could pass this at my age let alone at 12 years of age. What an education these children received! I would have loved to have gone to a PNEU school....well, I kind of am now :-), only as the teacher rather than the student.

A New Read

Today while out on errands, we decided to stop in at B&N. I picked up a few things one of them being Sense and Sensibility. I have heard so many great things about this book i have to try it...like I don't have enough on my 'to read' list....wait, can we ever have enough? Surely not!

Anyway, last November I read P&P along with the girl who chooses to remain nameless. To be honest, neither of really enjoyed it till it was over. However, I did love Miss Austen's use of the English language, the beauty of the writing is what kept me going.
But, now that it has been a few months I have gone back in my mind to try and figure out what I did not like about it. Mainly, I think it was the timing. I had many things going on and wanted to get on to some other books I had been longing to read. We read this when it came up in the curriculum that we were using at the time.
Another thing that had been bothering me was a comment I had read about the book not being a romance. It appears that the writer considered Jane Eyre more of a romance than P&P. How silly to let that effect my opinion of a book. But, how I love Jane Eyre! I am not particlarly fond of most romance novels but to me JE is so, so much more than romance. Of course so is P&P.
And lastly, I hope I don't offend anyone too much here but.....I don't particularly care for Elizabeth Bennet. Yes, I know I am probably the only one on earth, but she irritated me (just a little).

I am hoping to enjoy S&S more. I do think I would like to try to read P&P again at a later date to see if my opinions of it have changed any.

State Theory Tests

Wednesday my daughter's received their grades for the state theory test in piano that they took back at the end of January.

Biscuit received an 80. This was her first time taking a test of any kind and we are all very proud of her. She got a little confused on the bass clef notes but we are working on those and she is getting it. :-) She was quite upset that she won't be getting a medal (those are only for 90+ scores), but she will receive a certificate!!

The girl who chooses to remain nameless got a 100!!! She took the 6th grade test, being that she is in the 6th grade. I am so proud of her! She really practiced for this test (they both did). She will be receiving a GOLD medal at this year's piano recital.
This is her 5th year taking piano lessons and she has done wonderfully.

This Sunday the girl who chooses to remain nameless will be performing in a 'Master's Recital'. Don't know much about this one as it is the first we have done. She will play the Andante movement from Clementi's Sonatina. Memorized!

I really love a reading a book that stays with me long after I've finished it. I just finished this book Sunday evening and still can't stop thinking about it. This is the first Gene Stratton-Porter book that I have read but it definitely won't be the last. Now I have to find out if the rest of her books are as good as this one.

You really get to know Jamie, the main character, while joining him on an adventure after leaving the military hospital he has been in since the end of the war.This is very much a book about physical and spiritual healing. I didn't expect to grow to like him so much. And of course there's the Bee Master (who I would have liked to have gotten to know a little more), and the Scout Master, and the Storm Girl....but I don't want to give anything away!

What I loved the most was the message that Porter put into the book. If only this book could be included in reading lists in high schools (maybe it is in some). It is still relevant, it is still true all these years later and will continue to be an important message in years to come.

I also love reading a book that makes you feel good while your reading it, this one did that.

Your 1920's Name is:

Rosalee Ivy

What's Your 1920's Name?

Hoppy 1990-2006

In loving memory of our beloved Hop Sing, who left us on March 8th 2006 at the age of 15. He was born on July 4th 1990. He lived a long and lively life, was loved by everyone who met him, and was close to all of us. He enjoyed sleeping in the sun, napping in Biscuit's arms and he especially enjoyed eating. Although he has left this earth, he will forever live on in our hearts. We will miss you Hop.

Curriculum

We homeschool using Ambleside Online (see link in sidebar). This curriculum has been wonderful for us. I had first stumbled upon the then PUO website in the fall of 1999 and thought that the plan looked wonderful but I was in no way brave enough to try something so new at the time. Silly me.

We first started with Ambleside back in January 2001, after much prayer, with my then 5th grade ds and my 2nd grade dd...the baby was still a baby. It was hard to get used to CM's methods and we probably still aren't totally there, but it was rewarding to see my children grow, and still is.

Then in January of 2005 we decided (okay I did) that maybe the children weren't learning enough or maybe there was a better curriculum out there...HA!

There are definitely other curricula out there but not better....for our family. We came back to AO this past January (what is it with January, I must find something better to do during that month!) and here we shall stay.

We are currently working through years 1 and 5 for the girls with little bits of year 10 for my ds. It feels so good to be 'home'.

Books

Well, I just finished reading Monster. This has taken me a while because while it is good it isn't quite my style of book. It is interesting and the ending was pretty good....a little predictable though.

Now I can get on to reading a few books I have been really enjoying. I started The Vicar of Wakefield a few days ago and am really liking it. It's funny and engaging. Now I can get back to it!

There are SO many books on my 'to read' list that I just don't know what to do with myself!! And 2 more just came in today from Paperback Swap......which is totally wonderful :-).

Oh, and last night I finished How to be Your Own Selfish Pig by Susan Schaeffer Macauley. That was good. She really has a beautiful way of telling about the love of Christ. I'm going to recommend this one to my dear husband.

This is the ferocious beast that we call Tasha. Isn't she the most beautiful beast you ever did see?

Intro

Ok, this is our first post.
We decided to start a blog to talk a little about what we are doing in our homeschool, about what is going on in our world, and about what we are reading...but, mostly we started it to have fun.