Top Meadow Study Center

Confession of Devotion

2011-12-20T13:47:00.000-08:00

Confession by Father Hardon (history of...)

Until recently the subject of Confession among religious was not much discussed. The Church’s legislation that “religious should approach the Sacrament of Confession at least once a week” was taken for granted. (Canon 595,3). Occasionally an article or even a book might be published on the subject, like Die Häufige Beicht (Frequent Confession) by the Benedictine Archabbot of St. Martin’s Abbey in Germany. But the focus was on how to make frequent Confession more profitable. It was not whether weekly Confession was profitable. That was assumed, and perhaps presumed too lightly.

Confession by St Francis de Sales

Beware of unmeaning self-accusations, made out of a mere routine, such as, "I have not loved God as much as I ought; I have not prayed with as much devotion as I ought; Ihave not loved my neighbour as I ought; I have not received the Sacraments with sufficient reverence;" and the like. Such things as these are altogether useless in setting the state of your conscience before your Confessor, inasmuch as all the Saints in Paradise and all men living would say the same. But examine closely what special reason you have for accusing yourself thus, and when you have discovered it, accuse yourself simply and plainly of your fault. For instance, when confessing that you have not loved your neighbour as you ought, it may be that what you mean is, that having seen some one in great want whom you could have succoured, you have failed to do so. Well then, accuse yourself of that special omission: say, "Having come across a person in need, I did not help him as I might have done," either through negligence, or hardness, or indifference, according as the case may be.

Confession of Devotion

We are encouraged to go to Confession often. How do I confess if I have no mortal sins or perhaps no venial sin and faults? I have felt some priests were impatient with my confession. Now I dread going to Confession.

It is always appropriate to make what theologians call a confession of devotion. That means the penitent has no unconfessed, unforgiven mortal sins to confess, but wishes to receive the graces of the sacrament to grow in his or her spiritual life.

I’m sorry if some confessors have been impatient with you. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “Without being strictly necessary, confession of everyday faults (venial sins) is nevertheless strongly recommended by the Church. Indeed the regular confession of our venial sins helps us form our conscience, fight against evil tendencies, let ourselves be healed by Christ and progress in the life of the Spirit. By receiving more frequently through the sacrament the gift of the Father’s mercy, we are spurred to be merciful as he is merciful.”

If you have no serious sins to confess, you may simply confess one or more venial sins. And if you have been so fortunate as not to have committed any sin since your last confession, you may confess a sin from your past life.

A confession of devotion might sound something like this: “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been a month since my last confession. I am not aware of any grave sin since then. But I accuse myself of being unkind and impatient with my wife (husband) and children, neglectful of my parents who are lonely and ill. And I want to acknowledge again my sorrow for all my sins, particularly the sin of...

Advent Resources

2011-11-20T15:06:00.001-08:00

To Get Ready:

Some good reflective Advent posts from around the web
A Quiet Advent

Celebrating the Solemnity of Christ the King (Feast and Feria)
November Inspiration (to do with Thanksgiving and Christ the King)

Keeping it Simple and Little

Baby Steps for Advent (Conversion Diary)
Advent for Little Ones (First Heralds)
No Panic Advent (Karen Edmisten)

Some One Stop Advent Resources

Faith Filled Days -- December Links to all things Advent and Christmas, by Erin of Seven Little Australians
Catholic Traditions for Advent
Catholic Culture -- Advent Workshop
Catholic Culture -- December Overview

Great Homeschool Mom Stops

Living Advent and Christmas (Wildflower and Marbles)
Planning Ahead for Advent and Christmas (Elizabeth Foss)

Don't Miss These

Mary Hidden in Advent (Flowing Streams)
Christmas And Advent Around the World (Serendipity)
Jesse Tree Unit Study

Organization (Secular)

Christmas Planning Notebook
Print a Christmas Planner
Christmas Countdown
Printable Christmas Countdown

10 week holiday cleaning plan

(New Year) Grand Plan
(It is the Catholic New Year after all)

Even More Good Things

ETWN Advent Resources
The Holy Season of Advent (EWTN)
Advent Activity Alternative
Mass Readings and Meditations

Lapbooking and Teacher Stuff
Not essential, but might be fun

Advent Lapbook Resources

Advent Lesson Plans
Advent (teaching Mom)
Advent Activity Calendar
Another Advent activity calendar (printable)

Some November Inspiration and Planning

2011-11-19T11:37:00.001-08:00

Charlotte Mason Notebooks

Christ the King Plans
A Mother's Rule of Life (Afterthoughts)
Creating a Rosary Notebook (Seven LIttle Australians)
Design the Life You Want (Camp Creek Blog) \
No Really, How Do You Prepare for Thanksgiving? Like Mother, Like Daughter

Bi-Weekly Plan for November
Easy Meal Planning

Joy and Balance During the Holidays

Lifelong Learning

2011-11-01T15:00:00.000-07:00

Thomas Aquinas College's syllabus is hyperlinked now. If you go to the site you can see links to articles about liberal education and the Socratic method.

Lots of Catholic education resources at NAPCIS.

International Catholic University has video courses for post-grad enrichment -- in theology and philosophy -- for order by video, and some of the course transcripts are free online.

Quotes

2011-11-01T14:50:00.000-07:00

Quotes about Reading
Quotes about Fairy tales
Quotes about Walking
Quotes about Education

Religion Resources

2011-11-01T14:45:00.000-07:00

MacBeth shared the link to these Mass worksheets and other resources at Catholic Mom. Like her, I don't much care for worksheets, but these might make good discussion springboards and help the youngers pay more attention during the Mass. Example for next week.

Erin at bearing blog linked to these free Catholic Holy Cards.

I think I've mentioned it before, but I have the book version of this online Family Catechism and it's a great pick-up sourcebook. The website seems a little confusing at first but I think it's a worthwhile way to present it. You have the basic questions in the middle and then supplementary things on the sides. .... scripture, CCC, and applications/discussion questions. Really nice.

Easy Math Activities

2011-10-27T10:44:00.000-07:00

Make an Addition Book
Using Manipulatives to Add
Abacus Activities
Number Lines
you can make your own worksheets using number lines
Quia Addition
Khan Basic Arithmetic

Book Discussions

2011-10-24T16:14:00.000-07:00

How to Discuss a Book
Lead a Book Discussion in Four Easy Steps
Leading a Book Discussion
Book Discussion Guidelines
How to Lead a Book Club Discussion

Schedule

2011-10-23T11:59:00.000-07:00

Start getting up at 6:45

--------------------------

Go downstairs at 8 am

8:30 Breakfast, Music

9:30 Morning Time

10:30 Audio Visual

11:00 Math and Handwriting

11:30 Story

12:00 Lunch, piano, reading

1:00 Outdoors, Art

2:00 Afternoon Time

3:00 Finish up, tidy, down time

5:00 Dinner Prep, Remnants of the Day

6:00 Dinner, Cleanup

Plans

2011-10-23T11:48:00.000-07:00

Start Story Club

(with "getting ideas" course)
ESL Story Writing

Life Habits

Work on planning healthy lunches
Cut down on sugar

Continue Read-Alouds

Start thinking about what we've read so I can develop ideas in later readings
Also, start narration -- use narration cards or start with telling just one thing.

History

Start reading Leading events in Church History
Timeline cards

Science and Nature Study

Start reading The Sciences

Astronomy
Figure out how to do solar system cutouts using Learning Page fact files and Pass Volumes
Solar system activities
Solar System page for kids
A space lapbook

Try watercolors of leaf or something similar.
Nature Study Leaves
Thirty Six Weeks of Trees
Collecting Leaves

Art Connection

Watercolor Leaves
Video demonstration

Grammar Helps for High School

2011-10-23T11:29:00.000-07:00

A study guide for Eats, Shoots and Leaves (pdf)
Gene Moutoux's site with Diagramming, Latin and German helps
Ed Vavra's grammar materials for 2nd grade through college, and even teacher helps

Progymnasmata

Audio and Video Courses for HighSchoolers

2011-10-23T10:09:00.000-07:00

Khan Academy -- all kinds of courses

Hippocampus -- materials for science, math and other things

College: free distance learning courses.

Youtube

Itunes has many free audio courses.

Open Culture many more college level courses

Free Language Courses

(including spoken Latin)

Science Resources for Primary Grades

2011-10-23T00:29:00.000-07:00

This weekend my project is to gather ideas for science materials particularly focused to the younger set.

Here's a place that has all sorts of lapbooks and unit studies. ..Dynamic 2 Moms

They linked to this site which has lapbook instructions based on the Magic Schoolhouse books.

Something that sounds intriguing and helpful for review is Mini-Offices. That link takes you to a sort of tutorial.

Here are some directions in PDF.

Here's something called an Interactive Notebook -- it is like a lapbook but ongoing.

Nature Notebooking:

Here is an autumn nature study page

Here is a page on how to begin a simple nature journal

Learning Page -- free teaching resources including fact files

The Sciences: A reading book for children

Writing Classes, and other Language Arts materials

2011-10-20T17:45:00.000-07:00

Exercises for Story Writers
Free Online Writing Courses

Novel in a Month
National Novel Finishing Month -- randomizers and other resources

Universities offering Free Writing Courses

Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy -- online course for free

Language Arts Resources

Some Language Arts Powerpoints

Online Grammar Lessons (English 101)

CS LEwis on WRiting

On Writing Well
Eight Rules for Good Writing
CS LEwis Writing Workshop(!)
On Writing for the CHildlike

Literary Analysis

50 Scholarly Literary Analysis Blogs
Free University Literature Classes Online
Free English Literature Class Online

Year 10

2011-10-20T16:52:00.000-07:00

What we're doing right now:

Teaching Company: Secrets of Mental Math
Teaching Company: Argumentation: The Study of Effective Reasoning

AP Biology
Irish Gaelic

Latin
Epitome Historiae Sacrae

History Reading LIst
Various Books

Programming

Fencing

Story Writing

Religion Resources

2011-10-17T03:24:00.000-07:00

The Catholic Truth Society has some free downloads. A Rule of Life looks interesting.

But what I was looking for is more like this: Catholic Truth Society.

Cardinal Newman Faith Resources Inc is a very good Australian sites with Catholic stories for young folk and a series of catechetical pamphlets for young people written by a great priest, that you can download for free.

Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact is for middle schoolers (probably) and contains stories in cartoon form, reprints from the 40s to the 70s.

The Rosary Confraternity has "Theology for the Laity" which is simple but not dumbed down explanations of chief tenets of the faith.

For parent teachers, there is the Seton Newsletter.
Archives are free online for download, and you can quote or reprint them with attribution.

Historical Fiction -- J Nield

2011-10-15T18:58:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Nield, Guide to Best Historical Reading

PDF arranged chronolgoically

Gutenberg -- different versions

Leading Events in Church History

2011-10-15T18:32:00.000-07:00

by the Sisters of Notre Dame
(Catholic perspective)

Church History -- Christian Antiquity
Church History -- Early Middle Ages
Church History -- Later Middle Ages
Church History -- Early Modern TImes
Church History -- Later Modern Times

Saint Gregory the Great

Lessons On Early Church History by Deborah Alcock (Anglican perspective)
middle school level, with questions

Christ in His Church
(for the use of Catholic Schools)

Manual of Universal Church History
(catholic perspective)

2nd Century AD - 3rd Century AD

2011-10-15T17:38:00.000-07:00

OVerview

List of Popes

For LIst of Roman Emperors and the wars and events in 2nd and 3rd Centuries

Roman Civil Wars

Details (also check 2nd and 3rd century Patron Saints Timelines)

St John the Evangelist
6–101
St Ignatius of Antioch martyred
35–107

Trajan issues edict about Christians
112 AD

Jewish revolt in Egypt and Africa suppressed by Trajan
115 AD

The Five Good Emperors
Early Enemies of the Church

Polycarp,Germanicus and others martyred

Galen started career
more on Galen
127 AD (born)

Things of Interest

2011-10-15T15:02:00.000-07:00

Design a Study Guides
World Book Typical Course of Study
Core Knowledge Scope and SEquence (pdf)
Using Your Encyclopedia to Make Lesson Plans for your Child

Early Church -- Lesson Plans -- 1st Century

2011-10-15T14:14:00.000-07:00

After Pentecost

Pentecost, St Stephen and some of the apostles
AD 33
Saint Peter
Saint Paul
(more from Leading Events in the History of the Church by the Sisters of Notre Dame)

Caligula
12–41
(Tiberius -- Varus avenged)
Claudius
10–54
Nero
37–68
Caractacus
fl 51
Boudicea
d 61
Year of Four Emperors
68
Vespasian

9–79

St James the Greater
d AD 44
Jewish Roman Wars
66 to 135 A.D.
Destruction of Jerusalem and Masada
70 to 73 AD
Titus
40–81
Pliny the Elder
23–79
Pompeii and Vesuvius
AD 79
Domitian
51–96
Trajan
53–117

Story of the Sciences

Weekend

2011-10-15T13:46:00.000-07:00

I organized the labels today (look on the sidebar).

I also updated Box.Net

Books for October

2011-10-12T21:04:00.000-07:00

Kieron's Books:

The Dog Who Loved Too Much
The Little Prince
The Robe (we talked about the movie today and it seemed like a good time to give him the book to read).

Since we listened to the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack today, is it a good time to load the book on to his Kindle? Seems to fit well for October.

I decided to read Galen and the Gateway to Medicine out loud because Paddy could use some science.

Shakespeare Resources

2011-10-12T00:19:00.001-07:00

Animated Shakespeare (BBC)

Irish Gaelic Lessons

2011-10-10T00:50:00.000-07:00

Conversation in Gaelic
Easy Irish (website)
Easy Irish -- YouTube

Beginning Irish (11 lessons on YouTube)
Handouts here

Interactive Irish Lessons
Learn Irish Gaelic

Mini Offices

2011-10-08T22:23:00.000-07:00

Mini-Offices ABCTeach Mini-Offices Squidoo Mini Offices

For Timeline -- early church

2011-10-08T19:51:00.000-07:00

List of Roman Emporers
The Persecutions (of Christians in the Roman Empire)
Church History: Christian Antiquity
Early Church Christianity in the 1st century
Clipart -- Famous People
Another Early Church Timeline (pictures)

High School Science

2011-10-08T12:22:00.001-07:00

CA Content Standards for Biology

TImeline of Major Discoveries in Biology

Science and history (bearing blog)

Wikipedia definition of science

Using technology in a biology classroom

More biology links here

Borders and other Graphics (Under Construction)

2011-10-08T09:27:00.000-07:00

Clip Art Borders and Frames
Clipart Etc

Celtic Borders (free)Pictures of Saints of God

Multi Level Teaching

2011-10-08T08:59:00.000-07:00

Multi Level Homeschooling (Cindy Downes)

Literature List

2011-10-07T15:01:00.000-07:00

Chronological List of GA Henty books

A.D 61	Beric the Briton	36
A.D.70	For the Temple	37

	THE MIDDLE AGES
870	The Dragon and the Raven	40
1066	Wulf the Saxon	41
1190	Winning His Spurs	42
1314	In Freedom's Cause	43
1340	St. George for England	44
1380	The Lion of St. Mark	45
1381	A March on London	46
1400	Both Sides of the Border	47
1415	At Agincourt	48
1480	A Knight of the White Cross	49

Handwriting -- Italics

2011-10-05T16:55:00.000-07:00

Rules for Good Handwriting
Articles and Resources

GuestHollow Copywork Page
Schuleschrifte Cursive Model
Paidea Classics Copywork
Copycat Copywork Italic
Lessons and Tips for Drawing and Writing
Italic Tutorial
Video Tutorial
Penny Gardner

Posture and Grip (Kindergarten Blog)

(Startwrite)

Yosemite

2011-10-05T15:34:00.000-07:00

Newsletter (pdf) listing things to do

Getting Around

For Kids
Places to Go

High School Breakdown

2011-10-05T15:10:00.000-07:00

EnglishCompositionLiteratureGrammar VocabularyMathGeometryAlgebra IITrigonometryOtherHistoryUS HIstoryWorld HistoryAm Govt/EconomicsGeography/CivicsOther ScienceBiologyChemistryPhysicsOtherLanguage2 -3 years of language, at least 2 in one languageReligionBibleChurch HistoryDoctrineDevotion and PracticeOther RequiredPEHealthFine ArtsElectivesWord Processing and Computer TechComputer ProgrammingOTher

Things to Print Out

2011-10-04T22:25:00.000-07:00

BC/AD Timeline: Christ, Center of History (pdf)
(Squidoo: Timelines)

AD Timeline Pages (pdf)

Local

2011-10-04T21:28:00.001-07:00

Nature
Geography
Culture
Activities

Index

2011-10-04T21:27:00.000-07:00

Catechesis
Habits
Medieval Crafts
Art
Literature
Language
Science
Math
Local

List of Online Resources

2011-10-04T21:07:00.000-07:00

Music of the Middle Ages

Garden of Praise
Patron Saints Timeline
Paidea Classics
Enchanted Learning
Heritage History

Timeline Pages (GuestHollow)

HomeschoolShare (Literature Unit Studies)
Highland Heritage
Medieval Unit Study

Medieval Times
Medieval Art

Some Medieval Artists

ARtist Study (CM)
Free Pages for Art and Other Things

Living Math
Paula's Archives

Early Church Timeline

English/Language

2011-10-04T20:38:00.000-07:00

Writing (stories)
Language roots
Translations
Analysis

Habits

2011-10-04T20:37:00.000-07:00

Health and Hygiene
-- teach why and how

Life Skills
Know how to do things around the house
Learn social enterprise

Engage in outside the home activities

Take note of and work on weaknesses and misconceptions about life

Character formation lessons, discussions

Field Trips -- l ook for community resources

Medieval Crafts and Games

2011-10-04T20:35:00.002-07:00

make swords
make shield with coat of arms
heraldry
castle scene
tapestry
stories set in middle ages/fantasy world

get ideas from books

Art

2011-10-04T20:35:00.000-07:00

Calligraphy
Italic Copywork
Create Borders
Send out cards and art to people
Tuesday sketch day

Monday -- drawing
Tuesday -- cut with scissors
Wednesday -- paints
Thursday -- calligraphy
Friday -- origami and paper folding

Every other week -- Medieval arts and crafts

Alternates
Stamping
Gluing
Sticker designs (mosaics)

Literature

2011-10-04T20:33:00.000-07:00

Tales from Shakespaere
History of LIterature
Read classics as they are mentioned in History

Read excellent books about middle ages

Read folk tales, discuss, use as examples for literature principles
(see Teaching LIterature with Classics)

Science

2011-10-04T20:31:00.000-07:00

Kieron --

Natural History/Biology continued
Some Chemistry basics
read biographies of scientists
and learn about their work

Nature Study for everyone

Paddy read science books around the house

Do nature walks, pay attention to details, learn to observe
Maybe some simple experiments together

Math

2011-10-04T20:29:00.001-07:00

Kieron -- Mental Math lectures

Do algebra and geometry review online

Then do TC Algebra 2, or Geometry, or something else

Paddy

MEP Math 3 (interactive)

Aidan

MEP Math 1 -- plus worksheets

Catechesis

2011-10-04T20:27:00.000-07:00

St Patrick's Summer --- the catechism in narrative
at the start of new liturgical year, start Fabiola -- or else on November First with All Saints Day

before that, review Jesus, salvation and earliest days of Church

Genesis as prefiguring of gospel -- use Bible Study material with Kieron if possible

Review salvation history with Paddy

memorize Scripture passages

Kieron should read extra -- give him choices between Envoy, spiritual books or Our Goal and Guide>

read about early saints
Timeline of Saints

Changing the Focus

2011-10-04T20:23:00.000-07:00

I am changing this blog to reflect our different way of doing things. This year we are:

Trying to be multilevel as much as possible
Trying to use what we have around the house, and buy new things only when they meet a need that is different from what we have around.
Trying to do things our own way -- that means tweaking resources and adapting them to fit our own way of doing things.

I wrote out some tentative notes for plans, and I will post them here in rough form. Over time I will get them more specific and detailed.

Crescendo and Diminuendo

2011-04-08T16:05:00.000-07:00

Creative Thinking with Sound
Lesson 24 -- Rimsky Karsakov

Liam's Songs -- can you hear variations in loudness?

Place Value -- Math

2010-12-16T15:17:00.000-08:00

We used this base-10 virtual manipulative today.

Here are a few more place value games

Paddy is learning place value up to the 10,000 level.

Color-Mixing, and Shapes in Art

2010-12-16T15:14:00.001-08:00

Coloring with Leo -- lightweight but fun as a warm-up for a lesson on color-mixing and shapes in art.

SImple Machines

2010-12-02T14:01:00.000-08:00

Simple Machines Activities

Paddy and Kieron both had fun with this. Paddy is doing a unit on Work and Machines.

2010-10-26T13:45:00.000-07:00

Arcademic Skills Builders

A fun way to practice math facts and language concepts.

Aidan's Puzzle

2010-10-04T11:56:00.001-07:00

Online jigsaw puzzles from JigsawSite.com

Copywork and Handwriting Excursion

2010-09-30T08:58:00.000-07:00

Generators

Handwriting for Kids (Zaner Bloser style)
Worksheet-Works

Writing Wizard (Zaner Bloser and Dnealian)
Zaner-Bloser

Some Copywork Sites

Albright News
Simple Charlotte Mason
Guest Hollow
(more)
Paidea Classics
SCM forum

Practical Pages
Mother Goose (Knowledge Box Central)

More Measurement

2010-09-28T13:31:00.000-07:00

I found several balancing games today -- some of them are actually pre-algebra type things.

Mass Attack -- try to make the balls balance

Pan-balance shapes -- pre-algebra
This was neat, and Paddy spent a long time trying to work out the weights of the different shapes.

A balancing addition-type game

Poddle Weigh-in -- you have to find the right weight for the space alien

Capacity: Cups, Pints, Quarts

2010-09-27T13:05:00.001-07:00

Measurement Activities

Rules for Capitzlization

2010-09-27T13:03:00.000-07:00

Stories

2010-09-18T10:53:00.000-07:00

James Baldwin stories

2010-09-17T17:09:00.000-07:00

Bar Graphs -- practice test

Just for fun (and some logical thinking) == Graph Game

Ancient Art

2010-09-15T13:27:00.000-07:00

Design a Greek vase

Build a Greek Temple

Horatius at the Bridge

2010-09-15T08:30:00.000-07:00

Audio Version

HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE
ONCE there was a war between the Roman people and the Etruscans who lived in the towns on the other side of the Tiber River. Porsena, the King of the Etruscans, raised a great army, and marched toward Rome. The city had never been in so great danger.
The Romans did not have very many fighting men at that time, and they knew that they were not strong enough to meet the Etruscans in open [92] battle. So they kept themselves inside of their walls, and set guards to watch the roads.
One morning the army of Porsena was seen coming over the hills from the north. There were thousands of horsemen and footmen, and they were marching straight toward the wooden bridge which spanned the river at Rome.
"What shall we do?" said the white-haired Fathers who made the laws for the Roman people. "If they once gain the bridge, we cannot hinder them from crossing; and then what hope will there be for the town?"
Now, among the guards at the bridge, there was a brave man named Horatius. He was on the farther side of the river, and when he saw that the Etruscans were so near, he called out to the Romans who were behind him.
"Hew down the bridge with all the speed that you can!" he cried. "I, with the two men who stand by me, will keep the foe at bay."
Then, with their shields before them, and their long spears in their hands, the three brave men stood in the road, and kept back the horsemen whom Porsena had sent to take the bridge.
On the bridge the Romans hewed away at the beams and posts. Their axes rang, the chips flew fast; and soon it trembled, and was ready to fall.
[93] "Come back! come back, and save your lives!" they cried to Horatius and the two who were with him.
But just then Porsena's horsemen dashed toward them again.
"Run for your lives!" said Horatius to his friends. "I will keep the road."
They turned, and ran back across the bridge. They had hardly reached the other side when there was a crashing of beams and timbers. The bridge toppled over to one side, and then fell with a great splash into the water.
When Horatius heard the sound, he knew that the city was safe. With his face still toward Porsena's men, he moved slowly backward till he stood on the river's bank. A dart thrown by one of Porsena's soldiers put out his left eye; but he did not falter. He cast his spear at the foremost horseman, and then he turned quickly around. He saw the white porch of his own home among the trees on the other side of the stream;

"And he spake to the noble river
That rolls by the walls of Rome:
'O Tiber! father Tiber!
To whom the Romans pray,
A Roman's life, a Roman's arms,
Take thou in charge to-day.' "
[94] He leaped into the deep, swift stream. He still had his heavy armor on; and when he sank out of sight, no one thought that he would ever be seen again. But he was a strong man, and the best swimmer in Rome. The next minute he rose. He was halfway across the river, and safe from the spears and darts which Porsena's soldiers hurled after him. Soon he reached the farther side, where his friends stood ready to help him. Shout after shout greeted him as he climbed upon the bank. Then Porsena's men shouted also, for they had never seen a man so brave and strong as Horatius. He had kept them out of Rome, but he had done a deed which they could not help but praise.
As for the Romans, they were very grateful to Horatius for having saved their city. They called him Horatius Cocles, which meant the "one-eyed Horatius," because he had lost an eye in defending the bridge; they caused a fine statue of brass to be made in his honor; and they gave him as much land as he could plow around in a day. And for hundreds of years afterwards—
"With weeping and with laughter,
Still was the story told,
How well Horatius kept the bridge
In the brave days of old."

Music Study: Sorcerer's Apprentice

2010-09-15T08:17:00.000-07:00

Sorcerer's Apprentice (translation of Goethe)

aricle on tone poems

Paul Dukas

Ear Training Games and Sources

2010-09-10T14:30:00.000-07:00

Music Games
Quality varies.

We played this note concentration. Quite difficult!

Also:
Creating Music
Good-Ear

A Piano Teaching Course

A list of resources
More resources
Even more resources

Poetry

2010-09-10T10:20:00.001-07:00

2010-09-09T18:18:00.000-07:00

Look at Greek buildings and draw a Greek building
Look at Greek vases and draw own version

Make diorama of interior of a building

Paint a hardwood tree and an evergreen tree

Draw a picture that tells a story or shows a memory.

A texture sculpture
A texture collage.

Math -- Regrouping in 3 Digits

2010-09-09T12:13:00.000-07:00

Electronic Abacus