Classics Challenge - The Odyssey

So I just wrote a whole post about my experience reading The Odyssey only to get to the end and realize I didn't really talk about the actual poem at all. So that's this post's job.

It's not an easy job. I normally love talking about books and putting up my Back the the Classics mini-reviews. But it does feel a tad ridiculous at times when the book your are talking about is such a classic - like when I read a Shakespeare play or this poem and say "yep, it's good." The idea that my opinion of the quality of a piece of literature that has stood the test of time this long just makes me laugh. So I won't "review" it but I will talk about what I found surprising.

- The pacing was so different from what I expected! I knew some of the basics going in but it takes a while to even meet Odysseus. Then once we do, he gets home surprisingly quickly (in terms of pages of the book, not chronology of the poem!), then it slows down again. I actually loved this. I'm sure there were lots of deep reasons for it all and I will ponder that for a while but I just find it enjoyable when a book surprises me and I get to the point in the story where I'm expecting it to end but I know it can't because I'm holding it in my hand and I see there are more pages. It's a thrill. Like pulling up grubs in a cucumber patch!*

- The references to greek stuff that I'm starting to get because of my other readings. Understanding things that I know I wouldn't have recognized is another thrill. So anytime a name popped up that I recognized (mostly from the D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths I read the kids last summer and the Age of Fable Lucy and I are reading now), I got pretty excited. Don't get me wrong, I got lost a lot and tried not to get too bogged down with exactly who all the individuals were but I was also pretty surprised at how often I  recognized a name!

- How the repetion of certain phrases starts to stick in your brain. I read the Fagles version because I happened to find it on our library's free shelf (and tried to read it but gave up before trying again this spring - hence putting this one in my Abandoned Classic catagory) but I've heard really good things about Emily Wilson's translations and I'd like to try my hand at that one but I've heard that she doesn't use the same phrases over and over again as much as other translations and I think I would find that sad. Those repetative ones are the parts that stick. I was reading something that suddenly had the word Dawn and immedietely my mind when to "rose red fingers" and it made me smile. Smiling over poetry, me? Who knew!

*catch the reference? Anyone?

The Odyssey is my Back to the Classic Challenge - Abandoned Classic selection.

I did it! I did it!

I did it! What did I do? I finished The Odyssey! I'm not sure I've been more proud of myself for reading as much as this. I'll get to that in a minute but first I have to take a moment to thank the little guy in this sucess story - narration!

Narration! I love narration. My (school aged) kids have to narrate all their (school) books for every single reading. I'm just that mean of a mom ;-) But that doesn't mean I'm always quick to use it myself. Because it's kinda hard and I'm kinda lazy. True story.

However, I do believe in it's "power" so when I was really overwhelmed at the beginning of this book and  I was starting to just skim it and lose track of what story within a story I was at. So I stopped and got a notebook and started writting down my narrations. I had to stop a lot but suddenly I understood so much more! It was clicking and it was fun. Then my joint pain started up again so I switched a voice memo app I have on my phone for Lucy's narrations. That worked too. Funny thing though. When I stopped using the app and just tried to narrate to myself outloud, it didn't work. My brain knew I could fudge it too easily. So back to the memo app I went. Because it is work but fruitful work and reading something but not really understanding it feels like such a waste of time. I'd rather spend more time but get something out of it!

Lucy even "caught" me once and asked what I was doing. It was neat to share that I was choosing to do narrations because it was helping me understand. She asked who was listening to them and laughed when I said "No one! I delete them when I'm done reading for the day."  She kinda rolled her eyes a bit at her weird mom but secretly I thinks she liked that I'm willing to do the same thing I assign.

And slowly but surely, I made it through, I actually did stop narrating towards the end but not because I was lazy, but because I got into the story and I was excited to read it. Which is huge. Back when I started learning more about Charlotte Mason and Classical education, I stumbled upon this idea of Ordo Amoris or rightly ordered affections, loving what is lovely and true and how loving what should be loved is really what virtue is all about. That was pretty deep and while it stood out to me back then, it's also been a concept I've come back to again and again to think about what it really means for me as a parent/teacher and as a person.

But even that initial introduction to this idea caused me to change how I viewed my opinion of certain subjects. Poetry being one of them. I had all these reasons why Poetry was not for me. I'm analytical, I like things black and white. I want to know I have the right answers and its not always clear what a poem is about or trying to say and I don't like being confused. I don't like flowery writing. Excuses, lots of them. But I stopped looking at poetry as the thing that was wrong but rather that it was a flaw in me that caused me to dislike poetry. A failing even.  Don't worry, I didn't get out the cat o'nine tails and start whipping myself but it WAS a big shift in my view. (Good) Poetry is good. I don't like poetry. Therefore, I am wrong. And I set out, to change myself. To re-order my affections.

I started really small. I knew I didn't actually hate all poetry. I liked A.A. Milne. So I started there and we read lots of that. Luckily this was around the time Lucy started AO Year 1 so I've gotten to go through her poetry schedule for 4 years with her. That certainly helped. And then I just kept picking up more and more, trying to get more challenging as I went. Some I loved (Beowulf!) and some I stumbled through (Dante's Inferno).

 And because I am a type A person, I did have an end goal. And you might be guessing it right about now - The Odyssey! Which is what makes this upcoming point so special to me. I've wanted to reach the end of the Odyssey for 4-5 years now! And it's not that now that I've read it that I have arrived, no, scary books have this tendancy to not feel very scary or intimidating once you've read them. The books I haven't read always seems much more important than the ones I have in terms of literary achievement. So I've got a lot more poems to read. But it does mean that I can no longer call myself someone who doesn't like poetry.

It also means, this thing, it works. Just like I believed in narration but as still so surprised what I use it and get such good results. Similarly, I have believed in the idea of ordering of affections and cultivating tastes enough to have structured our homeschool lives around those concepts for going on 5 years now and have no plans to change that in the future.

And yet, its huge relief to see that it's worked in my own life. I've taught myself to love what is good and true and beautiful about poetry. Actually, poetry has taught me to love what is true and good and beautiful in it. I've just gotten out of the way (and put in some time). Which seems so simple and yet, it's so huge! Life confirming huge! It's confirmation of what I've been doing all this time!  If it has worked for me, how much more so for my little people with their slightly more flexible minds. Homeschooling is not about seeing fruit quickly. But it is really nice to see some blossoms popping.

Mother's Daybook

Reading - I've got my stack going but its getting harder to keep going with some of them. Not that they aren't all good reads, but I've suffering from information overload and I just can't take much input, even good words. So I've trying to slowly pick away at the few I'm too invested to drop like The Odyssey and Undaunted Courage and otherwise, I'm mostly re-reading some Austen. It's always a good time to re-read Austen. It's familiar and comfortable but yet, still fresh and full of surprises. I'll read (or hear) a line and I know I've read it multiples times but this time, it will strike me as worth pondering. I also picked up a Agatha Christie mystery. Agatha Christie is not my favorite mystery writer. Her mysteries are really good but the character's aren't my absolute favorite. But she was prolific and its nice to have a lot of easy options when you are in need of a mystery. And I think this is a good time for a well written mystery for the same reason it's a good time for a re-read. Good quality writing with a assured happy ending is exactly what my brain needs right now!

Listening - Same thing with podcasts. I normally love podcasts for when I'm walking the dog but right now, I'm finding my audiobooks less overwhelming. Again, I'm sticking to Austen. I've got Emma and Pride and Prejudice going! At home, I'm doing more music than normal. Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit has been a delightful find. Although once again my spotify algorithms really want me to like Mumford and Sons and once again - I disappoint them. Alas and alack.

Watching - Okay, well, I did watch Emma. But I won't talk about it yet - I'm saving that for my Classics Challenge post (and if you are keeping track. I did say I would read Sanditon and I did but that show ended up being so bad that I didn't even want it to take up that space in the challenge). But we're also watching other things around here. Craig and I are watching a Great Courses UK Travel show which is keeping our spirits up about (eventually) moving. And the 4th season of Kim's Convience has just dropped on Netflix and if you've never watched it, I'd really encourage you to try it. It's nice to watch something just for laughs theses days.

Cooking - Ugh, too much! I feel like we're baking so much which is enjoyable but I'm struggling with cooking. I've messed up two big meals this week which is pretty rare for me. And by messed up I mean I took a meal to a family that just had a baby (don't worry, we doorbell dashed it) only to try our half at home and realize I left out the salt. Then the next day I cooked a roast. It was an odd recipe in that I was supposed to turn the oven off and not open the door for an hour. Well, with our oven the timer off and the oven off button are the same so I thought I turned it off but had only turned the timer off so it baked an extra hour at 475. That's a lot of extra heat! It was a bit of a tough passover meal but the kids ate lots of hardboiled eggs and matza and it was all good. I'm used to cooking for us multiple times a day but I've always been pretty bad about forgetting random ingredients and needing Craig to stop off at the store so I feel like I'm expending a lot of extra energy to make that not happen and I guess I'm making up for it with forgetting to do things when it comes to the actually cooking?  I'd really like it if everyone could just stop being so hungry for a day or two but since that's not likely to happen, I'm thankful we are trying to eat carry out weekly!

Enjoying - Spring Weather! It makes getting outisde so much more enjoyable. Getting out to walk the dog daily, normally without kids but sometimes with Lucy, is my saving grace these days. Of course, getting the kids out when possible has been nice too but I do so enjoy a little quiet time. And now that we can actually get the kids outside for a couple hour, the house doesn't seem as teeny-tiny as it did a few weeks ago. If we ever do get out of here, I am going to miss that backyard!

Playing - My ukulele. I hadn't been playing as much but its such a happy sound and its a good time for happy sounds so I got the fender free trial and that's motivated to be practice so I've been playing a lot more lately. I still can't really play around the kids because they swarm and want to play and then nobody gets to and Jude is crying because I'm a mean mommy who won't let him have it and that's NOT a happy sound. But I try and sneak in a few minutes here and there when they are playing out back. I also got the kid's set up with Beast Academy Online. They seem to think its a game. It's not a game, its a full math curriculumn. But they love it and ask for it all the time. Which is partly annoying because of previously mentioned nice weather but also quite delightful.

Here we go again!

Gone are my plans of no/very limited school until the move. Lucy finished up the bulk of her exams Tuesday and then both kids did the "dad portion" of exams after dinner last night. He looked over their portolio with exams and samples of their work, they read to him, recited their pieces and we sang our favorite folk song and hymn. Even Norah recited a poem this time. (Ooey Gooey - a classic!)

I'm giving Lucy the rest of the week off but will probably start her last term of Year 4 next week sometime. And Jonah started Year 2 on yesterday. I forgot how much I like year 2 but I'm excited to go through it again.

I'm realizing how nice it is have curriculumn consistentcy now that my second kid is doing a year I'm really familiar with. It makes it so easy to just jump in and go. I had all the books set aside and the schedule printed for the move but even so, I wasn't prepared to start but I realized I didn't really need to be. Last year was also a repeat year for me but as it was Jonah's first year, there was still a learning curve for him when it came to 1) doing school consistently and not just when he wanted and 2)  narration. But now we both know what to expect and the transition these past two days has been seemless. He even liked Little Duke right off the bat!

Year 2 still doesn't take very long and since Lucy's free, we have been taking advantage of some of the many freebies and doing lots of art. It's not that I just want to fill up all their free time but its been rainy and mudy so outdoor time is limited and when I saw this quote in my current read, Undaunted Courage, I couldn't help but replace the words captain/soldier for Mom/kids. It's amazing how many months in the winter wilderness with soldiers isn't that different from social isolation at home with kids. They probably didn't have toilet paper either.

"..because they were good officers who knew for certainty than an idle soldier is a bored soldier heading for trouble"


We've Doodled with Mo.

Sorry for the blurry Jonah...i have more but be's blurry in them too.

Norah's Pigeon climbing a ladder to reach some cookies. 

Her elephant

Jonah's Elephant and (flying) piggie. 

Jude has roseola this week. It was a particular bad case but I'm very thankful for video chat appointments with our family doctor to reassure me that I was doing the right stuff but just needed to wait it out a bit longer. His skin was pretty hot so he took lots of baths and enjoying playing with water even when a full bath was too much. 

Did this always result in a giant mess. Yes. Would it probably have been less messy to just let him take another bath. Yes. But when he's at the sink, I can supervise math. Homeschool life is all about trade offs.

Lucy setting up some independent art.

I made a double batch of soft pretzels. They were delicious but I've got to learn even a double batch doesn't last very long in this house.

 More art - chalk pastels. Otherwise known as the messiest art supply I allow in the house (as opposed to glitter, which I do not). You'd think paint would be messier but somehow the chalk pastel just spreads and turns up later on walls in other rooms. But they love it so it stays. And it does produce pretty results.

Ir probably wouldn't be quite as messy if Jude didn't participate. 

Not shown was puzzles, read-alouds, a bit of mud-pie fun and some backyard basketball, a new batch of playdough, more handicrafts, some band-aids to cover up the wounds from handicrafts (needle felting is not for the fain of heart), an an impromtu St. Patty's day celebratinon. With Jude's roseola hitting a peak on Tuesday, I dropped the ball  but Lucy's picked it up and baked us some delicious Irish Soda bread (and a lot of Irish Soda bread is decidedly NOT delicious) and an aquitance of ours held a streaming irish folk song and folk tale concert that my kids' loved that inspired me to pull out Trial and Triump and read the St. Patrick's day chapter which I had help back for that day. 

 My goodness, has it only been a week?

In all seriousness, we're pretty blessed in that probably 80% of our regular routine is intact. And I hope that doesn't come across as a snarky "welcome to my world, you non-homeschoolers" way. I won't be inserting any memes here. I feel for you families where that is not the case. Yor're not homeschooling after careful delibration and thought and planning and making decisions on what curriculumn will work best for your family. You've been thrown in the deep end. With no warning or choice. And your kids haven't had any warning or choice in it either. 

When a mom (or dad) brings home a kid from school, even under totally normal planned circumstances, the standard advice from most of the moms in my homeschooling circle is to de-school a bit. Breathe, set up a routine, and life life - read, get outside in nature, bake. Don't try to immediately jump in full steam ahead. I know some of you, depending on the school work being sent home and the age of your kids, don't have the option, but if it is an option, I'd take it. And if it isn't, just rest assured that what you're doing is really hard. So be proud of yourself and like I always say JUST KEEP SWIMMING. 

* really, I say it A LOT. It's not as profound as something like "do the next right thing" or other phrases I've seen passed around but it works for me!

The best of plans

I really had hoped to be writing more here but February had us all down the flu which seemed to cause a flare up of my health issues which left me unable to use my hands very much. But now, I'm back and typing! Yay!

We've been trying to wrap up school for the year . My plan was for Jonah to finish year 1 before his trip to Disney World with his grandparents.  Mission #1 - Check!

Looking back on his first year of real school, I'm quite happy. It was a year of tremendous growth for him, both academically and in other ways. He loved exams and it was so fun and encouraging for us to look back over his portfolio together. It took us a little over a year to finish AO Year 1 but he actually did a term of 3.5 with Lucy in the middle and we speed up the last term of year 1 just a but (basically doing 2 readings daily) so I'm excited to start Year 2 with him as I think he is more than ready for the challenge it will bring.

Then while he was gone and last week once he was back, Lucy and I finished up the last couple week of her second term of Year 4.  She started exams today. Mission #2 - Check!

Year 4 scared me because of all the new subjects but she's done so well. She just finished Grammar Island and Practice Island and she'd tell you she is so happy to be done with Grammar until the fall but I've loved the MCT program and really, she does too. I won't do a full exam/term write-up like I normally do but if you go back and find what I said we were starting with, basically we loved it all! No major switches coming up with is lovely.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the kid's efforts with what I gave them. But I want to be real, this term did not end up being all I planned. We didn't do together time basically at all after January. We didn't get to meet up with our other CM family to do things together weekly like we had planned either (I think we met for lessons twice? But maybe only once). I don't feel guilty for that because it couldn't be helped. We were sick. And then as soon as someone recovered, we were sick again. And again. It was ridiculous. I'd say we're past it now but Jude and Norah had fevers this week and this weekend Jude woke up looking like this

It's just roseola. He'll be fine. And I'm not trying to complain because germs happen but we couldn't sing, we couldn't meet, we couldn't recite. So those plans lay in their spots, "Gone but not forgotten is the perfect phrase" springs to mind (the kids have been listening to Mary Poppins Returns lately). So, despite a decent term we didn't do: Swedish Drill, Picture Study, Recitation, the planned handicraft more than twice, over half the planned tea times, map drills. We did listen to the hymns and folk songs but didn't sing much because - voices. And nature study, well, we did one outing. Shocking, I now. And I call myself a Charlotte Mason homeschooler!

So when I pulled up the exams, I ended up having to delete a number of questions and I was so tempted to be discouraged. But I'm not. Education is a Life and we need brain food to sustain that life but it doesn't always have to look the same. When we were sick, I feed our bodies pretty simple. Lots of chicken soup. Fruit and Sandwhiches. More chicken soup. I didn't make big fancy meals - even ones that would have been really healthy and delicious. I wouldn't say that's the idea for every day for one's life but what we ate was nourishing and tasty and sustained us while not depleating me of my tiny remaining energy.

And when we were sick, we used a lot more audiobooks that usual (my kids love Audiobooks for free reads and extra time but I don't normally use them for school books), we cut things that involved sitting up and talking/singing or having people over.

But we did do:

Lots of drawing, mostly from nature guides or non-fiction books.

Poem writing - Lucy entered a local poetry contest - and won! She wrote several before picking this as her favorite. I don't assign creative writing but I do count it as school when it happens spontaneously ;-) She was supposed to read it at a poetry reading but i'm pretty sure that will be canceled.

Half of Hamet - Lucy hates listening to the archangel production that everyone else (including myself) seems to like so we only did it on days when we both coudl talk but hey, we did half of it! And watched select scenes thanks to David Tennant and Youtube.

An art project- We had to cancel on our teacher multiple times but they did get one bigger project completed. And it turned out great.

A trip to the symphony. Luckily this one happened after the flu but before the second round hit us so we could attend. This particular kid's show focused on rhythm and meter and how changing those changed the style of the song. We had just been working on rhytm and meter in our Music of the Hemispheres book which was perfect timing!

And we took exactly one nature trip but at least it was a good one. We went  to the world bird sanctuary and got there just as one on of the workers was starting to feed them. So we followed him around and got to watch all the daytime birds get there meals. He was very gracious to tell us about each one as we went along too. It was one of the few times we saw friends and I got some good pictures but since the friends were in them too, all I'm going to show you is this nice bird. 

We didn't make it far in our handicraft lessons but we did do lots of free time as individuals. Some needle felting. Lucy got a kit but I had some extra roving for Jonah and Norah. 

Jonah actually figured out how to use a cookie cutter as a mold and make solid shapes and taught Norah. I've got a couple needle felting books on hold from the library. It's a lot of fun although a bit challenging when Jude wants to crawl in my lap everytime I look like I'm having fun without him.  

I'm trying my hand at it too.

Soap carving was our planned handicraft. We only did it once with our friends before we all got sick but last week I wasn't feeling good but decided to just give them the book and let them experiement without me and they did pretty well. They made a huge mess and I'm pretty sure Jude tasted the soap several times before giving up on the idea but you can't say it isn't a timely handicraft!

Lucy also did some basketweaving from a kit she got for Christmas. 

So we finish exams tomorrow and the plan all term was to celebrate and have fun -  to not only do the last minute moving prep tasks but to have tons of play dates and time to visit our favorite spots around the city. Of course now that won't be happening. And we aren't quite sure when the move will be happening either. So here I sit, with more plans that will need to be adjusted on the fly. But I'm getting pretty good at that!