Whatever is Lovely: Nature Study

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." Philippians 4:8

If you've been following this series, you know that Whatever is Lovely has turned out to be a very broad category! I'm glad to finish it up with this post on Nature Study. After this post, I'll be moving on to the next part of the Home Library Builders series, Whatever is Admirable: The Classics.

Every home library should have a significant section devoted to nature study. Time spent outdoors, admiring and observing God's creation, will shape a child's soul. We read in Romans 1: 20 "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."
As our children are learning about the God of Creation through the Bible, let them also learn about God's creation--and thereby more about the nature of the Creator Himself--through time spent outdoors.

The Nature Study library should have books and field guides to help us identify and learn more about what we find outdoors. It should also have Living Books which inspire the imagination and increase love for God and His world. Also, good biographies about famous naturalists belong on our shelves, as they help us gain insight into how man can be faithful in his dominion over the earth.

One must be cautious in purchasing books for a Nature Study library. Many science books are overtly or subtly evolutionary in nature. As a Christian creationist, I don't believe that evolutionary books have a place on my shelves. I prefer to save the teaching of evolution for my older children, when it can be compared side by side alongside creation, in order to teach them what we believe and why, as well as how to defend their beliefs in our secular society. I don't want to always have to pause as I am reading to my younger children to refute claims about evolution. For this reason, I am careful when purchasing books to choose titles that have no bias whatsoever, or books which have been written from a Christian creationist worldview.

I am also cautious about the tone of my books. Many modern-day children's books have such a strong conservation message that they seem to place the creation above man. I am teaching my children to protect the environment, as this is our responsibility in exercising dominion over the earth. But many nature books go much further than this, causing feelings of guilt and fear that seem to me to have a political agenda more than anything. Typically the older classics don't have this tone, but many secular science books written for children in the last ten years do.

One book that belongs on any nature-lover's shelf is Anna Botsford Comstock's Handbook of Nature Study.
We have had this book for many years, and it has served us faithfully on many occasions. When we caught a praying mantis, this book told us what to feed it. When we see an insect we don't recognize, there are copious drawings to help us make an identification.

A kind reader commented that she likes my digressions. Please allow me a rabbit trail...A simple way to do Nature Study is to take a leisurely walk outside in the yard or at the park. Let the children find whatever draws their interest: insects, pine cones, flowers, interesting leaves, a bird perched in a tree, or anything in nature that captivates their attention. Spend some time observing what you find. Use a field guide or the internet to learn a bit about what you've found. Take a few minutes and let the children draw what they see, to the best of their ability. They can write or dictate a few notes about what they learned, or copy an appropriate poem, hymn, or Scripture verse alongside their drawing.

This kind of nature study can be done in as little as an hour a week, but the memories--and the nature notebook--will be treasured for years to come. For some inspiration about how an hour spent observing nature can yield rich conversation, humorous memories and an opportunity to disciple your children, read this post, written last year after our evening spent watching a lunar eclipse.

Many times these opportunities are seized, spur of the moment, when the children find something while playing in the yard. If you plan a few outings to observe nature with your children, you may find that they begin to spontaneously find things to observe as they begin to notice the world around them more and more.

Back to books! It is always fun to browse what others have done in their nature notebooks. I was blessed to find a copy of Edith Holden's The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady
at a London thrift store (for a quarter)! It never ceases to amaze me the treasures that unknowing people throw away. If you've read the Charlotte Mason Companion, you know what a find this was.

Ms. Holden kept her journal month-by-month, with watercolor drawings of the birds, flowers and plants she saw on her nature walks. There are also poems and related folklore for each month. This is the type of nature journaling that appeals to me, where drawings and related text are combined. When we kept nature journals I liked to have the children copy poems, hymns or pertinent Scripture verses alongside their drawings. I found a few copies of Holden's book available online, used, for $6 here, and many public libraries also keep this classic on the shelves.

You can also find good ideas for nature journaling, and ideas for teaching children how to journal, in the book Keeping a Nature Journal by Leslie and Roth.

One resource that is helpful in teaching simple drawing techniques is Mona Brookes' Drawing With Children. A couple of hours spent with this book will pay off with much more realistic nature drawings.

We have kept nature journals in the past, but this year my middle boys are keeping a notebook of their favorite birds. We have been using the North American Birds Notebooking Pages in the boys' birding journals. We like the pages with a small thumbnail drawing of the bird, a blank range map, and a few lines for jotting down notes. The boys consult a field guide to color in the bird correctly, and they color the range map to reflect where the bird spends its summer and winter. Then they dictate information, such as when they first spotted that bird in the wild or an interesting fact they have learned about the bird. We keep these pages in page protectors in a 3-ring binder, with a free-hand drawing of the same bird on the facing page. They are also working on getting digital photos of birds that come to our feeder, with the goal of adding some photos to their notebook.

My boys have loved this project and they take great pride in their notebook. It is helpful to have some good field guides on hand when doing nature study. We absolutely love Kenn Kaufman's Field Guide to the Birds of North America. I would love to get Kaufman's Butterfly guide titled Butterflies of North America, as well. It's on my Nature study wish list! The First Field Guide series put out by National Audubon society is a good one for kids.

We also love using Living Books for nature study. A Living Book is one that is written by a single author (not a textbook) in a captivating, conversational style. The book draws you in through its story and helps you to remember what you've learned.

Here are some of my favorite Living Books for Nature study:

We love the art book Linnea in Monet's Garden, so I was thrilled to find Linnea's Almanac and Linnea's Windowsill Garden, both by Cristina Bjork.

Citizen Bird by Mabel Osgood Wright, which is out of print but available for free download by the Gutenberg Project.

Minn of the Mississippi and all the other Holling C. Holling books are wonderful. Each book has detailed drawings alongside an excellent story, weaving history, science and geography seamlessly together.

I do Naturalist studies with my children, similar to our Artist studies and Composer studies. I like picture books that introduce children to conservationists and naturalists, such as Audubon: Painter of Birds in the Wild Frontier and John Muir: America's First Environmentalist.

Nature study books are perfect for emerging readers. These are books that my children can read aloud to me, or silently to themselves to improve reading skills. I use easy readers such as John Muir: Rookie Biography for emerging readers,
Christian Liberty Press Nature Readers (graded readers, progressing from level to level) and books from the Childhood of Famous Americans (titles on Muir and Audubon) for 3rd and 4th grade level readers.

I have not personally read The Boy Who Drew Birds or Into the Woods: John James Audubon Lives His Dream, but I'm planning to get them through Inter Library Loan. Others that I haven't read, but which look interesting to me, include Gregor Mendel: The Friar who Grew Peas, John Muir: My Life With Nature, The Flower Hunter and Girls Who Looked Under Rocks: The Lives of Six Pioneering Naturalists (which includes a chapter about Anna Botsford Comstock).

Ancient Greek Feast

We finished our study of Ancient Greece this week with an Ancient Greek Feast. This year we are trying something new, and holding a feast for each major country we study. It has been so much fun, and the kids thought tonight was the best yet! Why did I decide to begin holding feasts this year? For the answer, read Bring Your A Game on my Counter-cultural Mom blog.

Our Table
My oldest son suggested we eat on a triclinium table. Greeks, Romans, and Jews during Jesus' time all ate at triclinium tables. These tables were three-sided, with the fourth side open. They were usually low to the ground and diners reclined, as on a couch, with their head toward the table.

We "built" our triclinium table using the leaves for our dining room and kitchen tables. We surrounded the "table" with couch cushions. I would recommend using cushions from an old couch, like we did. If you don't have an old couch you might want to cover the couch with beach towels. There were several spills tonight, as no one was used to reclining while eating!

Simple Costumes
We made simple, inexpensive Greek chiton robes to wear. I used the same two white thrift store sheets that I constructed our Egyptian Feast costumes from earlier this year. I had cut those two sheets into six pieces (kilts for dad and the boys and a simple dress for me).

You know I'm all about keeping it quick and easy! My dress didn't really need to be altered at all (see the Egyptian post for no-sew instructions as to how I made it).

For the boys, I took their portion of the sheet and folded it in half. I cut a hole out for their head and they slipped it on. Then I cut two holes for arms and presto! We were done. I'll adapt these same pieces of sheet for our Roman togas in a few weeks when we do our Roman feast! I've gotten a lot of mileage this year from two cheap thrift store sheets!

Our Personas
Each boy wanted to be a different person that we studied. Our feast was quite the Who's Who event, as we had Archimedes, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Alexander the Great all in attendance. We read that women weren't allowed to publish written works in ancient Greece, so they often did so under the name "Anonymous". Women weren't allowed to eat with men, either. So I went by the name Anonymous tonight, and joined the feast! The boys thought it was a clever way around the problem.

Anonymous is having fun, while Plato is deep in philosophical thought.

I was hoping to have a Socratic Method Discussion during our meal, but that was an unrealistic goal. We had lots of fun, laughing and joking and enjoying the food. Our reading indicated that we were supposed to each take a piece of bread and dip it in our "wine" (sparkling grape juice) before starting the feast, but we forgot. Everyone was too eager to dive in and try the lamb!

See my post Recipes for the Greek Feast for our menu!

I got out the pattern blocks a couple weeks ago. The younger boys have loved playing with them while we read!

Recipes for the Greek Feast

We had our Ancient Greek Feast this weekend! Here is our menu and the recipes we used.

Menu:
*Dried apricots and dates
*Olives (Kalamata, black and green olives)
*Green and red grapes
*Cheese tray with herbed goat cheese, Greek Feta cheese, Pita bread slices, and toast-crackers
*Marinated, grilled leg of lamb with Tzatziki sauce
*Greek salad
*Baklava
*Sparkling Red Grape Juice

Shopping Instructions:
Many grocery stores do not sell lamb. I initially planned to do Lamb Chops, but they cost $22 a pound here! So I quickly decided a leg of lamb was a more economical choice. I found this frozen at a specialty butcher. Publix also had several cuts of lamb available. The cheeses were found in the deli section of my normal grocery store.

The dried fruit, grapes, olives, cheeses, bread and crackers required no preparation. Just plate and serve.

Recipes:
This feast was delicious and we all thoroughly enjoyed it! It isn't hard to make this food, but several of the dishes need some advanced preparation. I would recommend reading instructions for all the recipes before you begin, so that you know which steps need to be done in advance. For example, you'll want to make the lamb marinade in advance so that the lamb has time to soak up the flavors. While the lamb sits in the marinade you can move on to the Tzatziki sauce, which also has a few steps.

Here are the recipes for our Ancient Greek Feast. Enjoy!
I found this recipe on Epicurious.

Marinated Grilled Leg of Lamb
6 lb. boneless leg of lamb
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup lemon juice, preferably fresh
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp. dried oregano

Mix everything together. Pour into a ziploc bag and marinate the lamb for at least an hour or up to 8 hours in the refrigerator. Allow the lamb to sit in the marinade at room temperature for about an hour before grilling. I followed the grilling instructions found here. We have never made lamb at home before, but it turned out fantastic!

Tzatziki sauce

We love this sauce, typically served on Gyros. We ate it with the lamb tonight. Yummy! I found this recipe on the internet, as well.

Ingredients:
* 1 (8 ounce) container plain yogurt (Preferably Greek yogurt or Fage)
* 1 cucumber, peeled and grated
* 1 tablespoon olive oil
* 1/4 lemon, juiced and zest
* 1-1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh dill
* 1-1/2 cloves garlic, peeled
* 5 Mint Leaves, chopped fine
* Salt and Pepper to taste

There are two initial steps which MUST be done before making the Tzatziki sauce. First, if you don't have the Greek yogurt, you'll need to drain the extra water out. Lay a piece of cheesecloth inside a colander (or use a very fine strainer). Pour the yogurt in and allow it to sit in the strainer (over a bowl or in the sink) for at least an hour so that the extra water drains out. If you have time, and can allow it to drain over a bowl in the refrigerator overnight, that is even better.

*I love Greek style yogurt, and use this method frequently.

Second, the cucumber will also have to be drained. Peel it, and then grate it with a box grater or in a food processor with a grater blade. Scoop up the grated cucumber and place it in some cheesecloth. Squeeze out as much juice as you can and discard the juice. Without these two important steps, your Tzatziki sauce will be really soupy.

You can see in this photo how much juice I was able to squeeze from one cucumber!

Once the yogurt is the right consistency and the cucumber has been squeezed out, combine all ingredients (listed above) in a large bowl, stirring gently to combine. Enjoy!

Authentic Greek Salad

Ingredients:
2 large cucumbers
4 large tomatoes
1/2 large red onion
12 kalamata olives
1/4 to 1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper and red wine vinegar for the dressing

Peel, seed and dice 2 large cucumbers and place in a large bowl. Chop the tomatoes and thinly slice the red onion. Add to the cucumber and stir to combine. Slice the olives and crumble the feta cheese into the salad. Drizzle with the extra virgin olive oil and the red wine vinegar and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Toss to combine.

Baklava
This is an authentic Greek treat, but my recipe is actually from Iraq. This recipe was shared with us by dear friends and it is, truly, the best Baklava EVER! The cardamon is the secret and necessary ingredient. It is expensive, so I normally only make these decadent treats at Christmastime.

1 package Fillo dough, (usually in the frozen fruit section at the grocery store)
9 oz. walnuts, ground
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp. cardamon
2 sticks butter
1/2 bottle clear Karo corn syrup

Filling:
Freshness is key in this simple cookie. I prefer to buy whole walnuts and grind them in my food processor, and to get fresh cardamon, if possible.

Combine the ground walnuts, sugar and cardamon and set aside.
Thaw Fillo dough for 8 hours in the refrigerator and 4 hours at room temperature if you can. This makes it easier to work with. If you don't have time, I have used the dough after it has set at room temperature for just 30 minutes. It tends to break more easily, but that doesn't really matter with this dough.

Lay out half a package of Fillo dough, layer by layer, into an 18 x 14 cookie sheet. This dough is very forgiving, so it does not matter if it rips or tears. Just place the sheets into the pan, one at a time. It doesn't matter if a sheet is ripped into 3 or 4 pieces, just lay it out onto the pan. What DOES matter is that you place the layers one sheet at a time, not all in a stack. Don't allow the dough to overlap the edge of the pan. Fold edges in if you need to.

Pour the filling over this crust layer, spreading with a spoon so that it entirely covers the Fillo dough.

Place the other half package of Fillo dough over the top of this filling, working with it in the same way as you did before.

Melt the two sticks of butter and pour them evenly over the top of the baklava. Pull some of the fillo away from the sides of the pan so that butter can get down between the dough and the pan on all sides. Use a spoon or your fingers, if you need to, to ensure that all the dough is covered evenly with melted butter.


Take a sharp knife and cut the baklava into diamond shaped cookies. To make a diamond shape, bring the knife straight down in rows from left to right across the pan. Then cut in a diagonal pattern to reveal the diamond shaped cookies. This recipe makes around 50 cookies. They are rich, so don't make them too big.

Bake at 350 for 25 to 40 minutes, or until the top is golden brown.

Allow to cool. Re-cut the diamonds.

Drizzle with the half bottle of Karo clear corn syrup and serve. These treats are best fresh. They will taste their very best the day they are made and good for a couple more days after. Over time, they begin to dry out and do not taste nearly as yummy, so these should ideally be made the day of your feast.

Whatever is Lovely: Poetry, Shakespeare and Charles Dickens

This post in the Home library builders series continues the theme Whatever is Lovely, looking at Poetry, Shakespeare and Charles Dickens.

I enjoy reading poetry with my children! It is one of those things that I haven't been able to work into our normal daily schedule, so we try to take time once or twice a year to do it as a mini-unit. Sometimes we choose a particular poet, like Robert Frost, and read some of his works. Other times, we just flip through one of our anthologies and read whatever strikes us.

For my young children, poetry is mainly about listening and learning to enjoy. They are not required to write poems yet. I'd like to investigate Andrew Pudewa's Developing Linguistic Patterns through Poetry Memorization for possible future use in our homeschool. I just heard about it and it looks wonderful! If anyone has used this, send me a comment about how you liked it.

All of my children have loved A.A. Milne's poems. His books Now We Are Six and When We Were Very Young belong on every child's bookshelf. We have them on tape, as well, read by Charles Kurault. The children have memorized many of these delightful poems just by listening in the car or at bedtime. As an added bonus, these are poems adults will also love. I never mind reading or listening to them. It is worth searching for the version recorded by Charles Kurault.

By the way, when you hear the same poems over and over again, especially as a family, the wording becomes a part of your vocabulary. We often find ourselves quoting from some of these A.A. Milne poems, and everyone knows exactly what is meant. If my oldest son wants something and he knows it is costing me a bit of time or trouble, he sheepishly smiles and quotes from The King's Breakfast, "Nobody, my darling, could call me a fussy man, but I do like a little bit of butter to my bread!" He is instantly understood.

Another of our favorite poets is Carl Sandburg. From Daybreak to Goodnight has folk art drawings and some humorous poems for children. As an aside, we also like Sandburg's prose. He is most famous for his Rootabaga stories, but our favorite is The Wedding Procession of the Rag Doll and the Broom Handle, and Who Was In It is still available here for $6. Poetry for Young People is also a good series. It is inexpensive and has many titles, each dedicated to a different poet.

Last year our oldest son used Matt Whittling's book The Grammar of Poetry in this endeavor. The idea behind the book is to learn about different rhyme schemes and meter, alliteration and personification and then to write your own poem using what you've learned. There are also examples of famous poems included in the book.

He enjoyed doing a unit on poetry, but I think this book would be better for a slightly older child. I plan to revisit it again in eighth grade, as there is a lot of great content in the book. Last year, though, I felt that in some cases he "lost the forest for the trees". He was so focused on getting the right number of weak and strong stresses into his poem, rather than just listening to the musical rhythm and letting it flow. So this year I am keeping it simple.

This year we are taking a break from marking stress symbols, and figuring out how many feet there are in a line of poetry. Instead, we take about five minutes before his writing time and go over one element of poetry. It has been helpful to solidify what he learned last year in the Grammar of Poetry book, without devoting time to go over all of it again in detail.

We talk about the components of a limerick or a haiku or how to do an ABAB CDCD rhyme scheme. I try to pull an example or two from the internet or from our Top 500 Poems anthology, which was so generously sent to me by a CC School blog reader after she saw my Wish List post! Then he applies what he learned by brainstorming and writing his own poem, often on a history topic that we are studying. Today, for example, he wrote a limerick about Alexander the Great. Last week he wrote an excellent poem about the Battle of Thermopylae.

Today I had my eight year old sit with me while I casually flipped through the 500 Poems anthology. My goal was not poetry reading at all, truth be told. I wanted to see how his tracking was, as he sometimes skips lines while reading. A friend told me to have him read aloud the first and last letters in each line of a poem, and see if he skipped any lines. We did this as kind of a game, and I read the selected poems aloud before he told me the letters.

I was stunned when this reluctant reader insisted on trying to read each of the chosen poems to himself. This child never picks up a book unless directed to do so, and there he was, nose buried in one of the thickest books in the house! I can only speculate that the short lines, wide margins and rhyme patterns made the reading seem easier to him. I plan to investigate this in the days to come. I'll let you know if I find poetry helps this emerging reader gain confidence and desire to read alone!

Many families following a Charlotte Mason approach study Shakespeare every year. We use the Classical Method, and have only studied Shakespeare once every four years. My children do enjoy listening to Lamb's Tales from Shakespeareon MP3 from time to time. We also have a print copy ofLamb's Tales from Shakespeare, as this is a recommended version for children.

I have read that the Lamb's Tales is easier for children to follow than Beautiful Stories for Children from Shakespeare by Edith Nesbit, but the Nesbit version is still my favorite. There are many editions of Nesbit's classic. This version (published by Barnes and Noble), is my favorite! Every page has a beautiful detailed border, with classic period illustrations throughout.  My favorite illustrated version is out of print, however.  Because I love it so much, I've made this book one of the unblocked titles on My Audio School.  Even though we only study Shakespeare once every 4 years, we still listen to this book of Shakespeare stories about once a year, just for fun.

I confess, I love this book so much that when I found out it was discontinued, I bought every copy I could scrounge on clearance (going from store to store in my quest) so that they could be distributed to worthy friends who would recognize what a treasure they held! So take a minute:  head over to My Audio School and bookmark Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare for Children.  You and your kids will really enjoy it.

Of course, it is important to learn about Shakespeare, as well. My young children like this book
William Shakespeare and the Globe Theater by Aliki.

My oldest son foundThe Shakespeare Stealer Series by Gary Blackwood to be exciting reading. This historical fiction book follows an orphan-turned-actor in his adventures as part of Will Shakespeare's acting troupe, navigating intrigue and betrayal in Elizabethan London.

Charles Dickens is, of course, another author which deserves his place in every home library. His books pit good against evil in sharp contrast, and his phrasing is masterful. We read A Christmas Carol every year at Christmas, and attend a theatrical performance, as well. We also enjoy the Focus on the Family Radio Theater version, available here for free. My oldest son read Oliver Twist, and I look forward to introducing him to more Charles Dickens as he gets older. Netflix has several Dickens movies, including some that can be streamed online. Preview, if you have young children. Many of Dickens' novels deal with young children being harshly treated, and some scenes would be unsettling for young viewers. For young children, I recommend the picture-book biography about Dickens,
Charles Dickens: The Man Who Had Great Expectations by Diane Stanley and Peter Vennema.

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." Philippians 4:8

Kreativ Blogger

Debbie at Debbie's Digest gave me this Kreativ Blogger award. Thanks, Debbie! That is so kind of you. One of the nicest things about blogging is getting to "know" so many great people!

Whatever is Lovely: Music appreciation

Recently I attended a concert and heard an incredibly gifted singer. I left the concert feeling inspired. I could never sing like she does. But it was an amazing experience to listen to someone who was both extremely talented and committed to working hard to develop her talent to the utmost of her ability.

I walked out of the concert hall feeling that whatever I do, I must do it with all my strength. Her excellency inspired in me a desire to be excellent in my own sphere.

This is just one reason why all children, regardless of ability, should be exposed to the arts. There is something in our hearts which thrills when we see or hear something lovely. The great masters like Bach and Chopin produced music that was beautiful and complex. Most of the modern music one hears on the radio (even Christian radio!) is not, strictly speaking, excellent from a musical standpoint.

Our children will benefit from learning to enjoy classical music. If they have been raised on a diet lacking in the classics, it may take awhile to develop their palate. You might begin with something like Peter and the Wolf. Read the story and then listen to the music. See if the children can imagine what is happening as they listen. Later, you can choose something like Carnival of the Animals, perhaps encouraging them to draw a picture of what they are listening to.

Like picture study, it can be beneficial to organize the works you study by composer, choosing one composer per quarter and thereby learning to recognize and enjoy several works from four different composers each year. Try to find a quiet time during the week when you can listen. My children enjoy listening to classical music as they are falling asleep.

It is also helpful to take time for directed listening, when you can tell them the name of the composer and the piece being listened to. Afterward, the children can share how the piece made them feel, if they heard any particular instruments, if they liked the song, or if they imagined anything while they were listening. You can listen to lots of classical music for free on your computer. Try Classic Cat for over 5,000 free selections.

If you just want a broad overview of a particular time period, you might try Classical Archives. They are offering four free "one-click concerts" from the Baroque period, the Classical Period, the Romantic Period or the Modern Period. Each concert has about two hours of music selected from the best of the genre.

The most important part of music appreciation is, of course, the music. Don't spend so much time reading about composers that there is never time to listen to any of their works! Nevertheless, it is good to take time to learn something about their lives. Avoid or censor books like Krull's Lives of the Musicians. Children don't need to know the unsavory details of a musician's life to appreciate their music. In fact, that kind of information causes me to appreciate it less!

We enjoy uplifting biographies which help us to know something about how their lives were shaped or the motivation behind various works. If a biography tells my children how hard these musicians had to work to become truly excellent, that is even better!

I do not own any of the Opal Wheeler musician biographies, but I have heard they are good and they are on my wish list. We enjoy The Farewell Symphony by Anna Harwell Celenza. Her books come with a CD of the song, which is a nice addition.

We usually listen to books on tape in the car. I like the Classical Kids series for this, such as Beethoven lives upstairs and Mozart's Magic Fantasy. These tales are one part history, three parts engaging story, with some of the composer's best music showcased throughout.

My kids enjoy the cartoons and humorous quips in the Getting to Know the World's Best Composers series by Mike Venezia.

I also look at garage sales and thrift stores for children's classics videos with the musical score and some semblance of the story line intact. Often you can also find inexpensive classics compilations on CD. I prefer the ones that devote an entire CD to one composer, rather than mixing them, as it better facilitates the idea of learning one composer at a time.

If you are nostalgic and love the way the classics sound on old records, you might check out Kiddie Records Weekly. You can download the files or stream them straight from the computer, all for free. They have The Nutcracker Suite, Capital Music Appreciation Singles (which includes Peer Gynt Suites, Waltz of the Flowers, and Swan Lake), Peter and the Wolf and Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado, in addition to some other music appreciation titles. Take a few minutes to browse this wonderful site. They've got Five in a Row titles The Carrot Seed and Madeline,
and so many children's classics you won't believe it!

The next post in this Home Library Builders series will continue with the theme Whatever is Lovely, touching on Poetry, Shakespeare and Charles Dickens.

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." Philippians 4:8

Feast of Booths

We are reading through the book of Nehemiah right now. Today we read about how the people had quit celebrating the Feast of Booths (or Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkot), which God put into place as a yearly reminder of how they had wandered in the wilderness for 40 years after the Exodus.

Today's "feast" was very simple. The kids made two sukkahs (booths) in the basement out of blankets and tables and couch cushions.




They dressed in their best Jewish garb and hid in their booths while I was making lunch. When I brought their feast down, they all jumped out at me and scared me!

They ate their feast (ham and cheese sandwiches, apple slices and water) in their booths, and had a great time!

We were so encouraged by our family devotions today! For a look at how the Lord spoke to us, check out the post on Counter-cultural mom blog.