Dear friends,

This month, for a special treat, about half of the issue has been written by my 12 year old daughter, Lydia.  She is graciously sharing two writing samples (a creative story and a factual report) from English class last year.  But first, I have a few words of motherly encouragement for my fellow home school moms, and I will also tell about my experiences teaching middle school English in a home school co-op.  

Blessings,

Virginia

In this issue you will find:

♥       “A Little Bit of Motherly Encouragement for the New School Year” by Virginia Knowles 

♥       “Teaching a Middle School English Co-Op Class” by Virginia Knowles 

♥       Introducing Lydia Knowles 

♥       “The Day I Met an Emu -- In the Loo, Not the Zoo” creative story by Lydia Knowles

♥       “The Emu: An Odd Ostrich Cousin” factual report by Lydia Knowles

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A Little Bit of Motherly Encouragement for the New School Year

By Virginia Knowles

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I can’t believe it’s already the beginning of a new school year!  Actually, our family started three weeks ago.  I know some of you are already well into the new year, too!   And, veteran home school mom that I am, I’m guessing that some of you are already getting discouraged. I would just like to comfort you with the fact that you aren’t alone at all! 

It is hard to get going, but it can get easier as the weeks go by if we stick with it and don’t let ourselves get depressed with our circumstances or angry at our kids.  We’ve gotten out of the habit of more formal learning over the summer, and “hitting the books” again takes some discipline.  Maybe you forgot how much time, effort, organization and patience (!) it takes to juggle everything you have to do as a home school mom, such as laundry, dishes, cooking, baby and toddler care, chauffeuring, lesson planning, teaching, grading, and all of those other motherly tasks.   It’s enough to make the head spin!

Now is the time to evaluate your school-year lifestyle, trim out non-essential out-of-the-home activities, eliminate unproductive busy work, turn off the TV and video games during school hours, turn on your phone’s answering machine, learn to delegate household chores to your children (yes, they can do them, and it is a vital part of their life education), and pull together as a family.  Talk to your husband and pick his brain for ideas on what you can do better.  He is not your competition, but your partner!  He knows you and your children better than anyone else does.  My husband Thad has offered all sorts of great advice to me over the years.  Some of it I rejected offhand because I “knew better” – but then I reconsidered it, tried it, and was so blessed by it!  Three cheers for Daddy!

This is also a terrific time to think with your husband about your vision for your children! Why are you doing this in the first place?  What are your brightest goals for them, spiritually, emotionally, academically, and physically?  Aim for it!   For example, if your vision has been to soak up high quality literature and build warm relationships with your kids, then don’t give up cuddling up on the couch with them to read a good book just because there are pages and pages of workbooks calling your name!  First things first!  I find that our days go better with my younger children (ages 10 and down) if I start off with this kind of faith & family learning (reading a short passage from the Bible, singing, and enjoying interesting, character-building books together) before we get to the more formal learning (our co-op homework assignments).

And finally, remember to get refueled continually.  As they say, you can’t serve much from an empty platter!  Don't forget to:

• Take care of your health! Get your sleep, eat nutritiously, and get your exercise.  Try the YMCA!
• Read an inspiring book or magazine article.  My current pick is What is a Family? by Edith Schaeffer.
• Go on a date (or at least a walk around the block) with your hubby.
• Spend some fun time with your kids and/or your own friends.
• Most of all, deepen your relationship with the Gracious God who called you to this adventure in the first place! 

You can do it, you can do it, there is really something to it! (My apologies to Cinderella!)

(Oh, speaking of a date with the husband, our older girls gave Thad an Olive Garden gift card for his birthday last month.  We went out on Thursday night for some much needed husband/wife time.  While eating, he splattered a little bit of red marinara sauce on his light blue shirt, and I gloated that I had worn a burgundy colored shirt for that very reason.  What I forgot is that I had ordered a dish with alfredo sauce, and subsequently landed a huge glob of white sauce on my dark red shirt.  Ha!  Pride goes before a fall!)

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Teaching a Middle School English Co-Op Class

by Virginia Knowles

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Last year, I started teaching a middle school English class and a kindergarten English class at the home school co-op which eight of my children attend.  Our co-op currently has 100 students, in the nursery to high school levels.  We go all day Monday for classes in Math, Social Studies, Science, and English.  Each mom (or dad) is responsible to either teach one class and help in another, or help in three classes.  Our costs are very low; we pay only $7 per week per family, which covers rent (at a church building), photocopying costs, and certain other teacher supplies.

I had a blast teaching both English classes, but especially the middle school one.  My 20 students (who were in 6^th to 8^th grades) seemed to enjoy it, too.  Their social studies class was studying American history, so I chose to cover American literature in chronological order to go along with it.  Our literature selections were:

♥       The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare (Colonial)

♥       Johnny Tremaine by Esther Forbes (Revolution)

♥       Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink (pioneer times)

♥       Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt (Civil War)

♥       Rascal by Sterling North (early 20^th century raccoon tale)

♥       Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor Martin (Civil Rights era)

♥       Three Go Searching by Patricia St. Johns (set in North Africa) 

I wrote most of my own study guides for the literature.  This was time-consuming, but at least it was the way I wanted it.  We also did:

♥       Cozy Grammar DVD (which was OK, but I wouldn’t totally recommend it,  especially since the Canadian terminology was driving us nuts)

♥       spelling (lessons I created)

♥       an on-going unit on Great American Communicators

♥       logic (detecting fallacies)

♥       writing

For our writing segment, we used Write Source 2000 textbook as our main resource.  We didn’t read the whole thing, but I picked out selections which would reinforce the different kinds of writing we were doing.  For our assignments, I chose several different genre of writing: letter writing, personal narratives, creative stories, poems, news writing, factual reports on animals, and persuasive essays (which they later presented to the rest of the class as speeches).

This year, we kicked off our co-op classes on August 6, so we’ve already done three weeks.   We changed our grade level groupings, so this year, I have almost all 7^th and 8^th grade students.  They exceptions are one advanced 6^th grader, and my son Andrew, who is in 5^th grade (more on this later). 

Since the middle school students are also studying world history this year, we are doing world literature to enhance it.  Our novels include:

♥       The Golden Goblet by Eloise Jarvis McGraw (Ancient Egypt)

♥       The Children’s Homer by Padraic Collum (Ancient Greece)

♥       The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare (Ancient Palestine during Roman Empire)

♥       The Hawk that Dare Not Hunt by Day by Scott O’Dell (Reformation)

♥       Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss (1700s shipwreck classic)

♥       Treasures in the Snow by Patricia St. John (Switzerland, forgiveness)

♥       Gladys Aylward biography by Geoff and Janet Benge (missionary to China)

I have been using a packaged study guide for The Golden Goblet, but my students seem to prefer the study guides that I wrote for them last year, so I may go back to that.

We are also using these resources for the other segments of class:

♥       Easy Grammar by Wanda Phillips (I have mixed feelings about this.)

♥       English From the Roots Up by Joegil Lundquist (Greek and Latin root words)

♥       Write Source 2000 (again)

♥       The Young Peacemaker by Corlette Sande. 

The Young Peacemaker curriculum includes a series of 12 workbooks that teach Biblical conflict prevention and resolution, which I consider a vital facet of communication skills.  I am basing many of our writing assignments on our Young Peacemaker lessons to get the maximum impact.  I also intend to tie in the Young Peacemaker concepts to the plots of our literature books.

You may have guessed that reaching the heart is just as important for me as teaching the mechanics of English. I am trying to give my students a vision for a deeper level of learning (and life) than regurgitating facts and diagramming sentences.  I remind them often that the more they read from good quality books with attention to themes and details, the better thinkers and writers they will become. They will be able to draw out life lessons from what they read, too.  The more they discipline themselves to write, the easier it will become.  I know that all of this is a challenge, whether you are teaching it all at home or whether your child is in a class!  In fact, for our first writing assignment this year, I asked each of my students to write me a letter about themselves, their families, and their interests, as well as tell me which areas of English caused them the most trouble and what they wanted to learn this year.  I thought you might like to see snippets of their responses to this last subject…

♥       “What I want to learn is how to write better and read faster.”

♥       “… I always get adverbs and adjectives mixed up and sometimes I do that on a test or a report.”

♥       “This paragraph will be about what causes me trouble in English class, and it is everything except diagramming.” (from a first time home school student)

♥       “I am having a little bit of trouble remembering what I read and the biggest stress I am having would probably be in answering the literature questions….  What I would really like to do in English is read classics like Green Eggs and Ham, Fox in Sox, and maybe even The Foot Book.  Oh, and how about One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish?  That would be the greatest week of my life!” 

♥       “I don’t particularly like writing, but stories are my favorite thing to write.  Comprehension questions sort of stress me out…”

♥       “I am pleased to know that we will be writing stories in your English class.  I like to write stories, as long as I can make them as crazy as I want!”

♥       “Some of the things I struggle with are handwriting and comprehension.  If I work on them a little every day, the Bible says God will bless my diligence.”

♥       “Hmm… In English I expect to learn… ooh, I know, math!”  (That would be my Lydia!)

One last note… In our co-op, parents can opt their children out of various classes.  For example, they aren’t offering Algebra 2 or Anatomy this year, so my daughter Rachel takes a study break during the math and science periods.  After the first week, as I was thinking about how our year was going to go, and what our log jams were going to be, I decided to pull my 10 year old son out of his 5^th/6^th grade English class and put him in mine.  However, I am not going to have him do all of the assignments that the middle school students are doing.  I realized that, based on his learning style and his maturity level, he was not going to survive doing many workbooks and fill-in-the-blank literature study guides this year.   If I forced this on him, we were both going to be very frustrated.  With so many students in the house needing my attention, I don’t have the time or patience for that!  There will be a time for that later on in his school career.  What he really needs now is to have plenty of time to just read, read, read, and write, write, write. We are still going to use the Daily Grams workbook, which is pretty painless, but mainly he will learn punctuation and grammar as we revise and edit his creative stories together.  We’re going to take everything at his pace.  This is the beauty of home schooling!

This is just a taste of what a co-op can do, and what is involved in middle school level English, either at home or in a classroom.  I hope this has been helpful to you!  And now, on to Lydia’s section of this newsletter!

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Introducing Lydia Knowles

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Lydia, my beloved fifth-born daughter, is 12 years old.  She loves to sing, dress up in wacky costumes, and make zany home videos.  Lydia also relishes gourmet cooking, and grows her own green onions in one of our flower patches.  (Green onions are pretty cool – you don’t have to dig them up to harvest them.  You just snip off some of the green stuff and it grows back!)  She also loves to read classic literature, but also likes more modern fare.  She wrote the following two pieces for English class last year when she was in 6^th grade.

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The Day I Met An Emu --

In the Loo, Not the Zoo

by Lydia Knowles (Fall 2006)

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          It was Friday, October the 13^th; and as you know, strange and unlucky things are supposed to happen on Friday the 13^th. Well, that day was strange, but not unlucky -- whoa no. It all started back home in England at our breakfast table.

          “Anne, I think we need a holiday, and this week is just the time to do it because I’m off work,” said Dad determinedly over his newspaper to Mum. Mum readily agreed. Dad had been working a lot lately and looking very tired.

          “We ought to go to the States!” Mum said, “I’ve heard from Mrs. Shirley that Wet ‘N Wild in Orlando, Florida is absolutely divine.” So everything was arranged for our trip. Into our suitcase went water shoes, socks, toothbrushes …  (What did you say? Wearing socks and water shoes to Wet ‘N Wild is absurd?! Of course not! You wouldn’t want your feet to wet and catch your death of cold, would you?). Anyway, we packed up an’ headed right on over by plane. When we arrived, we checked in at our hotel, then drove to a Subway restaurant in our sleek new rental car to get a mite of supper.

          When we pushed the glass doors open, our jaws dropped at the sight of a llloooonnnggg, seemingly never-ending line winding up to the counter. Mum pursed her lips and rubbed her ruby-red purse (she does that when she’s nervous). “We’d better get in line,” she said. Suddenly Baby Barbara burst into a long cry. Mum wheeled Barbara’s stroller over to an Italian-styled dining booth, sighed, and shoved a bottle in Baby Barbara’s mouth.

          I trailed Dad to the end of the line, then went back to tell Mum something. “Mum,” I said. Mum was busy occupying (or at least, trying to) Baby Barbara with a plush elephant. “Mum!” She looked up. 

          “Yes, Looie?” I wrinkled my nose. My name was Lucy and I hated it when she called me that.

          “I have to go to the loo.”

          Mum looked around, then absentmindedly pointed to a hallway. I followed the direction she pointed to and pushed open the heavy wooden door. When I banged open a stall door I could tell it hit something -- and not just any ole’ little child who forgot to lock it. Startled, I scampered self-consciously over to a different stall, but my curiosity got the best of me and I went back. I slowly pushed the aforesaid stall door open and came face-to-face with a just-as-startled, tall, gray feathered, long-necked bird. “It’s…it’s…an emu!” I gasped. What an adorable little bird! It’s eyes twitched at me curiously, and almost helplessly. I cautiously held out my hand. “Here emu, emu. Here boy! C’mon.” The emu stared at me blankly, then, like a cobra rising slowly out of a woven basket, began hissing. Hsss…hssssss….hssssssss…HSSSSSSSSSS!!!! Once again it twitched its red, beady eyes, but this time, with obvious agitation.  A warped, sneeze-like explosion erupted as it lunged at me, its beak snapping ferociously. Now this thing was cute no longer.

          “AAAaaah!!!! Emu! Emu! Dangerous, destructive emu in the loo!” I yelled to warn people as I tore out of the bathroom. I felt everyone’s eyes on me. They were staring  blankly just as the emu had. “It nearly bit my head off! Someone do something!”

          I guess my crazy yelling did not convince anyone, but meekly (probably in order to keep the peace), a Subway employee checked. She popped out of the loo and announced, “I can’t believe this, but there is some weird bird in that bathroom!” I knew what its name was. Just recently we had completed our unit study on large birds. I knew I studied for a reason, I thought, smiling.

          Then the manager went to check and said over the squealing intercom, “Please do not panic, but there is a dangerous emu on the premises. We will block off the restroom door to confine the bird until authorities come and business will go on as usual.” But business did not go on as usual. Little kids were anxious to see it, but were restrained by their just-as-eager (but not admittedly) parents. So everyone waited in suspense for the exciting removal of the emu off of “the premises.” I was over near Mum, Dad and Baby Barbara by that time. Normally, my family would think me joking if I would do such a silly thing as to suggest that I saw an emu in the loo. But since two Subway employees had said so also, they believed it. Olivia, an employee, called the local zoo, the Animal Humane Society, the local police department, and Pest Control. They all said, “Yeah, we’ll be coming over.”

          “Was it furry looking?” Dad inquired of me while spooning baby food into Baby Barbara’s mouth.

          “No! Birds don’t have fur -- they have fea--” 

          Right then a very tall man with big teeth rushed over and interrupted me with a hearty shake to Dad and a rapid, “How do you do?” The man continued with, “Your daughter is the most acclaimed child poet I have ever heard! I’ll give you a contract for her to write several books of poems! Oh, wait ‘til Paris hears of this!” he said excitedly.

          “What? What are you talking about?” Dad sputtered.

          “Oh, that lovely phrase, ‘Emu, emu, dangerous destructive emu in the loo,’ your daughter blurted out. I felt that it came from right--”, he paused, with a meaningful touch to his heart, “here. She’ll be the talk of London! Paris will be raving about her! Oh, world, here comes…” He stopped short his exuberant speech with a, “Madame, pray tell, what is your name?”

          I almost wanted to say “And yours, sir?” but I did not and instead said, “Lucy Levensie.”

          Hearing someone introduce oneself must have reminded him that he had yet to do that very same thing, so he said, “Excuse my manners! I am Alexander Hamilton, famous poet recruiter.”

          I nearly choked from efforts of suppressing my laughter. Here was this weird guy named like the famous signer of America’s Declaration of Independence asking me--yes, me, Lucy Levensie, to write poem books! If only I had the nerve to tell him that poems were my most hated things in the world.

          Olivia motioned Dad over. “Sorry to detain your plans any longer this evening sir, but the Animal Humane Society and Pest Control will be wanting to question your daughter about the emu’s behavior.”

          Dad thanked her, went to Mum, and told her what Olivia had told him. Mum rubbed her purse and sighed. “Well, Looie, we won’t be going to Wet ‘N Wild tonight.”

          I knew she wasn’t saying that it was my fault, no, for it was Fate’s fault. But I couldn’t help feeling bad about it. I squirmed. “Maybe?” I said hopefully.

          So we had to hang around Mr. Hamilton for another approximate 35 minutes --- that’s how long Olivia said it would take for the A.H.S and the P.C to drive over. Yes, we would have to listen to another 35 minutes of his “And oh, it was so beautiful, like a daisy among weeds…..”, “She is going to be the talk of such and such place…”, “And, oh I hope you make the right decision, which would of course, be yes, because I know you will regret it…”, etc.  Mr. Hamilton was a shrewd businessman. I was sure that he had every trick of the trade tucked away in his brain. By the time that a lady for the Animal Humane Society and a man for the Pest Control had come, we were about to say yes, because, of course, it was the right decision. Miss GiGi was the lady from the Animal Humane Society, while Mr. Sanchez was my questioner from Pest Control. They pulled out their notepads and nodded and uum-huum’ed each time I made a reply.

          “Did it do anything strange with its eyes?”

          “Well, its eyes twitched…a lot…and they were really red…”

          “Uum-huum. Just as I thought. Did it make any sound?”

          “It sneezed…or choked or something….”

          “How did it stretch out its neck -- tightly or ---”

          “Real loosely, it sort of wobbled, really,” etc.

          All throughout the questioning I had noticed media trucks pull up and news reporters slip in around us one by one. They then came in a trickling stream, and all of a sudden, there were 15 news reporters huddled around our little group, snapping photos, “unobtrusively” shoving microphones in our face, and video-taping the whole thing. When one reporter got so carried away that he tried sneaking in the bathroom to snap a shot of the alien bird, Mr. Sanchez noticed just in time and rushed over saying, “Whoa man. You are not allowed in there,” and led him away. Fortunately, the police arrived promptly and took charge of the situation. I was done with my questioning from the Animal Humane Society and Pest Control, but now the police wanted to talk to me, too! I was getting really frustrated. Why was there all this fuss about a silly old emu? But I guessed that was how it was in America. Sigh. The police pretty much asked the same questions as I had been asked by Miss GiGi and Mr. Sanchez, and when they were finally done with me, Mr. Hamilton popped right back and continued his eloquent, persuading speech. We were doing our best to slowly back out of the situation and slip into our hotel unnoticed, but that was a challenge, for spectators, police men, reporters, and anyone imaginable were all around us, asking questions and generally being obnoxious.

          Mum lifted Baby Barbara out of her stroller; it’d be best to leave the stroller there to pick it up later than to try to get out of the ruckus wheeling it along. Dad made a plan which he told to Mum and me in whispers, “Okay, we are going slip out one by one to the back door and meet each other at the car outside. Anne, you and the baby go first, then me, then Lucy.”

          Mum slipped away, then Dad, then finally, my turn. My heart thumped as I edged my way out of the crowd which had now turned their attention to the police who started to remove the lady’s loo barriers. When I got past them, I raced through the hallway to the back door. Panting, I found my way to the car and, Oh! Finally I felt the comfort of the leather seats and the fact that we’d be heading on over to a nice, soft bed. See, I told you it was a strange day.

          And oh, here’s an epilogue: The next day, we found out that the officials could not identify the owner of the animal, and they offered it to us! Good grief! But the rest is up to your imagination -- I’m too tired to explain more.

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The Emu: An Odd Ostrich Cousin

By Lydia Knowles

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[Please note that this report is a little less tightly edited than the creative story above…]

          Emus – most people have never heard of them.  In your Microsoft Word or Works documents, it underlines the word in red for misspelling unless you save it to the document dictionary. They belong to the genus Dromaius. Three species of emus are currently living on earth - a couple species of smaller emus died out after European settlement of Australia. Well, this report is written to tell you more about these mostly unknown birds. Okay now, let me introduce you to Ernie the Emu, cousin of the ostriches, and second largest bird in the world. Ernie lives in Australia, as most emus do. Here I go:

          His father and mother started mating in the months of May and June. Ernie was laid (among with many other large, green eggs like himself) by his mother in a ground nest made of bark, grass, sticks, and leaves, constructed by his father. Incubation of little Ernie and pals was masterfully completed by their dear old Dad. It took him around 56 days! They were turned over about ten times a day. Man, talk about commitment! The dad didn’t even stop his job for eating or drinking, unless of course, food or drink was in reach of him.

          When baby Ernie hatched, he was a cute little chick with rad downy feather stripes down his back -- colored white, brown, and black. Standing around 25 centimeters tall, he was mostly protected and taught how to find food by his dad. His eyes were colored brown.  As Ernie grew to a juvenile, his feathers changed to solid chocolatey-brown to black color.

          Ernie became a full grown emu when he was around 12 to 14 months old. Dear old Ernie, he grew so quickly!  Now, he stands about 5 feet tall, and weighs approximately 100 pounds. His round, grayish colored big mid-section is supported by long, skinny legs, which have three-toed feet. Black, curly feathers crawl up his long, skinny neck. A black beak and oval, orange-gold eyes feature his face. Although Ernie has very big wings, he cannot fly. Too bad. But he can swim when necessary.

          Ernie roams around a lot, sometimes in flocks, sometimes not. Woodland habitats are ones he likes best, but he’ll take anywhere as he has to find food.

          Speaking of food, Ernie is a pig! He eats about any edible thing in sight, such as Cassia tree leaves and pods, quangdong fruit, grass shoots, grasshoppers, crickets, ladybugs, caterpillars, larvae, and ants. To get those foods, I guess that he just pecks or pulls with his beak.

          It is not unusual for Ernie to playfully peck at his companions. That shows that he is curious, calm, and friendly. His neck and neck feathers may sometimes raise and he will start hissing at other emus - that is when he gets flared up. To run in a panic, and jump and kick at other emus would show that he might be sick or defective. Ernie is able to make really weird sounds - grunts, booms, and drums. The booms are made by his inflatable neck sack.

          Ernie will live to be around 10 to 20 years old. If he were captive, which he isn’t, he would live longer than those in the wild.

          Strangely enough, there are several reasons that emus like Ernie are farmed – their flesh as meat, their fat for various oils, their skin for leather, and their feathers and eggs for decoration purposes. But mwa ha ha - Ernie shall never end up on someone’s breakfast plate! He did though, have a similarly life-threatening experience. Somehow, he ended up in a Subway restaurant half way across the world. But that, my friends, is a different story.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

American Emu Association. “Judging and Confirmation of Emus.”    

American Emu Association. 8 Feb. 2007. http://www.aea-emu.org/Farmers/Judging_Conformation%20of%20emu.pdf

“Birds, Flightless.” Compton’s Encyclopedia Volume 3. 1994 ed.

“Emu.” Wikipedia. 2007. 8 Feb. 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu

National Geographic Society. Animals of Australia. Washington: National

Geographic Society, 1984

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Well, ladies, that’s all for this issue!  As always, I would love to hear from you what was helpful or not!

Blessings,

Virginia Knowles