It’s not often that I feel like I’m really nailing it in my homeschool. We have lots of very good days, but my eye tends to see lack instead of fulness. So I was pleasantly surprised to hear what Andrew Pudewa says are the two most important pieces in developing readers + writers–reading aloud and memorization. Yep–nailed it! We have a rich read aloud culture here and our learning is soaked in good words.

Morning Time is our favorite way to batch in our homeschool! We begin our day with prayer, sing a hymn and read scripture, then we read a poem.

This is what many would call memory work, but I think of this time more expansively. It’s not quiz material, but rather a liturgy for learning. This is what sets the tone and puts our feet on the path. The goodness comes not in rattling off something for the grandparents, but in actually hearing the scripture day by day. It’s reading the same poem over a month that hides it in our hearts. These good words become a part of us!

How do I chose what we will use? That’s very much connected to the seasons…and to what I want or need to hear just then. I am one of the participants too and these good words do their work on me too. (I have it in mind to share the Morning Time printables that I create each month, but space for that project hasn’t magically materialized.)

This year we are singing hymns from the Trinity Hymnal (with accompaniment from Small Church Music), reading lots of psalms and scripture from the late summer lectionary, and memorizing some Shakespeare, some Frost, some Dickinson, and some Ursula K. LeGuin. I bet I could count on one hand the number of kids learning Ursula’s poems in school, and three of them live at my house.

Yes, this list is very idiosyncratic. This is not the 10 Most Important Things to Memorize. These selections arise organically out of our own family genius! I’d love to hear what you are putting in your heart.

If you are new to The Lazy Genius, here’s the Starter Kit! 20 episodes that will get you energized and moving in the right direction!

And you can find all the posts in this series right here.

Usually I feel like I limp into Easter ready to put Lent behind me. This year feels different. Is it because we have lived a pandemic year? An entire Lenten year. Here are a few resources that I will be using to create a bit of spaciousness in my soul.

Laudate Omnes Gentes by the Taizé Community. This record is on almost every day during Holy Week. We first heard it on Pray As You Go!

Pray as You Go. A reliable guide with wonderful music (usually!). I am excited to try the Saturday Evening Examen–a new feature I think.

Reading the Passion with Albrecht Dürer. This resource was created by our pastor for use durning our Palm Sunday liturgy. It’s a wonderful collection of woodcuts and scripture with a hymn interspersed.

And finally, if you can’t get out to services, you can participate (live or recorded) with St Michael’s. Mabel carried the processional cross on Palm Sunday!

One of my favorite stories from the Desert Fathers is about the disciple who prays and fasts and wonders what more he must do. The abba lifts his hands in prayer. Each finger becomes a flame. He asks, Why not be totally changed into fire?

So Far So Good, Final Poems: 2014-2018 came out earlier this year from the good folks at Copper Canyon Press. The introductory note says that Ursula finished the revised manuscript on January 15, 2019. She would die seven days later. With this collection Ursula has turned into fire.

Each morning before the house wakes, I light candles and brew coffee and approach my notebook first with other people’s poems. I copy out by hand poems I love or want to learn or poems that have happened across my path.

This morning I started at the beginning of So Far So Good with the intention of getting all 66 down by hand.