Kortney Garrison

Homeschooling With Ease

Reading in Quarantine

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Day 73.

Oddly enough, my last post about daily poetry practice was the first day of our family’s quarantine. On March 12, I went to the library and the grocery store–essential services in these parts. Since then, we haven’t ventured far from home.

But we’ve been fine. We have a yard and a small garden, a basketball hoop and a swing, a grill, a hammock, a freezer in the basement, vibrant faith, fine friends, remote work, internet, good health, and deep bookshelves.

Because we homeschool there wasn’t much disruption to our daily routine. We kept on with our school work finishing out our year of Greek Myths and Homer. And of course there were plenty of read-alouds! Here’s what we’ve read during quarantine.

Last Archer and First Fowler by S.D. Smith

The last Green Ember book came out during quarantine. Nicolas and Mabel read and listened to the whole series again and then read the final book, Ember’s End. We read Last Archer and First Fowler aloud together. Last Archer might be my favorite Smith book yet! Now Joseph is listening to Green Ember on audiobook. The entire series is available via Hoopla if your local library subscribes to that service.

Prairie Thief by Melissa Wiley

We listened live to Melissa Wiley read this aloud. What a treat!! Her voices are just out of this world. We first read this in the late Summer that Joseph was born. So it was high time we returned to this gem.

Call of the Wild by Jack London

We went to see Little Women in the theater this Winter. One of the previews was for the new movie version of Call of the Wild starring Harrison Ford. The preview starts with narration by Ford. Joseph leaned over and whispered, That sounds like Old Han! Of course he was right. We liked the book and the movie though they are different creatures.

Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K LeGuin

Andy read this aloud to the kids at bedtime. This is not their first LeGuin. They are big fans of Catwings and the her picture book called Cat Dreams. I’m excited for the kids to read more of the Earthsea books–the later ones are my favorites.

The Pope’s Cat and Margaret’s First Holy Week by Jon M. Sweeney

We read Pope’s Cat on Kindle. That’s been a new addition to our reading scheme. Our library has access to many, many books via Kindle. So we have taken advantage of that resource during quarantine.

Charlatan’s Boy by Jonathan Rogers

This was another read-aloud by the author. I don’t know how much longer these will be available, but it’s so worthwhile. I don’t know if I would have fallen so thoroughly in love with Grady if I didn’t have Jonathan Rogers to read to me.

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Another nighttime read aloud by Andy. So much good discussion came out of this book. I’m glad we have it’s characters and metaphors as a part of our shared vocabulary.

Farmer Giles of Ham by J.R.R. Tolkien

We haven’t read much Tolkien. I much prefer these short, funny novellas to his longer work. I’m working through his introduction to Beowulf on Kindle right now in preparation for our Medieval Studies next year.

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor

I remember finishing this book while on a school trip to a reservoir where we camped and water skied. Our kids may be a little young for this one, but I got it out from the library before quarantine to read myself. And new read-aloud choices are getting thin!

Swallows + Amazons: Secret Water by Arthur Ransome

For many years we have read a Swallows book during the Summer. When we finished Tolkien, we started Ransome though our Summer proper won’t begin until the end of the week. The books are long, but there’s nothing beats these stories of adventure and friendship between siblings. Bridget, the baby called Vicki in the first novels, is old enough to come along this year!

Rikki Tikki Tavi by Rudyard Kipling

We read this in our co-op. Hearing it on audio, I was struck by how absolutely funny the story is. This would be a great story to read outside in the overgrown garden if you happen to have one nearby!

The Children’s Homer by Padraic Colum

This was a part of our ancients study this year. We have one final chapter to read on Tuesday. I love Colum’s work and want to read more. I am a fan of Willy Pogany’s illustrations, but the kids prefer reading along with the graphic novel by Gareth Hinds.

Let Us Remember

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…that we are in the holy presence of God

….that we are dust and to dust returneth

One way to think about the coming season of Lent is that it’s a season of remembering. Remembering that tending what is hidden is holy work, remembering the life and death of Jesus, remembering that his death is not the end of the story.

For a few years, I’ve been using the four-fold image of a compass to help me conceive of practices that will draw me closer and help me remember. Help turn my heart of stone into a heart of flesh. Here’s what I’m contemplating for this year.

North :: Scripture Every Day

I want to read each day’s scripture + reflection in Sacred Space. I have last year’s edition, so I have to juggle the dates. But it still works! Pray As You Go is another excellent way to experience scripture as a touchstone, a way to remember and return to our North Star.

East :: Digital Sabbath

From sundown on Saturday to sundown on Sunday, I want to have my computer and phone turned off. This is going to be the most disruptive practice! I use Sunday afternoons to both work on lesson plans for the coming week + to listen to lectures in my poetry class. Of course these good uses of technology tend to slip into mindless scrolling, and that’s the opposite of remembering. I’ll have to find alternate places for this work to live, and I don’t know where that’s going to be yet.

South :: Meatless Fridays

Mostly I’ll need to rethink lunches and make sure that we have meatless options. We eat beans + rice every week already, but I’m moving them to Fridays so that we can be more mindful of this choice.

West : Sacred Reading

Along with a class on formal poetry with Sally Thomas and monthly workshops with Holly Wren Spaulding, I stumbled into a wonderful Shakespeare class at Schole Sisters taught by Kelly Cumbee. It’s weaving together a few different strands of study for me–fairy tales, Greek myths, as well as some Lewis + Tolkien lectures. You can listen to interviews at Schole Sisters and The Literary Life podcasts to get a taste of Kelly’s gentle, erudite teaching.

My work as a poet + home educator is my vocation, part of my path to Heaven. Learning myself and being a lively guide for my children are spiritual pursuits at heart. Through them I am being renewed and transformed. Attending to them in a focused way helps me remember.

If you’d like to read a few more simple ideas that will help you keep Lent with your family, I’d love to send you my ebook called Observing Lent with Our Families. Just click here to enter your email, and I’ll send it right over!

Memorizing Poetry

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Sally Thomas turned my mind to memorization again. It’s a big part of our everyday learning together.

Billy Collins says that one of the high points of his teaching career was when a stranger approached him on the subway. The man recognized him; Collins had been his teacher years before. One of the assignments had been to memorize a poem. And the man recited the poem right there on the train.

After all the intervening years, the poem wasn’t lost. It was “carried in his head, and maybe in his heart.”

That’s really what we’re after! Not word perfect memorization but hiding good words in our hearts. This year we’ve been learning real poems. Not poems written for children: Auden, Milton, Donne, Frost, Yeats. There’s no reason to spend time with less.

The point is not to make sure we drill some list of classic poems into our kids. It’s to listen carefully each day to the rhythm and words, to quiet our hearts and enter the liminal world of the poem, to let it do it’s work on us.

The point is the poetry.

Prayers at the Beginning of School

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Joyful Mystery #2: Visitation

Joyful Mystery #2: Visitation by James B. Janknegt

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.

And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.

Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.

—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

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