Lepanto Resources

Update: I wrote a study guide for The Blood Red Crescent.

Since I have been reading The Blood Red Crescent to Kieron and Paddy and Aidan, I compiled a few resources on the Battle of Lepanto from online resources.

Here's a Google Doc just listing the links: Lepanto.

Here is a PDF: Lepanto. The packet contains the actual text of the bulk of the resources. Most of them are Baldwin Project tales in public domain. I noticed a couple of typos after the fact, but there it is.

I was going to make an activity sheet or study guide to go along with it, but I didn't have time/couldn't make myself do it since we usually free-wheel for our literature units. Maybe next time, or maybe I will try to reconstruct after the fact --we should finish the book today or Monday, I think. I have some ideas for ways to do this that don't make me feel claustrophobic ;-), but we'll have to see if I can translate the ideas from head to paper.

Here's another neat picture with a Catholic perspective, at Salve Regina. The one above is from the Vatican archives.

Day Zero

Besides this, and a phonics lesson with Aidan, we mainly did this:

Kieron made the cookies















Paddy liked them















Then Aidan and Paddy had to make their own "peanut butter cookies" (they like rolling them into little balls, and pressing them with the fork.
























In the evening, we went to Mass for the Feast of the Assumption. What we did was drive to the high school to pick up the last bit of Sean's football practice, then drove to the church early and sat around on the swings having quite a nice family conversation. Sean was starving -- I hadn't brought much for him to snack on because I thought it would be too late for him to eat and still receive communion. In fact, he did have time, but had to settle for water and half a granola bar.

So this ended the first week of Sean's school. And I am calling this Day Zero, because we did get a homeschool start.... sort of... and Monday we'll start properly.

The cookies are a tradition. Maybe we'll make some more, on Monday.

Day 20!! and progress

Sean, age 14, didn't do Latin today. He is on exercise 23 of Henle.
He did Jacob's Algebra chapter 2 lesson 4 which brings him up to direct variations -- a bit slow today because of pain due to activity level yesterday.
He did Greek and Vocabulary. I told him there would be a quiz on Monday for vocabulary/spelling.
I gave him Lord of the World by Msr Benson, Mere Christianity by CS Lewis, and Lamb's Shakespeare to start reading.

Earlier this week he read some of the Earth Science text and Creator and Creation. It is still a light schedule but covered most of the bases.
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Kieron, age 11, did Latin -- up to exercise 13, the second declension. Did well.
Hasn't done math yet since yesterday. I also want him to do some more of his Italics handwriting.
He has finished reading: Amazing Poisonous Animals, Lost Wreck of the Isis, and More Once Upon a Time Saints. Does he retain it by reading so fast? This is an open question, but I do think kids get some below-the-surface retention and understanding when they are reading a book that's digestible enough to be interesting to them -- and he was interested, because I did not assign him that much reading.

I gave him Howard Pyle's King Arthur.
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This afternoon we have Homeschool Stations of the Cross -- Aidan has a cold and apparently doesn't want to go -- at least, so he keeps telling me. I haven't done much academic work with the littlies today but they did have a full, rich day yesterday and Paddy is playing productively today.

Sean is going to the JV and varsity football with his Dad this evening.

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We're a "month" through! In light of that, next week I'm going to try to incorporate just a bit of review and variety in Latin, especially, and perhaps in Math and Greek. The humanities are already pretty varied and not too challenging. I do want to start a sheet of things to review and reinforce for their reading -- either by finding a similar book to read, or by a notebook page, or by index cards..... that's on my list of things to think about this weekend.

I would like to introduce copywork and composition next week, and continue presenting materials for the younger ones to work on, and also introduce some religion and liturgical year stuff for the preschoolers. There is this homemade book for prayers and this religious scrapbook for little children.

Also, Aidan loves flags so much I'm going to look for some nice flag flashcards for him.

CTB's account of the Pirate Day.

Aidan just said, "I'm sneezing to Beetlevan!" (I think he meant "to beat the band!" LOL)

Catholic Teen Booklist

I wanted to make a note of Love2LearnMom's Teen Discussion reading list.

Some of these may be useful for Sean's reading this year.