Middle Ages Logic Stage Lesson 11: Shakespeare

I’m in my second trimester now and have resumed work on literature for Logic Stage Middle Ages.  This lesson assigns King Richard the Second, *King Henry IV, *Hamlet, Othello, *Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, *Twelfth Night, and Macbeth.  Questions, sample narrations, dictation, and activities are included for those marked by an asterisk (*).

Here is where you will find Logic Stage lessons for Middle Ages.  This lesson includes Shakespeare Stories by Leon Garfield (also used in the Grammar Stage lessons).  Both teacher pages and student pages are available for download.

I redid the website.

When I have more time, I will edit blog posts to update the links. The lesson files are now hosted in my public Dropbox folder. If you notice any broken or misdirected links on the website, please let me know.

http://www.classicalhouseoflearning.com

Logic Stage Middle Ages, Lesson 10: Eleanor of Aquitaine

Eleanor of Aquitaine was an impressive and powerful lady.  She didn’t like to be bossed around by either of her husbands, who were both kings.  She divorced her first husband at a time when women were viewed as their husband’s property and married a man twelve years younger than she was.  She was queen twice (once for France and once for England) and gave birth to two of England’s kings: Richard the Lion Heart and John Lackland.

Here is where you will find Logic Stage lessons for Middle Ages.  This lesson includes A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver by E. L. Konigsburg.  Both teacher pages and student pages are available for download.

Logic Stage Middle Ages, Lesson 9: Russian Fairy Tales

Here is where you will find Logic Stage lessons for Middle Ages.  This lesson includes Russian Fairy Tales (selected) by Gillian Avery.  Both teacher pages and student pages are available for download.  Please note that some of these stories are used in the Grammar Stage level of my program.

Why LDS Homeschoolers Should Consider Secular Education

Recent conversations online and in “real life” have been replaying in my mind this week. For my readers who may not know, I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I was born and raised in the Church and am still an active member. While homeschooling is not particularly common within our faith, I live in an area where most of the homeschoolers I encounter happen to also be LDS. The reasons LDS families choose to homeschool are as varied and individual as the reasons any other family would choose to do so, but I feel somewhat…unsettled by the LDS homeschoolers I encounter who homeschool in large part because they fear secular knowledge or influence.

A scripture has been playing through my mind since Sunday afternoon (D&C 109:7):

And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom, seek learning even by study and also by faith;

Most of the “best books” full of “words of wisdom” were written by non-LDS authors. Many “best books” were written by non-Christians. Western civilization draws heavily upon Greek and Roman philosophies and discoveries. While there may be aspects of these ideas that conflict with Christian beliefs, the vast majority of them are secular. In other words, they have no religious component that would threaten spiritual beliefs. As a parent who has chosen to direct my children’s educations personally, I feel that it is my duty to help them learn both spiritual and secular wisdom. One cannot as easily and effectively navigate the world without an understanding of humanity’s past and potential future. I see the principle of eternal progression in the growth of humanity over the past thousands of years. If we accept this concept, we see that we need the wisdom of previous generations to further our own.

The Sunday School class I attended last week got into an interesting discussion about wisdom when we were talking about Paul’s visit to Corinth, and we concluded that worldly knowledge isn’t necessarily evil. Certainly it’s possible to steep oneself in secular wisdom only while shunning the divine. I suppose that this is what some LDS homeschoolers fear–that too much familiarity with secular ideas will cause their children to stumble spiritually. However, if children grow up suspicious or afraid of “worldly” knowledge only to discover as adults that there is little to threaten their faith, I wonder what negative impact this would have on spiritual strength. Agency is only possible when one has knowledge of one’s options. Deliberately choosing the right is more meaningful than blind obedience. The cost of intentionally restricting a child’s education is also a high one because limited education limits one’s future options.

Another scripture comes to mind (D&C 109:8):

Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing, and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God;

It’s possible to create a house, or a homeschool, that incorporates both faith and (secular) learning. You can teach God’s involvement in the creation of the world and evolution. You can teach your religious beliefs and expose your child to belief systems that may differ greatly from your own. I like how the mission statement of Brigham Young University (a private university run by the Church) explains why to meld the spiritual and the secular:

Because the gospel encourages the pursuit of all truth, students at BYU should receive a broad university education. The arts, letters, and sciences provide the core of such an education, which will help students think clearly, communicate effectively, understand important ideas in their own cultural tradition as well as that of others, and establish clear standards of intellectual integrity.

In order to foster an education that is celestial, one that furthers the growth of ourselves and our children and glorifies God, we need an intelligence comprised of both spiritual and secular wisdom (D&C 93:36):

The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth.

Truth, both secular and spiritual, is worthy of pursuit.

History Workbooks for The Story of the World

On the bulletin boards for The Well-Trained Mind, I mentioned that I made workbooks for history that allow my children to do history independently.  I typed up checklists for history lessons that correlate to my literature program.  Into my document, I also copied and pasted the coloring pages, maps, and tests from The Story of the World activity and test books.  Here is a sample the workbook I made.  Please note that because of copyright, I replaced the images with generic clip art and replaced the map instructions with instructions on how to make your own.

• Sample History Workbook for The Story of the World, Vol. 2

“To make a singular noun possessive, add an apostrophe S.”

One of my goals is to prevent errors such as this misused apostrophe. It is interesting that the person responsible for this sign added both an E and an apostrophe. From my local grocery store:

Merged Files for Grammar Stage Middle Ages

The following files contain a merged .pdf of the 16 lessons in Classical House of Learning Literature: Middle Ages (Grammar Stage).  The page numbers are for each lesson rather than for the whole set of 16.  I will eventually do the editing needed to make the page numbers continuous, but this is what I can do for now.

• Merged File for Grammar Stage Middle Ages (Teacher Pages)
• Merged File for Grammar Stage Middle Ages (Level 1 Student Pages)
• Merged File for Grammar Stage Middle Ages (Level 2 Student Pages)

LS Middle Ages, Lesson 8: Medieval Japan

Here is where you will find Logic Stage lessons for Middle Ages.  This lesson includes The Samurai’s Tale by Erik Christian Haugaard.  Both teacher pages and student pages are available for download.

LS Middle Ages, Lesson 7: Robin Hood

Here is where you will find Logic Stage lessons for Middle Ages.  This lesson includes The Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle.  Both teacher pages and student pages are available for download.