Pohutukawa, the New Zealand Christmas Tree

This is a Pohutukawa tree, native to New Zealand. Because of its beautiful red flowers it has come to be known as the "New Zealand Christmas tree." This is also partly because it flowers in summer, mainly in the northern parts of the North Island, which is around our Christmas time! The image of the flowering Pohutukawa on a beach is a typical scene at this time of the year.

See The Bushman's Friend for more information on the Pohutukawa tree.

Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival

Welcome to this edition of the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival! I am hosting from little New Zealand, down in the South Pacific. While some of you are experiencing the first snow of the season, we have been experiencing some early hot weather. Last week felt like February weather to us, with some days reaching 30 degrees celsius!

The Pohutukawa, New Zealand's "national" Christmas tree

Anyway, let's get on with the carnival!

We have had a few "technical" issues with submissions not going to the right person, so if your submission is missing, please accept my apologies!

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LIVING BOOKS

Katey lists the books her family is using for various subjects at Crazy Homeschool Mama: on our bookshelf posted at her blog: Crazy Homeschool Mama.

Pamela describes some of her family's adventures reliving the books of Laura Ingalls Wilder in Just Like Ma Ingalls at her Blah, Blah, Blog.

Dawn shares a great list of Advent Books at her blog, my4sweetums.

POETRY

Nancy shares a medieval Christmas poem, The Canticle of the Bees, at her blog, Sage Parnassus.

I share a post on one of our poet studies: Poet of the Week ~ Phillis Wheatley

GEOGRAPHY

Jimmie shows us how we can succeed at: Teaching Geography Without Buying a Curriculum in her post at Jimmie's Collage.

HISTORY

Robin presents some great Ideas for Photographic History Projects posted at Crack the Egg.

ARTIST STUDY

Jimmie also presents Da Vinci Picture Books at Jimmie's Collage.

Shannon Cook shares Artist/Composer Group: Georges Seurat at her blog, Song of My Heart.

SHAKESPEARE

Susan shares her plans for A Term of Study for Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, including copywork and narration exercises, at her blog, Stitching Life.

I posted my plans for our Shakespeare study of Henry V in Preparing for Shakespeare.

NATURE STUDY

Tricia shares her family's joy in Autumn nature study at Autumn OHC # 10: November World posted her blog, Hodgepodge.

Cindy describes a nature scavenger hunt in A Preschool Walk posted at Shining Dawn Books.

If you've always wanted to know what an "ootheca" is, Amber will uncover the mystery at Nature Study -- Praying Mantis Oothecae at her blog, The Mommy Earth.

Annie Kate presents Nature Study at Tea Time with Annie Kate.

COMPOSER STUDY

Melissa shares the rewards of composer & orchestra study in "Concerto! I know who that is!" at her blog, Bugs, Knights, and Turkeys In the Yard.

MASTERLY INACTIVITY

Jen shows us what our children can achieve when their minds are inspired by history, and are given leave to be creative: When Homeschoolers Go Unsupervised at her blog: Best Family Adventures.

Eve presents The Serendipity of Learning at her blog, Inchworm Chronicles.

HANDICRAFTS

Shannon presents Christmas in Mexico: Making Ojo de Dios posted at Song of My Heart.

NARRATION IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Amy has put together an in-depth post on Narration... in Spanish or French, hard?! at Fisher Academy International ~ Teaching Home.

CO-OP

And last, but definitely not least, Nancy shares her final post on her Truth, Beauty, Goodness co-op, with an overview of what the group has learned throughout the term: Gazing on Many Truths posted at Sage Parnassus. It is a beautiful example of a Charlotte Mason homeschooling co-op!

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That's it for 2010! May you all have a blessed Christmas, and a wonderful holiday break!

Red Pepper Quilts: Oh Dr Seuss!

On a totally random note, if you like Dr Seuss, check out these neat quilted placemats Rita has made with Dr Seuss fabrics:




Red Pepper Quilts: Oh Dr Seuss!: "The wonderful world of Dr Seuss - Robert Kaufman fabrics: Celebrate Seuss! and Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss Enterprises! I do love these aw..."

Drawing Lesson - Portraits

The last lesson from our DVD, "How to Draw Really Well" by Graham Braddock, was a portrait. Needless to say, this was the lesson we all found the most difficult. I did find it easier to draw portraits when we had our live lessons with Graham, rather than watching the DVD. When we had the lesson with Graham in person, we had a large photo of the model on a screen. This meant we could look to the photo itself, rather than just at Graham's version on the DVD. You did see clips of the photo of the model, but it was much smaller.

Here are our portraits of a girl called Emma:

Portraits by (from left to right): Bethany, me, Ainsley.

Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival

If you ever wondered who Charlotte Mason is, and what she wrote about, check out the latest edition of the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival here.

Handicrafts - Sewing

It's amazing what can be done with a bit of fabric, some thread, and a needle. Bethany in particular has been hand-sewing for several years now. She loves making clothes for her beanie bear and Sylvanians.

Here are some of the outfits made for "Pinky" this year:

These are some pictures from a Sylvanian wedding. Most of the outfits were hand-made by Bethany:

The girls all love to use my sewing machine too. Ainsley (8 yrs) designed and made her own apron:

Bethany has adapted a tote bag pattern we have used to make little bags of all different sizes. Here is the latest one. Beth made the tassel out of a skein of embroidery thread:

A Shakespeare Resource

One problem I had when deciding which Shakespeare play to start reading through was that I didn't know what most of the plays were about! I had studied MacBeth and King Lear in high school, but I didn't think the girls would enjoy them first up.

I found this lovely book on Trademe a few months ago, and I'm so glad I did. It has short summaries on every one of Shakespeare's plays, all written by Marchette Chute. The summaries are all around 10-12 pages in length, some shorter, so they are quickly read. Published first in 1960, my edition was published in 1979 and features a lovely dustjacket with illustrations of some of the characters from the plays.