Penny Gardner's Geography living books link

Here's a really neat Geography link I consult when I'm preparing for the next year's lessons.  Charlotte Mason had inspiring ideas about Geography that Penny Gardner has put on her website. Builder is going to be in 4th this year, and we're going to use Science Smart's Geography section (previously a whole book called Geography Crafts for Kids) plus History Odyssey maps, our Kingfisher Children's Atlas, our globe, and Google Earth to take us around the world in our history and literature adventures. Builder likes to play the games on Sheppard Software as well.  National Geographic as always has high quality content as well.

Geography is one of my pet subjects. I remember hours of playing Geography games with my parents. These are treasured memories. Ms. Mason had it right again when she said that Geography was an inspirational subject.

By no means an exhaustive list, this is just to jump start ideas on what constitutes a CM way of doing Geography.

Penny Gardner Geography Living Books

Sample Narrations

Builder is 8.5 years old now, and I thought providing a sample of his narrations today could help some in getting an idea what to expect.

Even though we've always been very much Charlotte Mason flavored, I'm delving even deeper into her writings and methodology, convinced from experience that her ideas work.

Here they are. The font is Jarman, which looks similar to our Getty Dubay Italic handwriting. He narrated orally, I typed them up.

Literature: The Enormous Egg by Oliver Butterworth


Chapter 16 

Nathan Twitchell woke up that morning, and thought that they were going to kill Uncle Beazley. In five more days he would be going back to Freedom, New Hampshire. Then Dr. Ziemer said that if Nate would narrate on TV, then he could save the dinosaur. 

At first, Nate didn’t think that this could be possible. Then he started thinking, yeah, that could work. This is because Dr. Ziemer kept convincing him. 

Then Nate started narrating on TV at 8 PM. And his speech was a blank paper! It only had a few words on it, that said: You will make up your own speech, Nathan Twitchell. I know you can do it. Then he started narrating on TV.

The next morning, Dr. Ziemer started getting calls all day long. Everyone wanted to save the dinosaur. All the schools got their money together to save Uncle Beazley. 

History: American History Stories Vol III by Mara L. Pratt

Washington as a Fighter

General George Washington was a great fighter, but he only fought when he needed. One day, Virginia people started quarreling with the fishermen, because they were wearing ragged clothes. The quarreling turned into a full riot.  Washington rode up, got off his horse, and took two of the strongest men by their throats at arm’s length. The two men were surprised. The men went back to their camps and were told to not quarrel again. 

Reading: St. Patrick’s Day by Dorothy Rhodes Freeman

St. Patrick’s Day

We always celebrate St. Patrick’s Day every year on March 17. The whole world loves this holiday. Some are in parades, some sing Irish songs, others dance Irish dances. The day of March 17 isn’t St. Patrick’s birthday, it’s the day of his death. Nobody really knows his birth date.