Archive for the ‘Copywork Quotations’ Category

Too many words!

Tuesday, February 28th, 2006

We need poetic relief!

Here’s a poem for you mothers. It’s one of my favorites. You can copy it into your copybooks. :)

By Wislawa Szymborska

“Notes from a Nonexistent Himalayan Experience”

So these are the Himalayas.
Mountains racing to the moon.
The moment of their start recorded
on the startling, ripped canvas of the sky.
Holes punched in a desert of clouds.
Thrust into nothing.
Echo–a white mute.
Quiet.

Yeti, down there we’ve got Wednesday,
bread and alphabets.
Two times two is four.
Roses are red there,
and violets are blue.

Yeti, crime is not all
we’re up to down there.
Yeti, not every sentence there
means death.

We’ve inherited hope–
the gift of forgetting.
You’ll see how we give
birth among the ruins.

Yeti, we’ve got Shakespeare there.
Yeti, we play solitaire
and violin. At nightfall,
we turn lights on, Yeti.

Up here it’s neither moon nor earth.
Tears freeze.
Oh Yeti, semi-moonman,
turn back, think again!

I called this to the Yeti
inside four walls of avalanche,
stomping my feet for warmth
on the everlasting
snow.

Candles

Tuesday, January 10th, 2006

candle

One of our Brave Moms mentioned the power of candles to calm the atmosphere and induce her children to copywork. Her post on Scratch Pad reminded me of the power of candles in the homeschool!

We’ve used them in the following three ways:

  • For copywork (light one in the middle of the table)
  • For teatime (several tea lights look gorgeous with teatime)
  • For quiet hour (I used to light a candle in the living room for half an hour of quiet reading every day. The whole house had to be quiet until I blew out the candle.)

Candles soothe children and adults alike. Let us know any other creative uses for candles in the homeschool!

Little House Copywork Idea

Saturday, January 7th, 2006

Williams

My daughter (9) and I are reading the Little House books. She is choosing to do copywork from On the Banks of Plum Creek. We discovered that we could also Xerox the pictures (they are ink drawings) and she could color them to go with her copywork!

She used our Prismacolor colored pencils to color them in. Gorgeous!

At the end of the book, we will combine her pictures and copywork into a bound product (Kinko’s binds for cheap). She’s enjoying the whole process and I thought I’d pass on this idea to other kids who enjoy the books and the idea of coloring.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Saturday, October 8th, 2005

Copywork idea for those of you too busy to find your own. :)

“A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it.”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (author of the Sherlock Holmes series)

Susan Schaeffer Macaulay on children as persons

Monday, August 29th, 2005

“When we begin studying the person, the real child, we must serve who he is, not fit him into our schedules or plans. Part of this is allowing him play.”

(For the Children’s Sake 25)

On Writing

Monday, April 18th, 2005

Writing is thinking on paper.
William Zinsser

You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
Mark Twain

How do I know what I think until I see what I say?
E. M. Forster

The reason one writes isn’t the fact he wants to say something. He writes because he has something to say.
F. Scott Fitzgerald

The author must keep his mouth shut when his work starts to speak.
Friederich Nietzsche

The work never matches the dream of perfection the artist has to start with.
William Faulkner

A blank piece of paper is God’s way of telling us how hard it to be God.
Sidney Sheldon

We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason why they write so little.
Anne Lamott

Poetry for copywork: Lewis Carroll

Tuesday, April 5th, 2005

The Crocodile
How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in,
With gently smiling jaws!

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Saturday, March 26th, 2005

It is still best to be honest and truthful, to make the most of what we have, to be happy with simple pleasures, and to be cheerful and have courage when things go wrong.

I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.

Don’t miss The Wonderful World of Disney’s six part series of “Little House on the Prairie” beginning March 26.