With the Narnia movie coming out in December and the latest - and darkest - of the Harry Potter movies just coming out I thought I would discuss a little about about why my family does read the Harry Potter books and watch the movies, even with the controversy over them.

First, I don't believe that the Harry Potter books are going to make anyone more interested in witchcraft or the occult. The witchcraft in the stories are used as part of the make believe world Harry lives in, that's all. The wizarding world Harry finds himself in soon becomes part of the background of the story after the first year. The stories are about a boy growing up, facing obstacles, beginning to like girls, trying to get through school. He's not perfect, he doesn't always do his homework, he procrastinates. But he's honest and faithful and not scared to speak his mind.

A friend, the leader of our homeschool group, is against Harry Potter in all forms. Her husband even preached to the kids about it during our last co-op. My husband thinks that I should have said something about that. I mean, isn't it up to each family to decide what their family should read or watch? However, she had recommended some books to another girl in our homeschool group, including the Narnia books. The girl said she had found one of the recommended books at a book sale and because it had witchcraft in it she threw it out. The leader said, "Well, sometimes there are levels of witchcraft in books." Really? Why? How do you determine the "acceptable levels" of witchcraft? What makes Harry Potter so different from The Chronicles of Narnia or Lord of the Rings? Why is one accepted over the other?

This also brings to mind fairy tales, stories of King Arthur and Merlin, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and many other tales. Some people keep their children from this rich literature because of the mention of witchcraft. Why? Is it preferable to read board books or chapter books filled with easy words today instead of the rich language used in the past?

What makes me angry are people who slam a book and have never read it. How can you judge something you aren't familiar with? If you read one of the books you may like it. You may see the redemptive qualities of the story and the good against evil plot. J.K. Rowling is turning typical literature around by not using typical story lines or plots that we expect. We always expect the good guys to win and the bad guys to lose. In her books that doesn't always happen. The good guys do lose sometimes, just like in real life. Bad things do happen to the hero and his friends. There are problems to be overcome, obstacles to get past. Magic is just one way that Harry and his friends overcome those problems, but it doesn't solve any of their problems. But it's not just the storyline that is captivating. It's the language she uses. This is why many adults like the books. She doesn't talk down to children. She doesn't explain the words she uses. The books are written from a British viewpoint so British words are used. Even the American version barely changes the words in the current versions of the books. My son has researched various foods mentioned in the books that we aren't familiar with - who would have thought that "Treacle Tart" would be a dessert that sounds pretty good after reading the recipe - and we've learned about boarding schools in England and a little bit about how schools structure their lessons there.

To me, reading has always been about learning new things and new words. Because I read I tend to pay attention to more things and seem to retain more facts, which is why I often win trivia games or know the answers on Jeopardy. I want my son to have that same joy of reading and learning that I have and I don't want to keep a book from him based on fear and misunderstanding.

Here is a link to a list of books that have been considered dangerous and have been banned at some point:

http://title.forbiddenlibrary.com/

Can you believe the Bible is on that list?

I urge all of you to fully research something before making a decision for your family. Don't just take someone's word that something is bad - check it out for yourself. Discuss it with your spouse and decide if the subject is appropriate for your family and make the decision. Check out some of the books on that list and find out why many people have considered them inappropriate. Then make the decision for yourself.

We took last week off as a Thanksgiving break, so I have nothing really new to report. We went to my mom's for dinner and had a good time with our family. We played my Scene It! movie trivia game and had a good time with that, even though my brothers think I either watch the DVD and get the answers before I play or I spend too much time watching movies and television. We are back on a school schedule this week and I'll post what we're up to on Friday. I hope everyone who celebrated had a good holiday and for those who have already celebrated your Thanksgiving I hope you had a good week. See everyone on Friday!

This past week was mostly spent getting ready for science co-op on Friday. William did begin a new paragraph on Monday. He chose "birthday wish" as his topic. He didn't get to finish his final draft, though, but this is the rough draft:

My Birthday wish is that we stop fiting and we be came a famle. My uther Birthday wish is we kep the kitten.

This is the kitten he's talking about :



We found this kitten outside in one of our flower bushes. It came right to us. It's not fully weaned so we're bottle feeding it right now, but hopefully it will be weaned in a few months. I already told William we aren't going to keep it, but I feel my reserve waver every day. I know we really don't need another pet right now, though.

The other part in the paragraph was because of another argument about him not wanting to do his work. He said he wants to stop fighting and be close again.

We also watched half an hour of Ken Burns' documentary "The Civil War" since that is what William is studying this year. That first half hour covers the beginnings of the war and the causes, which included slavery. A discussion on slavery led to a discussion about civil rights in the 60's and how African American people are treated today. William said during the slavery discussion, "If I owned slaves I would have been nice to them." I asked him, "But was it right to own another human being, regardless if you treated him well or not?" I explained that he used the same argument that many slave owners used to help salve their conscience regarding the slavery issue.

Friday we had chemistry co-op. I was up late reading up on notes and preparing for experiments. We built molecules out of craft supplies, blew up a balloon by creating a gas inside of a bottle, saw that a chemical change caused heat, and saw another chemical change using yeast and making our own pizza dough. Here are some photos, and yes, the person in the greenish-blue T-shirt is me.

I am feeling better about things now. Thanks to those who emailed and left comments. They did help. My mom was planning a trip in a couple of weeks but then that was postponed again, so my dh and I are planning a camping trip to a lake about 50 miles away. However, my mom has emailed me back about the trip again so I don't know if it's on or off. Either way, on the 19th I will be somewhere - either camping at a lake or in the North Georgia mountains.

This week we did begin to get back on track. We did some more math - multiplication with 2 digit numbers, started on multiplication with 3 digit numbers, and touched on division. We also did some measurements and I tried to show William how to read a ruler. We have only lightly touched on fractions so the divisions of the ruler confused him.

William has read more in This Country of Ours and Life of Lincoln and narrated for both.

We read more in the scientist biographies.

Today was geography co-op day. The country this month was Japan. William did his report on the government of Japan. He read some information about Japan over the week and we looked at Japan on the globe. We also watched a Japanese language instruction program on PBS. Next month is USA and he either wants to talk about our trip to Washington DC from the spring or he wants to do "foods of America". Can you tell that he eats a lot :)

He is reading very well. He cannot spell well, but even words I expect to be difficult for him he can read on the first or 2nd try.

I also instituted a paragraph per week. We have to move on and cannot keep going over the same rules. The best way to practice is to write, so I have a list of paragraph topics. William's paragraph this week was on our cat, Shadow. He wrote a rough draft, then a first draft, then a final draft. Here is his final draft:

Shadow is a cat. losing all of his hair. We've given Shadow his medasen. Shadow's fur is growing back.

He noticed as soon as he handed the paper to me that he had a sentence fragment as the 2nd sentence. He then told me he meant to say "He is losing all of his hair". I had already helped him with spelling in his first draft so he was spelling Shadow and some other words correctly but he still spelled medicine wrong, so we went over the spelling for that word. He did the possessives properly without any correction from me. We've only gone over possessives once or twice and that was some time ago, so he is remembering some things.

Paragraph topics for the next few weeks include:

autobiography
favorite relative (or any relative since he doesn't like to pick favorites)
signs of fall
holiday memory
bird's eye view - of our house, our town, etc.
favorite outfit
favorite TV show
favorite pet
water
chores
create a planet
write a recipe
What is important to you?
birthday wish
invent an animal
your hometown
vacation

Any other ideas for paragraphs?

Next week is science co-op, so I will be busy gathering supplies for that and preparing for the experiments and re-reading the material. I also need to print more pages of Life of Lincoln for William to read. We also need to catch up on the health book and literature.

Well, this has been a week. I am feeling really burned out but we haven't really done a lot of school. I'm feeling frustrated that some of the momentum has stopped. We aren't moving forward, just repeating the same things. When I do try to do something fun like watch a video lesson instead of a book or practical lesson then all I get are smart alecky comments. I feel like I'm beating my head against a wall when it comes to multiplication and writing. I don't know where my excitement has gone.

I had an argument with William today while going to pick up Scott from work. We're down to 1 car again and I'm really frustrated with the money situation. We need to get the car fixed, we just bought a hot water heater and new vaccuum and we still don't have a working dryer. Everything seems to blow up at once and before one thing can get fixed something else breaks. William started asking for a scooter for Christmas. We already had the Christmas discussion with him - we will be lucky to have any Christmas money and we'd already decided on a family gift this year instead of individual gifts. I told him no on the scooter - we live on a highway so he can't ride it around the yard or down the road and we don't have a way to transport it to my mom's so he can ride it around her yard or down to my brother's house. Then he started on about not having a bicycle when my neice and her friends have bikes. All of these emotions started coming to the surface - the frustration with money, with schooling, with work being slow and technological problems related to working, my boredom, the need to be out of the house for a while. My husband just got back from a camping trip with his friends and I'm still jealous of that. I feel so often that I have no one to go somewhere with, not even just to see a movie one night. I'm always home. I'm always at William's or Scott's or even the dogs' beck and call. My mom and I were supposed to take a trip this month. We were going to New Orleans as I reported before the hurricane. When that was cancelled we talked about Savannah or the North Georgia mountains. Then she had a horse get sick and that was cancelled. I really just desire some time to do what I want to do without having to deal with more money problems or "play with me!" issues that William is having. Part of the problem is, though, that I don't know what it is I want to do! Do I want to read a book I've been putting off, or work on the afghan I'm crocheting or watch a movie without having someone talk about how stupid it is? Or should I clean my house just to see it fall apart again within the hour?

I just really need to do something different, but I'm not sure what. I'm in a funk that I desperately want to be out of, but I don't know what to do to get me out of the funk. What have you guys done? I know I cannot be alone in feeling this way.

At the end of the argument with William I told him yet again no scooter would be forthcoming this year and I don't want to hear any more "I wants". I guess this had to happen sooner or later once he started hanging out with more kids :( I also told him that both of us need to commit more to school and doing what we're supposed to do, but I also need him to be more independent. I told him that if he were in public school he would be considered to be in 3rd grade due to his math and writing skills, and that's 2 years behind his cousin. Of course, he hates that, so he's said he wants to catch up to her as well. He did remind me, though, that some things are learned slower than others, so I need to work on remembering that, remembering the reasons we homeschool to begin with, and stop comparing him to other kids. I think, though, that some things may need to be taught by another person, so I'm going to ask my husband to step in on a few subjects to help me get a break. I also need a way to help William become more independent and not always need me around to tell him what to do. I'm thinking of some type of project that he needs to complete, something that he can do mostly on his own. I think Charlotte Mason was onto something when she had handicrafts added into her curriculum. Maybe he needs a hobby other than video games.