Merry Christmas

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.


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RSC Richard II Homeschooling Viewing

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We were so fortunate that the Royal Shakespeare Company allowed us to be a venue for free web-streaming of its latest play, Richard II, starring David Tennant of Dr Who fame. A scene from the RSC Richard II Nearly thirty homeschooled students and their parents met at the Charlbury Baptist church on a nippy Friday morning, some coming from as far away as Bristol and northern Wales. Warm and Cosy while a King is deposed. It was a great opportunity to see Shakespeare performed like this, and such accomplished actors.  Too bad they changed the script, though, and lost some of the ambiguity surrounding Richard's death and Henry's complicity in it. We hear they're going to broadcast Henry IV Part 1 next year in the same way, and I'm getting my name on that waiting list to offer the opportunity to local homeschoolers again. My question makes the board -- I'm famous!
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Planning for the New Academic Year

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Some people love Christmas.  Some people love Spring.  I love the weeks just before the new school year, when I call up my spreadsheets and download all my book lists and sort out the schedule for the kids. I'm nearing completion on Phoenix's weekly schedule.  Hers is the most complicated because she is going to start Ambleside Online for Year 7.  It looks pretty challenging, but the best fit to go along with our fortnightly history co-op that's studying Our Island Story. Yr 7 is great for this because it looks at the Middle Ages in greater depth than Our Island Story, so she'll be reading books by Churchill about the Birth of Britain, selections from the Venerable Bede, and lots of mediaeval literature, amongst many, many others. She's even got readings from Charlotte Mason herself: character study in Ms Mason's book "Ourselves". Exciting, therefore, that the new CM Live! on-line co-op class is going to allow her to discuss these challenging works w...
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Phoenix does it Again -- New Kindle Titles

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Phoenix, who publishes under the pen name Ellie Firestone, has published a new book on Amazon Kindle, called The Misadventure of Bolingbroke Manor . A New Interactive Mystery for Kindle It's an interactive mystery, which means the reader can choose what happens next by clicking a link in the book, and then finding out what consequences that decision creates. Interactive books are nothing new, but sometimes, a bit fiddly to "turn to page 73".  This Kindle version instantly moves to the next scene of the book with only one click of the link. Not clear?  Let me illustrate by showing you the first page of the story (you'll have to click on the image of the text to make it big enough to read ... at least, I would have to!): As usual, Phoenix sells her book at pocket money prices, wanting to make Kindle books for kids an accessible opportunity both in terms of price and in terms of content.   New titles are coming soon -- more interactive stories, as well as another volume ...
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