Just before Easter we got to hear Michael Morpurgo live in conversation with Nicolette Jones at the Sheldonian as part of the Oxford Literary Festival. Morpurgo is one of my son’s favourite authors and was speaking on his birthday, so it was an ideal birthday outing. The conversation covered topics from the personal to the political and engaged all ages.
However there were three things that he emphasised as being key for today’s children: Continue reading
“Rome, the city of visible history.”
— George Elliot
If you follow us on Instagram you’ll know that we’ve just got back from an amazing few days in Rome. George Elliot is spot on. Rome certainly is “the city of visible history”. Wherever we looked – whether up at the domes, down the cobbled alleyways or strolling around the Colosseum – history was there.
We probably read Shakespeare in the first place for his stories, afterwards for his characters, the multitude of delightful persons with whom he makes us so intimate that afterwards, in fiction or in fact, we say, ‘She is another Jessica,’ and ‘That dear girl is a Miranda’; ‘She is a Cordelia to her father,’ and, such a figure in history, ‘a base lago.’ To become intimate with Shakespeare in this way is a great enrichment of mind and instruction of conscience. Then, by degrees, as we go on reading this world-teacher, lines of insight and beauty take possession of us, and unconsciously mould our judgments of men and things and of the great issues of life.
— Charlotte Mason
It feels as though we have just taken the lid off a treasure chest as we have opened William Shakespeare together this term. Continue reading
I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say ‘he feels deeply, he feels tenderly’.
— Vincent Van Gogh
Guest Writer Michelle Dobbie lives and homeschools her two boys in South London. Here she shares some beautiful ways to teach STEM* subjects in our homes and schools. Continue reading
Oxford is feeling very autumnal.
The holidays are nearly over.
We have got building work beginning on our house tomorrow morning!
But before I think to the term ahead, I wanted to share some of the books I’ve read over the summer. My older two have loved passing on some of their favourites to me and we have had lovely conversations over meals or on car drives comparing thoughts on characters or plots. Michael Morpurgo became Continue reading
Every child should leave school with at least a couple of hundred pictures by great masters hanging permanently in the halls of his imagination . . .
— Charlotte Mason
Last term our ‘artist of the term’ was the magnificent Michelangelo di Ludovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475-1564). This was a treat, if a little brief for such an artistic giant – sculptor, painter, architect and poet.
Valentine’s Day is around the corner. I’m not here to encourage you to buy cards, flowers and chocolates, although I’m sure they’d be appreciated! Rather here’s a short post to recommend this book that we read last year and intend to do again on 14th February. Beautifully illustrated short picture book telling the life of Saint Valentine from the 3rd-century – the man behind our celebrations.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
CLASSICALLY CURIOUS 