~John Greenleaf Whittier~
THE SNOWSTORM SO all night long the storm roared on:
The morning broke without a sun;
In tiny spherule traced with lines Of Nature's geometric signs,
In starry flake, and pellicle,
All day the hoary meteor fell;
And, when the second morning shone,
We looked upon a world unknown,
On nothing we could call our own.
Around the glistening wonder bent
The blue walls of the firmament,
No cloud above, no earth below,--
A universe of sky and snow!
All day the gusty north wind bore
The loosening drift its breath before;
Low circling round its southern zone,
The sun through dazzling snow mist shone.
No church bell lent its Christian tone
To the savage air, no social smoke
Curled over woods of snow hung oak.
A solitude made more intense
By dreary voiced elements,
The shrieking of the mindless wind,
The moaning tree boughs swaying blind,
And on the glass the unmeaning beat
Of ghostly finger tips of sleet.

I'm never been tagged before so I'm new to this but I've been tagged by Lisa at Lifestyle Education through Discipleship. The rules are:

1. Pick up the nearest book of at least 123 pages.

2. Open the book to page 123.

3. Find the 5th sentence.

4. Post the next 3 sentences.

5. Tag 5 people.

I'm glad one of the rules is to pick up the nearest book because I use the dining room as an office and a library so it has many, many books. The stack nearest to me has a few of the books I'm reading right now. I picked the second book down in the stack because the top is a poetry book. It's True Spirituality by Francis A. Schaeffer. I was going through a dark time of doubt in my spiritual life and struggling with my faith when God used this book to change my thinking and heart. I try to read it every so often because I tend to get something new from it each time. This is from Chapter 10 "Substantial Healing of Psychological Problems":

"I can think of my parts in various ways: as body and spirit, or as my physical part and my spiritual part. I can quite correctly think of a division of myself of intellect, will, and emotions and it is right that I should think so, because these things are open to observation. But we miss the biblical concept if we miss its emphasis that man is not just the parts, but he is a unit."

I've only found 4 people to tag but will see what I can do for a 5th. If at all possible, please, let me know with a comment here if you are participating. Thanks! :-)

Tagged are:

Bound by Grace
The Homeschooling Experiment
Schooldaze
Ladydusk

For some time I have been wanting to put together my reasons for homeschooling but it wasn't until Dana from Principled Discovery posted one of her reader's question "What are your reasons for homeschooling?" that I took time to think about it and put together an explanation. These are my reasons:

Before the birth of my first daughter, I didn’t think much about education. My own education had been only what I had experienced and from that, I knew generally something was amiss but I wasn’t really clear as to what all “being educated” or what “having a good academic education” meant. At the same time in my life, I was going through a struggle in my spiritual life and faith, and I also didn’t fully understand what it meant to have a true, Christian education, or what exactly it meant to bring up children in the "nurture and admonition of the Lord" (Ephesians 6:4). Once my first daughter was born, all of this became a real interest and concern and God used it to make changes in my mind-heart. At that time, my husband was not opposed to government schools. He did well academically so he had very few issues with them. I didn’t want the government schools but couldn’t explain why. So we reached an agreement and decided on a small, private, church school for kindergarten. At the end of end of the school year, the administration announced that the school was closing. After thinking we had figured out what we were doing for her education, my husband and I found ourselves back at square one, needing to re-think and make another decision. We did agree to homeschooling for a year to see how it would go and thus began my “re-education” and the “official” home education of our two daughters.

Looking back, I have to admit now, it was more of an emotional, gut reaction for me rather than a well thought out, specifically defined decision. From a mother’s perspective, I just simply loved my girls and enjoyed being with them so much that I hated the idea of being apart so much. Through 14 years of home schooling and conversations with my husband, we’ve understood more of what I was reacting to and have found more specific reasons for our decision to home educate.

The reasons all inter-related and of equal importance so it’s hard to separate them or value one over the other. The ones at the top of the list tend to be fundamental or foundational to the rest. They come down to the basic parenting responsibility, family relationships, individuality, academic, and religious reasons:

1. More time together - to talk to one another, share interests, share thoughts and feelings, imperfections and struggles, activities and just being together and with extended family of grandmothers.
2. Closer relationships - they’re my constant companions other than my husband, mother and sister, and friends at church, the socialization I prefer.
3. Character & spiritual growth and maturity.
4. Their friends are at our house a lot and we get to know their friends well.
5. Freedom to educate my daughter the way I (we) think best, freedom in curriculum.
6. Curriculum content - by law in our state we are to use a curriculum comparable to the government school but we want a Biblical content, so I follow it to a point then teach it the way I want, expand/add to it or delete, go ahead on concepts or slow down, we don’t really go by grade level only for certain situations.
7. High academic standards, they can learn and grasp concepts yet balanced with their own time and speed.
8. Curriculum methods, philosophies - how and for what purpose is important.
8. Being able to know how to learn, find answers, study.
9. Not knowing the teacher personally -- giving my child to an individual I did not know was one of my biggest fears!
10. Physical safety.
11. Teacher and school accountability or lack of it.
12. Parental involvement or lack of it, being prevented from being involved.
13. Not wanting my daughters to disappear into the mass, one size fits all, not wanting wrong labeling, being able to develop individual gifts, strengths, interests --- to become the unique person they are.
14. Peer pressure, learning to be able to think for themselves.

Educating my daughters is my maternal (parental) desire, pleasure, responsibility and right -- it’s parenting -- in the way I think best for them as individuals and for our family, free from the government funding and regulations/restrictions. Academic and religious education is one for me, I can’t separate them -- two distinct parts of the whole. Similar to a coin -- two distinct sides, yet the one coin. I call myself a home educator of the eclectic, unstructured sort, using a combination of Charlotte Mason, classical, and Principle Approach. I’ve never been one to think that everyone should home school because I do or that they home school in the same way I do. It will be different for everyone and I tend to stay away from the individuals/groups that want everyone and everything to be identical. Homeschooling hasn’t been without struggles. There are better days than others. Days where we don’t accomplish as much and days where we do accomplish a lot. Right now we’re behind due to a lot of sickness but we work at it on the weekend and year around. Even with this it has been well worth it and I’m glad to be a home educator. If some one has an interest I would certainly encourage them to try.

From our home library of winter books, this is one of my favorites:

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
~Robert Frost~

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

It's a favorite book of mine for introducing little ones to Robert Frost's Snowy Woods. Susan Jeffer's winter white illustrations make you feel "winter" but she includes muted colors for an element of surprise to emphasize the mysterious stop in the woods at night. Even the vellum cover adds to the frosty feel of snow. Hear Robert Frost read this poem aloud below. (With images from the book with Susan Jeffer's illustrations.)



I found a snowman paper snowflake template with pictures and instructions for cutting, plus more pictures & instructions for paper snowflakes here and here. It's also time for Valentine's Day crafts and I found heart themed paper snowflakes here. These are more detailed: pattern and picture.

"O Winter! ruler of the inverted year, . . . I crown thee king of intimate delights, Fireside enjoyments, home-born happiness, And all the comforts that the lowly roof Of undisturb'd Retirement, and the hours Of long uninterrupted evening, know." ~William Cowper~

"In the bleak midwinter Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter, Long ago." ~Christina Rossetti~

"Grace groweth best in winter." ~Samuel Rutherford~

"Why, what's the matter, That you have such a February face, So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?"
~William Shakespeare~ Much Ado About Nothing

"Still lie the sheltering snows, undimmed and white;
And reigns the winter's pregnant silence still;
No sign of spring, save that the catkins fill,
And willow stems grow daily red and bright.
These are days when ancients held a rite
Of expiation for the old year's ill,
And prayer to purify the new year's will."
~Helen Hunt Jackson~ A Calendar of Sonnet's: February

~James Stephens~

In the winter time we go
Walking in the fields of snow;
Where there is no grass at all;
Where the top of every wall,
Every fence and every tree,
Is as white, as white can be.

Pointing out the way we came,
Everyone of them the same--
All across the fields there be
Prints in silver filigree;
And our mothers always know,
By our footprints in the snow,
Where the children go.

There's Snow on the Fields
~Christina Rossetti~

There's snow on the fields,
And cold in the cottage,
While I sit in the chimney nook
Supping hot pottage.

My clothes are soft and warm,
Fold upon fold,
But I'm so sorry for the poor
Out in the cold.

Valentine
~Laura Elizabeth Richards~

Oh! little loveliest lady mine,
What shall I send for your valentine?
Summer and flowers are far away;
Gloomy old Winter is king to-day;
Buds will not blow, and sun will not shine:
What shall I do for a valentine?

I ’ve searched the gardens all through and through
For a bud to tell of my love so true;
But buds are asleep, and blossoms are dead,
And the snow beats down on my poor little head:
So, little loveliest lady mine,
Here is my heart for your valentine!

~A Devonshire Rhyme~
Walk fast in snow,
In frost walk slow;
And still as you go,
Tread on your toe.
When frost and snow are both together,
Sit by the fire, and spare shoe-leather.

Winter
~James Thomson~ from Seasons

See Winter comes to rule the varied year,
Sullen and sad with all his rising train,
Vapors and clouds and storms Be these my theme,
These! that exalt the soul to solemn thought
And heavenly musing. Welcome, kindred Glooms!
Congenial Horrors, hail! With frequent foot,
Pleased, have I, in my cheerful morn of life,
When nursed by careless Solitude I lived,
And sung of Nature with unceasing joy,--
Pleased have I wandered through your rough domain,
Trod the pure virgin-snows, myself as pure,
Heard the winds roar, and the big torrent burst,
Or seen the deep fermenting tempest brewed
In the grim evening sky. Thus passed the time
Till through the lucid chambers of the South
Looked out the joyous Spring looked out and smiled.

Through the hushed air the whitening shower descends,
At first thin-wavering, till at last the flakes
Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day
With a continual flow. The cherished fields
Put on their winter robe of purest white:
Tis brightness all, save where the new snow melts
Along the mazy current. Low the woods
Bow their hoar head; and ere the languid sun,
Faint from the west, emits his evening ray,
Earth's universal face, deep hid, and chill,
Is one wild dazzling waste, that buries wide
The works of man.

Winter
~Mrs. Norton~
The bleak wind whistles--snow-shower, far and near,
Drift, without echo, to the whitening ground:
Autumn hath passed away, and, cold and drear,
Winter stalks in, with frozen mantle bound.

Winter
~Shepherd~

Outside the window-pane
across the barren plain
With dreary wail the wintry winds are calling;
And softly, sad, and slow,
The gently-dropping snow,
From out the sky, in feathery flakes, is falling.

The clambering casement vine,
That marked the year’s decline
With leaves in which the Autumn’s fires were burning,
Now sere, and stripped quite bare,
Hangs coldly shivery there,
A tender thing that wait’s the Spring’s returning.

The fields are white below--
Their covering of snow,
That o’er the earth, a chilly shroud, is lying;
And through the elm’s huge limbs
The wind is chanting hymns,
Like soft, sad dirges for some poor soul dying.

At home, beside the hearth,
With jest and song of mirth,
And ringing chorus to the rafters pealing,
The long dark evening goes;
The cider, circling, flows,
And lights the eye with sparks of kindly feeling.

And so, with song and cheer,
The Winter, cold, and drear,
Flits lightly by, on Time’s swift pinions flying;
And in our hearts the flower
Of gladness blooms each hour,
Although, outside, the winds are sadly sighing.

Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind
~William Shakespeare~

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.

Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly,
Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That does not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remembered not.
Heigh-ho! sing . . .

Snowflakes
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow~

Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.

After anticipating a major winter storm in our area, we made a trip to the grocery store last night for food and supplies thinking we'd probably be snowed in for a couple of days. This morning we woke to find only a good five inches. Not what you could really call a major storm but enough to make it wintry once again. So we're not snowed in but it's enough to stay put and enjoy. Orangeblossom fixed hot cocoa and made chocolate chip cookies. We pulled out the "winter poems" and our favorite "winter books" from a past winter post and found some new ones to add to our collection for art, journaling and nature study. We're also going to make more "Borax crystal snowflakes" like we did the winter of 2006. I put instructions and pictures for how to make them in our "Winter-Snowflake" study in a previous 2006 post. We want to re-read a bit about Snowflake Bentley but I have some new books about animals in winter to read so it will probably be a brief review about him. The oil painting below is called "Sunshine After Snowstorm" by Walter Launt Palmer and there are three more lovely paintings of his.

The Snow-Storm
~Ralph Waldo Emerson~

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hill and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come see the north wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hiddden thorn;
Fills up the famer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs; and at the gate
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.

The First Snow
~Madeline S. Bridges~

HOW strange the new soft silence in the air!
So still -- it seemed that we could almost hear
The snowflakes ere we saw them drifting down
As lilies from the wall of heaven might fall--
Making the whole world beautiful and fair;
Brightening the lonely roads the meadows sear,
The garden beds the hedge briers rough and brown,
Dancing and whirling in their voiceless mirth,
As if half wild with joy to reach the earth.
How strange the muffled sound of song or call,
Or echoing laughter or faint sleigh bells chime!
Each heart keeps memory of such a time,
When on some winter morn we waked to know
The first sweet noiseless advent of the snow.

Falling Snow
~Unknown~

See the pretty snowflakes
Falling from the sky,
On the wall and housetops
Soft and thick they lie.
On the window ledges,
On the branches bare,
Now how fast they gather,
Filling all the air.
Look into the garden,
Where the grass was green;
Covered by the snowflakes,
Not a blade is seen.
Now the bare black bushes,
All look soft and white,
Every twig is laden -
What a pretty sight!

Snowflakes
~Mary Mapes Dodge~

Little white feathers
Filling the air --
Little white feathers!
How came you there?

We came from the cloud birds,
Flying so high,
Shaking their white wings
Up in the sky.

Little white feathers,
Swiftly you go!
Little white snow flakes,
I love you so!

We are swift because
We have work to do;
But look up at us,
And we will kiss you.

Winter Birds
~George Cooper~

I watch them from my window,
While winds so keenly blow;
How merrily they twitter,
And revel in the snow;
In brown and ruffled feathers
They dot the white around
And not one moping comrade
Among the lot I’ve found.
Ah, may I be as cheerful
As yonder winter birds,
Through ills and petty crosses,
With no repining words;
So teaching me this lesson,
Away away they go,
And leave their tiny footprints
In stars upon the snow.

Winter Dusk
~Sara Teasdale~

I watch the great clear twilight
Veiling the ice-bowed trees;
Their branches tinkle faintly
With crystal melodies.
The larches bend their silver
Over the hush of snow;
One star is lighted in the west,
Two in the zenith glow.
For a moment I have forgotten
Wars and women who mourn --
I think of the mother who bore me
And thank her that I was born.

Winter Stars
~Sara Teasdale~

I went out at night alone;
The young blood flowing beyond the sea
Seemed to have drenched my spirit's wings --
I bore my sorrow heavily.
But when I lifted up my head
From shadows shaken on the snow,
I saw Orion in the east
Burn steadily as long ago.
From windows in my father's house,
Dreaming my dreams on winter nights,
I watched Orion as a girl
Above another city's lights.
Years go, dreams go, and youth goes too,
The world's heart breaks beneath its wars,
All things are changed, save in the east
The faithful beauty of the stars.

February Twilight
~Sara Teasdale~

I stood beside a hill
Smooth with new-laid snow,
A single star looked out
From the cold evening glow.
There was no other creature
That saw what I could see--
I stood and watched the evening star
As long as it watched me.





February
~N. M. Bodecker~

When skies are low
and days are dark,
and frost bites
like a hungry shark,
when mufflers muffle
ears and nose,
and puffy sparrows
huddle close -
how nice to know
that February
is something purely
temporary.

Winter
~William Cullen Bryant~

But winter has yet brighter scenes--he boasts
Splendors beyond what gorgeous Summer knows,
Or autumn with his many fruits, and woods
All flushed with many hues.
Come when the rains
Have glazed the snow and clothed the trees with ice,
While the slant sun of February pours
Into the bowers a flood of light. Approach!
The incrusted surface shall upbear the steps,
And the broad arching portals of the grove
Welcome thy entering. Look! the massy trunks
Are cased in the pure crystal; each light spray,
Nodding and tinkling in the breath of heaven,
Is studded with its trembling water drops,
That glimmer with amethystine light.
But round the parent stem the long low boughs
Bend in a glittering ring, and arbours hide
The glassy floor.
All, all is light;
Light without shade. But all shall pass away
With the next sun. From numberless vast trunks
Loosened, the crashing ice shall make a sound
Like the far roar of rivers, and the eve
Shall close o’er the brown woods as it was wont.

"He gives snow like wool and scatters frost like ashes. . ."
Psalms 147:16