@bethanyshondark My 11-y-o reading a book about “regular” school and genuinely confused: “Wait, school kids don’t like Shakespeare?!”
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Denise Milliner
550 posts
The most homeschool story:
My preteen daughter never got into Taylor Swift. At day camp last year they were doing an art project and another kid asked her to hand her a magazine with Taylor on the cover and my daughter as like “….i don’t know what she looks like.” All the other girls were 😮🤯.
Fast forward and she happened to hear Fate of Ophelia. And she was as like “oh now I get it, she sings about Shakespeare! No wonder she’s so popular!! What other plays does she have songs about?!”
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For what it's worth, here's a chart I cooked up covering some competing claims to the "Celtic."
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@SketchesbyBoze I should correct myself: start with Eleanor Parker and everything else will fall into place.
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@misorganized It's true, there's a shocking amount of lore, history and language in Macbeth for instance. Reading one of Eleanor Parker's books, I was very pleased to learn the true story of the minor character Lennox.
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Life isn’t long enough to do all the things I want to do. I want to memorize all the works of Shakespeare, read Beowulf in Old English, become an expert in folklore & etymology, study history, play the recorder. There are an infinite number of things to learn, & time is so short
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@allie__voss John Van Deusen, Jon Guerra, and the Gettys (these things are not the same but all great musicians).
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@Utterly_Jean @ewahlwriting @IvanaDGreco Knowing the plot of Frankenstein, for example, doesn’t mean you understand what’s happening in Frankenstein.
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@Utterly_Jean @ewahlwriting @IvanaDGreco I think there’s a case to be made for this in the case of say Lamb’s Shakespeare, and obviously fairy tales and myths hold up in the retelling. But in truth, most of the classic books are not classics because of the plot, but because of what the author does with that plot.
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Abridged books are an excellent entry into stories that would otherwise be above a child’s reading and comprehension level.
This is not undervaluing the child. This is recognizing that older classics are written in both language and style that is not usually accessible for children in 2026.
If you don’t believe me, I challenge you to read the first chapter of the unabridged Treasure Island. The vocabulary and syntax is simply too much for your average 9-year old.
Thus, people who are serious about putting their children in a place where they understand and embrace important classics, including Treasure Island, Shakespeare, and the Bible, almost always do the following:
1. Start with abridged versions (Bible stories for children, Great Illustrated Classics, graphic novel versions of Shakespeare);
2. Consider showing adapted movie version to make children familiar with the plot;
3. With extensive, very challenging texts like Shakespeare: begin with fun and accessible excerpts of the original texts;
4. After steps 1-3 are completed, move onto the original texts, doing whatever handholding is necessary to help the (presumably tween or teen) understand and enjoy the original, unabridged book or play.
This is teaching children while being grounded in *reality,* which is an important skill. I will accept anecdotes that this wasn’t necessary for your child (congratulations on having an unusual and bright kid) but this is the normal and easiest way to do it.
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry@pegobry_en
1. Being elitist is good (and inclusive to boot, actually) 2. There’s the obvious argument of authorial intent and respect for the author’s works 3. Half of the books on this pile were written for CHILDREN. If you’re an adult and don’t have a disability and need an abridged version to be able to read Jules Verne or Jack London, yes, I WILL mock you. If that makes me "elitist" then so be it. 4. Soft bigotry of low expectations
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@MystagogicalB @FrMCDallman This book was one of my Christmas presents. It is a treasure trove.
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Coming out of mass today, @FrMCDallman told me it looked like I'd been through a war. (Tongue in cheek of course). Among the usual pew shenanigans, Hilda managed to misplace our giving envelope! So, my loving husband sent me on my way for some alone time; brought this gem along.
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Homeschool today. Every morning we watch World Watch News (a kid news program from a Christian perspective) together while eating second breakfast. 🥞 🍳🥓 It’s a highlight of the day and we get so much out of discussing world events together.
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@MystagogicalB Caroline Chambers has a tasty paywalled recipe for shawarma beef lettuce wraps (with riced cauliflower mixed in with the beef to beef up the veg) but it’s really just ground beef cooked with shawarma spices and wrapped in lettuce. So good.
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@MystagogicalB This is a wonderful way to think about it. You can’t do it all at once! I confess we do have a chocolate calendar though, to sweeten the fast just a little (all other sweets are foresworn). BUT it must have scripture verses.
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We are trying to reclaim this time as a family. Little pieces of festivity make their way in, but I consider that closer to getting the nursery prepared for baby's arrival. It happens bit by bit and then all at once!
Megan | @megievalist@megievalist
Medieval Monday! With Christ the King Sunday completed, we approach the season of Advent. What's the medieval way to celebrate Advent? Fasting and penitence! You wouldn't know it by the number of chocolate Advent calendars sold each year, but Advent historically was a time for prayer, fasting, and contemplation in order to prepare ourselves spiritually for Christ's second coming. We often retain the second coming readings during this time of year, but not so much the fasting. In fact, it seems people forget that Advent and Christmastide are two different seasons.
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@matthew_loftus My very happy marriage depends on each knowing that we do not do these things well together. Every one puts a definite strain on our relationship as we have very different ways of approaching a problem. But knowing this makes us much more generous towards our unique gifts.
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Canoeing is a another good one. It's remarkable how much you learn about yourself and your relationship with someone trying to paddle a watercraft in the same direction.
Romy@Romy_Holland
marry someone you like doing chores with. figure this out early on. cook dinner together and then clean up the kitchen on your fourth date. build an ikea desk. go camping and set up a tent after dark in the rain.
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@lyndseyfifield The biggest problem is that if you want to live a rich and full home life you do need stuff - books, games, instruments, jars of jam. Living in Brambly Hedge requires plenty of tidying.
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Raise your hand if you’re trying to make your house look like Brambly Hedge.
Lyndsey Fifield@lyndseyfifield
The pendulum of “style” swings back and forth HARD - but in our case it's more than just style that influences us, it's *how these houses felt to grow up in* Those raised in magazine-perfect homes grew up and themselves had cluttered homes... then their kids (detoxing from the stress of that) became minimalists... and now THEIR kids want... warm, cozy Beatrix Potter homes. And yet through it all, these things are timeless - it's just all about execution.
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@HippyMomPhD @ChHouseBooks Great for older kids, too. Especially if written.
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@ChHouseBooks Narration is great for younger kids for sure
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Narration is a much better solution!
Claire Honeycutt | ClarifiED 🕊️❤️@HippyMomPhD
School KILLs the love of reading by quizzing kids on unimportant plot details I get it - you are trying to ensure kids actually read the book for class But by teaching this way, you ensure they stop reading altogether
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@BMcGrewvy Perhaps the James Madison Program isn’t capturing the institution but it is certainly making room for ideas to be aired on campus that won’t be welcomed otherwise. Princeton is too fat to starve, but its students have access to a better education because of the JMP.
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I was there for this panel. I think John is/was broadly correct about the unsalvageability of the Ivy Leagues, but to be fair to Dr. George, he listened equably to John's remarks and agreed that indeed, some institutions should be torched or, he suggested, "starved."
John Daniel Davidson@johnddavidson
I was on a panel with @McCormickProf last fall at the Touchstone Conference, and a question came up about elite institutions. He talked about how we can infiltrate and capture elite institutions, citing as an example the James Madison Program at Princeton, where Robbie George has spent nearly his entire career. The Madison Program is 25 years old. It has not captured Princeton. Similar programs at places like Harvard and Yale have also failed to capture those places. I responded to George by saying that some leftist institutions, including the Ivy League universities, cannot be infiltrated and captured. And if they cannot be captured then they should be destroyed--not just passively, by not sending our children to them, but by actively targeting and destroying them through deliberate public policy. The people who aspire to George's career arch don't want to hear that, because it means they will never have the elite career that George has had.
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“I’m just going to check the score of the ball game before I go to bed.”
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@karenvaites The quality of what is being read makes a big difference in writing quality. Really excellent writing - usually (though not exclusively) found in older books - improves language use patterns. If a child does not enjoy reading fiction audio books can help make it come alive.
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This question hit my Inbox, and I felt it in my bones.
I’m the parent of an under-challenged 8th grader in a “top” school district (where they spent the last decade devoted to Lucy Calkins, and now the middle school teachers are introducing a grammar intervention in middle school, to remediate🤦🏼♀️… good for them for addressing the gap, but every minute she spends learning the grammar she should have had in elementary schools is a minute she is not spending deep in text study, etc.). My daughter has spent her whole life in TCRWP schools, so her writing fundamentals need work. And she could also use more academic challenge, period.
I don’t have good answers for myself, on how to create more extra-school acceleration opportunities for a kid who already feels over scheduled with theater, music, and sports extracurriculars. We’re also at the age where Mom Tutoring earns some resistance.
I also don’t have good answers for this new friend, especially on the “who can help you navigate the system” question.
Posting this out in the world, because maybe you have good ideas for both of us.
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Oh, and ONCE AGAIN, Costco comes to the rescue here: allrecipes.com/costco-kirklan…
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This whole article on the rise of 'super premium' ($60/lb!) butter is hilarious: bloomberg.com/news/features/…
"The world is on fire. We have butter and cheese."
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@kapeters0n @FrontPorchRepub This is wonderful, Kelsey. Well done!
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An existential crisis as a writing teacher birthed this essay. I wrestled with despair and came out batting for hope, with a vision for teaching writing as something that entails thinking, exuberance, risk-taking, & merciful limitations—
so, no, not something optimizable.
Front Porch Republic@FrontPorchRepub
Kelsey Peterson: This is perhaps the one debt of gratitude I owe to AI thus far: that it’s clarified what writing is, and that writing is for humans. frontporchrepublic.com/2025/09/writin…
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