Shipping Information
As we work with our distribution center to integrate, all orders will be delayed up to 5 days before they are packaged and shipped between now and the end of July. Estimated shipping days begin the day that your order is packed and ready to go. I am only manually submitting orders twice a week until we get our systems digitally integrated. Thank you for your patience.
Bookstore
Learn about Poetic Language Lessons
Give your students a poetic education through the realms of beauty! Poet, Malcom Guite explains the primary role of poetry, “When you apprehend something, you reach out and touch just a bit of it. When you comprehend it, you get your mind right around it…. Poetry takes the apprehension and woos it gradually towards you into comprehension.”
In this way, a poetic experience begins with an apprehension of beauty. The beauty arrests us and lifts us up into mid-air where we contemplate the realms of glory— the true and the good. This is the first job of beauty through all art. Little people do not need comprehension lessons; they need experiences in wonder.
This is a curriculum devoted to the beauty of words, both written and spoken.
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Perfect for Traditional Classrooms, Home Educators, University-Collaborate Models, and Homeschool Co-ops.
Geared for grades 1-2, but older kids like it too.
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I really want to mesh Charlotte Mason's respect for children and for beauty while gently helping students discuss and recognize the beauty of words. I think children are fully capable of being guided towards using words well. They need to be given the exposure to the playfulness and beauty of words, as well as an opportunity to recognize and practice structure and articulation. At this age, they do not need to overanalyze, nor do they need to know all the terms and nuances of English. A pleasant experience with words will make them fall in love with language.
As this is a language usage curriculum, I am more concerned with diction and syntax than I am about spelling and grammar conventions, especially for first and second graders. Spelling and grammar conventions will come by and by. Children need to experience and play with words before anything else. I want them to apprehend words and ideas through poetry, music, art, and nature. This curriculum emphasizes helping children find and use good words. It increases their understanding of vocabulary and how words work. The rhetorical exercises are designed to help them play with their voices by hearing and using techniques that help them discover the beauty of well articulated words and phrases.
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The poetic imagination is developed through a specific pedagogy. A poetic education is not simply an education immersed in poetry, but it is a sensory-based, emotional participation with God, man, and the universe. Giving students ample time to wonder and enjoy nature, art, music, etc. is necessary. They need to have opportunities to reflect, imitate, and respond. Students delight in lessons that are rooted in poetic experiences; allowing them to sense the wholeness of the world. These lessons use poetry, music, art, and vocal exercises while laying a foundation in the 8-parts of speech. The short lessons are designed to bring the musicality and arts of language into the hearts of students.
For more information on developing the poetic imagination, read Poetic Knowledge: A Recovery of Education by James S. Taylor or Rallying the Really Human Things: The Cultural Importance of the Moral Imagination in Literature, Politics, and Everyday Life by Vigen Guroian.
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Poetic Language Lessons contains lessons in grammar, rhetorical exercises, picture study, poetry reading and recitation, copywork, music listening, nature study, and gentle writing exercises that progress towards the end of book 2.
Beauty First
Short lessons
Gentle approach for introducing grammar to young children
Rooted in wonder and a poetic experiences through music, art, & poetry
Rhetorical exercises in recitation for young children
Nature Study Activities
Easy to pick up and go for the busy mom or busy teacher!
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There are a few ways to adjust the pacing guide. Choose the option that is best for you.
1) Traditional schools will likely wish to complete all the activities in a classroom, 4-days a week. Do not send any assignments home.
2) Collaborative Models may prefer to complete two activities in class and send the “at-home” assignments home. Do not do any activities from this book on the at-home days. You will only use this in your classroom twice a week.
3) If you homeschool, do this program 3 to 4 days a week to complete it in one year. Or, you may wish to spread this out over 2 years, in which case, you can do 2 lessons per week for both first and second grades or second and third grade. As a former homeschool mom, I recommend to never let curriculum drive your schedule. Always attend to the needs of your children. Some may benefit from a slower pace, while others may benefit from the daily schedule without spreading it out.
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We are in the process of integrating this store with our distributor. They do offer international shipping, but we have to integrate this store to their distribution center. We hope to have this ready by the end of July. Canada is our first priority. Meanwhile, sign up for the newsletter so you can find out when this service will be available. If you are a school in Canada that needs to place a bulk order before the end of July, please email me directly at BeautifulTeaching@gmail.com
“The best way with music, I imagine, is not to bring the forces of our intellect to bear upon it, but to be still and let it work on that part of us for whose sake it exists.”
CLICK FOR SAMPLES
COMING SOON
Book 2 will be available by the end of August. It is not needed till January if you are following the four day pacing schedule.
Testimonies
K. Huber, Home Educator
“We are all eager to see what kind of lesson we have each day, and I've seen a lot of growth in poetry appreciation, grammar knowledge and having fun with language and art!”
J. Lenhardt, Classroom Teacher
I have Loved teaching this curriculum. It is truly a relaxing and beautiful way of teaching grammar. It is something my students and I look forward to.
E. Hindman, Home Educator
“My two students love listening to the music selections and it has encouraged them to be better, more careful listeners. They are certainly growing in their understanding of basic grammar and learning how to describe things well (which also helps with narration!) I like how manageable the lessons are- it's very open and go for me and I'm thrilled to so easily expose my children to so much beauty and richness.”
B. Linger, Classroom Teacher
This is a lovely curriculum with just enough guidance for the teacher. I appreciate all of the resources pages in the teacher's guide and the array of activities and types of lessons. It stays fresh for all of us!
Endorsements for Narration: The Voice of the Trivium
-Dr. Louis Markos, professor in English and scholar in residence, Houston Christian University; author of Passing the Torch: An Apology for Classical Christian Education.
"Adrienne Freas has done the classical Christian community a great service in finding the needed connection point between Dorothy Sayers and Charlotte Mason. Without dismissing Sayers’s focus on the trivium, Freas, by championing Mason’s focus on narration, elevates grammar, logic, and rhetoric from static tools to dynamic modes. Freas provides both the theoretical framework and the practical curriculum necessary to empower classical teachers and homeschool parents to draw their students/children into a deep love of learning through the lost art of narration, of listening and retelling. Rather than demonize memorization, Freas energizes it by linking it to all that is good and true and beautiful in our Greco-Roman/Judeo-Christian tradition. I second her thesis and commend her book to those who yearn to transform education from a passive absorption of knowledge to an active engagement with all of God’s creation."
-Andrew Zwerneman, Owner, Cana Academy
With the much-anticipated arrival of her beautiful work, NARRATION: The Voice of the Trivium, Adrienne Freas, one of classical education’s true blue master teachers, has given her colleagues everywhere an exceptionally brilliant pedagogical tool designed to form the memory and hearts of their students.
St. Augustine teaches that human memory collects what we ought to know and love. NARRATION teaches us how to cultivate that permanent and life-giving recollection. Everyone should get a copy. I read mine and loved it!
What to use after Poetic Language Lessons?
PROGYMNASMATA: CLASSICAL WRITING
by Benjamin Lyda
WHO: Traditional Classrooms, Home Educators, University-Collaborative Models, and Homeschool Co-ops.
WHAT: This is designed for grades 3 through 8. Student can begin this at any grade and can be totally new to the progymnasmata no matter what grade they start in. There is no limit to how many grades or students participate in this pilot.
