A is for Alphabets and Alphabet Books - Blogging From A to Z Challenge

This year for the Blogging from A to Z challenge, I'm focusing on going through my homeschooling files that I've created from the time that Sophia and Olivia were in preschool.

Some of the files I have for homeschooling.

Some of the files are still relevant while others I will be decluttering and recycling in the process.

The "A" files before (above) and what's remaining (below)

Each day during April, I will pick one of the files to focus on - either doing a hands-on activity or sharing some information from one of the files.

For the first day, I am focusing on  alphabets and alphabet coloring books.

This Spring, I am going to finish the two alphabet books I started when the girls were younger. One has each letter on a page with a variety of images from nature: animals, flowers, plants, insects, and other wildlife. This is my favorite one.

Source

The other is the Hotch-Potch Alphabet Coloring Book (see below for the letter "A").

In the eighteenth century, alphabet cards provided an entertaining way for children to learn their letters. They were used to teach everything including mathematics, grammar, and astronomy. These coloring book features the alphabet published in 1782 by Carington Bowles.

Interestingly, as I looked through the book, it is missing the letters J and U. I was curious to know why.

According to Wikipedia, "In the year 1011, a monk named Byrhtferð recorded the traditional order of the Old English alphabet. He listed the 24 letters of the Latin alphabet first (including ampersand), then 5 additional English letters." The 24 letters included all of the letters in our current alphabet, minus the J and U.

This is the Hotch-Potch Alphabet Coloring Book from

Colonial Williamsburg.

Once I'm done coloring the alphabets, I'm going to have them bound. I'll place them in the wooden chest I have for items that will be given to grandchildren one day.

Olivia is going to do her own version of one of the alphabet books (the one with the animals, flowers, and nature images in the letters) and have it bound for the county fair in July.

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Other things I found in the "A" section of the file cabinet that I took action on:

- Gave Olivia magazine clippings about various animals and their attributes.

- Gave Sophia articles about artists who have some connection with France so that she can include the time she spent reading about them with her French (homeschool) class.

Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh.

He was born in the Netherlands, but

lived and died in France.

- Set up an online calendar with activities to do that will use some of the copies and clippings I kept (e.g., making a spiral scarlet bean tower to attract hummingbirds as well as provide a secluded place to sit and relax; planting dahlias like I saw in Neskowin, Oregon, when I took a class at Sitka Center for Art and Ecology).

- Contacted a company that specializes in aquariums and water gardens so we can repair the outdoor pond we have now.

- Hung up three cards in my office that feature Brian Andreas' work (StoryPeople). The cards say:

They came to sit and dangle their feet off the edge of the world and after awhile they forgot everything but the good and true things they would do someday.

She said she usually cried at least once each day not because she was sad, but because the world was so beautiful and life was so short.

In my dream, the angel shrugged and said, If we fail this time, it will be a failure of imagination and then she placed the world gently in the palm of my hand. 

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In the process of going through the files that began with "A," I recycled one bag of copies and magazine clippings.

The bag of papers to be recycled is on the left.

(There are six bags of donated items on the right.)

I'm looking forward to continuing to go through the files; and learning and doing more during April. Hopefully I'll have a lot of extra space, too, once the files have been purged of things I no longer need or want.