Passages from reading for copy work

My favorite resources to use for copywork are mostly taken directly from our everyday literature.  Through copying passages from great books we allow our children to better internalize the abundant lessons and given the opportunity to pick the minds of great authors.  I like to go over the usage of grammar as well in the same passage being copied which drives home even more the lessons to be learned.  This works very well for living science and history books too.  By copying passages from whole, living science books children can learn "hidden science facts" without ever being privy to it.  I know it works great for us because even the thought of having to use a "textbook" of any kind gives my children a headache.  They have their place when certain information is required but I am amazed at how much one can learn from living books!

"None of us can stop ourselves thinking wrong thoughts, and it isn't much good trying.  But, Annette-when you come down in the morning and find this room dark with the shutters close, do you say to yourself, 'I must chase away the darkness and the shadows first, and then I will open the shutters and let in the sun'?  Do you waste time trying to get rid of the dark?"

"Of course not!" said Annette.  

"Then how do you get rid of the dark?"

"Well, I pull back the shutters, of course, and then the light comes in!"

"But what happens to the dark?"

"I don't know; it just goes when the light comes!"

"That is just what happens when you ask the Lord Jesus to come in," said Grandmother.  "He is Love, and when love comes in, hatred and selfishness and unkindness will give way to it, just as the darkness gives way when you let in the sunshine.  But to try to chase it out alone would be like trying to chase the shadows out of a dark room.  It would be a waste of time."

Revelations 3:20-Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him, and he with me.

Current family read aloud: Treasures of the Snow by Patricia St. John

Flowers Under the Snow

I came across this today while I was reading and thought it was so nice I just had to share it.

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Many of us find life hard and full of pain. The world uses us roughly. We suffer wrongs and injuries. Other people's clumsy feet tread upon our tender spirits. We cannot avoid these things, but we should not allow the harsh experiences to deaden our sensibilities, or make us stoical or sour. The true problem of living is to keep our hearts sweet and gentle in the hardest conditions and experiences. If you remove the snow from the hillside in the late winter, you will find sweet flowers growing there, beneath the cold drifts, unhurt by the storm and by the snowy blankets that have covered them. So should we keep our hearts tender and sensitive beneath life's fiercest winter blasts and through the longest years of suffering and even of injustice and wrong treatment. That is true, victorious living.

J.R.Miller