Plumfield Moms
We are sisters in Christ who became friends over a shared love of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, found especially in good and great books. Our primary vocation is that of marriage and motherhood, but we feel a secondary call, as educators and homeschool moms, to walk with families who are seeking to help form souls who are capable of responding to the vocation God has called them to. Our objective is to form our children and grandchildren to the best of our ability, and in so doing share what has been meaningful to us with others that it may encourage them and lighten their burden. As homeschoolers, classical educators and Christians, we have a passion for the ancient Greek paideia and the loving education of Louisa May Alcott‘s Plumfield (from her novel Little Men).
Episodes
Taken from Sherry Early’s blog:
It was indeed a different era. What was going on in 1924 when these books were being published and read? The 1924 Paris Olympics, Leopold and Loeb murders, the premiere of Rhapsody in Blueby Gershwin. Vladimir Lenin died, and Mallory and Irvine disappeared while attempting to summit Mt. Everest. Robert Frost won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and crossword puzzles were all the rage after Simon snd S...
Whether they loved her or hated her, everyone who knew her considered her an amazing and memorable woman. Klaus Barbie, the infamous Butcher of Lyon became obsessed with finding the “Limping Lady of Lyon.” He had posters made and offered a huge reward for information leading to the arrest of “The Enemy’s Most Dangerous Spy.”
"Don’t you love this sort of pithy proverb? You can toss the platitude to a teenager whose friends you don’t approve of with the assurance that its truth is indisputable and needs no context – exactly the way we like our favorite Bible verses.
Because the maxim is simple to understand and examples of its truth abound, it was a perfect topic for an essay assignment for my writing class. Since I asked my class to contemplate the...
Hello, friends! We are working on some big projects behind the scenes and realized the need to take a little break from recording new book clubs. Also, we have gained quite a few new followers in the last twelve months. And so, we thought that now might be the right moment to revisit three of our most popular book clubs: the books of the CS Lewis Space Trilogy. A few years ago, I (Sara) wrote a short article about the trilogy and i...
Part of the plan to sneak the gold out right under the noses of the Nazis involves teams of Riswyk children each carrying 75 pounds of gold on their sleds down to a fjord where the crew of a fishing boat waits to load the gold for transportation to America.
The plan works seamlessly. Until the snow starts to melt before they have transported half the gold. And until the Nazi Commandant decides the lazy, impudent children need ...
"What child wouldn’t love to discover a living dinosaur in the backyard? What if that dinosaur could talk? That’s what happens to Joey and Joan Brown, freckled, red-headed twelve-year-old twins. On the first few pages of the story, we are made aware of the family Problem."
The Pharisees dogged Jesus so relentlessly they should have known his teachings as well as his disciples did. It’s tragic that they weren’t trying to learn anything from him other than how to discredit him.
Have I learned what Jesus meant when he said, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”?
It is hard to misunderstand what he means in the first chapter of Isaiah.
“‘What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices;’ says the Lord; ‘I have...
"If you are a believer, someone had to plant the seed in your mind. Someone else watered it. Acknowledging these gospel gardeners gives us perspective. When it seems like life has been mostly dark, it can remind us that Jesus has been there all the time."
I found that Downton Abbey and the Jeremy Irons Brideshead Revisited miniseries gave my imagination some kind of scaffolding upon which to understand this very subtle, very restrained, and very sophisticated fictional memoir.
To be perfectly frank, I really don’t know what this book is about. I know that it’s about dignity. I know that Mr. Stevens has a great deal of pride and prejudice related to the word dignity and that this bo...
"We know Jesus did say, 'Judge not, that you be not judged.' Are we to take this as our motto without context? In this same sermon, Jesus also tells us to beware of false prophets. How will we know true from false if we don’t judge anything?"
- Picture Book Preschool by Sherry Early
- The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss
- 100 Best Book for Children by Anita Silvey
- Kristi’s Totes
- The Card Catalog
- Biblioguides Online Community
- Private Lending Library Directory
- League of Lending Librarians
https://plumfieldandpaideia.com/show-notes-our-librarian-life-april-2024/
“The historical novels Sally Watson has laid in Great Britain and America are separate and complete, yet are united by a family tree. They romp across four centuries, from 1582 London to 1892 Northern California. No one gets a starring role twice, but main characters sometimes reappear in another book in a relatively minor role as grandparent, sibling, cousin, lover or even a wayward eyebrow. The predominant family trait seems to b...
"Do I trust God enough to stand before him with an open mouth and allow him to feed me? Am I absolutely sure that whatever he chooses to put in will be good? My head knows it will. His Word assures me that all his intentions for me are good. Is my heart so convinced that I can open my mouth wide before him and accept whatever he feeds me?"
Hello, friends! We are working on some big projects behind the scenes and realized the need to take a little break from recording new book clubs. Also, we have gained quite a few new followers in the last twelve months. And so, we thought that now might be the right moment to revisit three of our most popular book clubs: the books of the CS Lewis Space Trilogy. A few years ago, I (Sara) wrote a short article about the trilogy and i...
The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier is a compelling historical fiction novel written in 1959 about a Polish family torn apart by the Second World War and, happily, reunited afterwards.
"When I feel inadequate for the tasks I’m called to, isn't that right where I need to be? It’s only with God’s help that, when called upon, I will be able to run through a whole troop of men, even if they’re all staring at me. With the shield of salvation and God’s right hand to hold me up, I’ll be able to cover more and more ground with my ever-lengthening strides without turning an ankle.
As for God, his way is perfect, the word...
- Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare (The Bruce Coville retelling is out of print.)
- The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare
- The Tempest by William Shakespeare
- Shakespeare Story Book: Folk Tales that Inspired the Bard by Patrick Ryan
- Let's Play Math by Denise Gaskins
- A Long Road on a Short Day by Gary D. Schmidt
- Gary D. Schmidt
- Saturday by Oge Mora
- Raccoons are the Brightest People by Sterling North
- The Call of the Wi...
Despite being an English major at Hillsdale College, I had never read Frankenstein. Truthfully, I had always avoided it. I thought it was just a gothic novel, like Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, and I hated that book. I also hated Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. I just do not care for ghost stories or creepy stories of any kind. I can read Flannery O’Connor and beg for more, but not creepy...
"Once they had seen that what the angel said was true, they were to go quickly and tell his disciples that Jesus was alive. They joyfully ran to do just that. I imagine their faces looked like my little sister’s when she saw the piles of gifts. How long was it before they could stop grinning?
"These women obediently told Jesus’s disciples that Jesus had risen from the dead. His disciples told others, and those others told more, and...
Hello, friends! We are working on some big projects behind the scenes and realized the need to take a little break from recording new book clubs. Also, we have gained quite a few new followers in the last twelve months. And so, we thought that now might be the right moment to revisit three of our most popular book clubs: the books of the CS Lewis Space Trilogy. A few years ago, I (Sara) wrote a short article about the trilogy and i...
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