Tuesday, June 28, 2011

John Muir's Our National Parks/Google Books


Title Our National Parks
Author John Muir
Publisher Houghton, Mifflin and company, 1901
Length 370 pages

Click here.

Pictured: President Theodore Roosevelt and Muir

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Golden Numbers: A Book of Verse for Youth/Google Books


Title Golden Numbers: A Book of Verse for Youth
Author Nora Archibald Smith
Compiled by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
Publisher Doubleday, Page & Co., 1902
Length 686 pages
See here.

Friday, June 17, 2011

American History: for Use in Secondary Schools/Google Books

Title American History: for Use in Secondary Schools
Author Roscoe Lewis Ashley
Publisher Macmillan, 1907
Length 557 pages
Click here.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Picture Readings/Google Books

Title Picture Readings: A Study of Paintings by the Great Masters
Author Edgar Packard
Publisher Public school publishing company, 1918
Length 135 pages

Click here.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Science for Beginners/Google Books


Title Science for Beginners: An Introduction to the Method and Matter of Science
New-world Science Series
Author Delos Fall
Publisher World Book Co., 1918
Length 388 pages
Click here.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Nature Year Book [Short Daily Poetry]/Google Books

Title Nature Year Book
Editor Esther Matson
Publisher T.Y. Crowell, 1906
Length 155 pages
Click here.

For adults and young people.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Plants and Their Children/Google Books


Title Plants and Their Children
Author Frances Theodora Parsons
Publisher American Book Company, 1896
Length 272 pages
Click here

Thursday, May 19, 2011

The Little Gleaner(Christian Character Education)/Goolge Books

This was a British children's magazine with a heavy emphasis on Christian character education . Strongly Protestant in flavor and many lovely engravings.

Excerpt from The Seasons:
The four seasons of the year in their turn change the face of nature, affording varied work for the husbandman, and giving the manufacturer and tradesman diversified opportunities of buying and selling goods; and every shrewd merchant and tradesman watches for and embraces the season most favourable for business, just as the mariner does the wind and tides.

No doubt many of you are so favoured and indulged that the varying seasons bring to you suitable recreation and employment; to boys, hoops, peg-tops, and marbles; and girls, hoops, shuttlecock, and skipping-rope, with out-door and in-door employment of a far more intellectual and useful character; so that each change in the year has for you its charm.

But the dream of riper age flits before your eyes at times with such radiance, causing you to think some childish trials very hard to bear. But, remember, dear young ones, you will never have less cares than now. You imagine increased years will give you advanced pleasures, not considering that these things will bring their share of trouble. Ah! far more than you now have, when, with choking sobs and brimful eyes, you hang over a difficult sum, or sigh over a broken toy. Don't forget that behind the blushing rose you may find a pricking thorn, and a bitter sediment may be at the bottom of a sweet cup.

But we would not needlessly cloud your cheerful brows with the hardships of future years. Do your best to improve your home and schooldays, that they may bring you a good return, for we get but the theory of learning at school—the practice of it is acquired later on. This is now the springtime of your life, when the seed is sown that will afterwards spring up of whatever kind it may be. But some of you may be passing the primrose of your days: your character is being fully developed; you may long have been beneath a parent's roof, and have hung on to props and dependencies, just as the ivy clings to and climbs around the oak ; now you are left to your own resources, you may no longer have a father's counsel or a mother's care, but are thrown into the wide world among companions vain and vile. You have to shoulder your way amidst designing men and deceitful women. Oh, may the God of Jacob bless you and keep you, so that, as you ripen into the summer season of your life, it may/be with the prospect of securing a harvest of spiritual as well as of temporal profit! And that you may prosper, abhor an and beware of sloth; both will do you harm, although you may shake off me latter and increase the former. In all things look to the Lord for help; He /can cause you to steer clear where others strike upon the rock and suffer shipwreck. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your pathway. Many flowery and mossy paths may open invitingly to you, like the various rows Bunyan speaks of in Vanity Fair, where honours, profits, pleasures, and pastimes may be presented to your view in their best garb, to attract your mind and ensnare your feet—offered too at so cheap a rate that you may say, "Why should I deny myself this which costs me so little?" But oh, remember the reckoning day is to come; "for the end of all these things is death" (Rom.vi. 21).



Title The Little Gleaner
Publisher Houlston, 1879, London
Click here.

Monday, May 9, 2011

How to be a Lady for Girls/Google Books

Title How to be a Lady for Girls
Author Harvey Newcomb
Published 1850
Original from the University of Michigan
Click here.

Chapter 18, Indolence:

The indolent dread all exertion. When requested to do any thing, they have something else to do first, which their indolence has left unfinished; or they have some other reason to give why they should not attempt it. But if nothing else will do, the sluggard's excuse, " I can't" is always at hand. Were it not for the injury to them, it would be far more agreeable to do, one's self, what is desired of them, than to encounter the painful scowls that clothe the brow, when they think of making an effort. Solomon has described this disposition to the life : —" The slothful man putteth his hand in his bosom: it grieveth him to take it out again"

Friday, May 6, 2011

The Giant Crab and Other Tales from Old India/Project Gutenberg


THE GIANT CRAB And Other Tales from Old India Retold by W. H. D. ROUSE Illustrated by W. Robinson, London, 1897.
See here.

Elementary Spanish-American Reader/Google Books

Title Elementary Spanish-American reader
Macmillan Spanish series
Editor Frederick Bliss Luquiens
Publisher The Macmillan company, 1917
Length 224 pages
Click here

Preface:

It is the purpose of this book to furnish material for translation for students who wish to begin reading at a very early stage of their study of Spanish. With this purpose in view, the notes are both elementary and exhaustive, and the vocabulary contains all verb forms whose stems differ from the stem of the infinitive, and all other words which might give trouble to the beginner, such as combinations of verbs and pronouns, and irregular plurals.

It is hoped that teachers will like the literal translations in the notes. In no case have free translations of difficult passages been given which do not show, at the same time, what the individual words mean. If teachers will require students to learn the literal, as well as the free translation of such passages, accuracy in translation will soon be attained.

The notes of a beginning book should not only help the student in translation, but also afford him an opportunity of reviewing the rules he has learned in his grammar or composition book. This has been kept in mind in the preparation of the present notes. Grammatical rules are stated in full at their first occurrence in the text, and thereafter attention is repeatedly recalled to those rules by cross-references. If teachers who use this book will insist on the use of the cross-references, their students will not forget the fundamental rules of grammar. For convenience of reference, a statement of the uses of the subjunctive and a table of numerals have been added to the notes.

To each selection have been added exercises for oral and written work. The Spanish questions are to be used orally. If students prepare their answers in advance, teachers will find it easy to make them the basis of general conversation on the lesson which will be both interesting and valuable. The composition exercises contain no words, phrases, or constructions which the student will not be able to find in the Spanish pages immediately preceding. He will be able, therefore, to write a little Spanish based on models rather than on rules, thus supplementing the necessary, but rather artificial, exercises of composition books. Such work, moreover, being based on the very passages which have perhaps been difficult to translate, will give him a clearer insight into the correct method of translating Spanish into English.

Finally, this Reader is intended to fill a very great need in the teaching of Spanish in this country. There are many readers which introduce students to Spain, but none which gives him a real introduction to Spanish America. One of the objects of this book is to teach some Spanish American geography and history. Such information will not only be valuable to the student, but will, as experience has shown, arouse his interest, and this cannot but quicken his progress in the mastery of the language itself. The selections of this Reader all deal with Latin-American subjects, and are supplemented by footnotes containing fundamental information about Latin America. These footnotes have been put into very easy Spanish and included in the vocabulary, notes, and exercises. They should be included in the assignments for translation.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

How to Know the Ferns/Google Books


Title How to Know the Ferns: a guide to the names, haunts, and habits of our common ferns
Author Frances Theodora Parsons
Publisher C. Scribner's sons, 1902
Length 215 pages
Click here

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

How to Study Birds/Google Books

Title How to Study Birds: a practical guide for amateur bird-lovers and camera-hunters
Author Herbert Keightley Job
Publisher A.L. Burt, 1910
Length 272 pages
Click here

The purpose of this book is to give, simply, clearly, and thoroughly, every possible suggestion and bit of practical information which may be useful to those who are beginning the fascinating study of birds in their native haunts.

Very many are undertaking it in these days — men who crave the excitement of the chase and yet dislike to kill, or who seek relaxation from the strain of business; women who are tired of being hothouse plants, or whose nerves are at the breaking-point from an unnatural sedentary life; boys and girls in the schools who are finding that delight in the animal creation does not cease when they are no longer little children; teachers who realize the importance and interest of the subject for the young, and desire to fit themselves to interest their pupils in the birds. But it is all new and perplexing, and there are a multitude of things they want to ask about, all sorts of inquiries as how to go to work to study the birds afield. It is hoped that this book placed in their hands may prove a ready friend to answer these questions to their satisfaction and to start them upon a happy career of outdoor delights among the wild birds.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

World Stories Retold for Modern Boys and Girls/Google Books

Title World Stories Retold for Modern Boys and Girls: one hundred and eighty-seven five-minute classic stories for retelling in home, Sunday School, children's services, public school grades, and "the story-hour" in public libraries, with practical suggestions for telling
Author William James Sly
Publisher The Griffith & Rowland Press, 1914
Length 294 pages
Click here.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases/Google Books



Title Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases: a practical handbook of pertinent expressions, striking similes, literary, commercial, conversational, and oratorical terms, for the embellishment of speech and literature, and the improvement of the vocabulary of those persons who read, write, and speak English

Author Grenville Kleiser
Publisher Funk & Wagnalls company, 1917
Length 453 pages
Click here.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Course of Study in History and Literature(Grades One - Eight)

Title Course of study in history and literature: with suggestions and directions
Author Emily J. Rice
Publisher A. Flanagan, 1898
Length 185 pages
Click here

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Monday, April 11, 2011

Word-power, How to Develop It/Google Books




Title Word-power, How to Develop It
Author Grenville Kleiser
Publisher Funk & Wagnalls company, 1920
Length 172 pages
Click here.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Minerals, and How to Study Them: A Book for Beginners in Mineralogy/Google Books

Title Minerals, and How to Study Them: A Book for Beginners in Mineralogy
Author Edward Salisbury Dana
Publisher J. Wiley & sons, 1903
Length 380 pages
Click here.

How to Be a Man: A Book for Boys: Containing Useful Hints on the Formation of Character/Google Books

Title How to Be a Man: A Book for Boys: Containing Useful Hints on the Formation of Character
Author Harvey Newcomb
Publisher Gould and Lincoln, 1856
Length 224 pages
Click here.

"A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.‎"

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Multigrade Composition Lessons

Handbook of Composition by Edwin Campbell Woolley, D.C. Heath & Co., 1907

The Progressive Composition Lessons: 7th and 8th Years, by Ida M. Brautigam;Silver, Burdett and Co., 1914

Practical Lessons in the Use of English by Mary F Hyde, D.C. Heath & Co., 1887

Composition for Elementary Schools, James Fleming Hosic, Cyrus Lauron Hooper, and Rand, McNally & Company, 1916

Pinneo's Guide to Composition: A Series of Practical Lessons: Designed to Simplify the Art of Writing Composition: for Beginners, by Timothy Stone Pinneo, Sargent, Wilson & Hinkle, 1864

New Composition and Rhetoric for Schools by Robert Herrick, Lindsay Todd Damon; Scott, Foresman and Company, 1911; 508 pages(middle school-high school)

English Composition for College Freshmen, by Wilbur Owen Sypherd, 1915.

More to come....

Sunday, April 3, 2011

English Composition & Essay-writing/Google Books

Title English Composition & Essay-writing
Author J.W. Miller
Publisher Longmans, Green & co., 1910
Length 113 pages
Click here.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Brooks's Readers: Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Years/Google Books

Title Brooks's Readers: Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Years
Author Stratton Duluth Brooks
Publisher American book co., 1907
See here.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

City and Town: A Third Reader/Google Books

Title City and Town: A Third Reader
Author Pauline Frost Rafter
Publisher B.H. Sanborn, 1912
Length 292 pages
Click here.

Monday, March 28, 2011

The Whole Year Round/Google Books

Title The Whole Year Round
Author Dallas Lore Sharp
Publisher Houghton Mifflin company., 1915
Length 503 pages
Click here.

INTRODUCTION

"THE writer of this book has four children of his own, and not so very long ago (he can remember it) he was a child himself, and roamed the fields, as still he does, with all the child's love of freedom and joy in the companionship of wild things

— wild lives, wild winds, wild places, and the wild hours along the edge of dusk and dawn. And if he has any right to ask other children than his own to . tramp the wild places with him through the pages of this book it is because he is still a child and cannot outgrow his love of Saturdays and skates and deep woods and the ways of the wild folk, great and small; and because, again, he has tramped the wild places (for his home is in the woods) more than most of his readers, perhaps, and tramped them the seasons round

— stormy nights and lazy autumn days, and summer and winter; and he has seen — only what his readers; have seen, no doubt, — the ordinary things, but he has often felt, as all children do at times feel, strange deep things, things more wonderful than anybody ever saw. And yet the ordinary things, ordinary only because we have not watched them and thought about them, are really what we are going out to see; and we are going out in an ordinary way — upon our two feet..."

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

The Art-literature Readers, Book 4‎/Google Books


Title The Art-literature readers, Book 4
Authors Eulalie Osgood Grover, Frances Elizabeth Chutter
Publisher Atkinson, Mentzer & Grover, 1909
Click here.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Elementary geography: a text-book for children/Google Books


Title Elementary Geography: A Text-book for Children
King's Geographies
Author Charles Francis King
Publisher C. Scribner's Sons, 1904
Length 220 pages
Click here.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Little Gardens for Boys and Girls/Google Books

Title Little Gardens for Boys and Girls
Author Myrta Margaret Higgins
Publisher Houghton Miffin, 1910
Length 152 pages
Click here.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

The Wide Awake Fourth Reader/Google Books

Title The Wide Awake Fourth Reader
Author Etta Austin Blaisdell McDonald
Publisher Little, Brown and Co., 1913
Click here.

Very sweet story selections, especially for spring.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Puppy Dogs' Tales and Stories of Other Animal Friends /Google Books


Title Puppy Dogs' Tales and Stories of Other Animal Friends
Editor Frances Kent
Publisher The Macmillan company, 1922
Length 258 pages
Click here.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

The Spring of the Year /Google Books

Title The Spring of the Year
The Dallas Lore Sharp Nature Series
May G. Quigley collection
Author Dallas Lore Sharp
Publisher Houghton Mifflin Company, 1909
Length 148 pages
Click here.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Famous Men of Science/Project Gutenberg

FAMOUS MEN OF SCIENCE BY SARAH K. BOLTON
AUTHOR OF "POOR BOYS WHO BECAME FAMOUS," "GIRLS WHO
BECAME FAMOUS," "FAMOUS AMERICAN AUTHORS,"
"FAMOUS AMERICAN STATESMEN," "SOCIAL
STUDIES IN ENGLAND," "STORIES
FROM LIFE," "FROM HEART
AND NATURE," ETC.
1889


Preface:

Garfield said, "No page of human history is so instructive and significant as the record of those early influences which develop the character and direct the lives of eminent men."

These sketches show how young men have overcome difficulties, sometimes poverty, sometimes illness; how they have made failures before finding their true vocation. They show the results of energy, perseverance, and untiring devotion; how a cheerful face and a hopeful spirit like Agassiz's, or a gentle and kindly nature like Darwin's, can win its way against opposition.


Click here.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Young Children's Lesson Plan Ideas for March


I'll try to fill this out with links and cut-and-paste March images in the next few days. From a 1915 Primary Education periodical:

Poems

Signs of the Seasons — Hathaway.
The Wind. Sun's Travels — Stevenson.
Written in March — Wordsworth.
March — H. H. Jackson.
March. Little Gustava(very sweet!). Song of Easter — Thaxter.
One Bird — Van Dyke.
The Swallows — Arnold.
Little White Lily — Macdonald.
The Little Plant — Kate Brown.

Stories

The Ugly Duckling, Little Ida's Flowers — Andersen
The Foolish Weather Vane — Published by Rand, McNally & Company.
The Winds — Burnham.
March's Call, Half a Hundred Stories — Published by Milton Bradley Company.
Legends — Proserpine, Wind and Sun, Sleeping Beauty, Siegfried and Brunhilde; What Annie Saw — Published by Educational Publishing Company.

Pictures For Study

St. Anthony of Padua — Murillo.
He is Risen — Plockhorst.
Spring — Corot.
Chorister Boys — Anderson.
Robin Redbreast — Munier.
Swallows. A Resting Place — Laux.
Sparrows — Laux.

Morning Talks And Occupation Work

Signs of spring; color of sky; position of sun; the brook waking up; frogs; turtles; woodchucks; returning birds.

Make chart. Upon it note arrival of first robin; bluebird; blackbird; barn swallow; chipping sparrow; song sparrow;woodpecker; meadow lark. Take time each morning throughout the month to hear about any bird that has returned.

Keep descriptions of birds in little booklets. If possible, illustrate each page with picture of bird in color.

Winds; use of; what each brings.

Use sand table to model things which the wind does. Have a large weather vane in the center modeled by one of the older boys. Around it have miniature sailboats, windmills, kites, lines of clothes, etc.

Poem for illustration with charcoal or by paper cutting:

Twilight of mad March evening
Wee Robert was snug in bed.
"And what has the wind been doing?"
To mamma he sleepily said.

The pine trees outside were singing,
She heard their wild lullaby.
"The wind has been busy since morning,"
She said, "when we heard it pass by.

"It turned every wind mill it came to,
It speeded the boats on the sea,
It fluttered the clothes on the clothesline
Until they were dry as could be.

"It caught a man's hat and whirled it
Away down the long white street.
And everyone laughed and wondered
If man or March wind would beat.

"It came where some boys were flying
Their kites of every hue
And carried one up to cloud land.
Did that kite belong to you?

"It turned the proud vane on the steeple.
It tossed roaring waves on the shore;
Then gently it sang at twilight
For my babe when the day was o'er."

Trees and buds.


Study twigs. Force sprigs of lilac, cherry, willow, beech, and horse chestnut by placing in fresh water in the sunshine.

Maple trees; sap; sugar. How trees are tapped; how sap is carried to sugar house; sap making in olden time.

Make brush drawings of twigs. Cut barn from dark red paper. Take the silver gray pussies from the twigs and paste in position about barn as if a whole family of kittens were at play there. Add heads and tails with pencils.

In connection with study of maple sugar, cut sap buckets, sugar house, boiling kettle and pans.

Friday, March 4, 2011

The Herald of Spring: Spring:The Hyacinth(Multi-grade Lessons)/Google Books


Nature Study in Elementary Schools: First Reader(Hyacinth Bulb)

Outlines of Lessons in Botany(elementary - middle school)

Gardening For Children(The Hyacinth)

When Mother Lets Us Garden; A Book for Little Folk Who Want to Make Gardens(Hyacinths in Water)

The World Book

The Spartan, Myth of the Hyacinth(Elementary - Middle school)

School and Home Gardens




More coming soon....

Image from my garden.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

The Naval History of the United States: Blue Jackets of '76/Google Books


Title The Naval History of the United States: Blue Jackets of '76
Author Willis John Abbot
Publisher Peter Fenelon Collier, 1890
Click here.

Friday, February 25, 2011

Stories of the Civil War/Google Books

Title Stories of the Civil war: adapted for supplementary reading
Author Albert Franklin Blaisdell
Publisher Lee and Shepard, 1890
Length 245 pages
Click here.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Friday, February 18, 2011

The New Civics: A Textbook for Secondary Schools/Google Books

Title The New Civics: A Textbook for Secondary Schools
Author Roscoe Lewis Ashley
Publisher The Macmillan company, 1917
Length 420 pages
Read here.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Early European Civilization: a Textbook for Secondary Schools(Prehistory to Reformation)

Title Early European Civilization: a Textbook for Secondary Schools
Author Roscoe Lewis Ashley
Publisher Macmillan, 1916
Length 719 pages
See here.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Friday, February 11, 2011

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave(Audiobook)/Other

The male narrator has a great voice - very clear, and the sound quality is excellent.

Click here to FreeAudio.org. This link includes background history for students. Audio comes in three parts and a zip file with all is available. At the link, Click on audio in order to listen online and/or right click, and "save file as" to download.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Chandra in India/Google Books


Title Chandra in India(A Geographical Reader)
Little People Everywhere
Author Etta Austin Blaisdell McDonald
Publisher Little, Brown, and Company, 1916
Length 111 pages
See here.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Wild Flowers Every Child Should Know/Google Books


Title Wild Flowers Every Child Should Know: Arranged According to Color, with Reliable Descriptions of the More Common Species of the United States and Canada
Author Frederic William Stack
Publisher Doubleday, Page and Company, 1914
Length 411 pages

See here.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Natural History Object Lessons: A Manual for Teachers

Title Natural History Object Lessons: A Manual for Teachers
Author George Ricks
Publisher D.C. Heath, 1891
Length 352 pages
Click here

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Saints and Festivals of the Christian Church/Google Books

Title Saints and Festivals of the Christian Church
Author H. Pomeroy Brewster
Publisher F. A. Stokes, 1904
Length 558 pages
Click here.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

How Our Grandfathers Lived/Google Books

Title How Our Grandfathers Lived
Authors Albert Bushnell Hart, Annie Bliss Chapman
Publisher Macmillan, 1916
Length 371 pages
Click here.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Broad Stripes and Bright Stars: Stories of American History /Google Books

Title Broad Stripes and Bright Stars: Stories of American History
for the Children's Hour Series
May G. Quigley collection
Author Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
Publisher Milton Bradley company, 1919
Length 240 pages
Click here.

Monday, January 31, 2011

Stories of the Nibelungen(Germanic/Old Norse Tales) for Young People/Project Gutenberg


Read and download here.

Excerpt:

YOUNG SIEGFRIED

In the good old days of Long Ago, when kings had absolute power over all their subjects, even in the matter of life and death, there dwelt in the city of Santum, on the beautiful Rhine River, a great and good king named Siegmund.

He was very powerful, and ruled over the kingdom of Niederland so wisely and so well that he was[8] loved and honored by all his people. He shared his throne with Siegelinda, his beautiful wife, who also was noble and kind of heart.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

The Recollections of a Drummer-Boy(Civil War)/Google Books

Title The Recollections of a Drummer-Boy
Author Harry M. Kieffer
Published 1911
Here.
From the preface:"Several years ago the writer prepared a brief series of papers for the columns of St. Nicholas, under the title of "Recollections of a Drummer-Boy." It was thought that these sketches of army life, as seen by a boy, would prove enjoyable and profitable to children in general, and especially to the children of the men who participated in the great Civil War, on one side or the other; while the belief was entertained that they might at the same time serve to revive in the minds of the veterans themselves long-forgotten or but imperfectly remembered scenes and experiences in camp and field. In the outstart it was not the author's design to write a connected story, but rather simply to prepare a few brief and hasty sketches of army life, drawn from his own personal experience and suitable for magazine purposes. But these, though prepared in such intervals as could with difficulty be spared from the exacting duties of a busy professional life, having been so kindly received by the editors of St. Nicholas, as well as by the very large circle of readers of that excellent magazine, and the writer having been urgently pressed on all sides for more of the same kind, it was thought well to revise and enlarge the "Recollections of a Drummer-Boy," and to present them to the public in permanent book form. In the shape of a more or less connected story of army life, covering the whole period of a soldier's experience from enlistment to muster-out, and carried forward through all the stirring scenes of camp and field, it was believed that these "Recollections," in the revised form, would commend themselves not only to the children of the soldiers of the late war, but to the surviving soldiers themselves; while at the same time they would possess a reasonable interest for the general reader as well."

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

A Mother's List of Books for Children/Project Gutenberg

A wonderful reference for finding public domain children's books. These books are listed by age, ages two - fourteen, and topic. I've already found quite a few at Google Books for my thirteen year old, of which I'll be sharing over the next week.

Click here. HTML version is the easiest to work of off with searches - quick copy and paste.

Stories of Art and Artists/Google Books

Title Stories of Art and Artists
Author Clara Erskine Clement Waters
Publisher Ticknor and company, 1887
Length 357 pages
Click here.

This book pairs well with Garden of Praise's free art appreciation lessons(scroll all the way down to bottom at the link). This is for younger children, and has color high definition images of the many of the paintings mentioned in Clara Water's book. There are also online quizzes, worksheets, etc. and helpful links.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Rolf in the Woods/Project Gutenberg

"In this story I have endeavoured to realize some of the influences that surrounded the youth of America a hundred years ago, and made of them, first, good citizens, and, later, in the day of peril, heroes that won the battles of Lake Erie, Plattsburg, and New Orleans, and the great sea fights of Porter, Bainbridge, Decatur, Lawrence, Perry, and MacDonough.

I have especially dwelt in detail on the woodland and peace scouting in the hope that I may thus help other boys to follow the hard-climbing trail that leads to the higher uplands. "

Rolf in the Woods by Ernest Thompson Seton

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Boy's Book of Pirates/Google Books

Title Boy's Book of Pirates
Author Howard Pyle
Publisher Harper, 1908
Length 238 pages
Read here.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Theodore Roosevelt, Patriot and Statesman/Google Books

Title Theodore Roosevelt, Patriot and Statesman: The True Story of an Ideal American
Author Robert Cornelius V. Meyers
Publisher P. W. Ziegler & Co. [c1902], 1902
Length 621 pages
See here.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Free Word Processor: Jarte

We've been using this free download program for years to print copy-and-paste school materials.

"Jarte \jär · 'tay\ noun (est. 2001) 1. A free word processor based on the Microsoft WordPad word processing engine built into Windows. 2. A fast starting, easy to use word processor that expands well beyond the WordPad feature set. 3. A small, portable word processor whose documents are fully compatible with Word and WordPad." See more here.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Bow-wow and Mew-mew(Easy Reader)/Google Books


Title Bow-wow and Mew-mew
Author Georgiana Marion Craik
Publisher Beckley-Cardy, 1914
Length 95 pages
Click here

Bow-Wow And Mew-mew is one of the few books for beginners in reading that may be classed as literature. Written in words of mostly one syllable, it has a story to tell, which is related in so attractive a manner as to immediately win the favor of young children. It teaches English and English literature to the child in the natural way: through a love for the reading matter. It is the character of story that will, in the not distant future, replace the ordinary primer or reader with detached sentences, and which seldom possesses any relation to literature.

The ultimate objects of any story can only be effected through the love for a story. The prominent point in this story is development of good character, which may well be regarded as the highest purpose of education. The transformation from bad to good traits in the dog and cat cannot but have a desirable effect on every child that reads the story. Bow-Wow and Mew-Mew become dissatisfied with their home and their surroundings, and ungrateful toward their benefactress. As the story tells, "They did not find good in any thing." But after running away and suffering hunger, neglect, and bad treatment, their characters begin to change. They naturally come to reflect their mistress's goodness. They learn the value of companionship and friendship, and the appreciation of a home. However, the ethical thoughts in the story are presented without a moral. The child really lives the scenes described. He has the emotions of the characters and feels their convictions. And this determines the worth of a story as an agent in character development.

The narrative furnishes, further, the proper kind of exercise for the imagination. It affords abundant opportunity for the play of the dramatic instinct in the child, and effects a happy union of the "home world" and the " school world." The illustrations, drawn by Miss Hodge, have been planned and executed with considerable care. J. C. S.

On the Edge of Winter(Colonial Historical Fiction)/Google Books

Title On the Edge of Winter
Author Richard Markham
Publisher Dodd, Mead, and Company, publishers, 1881
Length 236 pages
Click here.

Wherein may be read how Five Boys and Five Girls ate their Thanksgiving Dinner at an Old Farm House in the Hudson Highlands. The Book records further sundry of their Doings, and some Stories and Ballads of the Early Days of our Country.


Companion books:

Around the Yule Log

Aboard the Mavis

Friday, January 14, 2011

Stories for Summer Days and Winter Nights/Google Books

Title Stories for Summer Days and Winter Nights
Publisher Groombridge and Sons, 1872
Click here.

Our Winter Birds[N.E. USA]: How to Know and How to Attract Them/Google Books


Title Our Winter Birds: How to Know and How to Attract Them
Author Frank Michler Chapman
Publisher D. Appleton and Company, 1918
Length 180 pages
Click here.

Five Hundred Years of Chaucer Criticism and Allusion(1357-1900)/Google Books

Title Five Hundred Years of Chaucer Criticism and Allusion (1357-1900)
Chaucer Society publications
Editor Caroline Frances Eleanor Spurgeon
Publisher Pub. for the Chaucer society by K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & co., ltd and by H. Frowde, 1908
Click here.


More books on Chaucer:Chaucer Society Publications

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Dooryard Folks: and, A Winter Garden/Google Books


Title Dooryard Folks: and, A Winter Garden
Author Amanda Bartlett Harris
Publisher D. Lothrop, 1883
Length 207 pages
Click here.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Australia: Our Colonies, and Other Islands of the Sea/Google Books

Title Australia: Our Colonies, and Other Islands of the Sea
Carpenter's Geographical Reader
Author Frank George Carpenter
Publisher American Book Co., 1904
Length 432 pages
Click here.


"The purpose of this book is to give the children who read it a living knowledge of Australia and the chief islands of the world, and especially those which have become colonies or dependencies of the United States. Within the past few years our own territories have been extended to the other side of the globe. We have acquired new lands with new climates, resources, and products. We have adopted into our national family millions of people belonging to races different from ours, having different customs and a different civilization. In our far-away lands the whole aspect of nature seems changed, and we seem to be in a new world. This is so not only of Samoa, Hawaii, and the Philippines, but also of Porto Rico and our dependent sister republic of the West Indies, the great island of Cuba.

This book aims to take the children themselves into this new world. In a personally conducted tour through the eyes of the author they travel over it, seeing our brown-skinned cousins of the several colonies as they are at home. They learn about the resources of the various islands, and of their value to the United States. They visit the people on the farms and in the factories. They spend some time in the cities and villages, and they explore the wilds, observing the wonders of plant and animal creation."

Saturday, January 8, 2011

January Multi-grade Stories and Lessons/Google Books



Continental Third Grade Reader: The Little Lapp(Lapplanders of northern Scandinavia, AKA: Sami).

Reindeer Traveling, excerpted from Northern Travel by Bayard Taylor, The New century: 4th-5th Reader.

Boys of Other Countries: Stories for American Boys - Jon of Iceland(late elementary- early middle school)

St. Nicholas magazine, The Stars for January

Good English, Oral and Written, Book 1-3: January (early elementary)

School Education: The Nuthatch
Our Winter Birds

New-Year and Midwinter Exercises, for Children of Ten to Fifteen Years(recitation, poetry, drama): January

The World Book: Organized Knowledge in Story and Picture:Quotations, January Calendar(birthdays, events, and study) and The Story of January.

Nature Year Book, January(prose and poetry for each day of the year)

Agoonack, the Esquimau[Eskimo] Sister

Early elementary sewing card(click on image to enlarge and save):








Nature Study by Grades: a Textbook for Higher Grammar Grades(poses questions for research)
- Sixth grade winter study
- Seventh grade winter study

Trees in Winter. Identifying trees and their fruit in winter(dry technical book, but good pictures and illustrations.)

Winter(nature study)"The author points out the sights and sounds of winter, and discusses the how and why, so that children may come to love winter for its own sake."(early-mid elementary)





More later.....

Also see: Multi-grade Winter Homeschooling Lessons

Elementary School Month-by-Month Theme Ideas



Click on image to enlarge and save.

Friday, January 7, 2011

Thursday, January 6, 2011

My New Search Box

I've added a search box on my sidebar. It should be much easier to find items on this blog with key words now. The Google search box was not working well, so I've deleted it.

Lessons in Nature/Google Books

Title Lessons in Nature
Author William Horace Williams
Publisher Educational Publishing Company, 1915
Overview

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Saturday, January 1, 2011

The King and Queen of Hearts/Google Books


Title The King and Queen of Hearts
Authors Charles Lamb, Edward Verrall Lucas
Illustrated by William Mulready
Publisher Methuen, 1809
Length 15 pages
Click here.

Fully illustrated and written in old English. The "S's are written as "F's".

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

The Basket Woman: a Book of Fanciful Indian Tales for Children

Title The Basket Woman: a Book of Fanciful Tales for Children

Author Mary Hunter Austin
Publisher Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1904
Length 220 pages
Click here.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Chin: Our Little Siamese Cousin/Google Books

Title Chin: Our Little Siamese Cousin
The Little Cousin Series
Author Mary Hazelton Blanchard Wade
Illustrated by Lewis Jesse Bridgman
Publisher L.C. Page, 1912
Length 110 pages
Click here

Gabriel and the Hour Book/Google Books

Title Gabriel and the Hour Book

Author Evaleen Stein
Publisher L.C. Page & Company, 1906
Length 173 pages
Click here


Summary:
Yesterday's Classics, 2005 - Fiction - 100 pages
Relates the story of the making of an "hour book" as a wedding gift from King Louis of France to Lady Anne of Brittany and the good fortune it brought to little Gabriel, Brother Stephen's color grinder. Inspired by the bunch of violets and cuckoo-buds Gabriel brings into the workroom, Brother Stephen conceives a new idea for an illuminated border. Instead of painting the border with scrolls and birds and flowers in the conventional way, he would decorate the book with borders of gold on which he would paint in realistic fashion the meadow wildflowers, and bees and butterflies, and all the little flying creatures. As Brother Stephen's color grinder, Gabriel makes the ink, grinds the gold, gathers the flowers, and prepares the colors for him. After the book is completed, Gabriel slips into the book a sheet on which he has penned a prayer to Lady Anne: "I, Gabriel Viaud, am Brother Stephen's colour-grinder; and I have made the ink for this book, and the glue, and caught the eels, and ground the gold and colours, and ruled the lines and gathered the flowers for the borders, and so I pray the Lord God will be kind and let my father out of prison in Count Pierre's castle, and tell Count Pierre to give us back our meadow and sheep, for we cannot pay the tax, and mother says we will starve." How his prayer is answered unfolds in the ensuing chapters. Evaleen Stein brings the medieval world to life for younger students through her stories set in the Middle Ages. A century ago when this book was first published, a reviewer in the Louisville Daily Courier wrote, "No works in juvenile fiction contain so many of the elements that stir the hearts of children and grown-ups as well as do the stories soadmirably told by this author."

Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic /Project Gutenberg

Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic by Olive Thorne Miller, 1906

Short stories for the very young.

Top-of-the-World Stories for Boys and Girls/Internet Archives

Poulsson, Emilie, and others, 1916
Click here.
Short stories and fables.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Eighth Reader, the Introduction to Literature/Google Books

Title Eighth Reader, the Introduction to Literature
Authors Franklin Thomas Baker, Ashley Horace Thorndike
Publisher Macmillan Co., 1918
Length 415 pages
Click here

Friday, December 17, 2010

First Spanish Reader: with Grammatical and Conversational Exercises

Title First Spanish Reader: with Grammatical and Conversational Exercises(seventh - eighth grades)
Author Aurelio Macedonio Espinosa
Publisher B.H. Sanborn & Co., 1920
Length 265 pages
Click here.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

December Multi-grade Stories and Lessons/Google Books and Others

Seventh Grade December Ethics Lessons

Children's December Picture Study(Holy Family) (very short)

Children's 1916 Christmas Memory Gem(early elementary)

December Christmas Picture Study
(long, pages 56-73): Corregio, Murillo, and others

Early Elementary Short Story: The Legend of Saint Christopher and the Christ Child

A Free Printable Christmas(Story of Christ) Unit Study 

The Princess's Pearls - a young spoiled girl learns the true meaning of Christmas.

Children's Christmas Cut and Pastes 


Poinsettia Study(elementary school)





Christmas Bells Poem

Children's Christmas Cut-out Bible Story

Christmas Themed Fifth and Sixth Grade Children's Literature/Google Books

Baldwin Online Christmas Stories(numerous)

Easy Star Lessons-December

Handbook of Nature Study: for Teachers and Pupils in Elementary Schools/December Birds in Northern States

A Second Reader: Designed to Teach Animated, Expressive, Oral Reading/December readings pages 67-86.

Sunday Morning in the Kindergarten, pages 142-153: Birth of Jesus, Story of the Shepherds, and The Wisemen.

Thanksgiving and Christmas Lessons - Early Elementary - Middle School

Thanksgiving and Christmas Lessons - High School.

Stories and Legends of Winter, Christmas, and New Year's Day(The Pearl Story Book)

Elementary Geography, "Zones and Their Boundaries(December)"





With Mr.Pickwick at Christmas, eighth grade reader

Poulsson, Emilie: A Legend of Mercy (Top of the World Series). 

Miller, Mrs. H.: Christmas in a Baggage Car, Lottie's Christmas Tree (Kristy's Rainy Day Picnics). 

Christmas and New Year in Mexico, Metropolitan magazine, 1906


Las Posadas(Mexican Christmas festival), Boys' Life, 1974, readable online only - two page article with color photos.


The Christmas Tree, The Basket Woman: a Book of Fanciful Indian Tales for Children
By Mary Hunter Austin.


......more later.

All Google Books are linked in HTML, so pages may be printed, if desired. Simply right click of the image of the pages at the links, and save.

Twenty-Four Unusual Stories for Boys and Girls(short classics)/Project Gutenburg

Twenty-Four Unusual Stories for Boys and Girls, 1921.

Click here.

Includes authors such as: Hans Christian Andersen, Rev. Jay T. Stocking, Howard Pyle, and Joseph Jacobs.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

(Month by Month)Nature Study in Elementary Schools: First Reader‎/Google Books

Title Nature Study in Elementary Schools: First Reader
Author Lucy Langdon Williams Wilson
Publisher Macmillan, 1899
Length 253 pages
Click here.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

A Historical Reader for Schools/Google Books

Title A Historical Reader
Author Henry Elliot Shepherd
Publisher D. Appleton and Co., 1888
Overview

Interesting narratives touching upon American and European historical figures.

New Download Page at Google Books

Instead of having the button for the download in the upper right corner on the main page for each book, there is now a link to the Google Ebook reader. To download the books to PDF or view in Plain Text, click to any page within the book. The download button for PDF and the Plain Text view will be in the upper right hand corner on any page view.  Maybe this was just an oversight, and they will add a download button back to the main overview page.

The Boston Tea Party, December 1773(Illustrated Story)/Google Books

Title The Boston Tea Party, December 1773
Authors H. W. McVickar, Josephine Pollard
Publisher Dodd, Mead & company, 1882
Length 32 pages
Overview

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Baby World Stories, Rhymes, and Pictures for Little Folks/Google Boooks

Title Baby World Stories, Rhymes, and Pictures for Little Folks
Author Mary Mapes Dodge
Published 1886
Overview

Written in syllabication for early readers.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Studies in Reading: Seventh Grade/Google Books

Title Studies in Reading: Seventh Grade
Authors J. W. Searson, George Ellsworth Martin
Publisher University Publishing Co., 1914
Length 371 pages
Overview

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Achievements of Celebrated Men/Google Books

Title Achievements of Celebrated Men
Author James Parton
Publisher J. B. Alden, 1883
Length 841 pages
Overview