Of Friends and Fellows

(Originally posted on my other blog 1-31-2008)

We have been busily finishing our last week of our second term of school. I am stunned at how fast this year is going; we have just a trimester left of our school year!

Wrapping up books is an interesting thing using Ambleside. It's like the end of a visit from a dear friend. We are saying goodbye to Otto, to Richard, and dear Emily, the poet. A. A. Milne's funny poems will be replaced with a strangers, and we won't be hearing from William, Humphrey, Arrietty, Bess, and the rest.

But, as I told my Y1 daughter, Polly, today, we can meet them again. We can go during free time and visit Christopher Robin. We'll be seeing Paddle next term, too. We will always be friends with the books we read. And we can visit any time we want!

I had to remind her that she felt the same last term about "losing" A Child's Garden of Verses. She protested getting "The World of Christopher Robin" out instead. I told her, "Perhaps in the evenings, we can read again the lines of Robert Lewis Stevenson and swing high over the garden , but now we need to meet someone else". Now it's repeating. A. A. Milne will make way for other friends.

The turning of a page...