The end of this story and the beginning of all the others
Read the last chapter today while the children were eating tea. Nice to have it knocked on the head. Joe and Abbie loved the part about the apple tree being made into the wardrobe, and the happy ending with Digory’s mother being healed by the magic apple.
There is a crossword in the study guide which uses all the vocabulary words with clues, by way of review, so we might give that a try … or we might just do one of the quizzes from the link in the top right hand corner of the blog - the crossword looks hard even to me!
Cat:
- The Magician's Nephew | Time: 6:21 pm
Its that last chapter which always makes me think its better to read LWW first, i love the ah ha! moment when you realsie who Digory is and how the wardrobe happened.
We just lost Polly!
Comment by Merry — September 21, 2005 @ 8:14 pm
Yes, but my lot already know the LWW story, so that part made complete sense to them anyway!
Comment by Sarah — September 21, 2005 @ 10:21 pm
funny, Becca loved the “penny drop” moment when Lucy got into Narnia via the wardrobe… “oh Mummy, is that Digory’s wardrobe then?” so think you can read them that way round and get the “effect”
Comment by Katy — September 22, 2005 @ 6:54 am
yeah, probably just because that is the way my mum read them to me, plus my girls asked to start with LWW anyway so i think starting elsewhere would have annoyed them. TMN never grabbed me as a story until i was much older - it didn’t feel like “proper” Narnia.
There is a good article on this somewhere - but CS lewis definitely thought Narnia order, not publishing order, so he and i will just have to agree to disagree!
Comment by Merry — September 22, 2005 @ 8:03 am
So, did you enjoy part 1 of your project (or whatever you’re calling it)? Worth doing?
Comment by Alison — September 22, 2005 @ 8:46 pm
Yes, actually. It’s nice to do something a little bit more structured for once - and even then we’re not being terribly organised about it.
Comment by Sarah — September 22, 2005 @ 9:03 pm
I do like the sense of wholeness to do some linked or themed activities. The kids seem to like being able to look back on a collection of things that had a common thread too, it seems to have more permanence in their heads.
Comment by Merry — September 23, 2005 @ 11:31 am
It’s not the structure I was questioning Sarah, you defensive woman
I was just wondering whether you thought you’d all got much more out of it than just reading the book - some of what you’ve mentioned doesn’t sound like there was an awful lot to it?
Comment by Alison — September 25, 2005 @ 9:46 am
do I sound defensive?! rofl, I’m not really!
I think that without setting ‘assignments’ and the poor kids working all day, actually the activities in the book were limited, for their age range at the moment, at least. If you did it with, for example, a 13/11/9yo you might be able to make more of it.
I think the activities *have* added to the experience, rather than just reading the book - it’s given the kids some extra understanding of some aspects of the book, and it’s given us all some things to think about that we wouldn’t have done otherwise.
But there’s far more in the study guide than I would ever dream of using, therefore, far more than I’ve blogged about here.
Not sure we will do LWW in such detail though, as the girls are doing some activities at the kids’ club, so I’m not going to re-do those at home, and I think Maria has nicked all my best ideas!
Comment by Sarah — September 25, 2005 @ 1:29 pm
“But there’s far more in the study guide than I would ever dream of using, therefore, far more than I’ve blogged about here.” - ah right, that makes sense then
Comment by Alison — September 25, 2005 @ 10:42 pm