(upbeat music) - Welcome friends to this episode of the "Everyday Educator" podcast. I'm your host, Lisa Bailey, and I'm excited to spend some time with you today as we encourage one another, learn together, and ponder the delights and challenges that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime. Whether you're just considering this homeschooling possibility or deep into the daily delight of family learning, I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.

But don't forget, although this online community is awesome, you'll find even closer support in a local CC community. So go to classicalconversations.com and find a community near you today. Well, I have a question for you. Does your family like to travel? What makes travel enjoyable for you? Are you explorers, people who like to try new things, embracing the habits and the culture of the place you're visiting?

Or are you experiencers, loving to soak in the atmosphere of a new spot, living like the natives? Are you documenters, people who like to observe and record and take lots of pictures of what you see as the similarities and differences between home and the travel location? Most of us, even self-proclaimed homebodies, like to see new places and try some new things.

Many of us are able to travel with our families to some extent, but lots of us have bucket lists of places to go, some so long or so ambitious we might actually never go to all of them. Reading is a way to go farther without leaving home. When I was young, and actually even now that I'm not young, I love visiting places, strange places sometimes through the books I read.

When I was little, I went to London and Paris and China and Jamaica and Russia. And most of the time, these locations were maybe not the point of the story I was reading, just the setting, but I learned about the places anyway and the people that lived there. And I felt like my world got bigger.

Why not use reading aloud together as a way to travel the world this summer? Today, I want to read to you some stories from Africa from our Copper Lodge Library Edition, Ancient World Echoes. Foundations families are gonna be learning about Africa this fall during cycle one. So today I want to read you three stories how we got the name spider tales, how wisdom became the property of the human race and an Aesop's fable, the shepherd boy and the wolf.

So you sit back and get ready to enjoy some stories. And afterwards, I'm gonna give you a few suggestions, some tips for conversation and activities from our stories. First of all, from Ancient World Echoes, how we got the name spider tales. In the olden days, all the stories which men told were stories of Onyankapon, the chief of the gods.

Spider, who was very conceited, wanted the stories to be told about him. Accordingly, one day he went to Onyankapon and asked that in the future, all tales told by men might be Anansi stories instead of Onyankapon stories. Onyankapon agreed on one condition. He told spider or Anansi that he must bring him three things.

The first was a jar full of live bees. The second was a boa constrictor and the third, a tiger. Spider gave his promise. He took an earthen vessel and set out for a place where he knew were numbers of bees. When he came inside of the bees, he began saying to himself, "They will not be able to fill this jar." "Yes, they will be able." "No, they will not be able." Until the bees came up to him and said, "What are you talking about, Mr.

Anansi?" He thereupon explained to them what Onyankapon and he had had a great dispute. Onyankapon had said the bees could not fly into the jar. Anansi had said that they could. The bees immediately declared that of course they could fly into the jar, which they did at once. As soon as they were safely inside, Anansi sealed up the jar and sent it off to Onyankapon.

Next day, he took a long stick and set out in search of a boa constrictor. When he arrived at the place where one lived, he began speaking to himself again. "He will be just as long as this stick." "No, he will not be as long as this." "Yes, he will be as long as this." These words he repeated several times till the boa came out and asked him, "What was the matter?" "Oh, we've been having a dispute in Onyankapon's town about you." "Onyankapon's people say that you are not as long as this stick." "I say you are." "Please, let me measure you by it." The boa innocently laid himself out straight and Spider lost no time in tying him onto the stick from end to end.

He then sent him to Onyankapon. The third day, he took a needle and thread and sewed up his eye. He then set out for a den where he knew a tiger lived. As he approached the place, he began to shout and sing so loudly that the tiger came out to see what was the matter.

"Can you not see?" said Spider. "My eye is sewn up and now I can see." "Oh, such wonderful things that I must sing about them." "Sew up my eyes," said the tiger. "Then I too can see these surprising sights." Spider immediately did so. Having thus made the tiger helpless, he led him straight to Onyankapon's house.

Onyankapon was amazed at Spider's cleverness in fulfilling the three conditions. He immediately gave him permission for the future to call all the old tales Anansi tales. Also, from "Ancient World Echoes," how wisdom became the property of the human race, an African folk tale. There once lived in Fontyland a man named Father Anansi.

He possessed all the wisdom in the world. People came to him daily for advice and help. One day, the men of the country were unfortunate enough to offend Father Anansi, who immediately resolved to punish them. After much thought, he decided that the severest penalty he could inflict would be to hide all his wisdom from them.

He set to work at once to gather again all that he had already given. When he had succeeded, as he thought, in collecting it, he placed all in one great pot. This he carefully sealed and determined to put it in a spot where no human being could possibly reach it.

Now, Father Anansi had a son whose name was Kwai Kwetsien. This boy began to suspect his father of some secret design, so he made up his mind to watch carefully. Next day, he saw his father quietly slip out of the house with his precious pot hung around his neck.

Kwai Kwetsien followed. Father Anansi went through the forest till he had left the village far behind. Then, selecting the highest and most inaccessible-looking tree, he began to climb. The heavy pot hanging in front of him made his ascent almost impossible. Again and again, he tried to reach the top of the tree where he intended to hang the pot.

There, he thought, wisdom would indeed be beyond the reach of everyone but himself. He was unable, however, to carry out his desire. At each trial, the pot swung in his way. For some time, Kwai Kwetsien watched his father's vain attempts. At last, unable to contain himself any longer, he cried out, "Father, why do you not hang the pot "on your back?

"Then you could easily climb the tree." Father Anansi turned and said, "I thought I had all the world's wisdom in this pot. "But I find you possess more than I do. "All my wisdom was insufficient to show me what to do. "Yet, you have been able to tell me." In his anger, he threw the pot down.

It struck on a great rock and broke. The wisdom contained in it escaped and spread throughout the world. And now, from "Ancient World Echoes," an Aesop's fable, "The Shepherd Boy and the Wolf." A shepherd boy tended his master's sheep near a dark forest, not far from the village. Soon, he found life in the pasture very dull.

All he could do to amuse himself was talk to his dog or play on his shepherd's pipe. One day, as he sat watching the sheep in the quiet forest and thinking what he would do should he see a wolf, he thought of a plan to amuse himself. His master had told him to call for help should a wolf attack the flock and the villagers would drive it away.

So now, though he had not seen anything that even looked like a wolf, he ran toward the village shouting at the top of his voice, "Wolf! Wolf!" As he expected, the villagers who heard the cry dropped their work and ran in great excitement to the pasture. But when they got there, they found the boy doubled up with laughter at the trick he had played on them.

A few days later, the shepherd boy again shouted, "Wolf! Wolf!" Again, the villagers ran to help him only to be laughed at again. Then, one evening, as the sun was setting behind the forest and the shadows were creeping out over the pasture, a wolf really did spring from the underbrush and fall upon the sheep.

In terror, the boy ran toward the village shouting, "Wolf! Wolf!" But though the villagers heard the cry, they did not run to help him as they had before. "Pfft, he cannot fool us again," they said. The wolf killed a great many of the boy's sheep and then slipped away into the forest.

Liars are not believed even when they speak the truth. All right, some good lessons to learn, some great conversations that could be had. And I've got a few suggestions for you. If you want to get some good conversations started at home as you snuggle up reading aloud, you might ask about some of the words in the story that your children might or might not know.

What does conceited mean? Ask your children, go back and read where it is in the story. Ask your children, can you figure out what it means from the story? And then from the description of Spider's actions? Is it good to be conceited? Ooh, why not? And then think, in our first story, what were Spider's three quests?

Did they look like hard tasks? Would you want to have to do those things, fill a jar with bees and catch a boa constrictor and a tiger? How in the world did Spider accomplish his tasks? What do you think he needed most? Did he need to be strong? Did he need to be brave?

Or did he need to be clever? Or was it a combination of all of these? Now, what do you know about bees? Maybe you have bees in your backyard. Maybe you know someone who raises honeybees. Maybe you have even seen a wild beehive. What do you know about bees?

What do you know about boa constrictors? Most of us do not live in a place where boa constrictors live in the wild. And I'm glad about that. But maybe you have seen a boa constrictor at a science center or a herpetarium or a zoo. What about a tiger? I myself love to see tigers, but I wouldn't want to meet one in the forest.

Have you ever seen a tiger? What did your tiger act like? What did he look like? What is your favorite part of tigers? How would you conquer a bee? How would you conquer a boa constrictor? How would you conquer a tiger? You might have some fun moving around. How would you move like a bee or sound like a bee?

What about a boa constrictor? How does a boa constrictor move and does he make a sound? What about a tiger? Can you slink through the grass like a tiger? Can you pounce like a tiger? What sounds do tigers make? You might want to consider as a family, what is wisdom?

What is wisdom? And why do people want it? Also, how do you think we get to be wise? Now, in our next story, one of the main characters, Father Anansi, had to carry something very heavy. It was a pot full of wisdom. Now, you could spend some time talking about whether or not you think wisdom would fit in a pot, but you could also talk about a time when you have been asked to carry something heavy.

What was it? What was the best way you found to carry your heavy burden? In the story, what allowed the son to follow his father? To find the best way to carry the pot. How did he figure it out when his father could not? And maybe you would like to talk with your family about what is a fable?

We read one today. We read an Aesop's fable. What is a fable? What other fables have you heard before? What lesson does this fable teach us? And here are some fun activities that you might do together as a family to make your reading come alive. Look at the cover.

If you have a copy of "Ancient World Echoes," go dig up your copy and look at the cover. What animals and people do you see on the cover of "Ancient World Echoes?" If you have read some of the other stories, you might have ideas about the characters that you would put on the front cover.

And if you've not read many of the stories, look in the table of contents and see what characters or stories catch your eye and think about how you would draw those. What are some of your favorite stories from this great book? Now, look for stuff. You guys all have stuff around your house.

What is stuff? They are things that you can use to make other things. Look for stuff around your house that you can use to make a spider or a snake or a tiger. Listen, look for paper plates, lengths of rope or yarn or plastic tubing. Look for some pipe cleaners, some string, some old wrapping paper, some drinking straws.

Look for stuff that you could use to make a spider or a snake or a tiger. You know what else you could do? You could take some paper and cut it all to the same size, staple it together on one side and make a flip book of one of the stories that we shared today.

One of the stories from one of the African folk tales that we shared. Draw pictures that show the action of the story. You could even draw a cartoon of one of the stories that we shared. You could use paper and pen and draw your cartoon inside, or you could go outside and divide the sidewalk or your back patio into cartoon panels and draw the cartoon frames in chalk outside.

Lots of the folk tales that we read together, especially in "Ancient World Echoes," are stories that try to explain how things came to be. How things came to be. Explaining the world, like how wisdom is found everywhere, or how the African stories in many storybooks are called Anansi stories.

Folk tales often try to explain the world that we see and live in. What could you make a story to explain? Think about the life you live at home with your family, what you see happening in your community or in your state, or even in your country. How could you make a story that explains how things are to someone else?

Here's what I want you to remember. Reading is fun, and reading together is even more fun, but doing something with what you read might be the most fun of all. I hope that you will read more stories from the Copper Lodge Library series this year. And I wanna tell you, there are more than just "Ancient World Echoes" and "Old World Echoes" and "New World Echoes" storybooks.

The Copper Lodge Library is a whole series of books that preserve and present timeless stories from the past to help families celebrate and cultivate stories and virtues today. The reason that Classical Conversations created the Copper Lodge Library is that we really wanted to offer families collections of stories that have built community throughout history, stories that have brought people together.

So we collected fairy tales and fables and how-to stories and why stories and stories from all over the world as well as stories from right here at home. And we put them into a beautiful collection that families can collect and enjoy together. And these are stories that do teach good lessons and give us great things to talk about as a family.

The deal is we want to preserve excellent stories from the past for today. So I encourage you to find out what Copper Lodge Library edition you might be missing. We have three brand new books that I'd love for you to go look for, "Pride and Prejudice," "The Secret Garden," and "English Epic Poetry." Those are the three newest titles and more will be coming.

So you go and look for those and we hope that you enjoyed the Copper Lodge Library as much as we enjoyed putting it together. But even more than that, we hope that you enjoy reading aloud together as a family. See you next time. (gentle music) you you