Little Women learn proper correspondence.

This month's lesson on hospitality was on the skill of correspondence. Whether we are writing to keep in touch, inform, say thank you, express sympathy, extend an invitation, or acknowledge a special occasion there is a proper way to do it.

After our opening prayer and a review of last month's skill, we looked at some letters I had that were almost 2,000 years old! What luck, right? Well, you can do it too. We each got a Bible and turned to the Letter to the Romans written by Paul.
In fact, we flipped through several of the Epistles in the New Testament taking special note of the Greeting Paul used. (Hebrews is listed as a letter in the New Testament, but the author is not specified as Paul. Before each book of the Bible there is a historical account of that book which helps you to begin to understand the context under which it was written and for whom). So now, in Mass, each time the girls hear, "A reading from the letter of Paul to the ....", their ears should perk up!
We moved on to discuss the logistics of a good letter. Can you spot any of them?

1. ) Date at top- flush with the right margin

2.) A proper greeting

3.) An indention at the beginning of each paragraph

4.) All other lines in the paragraph flush to the left margin

5.) Even though this is a thank you note, it is all too often that we rush to write a quick note and we never tell the receiver anything about our lives. We just greeted them and ended. So the following picture has a list of things that could be included in a letter to make it more personal.

6.) A proper closure

7.) A signature, which I realize was cut off in this picture. (Sigh)

The girls each brought the name and address of someone they wanted to write a letter to for the purpose of "keeping in touch". Here they work diligently to be thoughtful, write neatly, and follow their new guidelines.
After snack, my wonderful neighbor stopped by to teach the girls calligraphy! She is a painter by trade, but has dabbled in calligraphy for many years and was even paid for a logo she created with her skill. She showed the girls many different styles of calligraphy.
Even some Chinese painted calligraphy that was done for her.
Here she is teaching them the skill of using different pressure amounts to create thick and thin lines, using different tools (this is just a carpenters pencil), and holding the pen in different positions to get different effects.
The girls were excited to see and hold the reed pen and the inks.
These penholders were the favorite, of course.
OOOOHHHH, AAAAAHHHHH!

Different nibs (tips) for different styles of calligraphy.
Practicing with a felt tip pen.
Now, using the REAL stuff!
I think I remember that all the girls preferred the felt tip pens for ease of writing and quickness (meaning no stopping and dipping).
This is the only group picture I got of them enjoying themselves while making thank you cards for my neighbor.
Here was the thank you treat we delivered later on. What a blessing to have such wonderful people in our lives. The girls learned so much.
After that lesson, we took a lunch break and then intended to watch the movie, Letters to God, but Netflix removed it from the instant watch category the night before! Can you believe it? Instead we watch a movie entitled, The Secret of Jonathan Sweeney. The girls really enjoyed it.

As for next month, we will be learning about taking our hospitality to others and our holy inspiration will be the visitation of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth! Exciting stuff!