Month: July 2016

Inventors Invent

rube goldberg

Patents and Inventions – every night for the past few weeks my son and I have looked forward to opening Travis Brown’s book, “Popular Patents”.  We’ve read about patents issued for the adding machine, barbed wire, the moveable-frame beehive, billiard balls, bottle caps, cannons, the safety elevator, fertilizer, frozen foods, glass bottles, helicopters, and the zipper.  What we love is that each story has some crazy angle (like how zippers were called “hookless fasteners” until an order for 150,000 units were  placed by the Goodrich Company for their “Zipper Boots”).  And we continue to notice how EVERY single story reveals inventors that carry patents for MULTIPLE non-related items.  They cannot seem to stop: inventors invent!

patent books and toilet

Speaking of Fertilizer (first US patent for artificial fertilizer granted in 1859) – we read through (OH MY GOSH) “TOILET – How It Works”, meticulously illustrated by David Macaulay.  This is a quick little book that can give EVERYBODY a basic knowledge of their toilet and a HUGE appreciation for every city’s wastewater treatment plant (on behalf of all clueless citizenry, thank you wastewater treatment plant workers) (possibly a type of employment that might be worse than being a middle-school bus driver).

AA006323

Yoohoo!  Vikings!  We are reading through another Graphic Library (think glorified comic book) offering, this one about the Vikings, “Lords of the Sea – the Vikings Explore the North Atlantic”.  My, these were a hardy people.  We are finding it interesting to put the Viking explorations to North America in timeline context with the likes of Christopher Columbus and the Mayflower Pilgrims.  And BTW, we’ve learned that Vikings never wore helmets with horns.

falcon book

Reading for fun – My husband and I enjoy the screenwriting of Anthony Horowitz (think “Foyle’s War”), so when I found out that he wrote for the young adult level, I knew my son and I would want to give this a try.  We have started his book, “The Falcon’s Malteser”.  Lots of things to explain to my son as we read along (starting with the title), but this is a very fun, very clever detective novel. Perfect level for my son.

chef hatchef hatchef hat

Who’s Cooking at Le Fictitious Local Diner? (story problem) – in August, the diner is offering two week-long (Monday through Friday) cooking camps; one for 7th and 8th graders and one for high school students.  The class fee is $200 per student and includes lunch every day and a chef hat. There is room for 10 students in each camp.  If it costs the diner $4 for each lunch, and $50 for cooking materials for each student for a week, and a chef’s hat costs $6 each, how much will the diner spend on each camper?  At the end of camp, how much will the diner have netted? (answer at bottom of post)

Only Fun Music Allowed (our classical music theme last night) –

  • “Dance of the Hours” (note:  this piece has a LONG 2 minute intro –  the high voltage fun begins about 7.5 minutes into piece), from the opera “La Gioconda” (1880) by Amilcare Ponchielli.  Even though this music was hilariously and successfully used in Disney’s “Fantasia” and Allen Sherman’s “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah”, we were sorry to learn that “La Gioconda” is actually a heart-wrenching tragedy.  But anyway:

  • “Chicken Reel”, written in 1910 by Joseph Daly (and used in several animated cartoons to depict rollicking farm life), and arranged for orchestra by LeRoy Anderson in 1946.  Anderson had so much fun with this – beginning with the ridiculously grand aggressive Paso Doble introduction. Great piece:

  • “The Pink Panther”, the iconic Henry Mancini piece composed in 1963. (My son and I love the triangle action.) This short film clip showcases Henry Mancini as conductor, as well as bits of Pink Panther cartoon magic:

Welcome to the best part of my day!
Jane BH
(story problem answers:  $76, $2,480)

Sunday School

gutenberg stamp

The Good Book – Last week my son and I read through Graphic Library’s “Johann Gutenberg and the Printing Press”.  Excellent!  Just enough information about Bibles and print reproduction methods of the 1400s.  My son was engaged with every single comic-book-style page, so I am looking at other topics covered by Graphic Library.

New information for us:
– we learned that before 1455 (pre-Gutenberg’s printing press), monks who worked on Bibles had to use sunlight to illuminate their work stations; candles were not used in the manuscript shop because of the fire threat
– we learned that the path from the idea of movable type to the actual printing of a Bible was a LONG path:  more than 25 years of continual work – the letters, the ink, the press, the relentless search for financial backing
– we learned that Gutenberg stored his metal letters in cases. The capital letters in the “UPPER CASE” and the smaller letters in the “LOWER CASE”.  Thus, the terms!
– 200 Gutenberg Bibles were printed and 48 remain (we talked about the current $$$ value, oh my gosh)

gutenberg patents

Also studying – “Popular Patents – America’s first Inventions from the Airplane to the Zipper” by Travis Brown.  This book is so well researched and so interesting, including patent number details (we sort of skip all of that), and chronological order of “what came before what” in regards to each patented invention.  So far we have read about barbed wire and the bottle cap, and we are coming to realize that:  1)  the type of person that invents, does so over and over and over – the inventors we’ve read about hold MANY patents, and 2), as we learned this from our study of Thomas Edison, successful inventors protect their ideas with a patent.  Poor Gutenberg, how he could have used patent protection.

Story Problems for Sun Days – It is so hot this summer at Farmer Brown’s:

fan

Farmer Brown’s cool farm hands: Farmer Brown knows that a cool farm hand is a productive farm hand, so he is installing 6 new fans in the farm hands’ bunkhouse.  He is planning to purchase 4 traditional type large fans for $48 each and 2 state-of-the-art Dyson pedestal fans for $450 each. Farmer Brown’s accountant says this is certainly a business expense and needs to know the total spent.  Without calculating on paper or with calculator, what is most likely the total of the 6 fans?
A: $4,800      B: $948      C: $1,092      D: $2,000    (answer at bottom of post)

corn maze

Farmer Brown’s corn maze:  Farmer Brown decided to join the corn maze craze.  His angle: the state’s smallest maze (for those that freak out at the thought of becoming lost amid the acreage of a typical corn maze)!  Farmer Brown’s maze is going to be 15 feet by 15 feet.  At the end of the maze, Farmer Brown will serve up complimentary corn on the cob.  The attraction will be open July and August.  If an entrance fee of $3 is charged, and on an average 200 people go through the maze each month, and Farmer Brown spends 50 cents for each ear of corn/butter/salt and pepper, how much money will Farmer Brown net by the end of August? (answer at bottom of post)

angel with harp

Music for a Sunday night – Sunday nights are church-type music nights for us, so what better than the sound of a harp to put us in mind of angels?  The three ultra-soothing pieces we listened to last Sunday night were all composed in the 1700s.

First, George Frederick Handel’s “Harp Concerto in B flat Major”, movement 1, written in 1736. This movement is beautifully presented by an orchestra in Istanbul, Turkey (sorry, I couldn’t decipher any more information, it was effort enough to figure out the city) (harpists’ ruffled dresses = adorable):

Second, “Harp Concerto in A Major”, movement 3, composed in the late 1700s (best we could do in terms of a date) by (here comes awesome name of the month):  Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf.  Such a FUN name to say.  Every single time.  This particular video features a VERY young and most talented harpist:

Finally, Mozart’s “Concerto for Flute and Harp”, movement 2, composed in 1778.  This is such a gorgeous yearning melody, presented by a most accomplished student orchestra in Russia and featuring another very young harpist:

Welcome to the best part of my day!
Jane BH
(story problem answer – Farmer Brown’s cool farm hands – C: $1,092)
(story problem answer – Farmer Brown’s corn maze – $1,000)