Shakespeare

Smitten with Britain

UK quiz

What’s it all mean?
(What we learned, and I do mean WE. How did I not know most of this?)

UK, the United Kingdom – refers to England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland
Great Britain – is a geographical term, referring to the land mass that includes England, Scotland, and Wales
The British Isles – another geographical term, referring to Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, and 6,000 teenier islands in the general area
The British Commonwealth – (correctly referred to as “The Commonwealth”) a political association of 54 countries (including Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) for which Queen Elizabeth II serves as leader (finally, she is in charge of something!)

Our favorite takeaways from our “Smitten with Britain” unit:

manx sheep

1) The Isle of Man – Located in the Irish Sea, midway between Ireland and Great Britain. Home of:

Manx cats
Manx Loaghtan sheep (SHEEP WITH FOUR HORNS)(GET OUT OF TOWN) (immediate Google image search) (we couldn’t stop staring at the 4 horns)
the Bee Gees (Bee Gee tunes are favorites in my son’s trampoline-time music lineup)

2) Trafalgar Square – London

it is all about Admiral Horatio Nelson and an 1805 sea battle. Discussion provokers: 1) the lions at the base of Nelson’s Column (the centerpiece of the square) were cast from cannons (vocab) from battleships, 2) we talked about the process of “casting”, 3) we spent time lamenting Lord Nelson’s loss of an eye and an arm for the British cause
Trafalgar Square boasts London’s smallest police office (the observation post can only fit one person)
the square is the site for a ginormous Christmas tree that is sent every year from Norway

Our resources:

UK books

Wikipedia
“The Usborne Book of London”
“The Big Book of the UK” (Williams/Lockhart)

Smitten with these British authors:

dog books

James Herriot: From the consummate British vet and master story-teller, his “Dog Stories” are calming and kind recollections. Perfect night-time reading. Our favorite stories so far: “The Darrowby Show” and “Granville Bennett”.

Tom Gates: Liz Pichon’s books activate our grin machines. We are currently rereading the entire Tom Gates series (just finished “Super Good Skills”, now mid-way through “Dog Zombies Rule”). We cannot get enough of Tom’s sullen sister Delia, Tom’s bothersome classroom seat-mate, Marcus Meldrew, Tom’s grandparents (“The Fossils”). We love Tom’s doodles.

scones

Story Problem from the local diner – The diner is caught up in a British frenzy, so for the next month, the diner will serve afternoon tea with scones and tea sandwiches. The diner needs 5 quarts of raspberry jam per week. Farmer Brown sells his jam for $8 a quart, but he is going to give the diner a 10% discount. How much will the diner spend on raspberry jam during the next four weeks?

A. $16 B. $40 C. $144 D. $160 (answer at bottom of post)

shakespeare

Shakespeare Comedies – we were so taken with The Usborne “Complete Shakespeare” book that augmented our reading of Gary Schmidt’s “The Wednesday Wars” (see “Perfect Pairings”, the post of February 2, 2021), that we read through all of the Shakespeare comedies (we learned that in terms of Shakespeare, “comedy” means happy ending). An excellent use of our time:

A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Twelfth Night
Love’s Labour’s Lost
Much Ado about Nothing
As You Like It
Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Merry Wives of Windsor (maybe this is our favorite)
The Winter’s Tale
The Taming of the Shrew (on our fave list)
Pericles (on our fave list)
The Comedy of Errors
The Tempest
All’s Well that Ends Well

Classical Music Time: The Siren Call of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” – this play seems to beckon composers: we listened to three versions of the overture and discussed the very different points of view –

From 1674, English baroque composer Matthew Locke: this introduction is very fussy, very baroque, very short (only a minute long) –

From 1861, English composer Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert/Sullivan): this was Sullivan’s first published work (he was only 19!). My son and I hear themes of loneliness and disappointment, and as the piece gets underway we hear the storm approach, burst, and move on –

From 1925, Finish composer Jean Sibelius: sort of 7 minutes of heavy winds (enough already), but it does paint a picture of the terrible storm that sets everything in motion –

Welcome to the best part of my day!
– Jane BH
(story problem answer: C). $144)

Perfect Pairings

Perfect Pairings from our current studies. May we suggest:

Pairing No. 1: “The Wednesday Wars” and “The Complete Shakespeare“

This is our second time reading Gary D. Schmidt’s “The Wednesday Wars”…I had forgotten what a clever, multi-layered work this is. So far, the teacher in the book has forced “The Merchant of Venice”, “The Tempest”, “MacBeth”, “Romeo and Juliet”, and “Julius Caesar” onto the protagonist. And he LOVES them. Well, how can we not want to see what the excitement is about? We really lucked out with “The Complete Shakespeare” (an Usborne book, Melbourne/Surducan). This reference provides a two-page spread at the beginning of each play, identifying characters with a brief description and winsome illustration. We refer to these pages every night before we continue reading each very thorough play synopsis. First-rate resource for those of us who would be overwhelmed by the prospect of explaining every line of the original Shakespeare.

Pairing No. 2: “125 Animals that Changed the World” and “Cat Stories”

Graphically, “Animals that Changed the World” is loud, cluttered, and jarring (nonetheless, we DO like opening this book and cheering for the animal-of-the-night). The perfect foil for this chaos? The calm, reflective, soothing chapters of James Herriot’s “Cat Stories”. Purrrrrr.

Pairing No. 3: My son’s toothbrush and Jason Chin’s “Gravity”

I have been responsible for brushing my son’s teeth FOREVER (no cavities folks, no cavities), then OUT OF NOWHERE, last month, my son grabbed the toothbrush I was holding, took the tube of toothpaste, unscrewed it, spread it on the toothbrush, pressed the button to make it vibrate and dipped it under the faucet! And he has been doing this night and day ever since. ONE TINY THING: when he holds the toothbrush under the faucet, he has the bristles facing downward and guess what happens? So we read through Jason Chin’s beautifully illustrated book on gravity to see if that would rectify the situation. It didn’t. Still, the book is lovely.

Perfect Pairings at the Local Diner – Story Problem

To beef up orders during the pandemic, the local diner is having a “Perfect Pairings TO GO” special: Miss Carolyn’s Chicken Pot Pie teamed with the diner’s famous Super Cinnamon Apple Pie. If each pie has a top and bottom crust, how many crusts need to be rolled out every morning if the diner sells 50 “Perfect Pairing” orders daily?

A. 50 pie crusts B. 100 pie crusts C. 200 pie crusts D. 400 pie crusts (answer at bottom of post)

Classical Music Time – Perfect Pairings: The Expected and The Unexpected

Pairing No. 1 –

The Expected: Gustav Holst’s “Country Gardens”, from “Morris Dance Tunes, Set 1”, of 1910. It is such an expected “let’s make nice” melody. Don’t be taken in by Percy Grainer’s “Country Gardens” (basically the same melody as Holst’s) composed a full 8 years after Holst’s! The scoundrel! This tuneful, sweet, repetitive piece gets a shot in the arm in this particular recording, speeding along at a faster tempo than usually performed –

https://youtu.be/vFcu4pWLu8A

The Unexpected: Gustav Holst’s “Mercury, the Winged Messenger” from “The Planets”, composed in 1916. Oh boy, do we love this short, unexpected, erratic piece, and apparently the conductor (Susanna Malkki) in this video footage has caught the fever, too –

https://youtu.be/3dcMSNgvxpU

Pairing No. 2 –

The Expected: Luigi Boccherini’s “Minuet”, AKA String Quintet in E Major, movement III, composed in 1771. Syrupy sweet, but a lively play in this performance –

https://youtu.be/gFFh-HRNP48

The Unexpected: Luigi Boccherini’s “Fandango” from Guitar Quintet No. 4 in D major, composed in 1798, a far cry from the conservative minuet. This intricate, warm, romantic (I am not going to say “sexy” in front of my son) piece was inspired by Boccherini’s days as a court musician for the Spanish royal family. This is the recording we have listened to about 200 times. We like everything from the LA Guitar Quartet –

https://youtu.be/N2RVinaru38

Welcome to the best part of my day!
– Jane BH
(story problem answer: C). 200 pie crusts)

Well Played!

Wishing Wells – Did my son know what a wishing well was? No! So we opened up the iPad to see what Wikipedia and Google Images had to say and show us (seriously there isn’t much to know; if you know what a wishing well is, then you pretty much know everything there is to know about the concept). But wait! We thought this was noteworthy: during the course of the year, Disney properties accumulate around $18,000 in coins from their various wishing wells and fountains. That is a LOT of wishes! The money is donated to charity. Nice. (And now my son knows exactly what to do the next time he encounters a wishing well.)

We’re still drawing – we decided that Monday nights should be “official drawing with pastels nights”, and we are still being inspired by the “20 ways to Draw a Jellyfish” book. Basically, my son selects the color, I hold the pastel and then he grasps my wrist and guides my hand. The activity has my son’s full focus, it feels quite therapeutic, and we are getting a bit of hand-eye coordination going on. Drawing the sea-life inspired us to listen to the very short “The Aquarium” by Camille Saint-Saens (composed in 1886) (and BTW, used during the prologue of the “Beauty and the Beast” movie).

Farmer Brown’s story problem – Back to wishing wells! Did you know that there is a wishing well on Farmer Brown’s ranch? Inspired by the Disney corporation, once a year Farmer Brown cleans out of the bottom of the well and donates all of the coins to the local elementary school music program, to help purchase instruments. This year, Farmer Brown recovered 185 quarters, 100 dimes, 220 nickels, and 236 pennies. How much was Farmer Brown able to give to the school? If the cost of a decent recorder instrument is $8.00, how many recorders can the school purchase with Farmer Brown’s gracious donation?

What’s a recorder? My son didn’t know. So we learned that the slender wooden instrument (sort of like a VERY simplified clarinet) (sort of), was quite popular during the Renaissance. (No present day Renaissance faire aiming for authenticity should be without wandering musicians playing recorders.) AND here comes an interesting related factoid: when King Henry VIII died in 1547, seventy-three recorders were found among his possessions. He was obviously quite a collector of many things (we briefly discussed his many wives). But back to the recorder – it is now an instrument of choice for children’s musical programs (probably due to the fact that a recorder of adequate quality can be made of plastic, so is economically feasible).

Music of the recorder – this music is so much better than we were expecting!!! We want to try to play a recorder – we’ve already ordered one from Amazon.

Sopranino Recorder Concerto in C major, movement 1 – composed by Antonio Vivaldi in 1728. Lively!

Ode to Joy, from the final movement of Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony (1824) – Apparently “Ode to Joy” is a basic learning melody for the recorder, so we found a video that showcases a group of very serious young potential musicians.

Greensleeves – this old, old English folk tune was even mentioned in Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor” (1602), giving documented proof that this is indeed music of the Renaissance.

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

That’s Gotta Hurt

The Macedonian Pike – my son and I are now studying Alexander the Great, who spent his short life (for thousands upon thousands of people, a life not short enough) as a most capable warmonger. Home base was Macedonia (perched right atop Greece) (found it on the globe), where his Macedonian soldiers were totally whipped into shape and marched with 15-foot tall pikes. YIKES (there is a sharp metal knife at the end of each pole). LOADS of warmonger vocabulary words: phalanx, chariot, catapult, mercenary, infantry, cavalry.

Shakespeare this past week – we finished up the comedy, “Much Ado about Nothing” and we have just started the history, “Julius Caesar”.

Reading for fun – to balance the war and intrigue study, we need novels that make us laugh. We LOVED “A Long Way from Chicago” by Richard Peck. LOVED IT. Every single chapter had an hilarious twist that had us marveling. This book WILL be re-read. We are following “A Long Way from Chicago” with its sequel, “A Year Down Yonder”. So far, it is a lot of fun (and it is a Newbery Award Winner), but for us, probably isn’t in line for a re-read. But maybe it will be! Hope springs eternal.

We write – My daughter directed us toward “The Pencil Grip Writing Claw”, and I found a pack of six on Amazon – can’t remember the price, but very cheap. My son has been practicing writing with this for the past week, and is getting comfortable using this little rubbery appliance on his fingertips. It truly makes one grasp a writing utensil correctly.

Our Farmer Brown Story Problem of the week – Farmer Brown has 15 field hands who needed new summer hats to keep the blazing sun off their faces. He purchased a dozen straw cowboy hats for $360 and a dozen canvas “outback” style hats for $300. Ten of the field hands wanted cowboy hats and the others chose outback hats. Farmer Brown donated the remaining hats to a local farming extension office because they are always so short on funds. How much was his donation worth?

One of the music themes from last week: “Melodies from Exotic Lands” –

“Scheherazade” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, movement I, composed in 1888. Based upon “The Arabian Nights”, SO elegant.

Overture from “Abduction from the Seraglio” by Mozart, composed in 1782. Two words: Turkish harem! What’s not to like, and in this short overture we CANNOT get enough of the smashing symbols.

“Arrival of the Queen of Sheba” by Handel, composed in 1748, as part of his oratorio, “Solomon”. We sort of chuckle every time we hear it, because the music seems more evocative of an arrival at Kensington Palace in the 18th century than the Queen of Sheba’s arrival in Jerusalem during Old Testament times.

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

Jams and Jellyfish

Preserves – I know a whole slew of people that don’t know the difference between a conserve, a jam, a marmalade, and a jelly…So I assumed correctly that my son (who limits himself to a regimented diet that has never included any sort of preserves), might not know the difference either. We read through some luscious sounding definitions, took a little matching quiz, and attempted a taste test at our late-night snack time. You would think that we had a little momentum going, and after all, what’s not to like about apricot jam and grape jelly? Yet, surprise, surprise – another classic food-trial fail. He wouldn’t try a bite. Don’t worry, I am not discouraged in the least. Sometimes (maybe once out of every 85 tries) something like this works! We are a patient people. A patient people, now with a fully-stocked preserves pantry.

Drawing Jellyfish – Have you seen this book, “20 Ways to Draw a Jellyfish” by Trina Dalziel? Way fun! So here is what we have been doing: drawing a lot of jellyfish, or “sea jellies”, or just “jellies” (all the same thing). Such a satisfying drawing activity – first the “oral arms” (squiggly and completely gross), then the big bubble on top, and then the wiry tentacles. Drawing jellyfish provoked us to learn something about them: 1) there are jellyfish in every ocean on earth, 2) there are jellyfish at every level of the ocean, 3) there are jellyfish of every size. Fossils reveal that jellyfish have been around for between 500 and 700 million years, making them the oldest multi-organ residents of planet Earth. Great use of our STORIES AND STUDIES time.

Othello Update – Well, we can’t all have the same opinion. Those following the blog know that this play has been difficult for me to read through, due to Shakespeare’s perfectly crafted villain, Iago. However, my son is apparently riveted: twice now, as I have been about to close the book for the night, my son’s hand has come slapping down onto the page, in essence saying, “KEEP READING”. Wow. He likes it! He is paying attention! He is communicating effectively! I love it!

Story Problem from Le Fictitious Local Diner – Exciting doings at the diner! The bathrooms are being remodeled, and the designer is driving the contractor crazy. The designer is very picky about the tile that is being installed, accepting only 2 out of every 6 tiles shown. There are 12 tiles in each box. How many boxes will the designer paw through before finding 80 tiles that win approval?

– The Piccolo: the tag-along kid sister to the Clarinet and Flute –

Music Theme: Shrill Thrills! – Last night we showcased the piccolo! The shrieking, sky-high, clean-out-your-ears-through-next-week, teeny tiny piccolo! The selections we chose would be so lacking and so unfinished if it were not for the piccolo.

Tchaikovsky’s “Chinese Dance” from “The Nutcracker Ballet”, premiered in 1892. We enjoyed this darling segment danced by the Royal Ballet (somewhere in Russia – I can’t decipher the descriptive Cyrillic script) (I can only do so much).

Respighi’s “Triton Fountain in the Morning” from his symphonic poem, “Fountains of Rome”, which premiered in 1917. This sparkling, spritely movement opens with piercing exuberance, courtesy of the piccolo. Sorry, the video footage is not all that one would wish (but the music is A+).

John Philip Sousa’s “The Stars and Stripes Forever”, composed Christmas Day 1896, and declared “National March of the United States of America” by act of the U.S. Congress in 1987 (wow, 91 years later; talk about a slow process). This excellent video stars the US Army Field Band, and as is traditional, the piccolo section stands for the most stirring passage.

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

The Cliffs Notes Version

A neat friend of mine named Mary, teaches special ed. (Lucky class. Lucky school. Luckier than they know.) She follows this blog, and she asked for some ideas about setting up a learning-at-home program, should any parents of her autism students express interest. So, I am going to pretend that I have been hired by the CliffsNotes people to pare down my basic teaching philosophies:

teach anything YOU (the parent) want to learn*
read stories and poems that YOU should have read during your childhood*
listen to music that YOU have been wanting to hear*

(* I find that when I brim with enthusiasm over a particular topic or book, my son catches the spirit and he brims with enthusiasm, too. I have an eager learner on my hands!)

teach FAST! One or two pages is often PLENTY, then move on to a totally different topic
be on the lookout for unfamiliar words, then STOP RIGHT THEN AND THERE and look the word up
give lots of quizzes to check on YOUR ability to convey facts (and hopefully to give a lot of pretend “A+”s)

That’s it. That’s my CliffsNotes version.

For the practicalities, one might read my first two posts ( July 2014), “In Which We Introduce Ourselves” and “In Which We Explain Our “Stories and Studies” Nightly Agenda”. These can be found in “About”, on the blog title menu strip.

Here is what we’ve been doing this past week:

Othello – we continue reading through the plots of Shakespeare’s plays…we are in the middle of “Othello” and we have had it up to here with that deceitful rat, Iago.
To make up for the dreadfulness of Iago, we are reading a biography on the splendid John Muir. What a good guy.
We continue to read “Schooled” by Gordon Kormon. Probably our 4^th time through this novel. We love it.
We are about a third of the way through “A Long Way from Chicago”, by Richard Peck. OH MY GOSH, this book is marvelous! (Two kids spend a week every summer with their “law-unto-herself” grandmother). This book is a keeper!

A story problem from Le Fictitious Local Diner – the diner is sponsoring “Barbershop Quartet Night” and plans to serve up root beer floats for the occasion. Tickets for this not-to-be-missed event will sell for $10, and will include a float. If each root beer float costs the diner $1.50 to make, and $200 is being spent on decorations, the speaker system, and prizes, how much profit will the diner realize if 200 tickets are sold?

Our music program last night: barbershop quartets to enhance the story problem –

“Sincere”, from Meredith Wilson’s “The Music Man” (1957). Sung in the 1962 movie version by the peerless Buffalo Bills.

“Mr. Sandman”, written by Pat Ballard in 1954. A barbershop quartet standard, performed by the Dapper Dans at Disneyland, using Deagan Organ Chimes (very interesting instrument!).

And finally, for fun, and to support the endeavors of youth, we watched “The Barbershop Quartet, a How-To Guide”. The kids are just great (and their ill fitting costumes and hats are still making us laugh).

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

Messenger Service

Best Messenger Ever – Oh! The brainpower that sent space probe Messenger on its successful-beyond-all-measures mission to planet Mercury! My son and I learned that Messenger was launched from earth in 2004 and started orbiting Mercury in 2011. The plan: Messenger was to orbit for a year and send back 2,500 images. But the space probe was so well built, that it circled the tiny planet for 4 years and sent back 270,000 images! WHOA. On April 30, dear Messenger ran out of propellant, was pulled out of orbit by Mercury’s gravity, and sent one final photo before it crashed into the planet.

Messenger’s final image of Mercury

We paid homage to the team that constructed Messenger by listening to Gustav Holst’s “Mercury” from his orchestral work, “The Planets”.

More academics from last week –

Napoleon – as we learn more about Napoleon we are struck by how his brilliant ideas were dwarfed by his all-around awfulness. This man belonged permanently in time-out, and of course, that is exactly where he ended up (we found the little island of St. Helena, where Napoleon was exiled for the final six years of his life, on the globe). Vocab from our Napoleon unit: artillery, boycott, emperor, strategy, and trench. BTW, our book, “A Wicked History – Napoleon, Emperor and Conqueror”, by Kimberley Heuston, is EXCELLENT.
Shakespeare – we finished “Romeo and Juliet”, and we have started “Twelfth Night”. Love it! We do prefer the mixed-up craziness of Shakespeare’s comedies to his gruesome tragedies.
Exponents – we gave the Mathtoon’s “Exponents and Radicals” iPad app another try. Much more fun this time. This app is splendid! Cool, in-your-face, badboy graphics. And the app is free!

Last week’s best Farmer Brown story problem – Farmer Brown has a muster (or ostentation, if you will) of peafowl on his property. Vocab time: we had to learn the difference between peafowl, peacocks, peahens, and peachicks. Seriously, what is cuter than the word, “peachick”?

OK, the story problem: Farmer Brown has a large muster of peafowl on his property. He collects the peacock’s discarded long tail feathers to sell to a local interior designer, for $3.50 each. If the designer paid Farmer Brown $140 last month, how many feathers were handed over? If the designer sells each feather for $15, and all feathers are sold, what is the profit, once Farmer Brown has been paid?

Ugh.

Last night’s music theme: “Music for a Dental Procedure” – my son and I take meticulous (vast overstatement) care of his teeth (so far no cavities, so that is something), but we thought soothing music could bring such relief if Novocain loomed. Here is what we selected:

Beethoven’s 6^th Symphony “The Pastoral” (1808), movement 1. Any of the movements would work, and may we suggest the entire 5-movement symphony (about 45 minutes) for lengthy oral surgery. Such life affirming music.

Jacques Offenbach’s “Barcarolle”, from his “Tales of Hoffman” (1881). All you have to do is lie back and imagine yourself floating in a gondola around the Venetian waterways. Soothing to the extreme.

“The Moldau” by Bedrich Smetana, (1875) from his larger orchestral work, “Ma Vlast”. Relax and let the dentist do the work as you follow the Moldau (a river in Smetana’s native Bohemia, now the Czech Republic) from its source past woods, meadows, a farmer’s wedding, and ending as the Moldau flows into the Elbe River. Piece lasts about 12 minutes. Fantastic ending. This is a superb video, filmed in Smetana Hall in Prague.

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

Wordery

Words, words, words – this past week, new vocabulary words have been emerging willy-nilly. We have clocked in a fair amount of time defining unfamiliar words, phrases, and concepts. Thank you Wikipedia and Google Images! Last night, I presented my son with a vocabulary matching quiz, to see if the words had been explained well enough. (YAY! Big smiles here. Phew.)

From “The Young Reader’s Shakespeare: Hamlet” by Adam McKeown: coronation, goblet, immortal, liege, parapet, specter, avenge, revenge, and vengeance
From “Flora and Ulysses” by Kate DiCamillo: arch-nemesis, euphemism, treacle, and villain
From “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (translation by Katherine Woods): baobab (a tree…real or imaginary?)
From our new novel, “The Way to Stay in Destiny” by Augusta Scattergood (a book BTW that we are LOVING), we had to do a bit of a side study on the illustrious Hank Aaron.
From Mozart’s “Overture to The Abduction from the Seraglio”: seraglio

Editor’s comments: there is such a thing as a baobab tree (it is VERY weird and ridiculously large, and we can see why the little prince worked diligently to make sure this tree didn’t take root on his little planet), and everyone should take a listen to the “Overture to the Abduction from the Seraglio” – five and a half entertaining minutes (we love the rambunctious cymbal smashing)!

“Overture to the Abduction from the Seraglio” – take a listen!

From our Farm Unit – last night we learned quite a bit about mules. During the course of the past few days we’ve learned about turkey breeds, the three reasons to breed goats (milk, meat, fiber), and we’ve learned about draft horses. This book (“Farm Anatomy” by Julia Rothman) is just dynamite. There is something new and easy to understand every single night.

Best Farmer Brown story problem from the past week: Farmer Brown has been glad it has been raining, because his cows, sheep, and goats drink a LOT of water every day (we learned this from our “Farm Anatomy” book!). If each sheep needs one to four gallons of water daily and he has a herd of 60 sheep, what is the least amount of water they need during the course of a week?

Last night’s music theme: March’s Marches. Last year, during March, my son and I listened to a different march every night. In truth, the concept ran thin about day 18. Even accounting for the wide variety of marches (military, wedding, graduation, coronation, funeral), 31 marches are a lot of marches. Last night, I presented my son with our list from last year and he selected three to listen to:

“The Radetzky March”, by Johann Strauss, Sr., composed in 1848. Such an A+ march; we never get tired of hearing this.
“March of the Siamese Children”, from “The King and I” by Rogers and Hammerstein (1951): elegant, and we love listening for the low, reverberating gong tones.
“The Washington Post March”, written in 1889, by John Philip Sousa. Interesting aside: it is said that when Sousa was 13, his father signed him up as an apprentice in the United States Marine Corps band, to keep him from joining a circus band (a parent’s gotta do what a parent’s gotta do). The link below leads to a neat video, starring the US Marine Corps Band and a nice explanation of the piece by the band leader:

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

Flying, Farming, and Felix

Yet another splendid Peter Sis book – this one, “The Pilot and the Little Prince”, about Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author of “The Little Prince”. Besides the enthralling illustrations, there is much to fascinate in this book. For example:

We learned that de Saint-Exupery’s primary focus, was not writing, but flying. While reading about his remarkable flying adventures we came across a seemingly small fact that changed the direction of our studies last night: we learned that early French airplanes had no communication system, so they always flew with a cage of carrier pigeons. If a plane had to make an emergency landing who-knows-where, the pigeons could be released with an SOS message! OBVIOUSLY my son and I had to do an outside study of carrier pigeons. These birds are SERIOUSLY interesting!

Of course, we need to get “The Little Prince” into our book line-up. In researching “The Little Prince” we uncovered a heated controversy over various translations (the book was originally written in French). Readers seem to be outraged over the current translation and show staunch loyalty to the translation by Katherine Wood. My, my, my. Something new to investigate.

The Farm Unit – we have been learning about tractors, the true farm multi-tasker, and we welcomed a new vocab word: TILTH. Meaning cultivated soil; soil that has been plowed and harrowed and is ready for planting. We like this word. We give it an A+.

We write book reports – this was our first go at writing a book report, and heaven knows what took us so long venture into this activity. We reviewed “Hatchet” and “A Young Reader’s Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. I made it easy: I wrote out a basic book report with about a dozen fill-in-the-blanks (as in, “This book report is about _____________, and it is a ___________ story.”). My son filled in the blanks and then I read the reports out loud. Most satisfactory. My son really liked doing this. I think this puts a final stamp on finishing a book, so we will be doing this again.

You would think I could get this in focus, but…no.

Le Fictitious Local Diner’s story problem – Last night we pretended that the diner needed to prepare 20 dozen Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies to sell during intermission of the spring band concert at the local elementary school. We used the unbeatable recipe on the back of the chocolate chip package to work out the amounts of ingredients needed.

Our music focus for last night – listening to some of the music Felix Mendelssohn wrote for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.

“The Overture” – Shakespeare wrote the play in the 1590’s and Mendelssohn wrote his overture (which is just so grand and descriptive) in 1826, at the age of SEVENTEEN!!!

“The Wedding March” – Years later, in 1842, Mendelssohn wrote a few other pieces for the play, most noteworthy is the glorious wedding march (which served three weddings at once – the Duke of Athens/Queen of the Amazons, Hermia/Lysander, and Helena/Demetrius) (and several million weddings ever since).

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

Farm Fresh

We have a new “IT” book: “Farm Anatomy” by Julia Rothman, published in 2011. Many, many aspects of farm life are competently presented with brief text and skillful illustrations. As per usual, we are studying only two pages at a time. The past few nights we’ve learned about crop rotation, windbreaks, and barn design. This book is a jewel!

We continue with “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”: Last night we read about Titania awakening (under a spell) and falling immediately and deeply in love with Nick Bottom (who at this point was sporting the donkey head). LOVE THIS. Meanwhile, a troop of actors is rehearsing their version of Ovid’s “Pyramus and Thisbe” for the Duke’s wedding, so we took a side trip to Wikipedia to see what “Pyramus and Thisbe” was really all about. What a pleasure to slowly savor this complicated masterpiece.

We take time for art: we have been getting messy with pastels! We are using Prismacolor’s Nupastels. Good for working on finger-motor control, fun to see what happens when one color crosses on top of another color.

Last night’s Farmer Brown Story Problem: “Farmers’ Friendly Mercantile”, the huge farm supply store in town, is having a 40%-Off-Everything-Sale AND Farmer Brown has a “15% off!” coupon for the FFM tucked in his wallet, so now is the perfect time to purchase heavy winter coats for his 8 farm hands. If each jacket originally sells for $120, how much will Farmer Brown pay for the 8 coats (assuming both discounts will be honored), before tax is added?

Our music theme last night was “Melodies from the Chicken Coop”! We listened to:

Haydn’s Symphony No. 83 (1785), dubbed “The Hen” – many of Haydn’s symphonies ended up with nicknames usually due to some VERY SMALL rhythmic or melodic reference. In this case, “hen sounds” are found about a minute and a half into the first movement. BTW, this performance by Camerata Bern (a Bern, Switzerland chamber orchestra that does not use a conductor) is outstanding.

“The Hen”, from “The Birds” (1928), a suite for small orchestra by Ottorino Respighi. This short piece is wonderfully successful at transposing the sounds of chicken squawks and that jerky back-and-forth movement of the hen’s heads into music. (Well, that was a long awkward sentence, but you get the idea?)

“Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little”, from “The Music Man” (1957) by Meredith Willson. This song is a hen party set to music – the gossiping town ladies sound like clucking hens and the bobbing feathers on their large hats accentuate the impression.

“Chicken Reel” was originally composed by Joseph M. Daly in 1910. In 1946, LeRoy Anderson arranged “Chicken Reel” for full orchestra, and did he ever gild the lily! Hysterical perfection. Watch out! The inmates are running the asylum!

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

Jane’s Cool School

My adult son has autism. He is non-verbal. This blog is about our learning-at-home program.

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Farm Fresh

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