Snakes

Looking North

Our Canadian Unit: the 49th parallel propels us into action – While reading about Canadian provinces, and we came across this:  British Colombia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba border the United States along the 49th parallel north. WHAT???????? It was like our alarm clock clanged!  It was obviously time to learn about parallels, longitude, latitude and the like.  So, two books to the rescue:  we’re reading through the scholarly and quite fascinating “Longitude” by Dava Sobel, and “Maphead” by Ken Jennings is on deck.  BTW, “Wow Canada!” by Vivien Bowers is proving to be an excellent resource.

olivia 3

Fiction Fun – We were sorry to finish two entertaining books this past week: our 10th Tom Gates book, “Top of the Class (nearly)” by the utterly imaginative Liz Pichon (gosh we love those Tom Gates books) and a revisit read of Gordon Korman’s insightful “Schooled” (important read).  We’ve just begun “Olivia Bean Trivia Queen”, written by Donna Gephart, a new author for us. So far: YAY!

Reporting in on our Buffalo Bill unit:
– We have just finished “Presenting Buffalo Bill” –  We’ve impressed ourselves by absorbing the material of Candace Fleming’s long, brilliantly researched book.  We probably learned EVERYTHING about this over-the-top man,  a LOT about the myth of the “wild west”, and a BIT about some unsettling American government policies of the late 18th century.
– A side note:  Buffalo Bill fits the profile –  My son and I have studied many “larger than life” individuals whose impact has been significant.  To a person, the greater the achievement, the more glaring the personal deficit(s) (vocab).  William Cody fits the profile.  Poor Bill – literally POOR BILL – had no concept of money management.  Although this is a comparatively benign (vocab) deficit, how could his friends and family not shudder in horror as he plunged unthinkable quantities of money into one ill-advised investment after another.  Oh Bill!

canadian geese

Farmer Brown and the Canadian Geese story problem – Farmer Brown loves the honking sound of Canadian Geese as they fly over his ranch, migrating south for the winter or back north for the summer.  He was interested to read that a town in Kansas counted 1,800 geese as year-round residents, their number increasing to 18,000 every winter.  A percentage increase of what?  A. 10%      B. 100%      C. 1,000%  (answer at bottom of post)

Back to our Canada studies:  WE DID NOT SEE THIS COMING – Here we are knee deep into our unit on the Canadian provinces, learning about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Calgary Stampede, the Canadian Shield, poutine, puffins, prairie dogs – lovely, lovely, lovely and then, WHOA: smack in the middle of Canada, in the province of Manitoba: THE NARCISSE SNAKE DENS.  SNAKE DENS!!!!  We had to drop everything, find out more and look at GROSS WRIGGLING PHOTOS.  OK, here is the deal: every spring and fall, thousands and thousands of red-sided garter snakes congregate for a three week mating frenzy.

narcisse snake dens

Last night’s music:  A HISSY FIT – we pretended that the director of the Narcisse Snake Dens phoned and pleaded with us to plan a program of background music for the slithering sweethearts:

snakes

  • “Dance of the Seven Veils” from Richard Strauss’ one act opera, “Salome”, which premiered in 1905 (but was banned in London until 1907 for being WAY too steamy) (my son doesn’t need to know this).  This piece masterfully scores the out of control fever of the snake pits (thank you timpani) with the sinuous gliding of the snakes over and under each other (thank you snake charmy oboes).  This performance by the Philharmonic Orchestra of Santiago, conducted by Paolo Bortolameolli is SUPERB. TONS of energy:

  • “Blue Tango” by Leroy Anderson, composed in 1951.  We just laugh and laugh through this whole piece.  This is the go-to sassy music for a garter snake meet and greet:

  • We anthropomorphized (vocab) the snakes and imagined two snakes eyeing each other from opposite sides of the crowded and heaving den – and their hearts connect (we are laughing so hard) to “Some Enchanted Evening” from Rogers and Hammerstein’s 1949 “South Pacific” production:

Welcome to the best part of my day!
– Jane BH
(story problem answer: C. 1,000% increase)

Ranch Report

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Ranch Report – this past week I spent two remarkably interesting days at the most wonderful gigantic cattle ranch smack in the middle of Texas (thanx to LynxAC: hostess/friend extraordinaire).  I brought back photos and observations to share with my son:
–  first of all, the calves are so so cute.
–  the responsibilities of running a ranch are endless – purchasing, transporting, weighing, feeding, watering, and branding the cattle, keeping animals healthy, keeping the calves with their moms – it just doesn’t end.  Good thing the scenery is so spectacular.
–  the speed limit in mid-Texas is 75 MPH.  Not that any self-respecting ranch truck is going that slowly. “Thundering down the road” sort of says it.
–  there are no bushes growing around ranch buildings, because shrubbery provides places for snakes to hang out.  We never stepped outside before scouting for snakes.
–  internet connections are not to be counted on…like there is any time for internet meandering.
–  this visit gave us a new appreciation of everything Farmer Brown (of the Farmer Brown story problems) does to maintain his farm.
–  YES! The stars at night are big and bright, deep in the heart of the Lone Star State.

math shark

When the cat’s away – when I am gone, my husband takes over the studies and stories hour.  He and my son concentrate on math activities and this past week they enjoyed measured success using a “Math Shark”, which can ask questions about decimals, fractions, and percentages, as well as basic computations.

Cleopatra

But now that I am back – topics that are keeping us captivated:
–  Eugene Bullard (Larry Greenly’s book: A+)
–  Cleopatra (Diane Stanley/Peter Vennema’s book: A+)
–  Animal eyes and vision (“Eye to Eye” by Steve Jenkins) (too early to give it a grade, but so far, we are learning a lot!)
–  book concepts: the preface and the epilogue. (vocab)
–  new science concept “breaking the sound barrier”.

Story Problem Answers!  Finally!  Thanx to a request from attentive reader FDB, answers to story problems will be posted at the bottom of each post, underneath my signature. Starting today!

lantern

Speaking of Farmer Brown – a story problem from this past week: For an upcoming evening gathering, Farmer Brown is going to light his long driveway with lanterns. If he places a lantern on both sides of the drive every 20 feet, and his driveway is a quarter of a mile long, how many lanterns will he need?  If each lantern costs $8.00 (including tax and shipping), how much will Farmer Brown be spending? (Don’t forget!  The answer is at the bottom of this posting!)

March Madness follow-up (see our previous post, “The Business of March”) – my son’s final two march favorites were:
–  “Colonel Bogey March”, composed in 1914 by Lieutenant F.J. Ricketts
–  “The Imperial March” (Darth Vader’s theme), composed in 1980 by John Williams for “Star Wars, Episode V”
with the winning nod given to “The Imperial March”.  Great footage:  John Williams conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, complete with appearance by Darth Vader:

stars at night

Background music for star gazing in the Lone Star State – 

–  “Mercury” from Gustav Holst’s suite, “The Planets”, composed in 1916.  Mercury, the messenger god, flits all over the place and the music flits all over the place.  This is probably one of our top twenty favorite pieces.  It is just so different.

–  “Clair de Lune” from Claude Debussy’s “Suite Bergamasque”, published in 1905.  This clip features the great pianist Claudio Arrau, who was 88 when this was recorded!

Now here is something fun!

–  “The Star Trek Theme” straight from the late ’60’s TV show.  Composed by Alexander Courage, the minute-long theme was originally titled, “Where No Man has Gone Before”. Deliciously eerie.

–  Then we listened to a fully orchestrated version (“Star Trek in Concert”) performed by the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2013.  Gorgeous!  We wonder if composer Alexander Courage ever dreamed that his short quirky piece would be performed by such an esteemed orchestra.  Whoa.

Welcome to the best part of my day!
– Jane BH
Story Problem answers:  132 and $1,056.00

Music to Soothe

Studies weren’t the best last night.

The Snake Unit – I am trying to be enthusiastic about our snakes study, as I want my son to learn about nature with an open-mindedness I may not feel. Of course, my son is finding all of the revolting facts fascinating, but I wish I didn’t have to read about rodents and little birds meeting their maker via le snake du jour. Shedding skin, venom, billions of babies. Ewwwwww. I know, I know, CIRCLE OF LIFE. Last night we read about bull snakes (called bull snakes because of the bull-like grunt they make) (lovely) and corn snakes (called so because they have been found in corn fields) (note to self: wear boots in corn fields). Tonight it is going to be some sort of snake that has its stripes running length-wise instead of ring-wise, which is yet again, so gross.

And then,

The Pirate Unit – I am starting to question the scholarship of our pirate-facts book author. Last night’s focus, “The Gang Plank”, should have been AWESOME. Who doesn’t yearn for every chilling detail about THE GANG PLANK?  But ever so regrettably, the only information our author provided was that she was unsure whether gang planks actually existed. WELL REALLY. How about somebody get to the bottom of this before somebody dangles such a  tantalizing chapter title before the reader?

We needed soothing music to conclude our evening. Our Sunday night music agenda calls for ecclesiastical music. We chose the most peaceful church music to erase the distress caused by general snake grossness and the gang plank disappointment.

  • A motet by Anton Bruckner. Honestly, the title is so long, and it is in Latin and I have no idea what they are singing, but it is in 8-part harmony and it is gorgeous and it easily earns a 10 on the soothing scale. (I can think of a lot of people who have no idea what a “motet” is – seriously, that would be everybody I know (except Ed I. and Bob E.  They know.).  So:  a motet is a choral piece with several parts – meaning sopranos, altos, tenors, baritones, bases – singing in lush harmony.  The motet was a significant musical genre of the Renaissance).
  • By Johann Sebastian Bach, “Sheep May Safely Graze”. Comfort music.
  • Joseph Brackett’s Shaker song, “Simple Gifts”. We listened to YoYo Ma’s thoughtful rendition.

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

Snakes and Pirates!

It is always a great night when we start a new academic unit.  Anticipation!  Two nights ago we finished a study of rabbits, squirrels and chipmunks (not nearly as interesting as one might have hoped.  Not interesting at all.  Seriously, the book we read should be up for some sort of “lack of enthralling facts” award.)  So, last night we began a unit on pirates (real pirate info, not romanticized, party-theme pirates).  MUCH more riveting.  And if that weren’t enough, we began a unit on snakes.  GROSS.

We are in the middle of two novels.  One takes place in India in the early 1920’s (“All My Noble Dreams and Then What Happens”).  The other takes place in contemporary times (“Zen and the Art of Faking It”).  I would give both a solid B+ so far.

Our Farmer Brown story problem involved harvesting mangos for the dried mango market.  I have this mini-addiction thing going with dried mangos, and they were on my mind when I was writing up the story problem.

Music selections for last night: our theme was “Things in the Sky”, so we listened to:

  • Amy Beach’s “Fireflies” (did you know Ms. Beach was America’s first major female symphony composer?  “Fireflies” is a sparkling piano piece that we listen to often, A+++++)
  • Claude Debussy’s “Clair du Lune”.  Like I need to say anything about this.
  • Gustav Holst’s “Mercury”, the shortest piece in “The Planets”.  Crazy fun as winged Mercury flits all over the place.

 Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH