Appalachian Spring

The Spring Academic Banquet

Oooooh!  The Spring Academic Banquet! – actually, we host an academic banquet every night up in my son’s room.  Here is our basic template, gussied up to welcome spring – 

The hors d’oeuvre platter:  this past week, academic thinking mode was activated with mini warm-up exercises, along the line of:
– a word scramble (FLIDAFOD = DAFFODIL)
– iPad keyboard practice (sprout, trout, about, shout, clout, pout, grout)
– practicing: “>”(larger than) and “<“ (smaller than)
– matching:  composer and composition
– tracking the travels of Breton (our favorite shark) on ocearch.org
– ooohing and ahhhing over photos we took to celebrate my son’s 200th volunteer day at the local nursery. 

The main course:  two hearty, satisfying topics: 

– The Physics Book, 250 milestones in physics, arranged chronologically by Clifford A. Pickover, published in 2011. Oh my gosh – I never thought we would be reading about physics and bless our hearts, we are pretty much not comprehending most of the entries – AND YET, we are LOVING THIS BOOK!   Each “milestone” gets a two page spread;  one page for an illustration/photograph and one page for historical references and technical, bewildering explanations.  We skip milestones that are too confusing for the likes of us (the majority of milestones) but – oh! – the feeling of elation when we find a topic we can grasp.

The sort of milestones we have skipped:
The Antikythera Mechanism
Coulomb’s Law of Electrostatics
Soliton

The sort of milestones that fill us with wonder:
the physics of the boomerang – dynamite – the hourglass – Ben Franklin’s kite
the acceleration of falling objects – X-rays – the stethoscope
the thermos – neon signs – Schrödinger’s cat (which we are familiar with thanx to BBT)

Here is something cool we learned: The first Nobel Prize (funded by the invention of dynamite, 1866) ever awarded went to Wilhelm Röntgen for his original work with X-rays (1895). 
This is the book we can’t wait to open every night!

– Polar Explorers – for Kids, Maxine Snowden.  We have just completed part one (Arctic explorers), and are geared up to start part 2 (Antarctic explorers).  Our globe and compass are out every night so we can trace routes attempted by the explorers.  We are now REALLY familiar with:
– the concept of the Northwest Passage 
– the contentious race to the North Pole 
– the difference between the geographic North Pole and the magnetic north pole
– our favorite explorer:  Fridtjof Nansen (brilliant, thoughtful, honest, focused) 
– our least favorite explorer:  Robert Peary (apparently a self centered #$%&+*&%$#)

The salad course:  a Farmer Brown story problem involving veggies necessary for perking up a bowl of tossed greens:

– Farmer Brown is teaching a gardening class the first Saturday of every spring month  (March, April, and May).  Students will be given gardening gloves, clay pots, potting soil and will learn how to plant radishes, cucumbers and tomatoes from seeds.  Farmer Brown figures to spend $15 on supplies per student and has priced the course at $25.
– If 15 eager beginner gardeners sign up for each class, how much profit will Farmer Brown realize? 
A)  $10     B)  $150     C)  $375     D)  $450
– How many students will Farmer Brown prepare for if 20% of the radish/cuke/tomato students decide to enroll in his “Let’s Grow Bell Peppers” summer class?
A)  9  students     B)  15 students     C)  20 students     D)  45 students
(answers at bottom of post)

The dessert:  the icing on our spring banquet cake:

We just finished “Grandpa’s Great Escape”, by David Walliams.   A lot of full throttle wackiness (story AND illustrations) in this book: can friendships, bravery, and a special relationship between a grandfather and his grandson triumph over the mean, the greedy, and the cheaters? (Of course they can, but hold onto your hat, cuz we found this book to be a roller coaster ride from start to finish.)  To top it off (icing on the cake), we learned a bit about the pride of Britain’s Royal Air Force of WWII:  the Spitfire!

Classical Music for a Spring Banquet – 

“Spring”, from the “Victorian Kitchen Garden Suite”, composed by Paul Reade.  We learned that “The Victorian Kitchen Garden” was a British TV series, produced in 1987 (winning an award for best TV music in 1991).  The short recording we listened to features Emma Johnson (on clarinet), of the original theme soundtrack.  Perfect for spring, with bird song scattered throughout the piece –

“Appalachian Spring”, music composed by Aaron Copland for Martha Graham in 1944.  We like the weirdly named “Doppio Movimento” section (yes, we looked this up, we understand what doppio movimento means, but we still think it is a weird name), a respectful interpretation of the Shaker hymn, “Simple Gifts”, accented with with regal fanfare and waves of majestic strength.  We listen for the spring raindrops (or is it the clip clop of horses’ hooves?).  We love this piece –

“Spring Song”, composed in 1841 and found in Book 5 of Felix Mendelssohn’s “Songs without Words”.  We wonder whether Herr M would be amused that this piece would feature prominently in loads of cartoons (most notably, “Spring Song” was the central music theme of the 1939 “Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur” animated cartoon short).  Oh, the royalties he missed out on!

Welcome to the best part of my day!
– Jane BH
(story problem answers:  D)  $450 and A)  9 students)

The Liberace Instigation

liberace

This post is not about the man, Liberace, but about a GLARING ERROR he made before treating the TV audience to his take on the classic Strauss “Beautiful Blue Danube Waltz”.  See for yourself:

You saw the problem, right?

Of course, I am referring to the introductory comment: “…I would like to take you back…many hundreds of years ago to that wonderful, romantic night when Johann Strauss first introduced the waltz…”.  Here is the GLARING ERROR:  Johann Strauss II premiered “The Beautiful Blue Danube Waltz” in 1867, just 86 years (NOT many hundreds of years) prior to Liberace’s 1953 TV show.

I sort of want my son to have a more accurate sense of when important musical compositions were written, so I have put together a simple chart of classical pieces that he is familiar with, and paired them with US Presidential administrations. This will give us both a bit of a sense of what was going on in the world when each piece was written, and remind us that many great compositions are not as old as we think (or Liberace thought)(seriously, I suspect a lot of people think classical music was written 500 years ago, in a galaxy far, far away).

The chart works this way:

USA Presidential Administration – 1 orchestral piece composed or premiered during that time period

George Washington  –  Haydn’s “Symphony No. 94” (Surprise Symphony), 1791
John Adams  –  Beethoven’s “Piano Sonata No. 14” (Moonlight Sonata), 1801
Thomas Jefferson  –  Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 5”, 1808
James Madison  –  Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville”, 1816
James Monroe  –  Schubert’s “Marche Militaire”, 1822
John Quincy Adams  –  Rossini’s “William Tell Overture”, 1829
Andrew Jackson  –  Mendelssohn’s “Hebrides Overture”, 1830
Martin Van Buren  –  Chopin’s “Piano Sonata No. 2” (The Funeral March), 1837
William Henry Harrison  –  Wagner’s “The Flying Dutchman”, 1841
John Tyler  –  Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March”, 1842
James Polk  –  Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2”, 1847
Zachery Taylor  –  Schumann’s “Symphony No. 3” (The Rhenish), 1850
Millard Fillmore  –  Verdi’s “Rigoletto”, 1851
Franklin Pierce  –  Foster’s “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair”, 1854
James Buchanan  –  Offenbach’s “Orpheus in the Underworld” (the Can-Can!), 1858
Abraham Lincoln  –  Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic”, 1862
Andrew Johnson –  Strauss II’s “Beautiful Blue Danube Waltz”, 1867
Ulysses S. Grant  –  Grieg’s “Peer Gynt Suite”, 1876
Rutherford B. Hayes  –  Gilbert & Sullivan’s “HMS Pinafore”, 1878
James Garfield  –  Bruch’s “Scottish Fantasy”, 1881
Chester A. Arthur  –  Waldteufel’s “The Skater’s Waltz”, 1882
Grover Cleveland  –  Saint-Saens’ “Carnival of the Animals”, 1886
Benjamin Harrison  –  Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker”, 1892
Grover Cleveland  –  Dukas’ “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, 1897
William McKinley  –  Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee”, 1900
Teddy Roosevelt  –  Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance, No. 1”, 1901
William H. Taft  –  Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring”, 1913
Woodrow Wilson  –  Holst’s “The Planets”, 1916
Warren G. Harding  –  Berlin’s “What’ll I Do”, 1923
Calvin Coolidge  –  Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”, 1924
Herbert Hoover  –  Grofe’s “Grand Canyon Suite”, 1931
Franklin D. Roosevelt  –  Copland’s “Appalachian Spring”, 1944
Harry S Truman  –  Anderson’s “The Typewriter”, 1950
Dwight Eisenhower – Bernstein’s “West Side Story”, 1957
John F. Kennedy  –  Mancini’s “The Pink Panther Theme”, 1963
Lyndon Johnson  –  The Beatles’ “Yesterday”, 1965
Richard Nixon  –  Weissberg/Mandell’s “Dueling Banjos”, 1973
Gerald Ford  –  Williams’ “Theme from Jaws”, 1975
Jimmy Carter  –  Williams’ “The Imperial March” (Darth Vader’s Theme), 1980
Ronald Reagan  –  Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera”, 1986
George H.W. Bush  –  George Winston’s “Hummingbird”, 1991
Bill Clinton  –  Doyle’s “Steam Engine” (from “Sense and Sensibility”), 1995
George W. Bush  –  Kirkhope’s “Viva Piñata Soundtrack”, 2006
Barack Obama  –  Williams’ “The Adventures of Tintin”, 2011

(and yes!  My son is quite familiar with all of the above pieces.)

jacques c      otto

BTW, this week we have been ALSO learning about Jacques Cousteau and Otto Von Bismarck.

Welcome to the best part of my day!
– Jane BH

Affordable Housing Forever

crab 1 crab 2 crab 3

Our study of invertebrates concluded with an in-depth look at hermit crabs, one of nature’s super-star recyclers.  My son learned that hermit crabs take over shells left behind by snails…the snail dies and disintegrates, but the shell remains in prime condition for hundreds and hundreds of years.  As the hermit crab grows, he houses himself in larger and larger shells.  We learned that the posterior of the hermit crab is soft and curvy so it can easily back into a shell (miraculous and yet, a teeny bit repulsive).  We bid a regretful farewell to Susan Middleton’s book, “Spineless”.  Terrific resource.

Our Farmer Brown story problem last night – we calculated the number of stitches in a pair of striped boot-socks that Farmer Brown just knit for himself (seriously, more than 6,000 stitches).

A new unit! Chemistry.  I need a pair of Farmer Brown’s socks because I am quaking in my boots about this chemistry unit.  I did serve as a lab assistant for my high school chemistry teacher, but as I recall, my primary responsibility was to manage donut orders for all of the science teachers. We are using a DK book, so I know the images will be fantastic.  We’ll just see how this goes.

Maestro Matching – I gave my son two matching tests last night – first we matched symphony composers with famous compositions. Then I gave my son a list of composers and he placed them in chronological order.  Yay!  A+.

 drucker

Music: Last night was VIRTUOSO NIGHT showcasing clarinetist Stanley Drucker! While listening to “Exploring Music with Bill McGlaughlin” on the car radio last week, we heard Mr. McGlaughlin talk about clarinet player, Stanley Drucker.  AWESOMENESS: in 1948, at age 19, Stanley Drucker was appointed principal clarinetist of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra (let’s just think about THAT for a moment), and he retired in 2009.  The math: Stanley Drucker served as principal clarinetist for the NYPO for 60+ years!!!!!!!! (this really calls for 60 exclamation points!).  This is the sort of thing that grabs our attention, and listening to him play flew to the top of our priority list.

  • First, a short youtube video celebrating his 60 year tenure with the NYPO:

  • Then we listened to Mr. Drucker play Brahms’ “Clarinet Sonata No. 1 in F Minor”.
  • Then we listened to the “Doppio Movimento” movement (the “Simple Gifts” variation) of Copland’s “Appalachian Spring”, played by the NYPO.  The clarinet is paramount in this piece.
  • Finally, we watched a show-stopping performance of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”, with Leonard Bernstein conducting AND playing the piano, and Stanley Drucker beginning the piece as no one else could:

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH