Le Fictitious Local Diner

We the People

Here is what is going on with us the people at the STORIES AND STUDIES CENTER (my son’s bed, every night, 10:30 pm):

constitution photo

The Preamble to the Constitution – our hearts are touched by the perfectly worded preamble, so I am having my son memorize it.  For the past two weeks, every night after we read through the preamble, my son writes the missing words in a fill-in-the-blanks preamble.  And every night, more words are missing – so we are doing the successive approximation thing.  Interesting thought – what if schools alternated the Pledge of Allegiance with the Preamble every morning?  Another thought – what if every proposed law was required to read as clearly and straightforward as the preamble?

sharks book

Building a House – we’ve read through “How to Build a House” by Gail Gibbons.  Yes, this is a little kids book, but seriously, it is so well organized, every contractor should hand one of these to each of his clients, so they can get the basic idea of what comes before what.  This book provoked a yucky side study – my son wanted to know more about a house’s septic system.  Ick.

Sharks! – from the excellent Usborne book series.  Here is what has caught our eye so far – the eyes of the hammerhead shark. CRAZY. Also, so sad: baby sharks are left by their moms after they are born.  So, apparently they raise themselves.  No wonder they have such bad manners.

Reading for fun – We are laughing our way through #4 of the Tom Gates series, “Tom Gates – Genius Ideas (mostly)”, by Liz Pichon.  We LOVE this series!  Every single page is hilarious.  What a treat at the end of each day.  Love it, love it, love it.

guestcheck

Tips from Le Fictitious Local Diner – not exactly a story problem: We pretended that a waiter from Le Fictitious Local Diner gave my son a list of table order totals and asked him to figure out bare minimum tips (15%) and happy customer tips (20%). We talked about how waiters are paid and how much they depend upon their tips.  We talked about the difference between good and poor service.  We talked about whether it was the waiter’s fault if the food was substandard (of course this would never happen at Le Fictitious Local Diner – the food is always first rate at the diner).

string quartet sketch

EEEEEW, string quartets – I kept putting this off: listening to string quartets with my son.  Of course, I want to my son to know about this classical music genre, but alas, I am not a fan of the string quartet.  I have tried out dozens upon dozens of string quartets in the past few years, and all I hear is either spiders dancing across a hot pan or some poor soul gasping for breath.  But the time has come – I found 3 string quartets that changed my EEEEEWs to AHHHHHs, and I was enthusiastic about  sharing these with my son.

  • First, because we knew that Franz Josef Haydn (1732 – 1809) is considered to be the “Father of the String Quartet”, I thought we should listen to the first movement of his very first string quartet “String Quartet in B flat Major” (“La Chasse”).  This is the first of 68 (!!!) quartets Haydn composed between 1762 and 1803.

  • Next, we listened to “String Quartet No. 2 in D Major”, composed by Alexander Borodin in 1881.  We listened to movement 3 (“Nocturne”) over and over.  This is the deeply romantic melody used in the (1953 American musical) “Kismet” song, “And This is My Beloved”, for which he was posthumously awarded the 1954 Tony Award. (Good show Alexander! Good show Tony Award selection committee!  Good show Kismet people!)

  • And lastly, we listened to a wonderful contemporary musical ensemble, “The Vitamin String Quartet” (I am still laughing at the name). This group is known for applying their classical skills to renditions of modern and rock songs. We loved listening to their version of John Williams’ “Cantina Band” from Star Wars.

There now, that wasn’t so bad after all!

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

Riveting!

levi strauss pants

Our current history unit is riveting – or more precisely, it’s about rivets.  We are reading about the blue jeans empire of Levi Strauss & Company, (“Images of America – Levi Strauss & Co.” by historian Lynn Downey).  We’ve learned that Levi Strauss, of San Francisco, teamed with tailor, Jacob Davis, in 1873 to manufacture an extra-hard-wearing work pant – the key to their immense success was their patented rivets-on-the-corners-of-the-pockets design.  But this unit is giving us an opportunity to learn more than just about the jeans: we’ve talked about why Levi Strauss was said to have haled from Bavaria (not Germany) (actually we learned about this from our previous study on Otto von Bismarck), we’ve learned about the devastating San Francisco earthquake of 1906, we’ve learned what “dry goods” are, we’ve looked at print advertising of the early 1900’s AND we’ve learned about rivets.  Another great study unit!

greetings from India postcard      indiana postcard 2

TRAVEL BARGAIN!  13,000 extra miles for $4.00!  I often purchase our books via the “used book associate sellers” on Amazon. (It is amazing how many books I have purchased for 1 penny, plus shipping.)  I usually look to see where the seller is located so I can gauge how long it might take to receive the book.  Last week I ordered a series of “Tom Gates” books from what I thought was a seller in Indiana.  What a surprise to find out that I ordered the series from a seller in INDIA!!!  Crazily, the shipping cost for 7 books was a mere $4.00 and I received the order within a week.  A+ on all levels!  Before we cracked open the first book, we got out the globe, located both Indiana and India, had a small laugh over the 13,000 mile distance, then we traced the route the books may have taken from India to reach us in Texas.

andes mints after eight mints

A mintylicious story problem from Le Fictitious Local Diner – the diner has plans to serve up after-dinner mints with the check at the end of every meal.  The question is, which mints?  The busboys are voting for “Andes Mints” (primarily because one of the busboys is named “Andy”, and wouldn’t that be a riot?).  The waitresses think “After Eight” mints are much classier.  The diner’s accountant told the staff that it is the thought that counts and strongly suggested they purchase the most cost efficient (cheapest) (vocab) mint.  So:
After Eight Mints – each box contains 25 mints.  A package of 6 boxes sells for $22.
Andes Mints – 5 pounds of Andes Mints can be purchased for $34. There are 70 mints in each pound.

A.  How much does a single mint of each type cost (we learned about “rounding up”)?
B.  The diner is going with the least expensive mint.  If  700 hundred dinners are served per week, and each will conclude with a mint, how much will the diner be spending on mints per month? (we are not including tax or shipping costs)(answers at bottom of post)

lute player

“The Lute Player” by Caravaggio, with sheet music by Jacques Arcadelt.  Whoa.

Three Hymns from One – As I have mentioned previously, my son and I listen to music of an ecclesiastical nature on Sunday nights.  This past Sunday night we followed the path of a hymn written in the mid-1500s by Jacques Arcadelt.

First, Arcadelt’s “Ave Maria“.  We are not sure who is singing here, but the acoustics of the Joy Burns Plaza are insanely effective.  A LOT of sound from 4 vocalists:

Next, the finale to Camille Saint-Saens’ “Symphony No. 3 in C minor” (the “Organ Symphony”), composed in 1886. Of this symphony, Saint-Saens wrote “I gave everything to it I was able to give. What I have here accomplished, I will never achieve again.” Doesn’t this make you desperate to have a listen?  Of course, we sort of always like to hear any piece played on a gigantic pipe organ.  We clearly hear Arcadelt’s hymn in this piece:

Finally, we listened to Jean Sibelius’ “Finlandia Hymn”, a small part of his 9-minute “Finlandia” composition.  Again, we hear the influence of Arcadelt’s “Ave Maria”.  “Finlandia” was written in 1899, and words to the hymn portion in 1941.  My son and I are suckers for flashmobs – a train station in Finland is the setting for this wonderful event:

We also wanted to hear the entire “Finlandia” composition.  This recording came from the opening performance of the new music hall in Helsinki, 2011.  The hymn starts about 5 minutes 30 seconds into the piece (alert:  the piece is rather menacing in the beginning – the message is clearly “Don’t Mess with Finland”).  Stirring:

Welcome to the best part of my day.
– Jane BH
Story problem answers:
A. each Andes mint costs approximately 10 cents, each After Eight mint costs approximately 15 cents
B. $272

Tick, Tick, Tick

stopwatch

There has been a rather large time gap since my last post – I was doing the single-parenting thing last week (subsequently couldn’t summon up energy to write) while my husband visited his sweet mom in CA.  But he is back, so I am back.  Here is what my son and I have been learning about –

tick tick books

  • Bison!  Our primary take-away from this mini-mini-study was acknowledging that what we have in the United States are bison NOT buffalo (such a bummer for the “Home on the Range” song).  We would like to know more about bison – regrettably, our book, though chock full of excellent photographs, was not chock full of information.  I will be on the lookout for a more fact filled resource.

bison 2     water buffalo

– Bison to the left, Buffalo to the right –

  • Otto von Bismarck:  very strong personality, probably responsible for unifying Germany during the latter half of 19th century (so that is good), but still, he was a diabolical strategist with a very difficult personality.  Our von Bismarck book was from the “Wicked History” series, and it did not disappoint.  Well researched, well written, well edited.  Excellent reading.
  • Shoe Business!  We are reading our first business book, “Start Something that Matters” by Blake Mycoskie, of the inspiring TOMS (“tomorrow’s shoes”) win-win movement.  We think Mr. Mycoskie has it so right!  To enhance this learning unit, I brought my TOMS shoes to the “Stories and Studies Center” (my son’s large bed) (who wouldn’t want a stack of well worn shoes on their bed?).

TOMS

  • “The History of Music in Fifty Instruments“, by Philip Wilkinson:  a good conversation starter book.  We are picking and choosing what we are reading (some stuff is just too mind numbingly technical), but this book is well worth wading through because we have learned about THE UGLIEST MUSICAL INSTRUMENT EVER – the serpent. OH, IT IS SO CREEPY. Take a look and take a listen:

(note to daughter, HKH:  I am just so hoping that we won’t be booking this type of music for your wedding reception.)

New topic – 

Tom Gates books

Here’s what’s fun: the Tom Gates books, written by Liz Pichon; we are in the middle of book 2 (“Tom Gates – Excellent Excuses”). The series is sort of a British take on Jeff Kinney’s “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” (which we also really like) and has got us matching British words with their  American counterpart:  mate=friend, biscuit=cookie, crisps=potato chips,  dodgy=not good, rubbish=the worst.  Tom doodles all over the place, despises his sister, calls his grandparents “the Fossils”, and worships the rock band, “Dude3” (every time I read the band name I laugh).  We like opening this book every night.

Beginning to think about the upcoming summer Olympics – 

rio logo new

Story problem from Le Fictitious Local Diner – the local junior high school is seeking to bolster funds for their foreign language department so the diner has been coerced (vocab) into sponsoring a raffle (vocab), with the first prize being two first-class round-trip (concept) plane tickets to the summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro!  If each plane ticket costs $1,500, and if the diner is hoping to contribute $2,000 to the foreign language department, how many $5 raffle tickets will need to be sold? (answer “A” at bottom of post).

– Oh my gosh, there’s more to this story problem: what if the airline can be persuaded to reduce the cost of the plane tickets by 20%, and what if the diner decides to try to up their contribution to $5,000. How many tickets need to be sold now? (answer”B” at bottom of post)

Classical music selections from last night – thinking about Brazil – we decided to cap off a discussion of the upcoming Olympics by listening to “The Little Train of Caipira”, written in 1930 by premiere Brazilian composer, Heitor Villa-Lobos.  My son and I have listened to this delicious 5 minute gem about 75 times.  Yeah, we like this piece.

First we listened to the recording we have on our iPod, from the Heidi Grant Murphy/Aureole “Sueño De Amor” (dreams of love) album.  Soothing, flavorful, filled with yearning:

Then, an OUTSTANDING visual and auditory collage –  music students in Brazil putting together “The Little Train of Caipira”.  Did I say OUTSTANDING?  I think I meant DOUBLE OUTSTANDING.  Such a tribute to Villa-Lobos:

Then, what fun – from the fabulous Los Angeles Guitar Quartet , their version of “I Wanna Be Like You” (from “The Jungle Book”), orchestrated in the manner of Heitor Villa-Lobos:

Welcome to the best part of my day!
– Jane BH
(Story Problem A: 1,000)
(Story Problem B: 1,480)

Going Nowhere Fast

Last week I replaced my 2009 laptop (and really, it was the oldest and slowest thing in the Apple store that day) and I have apparently entered glitch city.  We’ll just see how this post progresses. (*&#$$%!!*)

doldrums

Going Nowhere Fast – our science concept of the week: THE DOLDRUMS.  We located these “no wind” areas on our globe, and imagined being stuck in a sailboat for weeks, praying for any sort of breeze.  We also learned the colloquial (vocab) meaning of “the doldrums”.

Switcheroo – My son and I took a hard look at the books we were reading for pleasure and we didn’t like what we saw: books that were were taking way too long to get to the plot.  We decided to bail, and try some new books. We are pretty happy with our new choices (both about boys going to school in Great Britain):

ribblestrop

    – “Ribblestrop”, by Andy Mulligan.  So far we find this book to be quite imaginative, humorous AND it moves right along.  We like it!
     – “The Brilliant World of Tom Gates”, by L. Pichon. Presented as if written by a chronic doodler, this is fun to read (along the lines of “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”) and fun to look at.

Catherine the Great – of the “A Wicked History” series IS great! (Every book we have read in this series has our full attention – so well organized, well written, with a wealth of very interesting information. “Wicked History” books so trump traditional text books.)  But back to Catherine – hey, she had her good points (like being insistent about bringing Russia up to modern scientific standards) and she had her bad points (she was the classic power-hungry politician), and she really did have to depose her husband.  He was just awful for Russia.  This is good reading!

french snail

Story Problem from Le Fictitious Local Diner – To bring attention to new French items on the menu (French Toast, French Fries with Béarnaise Sauce (vocab concept), and French Onion Soup), the diner is sponsoring an “Escargot (vocab) Race”.  The race track will be set up on a card table and the winning snail will have to travel 5 inches from start to the finish line.  Anyone showing up will be given a complimentary beret (vocab), and those showing up with a snail are automatically entered in the race which is sure to be a white-knuckler. First prize is a $50 diner gift certificate.  If 60 people show up and each beret costs $3, how much will the diner spend on berets? If two-thirds of the people that show up pay $5 for a cup of onion soup, how much will the diner gross from the soup sales? How much will the diner net, after the cost of the berets and the first prize certificate are deducted?

ranking

Order! Order! – My son is learning how to rank things, like “which composer lived first”, or “which state did we live in first, second, third, fourth, and fifth”…I would like my son to be able to rank preferences  (“which food do you like the best, next best, next best, worst”, “which color should we paint your room: first choice, second choice, third choice”). This is not the first time we have worked on ranking, but we are having a bit more success this go around. Yay!

doldrums map

Music for the Doldrums – maritime music that could move us out of the doldrums:
     – “Sea Songs”, composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1923, fully orchestrated in 1942.  This is an invigorating 4-minute arrangement of 3 British sea songs:

     – “We Sail the Ocean Blue”, from “H.M.S. Pinafore” by Gilbert and Sullivan (1878).  This jaunty (vocab) (a LOT of Gilbert and Sullivan music can be described as “jaunty”) (but we like “jaunty”) video is adorable:

     – “Sailing By”, composed by Ronald Binge in 1963, this is the music that is broadcast by BBC Radio before the shipping reports.  It is a most relaxing slow waltz and could prove helpful for lowering the blood pressure of those who have hit the high anxiety level while stuck in the doldrums.

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

Zootique

Animals all over the place – this week, all of our current reading seems to be focused upon les animaux.

animal books

First – the stunning “Animalium” by Katie Scott and Jenny Broom. The idea here is that the reader is walking through a natural history museum learning bits and pieces about biodiversity (vocab). Information is clearly presented, illustrations are sensational, and my son and I look forward to opening this book every night.  BTW, our favorite animal phylum so far?  Cephalopods (vocab).  Each member of this group is so very weird.

Then – “This Side of Wild”, a new book by Gary Paulson, a favorite author of ours.  We have read his “Hatchet” many times, and the follow-up stories, “The River” and “Brian’s Winter”.  This book is autobiographical (vocab), with Mr. Paulson writing about his relationships with several animals.  Side note: due to something Mr. Paulson had written, we were provoked to view a youtube video demonstrating how to use “anti-bear” spray. Yikes. (More zigzag learning. LOVE it!) (and this video is surprisingly excellent).

Finally – we are are working our way through Ogden Nash’s book of poems, “Zoo”.  Each of his funny, astute (vocab) poems seems to need an explanation, so each becomes a conversation starter.  This book is delicious.

alphabet in chalk

Language Arts Class is now in session –

– A few nights ago, my son and I used “Mad Libs” to work on parts of speech.  I don’t think my son saw this as a tremendously hilarious activity, but it was a passable diversion.

– As for even more new vocabulary – so many concept pairings from our animal unit: Matriarch/Patriarch, Predator/Prey, Carnivore/Herbivore, Bones/Cartilage

laminating machine

New menus at Le Fictitious Local Diner!  We worked our way through a really involved story problem last night: the diner is printing up new menus and they can’t decide whether to pay to have the menus laminated or to purchase a laminator and do the job themselves.  A laminator can be purchased for $200, and a package of 100 plastic “pouches” costs $55.  It takes 30 seconds to run one menu through the machine. So:

1) if the diner wants to laminate 200 menus, how long will it take?

2) if a junior employee is paid $10 an hour, how much will be spent on the labor of running the menus through the laminator?

3) how much will the diner spend at the office supply store with the purchase of the laminating machine and the pouches?

4) how much will the diner spend on supplies and labor to laminate 200 menus?

5) if the local print shop will laminate the menus for 85 cents each, is it more cost effective for the diner to pay the print shop to do the laminating?

batowlraccoon

Music!  Inspired by the nocturnal (vocab) animals we’ve been reading about, we decided to find out what musical “Nocturnes” were all about. After listening to a few, we decided that a nocturne might be described as a mature version of a lullaby.  Then, I gave my son a list of events that might or might not be enhanced by a nocturne as background music…on the “NOT” list: a birthday party, on the “YES” list: many Robert Frost poems, like one of our favorites, “Good Hours” (which we reread).

  • “Nocturne No. 2” by Frederic Chopin, composed in 1832.  We learned that Chopin is considered the go-to composer for nocturnes, having completed 21 polished works.  No. 2 might be the most famous of all nocturnes and is used in SO many movies.

  • “Nocturne No. 3”, (also known as “Liebestraum”) (Love Dream) was composed by Franz Liszt in 1850.  This nocturne is neck and neck with Chopin’s No. 2 for nocturne popularity.

Yes, yes, yes, both quite reflective and beautiful, but then we played “Harlem Nocturne” and WELL, we were overwhelmed!  WOW.  Had to listen to it two more times in a row.

  • “Harlem Nocturne”, composed by Earle Hagen in 1939. Lush and SULTRY (vocab).  This is the music used for Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer (hard-boiled detective) TV series.  (I deemed it unnecessarily confusing to explain “hard-boiled detective”).  We listened to this recording by the Duke Ellington Orchestra and it is PERFECTION.  My, oh my.

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

Flying into 2016

home posterpigeon face left

Look homeward – hey!  This captured our attention a few nights ago: scientists think that the bit of iron present in the beaks of homing pigeons might serve as a compass, allowing these totally cool birds to fly straight home from recorded distances of up to 1,100 miles.  Well! How interesting is this?  We checked this morsel of information (from “Animal Kingdom” – a neat infographic book by Blechman and Rogers) with the Homing Pigeons entry in Wikipedia, where we learned that pigeons might also be guided by odors and low frequency sounds. We are such fans of homing pigeons (seriously, everything about these sweet birds is so A+ on our interest scale) – we first learned about them last March (mentioned in the blog entry, “Flying, Farming, and Felix”).

cummings book

A new poetry unit – we are learning about poet, e.e. cummings (1894-1962).  We have read so many biographies about people with harrowing childhoods, it comes as a relief to read about somebody from a thoroughly delightful and supportive family.  For heaven’s sakes, the family vacation home was named “Joy Farm” (happy all the way with this family)!  First-rate book:  “enormous SMALLNESS”, by Matthew Burgess, charmingly illustrated by Kris Di Giacomo.

dog biscuitdog biscuitdog biscuit

Story problem from Le Fictitious Local Diner – the diner is ringing in 2016 by gifting all dog-owning customers with organic dog biscuits!  The diner is baking up 20 dozen dog biscuits every Monday for the month of January.  Leftover biscuits from each week will be given to the town’s pet shelter.  If 15% of the batch is left over each week, how many biscuits will be delivered to the shelter by the end of the month?

wave goodbye

(ooooh! UCLA colors!)

Music – we bid farewell to 2015 by viewing our favorite videos from the many we had watched this past year:

  • Mendelssohn’s “Violin Concerto in E minor”, movement 3, showcasing the beyond great Itzhak Perlman.  We call this the “cat and mouse” movement (we hear “advance/retreat, advance/retreat” and imagine a cat crouching outside a small opening in the wall, toying with a mouse on the other side of the wall who is anxious to make his escape and hunt for cheese).  This is an old recording, but the violin performance CANNOT get better than this.

  • Bach’s “Invention No. 8”, 44 seconds of pure pleasure, played by the astounding Simone Dinnerstein. Watching Ms. Dinnerstein’s fingers fly over the keys is mesmerizing; we have watched this over and over.

  • Camille Saint-Saens’ fabulously fun “Danse Macabre”, played by a Polish youth orchestra. I am sorry that we cannot decipher exactly which Polish youth orchestra, but this performance is jaw-dropping perfection.  In fact, it is so outstanding that I forced my mother (“The Peach”)(a most reluctant classical enthusiast) to watch.

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

Having a Dickens of a Time

Dickens quote

Achievement!  Last night we finished the original version of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”. Due to the centuries-old language and phrasing, it was certainly the most difficult book I have ever read out loud. However, the story is well crafted and it was easy to review each previous night’s reading…in only six chapters, the penurious, mean spirited Ebenezer Scrooge is transformed into a grateful, generous soul who would claim, “I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year.”  Of course, my son had to endure my weeping at the end of the story.  SORRY.  We concluded by comparing the spiritual journeys of Dickens’ Scrooge and Seuss’s Grinch.

plum pudding

Holiday Story Problem from Le Fictitious Local Diner – the chefs at the diner, inspired by Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” decided to add the classic British dessert, PLUM PUDDING, onto their December menu. HOWEVER, when they read through the recipe and were overwhelmed with the list of ingredients they decided to order a plum pudding from Harrods in London and sell raffle tickets for it. If a plum pudding costs £30  (and a pound is currently worth $1.50), how much will the festive dessert cost Le Fictitious Local Diner?  If the diner sells 150 tickets for $5 each, will they cover the cost of a plum pudding? How many more puddings could be purchased with the collected raffle ticket money? (Assuming, probably incorrectly, that shipping was included in the £30)?

carolers two

Last night’s music theme – we listened to traditional English Christmas carols that Charles Dickens would have been familiar with:

  • “The Holly and the Ivy”.  An old, old carol (mention of the title is found in an essay written in 1823), so beautifully performed by a British boys choir.

  • “Fantasia on Greensleeves”, by Ralph Vaughan Williams.  Vaughan Williams’ dreamy composition was based upon a ballad from the 16th century.  In 1865, William Chatterton Dix penned the lyrics, “What Child is This?” to be sung to the Greensleeves melody.  The good news is that Dickens had five Christmas seasons to enjoy this carol before passing away in 1870.  The bummer is that he missed Vaughan Williams’ effort, as the Fantasia was not composed until 1934.

  • “The Wassail Song” – first we discussed the concept of wassailing (sort of a British Christmas version of trick-or-treating).  Then we found out that there are two carols (we love both) that are often referred to as “The Wassail Song”, so to clarify:
    • “Here We Come A-Wassailing” – composed in 1850, author unknown.  This high-energy video is brimming with Christmas cheer, and the sound is EXCELLENT.

    • “Wassail! Wassail! All Over the Town” – also known as “The Gloucestershire Wassail”, believed to date back to the Middle Ages.  Oh boy!  We found a troop of choristers singing this wassail song in YE OLDE ENGLISH costume.

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH 

Answers for Everything

8 ball white

Are we having fun yet?  Signs point to yes.  My son received a Magic 8-Ball for his birthday and he seems fascinated by the idea of receiving answers (to goofy questions) from the black ball.  Well, CHEERS!  I am always looking for opportunities to expand my son’s game/toy experiences.  The first hurdle (and it is a HUGE hurdle) is to find a toy that intrigues him.  Did we hit the jackpot with the Magic 8-Ball?  You may rely on it!  GREAT GIFT!

Non-Fiction – we are continuing to learn from the books “Maps” (yay), “Human Body”(yay), and “Genghis Kahn” (battle/skirmish/double-cross/repeat) (will this book never end?).

rules of road book

Fiction – we are enjoying “Rules of the Road” (winner of the L.A. Times Book Prize) by Joan Bauer.  This appealing book skillfully balances difficult concepts (alcoholism, Alzheimer’s) with the inherent hilarity of the shoe business and a new drivers license. I knew we were going to like this book, because years ago I read and loved “Hope was Here” (HKH are you reading this????), also by Joan Bauer.

pies in oven

Le Fictitious Local Diner’s story problem!  The diner is sponsoring a community “pie bake” and has set aside one afternoon in November for anyone (meaning high school students who need more volunteer hours for their graduation requirement) to come assemble pumpkin, apple, and pecan pies.  The diner will bake the pies and deliver them to the senior citizen center for their Thanksgiving dinner.  The diner’s plan is to make 20 pies of each type.  Here are the cost breakdowns:

pie tins: $0.50 each, pie crusts: $0.25 each, apple filling: $3.00 each, pumpkin filling: $3.00 each, pecan filling: $6.00 each. The diner’s tax lady needs the total costs for the 60 pies.

cowboy painting

Last night’s music program took its inspiration from a poster on my son’s wall:  Frederic Remington’s gorgeous, touching, lonely, “The Fall of the Cowboy”, painted in 1895.   This painting is on display at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, so we are lucky to have seen it “in person” several times.

  • First, to set the mood, we listened to George Winston’s gorgeous, touching, lonely piano solo, “Thanksgiving”, from his “December” album, released in 1982.

  • My son and I decided that after a long, cold day, the cowboys would want to head off to the local barn dance.  We like this video of two fiddle players expertly playing Aaron Copland’s “Hoe-Down” from his ballet, Rodeo (which premiered in 1942).

  • And finally, a little comfort music for the weary cowboys:  John Denver’s “Back Home Again”, released in 1974.

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

Lights! Camera! Edison!

Edison

Creativity AND Business Skills – We just completed a unit on Thomas Edison and his brainy brilliance that brought the world incandescent light bulbs, phonographs, movie cameras, etc.  The DK Readers book we read is entitled, “Thomas Edison: The Great Inventor”, but the underlying message is “Inventor? Yes, but this man ALSO possessed extraordinary business skills that were more than a match for his relentless inventing”.  Wow.  My son and I had as many conversations about Edison’s unerring business sense as we did about his creations.

drake better

Good books about bad people – so far we have learned about Napoleon, King George III, Rasputin, and Alexander the Great via the outstanding Scholastic “A Wicked History” series.  The books are well researched and written to our level of comprehension, meaning NOT juvenile, but not mind-numbingly erudite.  The only negative: the photos are always so small, in grey tones/very hard to decipher.  We are currently learning about a really awful person (from a really awful family chock full of bullies, thugs and thieves), Sir Francis Drake.  I had NO idea he was so reprehensible.  AWFUL.

Greetings book

“Greetings from Nowhere” – our new novel, by Barbara O’Connor is an original, entertaining book, just the type we look for (young adult themes my son can understand without the awkward “coming of age” element), with lots of concepts for us to discuss: motel, kitchenette, adoption, and for heavens sakes, last night we had to Google Image CHARM BRACELETS.

hands

Art at the Vatican – to prepare ourselves for a Vatican art survey, we are reading “Michelangelo” by Diane Stanley. Excellent resource.

Dogs playing poker

Art at Le Fictitious Local Diner – this story problem revolves around the diner gussying up the place with selected pieces of what some might call art. Of course, they are installing the classic “A Friend in Need” (the rest of us know it as “Dogs Playing Poker”) by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge, purchased for $45.  A portrait of Elvis on black velvet has also been purchased for $90.  Posters of Batman, Superman, and Marilyn Monroe round out the collection, the lot acquired at a garage sale for $10.  How much has the diner spent on “artwork”? (Heh, heh, the answer is not “zero”.)  Money to purchase the exciting wall decor came from the diner’s tabletop jukeboxes.  At 25 cents per song, how many songs had to be played before the art could be purchased?

Inventions for Inventions: our classical music theme last night – we celebrated the inventions of Thomas Edison by listening to a few inventions by Johann Sebastian Bach.  First, we needed to understand what a Bach invention is.  For this, we viewed a superb 7-minute video starring killer pianist Simone Dinnerstein.  This video is a jewel!  Just watch her flying fingers!

Bach’s 15 inventions were composed as keyboard exercises in 1723.  We listened to:

  • “Invention No. 8 in F major”, played by Simone Dinnerstein.  Seriously, we love her!  We want to know where to get our SD Fan Club badges.

  • “Invention No. 13 in A minor”, played by little mighty mite, Annie Zhou, an 8 year old, competing in the Canadian Music Competition a few years back.  Watch her attack this piece.

  • “Invention No. 6 in E major” played by a banjo and double bass.  We watched this for comic relief, but were so pleasantly surprised by the high quality of the performance! Kudos!

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

If it’s August

goldolfo lake

Our Vatican Unit continues – we have been learning about Castel Gondolfo, the summer retreat for popes since 1628.  So, if it is August, it is likely that the Pope Francis is in residence at the Apostolic Palace of Castel Gondolfo.  We learned that the Pope travels the 15 miles (we had NO idea it was so close) between the Vatican and Castel Gondolfo by helicopter.  The palace grounds overlook Lake Albano.  Lake Albano immediately grabbed our attention because the lake is so round, with very little beach area.  It made sense when we read that the overlapping union of two volcanic craters created the lake.

finnish flag

Counting on it – we continue to learn to count to ten in foreign languages – not because counting to ten is such an important skill, but because I want my son to have an awareness that languages change from country to country (in other words, there is more to the world than just us).  We have mastered Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and Vietnamese.  Now we are tackling Finnish – such a fun sounding language: 1, 2, 3: “ooksie, cawksi, colomay” (BTW, that’s the flag of Finland).  Here is what we do every so often:  I call out a number, and my son writes down the number and the language I am speaking.

school busschool busschool bus

Le Fictitious Local Diner starts “The Bus Driver Project” (from our story problems last week) – if it is August, the start of school is just around the corner, and the employees at the diner have been thinking about how difficult it would be to be a school bus driver. The responsibilities are substantial and sometimes the kids (we are looking at you, JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PEOPLES) can be so rambunctious.  So, the diner decided to honor all local school bus drivers with a free lunch and slice of pie, once a month, during the 9-month school year.  There are 20 bus drivers in the district, lunch runs $8.00, and a slice of pie (pecan, apple crumble, or lemon meringue), $3.00.  When the diner turns in its contributions list to the CPA at the end of the school year, what will be their total “bus driver project” donation?

apple

If it is August, we need “Music for Going Back to School”–  here is what we selected:

  • “Flight of the Bumblebee” – composed by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1899 for his opera, “The Tale of Tsar Saltan”.  This is background music for moms anxiously hustling offspring out the door before the bus leaves.  This video is spectacular – we have the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by the unsurpassable Zubin Mehta, AND watching the violin section is mesmerizing – they all sort of twitch in rhythm, and the fingering is SO fast.

  • “Entry of the Gladiators” – composed in 1897 by Julius Fucik (well, there’s an unfortunate name), who had quite an interest in the Roman Empire.  He did NOT intend for this to be used as a SCREAMER (how can you not love this term?????) (we learned that a “screamer” is an invigorating circus march).  Is this not THE music that should be blaring in elementary school halls on the first day of school?  This video was filmed around 1950, featuring the over-the-top energetic Red Nichols and his Five Pennies.  NOT TO BE MISSED.

  • “Song of the Volga Boatmen” – a traditional Russian folk song (first published in 1866), this is classic “we feel your pain” and “is there more to life than drudgery?” music.  This is the comrade-in-arms music for woebegone students AND teachers dreading that first day back.

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH