Leaders and Innovators

Peace, Love, and Tambourines

   peace symbol tiedye       peace symbol daisy       peace symbol

Can ya dig it?  One of our current novels, “Schooled”, by Gordon Korman, references the hippie lifestyle and communes, so we took a look at iconic items of this outrageously creative movement; the fashions, hairstyles, crafts (macramé/tie-dying). My son poured over the photos, completely fascinated by the psychedelic colors, flower head wreathes, fringed leather vests, granny glasses, macramé belts and plant hangers.  EVERYTHING.

News from the vocabulary front – I have added a new tab (“The Wordery”) to the menu bar under the blog title…we are now keeping a running list of vocabulary words that we find from our study units or novels.

A new academic unit – Napoleon!  And I think we have the perfect starter reference.  This little book is well organized and clearly written.  It is helping us to understand the complexities and career of this unique (I am not sure this is a strong enough word) man.

napoleon 2

Book care – we had a bit of a conversation about bookmarks (greeting cards from the grandmothers make great bookmarks) vs. dog-earing. We saw how dog-earing weakens the paper, and decided it was a mean thing to do to books.

Exponents – My son has been familiar with the concept of square roots for several years, so now we are going the other way – exponents. We began with 5 to the power of 10. We multiplied and multiplied and multiplied.  I have found a jazzy math app that gives quizzes about exponents. I think it is really neat, but it is enjoying only moderate enthusiasm from my son.  Further update in next post.

 tambourine

Let’s talk tambourines – the “must-have” accessory for 60’s and 70’s band groupies:  here’s a fact – a tambourine is a great gift idea.  Who doesn’t dream of sequestering oneself in an empty house and jangling a tambourine for five minutes straight?  How can this not be therapeutic?  But back to the gift idea – tambourines are not particularly expensive, and if you have little nieces and nephews, this is the birthday gift they want (and their parents don’t want them to have).  You’re welcome.

Tambourines showcased in music – here is what we listened to:

  • “Mr. Tambourine Man”, our nod to the hippie era continues.  This was written by Bob Dylan in 1965 and popularized by both Mr. Dylan and “The Byrds”.  Semi-interesting: in the Bob Dylan version there is no trace of a tambourine sound.  See for yourself:

  • “Tarantella”, originally written as a piano piece by Gioachino Rossini (1835) and orchestrated by Ottorino Respighi (1919).  MARVELOUS.  I couldn’t find a film clip that shows the tambourine being played, but you can definitely hear it.

  • “The Russian Dance” or “Trepak” from Tchaikovsky’s ballet, The Nutcracker (1892).  A power packed minute, thanks to the tambourine.

  • And lastly, one of our top 10 – probably top 5 – favorites, “The Wild Bears”, from Sir Edward Elgar’s suite, “The Wand of Youth” (1908).  This piece was OH MY! composed while Elgar worked in an insane asylum. Hmmm, interesting.  This particular video is perfect – we love this conductor (Mariss Jansons) and the video footage gives the tambourine the attention it deserves.

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

It’s a date!

date palm     date shakes     lady and tramp     bad date video game

Were we learning about date palms, date shakes, perfect dates, or perfectly awful dates?  Uh, no.

B.C./B.C.E. – A.D./C.E. – My son and I keep running into the acronyms (new vocab word) “BCE” and “CE” during our academic studies.  Last night we decided to find out what the letters mean.  We learned that BCE (“before common era”) and CE (“common era”) refer to time periods that match up exactly with the traditional BC (“Before Christ”) and AD (“Anno Domini”).  In other words, the date 335 BC is the same as the date 335 BCE.  Likewise, the date 1990 AD means the same thing as 1990 CE.  The terms BCE and CE have been in widespread use for the past 20 years, but we learned they have actually been around for over 300 years.  We like to know stuff like this.

More Shakespeare – We have enjoyed reading adaptations of “MacBeth”, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, and “Hamlet”, so we are now reading a retelling of “Romeo and Juliet”, by Adam McKeown.  McKeown does an excellent job of introducing characters and storylines at a pace we can process, and he makes us eager to read the real plays.  I think you can imagine why we aren’t starting off with the plays themselves – we want to be familiar with the basic plots, characters, and motivations before Shakespeare’s spellbinding words mesmerize us.

 thespian masksThe Thespian Masks – How can we read about Shakespeare without understanding the basics of “comedy” and “tragedy”?  I gave my son a list of ridiculous situations and had him decide if each circumstance fell into a comic or tragic category, then I showed him thespian (new vocab word) comedy and tragedy masks, the concept of which originated from the dramas of ancient Greece around 335 BC (or shall we say, 335 BCE).

schooled and destiny novel

Novels – We continue to read, “The Way to Stay in Destiny” by Augusta Scattergood – still really like picking up this book every night.  And this past week, we began a re-read of one of our old favorites, “Schooled” by Gordon Korman (important read, heartwarmer read).

 lamblamblamblamb

Our Farmer Brown Story Problem –  Offspring in the spring!  Farmer Brown’s ranch is home to 20 ewes.  This spring, half gave birth to twins, a fifth gave birth to quadruplets, and the rest had a single lamb each. How many sweet lambs does Farmer Brown have now?

 Ben Frank poster

Last night’s music theme was “Benjamin Franklin in France” – We used the N.C. Wyeth poster on my son’s wall, of a young Benjamin Franklin, as inspiration.  We decided to focus upon the years Ben Franklin served as US Ambassador to France (1776 – 1785).  We know he was well-entertained in France, and this must certainly have included symphonic concerts and opera productions.  It is so likely that he heard these:

  • Mozart – Overture to the Abduction from the Seraglio (1782).  This is the composition that provoked Austrian Emperor Joseph II (maybe a bit short on the musical smarts) to remark that there were “too many notes” in the piece.  My son and I think the brilliant and far more musically inclined Ben Franklin would have loved this overture!

  • Bach – The Coffee Cantata (1735), a way-fun work that pits a father against his strong-willed daughter, fighting over her excessive consumption of coffee.  We think Ben Franklin, a known coffee enthusiast, would have been amused by this mini comic opera.

  • Haydn – Symphony No. 45, “The Farewell Symphony” (1772).  This is a symphony we want to see in person, because a most interesting thing happens in movement 4…entire sections of the orchestra sneak away, a bit at a time.  By the conclusion, only the conductor and the concertmaster are left.  We hope Mr. Franklin didn’t miss this!

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

 

780 Pairs of Saddle Shoes

Did ya miss me?  The past week my husband was visiting relatives and I was mired in single parenthood and there was no brainpower left to reflect upon what my son and I were learning together.

But, finally, a few free hours –

Saddle Shoes: One of the books we are reading mentioned somebody polishing up their saddle shoes.  I don’t believe my son has come into contact with anyone sporting saddle shoes, so we had to Google image said 50’s footwear. There are 39 pages of photos of saddle shoes.  Not a lot of variation, folks.  39 pages?

 saddle shoes 1 photos saddle shoes 2 saddle shoes 3

We finished an outstanding Nobel Prize unit: Thanks to a well-written book, “The Nobel Prize”, by Michael Worek, we are conversant with the prize categories (medicine, physics, chemistry, literature, peace, and economics), the basic set-up of the prize system, and we read about some of the more notable Laureates. The book ends with a chronological listing of the prizes. So, GREAT BIRTHDAY CARD IDEA!!! Along with the usual felicitations, why not include the list of the Nobel Prize Laureates from the year that the birthday honoree was born?

nobel book

Novel update: We decided that the two novels we were reading (“Under the Egg” and “The Absolute Value of Mike”) were too complex to be read at the same time. We decided to take a break from both books. My son chose an old favorite, “While Mrs. Coverlet was Away” as our current novel. When we conclude this book, we will return to either the Egg or the Mike book, but one at a time.

Our Farmer Brown Story Problem: Last night found Farmer Brown packing up crates of oranges to sell to sea captains interested in the prevention of scurvy.  We talked about Farmer Brown’s price per crate ($3.00), how many oranges were in each container (100), the subsequent cost of each orange, and how much a sea captain could make if he sold individual oranges for a quarter.

Our Classical Music theme was “All in the (ridiculously gifted) Family”:

  • The father, Johann Strauss, senior: “Radetzky March”: a glorious march, easily confused with the work of John Philip Sousa.
  • The brother, Josef Strauss: “Feuerfest Polka”:  we LOVE this piece and we refer to it as the “Blacksmith Polka” because it is accented with what sounds like a hammer hitting an anvil. This just has to be the inspiration for “Heigh-Ho” from Disney’s “Snow White”.
  • The Waltz King, Johann Strauss, junior: “The Thunder and Lightning Polka”: take a gander at “Unter Donner und Blitz Polka” (“The Thunder and Lightning Polka”).  The conductor, Carlos Kleiber, is having way too much fun with this piece.

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

Late Bloomer!

From our Nobel Prize unit:  An inspiration for those of us who cling to the hope that if all else fails, we might at least achieve the status of “late bloomer”!  In 2007, the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences went to ninety year old (yes 90!) Leonid Hurwicz, (“commanding intellect, humble soul”)!  YAY LH!  A quick trip over to Wikipedia told us that Professor Hurwicz passed on in 2008.  So, the award came just in the nick of time, because we learned that Nobel Prizes are not awarded posthumously. (new vocab word!)

leonid h

– A young Leonid Hurwicz –

Novels: we finished “Zen and the Art of Faking It”, by Jordan Sonnenblick. Good story, believable characters, reasonable predicaments. We continued to read “Under the Egg” and we just started “The Absolute Value of Mike”. Interesting coincidence: “Under the Egg” has a teen-aged daughter living with her academically-absorbed flaky mother. “The Absolute Value of Mike” has a teen-aged son living with his academically-absorbed flaky father.

Our Explorer Unit:  As a youth did you hesitate before you talked about Austria or Australia in hopes that you would remark upon the right country? Hey! Either I zoned out during my formative years, or the textbooks were so hideously pitiful, but I only found out last night that there is an actual connection between the words “Austria” and “Australia”.  In case you had the same sorry textbook, here is the deal:  AUSTRALIA was named (in 1606, by sea captain Pedro de Quiros) in honor of the Archduke of AUSTRIA. When one of us learns, we all learn.

Roman Numeral Review: We have been over Roman numerals before, but it is time for a slow, in-depth review. Our goal is to be able to read the Roman numeral copyrighted dates included with the end credits of movies.

Le Fictitious Local Diner Story Problem: Last night’s story problem was all about the quarters collected in the tabletop jukeboxes at the diner. We converted the quarters into dollars, figured the average amount collected in each jukebox, and calculated the total dollars collected annually.

red bus

A Classic Plays Classical: The red double-decker buses in London play classical music (all British composers) through their sound system!

  • Jupiter, from “The Planets”, by Gustav Holst (Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity – you can hear sort of an instrumental Santa Claus “ho, ho, ho” throughout this piece.)
  • Pomp and Circumstance, by Sir Edward Elgar (Elgar was a big fan of the new-fangled concept of recording music, so it is possible to download music with Elgar speaking and then conducting. So great!)
  • Fantasia on Greensleeves, by Ralph Vaughan Williams (soothing and beautiful, included in many orchestral Christmas albums)
  • Overture to H.M.S. Pinafore, by Sir Arthur Sullivan (jaunty and fabulous)

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

Ka-Boom!

dynamite2

A new study unit:  The Nobel Prize. Intriguing even before we begin.  Here is what we’ve learned so far:  Alfred Nobel was a gifted scientist and brilliant businessman;  though his vast fortune was based upon his invention of dynamite (ka-boom!), he was also the holder of 354 other patents. We have learned that Nobel Prize recipients are not called “Winners”, because they are not in a contest. The recipients are called “Laureates” (the word springing from the ancient Greek’s laurel wreath of honor). Perfection on so many levels.

New words to become acquainted with: “Patent” (from the Nobel Prize unit) and “Scurvy” (from our explorers unit).   Find me a student who isn’t curious about scurvy.  Seriously, we were all over the gruesome Google images so fast.

Farmer Brown Story Problem: Crop failure! Farmer Brown has 4 acres devoted to growing eggplant. It costs Farmer Brown $300 per acre to plant and water, and $200 per acre to harvest. How much money will Farmer Brown lose if shopkeepers won’t buy because nobody wants to eat eggplant ever again? (Heh, heh, eggplant makes me gag. This goes way back to a harrowing childhood experience, when a certain mother tried to pass off  “Mrs. Paul’s Fried Eggplant Sticks” as french fries.)

eggplant

A fourth of the fifth:  Classical Music – what about the longer pieces? A few posts back, I mentioned that we broke into classical music by listening shorter compositions. When we felt ready to listen to larger works, here is what we did (not that it takes a high IQ to figure this one out) – taking Beethoven’s 5th Symphony for example: we listened to one movement a night (Beethoven’s 5th Symphony is comprised of 4 movements,  thus it took us 4 nights to hear the entire symphony).

The whole darn fifth: There is a reason Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C Minor is so well known. It is stunning. Pop quiz: how long do you think Beethoven’s 5th Symphony lasts?  One hour?  Two hours?  Is this the reason you haven’t sat yourself down and had a listen? Well, awesome news everybody!  It lasts only half an hour!  Find a speedy conductor and the whole thing can be enjoyed in 28 minutes. Let’s do the math:

  • Movement 1 – around 7 minutes (the classic, “fate knocking on the door”)
  • Movement 2 – around 8 minutes (the heartbreaker)
  • Movement 3 – around 5 minutes (the A++++ movement – alternately furtive and then fearless)
  • Movement 4 – around 8 minutes (the grand triumph)

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

Insert Clever Title Here

Greetings.  I couldn’t think of a snappy title to lure any and all into this posting.  Well, you are here!  Welcome!  Here is our update from last night:

STORIES AND STUDIES –

India: We have completed our unit on early 20th century India. We finished the novel, “All My Noble Dreams and Then What Happens” by Gloria Whelan – a captivating read with interesting historical information and a wonderful point of view. I do think there is a disconnect between the story and the title, but nobody is asking me. We finished our unit on Mohandas Gandhi (maybe one of our best units ever). I am so impressed with the DK Eyewitness book on Gandhi: OUTSTANDING research and well organized. I am still trying to find a poster of Gandhi that I like…am thinking about having a print shop make up a poster sized copy of the DK book cover. Hope this is legal.

gandhi

Explorers: Last night we read about Hernando Cortes, and we learned the difference between an explorer and a conqueror. Suffice it to say, we won’t be searching high and low for a poster of this MEAN man.

Le Fictitious Local Café story problem:  The 3 cooks and 4 waitresses at “Le Fictitious Local Café” need new aprons. Aprons for the cooks cost $8 each, and each cook needs 3 (so there will always be a clean one to put on). The waitresses all want aprons with cute rickrack stitched on, and these are available for $15 each. Each waitress needs 2 aprons. How much will the owner of the café need to shell out to provide aprons for his staff?

Classical Music: It was VIRTUOSO NIGHT again, starring violinist Itzhak Perlman!

  • Humoresque, by Antonin Dvorak. Until you’ve heard this piece conducted by Seiji Ozawa, featuring Perlman on violin and Yo-Yo Ma on cello, you have not heard the potential of this composition.  BTW, a “humoresque” was a genre of music in the 1800s that suggested a fanciful, sweet mood.
  • Out of Africa, the title music, by John Barry, composed in 1985. Itzhak Perlman’s solos break your heart.
  • Violin Concerto in E Minor, movement 3, by Felix Mendelssohn.  This video (linked below – my FIRST youtube link BTW!) is not the crispest, but who cares?  We LOVE it!  Perlman knows this piece backwards and forwards and upside down. We have watched this at least 10 times.  It is the perfect background music for a cat stalking a mouse.

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

Dr. Livingstone, I Presume?

As far as quotable phrases go, isn’t “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” perfection?

Stanley and Livingstone in miniature (just the thing for your locket)

We are loving our African explorers unit!  Last night my son and I read about Dr. David Livingstone (discoverer of Victoria Falls), his frightening disappearance of three years, and his subsequent rescue by H.M. Stanley, of the “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” quote. (Years later, Stanley mapped Lake Victoria and was able to confirm that it was the source of the Nile. Note: Victoria Falls and Lake Victoria are about 2,000 miles apart.) ANYWAY, the explorations of Livingstone and Stanley form the template for any adventure novel.  At every turn there is malaria, slave traders, dying guides, deserting guides, hippo attacks, storms, robbers, uncrossable rivers, bloody battles, and cannibals!  Riveting!

Tomorrow night – Marco Polo!

As if you couldn’t tell, this explorer unit is so A+++!  We are reading from The Usborne Book of EXPLORERS.  Side note: every Usborne book we have read has been well researched and interestingly presented. USBOURNE BOOKS is a direct sales company (think Mary Kay or Discovery Toys).  I have no idea who, in my neck of the woods, sells Usborne books, but I can usually find a copy of what I am looking for through Amazon’s third party sellers.

Our Farmer Brown story problem was all about butter.  We calculated how much butter Farmer Brown would need to purchase for his “corn on the cob” booth at the county fair, and how much the butter would cost.

Parlez-vous française?  Or Japanese or German or Spanish or Vietnamese?   We can count to 10 in each of these languages. Last night, I verbalized 20 different numbers in one of the above languages and my son would find each number on our iPad language software app. Counting to ten isn’t really the goal; I just want my son to have an awareness that many languages are spoken throughout the world.

Classical Music – It was Franz Schubert night! Poor Franz!  He was short, chubby, wore glasses, and his so-called friends called him, “Mushroom”.  To sort of top it all off, he died of syphilis at age 31. But, oh, his music legacy!

  • Serenade – written when he knew he was dying, it’s all about crushing sorrow. A beautifully executed composition.
  • Ave Maria – Yes, THE “Ave Maria” that you are familiar with! Schubert wrote it!
  • Marche Militaire – a completely polished work. This is one of those pieces that is thoroughly likeable on first listening.  It might sound familiar – it was used in the Disney cartoon, “Santa’s Workshop”.

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

Case in Point: Ibn Battuta

STORIES AND STUDIES.  Hey!  This learning business is supposed to be for the benefit of my son, but I cannot believe how often I am learning things, too.  The latest case in point: Ibn Battuta.  We began a unit on explorers last night and first down the shoot, deserving of his very own chapter, was Ibn Battuta.  Ibn Battuta???  Just in case the name isn’t ringing a bell, Ibn Battuta, who hailed from Morocco, set out on a journey in 1325, and by the time his enthusiastic explorations (Africa, Asia, the Far East) concluded thirty years later, he had traveled 75,000 miles.

Our Mohandas Gandhi unit – We read about philosophers and activists who inspired Gandhi. One was Emmeline Pankhurst, a suffragette from London. My son was familiar with her name from the Mary Poppins movie! In the song, “Sister Suffragette” (adorable song BTW), Mrs. Banks sings, “…Take heart! For Mrs. Pankhurst has been clapped in irons again!”.  Then we had to talk about what “irons” were.  I love this incidental learning part.

Our Farmer Brown story question focused upon his barn cat, Mrs. Ridiculous, and her new brood of 7 kittens, and the costs involved with their first visit to the vet’s office.  Farmer Brown is so responsible.

Music Time – the theme was “Let’s Waltz with Tchaikovsky”:

  • Serenade for Strings, movement 2 (waltz). Tchaikovsky wrote that he was quite pleased with this composition (and it is known that he wasn’t quite pleased with some of his works) (so this is really saying something).
  • Swan Lake, the waltz from Act II. Every piece, EVERY PIECE, from this ballet is A+++.
  • Eugene Onegin (a lyric opera), the polonaise from Act III. (A polonaise is a three-quarter time dance, livelier than a typical waltz.) This grand piece has an infectious melody that you find yourself humming over and over. Interesting factoid: according to Wikipedia, a polonaise is always the first dance at the Polish equivalent of a high school or college senior prom.

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

Travelogue

Last night, we were all over the map during STORIES AND STUDIES.

globe alaska

Alaska: A few months ago we finished a unit on totem poles, and last night we revisited the frozen north to take a look at the making of igloos. Completely fascinating. The snow blocks are not nearly as thick as I had imagined.   What will we learn tonight?  I hope there are pictures of people inside the igloos. What can a person do in there?  Just sleep and eat?  Can you stand up in an igloo? For us Texans, just looking at photographs of igloos offers a degree of relief from the summer heat.

India: To enhance the reading of our current novel, “All My Noble Dreams and Then What Happens”, which takes place in India during the 1920’s, we have started a unit on Mohandas Gandhi. I got ahold of a DK Eyewitness book focused on Gandhi and we are reading through it thoughtfully.  There is wall space in my son’s room dedicated to original thinkers who stood up for their beliefs and observations (think Charles Darwin and Galileo).  Obviously, we will order a poster of Gandhi when we conclude this unit.

The American Mid-West: Last night’s Farmer Brown story problem involved calculating the amount of paint necessary to perk up Farmer Brown’s red barn. We also worked on another type of story problem: “Diner Math”!  My son had to compute the total of each table’s orders at the “Le Fictitious Local Diner”, and add on a generous 20% tip.  Yay Diner Math! Yay Farmer Brown story problems! Yay any sort of math that we can look forward to!

And finally, Hungary: our classical music time was spent listening to three different versions of the Hungarian March (AKA the Rakoczi March). BTW, our chosen composers, Berlioz, Liszt, and Brahms knew each other. (BTW, do not take this to mean that they were BFFs.)

  • First, Hector Berlioz’ “Hungarian March”.  This was used in his gigantic musical work, “The Damnation of Faust”.  A great, great march.
  • Next, Franz Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody Number 15”.  A real kitchen sink arrangement – what didn’t Liszt put into this composition? You can hear the Hungarian March PLUS everything from delicate trills to a locomotive gaining momentum, chilling winds, and scary horror-movie background music. So weird.
  • Finally, Brahms’ “Hungarian Dance Number 19”.  Elegant.

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH