Religion

Sunday School

The Good Book – Last week my son and I read through Graphic Library’s “Johann Gutenberg and the Printing Press”. Excellent! Just enough information about Bibles and print reproduction methods of the 1400s. My son was engaged with every single comic-book-style page, so I am looking at other topics covered by Graphic Library.

New information for us:
– we learned that before 1455 (pre-Gutenberg’s printing press), monks who worked on Bibles had to use sunlight to illuminate their work stations; candles were not used in the manuscript shop because of the fire threat
– we learned that the path from the idea of movable type to the actual printing of a Bible was a LONG path: more than 25 years of continual work – the letters, the ink, the press, the relentless search for financial backing
– we learned that Gutenberg stored his metal letters in cases. The capital letters in the “UPPER CASE” and the smaller letters in the “LOWER CASE”. Thus, the terms!
– 200 Gutenberg Bibles were printed and 48 remain (we talked about the current $$$ value, oh my gosh)

Also studying – “Popular Patents – America’s first Inventions from the Airplane to the Zipper” by Travis Brown. This book is so well researched and so interesting, including patent number details (we sort of skip all of that), and chronological order of “what came before what” in regards to each patented invention. So far we have read about barbed wire and the bottle cap, and we are coming to realize that: 1) the type of person that invents, does so over and over and over – the inventors we’ve read about hold MANY patents, and 2), as we learned this from our study of Thomas Edison, successful inventors protect their ideas with a patent. Poor Gutenberg, how he could have used patent protection.

Story Problems for Sun Days – It is so hot this summer at Farmer Brown’s:

Farmer Brown’s cool farm hands: Farmer Brown knows that a cool farm hand is a productive farm hand, so he is installing 6 new fans in the farm hands’ bunkhouse. He is planning to purchase 4 traditional type large fans for $48 each and 2 state-of-the-art Dyson pedestal fans for $450 each. Farmer Brown’s accountant says this is certainly a business expense and needs to know the total spent. Without calculating on paper or with calculator, what is most likely the total of the 6 fans?
A: $4,800 B: $948 C: $1,092 D: $2,000 (answer at bottom of post)

Farmer Brown’s corn maze: Farmer Brown decided to join the corn maze craze. His angle: the state’s smallest maze (for those that freak out at the thought of becoming lost amid the acreage of a typical corn maze)! Farmer Brown’s maze is going to be 15 feet by 15 feet. At the end of the maze, Farmer Brown will serve up complimentary corn on the cob. The attraction will be open July and August. If an entrance fee of $3 is charged, and on an average 200 people go through the maze each month, and Farmer Brown spends 50 cents for each ear of corn/butter/salt and pepper, how much money will Farmer Brown net by the end of August? (answer at bottom of post)

Music for a Sunday night – Sunday nights are church-type music nights for us, so what better than the sound of a harp to put us in mind of angels? The three ultra-soothing pieces we listened to last Sunday night were all composed in the 1700s.

First, George Frederick Handel’s “Harp Concerto in B flat Major”, movement 1, written in 1736. This movement is beautifully presented by an orchestra in Istanbul, Turkey (sorry, I couldn’t decipher any more information, it was effort enough to figure out the city) (harpists’ ruffled dresses = adorable):

Second, “Harp Concerto in A Major”, movement 3, composed in the late 1700s (best we could do in terms of a date) by (here comes awesome name of the month): Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf. Such a FUN name to say. Every single time. This particular video features a VERY young and most talented harpist:

Finally, Mozart’s “Concerto for Flute and Harp”, movement 2, composed in 1778. This is such a gorgeous yearning melody, presented by a most accomplished student orchestra in Russia and featuring another very young harpist:

Welcome to the best part of my day!
Jane BH
(story problem answer – Farmer Brown’s cool farm hands – C: $1,092)
(story problem answer – Farmer Brown’s corn maze – $1,000)

Holy Zucchetto!

We know what a zucchetto is! My son is loving our Vatican unit! So much to learn and so much of it very cool:

the Vatican’s mosaic school has the largest supply of mosaic stones in the world. Vatican Vocab: mosaic
we can now recognize a cardinal by his vestments (something will be scarlet). Vatican Vocab: vestments
enforcing a dress code for Vatican visitors is a chronic problem (People! People! People! Dress modestly and stop giving the Vatican a hard time!).
the Vatican library is THE authority on old book and manuscript restoration. Vatican Vocab: manuscript, restoration
and finally: zucchetto (a skull cap, as in the headwear of the pope). I hope you can infer by the photos we’ve selected (showing Pope Francis and his zucchetto) that we are enchanted by this personable pope.

Great unit! We are taking a look at the art of the Vatican next.

Handwriting update – In mid June (in post “That’s Gotta Hurt”), my son was introduced to the “Pencil Grip Writing Claw”. He is so comfortable with it now! When it is handwriting time, I place the pencil between his thumb and index finger and HE fits his fingers into the rubberized claw. THIS IS PROGRESS!

Herbs and Spices – My son had no clue, so last night we learned a bit about herbs (leaves) and spices (stems, bark, seeds, buds). We learned that pepper is a spice, but salt is a mineral (not an herb and not a spice). I had my son sniff tarragon, basil, cinnamon, and cloves (Heh! The clove aroma took him by surprise). This was not his favorite activity, but he sure got the idea.

Farmer Brown story problem – During autumn months, Farmer Brown makes apple cider mulling spices. He mixes cinnamon sticks, cloves, with dried orange peel and packages the mixture in cellophane tied with twine. A single package sells for $5.00, and Farmer Brown sells a box of a dozen packages for $50. He has sold 20 boxes to various local shops, and so far he has sold 85 single packages at his roadside apple cider stand. If it costs Farmer Brown $2 for each package’s spice mixture and $1 for each package’s cellophane, twine tie, and label, what is Farmer Brown’s profit so far?

“Background Music for the Vatican”! We pretended that the Vatican phoned us to ask for music recommendations that would enhance the architecture and the magnificent art. We considered only music composed by Catholics. All three suggestions are short and beautifully filmed.

“Gregorian Chants” – unaccompanied sacred songs, slow and reflective, developed by monks during the 9^thcentury. The collections of chants are named to honor the memory of Pope Gregory. This should calm the Vatican crowds down:

“Gloria in Excelsis Deo” – composed by Antonio Vivaldi around 1715. Vivaldi, noted for being one of the greatest of Baroque composers, was a Catholic priest. This “Gloria” is a breath of fresh air – energetic, precise, and uplifting:

“Locus Iste” – meaning “This Place”; really meaning “This place was made by God”, is often used for church dedications. This particular sacred motet (a multi-part choral work), was composed by Anton Bruckner (sort of an over-the-top devout Catholic) in 1869. As typical of Bruckner’s work, “Locus Iste” is a religious experience, top-heavy with soaring, lush harmonies:

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

If it’s August

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.

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.

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?

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

Heavenly

The Vatican – our new unit! We are Catholic, so the Vatican seemed a logical subject of inquiry. We’re reading from the August 2015 issue of National Geographic and “The Incredible Book of Vatican Facts and Papal Curiosities” by Nino Lo Bello. Here is what has IMMEDIATELY captured our attention: THE SWISS GUARDS. Wow. BEST UNIFORMS EVER. Here is what we have learned about the Swiss Guards – there are around 100 guards at any one time, with sole responsibility for guarding Vatican City and the Pope. The basic requirements for becoming a guard: single male Catholic between the ages of 19 – 30, with Swiss citizenship and Swiss military training. Very, very cool. And, again, those GREAT uniforms (we learned that it takes about 32 hours to sew up one of these splendid striped ensembles)!

Stephen Hawking said it – so far, Stephen Hawking and his daughter, Lucy, have written 3 remarkable novels for youthful minds about (what else) outer space. We are on book three, “George and the Big Bang”. Every so often, there is a break in the story for a few pages of facts and theories. As far as we are concerned, if Stephen Hawking said it, we are getting the most up-to-date information, un-doctored up and un-watered down. These books are important. We are augmenting the Hawking novel with “The Moon” by Seymour Simon. Lovely book, thought provoking photographs.

Farmer Brown looks to the heavens and thinks about buying a telescope! From one of our story problems of last week – Farmer Brown was so fascinated viewing the Perseid meteor shower last week that he realized his farm hands might enjoy having a telescope to view the night sky. He has found a beginner type telescope for $300. State sales tax is 8.25% and shipping will run $21.00. How much will Farmer Brown spend if he wishes to purchase 2 telescopes? If Farmer Brown wants speedier delivery he will pay an additional $15 per item. What will this bring the total to?

Music time – Negro Spirituals. What sobering and inspiring listening. But what great songs! Written by slaves pre-civil war, we learned that spirituals were prayers about the rewards awaiting in heaven and coded encouragement for escaping the chains of forced servitude. My son and I had a serious talk about the inexcusable wrongness of slavery.

“Down by the Riverside” – this timeless spiritual became a signature song for Vietnam War protesters of the 1970’s. This video clip features Sister Rosetta Tharpe. What a treasure.

“Wade in the Water” – we love this arrangement sung by Oakwood University students. Refreshing, energetic, outstanding.

“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” – I don’t see how anybody could watch this video and not weep (well, my son didn’t weep, but he was captivated) (I wept). It showcases operatic lyric soprano Kathleen Battle and the Boys Choir of Harlem. It is just so beautiful. Also noted: “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” is the anthem of the national rugby union team of England. That’s weird.

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

A Test of Faith

…possibly my worst photo ever. Sorry! The subject matter wouldn’t cooperate.

A test of faith – This past week we completed our “Religions of the World” unit, using an Usborne book as a reference. It was time to test and see what my son had retained. I set up the iPad for a multiple choice quiz, and presented him with 30 questions regarding Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Sikhism. Chalk up another A+. Yay!

Incidental learning: Thermometers – While we were driving around the other day and the car thermometer read 37 degrees, I wondered if my son knew about temperatures. So that night, we began a small study of temperatures and thermometers. We found a neat website: www.metric-conversions.org, offering loads of interesting facts with brief, understandable explanations. We learned the difference between Celsius and Fahrenheit and how to convert from one to the other. We learned that only the Bahamas, Belize, the Cayman Islands, Palau (Palau? We had to find this on the globe), the USA and its territories use the Fahrenheit system. Consider us informed on the matter.

New academic unit – I am sorry to write that the chemistry unit we began crashed and burned by night number three. Darn book. When I don’t know what the author is talking about on page one, I start to think that this is not a book for us. After shunning the chemistry book, we tried out a book on “Oceans of the World” and found conflicting sentences in the first paragraph, so we bypassed that resource, too. This does not mean we are through with these units, it just means we are seeking the right books. (So many, many sub-standard learning materials out there. How do they even get published? Sigh.)

Not to be discouraged, we read through a few pages of “A Young Reader’s Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by Adam McKeown. Excellent! We are loving this book. We are going slowly so we can keep all the characters straight.

Novels – Two worthy Newberry award recipients: “Hatchet” and “Flora and Ulysses”

Continuing on with “Hatchet”, by Gary Paulsen. There is nothing original I can say about this important book. There is a reason it is on so many reading lists.
“Flora and Ulysses”, by Kate DiCamillo (everything she writes is so great). Things we’ve had to investigate while reading this book: CPR, near-death experiences (seeing the “white light”), the words “malfeasance” and “cynic”. I love books that push us into further learning.

Our music theme last night focused upon the work of French composers – I provided my son a list of compositions by the French composers that we are familiar with: Bizet, Debussy, Delibes, Gounod, Offenbach, and Saint-Saens. He selected:

“The Infernal Galop”, (the “Can Can”) by Jacques Offenbach, what’s not to like?
“Clair de Lune”, by Claude Debussy, the soothing music we needed.
“March of the Toreadors”, (from “Carmen”) by Georges Bizet…a rather unusual rendition with bottles and a guy on skates. Why not?

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

In Which We Learn about the Cambrian Explosion

We have a gorgeous book to nominate for textbook status: “Spineless” by Susan Middleton. Along with her jaw-dropping photographs, this book absolutely burgeons with interesting information. Last night, after learning about the phylum Porifera, I was starting to close the book when my son’s hand came slapping down onto the page, meaning quite vehemently, THIS IS AWESOME, KEEP READING!

This book has introduced us to our favorite crab: the green-eyed red-spotted guard crab. Not only is this crab THE CUTEST THING EVER, but it is one of only two species that protect coral reefs from the destructive HORRIBLE crown-of-thorns starfish. And we are learning about THE CAMBRIAN EXPLOSION (a short period of time, some 540 million years ago, when animal life diversity jumped from simple, single celled beings and humble sponges toward today’s insanely vast animal assortment). And if that wasn’t enough, we are becoming familiar with new vocab words, “phyla” and “phylum”. GREAT BOOK!

We go postal: did my son understand how a valentine card from his Aunt Michelle made its way from California to Texas? We talked about the basic postal system and about stamps. We considered the neat concept of the “forever” stamp. We paged through his grandfather’s stamp collection (put together in the 1930’s). We saw stamps from the 1800’s and we thought about what somebody could have been writing in a letter then…regarding the current president? Farm crops? Holiday felicitations? We paused to look closely at stamps from countries that have different names now. What a splendid learning tool.

From our religions of the world unit: last night we looked at beautiful Islamic mosaics – a triumph of geometric shapes, and compared this artwork with intricate stained glass windows from an Anglican cathedral. Both stunning.

Last night’s music theme: a soundtrack for the Cambrian Explosion!

For the single celled amoeba – “Simple Gifts”, the 19^th century Shaker hymn, written by Joseph Brackett. We listened to a very spare and simple rendition by Yo-Yo Ma and Alison Krauss. Elegant.
For the green-eyed red-spotted guard crab, we chose Frank Sinatra’s first big hit, “Polka Dots and Moonbeams” by Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke (1940).
To honor the Cambrian Explosion, the finale to “1812 Overture”, by Tchaikovsky:

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

Barely Scraping By

I think I can put my finger upon one of the reasons I was barely scraping by (as far as grades go) in high school. SKIMMING. When I had to read something I was not interested in (i.e. textbooks), I SKIMMED. My eyes were like radar screens, rapidly scanning every page for ANYTHING AT ALL that might prove interesting. I evidently missed a great deal of information. Cutting to the present: when I read aloud to my son, I wouldn’t dream of skimming. And guess what? I am learning all kinds of stuff I probably should have learned during my formative years. So, silver lining time: my son learns something new and I learn something new, too. I am grateful.

Current non-fiction studies: world religions – last night we were reading about Buddhism (“Usborne Book of Religions of the World”: A+), and non-vertebrate marine life – so elegantly photographed (“Spineless” by Susan Middleton: A+).

Current fiction: “Hatchet”, by Gary Paulsen (this is our third time through, and it is still riveting and important).

Contemplating the quill pen: My son and I are learning about quill pens – the writing instrument of choice until the mid 1800s – so we thought we would try writing with one. Holy cow, what a colossal mess! BLOTCH. DRIP. SPLOTCH. Of course we had the cheapest of the cheap feather pen sets, so this may have been the problem (seriously, this WAS the problem), but it brought us to a new appreciation of documents such as the Declaration of Independence, which were handwritten with a quill pen. What an elegant hand penned the Declaration – not one inkblot or drip.

Last night’s story problem from “Le Fictitious Local Diner” – During the cold and flu season, townspeople flock to the diner to purchase quart upon quart of chicken soup to bring home. The diner uses organic chicken, celery, carrots and onions to make their soup and can make a gallon for $12.00. They sell a quart for $8.00. Each year the diner manages to sell 200 quarts of the chicken soup. What is their profit?

Last night’s music theme – “Summertime”. This past week, the outside temp hovered around 30 degrees. We needed to think about weather that was at least 50 degrees warmer, so we listened to –

“Summer” from Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”, composed around 1720. (needs no comment)
“Fireflies” from Amy Beach, composed in 1892. This piano piece sparkles. It is one of our favorites.
“Summertime” from George Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” (1935). We listened to Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong sing – wow. Wow. Wow.
“In the Summertime” by Mungo Jerry, obviously not a melody that can compete with the others we listened to, and yet, this could be the consummate summer-vacation song. Ridiculously rambunctious fun.

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.

Religion

Sunday School

Holy Zucchetto!

If it’s August

Heavenly

A Test of Faith

In Which We Learn about the Cambrian Explosion

Barely Scraping By

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