Feeling philosophical for just a second – You know, there is so much that is so not fun about raising a special needs child, but this magic time my son and I spend together every night when we have nothing to do but learn and learn and learn is heaven.

Our Native North America unit continues:
The Inuit are so cool – we are focusing upon the Inuit, who have adapted and thrived in the arctic and subarctic (our globe is out) for over 1,000 years:
– dog sleds:  ooooh, last night we looked at photos of the dogs attached to a fan hitch – every dog is in the front row!  Apparently it is sort of a pain to untangle all the leads, but we learned the reasons why a fan hitch would be used.
– igloos:  an experienced igloo constructor can assemble an igloo in how long?  3 hours!
– inuksuk:  Inuit-made stone landmarks – did we know that the 2010 Olympics logo was based upon an inuksuk?
– anoraks:  fur parkas with hoods large enough to carry a baby
– kayaks (vocab):  we spent some time thinking about kayak dimensions – 20 feet long and 7 inches deep. Crazy. We measured the length of my son’s room and couldn’t believe that at 15 feet, the room didn’t come near the length of an Inuit kayak.

Quick math question – 229 of the 566 federally recognized Indian Nations (tribes/pueblos/villages) (information gleaned from the National Congress of American Indians website) are in Alaska.  Approximately what percentage of Indian Nations are located in Alaska?
A. 60%     B. 50%     C. 40%     D. 30% (answer at bottom of post)

Farmer Brown’s Swell Macaroni Story Problem – Friday night is macaroni and cheese night for Farmer Brown’s farmhands.  After ever so many attempts at cooking pasta and ending up with too much or too little, Farmer Brown has found that 1 gallon of cooked macaroni is the amount required to feed his 8 farmhands. If one cup of dried macaroni swells up to two cups after 10 minutes of boiling, how many cups of dried macaroni does Farmer Brown need to cook, to end up with enough to feed the farmhands?
A. 4 cups      B. 8 cups      C. 16 cups      D. 32 cups (answer at bottom of post)

Groundswell Popularity – from last night’s reading of Candace Fleming’s “Presenting Buffalo Bill – The Man Who Invented the Wild West”, we learned that although Bill Cody was a well known and highly respected scout for the US Army, he experienced nation-wide fame and popularity when Ned Buntline, prolific author of dime novels (vocab), wrote 4 TOTALLY FICTITIOUS adventure novels about Buffalo Bill.  (It turns out that this Ned Buntline was as much of a character as Will Cody.  What would it have been like for a school teacher to have the likes of Ned and Will in one classroom?)

The swell of a crescendo – a few nights ago, we were listening to sad sad “Serenade” by Franz Schubert (composed when he knew he was dying of syphilis).  I pointed out three obvious crescendoes to my son, then thought this was something to pursue, so the next night we celebrated THE CRESCENDO.  My son learned that when a composer gradually (NOT ABRUPTLY) increases the volume of the melody it is called a crescendo.  We looked at three different uses of the crescendo:

Serenade composed by Franz Schubert in 1828, featuring 3 big crescendo swells.  I do not know why this piece is being paired up with photographs of nebulae, but there you are.  On the plus side, we have never been disappointed by the London Symphony Orchestra:

In the Hall of the Mountain King – from Edvard Grieg’s “Peer Gynt Suite”, composed in 1875, this piece is one giant two and a half minute crescendo; begins quiet as a whisper and by the end of the piece my son and I are covering our ears.  Superb performance by the Berlin Philharmonic; we have never seen violinists playing so furiously:

Mars – from Gustav Holst’s “The Planets”, composed in 1914, and featuring a series of rolling crescendoes:

Welcome to the best part of my day!
– Jane BH
Story problem answers (quick math:  C. 40%,  macaroni:  B. 8 cups)