Surviving the Applewhites

Old Business, New Business, Funny Business

This meeting will now come to order.

Old business:

The chairman requests a report on the Clem and Clyde Reading Comprehension project: 

In the latest reading comp mini stories, fictional characters Clem and Clyde: 

– have learned to juggle – shown proficiency walking with stilts –

– purchased backpacks – painted their bedrooms – participated in a tractor race –

– ventured into the cat tending business – visited a caboose museum in Canada –  

I am continuing to provide a weekly edition of Clem and Clyde adventures and follow up questions. Independently, my son reads the stories and answers the questions.  Is he comprehending what he is reading?  YES!  A continuation of the reading comprehension project is recommended.

The chairman requests a report on the tracking of sharks off the east coast of the USA:  

We’ve been following a group of tagged sharks online at ocearch.org.  Seriously, this is quite entertaining.  Currently, the sharks have been circling the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada and are starting to head south to Florida.  We have a new favorite shark:  Breton.  While other tagged sharks seem to hug the coast of eastern USA, Breton is zigzagging all over the the Atlantic – he has even propelled himself over to the Sargasso Sea (which we studied in August, 2017 – view the “Sea Hunt” post for proof positive).  Breton is a scamp.  A continuation of our Monday night shark tracking is recommended.

The chairman requests a report on current re-reads – 

Surviving the Applewhites – I think this is our 4th time through Stephanie S. Tolan’s never-a-dull-moment treasure.  It is about school projects, an uncontrollable goat, the cuisine of India, “The Sound of Music”, but mostly it is about family and creative passion and personal transformation and it is continually funny.  We love this book and we will read it again.

Cheaper by the Dozen – My son and I seem to read this book about every other year, and as an educator, I benefit from the “pep talk” it delivers.  I am not sure I can summon the high energy that Frank Gilbreth put into teaching his 12 kids, but his rollicking, unconventional, brassy verve inspires me.  The book, published in 1948, was written by two of the Gilbreth children, Frank B. Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey.

It’s Halloween – My son and I read through Jack Prelutsky’s Halloween themed poem collection several times every October.  At this point, we know all the words to every poem.  This slender book is a welcomed part of our annual autumn experience.

New business:

The chairman requests a report on new books in the Cool School book basket:

Saving the Ghost of the Mountain – another engrossing journal by Sy Montgomery, documenting a research trip to to Mongolia (Mongolia!!! get the globe out) to track snow leopards.  These darn snow leopards are nigh impossible to find;  their pale spotted fur blends in too well with the surroundings.  By the end of the book, although it is clear that the research team was hiking in snow leopard territory, not one had been spotted (the heartbreak of research).  Nonetheless, this book was a pleasure to open every single night. If we couldn’t get up close and personal with a snow leopard we did become familiar with Mongolian ger housing and ibex goats (preferred gourmet treat for snow leopards).  

Amazing Rivers, by Julie Agnone, illustrations by Kerry Hydnman – so smartly put together, lovely illustrations.  This book covers more than 20 issues relating to rivers,  illustrating these topics with specific rivers of the world.  Maybe our favorite entry in this book:  the New Meuse River (Netherlands) hosts the world’s first FLOATING DAIRY!  It houses 40 cows, robots do the clean up, cow manure is recycled as fertilizer.  This is not our first river book, but it is the best.

Cable Cars of San Francisco – a favorite family member has recently moved to San Francisco and we are so patiently waiting for him to take a series of selfies on a cable car.  Is that too much to ask?  In the meantime, we have contented ourselves with the quick read through of “San Francisco Cable Car”, by Julie Murray.  A thin book with lots of really good photos (but not as good as a selfie from said favorite family member) and just enough information for us.

Key Player – 4th book in a series by Kelly Yang (we’ve previously read “Front Desk”, “Three Keys”, and “Room to Dream”).  We don’t love opening this book every night, because we know we are going to be confronted with some tough realities.  How about the tough reality of racism?  We are heartened to know there are role models, like brave protagonist, Mia.  Important book.

Funny business:

Tom Gates Epic Adventure – It is a happy day in our study room when we have a new Tom Gates book to laugh through.   Author Liz Pichon’s perfect ensemble cast, fabulous doodles, non-stop originality captivates us on every single page.  In this book, Tom desperately needs a haircut, is worried that he is the only one in class who isn’t invited to a birthday party, has to navigate between a family outing and the school “Tropical Disco”. I think we’ve read all 20 books in the series.

The chairman requests an unnecessarily complicated story problem:  

Big excitement!  The  local diner now offers a new item on the kids menu:  “Spell-a-Lunch”.  To place an order, kid customers must create a 5 letter word from the diner’s alphabet menu. The lunch plate will thusly be filled. 

A – apple slices     B – burger     C – carrots ’n’ celery     D – dill pickles    
E – egg salad sandwich     F – fries     G – grilled cheese     H – hot dog    
I – ice cream sandwich     J – jello     K – ketchup     L – lemonade     M – mini raisin box     N – nachos     O – olives     P – peanut butter sandwich     Q – quesadilla    
R – radishes ’n’ ranch dressing     S – sugar snap peas     T – tomato juice    
U – upside down cake     V – vanilla wavers     W – watermelon chunks    
X – extra napkins     Y – yogurt     Z – zucchini bread

For example:
If the child orders a “SHARK” lunch, the plate will offer (S) sugar snap peas, (H) a hot dog, (A) apple slices, (R) radishes with ranch dressing, and (K) ketchup.

– What will be on the lunch plate if the kid orders:
The “FANCY” Lunch?
The “CLIMB” lunch?

– Now for the arithmetic part of the story problem: 

1).  If the “Spell-a-Lunch” concept is a gigantic hit, and the diner sells 50 a week, how much will the diner profit at the end of a year, if each “Spell-a-Lunch” costs the diner $3, and the diner sells each lunch for $7.  

2).  At the end of a year, will there be enough profit money for the diner to donate $1,000 to the local elementary school library? (answers at bottom of post)

To conclude the meeting, the chairman requests a few short and funny orchestral pieces:

  • “Banjoland Buffoonery” –  from Grant Kirkhope’s music score for the the 2008 video game, Banjo-Kazooie:  Nuts & Bolts.  A variety of instruments get their spotlight moment in Kirkhope’s zippy composition, making it easy for my son to recognize the sounds of the bassoon, clarinet, flute, oboe, and I think xylophone.  Boisterously performed by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. 

  • “The Clog Dance”, from the comic ballet, La Fille Mal Gardée (essentially, The Poorly Supervised Young Lady), composed by Ferdinand Hérold in 1828.  We have been smiling over this bit of music (via iPod) for a few months, and when I showed my son this video clip he was entranced.  The ballet’s basic premise:  young girl in the French countryside has found true love in the handsome Colas, but her widowed mother  (traditionally played by a large man) wishes her to marry the Alain (think village idiot), son of the village’s wealthiest citizen.  The “Clog Dance” hilariously puts the widowed mother front and center.  BTW, the costuming in this production:  charming.

  • “The Typewriter” – yes, yes, yes, we know, all sorts of people have no idea what a typewriter is these days, but can one put together a list of humorous orchestral pieces without including Leroy Anderson’s out-of-left-field composition of 1950, “The Typewriter” ?  No.  Using the typewriter as percussion was inspired AND funny!

This meeting has been adjourned.
Welcome to the best part of my day!
– Jane BH
(Story problem answers:  
The “FANCY” lunch – fries, apple slices, nachos, carrots ’n’ celery, yogurt
The “CLIMB” lunch – carrots ’n’ celery, lemonade, ice cream sandwich, mini raisin box, burger
1).  $10,400  and 2).  the diner can easily afford to donate $1,000)

Global Positioning

My son and I have chosen global positioning as a study theme for 2022.  For every topic we tackle this year we are going to to answer this question: where in the world is this or where did it come from?  (We are primarily limiting our focus to countries.)

Our world map and colored pens are at the ready.  Every time we find out where something originated we mark a color coded dot on the map (example:  goat breeds – a black dot, penguin breeds – a silver dot).  Our big map is becoming our big polka dotted map.  The idea is to find ourselves at the end of 2022 knowing where every country on the globe is located.  

To illustrate:  reading from Jack Byard’s “Know Your Goats”, we learned

  • the Girgentana goat (best in class for truly WOW horns) originated in Sicily:  mark a dot on the island of Sicily.  
  • the Boer goat (super sweet Basset Hound ears) is indigenous to South Africa:  mark a dot on South Africa.
  • the Kiko goat (off-the-charts hardy – resistant to disease, parasites, weather) initially from New Zealand:  mark at dot on New Zealand.
  • we have read about 6 breeds of goat from Switzerland.  When you keep going back to Switzerland to mark yet another dot, you finally learn where Switzerland is (this is for my son’s benefit, please don’t think I didn’t know where Switzerland was).

Our topic line-up so far:  goats, penguins (hey! 18 species of penguins and only 2 live their lives in Antarctica: so, 18 sparkling silver dots scattered about our map’s southern hemisphere), owls, bears, and here’s a change of pace:  breads of the world.  This dot marking is more satisfying than one would think.

But all other topics get a dot on the map, too.  Example:  we are reading Lori Alexander’s well researched, well written, “All in a Drop – How Antony van Leeuwenhoek Discovered an Invisible World” (BTW:  illustrations by Vivien Mildenberger are just so right for this book)(and another BTW:  the timeline at the back of the book is worth the price of the book) .  

  • I can finally pronounce his name without pausing to gather my wits:  “LAYVENHOOK” 
  • this man ground down a lentil shaped lens (hey!  we learned “lens” comes from the word “lentil”) and made a separate microscope for every single item he viewed 
  • kind of chilling: van Leeuwenhoek saw things under his microscopes that had NEVER EVER BEEN SEEN before.  My son and I reflected upon this crazy wonderfulness
  • after seven years of heel dragging, the Royal Society in London finally accepted van Leeuwenhoek as a Fellow (1677)

Yes, yes, yes, but where did he come from?  Delft, The Netherlands.  Bring forth the map and mark a gold dot on The Netherlands.

Current Fiction Reads (and global positioning dots) – 

“Room to Dream”, Kelly Yang.  The third in her very readable and very worthy series.  At the point we are in the story, protagonist Mia’s family is about to embark on a trip (from Anaheim, CA) to see family in China (2 dots marked on the map).

“Surviving the Applewhites”, by Stephanie S. Tolan.  I think this is our 4th time through this relentlessly entertaining book.  With each reading we discover new truths about human nature and the creative spirit.  Location?  North Carolina: another dot on the map.

Back to the Goats: Story Problem – 

Farmer Brown has 6 acres of overgrown weeds that need to be cleared out, so he is hiring a team of goats from neighbor, Farmer Fran (yes, THE Farmer Fran of “Farmer Fran’s Grazin’ Goats”), to get the job done.  Farmer Fran has a herd of 30 goats that can clear a half acre in 3 days. The cost runs $400 per acre.  

1)  How long will it take the goats to clear Farmer Brown’s 6 acres?
a-  3 days     b- 18 days     c- 30 days     d-  36 days

2)  How much will it cost to have the land cleared? 
a- $240     b-  $400     c- $2,400     d-  $4,000

3)  If Farmer Brown hires a local construction company to clear the brush, it will cost $4,000 per acre.  How much will he save if he hires the goat team instead?
a- $0 (they both cost the same)     b- $2,400     c-  $4,000     d-  $21,600
(answers at bottom of post)

Classical Music Time with the Goats – 

Farmer Fran says that her goats work more efficiently if they are munching to music, so my son and I looked for music with a happy, rambunctious melody and rhythm – 

  • “Hoe-Down”, from “Rodeo” by Aaron Copland (1942).  An A+ performance by the USA National Youth Orchestra of 2018.  Thanks to the outstanding percussion section we can imagine the goats’ little hoofbeats all over this exuberant composition –

  • “Maple Leaf Rag”, Scott Joplin (1916).  Oooooh, we found an actual pianola roll played by Scott Joplin.  The tempo is much faster than we’ve ever heard this piece played.  Just the right thing to keep those goats moving – 

  • Alexander Glazunov’s “Symphony No. 4”, movement 2 (1893).  This piece transports us smack into the middle of Farmer Brown’s acreage.  We can feel the fresh air, we can see the goats scampering from one clump of weeds to the next.  They are making short work of this 6 acre task!  This is not exactly rambunctious music, but there is a playfulness and joyfulness present –

Welcome to the best part of my day!
– Jane BH
(story problem answers:  1) d- 36 days     2) c- $2,400     3) d- $21,600 )

Dear Librarians

newbery award        caldecott award

Pick us!  Pick us!  We are ready to serve!  We’ve just been reading about the Association for Library Service to Children, which annually recognizes book and video excellence with ten different medals and awards.  Would my son and I love find ourselves on any of the award selection committees?  YES!  Pick us!  Pick us!  Once we settled down from our committee responsibilities fantasy, we narrowed our focus to learn everything about two of the ten awards: the Newbery Medal (literature) and the Caldecott Medal (book illustration):

– The Newbery Medal – we read “Balderdash” (Michelle Markel/Nancy Carpenter).  A snappy,  brief look at the life of publisher John Newbery.  Inspired by philosopher John Locke’s quote, “Reading should be a treat for children”, Newbery enjoyed enormous success by printing books that children WANTED to read (prior to this, most reading material for children was designed to put the fear of the afterlife into the reader’s behavior).  The first Newbery Medal was awarded in 1922.  We read through the list of Newbery Medal and Honor Book award winners and notated those books we had read:

  • 2016 – The War that Saved My Life – Important
  • 2013 – The One and Only Ivan – Liked
  • 2011 – Turtle in Paradise – Really liked
  • 2008 – The Wednesday Wars – Really liked
  • 2007 – Penny from Heaven – Really liked
  • 2003 – Hoot – Satisfying
  • 2003 – Surviving the Applewhites – Oh how we LOVE this book, have read 4 times
  • 2002 – Everything on a Waffle – Liked
  • 2001 – A Year Down Yonder – Really liked
  • 2001 – Because of Winn Dixie – Liked
  • 2001 – Hope was Here – Really liked
  • 1999 – A Long Way from Chicago – Really liked
  • 1999 – Holes – Important
  • 1991 – Maniac Magee – Liked
  • 1988 – Hatchet – we’ve read this 3 times
  • 1984 – The Sign of the Beaver – we are currently reading this, like it a LOT
  • 1978 – Ramona and Her Father – Liked
  • 1973 – Frog and Toad Together – Really?
  • 1963 – A Wrinkle in Time – Really liked
  • 1961 – The Cricket in Times Square – Liked
  • 1953 – Charlotte’s Web – The best
  • 1952 – Ginger Pye – Liked
  • 1939 – Mr. Popper’s Penguins – Liked
  • 1923 – The Voyages of Dr. Doolittle – we are currently reading this, LOVE this book

24 down, 74 to go – Question for my son:  shall we read every Newbery Medalist?  YES!  Why not, what else are we doing?  The challenge begins.

– The Caldecott Medal – we read “Randolph Caldecott – The Man Who Could Not Stop Drawing” (Leonard S. Marcus) – a most comprehensive biography, filled with Caldecott’s charming, skillful, intuitive drawings.  This book provoked us to order “Old Christmas:  Sketch Book of Washington Irving” (1876) with illustrations by Randolph Caldecott (we are saving this for December reading).  The Association for Library Services to Children began awarding the Caldecott Medal in 1937.

french fries    milkshakes    french fries

Story problem from the local diner – Miss Jeanette (the new diner manager) has an idea to spark positive PR (vocab) for the diner!  She is proposing that for the upcoming summer months, the diner  award “Shake and Fries” vouchers (vocab) to high school students who volunteer during story-time at the local library.  Miss Jeanette is projecting that 50 coupons will be awarded over the summer.  If a “Shake and Fries” voucher costs the diner $3, how much how much will the diner potentially spend supporting the story-time literacy event? 
A.)  $35     B.)  $53     C.)  $150     D.)  $350

Lactose intolerant students earning vouchers can substitute lemonade for the milkshake, and (happy day) the cost for the diner will be reduced by 20%.  If 10% of the students opt for the lemonade, what is the total projected cost of the diners’ voucher program?
A.)  $20     B.)  $45     C.)  $147     D.)  $235 (answers at bottom of post)

A Serendipitous Pairing – Two A+ books that we just happened to be reading at the same time, that SHOULD be read at the same time:

“My Life with the Chimpanzees”, an autobiography (vocab) by Jane Goodall
and
“The Voyages of Dr. Doolittle”, by Hugh Lofting

My son and I were about three chapters into the Dr. Doolittle book (and just loving it) (meaning that my son has a difficult time letting me shut the book at the end of each night’s reading) when we started the Jane Goodall book.  And then, WHAT A SURPRISE!  Jane Goodall mentions several times in her autobiography the impact the Dr. Doolittle books had in shaping her future.   My son and I love thinking that maybe Hugh Lofting (1886 – 1947) might know how much good work his books inspired.

Dr. Doolittle inspires our classical music selections – Right there, in chapter 6, Dr. Doolittle entertains the Stubbins family with his flute playing!  What doesn’t that man know how to do? The book states that the visit took place in 1839, so my son and I put together a little flute recital program, selecting flute pieces that were composed prior to 1839 – pieces that Dr. Doolittle actually could have played – 

  • Francois-Joseph Gossec’s “Tambourin for flute and orchestra”, composed in the early 1790’s.  This is just so darn sweet.  Play, Dr. Doolittle, play!

  • “Badinerie” from Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 2, 1739.  We learned that a badinerie is a brief and lively dance.  We are not sure that anybody could play this piece with greater accuracy and speed than Sir James Galway (except, of course, Dr. Doolittle) –

  • Beethoven’s spritely “Trio for 3 Flutes in G major”, movement III.  The story goes that this piece was composed in 1786 when Beethoven was fifteen.  Whoa.  Vivacious and brisk – the perfect conclusion for our Dr. Doolittle mini concert –  

Welcome to the best part of my day!
– Jane BH
(Story problem answers:  C.)  $150 and C.)  $147)

Second Time Around

blue moon       blue moon

July 2, 2015                       July 31, 2015

Blue Moon!  My son and I observed the blue moon on the final evening of July.  We learned that the term “blue moon” (the second full moon, if there are 2 full moons in one month) (very rare) does not refer to the moon’s color, but rather to the centuries-old phrase, “once in a blue moon” (something that occurs with preposterous infrequency).  For the vocab list: lunar.  And preposterous.

dictionary best

Our first research project!  The question was, “which letter of the alphabet begins the greatest number of words and which letter of the alphabet begins the fewest number of words?”.  My son guessed that the most words started with “E” and the fewest number of words started with “Z”. We used a real (non-electronic) dictionary and simple subtraction to find the number of pages (2 letters per night). We saved “E” and “Z” for the final night (he was pretty darn close with the “Z” choice). This was such a simple assignment, but surprisingly, it started a number of conversations. We want to do another research project!

The tally, in order of most words to fewest:  S with 167 pages, C, P, T, A, M, B, D, R, F, E with 52 pages, H, I, G, W, O, N, V, U, L with only 15 pages (this was a surprise, we thought there would be loads of “L” words), J, K, Q, Y, Z with 3 pages, X with 2 pages.

applewhites books

What we were reading this past week –

  • “Albert Einstein”: two thumbs up for this DK Biography by Frieda Wishinsky (regretfully, we have been disappointed with several DK books, but this one is excellent).
  • “The Merchant of Venice” (Shakespeare, obviously): we are reading a retelling of the play by Charles and Mary Lamb (this is a complicated plot line, and this version is OK, not great, but OK).
  • “Surviving the Applewhites”: our fourth time through this novel by Stephanie S. Tolan. This book is a treasure! It is funny, it is quirky, it is a hot mess – and the message! Wow. It is all about the single-minded pursuit of one’s passion. LOVE THIS BOOK.
English-Breakfast-Tea-Tin-276x300   English-Breakfast-Tea-Tin-276x300

Breaking news (and story problem) from Le Fictitious Local Diner! No more baskets of mish-mashed teabag options at the diner!  The hot tea service is being classed up and now only English Breakfast Tea (regular or decaf) will be served.  The diner’s supplier sells a tin of 200 regular teabags for $35 and a tin of 200 decaf teabags for $40.  On an average, 150 customers drink hot tea every week, half of them drinking decaf. How many tins of each should the diner purchase every month? How much should be budgeted annually for the purchase of teabags?  If one fourth of the tea drinkers want a thin slice of lemon with their tea, and there are 8 slices per lemon, how many lemons should the diner have at the ready every week?

blue moon

Tunes for Blue Moons –

  • “Moonlight Serenade”, by Glenn Miller. HUGE hit in 1939.  HUGE.  This melody was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1991.  We talked about Glenn and listened for his trombone.

  • “Rhapsody in Blue”, by George Gershwin.  This piece was written for piano solo and jazz band, and was composed in one big hurry (5 weeks!), premiering in 1924.  We love this video, showcasing not only Leonard Bernstein at the piano, but also clarinet master Stanley Drucker.

  • “Clair de Lune” (the 3rd movement of his “Suite Bergamasque”) (we did not know that!), by Claude Debussy, published in 1905.  Soothing to the extreme.  This video clip features piano virtuoso, Claudio Arrau, and was recorded in 1991, when Arrau was 88!  This should give us all hope!

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

Garden Par-tay

  cicadas on leaf

Cicadas Party – Every summer, it gets really loud in our backyard garden.  It sounds like a golf course sprinkler system going full blast, but it isn’t that, it is the CICADAS!  Last night my son and I did a mini-study of Cicadas.  We learned that cicadas sing their song during the hottest part of the day; we learned that the males make all the noise; we learned that people actually eat these insects (deep fried or stir fried) (gag).  We watched this well filmed video of a male cicada making his rattling noise (7 out of 10 on the repulsive scale).  In truth, my son wasn’t terribly interested; I sort of had to force him to watch this…good thing the video only lasts a minute:

Vocabulary update – two items:

First, I went through the list of vocabulary words we have accumulated over the past year (see “The Wordery” in menu area) and selected 15 words.  I presented the list as a quiz with multiple-choice options.  Happy report: 100% correct!  So pleased with my son’s vocabulary retention.

Second, our Rasputin and Einstein books and our current novel (“Surviving the Applewhites”) have presented us with more unfamiliar words and concepts: crude, dynasty, fasting, heir, hemophilia, icons, monarchy, stage mothers, Swiss neutrality, recluse, and thesis.

plums

The Farmer Brown story problem – Farmer Brown is going to be on local TV, showing everyone how to make his grandmother’s prize-winning Damson plum jam!  After the demonstration, he is going to give everyone in the audience (3 girl scout troops), a pint sized jar of the jam.  There are 16 girls in each troop.  If Farmer Brown’s recipe makes 2 quarts of jam, how many times will he need to multiply the recipe?  Farmer Brown does NOT want to disappoint the girl scouts.

ship

Our music theme from last night was inspired by “The Clipper Ship, Flying Cloud”, printed by Currier & Ives in 1852. A few years back, my son and I did a study on American illustrators, and we both loved learning about the firm of Currier & Ives (Currier, the accomplished lithographer and Ives, the finance brains…the selling pitch was, “the Grand Central Depot for Cheap and Popular Prints”).  When we finished our study, my son picked out “The Clipper Ship, Flying Cloud” as a poster to put up on his wall.

Music to accompany “The Clipper Ship, Flying Cloud”:

  • “Sea Songs” by Ralph Vaughan Williams, composed in 1923.  This is a 4 minute march bringing together 3 British sea songs. This video clip shows the Houston Youth Orchestra from two years ago.  Exceptionally well done for a youth orchestra.

  • “Overture to HMS Pinafore” by Gilbert and Sullivan, from their very popular comic opera, which premiered in 1871.  Jaunty!

  • “Over the Waves” by Juventino Rosas.  We often get this piece confused with “The Skater’s Waltz”, and guess what? The Skater’s Waltz (by Emile Waldeufel) was written in 1882 and “Over the Waves” was written in 1888.  (Perhaps another story for another time.)  ANYWAY,  take a look at this video!  The composition is played with surprising delicacy by the intimidating looking Central Military Band of the Russian Ministry of Defense.

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH