The Extreme Life of the Sea

A good, good, good day

Good!  Blog posting is back!  The STORIES AND STUDIES classroom is always in full swing every night, but there has been no time to post since “Whale Fall and other Water Wonders” – all extraneous brain power has been directed toward our mid-August family wedding.  The glam couple was surrounded by the best of aunts, uncles, cousins, Godparents, grandmothers, parents, siblings, sorority sisters and fraternity brothers, and it was a good, good, good day.

New Biertuempfels

But I digress. Back to STORIES AND STUDIES –

Dealing with the bad guys – My son and I are glued to “Crime Science – how investigators use science to track down the bad guys” by Vivien Bowers.  Who wouldn’t want to know about such things as COUNTERFEITING?  My son was ultra-focused while we read about eight ways to determine if a dollar bill is counterfeit (vocab).  We examined our own crisp bills as we read through the list.  And then we learned about FORGERY (vocab)!  Last night, fingerprinting.  Oh, we do like this type of book – new vocab (like victim, suspect, evidence) and conversation provokers on every single page.

crime book etc

Those Greek Gods:  SO good! SO bad! – my son and I loved Ken Jennings’ book, “Maphead”, so we welcomed “Ken Jennings Junior Genius Guide to Greek Mythology”.  We have sampled other books on Greek mythology, but the information did not stick – I think the Jennings book may be a winner for us.  It is cleverly assembled like a school composition book: instead of chapters, the book is divided into classroom periods, and the illustrations? student doodles.  Last night we started through the “Greek Gods Trading Cards” section, learning the super-strengths, talents, skills AND trickery, treachery, deviousness and go-sit-in-the-corner badness of Zeus, Hera, and Poseidon (tonight:  Hades, Demeter, Hestia, and Aphrodite are on deck).

Such a good book – may we again recommend “The Extreme Life of the Sea” by Palumbi and Palumbi.  Wow.  The final summation gave us so much to think about – “In the long run, the oceans do not need saving – PEOPLE need saving.”.  The point: over the course of a thousand years, the oceans will adapt and take care of themselves, but people will suffer significantly if the oceans aren’t thoughtfully tended NOW.  This book has been placed in our Sunday night reference section (selected readings to make us think about being grateful and caring citizens of the world).

nail polish

Story problem of the week: Farmer Brown’s daughter gets married!  Farmer Brown is letting the bride and her bridesmaids use a sweet cottage on his property to get ready for the wedding ceremony.  The bride has 6 bridesmaids and one maid of honor.  If all young women are getting a manicure (vocab) and pedicure (vocab) the morning of the wedding, how many nails will be polished?   A) 60    B) 80    C) 120    D) 160
If one bottle of polish will adequately paint 50 nails, how many bottles of nail polish should be available?  OH FOR HEAVENS SAKES!  LET COMMON SENSE PREVAIL!  They don’t have all day – each young woman needs her own bottle!   A) 1 bottle    B) 4 bottles    C) 8 bottles    D) 12 bottles (story problem answers at bottom of post)

lovebirds

Our music listening last night – thinking about sister’s wedding –

  • “The Prince of Denmark’s March” composed by Jeremiah Clarke around 1700. This classic wedding ceremony processional (vocab), is often referred to as “Trumpet Voluntary” and in the past, was incorrectly attributed to popular baroque composer Henry Purcell.  Jeremiah Clarke was the church organist for St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, so this piece was written for keyboard, but my son and I love this recording by trumpet virtuoso Wynton Marsalis:

  • “Wedding Day at Troldhaugen” by Edvard Grieg, composed in1896, to celebrate his 25th wedding anniversary with his beloved wife, Nina.  (Troldhaugen, meaning “troll hill”, was the name of their home.)  We love this dear piece – two lively country dance sections bookend a somber, reflective, heartbreaking passage:

  • “Wedding March from A Midsummer Night’s Dream” written by Felix Mendelssohn in 1842, to accompany Shakespeare’s play. Certainly the grandest of wedding recessionals (vocab), first performed at a real wedding in 1847:

Welcome to the best part of my day!
– Jane BH
(story problem answers:  D) 160,   C) 8 bottles)

Whale Fall and other Water Wonders

whale

Whale Fall* is one of the concepts we are learning about from Stephen and Anthony Palumbi’s book, “The Extreme Life of the Sea” (professor of marine science at Stanford University, Stephen Palumbi is an undisputed expert).  So far, we have also learned about William Beebe (the first man to descend a half mile into the sea in a ridiculously tiny air-tight sphere), bioluminescence (vocab, AND maybe our most beautiful word of 2017), the challenges of tidal pool living, mangrove forest ecosystems – every topic draws us in.  It is a privilege to study from this book.

*Whale Fall – because you want to know – describes the creation of a deep sea ecosystem, put into place when a whale dies and sinks to the bottom of the sea.  Once my son and I got beyond the grimness, we marveled at the genius of this circle-of-life system. BTW, whale fall has been going on for about 33 million years (and yet, surprise surprise, this is the first I have heard about it. Once again, when I study with my son, we both win.).

nessy photo

On the lighter side – we are reading “The Loch Ness Monster (Behind the Legend)”, by Erin Peabody.  This well-organized book presents and intelligently refutes the many Nessie legends and hoaxes (HOAXES:  we remembered when we read about the crop circle hoaxes) (who ARE these people who have time to perpetuate hoaxes?).  But back to the book:  yes, we look forward to reading from this every evening.

cursive

The Cursive Suggestion – I enjoyed a thought provoking conversation with a friend who is finishing up certification requirements for dyslexia therapy.  She said current studies indicate that for some, cursive handwriting is FAR easier than plain printing (loads of documented reasons).  Well, this caught my attention – when I am helping my son write, it is difficult to tell when he has finished one letter and is ready to start another.  Cursive writing might be a solution.  Say no more, we are on it.

hot thermometer

Cooling down at Le Fictitious Local Diner – What with the weather being so hot, the diner’s August marketing strategy is to give every lunch patron a paper fan (with diner take-out menu imprinted) as they leave.  The diner can purchase 250 wood handled fans for $120.  The diner averages 1,000 lunch customers a month.  How many sets of fans should be ordered?  How much will the diner spend on 1000 fans?

Last year, the August promotion (sun visors with diner logo) generated an extra $1,500 in take-out orders.  If this year’s promotion brings in a like amount of business, will the fans be a good use of advertising dollars? (story problem answers at bottom of post)

Looking for a Classical Music Controversy?  Might we suggest trying to differentiate between Rounds, Canons, and Fugues?  Apparently, this is a touchy subject among musicologists.  My son and I know what a round is, so we dug deeper – is a canon a round?  “Yes” by some authorities, “Yes, but…” by others. But OH MY GOSH, when it came to trying to understand the difference between a canon and a fugue – we had no idea that a discussion of these music forms was chock full of confusion and heated controversy.  People, is this necessary????  The comment we are going with:  “Compare a Bach fugue to the Pachelbel Canon and you will instantly recognize the gulf between these two forms.”  OK (I think).

– We listened to Johann Pachelbel’s Pachelbel Canon in D.  Composed around 1700, but sort of overlooked until Jean-Francois Pilliard recorded the piece in 1968.  Then, WHOA, how do you spell ubiquitous (vocab)?  Poor Pachelbel! If only he could have lived to collect the royalties:

– Then we listened to J.S. Bach’s fab Fugue in G Minor, (referred to as “The Little Fugue”) composed around 1705 – so almost about the same time as Pachelbel’s Canon, but SO much more complex.  Originally written for organ, we listened to a performance by the Canadian Brass.  I think listening to each brass instrument makes it easier to hear each melody line of the fugue. This is a short piece (yay) and the Canadian Brass are always engaging:

– Finally, for fun, we listed to Fugue for Tinhorns, the opening number of the 1950’s musical, “Guys and Dolls” (music/lyrics by Frank Loesser).  Ever so many musicologists are quick to point out that this IS NOT a fugue, it is either a round or a canon.  OK, people take your fight outside.  This piece is adorable!

Welcome to the best part of my day!
– Jane BH
(story problem answers: 4 sets, $480, yes!)
PS  There might be a giant time gap until my next post:  family member getting married in 4 weeks!

We are too cool for school!

Our support system is 2 COOL 4 SCHOOL!

(They are trying to come across as cool, but are having difficulty holding back the grins.)

It is time to acknowledge our extreme support system (a great dad, a great sister, a great brother, a great grandmother AKA “The Peach”, and a great treasured family friend), AND to celebrate my 100th post on this blog site!  To mark the occasion, I am going to pretend that one of my skeptical relatives (certainly NOT one of the above) is grilling me about “Jane’s Cool School”:

1) Do you really do this study thing EVERY night? Yes!
     –  If my son didn’t like what we are doing, he would firmly escort me out of the room, and that would be the end of that.
     –  My son’s daytime regimented agenda keeps him content and occupied, but offers no intellectual growth.  I am not sure I could be okay with this.  I want him to have an opportunity for intellectual growth EVERY DAY.

2) Have you and your son read every book, listened to every piece of music, and worked through every story problem that has been posted in the blog?  YES!

3) The story problems are a riot. Where do you get them?  You are too kind.  I create them myself – usually based upon something I am currently dealing with at home.

4) You seem to flit from topic to topic. How can your son master anything this way?  Good question!  I am not going for mastery, I am going for awareness.

5) You don’t spend much time writing about your son’s autism, treatment, or behaviors.  Good observation!  It is a good thing that there are many websites and blogs dedicated to autism behaviors, treatment, and research.  I write about what we are doing to make a happy experience out of trying circumstances.

6) What has been the biggest surprise revealed in your nightly study time?   It has been surprising – nay, alarming – to see that ever so much of what I learned in school is incorrect, incomplete, or WAY out-of-date (for starters, think solar system).  

7) Do you think that parents of special needs children should run a program like yours?  Only if they love it – otherwise it would be difficult to keep this up night after night.

8) Regarding fiction selections, I notice that you avoid “coming of age” books. Why?  A lot of “coming of age” issues involve themes of “man’s inhumanity toward man”.  I think my son has enough to deal with without finding out that there is a significant percentage of people who are mean.

9) Do you like reading out loud? I LOVE IT!  It is not so much the act of reading out loud that I like, it is the joy of sharing a learning experience together. 

10) How long does it take you to write a blog post from start to finish?  Three afternoons, at a minimum.

11) Do you get feedback? Yes!  The story problems and the classical music selections get the most reaction.  ALSO, I have heard from a few authors of books that I have written about – HUGE THRILL!

12) So, why are you doing this blog?  This blog is a scrapbook for my son; something to document our study time together.  Every so often I look over the list of topics we’ve tackled, and it cheers me to acknowledge I am doing something worthy with my time.

13) What are you and your son are learning from this week?
          – “The Extreme Life of the Sea” by Stephen R. Palumbi (A+)
          – “Maphead” by Ken Jennings (A+)
          – “The Not Just Anybody Family” by Betsy Byars (A+)
          – we have been listening to recordings of harpsichord virtuoso, Trevor Pinnock (A+)

Well, here we are – my son and I – 2 Cool 4 School!

     

Welcome to the best part of my day! Happy 100th Posting from “Jane’s Cool School”!
– Jane BH