Usborne Books

We the People

Here is what is going on with us the people at the STORIES AND STUDIES CENTER (my son’s bed, every night, 10:30 pm):

constitution photo

The Preamble to the Constitution – our hearts are touched by the perfectly worded preamble, so I am having my son memorize it.  For the past two weeks, every night after we read through the preamble, my son writes the missing words in a fill-in-the-blanks preamble.  And every night, more words are missing – so we are doing the successive approximation thing.  Interesting thought – what if schools alternated the Pledge of Allegiance with the Preamble every morning?  Another thought – what if every proposed law was required to read as clearly and straightforward as the preamble?

sharks book

Building a House – we’ve read through “How to Build a House” by Gail Gibbons.  Yes, this is a little kids book, but seriously, it is so well organized, every contractor should hand one of these to each of his clients, so they can get the basic idea of what comes before what.  This book provoked a yucky side study – my son wanted to know more about a house’s septic system.  Ick.

Sharks! – from the excellent Usborne book series.  Here is what has caught our eye so far – the eyes of the hammerhead shark. CRAZY. Also, so sad: baby sharks are left by their moms after they are born.  So, apparently they raise themselves.  No wonder they have such bad manners.

Reading for fun – We are laughing our way through #4 of the Tom Gates series, “Tom Gates – Genius Ideas (mostly)”, by Liz Pichon.  We LOVE this series!  Every single page is hilarious.  What a treat at the end of each day.  Love it, love it, love it.

guestcheck

Tips from Le Fictitious Local Diner – not exactly a story problem: We pretended that a waiter from Le Fictitious Local Diner gave my son a list of table order totals and asked him to figure out bare minimum tips (15%) and happy customer tips (20%). We talked about how waiters are paid and how much they depend upon their tips.  We talked about the difference between good and poor service.  We talked about whether it was the waiter’s fault if the food was substandard (of course this would never happen at Le Fictitious Local Diner – the food is always first rate at the diner).

string quartet sketch

EEEEEW, string quartets – I kept putting this off: listening to string quartets with my son.  Of course, I want to my son to know about this classical music genre, but alas, I am not a fan of the string quartet.  I have tried out dozens upon dozens of string quartets in the past few years, and all I hear is either spiders dancing across a hot pan or some poor soul gasping for breath.  But the time has come – I found 3 string quartets that changed my EEEEEWs to AHHHHHs, and I was enthusiastic about  sharing these with my son.

  • First, because we knew that Franz Josef Haydn (1732 – 1809) is considered to be the “Father of the String Quartet”, I thought we should listen to the first movement of his very first string quartet “String Quartet in B flat Major” (“La Chasse”).  This is the first of 68 (!!!) quartets Haydn composed between 1762 and 1803.

  • Next, we listened to “String Quartet No. 2 in D Major”, composed by Alexander Borodin in 1881.  We listened to movement 3 (“Nocturne”) over and over.  This is the deeply romantic melody used in the (1953 American musical) “Kismet” song, “And This is My Beloved”, for which he was posthumously awarded the 1954 Tony Award. (Good show Alexander! Good show Tony Award selection committee!  Good show Kismet people!)

  • And lastly, we listened to a wonderful contemporary musical ensemble, “The Vitamin String Quartet” (I am still laughing at the name). This group is known for applying their classical skills to renditions of modern and rock songs. We loved listening to their version of John Williams’ “Cantina Band” from Star Wars.

There now, that wasn’t so bad after all!

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.

…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.

3 books

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.

fleur de lis

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

Barely Scraping By

green radargreen radargreen radar

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).

quill pen

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.

declaration    blotches

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

Desperately Seeking Ganesha

From our “World Religions” unit – we are reading from the Usborne Book of World Religions, last night finishing the chapter on Hinduism. How can our favorite Hindu deity not be Ganesha (the elephant-headed god in charge of removing obstacles)?  GANESHA STOP HERE!  We have obstacles aplenty that need removing.

ganesha line

Math Concept Check – we reviewed fractions, percentages, and ratios last night with the help of jillions of Legos.  So much fun!  Did my son like this?  Well, he went to sleep clutching a Lego tower.  I am taking that as a yes.

 lego math

Current Events – we dipped our toes into current events, using “The Economist” magazine as our resource. We found two articles of interest – first, an update on space probe “Philae” (which had us spellbound in November, when it landed on comet 67P – way way way way way far away).  And, since we just finished a unit on cats, we also read about the latest census of wild tigers in India (numbers way up last year!)(Good show India!).

 philae     tiger

Last night’s music theme was “Classical Broadway” – we listened to a few American musical comedy songs that were either embellished or inspired by particular classical music compositions:

  • “Rosemary” from “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” (Frank Loesser, 1961) references Edvard Grieg’s “Piano Concerto in A minor” (1868).

  • “Baby Face” from the 1967 movie “Thoroughly Modern Millie” (although the song was actually a MAJOR hit in 1926) includes a bit of the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s “Messiah” (1742). (spoiler alert – the music is perfect, but this is one of the lamest youtube pages ever)

  • “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” from “Evita” (Rice/Webber, 1976).  A significant musical phrase in the chorus certainly must have been inspired from Johannes Brahms’ 1878 “Violin Concerto in D minor”, movement 3. (Have a listen, it is glorious!)

(the Brahms) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOx0eKhD9f0

(Don’t Cry) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0d01NpclvlE

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

 

Textbooks – if we ruled the world

We want textbooks that make us pay attention  –

  • by captivating us with quirky information
  • by taking us behind the scenes, so that we gain a sympathetic understanding of the facts
  • by luring us in with intriguing graphics

textbooks 5

We want textbooks that we cannot wait to open each night.  Books like these:

  • Usborne Books – “Explorers”: so excellent
  • DK Eyewitness Books – “Gandhi”: perfection
  • Peter Sis Books – WHOA. Works of art with great information. We learned so much about Columbus, Darwin, and Galileo from the Sis books.
  • Bill Nye Books – information peppered with funniness and energy
  • Stephen and Lucy Hawking Books – “George’s Secret Key to the Universe” and “George’s Cosmic Treasure Hunt”, both make staggering concepts easy to understand by deftly weaving them into story format.
  • “Music Was It” by Susan Goldman Rubin – such an interesting biography of Leonard Bernstein
  • “Professor Astro Cat’s Frontiers of Space” by Dominic Walliman and Ben Newman – anybody who reads this blog knows that we LOVE-to-the-power-of-10 this book.
  • “Moonshot” by Brian Floca – spectacular book about the flight of Apollo 11
  • “A Child’s Book of Art” by Lucy Micklethwaite – my son LOVES this book. He reads it every day, and we are on our third copy.
  • “A Really Short History of Nearly Everything” by Bill Bryson – quirky information delivered in enthusiastic Bryson style

tip jar

Last night’s story problem from “Le Fictitious Local Diner” – There are 3 waitresses working the morning shift at the café, and on Saturday, they split a tip jar that contained $57.  The 4 waitresses that work the afternoon shift split a tip jar that contained $78.  Who went home with more tip money – a morning or an afternoon waitress?

 tea cups

Last night’s music program celebrated TEA TIME. We learned about theme and variation and the concept of orchestration by focusing upon the classic American sweetheart melody, “Tea for Two”.

  • First, “Tea for Two”, written by Vincent Youmans and Irving Caesar for the 1924 Broadway smash-hit, “No, No, Nanette”.  ADORABLE (and makes us want to know what a sugar cake is).

  • Second, “Tea for Two” as interpreted by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1927. Long story short: Shostakovich won 100 rubles by re-orchestrating “Tea for Two” in less than one hour, after listening ONE TIME to a recording of the song. It SPARKLES!

  • Next, in 1939, jazz pianist great, Art Tatum put his spin on “Tea for Two”. FANTASTIC.

  • And then, oh my gosh, The Lawrence Welk TV Show (1951-1971) featured “Tea for Two” SIXTY SEVEN times during the course of its long broadcast run. I just don’t know what to say about this variation; I am still stunned on so many levels. On the plus side, my son was mesmerized by the two musicians demonstrating such skill on (the duck-billed platypus of instruments) the accordion.

 Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH