Young Adult Novels

The Cliffs Notes Version

A neat friend of mine named Mary, teaches special ed. (Lucky class. Lucky school. Luckier than they know.) She follows this blog, and she asked for some ideas about setting up a learning-at-home program, should any parents of her autism students express interest. So, I am going to pretend that I have been hired by the CliffsNotes people to pare down my basic teaching philosophies:

teach anything YOU (the parent) want to learn*
read stories and poems that YOU should have read during your childhood*
listen to music that YOU have been wanting to hear*

(* I find that when I brim with enthusiasm over a particular topic or book, my son catches the spirit and he brims with enthusiasm, too. I have an eager learner on my hands!)

teach FAST! One or two pages is often PLENTY, then move on to a totally different topic
be on the lookout for unfamiliar words, then STOP RIGHT THEN AND THERE and look the word up
give lots of quizzes to check on YOUR ability to convey facts (and hopefully to give a lot of pretend “A+”s)

That’s it. That’s my CliffsNotes version.

For the practicalities, one might read my first two posts ( July 2014), “In Which We Introduce Ourselves” and “In Which We Explain Our “Stories and Studies” Nightly Agenda”. These can be found in “About”, on the blog title menu strip.

Here is what we’ve been doing this past week:

Othello – we continue reading through the plots of Shakespeare’s plays…we are in the middle of “Othello” and we have had it up to here with that deceitful rat, Iago.
To make up for the dreadfulness of Iago, we are reading a biography on the splendid John Muir. What a good guy.
We continue to read “Schooled” by Gordon Kormon. Probably our 4^th time through this novel. We love it.
We are about a third of the way through “A Long Way from Chicago”, by Richard Peck. OH MY GOSH, this book is marvelous! (Two kids spend a week every summer with their “law-unto-herself” grandmother). This book is a keeper!

A story problem from Le Fictitious Local Diner – the diner is sponsoring “Barbershop Quartet Night” and plans to serve up root beer floats for the occasion. Tickets for this not-to-be-missed event will sell for $10, and will include a float. If each root beer float costs the diner $1.50 to make, and $200 is being spent on decorations, the speaker system, and prizes, how much profit will the diner realize if 200 tickets are sold?

Our music program last night: barbershop quartets to enhance the story problem –

“Sincere”, from Meredith Wilson’s “The Music Man” (1957). Sung in the 1962 movie version by the peerless Buffalo Bills.

“Mr. Sandman”, written by Pat Ballard in 1954. A barbershop quartet standard, performed by the Dapper Dans at Disneyland, using Deagan Organ Chimes (very interesting instrument!).

And finally, for fun, and to support the endeavors of youth, we watched “The Barbershop Quartet, a How-To Guide”. The kids are just great (and their ill fitting costumes and hats are still making us laugh).

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

Peace, Love, and Tambourines

Can ya dig it? One of our current novels, “Schooled”, by Gordon Korman, references the hippie lifestyle and communes, so we took a look at iconic items of this outrageously creative movement; the fashions, hairstyles, crafts (macramé/tie-dying). My son poured over the photos, completely fascinated by the psychedelic colors, flower head wreathes, fringed leather vests, granny glasses, macramé belts and plant hangers. EVERYTHING.

News from the vocabulary front – I have added a new tab (“The Wordery”) to the menu bar under the blog title…we are now keeping a running list of vocabulary words that we find from our study units or novels.

A new academic unit – Napoleon! And I think we have the perfect starter reference. This little book is well organized and clearly written. It is helping us to understand the complexities and career of this unique (I am not sure this is a strong enough word) man.

Book care – we had a bit of a conversation about bookmarks (greeting cards from the grandmothers make great bookmarks) vs. dog-earing. We saw how dog-earing weakens the paper, and decided it was a mean thing to do to books.

Exponents – My son has been familiar with the concept of square roots for several years, so now we are going the other way – exponents. We began with 5 to the power of 10. We multiplied and multiplied and multiplied. I have found a jazzy math app that gives quizzes about exponents. I think it is really neat, but it is enjoying only moderate enthusiasm from my son. Further update in next post.

Let’s talk tambourines – the “must-have” accessory for 60’s and 70’s band groupies: here’s a fact – a tambourine is a great gift idea. Who doesn’t dream of sequestering oneself in an empty house and jangling a tambourine for five minutes straight? How can this not be therapeutic? But back to the gift idea – tambourines are not particularly expensive, and if you have little nieces and nephews, this is the birthday gift they want (and their parents don’t want them to have). You’re welcome.

Tambourines showcased in music – here is what we listened to:

“Mr. Tambourine Man”, our nod to the hippie era continues. This was written by Bob Dylan in 1965 and popularized by both Mr. Dylan and “The Byrds”. Semi-interesting: in the Bob Dylan version there is no trace of a tambourine sound. See for yourself:

“Tarantella”, originally written as a piano piece by Gioachino Rossini (1835) and orchestrated by Ottorino Respighi (1919). MARVELOUS. I couldn’t find a film clip that shows the tambourine being played, but you can definitely hear it.

“The Russian Dance” or “Trepak” from Tchaikovsky’s ballet, The Nutcracker (1892). A power packed minute, thanks to the tambourine.

And lastly, one of our top 10 – probably top 5 – favorites, “The Wild Bears”, from Sir Edward Elgar’s suite, “The Wand of Youth” (1908). This piece was OH MY! composed while Elgar worked in an insane asylum. Hmmm, interesting. This particular video is perfect – we love this conductor (Mariss Jansons) and the video footage gives the tambourine the attention it deserves.

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

It’s a date!

Were we learning about date palms, date shakes, perfect dates, or perfectly awful dates? Uh, no.

B.C./B.C.E. – A.D./C.E. – My son and I keep running into the acronyms (new vocab word) “BCE” and “CE” during our academic studies. Last night we decided to find out what the letters mean. We learned that BCE (“before common era”) and CE (“common era”) refer to time periods that match up exactly with the traditional BC (“Before Christ”) and AD (“Anno Domini”). In other words, the date 335 BC is the same as the date 335 BCE. Likewise, the date 1990 AD means the same thing as 1990 CE. The terms BCE and CE have been in widespread use for the past 20 years, but we learned they have actually been around for over 300 years. We like to know stuff like this.

More Shakespeare – We have enjoyed reading adaptations of “MacBeth”, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, and “Hamlet”, so we are now reading a retelling of “Romeo and Juliet”, by Adam McKeown. McKeown does an excellent job of introducing characters and storylines at a pace we can process, and he makes us eager to read the real plays. I think you can imagine why we aren’t starting off with the plays themselves – we want to be familiar with the basic plots, characters, and motivations before Shakespeare’s spellbinding words mesmerize us.

The Thespian Masks – How can we read about Shakespeare without understanding the basics of “comedy” and “tragedy”? I gave my son a list of ridiculous situations and had him decide if each circumstance fell into a comic or tragic category, then I showed him thespian (new vocab word) comedy and tragedy masks, the concept of which originated from the dramas of ancient Greece around 335 BC (or shall we say, 335 BCE).

Novels – We continue to read, “The Way to Stay in Destiny” by Augusta Scattergood – still really like picking up this book every night. And this past week, we began a re-read of one of our old favorites, “Schooled” by Gordon Korman (important read, heartwarmer read).

Our Farmer Brown Story Problem – Offspring in the spring! Farmer Brown’s ranch is home to 20 ewes. This spring, half gave birth to twins, a fifth gave birth to quadruplets, and the rest had a single lamb each. How many sweet lambs does Farmer Brown have now?

Last night’s music theme was “Benjamin Franklin in France” – We used the N.C. Wyeth poster on my son’s wall, of a young Benjamin Franklin, as inspiration. We decided to focus upon the years Ben Franklin served as US Ambassador to France (1776 – 1785). We know he was well-entertained in France, and this must certainly have included symphonic concerts and opera productions. It is so likely that he heard these:

Mozart – Overture to the Abduction from the Seraglio (1782). This is the composition that provoked Austrian Emperor Joseph II (maybe a bit short on the musical smarts) to remark that there were “too many notes” in the piece. My son and I think the brilliant and far more musically inclined Ben Franklin would have loved this overture!

Bach – The Coffee Cantata (1735), a way-fun work that pits a father against his strong-willed daughter, fighting over her excessive consumption of coffee. We think Ben Franklin, a known coffee enthusiast, would have been amused by this mini comic opera.

Haydn – Symphony No. 45, “The Farewell Symphony” (1772). This is a symphony we want to see in person, because a most interesting thing happens in movement 4…entire sections of the orchestra sneak away, a bit at a time. By the conclusion, only the conductor and the concertmaster are left. We hope Mr. Franklin didn’t miss this!

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

Wordery

Words, words, words – this past week, new vocabulary words have been emerging willy-nilly. We have clocked in a fair amount of time defining unfamiliar words, phrases, and concepts. Thank you Wikipedia and Google Images! Last night, I presented my son with a vocabulary matching quiz, to see if the words had been explained well enough. (YAY! Big smiles here. Phew.)

From “The Young Reader’s Shakespeare: Hamlet” by Adam McKeown: coronation, goblet, immortal, liege, parapet, specter, avenge, revenge, and vengeance
From “Flora and Ulysses” by Kate DiCamillo: arch-nemesis, euphemism, treacle, and villain
From “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (translation by Katherine Woods): baobab (a tree…real or imaginary?)
From our new novel, “The Way to Stay in Destiny” by Augusta Scattergood (a book BTW that we are LOVING), we had to do a bit of a side study on the illustrious Hank Aaron.
From Mozart’s “Overture to The Abduction from the Seraglio”: seraglio

Editor’s comments: there is such a thing as a baobab tree (it is VERY weird and ridiculously large, and we can see why the little prince worked diligently to make sure this tree didn’t take root on his little planet), and everyone should take a listen to the “Overture to the Abduction from the Seraglio” – five and a half entertaining minutes (we love the rambunctious cymbal smashing)!

“Overture to the Abduction from the Seraglio” – take a listen!

From our Farm Unit – last night we learned quite a bit about mules. During the course of the past few days we’ve learned about turkey breeds, the three reasons to breed goats (milk, meat, fiber), and we’ve learned about draft horses. This book (“Farm Anatomy” by Julia Rothman) is just dynamite. There is something new and easy to understand every single night.

Best Farmer Brown story problem from the past week: Farmer Brown has been glad it has been raining, because his cows, sheep, and goats drink a LOT of water every day (we learned this from our “Farm Anatomy” book!). If each sheep needs one to four gallons of water daily and he has a herd of 60 sheep, what is the least amount of water they need during the course of a week?

Last night’s music theme: March’s Marches. Last year, during March, my son and I listened to a different march every night. In truth, the concept ran thin about day 18. Even accounting for the wide variety of marches (military, wedding, graduation, coronation, funeral), 31 marches are a lot of marches. Last night, I presented my son with our list from last year and he selected three to listen to:

“The Radetzky March”, by Johann Strauss, Sr., composed in 1848. Such an A+ march; we never get tired of hearing this.
“March of the Siamese Children”, from “The King and I” by Rogers and Hammerstein (1951): elegant, and we love listening for the low, reverberating gong tones.
“The Washington Post March”, written in 1889, by John Philip Sousa. Interesting aside: it is said that when Sousa was 13, his father signed him up as an apprentice in the United States Marine Corps band, to keep him from joining a circus band (a parent’s gotta do what a parent’s gotta do). The link below leads to a neat video, starring the US Marine Corps Band and a nice explanation of the piece by the band leader:

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

Flying, Farming, and Felix

Yet another splendid Peter Sis book – this one, “The Pilot and the Little Prince”, about Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author of “The Little Prince”. Besides the enthralling illustrations, there is much to fascinate in this book. For example:

We learned that de Saint-Exupery’s primary focus, was not writing, but flying. While reading about his remarkable flying adventures we came across a seemingly small fact that changed the direction of our studies last night: we learned that early French airplanes had no communication system, so they always flew with a cage of carrier pigeons. If a plane had to make an emergency landing who-knows-where, the pigeons could be released with an SOS message! OBVIOUSLY my son and I had to do an outside study of carrier pigeons. These birds are SERIOUSLY interesting!

Of course, we need to get “The Little Prince” into our book line-up. In researching “The Little Prince” we uncovered a heated controversy over various translations (the book was originally written in French). Readers seem to be outraged over the current translation and show staunch loyalty to the translation by Katherine Wood. My, my, my. Something new to investigate.

The Farm Unit – we have been learning about tractors, the true farm multi-tasker, and we welcomed a new vocab word: TILTH. Meaning cultivated soil; soil that has been plowed and harrowed and is ready for planting. We like this word. We give it an A+.

We write book reports – this was our first go at writing a book report, and heaven knows what took us so long venture into this activity. We reviewed “Hatchet” and “A Young Reader’s Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. I made it easy: I wrote out a basic book report with about a dozen fill-in-the-blanks (as in, “This book report is about _____________, and it is a ___________ story.”). My son filled in the blanks and then I read the reports out loud. Most satisfactory. My son really liked doing this. I think this puts a final stamp on finishing a book, so we will be doing this again.

You would think I could get this in focus, but…no.

Le Fictitious Local Diner’s story problem – Last night we pretended that the diner needed to prepare 20 dozen Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies to sell during intermission of the spring band concert at the local elementary school. We used the unbeatable recipe on the back of the chocolate chip package to work out the amounts of ingredients needed.

Our music focus for last night – listening to some of the music Felix Mendelssohn wrote for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.

“The Overture” – Shakespeare wrote the play in the 1590’s and Mendelssohn wrote his overture (which is just so grand and descriptive) in 1826, at the age of SEVENTEEN!!!

“The Wedding March” – Years later, in 1842, Mendelssohn wrote a few other pieces for the play, most noteworthy is the glorious wedding march (which served three weddings at once – the Duke of Athens/Queen of the Amazons, Hermia/Lysander, and Helena/Demetrius) (and several million weddings ever since).

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

Farm Fresh

We have a new “IT” book: “Farm Anatomy” by Julia Rothman, published in 2011. Many, many aspects of farm life are competently presented with brief text and skillful illustrations. As per usual, we are studying only two pages at a time. The past few nights we’ve learned about crop rotation, windbreaks, and barn design. This book is a jewel!

We continue with “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”: Last night we read about Titania awakening (under a spell) and falling immediately and deeply in love with Nick Bottom (who at this point was sporting the donkey head). LOVE THIS. Meanwhile, a troop of actors is rehearsing their version of Ovid’s “Pyramus and Thisbe” for the Duke’s wedding, so we took a side trip to Wikipedia to see what “Pyramus and Thisbe” was really all about. What a pleasure to slowly savor this complicated masterpiece.

We take time for art: we have been getting messy with pastels! We are using Prismacolor’s Nupastels. Good for working on finger-motor control, fun to see what happens when one color crosses on top of another color.

Last night’s Farmer Brown Story Problem: “Farmers’ Friendly Mercantile”, the huge farm supply store in town, is having a 40%-Off-Everything-Sale AND Farmer Brown has a “15% off!” coupon for the FFM tucked in his wallet, so now is the perfect time to purchase heavy winter coats for his 8 farm hands. If each jacket originally sells for $120, how much will Farmer Brown pay for the 8 coats (assuming both discounts will be honored), before tax is added?

Our music theme last night was “Melodies from the Chicken Coop”! We listened to:

Haydn’s Symphony No. 83 (1785), dubbed “The Hen” – many of Haydn’s symphonies ended up with nicknames usually due to some VERY SMALL rhythmic or melodic reference. In this case, “hen sounds” are found about a minute and a half into the first movement. BTW, this performance by Camerata Bern (a Bern, Switzerland chamber orchestra that does not use a conductor) is outstanding.

“The Hen”, from “The Birds” (1928), a suite for small orchestra by Ottorino Respighi. This short piece is wonderfully successful at transposing the sounds of chicken squawks and that jerky back-and-forth movement of the hen’s heads into music. (Well, that was a long awkward sentence, but you get the idea?)

“Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little”, from “The Music Man” (1957) by Meredith Willson. This song is a hen party set to music – the gossiping town ladies sound like clucking hens and the bobbing feathers on their large hats accentuate the impression.

“Chicken Reel” was originally composed by Joseph M. Daly in 1910. In 1946, LeRoy Anderson arranged “Chicken Reel” for full orchestra, and did he ever gild the lily! Hysterical perfection. Watch out! The inmates are running the asylum!

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

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

Imagine That

Back to Kansas – Last night we finished reading “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”, but we weren’t ready to put the book away until we discussed the concept of IMAGINATION. We defined imagination (forming mental images of things not perceived by the senses) (then we had to discuss the definition) and we acknowledged the relentless imagination of author L. Frank Baum: winged monkeys, a magical golden cap, a tin man, a country of movable china figurines, Winkies, Munchkins, Quadlings, and on and on. We thought Baum’s imagination well matched with the imagination of contemporary illustrator, Olimpia Zagnoli. Enjoying all aspects of this book was such a worthy use of our time.

Math Surprise – A few nights ago my son had to multiply 9 x 16 and I was stunned by the speed with which he arrived at the answer. Like in 0 seconds. Was this a fluke? Was my hand guiding his answer? Last night, I set up multiplication and division problems that were difficult enough for me to have to figure out ahead of time. I used a multiple-choice format on his iPad, so I would not be directing his hand. He again answered swiftly and correctly, calculating in his head. The bummer here is that if he is a bright as I think he is, this will place me as the WEAKEST INTELLECTUAL LINK in our family. DRAT.

Last night’s “Farmer Brown Story Problem” revolved around Farmer Brown’s idea to store snowballs in his large freezer (with the intention of bringing them out for surprise treats on the Fourth of July). We had to review the concept of cubic feet. We figured out how many snowballs would fit into one cubic foot and then it was easy to calculate how many snowballs would fit into Farmer Brown’s 18 cubic foot freezer.

Poems of Tribute – last night we acknowledged the 7th anniversary of my father (my son’s grandfather) passing on, by reading a few poems that honored this really neat man.

– the kind of grandfather that would take a kid fishing –

Because he loved deep-sea fishing, we read “Sea Fever” by John Masefield
Because he grew up in San Francisco, we read “Fog” by Carl Sandburg
Because this seemed like a message a grandfather would give to his grandson, we read “If” by Rudyard Kipling

Music of Tribute – we selected melodies that would have pleased my son’s grandfather .

Because he was a UC Berkeley alum, we listened to “Fight for California”

Because he had been an Army engineer during WWII, we listened to “The Army Song”

Because we needed to say goodbye again, we listened to “Ashokan Farewell” by Jay Ungar

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

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

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?

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

Jane’s Cool School

My adult son has autism. He is non-verbal. This blog is about our learning-at-home program.

Young Adult Novels

The Cliffs Notes Version

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Peace, Love, and Tambourines

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It’s a date!

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Wordery

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Flying, Farming, and Felix

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Farm Fresh

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A Test of Faith

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Barely Scraping By

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Imagine That

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Textbooks – if we ruled the world

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