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Dial “M” for –

Dial “M” for the Mounties – My son and I have been augmenting our study of Canada by learning about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. We are going back and forth between Richard L. Neuberger’s book of 1953, “Royal Canadian Mounted Police” and the current RCMP website. There have been so many HR-type changes since 1953 (personnel numbers, duties, salaries, women in service, etc.) but the Mounties still stand for “Upholding the Right”. We are fans.
– We cannot ignore the obvious: my son and I love the spiffy scarlet jacketed outfits of the RCMP. These certainly set the standard for completely awesome uniforms, claiming second only to the dashing apparel worn by Vatican Swiss Guards.

– Author Neuberger was an American who encountered, and was tremendously impressed by, the RCMP while working on the Alaska Highway with the US Army Engineers in the 1940s. Speaking of the Alaska Highway – what a monumental feat! We had to break away from reading about the Mounties to read about the construction and trace the route of this 1,700 mile highway.

Two Entries from the Coincidences Files –

maphead books

1) We purchased “Olivia Bean – Trivia Queen”, a teen novel by Donna Gephart, because we are always looking for fiction that emphasizes brain power vs. “coming of age” themes. We purchased “Maphead”, a geography biography by Ken Jennings, to further our knowledge of longitude and latitude. We were surprised to discover a common bond: JEOPARDY! While Olivia dreams of being part of Kids Week on Jeopardy (and even mentions her hero: Ken Jennings!), “Maphead” author Ken Jennings has the distinction of being the Jeopardy contestant with the longest winning streak! (74 games, total earnings over $3,000,000!)
BTW, we are enjoying both books, but how in the world did we end up reading “Olivia Bean” and “Maphead” at the same time? Serendipity (vocab)! We toasted the coincidence (vocab) by listening to the Jeopardy theme song:

2) What could the great big Northwest Territories (519,000 square miles) in Canada have in common with the teeny city of Idaho Falls, Idaho (22 square miles) (where our family lived from 1995 through 1999)? Both have the same population (around 41,000 people)! Gee, we thought Idaho Falls was pretty spacious; we really cannot imagine the elbow room (vocab) of 519,000 square miles. After we considered this coincidence we calculated the percentage of area that Idaho Falls would take up in the Northwest Territories. Guess?
A. .004% B. 1% C. 10% D. 40% (answer at bottom of post)

bad music

Dial “M” for Music at Le Fictitious Local Diner – Friday nights at the diner are now live music nights! Four local bands have signed up to perform: Farmer Brown’s “Amazing Fiddle Assembly”, “The Loco Ladies’ Flute and Lute Society”, the junior high’s “Fusion of Confusion”, and the local doctors’ jazz band, “Musical Emergency”.
– The diner is pleading with other talented musicians to sign up, but if no other groups join in, and these four take turns performing, how many times will each band get to perform over the course of a year?
A. 4 times B. 12 times C. 13 times D. 52 times
– Each band is to receive $50 per night for playing; how much will the diner spend during the course of a year on live music?
A. $50 B. $1,000 C. $1,300 D. $2,600
– If the diner realizes that live music is driving customers away, and they stop the program after six weeks, how much will they have spent for music?
A. $150 B. $300 C. $450 D. $600 (answers at bottom of post)

Dial “M” for Minuet –

len dancing

Oh my gosh! Isn’t this Len from “Dancing with the Stars”, in full minuet regalia???

What a happy coincidence that Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Paderewski each composed a short melody entitled, “Minuet in G”! We reviewed the concept of a minuet: a slow, stately dance in waltz rhythm; the rage of 17th and 18th century France. We hadn’t listened to these for years, and we like them all:

Mozart, “Minuet in G”, mid 1700’s – one of Mozart’s first published works, written when he was about six years old! Whoa:

Bach, “Minuet in G”, 1725 – Well, wouldn’t you just know it. Even though we would like to think that Bach composed this piece, scholars give credit to one Christian Petzold. Christian!!!! Where ever you are, you done good – this is a piece my son and I have listened to several times – we love it! Note about the video: kudos to the very patient conductor who was charged with leading what looks like thousands of sullen teenagers:

Beethoven, “Minuet in G”, 1796 – Originally written for orchestra, the score was lost, but the piano version remains. This is the piece that was used by Professor Harold Hill (of “The Music Man”) for his “think system”:

Paderewski, “Minuet in G”, 1887 – My, my, Paderewski had his finger in many pies – in addition to being an accomplished musician, he was active in Polish politics, even serving as the second prime minster to the Republic of Poland (his term seems a bit short – he served from January 1919 to November 1919). We are loving this film clip: Paderewski playing himself, playing his Minuet in G, in the (not classic) movie, “Moonlight Sonata” (1937):

Welcome to the best part of my day!
– Jane BH
Math problem answers:
(Idaho Falls: A. .004% the size of Canada’s Northwest Territories)
(Diner math: opportunities – C. 13; live music cost – D. $2,600; music for 6 weeks – B. $300)

Messenger Service

Best Messenger Ever – Oh! The brainpower that sent space probe Messenger on its successful-beyond-all-measures mission to planet Mercury! My son and I learned that Messenger was launched from earth in 2004 and started orbiting Mercury in 2011. The plan: Messenger was to orbit for a year and send back 2,500 images. But the space probe was so well built, that it circled the tiny planet for 4 years and sent back 270,000 images! WHOA. On April 30, dear Messenger ran out of propellant, was pulled out of orbit by Mercury’s gravity, and sent one final photo before it crashed into the planet.

Messenger’s final image of Mercury

We paid homage to the team that constructed Messenger by listening to Gustav Holst’s “Mercury” from his orchestral work, “The Planets”.

More academics from last week –

Napoleon – as we learn more about Napoleon we are struck by how his brilliant ideas were dwarfed by his all-around awfulness. This man belonged permanently in time-out, and of course, that is exactly where he ended up (we found the little island of St. Helena, where Napoleon was exiled for the final six years of his life, on the globe). Vocab from our Napoleon unit: artillery, boycott, emperor, strategy, and trench. BTW, our book, “A Wicked History – Napoleon, Emperor and Conqueror”, by Kimberley Heuston, is EXCELLENT.
Shakespeare – we finished “Romeo and Juliet”, and we have started “Twelfth Night”. Love it! We do prefer the mixed-up craziness of Shakespeare’s comedies to his gruesome tragedies.
Exponents – we gave the Mathtoon’s “Exponents and Radicals” iPad app another try. Much more fun this time. This app is splendid! Cool, in-your-face, badboy graphics. And the app is free!

Last week’s best Farmer Brown story problem – Farmer Brown has a muster (or ostentation, if you will) of peafowl on his property. Vocab time: we had to learn the difference between peafowl, peacocks, peahens, and peachicks. Seriously, what is cuter than the word, “peachick”?

OK, the story problem: Farmer Brown has a large muster of peafowl on his property. He collects the peacock’s discarded long tail feathers to sell to a local interior designer, for $3.50 each. If the designer paid Farmer Brown $140 last month, how many feathers were handed over? If the designer sells each feather for $15, and all feathers are sold, what is the profit, once Farmer Brown has been paid?

Ugh.

Last night’s music theme: “Music for a Dental Procedure” – my son and I take meticulous (vast overstatement) care of his teeth (so far no cavities, so that is something), but we thought soothing music could bring such relief if Novocain loomed. Here is what we selected:

Beethoven’s 6^th Symphony “The Pastoral” (1808), movement 1. Any of the movements would work, and may we suggest the entire 5-movement symphony (about 45 minutes) for lengthy oral surgery. Such life affirming music.

Jacques Offenbach’s “Barcarolle”, from his “Tales of Hoffman” (1881). All you have to do is lie back and imagine yourself floating in a gondola around the Venetian waterways. Soothing to the extreme.

“The Moldau” by Bedrich Smetana, (1875) from his larger orchestral work, “Ma Vlast”. Relax and let the dentist do the work as you follow the Moldau (a river in Smetana’s native Bohemia, now the Czech Republic) from its source past woods, meadows, a farmer’s wedding, and ending as the Moldau flows into the Elbe River. Piece lasts about 12 minutes. Fantastic ending. This is a superb video, filmed in Smetana Hall in Prague.

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

Things that go bump in the night

Our Easter Evening Event: As our family gathered to reflect upon a lovely Easter day, tranquility was interrupted by sudden bumps and scraping sounds coming from the attic. A quick look revealed a mama raccoon tending sweet, sweet “kits” amid the attic insulation. This propelled my son and me to begin a mini-study on raccoons. We found out that they are native to North America, they are “omnivores”, and they are “nocturnal” (that is why we didn’t hear them moving around during the day). A happy ending to the day: new vocab words for my son, and mama and babies are now enjoying their new home in a safe wooded area of the local golf course.

We thought the phrase, “things that go bump in the night” perfectly described our Easter Evening Event. We learned that the words come from an old Scottish prayer –

“From ghoulies and ghosties

And long-legged beasties

And things that go bump in the night,

Good Lord, deliver us!”

Zigzag Learning (where we let one topic lead us to another at lightning speed): Julia Rothman’s excellent book, “Nature Anatomy” started the learning chain this time. We were looking at her illustrations of butterflies, and we took particular notice of a “swallowtail” butterfly. My son needed to know why swallowtail butterflies were called swallowtail butterflies.

So first, we looked at several photos of swallows. We saw how the birds’ pointy, forked feather tails could easily have inspired the animal naming committee to call butterflies with the tiny drip on the hindwings, “swallowtails”.
Then, we decided to read about the swallows of the San Juan Capistrano Mission (with a short-side trip to learn a bit about the California mission system). We found out that the swallows spend the winter in Argentina and the summer in southern California.
So now, we had to locate Argentina on the globe, and think about the iron-strong muscles in the birds’ wings, that allow them to fly the 6,000 miles.
Finally, we had to see how the swallows have had their way in fashion: we looked at men’s clothing from the Victorian era – the formal tailcoat, with “cutaway”, “swallowtail” or “morning coat” options.

That’s a lot of learning from one little butterfly.

Our music theme for last night – “Cuckoo for Music”. We considered the two-note cuckoo motif and then listened to three neat compositions:

“Organ Concerto No. 13 (The Cuckoo and the Nightingale)”, movement 2, by Handel (1740). About one minute twenty seconds into the movement you can definitely make out the cuckoo motif. This piece really moves right along. Classic Handel. Fabulous pipe organ in this video!

“Symphony 6 (The Pastoral)”, movement 2, by Beethoven (1808). This is a long movement (around 13 minutes of happy, relaxing gorgeousness) (and this video clip has Leonard Bernstein conducting and one should NEVER miss an opportunity to watch Bernstein conduct). The bird sounds aren’t evident until the final minute, but so worth the wait (or one could be the type of person that fast-forwards to the final minute) (your secret is safe with us, because maybe we have felt compelled to fast-forward upon occasion).

“The Birds”, movement 5 (The Cuckoo), by Respighi (1928). Here is what we like to do: count the number of times we hear the cuckoo motif. Try somewhere around 70 times, in the short span of 4 minutes. This is an absolute jewel of a piece.

Welcome to the best part of my day!

– Jane BH

Sap Happy

First, a bit of “Old Business” – Yay! I paid a visit to the Genius Bar at the Apple Store and my “blocked plug-ins” are now unblocked. I have added two YouTube links to the previous post (“Wordery”).

From our farm unit: we have finished the terrific “Farm Anatomy” book (authored by Julia Rothman). From the final pages, we learned about root cellars and the making of maple syrup.

Root Cellars – I told my son about the root cellar at his great-grandparents’ Montana cabin. It was a chilly underground pantry with dirt floors and dirt walls that efficiently stored corn, green apples, and cabbage that my grandfather grew on his small farm. Then I reminded my son of the modified root cellar we had in our Idaho house (many years ago). This amounted to a narrow basement closet that had a dirt floor. Whoopie.
Maple Syrup – We read about the process of making maple syrup. After we discussed the deliciousness of maple syrup, here is what we thought about: (1) what kind of person, way back when, decided to taste sap coming out of a tree and then (2) envisioned that with a bit of doctoring up, the sap would be just the thing to enhance pancakes? We want to know this type of person.

Our Farmer Brown story problem: who knew, that on top of everything else, Farmer Brown makes his own maple syrup? We learned from “Farm Anatomy” that it takes nine gallons of sap to make one pint of syrup. So, we looked at a gallon-sized container and a pint-sized container. Question of the evening: if Farmer Brown’s tapping buckets accumulate 450 gallons of sap, how many pints of maple syrup will he end up with? If he saves 10 pints to give as gifts, and 10 pints for his own pancake consumption, how much money will he earn if he sells the remaining pints for $8.00 each?

Our “Le Fictitious Local Diner” story problem: On an average, the diner sells 300 pancake breakfasts each week (the photo above is, of course, the “teen-age boy in-your-dreams pancake plate”). Each REGULAR order (3 pancakes) comes with a small pitcher containing ¼ pint of maple syrup. How many pints of maple syrup does the diner go through each week? If the purchase price for a pint is $5, how much will this cost the diner? If syrup is purchased by the gallon ($25), how much will this cost the diner?

Our music theme last night: DUETS! (and the following 3 are so A+++!)

“The Flower Duet” from Lakme (1882), by Leo Delibes. This utterly beautiful and soothing duet deservedly ends up on every single “famous opera duet” list (raise your hand if you knew there existed such lists). This enchanting melody has been used as background music for British Airways commercials.

“Si Fino All’ore Estreme” from the opera, “Norma” (1831) by Vincenzo Bellini. The recorded version we enjoy, by Marilyn Horne and Joan Sutherland, is high-energy perfection. (I couldn’t find a good Horne/Sutherland link, but the music in this video is superb.)

Finally, who cannot LOVE, “People Will Say We’re In Love”, from “Oklahoma” (1943), by Rogers and Hammerstein?

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

Affordable Housing Forever

Our study of invertebrates concluded with an in-depth look at hermit crabs, one of nature’s super-star recyclers. My son learned that hermit crabs take over shells left behind by snails…the snail dies and disintegrates, but the shell remains in prime condition for hundreds and hundreds of years. As the hermit crab grows, he houses himself in larger and larger shells. We learned that the posterior of the hermit crab is soft and curvy so it can easily back into a shell (miraculous and yet, a teeny bit repulsive). We bid a regretful farewell to Susan Middleton’s book, “Spineless”. Terrific resource.

Our Farmer Brown story problem last night – we calculated the number of stitches in a pair of striped boot-socks that Farmer Brown just knit for himself (seriously, more than 6,000 stitches).

A new unit! Chemistry. I need a pair of Farmer Brown’s socks because I am quaking in my boots about this chemistry unit. I did serve as a lab assistant for my high school chemistry teacher, but as I recall, my primary responsibility was to manage donut orders for all of the science teachers. We are using a DK book, so I know the images will be fantastic. We’ll just see how this goes.

Maestro Matching – I gave my son two matching tests last night – first we matched symphony composers with famous compositions. Then I gave my son a list of composers and he placed them in chronological order. Yay! A+.

Music: Last night was VIRTUOSO NIGHT showcasing clarinetist Stanley Drucker! While listening to “Exploring Music with Bill McGlaughlin” on the car radio last week, we heard Mr. McGlaughlin talk about clarinet player, Stanley Drucker. AWESOMENESS: in 1948, at age 19, Stanley Drucker was appointed principal clarinetist of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra (let’s just think about THAT for a moment), and he retired in 2009. The math: Stanley Drucker served as principal clarinetist for the NYPO for 60+ years!!!!!!!! (this really calls for 60 exclamation points!). This is the sort of thing that grabs our attention, and listening to him play flew to the top of our priority list.

First, a short youtube video celebrating his 60 year tenure with the NYPO:

Then we listened to Mr. Drucker play Brahms’ “Clarinet Sonata No. 1 in F Minor”.
Then we listened to the “Doppio Movimento” movement (the “Simple Gifts” variation) of Copland’s “Appalachian Spring”, played by the NYPO. The clarinet is paramount in this piece.
Finally, we watched a show-stopping performance of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”, with Leonard Bernstein conducting AND playing the piano, and Stanley Drucker beginning the piece as no one else could:

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.

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