Monthly Archives: April 2012

The Fabulous Flying Machines of Alberto Santos-Dumont by Victoria Griffith

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I simply love reading picture nonfiction books that are more storybookish than just-the-facts-ma’am in nature.  (I’m sure there’s a proper term for this, but I’m drawing a blank.)  The Fabulous Flying Machines of Alberto Santos-Dumont by Victoria Griffith is just one such book, and it absolutely excels at capturing the imaginations of its readers from the first page:

Alberto Santos-Dumont loved floating above Paris in his own personal flying machine.  It had helped make him one of the most famous men in the city, if not the world!  Everyone, he thought, should have this much fun running a simple errand!

It turns out that Alberto Santos-Dumont’s interest evolved from dirigibles to a conveyance that can travel against the wind, and so he became the first man to publicly fly a plane in 1906.  (According to the detailed Author Note to this story, the Wright brothers’ 1903 Kitty Hawk venture was not widely-known in Europe, and who did exactly what first is up for debate.)  This book chronicles both Alberto’s inspiration for improving upon his dirigible and the spirit of competition between these fathers of aviation.  Louis Cartier, the famous watchmaker, makes an appearance in this story as a friend of Alberto’s and the inventor who helped him solve the problem of a hands-free method for checking the time by inventing the wristwatch. (In fact, the Cartier Santos wristwatch is named after the flamboyant aviator.)  Louis Blériot appears as a rival inventor determined to best Alberto. Alberto, ever the gentleman and more interested in the science of his craft than the business of it, allows Blériot to take off first in the test run.  Of course, Blériot’s plane falls apart after several failed attempts at lift-off.  Alberto then makes the first flight in a plane that takes off of its own power.  This story, paired with the colorful and evocative illustrations by Eva Montanari, is suspenseful and exciting.  My girls and I really enjoyed it.  (In fact, they’re hounding me for it even as I write this review!) Highly Recommended.  (Abrams, 2011)


Naturally, after reading The Fabulous Flying Machines of Alberto Santos-Dumont,  we had to go find our copy of The Glorious Flight by the Provensens and read all about Papa Blériot’s inventions.  (This is an old favorite.)  We were especially tickled to recollect the part at the beginning of the story where Papa Blériot crashes the family car into a farm wagon because he is so distracted by a dirigible flying above the Parisian sky.  Could it have been Alberto Santos-Dumont?  Another tie-in is Balloons over Broadway by Melissa Sweet, the wonderful picture book which details Tony Sarg’s balloon-engineering that made the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade what it is today.  (I really, really love this book, so go ahead and click the link.  You won’t regret it!)  If you’re of the unit study persuasion, these books just beg to be read together.  If, like me, you just like to chase rabbit trails sometimes, I’ve done a bit of the work for you.

I just love picture books, don’t you?

Many, many thanks to the author, Victoria Griffith, for emailing me to offer this book for review.  She sent the recently-released audiobook along with the picture book, and I know they’re both going to be enjoyed around here for years to come.  Other than a copy of the book itself, I received no compensation for this honest review.

Related links:

This week’s Nonfiction Monday round-up is at Gathering Books.

Jeeves and the Tie That Binds by P.G. Wodehouse

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I hardly feel qualified to write anything about the brilliant wit of P.G. Wodehouse since I’ve only just made his acquaintance.  So far I’ve read his witty introduction to a collection of his short stories, one of his short stories, and now the novel Jeeves and the Tie That Binds.  I’m afraid that my thoughts here will be a bit more Wooster-ish than Jeeves-ish; like Bertie, I sometimes grapple for just the word I mean to use, and unlike Jeeves, I do not have perfect recall of every literary reference I hope to make.  I had something of a difficult time getting through this book, which is no fault of the book’s at all, but the fault of my own short attention span and lack of long, uninterrupted periods of time for reading.  I had a hard time keeping all the characters straight.  I think that every character in this novel appears in an earlier Jeeves and Wooster story, so obviously reading the books more-or-less in order might help with this.  (Of course, given my poor memory, it might not help me much at all.)  Too, these characters have names apparently chosen for their laugh-inducing value but because many of them are unusual and quirky, I had a hard time keeping them straight. Here’s a list of most of the characters, both major and minor:

  • Florence Craye
  • Magnolia Glendennon
  • Gussie Fink-Nottle
  • Madeline Bassett
  • Ginger Winship (a man)
  • Spode, a.k.a. Lord Sidcup
  • Bingley
  • L.P. Runkle
  • Tuppy Glossop

And some of the places in the story:

  • Totleigh Towers
  • the Junior Ganymede
  • Market Snodsbury

See what I mean?  How could one possibly write a serious story about these people and places?  Wodehouse is quite the witty word engineer.

The plot of this story revolves around Ginger Winship’s run for the House of Commons.  Ginger is one of Bertie’s old college chums, so Bertie agrees to travel to Market Snodsbury to canvass the town’s inhabitants in hopes of helping Ginger win the election.  While in Market Snodsbury, Bertie and Jeeves stay at the home of Bertie’s Aunt Dahlia, which is quite the happening place.  What ensues is a comedy of errors involving (but certainly, certainly not limited to!) a wealthy businesss man who stole a patent from one of his employees, from whom Aunt Dahlia is determined to wring some restitutionary payment since the son of the now-deceased employee happens to be the fiancée of her daughter.  (Clear as mud?)  Of course, there’s also the matter of a certain notebook, property of the Junior Ganymede, which contains all the fits and foibles of London’s elite, as observed and recorded by their butlers.  This notebook has been “pinched,” and its existence threatens to wreak havoc on Ginger’s campaign and his love-life, not to mention potentially the lives of many other a fine gentleman.  And then there’s the fact that Ginger’s fiancée (and the moving force behind his run for Parliament) is none other than Florence Craye, former intended of Bertie.  My head fairly spun with all the comings and goings of the characters and all of the switching and swapping of love interests.  It is pure, absurd fun.

A few things I noticed that are apparently quite common in Wodehouse‘s Jeeves and Wooster stories:

  • a tongue-in-cheek approach to romance and marriage, or at least romance and marriage for Bertie.  His near miss with Florence Craye is legendary, and by the end of the story yet another girl has declared her intentions toward him.  When that falls through, he says that he “would send camels bearing apes, ivory and peacocks” to the address of the person who “saved [him] from a fate worse than death,” marriage to one Madeline Bassett.
  • lots of stealing or “pinching” of items.  Much of the humor in the stories depends on something being swiped and then Bertie (and therefore, Jeeves) having to get the stolen items back into the room of its owner before its absence is noticed.
  • some physical humor.  Bertie sometimes finds himself hiding uncomfortably in the bushes to eavesdrop on a conversation, etc.
  • Just like any good Butler, Jeeves really doesn’t enter into the story very much, but he always saves the day.  I love this description of his reaction to the news of Ginger’s engagement to Florence Craye:

Well, I hadn’t expected him to roll his eyes and leap about, because he never does no matter how sensational the news item, but I could see by the way one of his eyebrows twitched and rose perhaps an eighth of an inch that I had interested him.  And there was what is called a wealth of meaning in that “Indeed, sir?”  (35)

However, the real star of the show in my opinion are the words, even more than the story itself.  This is Bertie on Florence Craye and Ginger’s engagement to her:

Looks, however, aren’t everything.  Against this pin-upness of hers you had to put the bossiness which would lead her to expect the bloke she married to behave like a Hollywood yes-man.  From childhood up she had been. . .I can’t think of the word. . .beings with an i. . . no, it’s gone. . .but I can give you the idea.  When at my private school I once won a prize for Scripture Knowledge which naturally involved a lot of researching into Holy Writ, and in the course of my researches I came upon the story of the military chap who used to say “Come” and they cometh and “Go” and they goeth.  I have always that that that was Florence in a nutshell.  She would have given short shrift, as the expression is, to anyone who had gone when she said “Come” or the other way around.  Imperious, that’s the word I was groping for.  She was as imperious as a traffic cop.  Little wonder that the heart was heavy.  I felt that Ginger, mistaking it for a peach, had plucked a lemon in the garden of love.  (32)

And some funny one-liners:

. . . against a woman with a brain like that, Ginger hadn’t the meager chance of a toupee in a high wind.  (107)

 

I suppose if he had been slenderer one might have described him as a figure of doom, but even though so badly in need of a reducing diet, he was near enough to being one to make my interior organs do a quick shuffle-off-to-Buffalo as if some muscular hand had stirred them up with an egg whisk.  (198)

 

Many years ago in our pre-parenthood days, Steady Eddie and I attended a fantastic performance of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival.  That and the movie Arsenic and Old Lace are what came to mind while I was reading Jeeves and the Tie That Binds.  Although I was often a little fuzzy on who now is engaged to whom and in whose possession the pinched porringer (or the pinched notebook) currently resides, I thoroughly enjoyed this story.

I am so happy to add my review to Carrie’s list of links for April’s Reading to Know Book Club.   This is also the first book I can mark off my list for The Classics Club.
Reading to Know - Book Club

An Ecclesiastes 3:2, 7 kind of week

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To say that this has been unusual and difficult week is something of an understatement, but all things considered, we had a really good school week. Monday was a normal day, except for the fact that Louise was a little under the weather. She went to bed on Sunday night with an elevated temperature, so on Monday she took it easy most of the day. Things got interesting on Monday night when the DLM fell and fractured his tibia–the large bone in the lower leg. He was out with Steady Eddie doing a bit of shopping (their usual routine while the girls take turns having dance class) when he fell at a store and twisted his leg. We didn’t know it was fractured until the next morning when the pediatrician’s office opened back up. We spent a good part of the day on Tuesday, then, in doctor’s offices, getting x-rays and having his little leg put into a cast. Through all this, we managed to “do school” thanks to the fact that Steady Eddie had taken off work due to the DLM’s injury.

On Wednesday, Steady Eddie had already planned to go into work a bit late to help me get our day going and get through our regular lessons. This was wonderful–he worked with one girl on math while I did language, writing, reading, etc., and then we’d switch. We got through all the must-dos before lunch! This day was one of those that was a bit off-kilter, though, because we got word mid-morning that the condition of our pastor’s precious wife, who had been battling ovarian cancer for 2 1/2 years, was declining. Steady Eddie left for work, and not too long after he had been there, he called to tell me that Rebecca had passed away.

So. School. Yeah. We did it. It was good, even. But honestly? It didn’t seem all that important. Interesting, but not important. Necessary, but not important.

Here’s the shakedown, keyed to the collage above.

1, 3, 7, & 8.  Math.  Lulu’s RightStart lessons this week involved taking a few assessments (which she was super excited about–these homschooled kids and their lack of test anxiety and boredom ;-) ), working a bit more on subtraction, and then switching gears and diving head-first into multiplication.  I love the way RightStart approaches multiplication!  Lulu had to color the multiples (i.e. color all the squares with a multiple of 2 on them, etc.) on small 100s charts (one for each number), and then she and Steady Eddie held them up to the light and compared the 2s to the 4s, for example.  Neat-o!  We also spent some time on a new-to-us game, Sum Rummy.  I didn’t think it was worth the trouble at first, but then when we got to the end and Lulu had to discover how adding the sums relates to multiplication and then do it, I was sold.  :-) One more fun thing I had Lulu do was take the centimenter cubes and line them up beside the meter stick to confirm how many centimeters are in a meter. Lulu completed lessons 99-101 in RS C this week.

Louise’s lessons this week involved writing equations using the abacus and really working on grasping the concept of tens.

Bonus this week for math:  having dad home to help.

2.  Ever seen a twenty-two month old in a cast?  It’s cute and pitiful, all at the same time.  Being more confined to one place than normal has increased the DLM’s attention-span and he has really played with this toys.

4.  History has been so interesting this week!  SotW volume 2 chapter 16 has us squarely in the Middle Ages, just after the Normal Conquest of England.  We’ve talked about Medieval culture and lifestyles.  Among other things, we did the Play-Doh activity suggested in the SotW Activity Guide to illustrate how English we speak came to be.  I could easily spend weeks on the Middle Ages, just doing fun stuff like this.  In addition to this fun activity, Lulu did a couple of written narrations and made a mini-book about how to become a knight.

5.  I’ve had extra help this week, too.  Steady Eddie had an out-of-town meeting on Thursday, so my parents took pity on me and my poor, handicapped toddler and came to help us.  :-)   My dad came by mid-morning and played with the DLM while the girls and I did lessons. Then, that afternoon, my mom came over and got the DLM down for a nap (no small feat, since sleeping in a cast is not high on his list of favorites) while the girls and I finished up lessons.  We had gotten a very late start that morning, so all this help was very welcomed.

6.  I decided to do something I’ve never done before this week–use the computer to help give me a little bit of “breathing space” to do lessons with Louise.  Well, it didn’t exactly work out this way this first time, but I hope it will in the future.  I made Lulu a spelling list in Spelling City from her AAS words, and she took a test on the computer.  Of course, this was only after we had gone through the whole step and all its instruction, and even practiced spelling the words using the tiles and on paper.  I’m a bit ambivalent about doing this because a.) I want to postpone computer-dependence for my kids as long as possible and b.) since Lulu can’t type properly yet, I don’t want to reinforce bad habits.  Thoughts on this, anyone?  Lulu completed AAS level 2 steps 11 and 12 this week.

9.  Bonus science lesson with dad:  looking at brother’s x-ray and talking about and identifying bones.

Here’s what else we accomplished:

  • We actually did our memory work two or three times this week.  Louise is also working hard on Awana verses.
  • The girls did four days’ worth of handwriting practice.
  • Lulu completed lessons 87-90, mostly reviewing the parts of speech, in FLL 2.
  •  Writing is getting more challenging; WWE 2 week 28 had Lulu dictating two sentences at a time, in addition to narrating from a lengthy passage.
  • Lulu’s assigned reading this week was All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor.  She did a book report on it (like this, only not as thorough this time).  She’s also working on reading If You Lived in the Days of the Knights, which we’ll continue next week.
  • Louise completed lessons 147-150 in OPGtTR and read several chapters from her chapter book (Shadow of the Wolf) with me.  On Thursday she sat and read three I Can Read books aloud with Mamaw.  She has turned into a reading machine.
  • Actually, we’re all pretty fond of reading.

 

On Thursday night the girls spent the night with Nana, who was on spring break this week.  On Friday I took the DLM to the last baby storytime at the library for this school year, and then we had lunch with Steady Eddie at my favorite “girl food” restaurant (which Steady Eddie actually likes but mainly indulges me in).  I worked a bit on schoolish stuff and printing pictures for my Project Life album, and then it was time to get ready to go to church for the funeral celebration service for Rebecca.  What a week.

Rebecca was forty-three years old, the high school sweet-heart and only love of her husband of twenty years, a mother to two girls, a pastor’s wife, a daughter, a sister, a sister-in-law, a friend, and a genuinely joyful person.  Her service last night was beautiful.  We laughed, we cried, and we worshiped Jesus.  Her husband, our pastor, spoke at the end about God’s grace and about how blessed he felt to be her husband.  He also lead the congregation (a packed house) in worship in song (he’s an accomplished musician and songwriter), and he played a song he wrote during her sickness.  Wow.  What a service, and what a reunion it will be for all of us when we get Home.

Today while I’m at work, Steady Eddie will be finishing up some schoolish stuff with the girls–science (they’re talking about shadows and being human sundials, if the sunshine cooperates), math, and a bit of history.

You know, this week has been hard (and jumbled, as this very disorganized post is evidence of), but attending that service last night in honor of Rebecca, believe it or not, ended it on a high note.  I’ve never felt God’s faithfulness more than I did last night.  To see our pastor lead us all in worship and thanksgiving to God, grieving for his wife and yet still buoyed up by the hope of heaven, was wonderful.

And so I’m ending this wrap-up with thanksgiving, too.  So many, many blessings this week:

  • That if the DLM had to break his leg, it happened this week. If it had happened last week, Steady Eddie would’ve been out of town and we wouldn’t have had as much help because Nana would’ve been working.  If it had happened much later, it would’ve been hot (and therefore more uncomfortable in the cast) and our summer plans of lots of outdoor fun would’ve been hindered.
  • That Rebecca’s life and her family have touched our life.  Her faith and trust and joy were such a testimony of God’s goodness.  Her legacy will live on.
  • That we only have three more weeks before we take our summer break from our normal school routine.  I’m ready for some down time!
  • That I only work one more weekend before being off for the summer!
  • That the DLM only has to wear his cast for 3 weeks.
  • That the DLM doesn’t seem to be in any pain.

If you’ve read this far, thank you.  I think this is the most nitty-gritty week we’ve had, and yet, it has been a good week.  We’ve learned a lot this week.

**Bonus points for anyone who can explain the reference in the title!  :-)

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A Sock Is a Pocket for Your Toes: A Pocket Book by Elizabeth Garton Scanlon

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I’ve made a concerted effort to read more poetry to my children this National Poetry Month, and I’m ending the month by posting a little review of a delightful book entitled A Sock Is a Pocket for Your Toes by Elizabeth Garton Scanlon. (I just love the assonance and alliteration in the title, don’t you?)  I purchased it after reading Alice’s glowing review, and I have to say I was not disappointed.  For some reason, I was expecting it to be a collection of poems instead of one long poem, but after I got used to the idea that it is a rhyming picture book, I warmed up to it and had a fabulous time sharing it with my girls.  It is deceptively simple in that it appears to be only for little kids:  Robin Preiss Glaisser‘s illustrations are mostly of little kids and their relationships with others.  However, the concept of all the things that can be pockets is a brain tickler.  I love it!

A chimney is a pocket blowing smoke,

and a pocket for a giggle is a joke–

tee hee.

A pocket packed with giggles is a joke.

A phone is a pocket for a ring,

a bell is a pocket for a ding.

Well, you get the idea.  This verse creates a delightful rhythm that begs to be tapped or bounced to.  My girls and I had a fun time coming up with other pockets.  Yesterday was National Poem in Your Pocket Day, but I think any day is a good day to keep a poem in your pocket or read a poem about pockets.  We give this book a Highly, Highly Recommended. (HarperCollins, 2004)

Given the DLM’s affinity for pockets, I think this one will be a popular selection at the House of Hope for many years to come.

The Poetry Friday roundup this week is at The Opposite of Indifference.

 

 

This Week in Books

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Lulu:

Assigned reading:  All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor.  It’s on my Classics Club list for me to read, but I decided to forego the read-aloud and let Lulu read it alone first.  It was a hit. She’s still reading If You Lived in the Days of the Knights, her other assigned reading selection, and is doing some narration activities with it.

Fun reading:  I know she read more Boxcar Children books than this (of course!), but I’ve lost all track of them and that lone title up there is the only one that made it on the stack.

Louise:

Assigned reading:  We’re still reading Shadow of the Wolf together after her reading lessons.  She also read several of the I Can Read books aloud to Mamaw this afternoon.

Fun reading:  Pretty much everything on the stack is Louise’s fun reading.  She loves the Minnie and Moo books in particular.

Together (read-alouds):

We started on Knight’s Tale by Edgar Eager, and it’s a smash hit.  We’re also still making our way through Little Pilgrim’s Progress, also a hit.  Another notable of the week is the picture book The Fabulous Flying Machines of Alberto Santos-Dumont.  Look for a review of it next week.

Me:

I plan to finish Jeeves and theTies That Bind tonight so I can share my thoughts about it tomorrow for the Reading to Know Bookclub.  I’m also still listening to Heart of a Shepherd by Rosanne Parry.  I like to listen to it while I exercise, but since my exercising is sporadic at best, so is my listening.

The girls also pulled out our huge Treasury of Picture Book Classicsand enjoyed some old favorites.  The DLM’s current favorite is an abridged (boo! hiss!) board book version of Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel.  (If I’d known it was abridged, I surely wouldn’t have bought it!)

I’m pretty sure I’m missing a lot more from the week, but it has been a challenging week, so I’m calling this good.

Have you had a bookish week?

Read Aloud Thursday–the Who in the World Was. . . ? series

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This post is for those of you who either educate your children classically or have children with an inordinate interest in the Middle Ages.  You all know how much we love read-alouds at the House of Hope.  As Lulu has gotten older, I struggle somewhat with how much to give her to do independently and how much to still read aloud to her.  Honestly, sometimes it’s for semi-selfish reasons that I don’t have her read more of her required work independently; I don’t want to miss out on the experience, and I also think it’s valuable to have Louise along for the ride, too.  Anyway, I discovered this little series of books at a homeschool conference that I attended last year where I got to hear Susan Wise Bauer in person.  Of course, Peace Hill Press was there, and on their table was this set of four short biographies on the Empress Theodora, Ethelred the Unready, Amerigo Vespucci, and Johannes Gutenberg.  So far in our history studies we have read about the acrobatic princess and the unready king via Story of the World, with more flesh-and-blood put on these stories via these little four chapter biographies.  We can finish one of these biographies in a couple of sittings, but Lulu usually confiscates the book between readings and finishes it herself alone.  They’re not fine literature, or at least not what I consider fine literature (which means a fair amount of description and a measure of literariness).  They contain a good bit of dialogue, conflict, and general excitement, all hallmarks of books that easily capture the attention of the listener.  However, they also provide plenty of background information and atmosphere.  For example, here’s an interesting tidbit from Who in the World Was the Unready King?:

England made the finest coins in the world at the time.  They were small silver coins called pence that were worth about a penny.  Five pence would buy a sheep, and ten pence would buy a pig.  To buy a few loaves of bread and some vegetables to eat, you could easily break a pence in half with your thumb and make “half-pence.” (14)

It’s not hard to find accessible literature about many, many time periods in history, but the Middle Ages selections are heavy on the knights and castles and light on individual personalities.  I’m glad to have this little set of biographies to add even more life to our history studies.  I only wish there were more of these!




I’m linking this post up to this week’s Favorite Resource This Week linky at Learning ALL the Time and this week’s Trivium Tuesdays linky at Living and Learning at Home.
Favorite Resource This Week

April (& March) 2012 Nightstand

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I failed to write up a Nightstand post in March, so I’m sharing what I’ve read since Febrary’s Nighstand post in this one.  Titles are linked to my reviews:

Close to Famous and Inside Out and Back Again tie for my favorite books, although there really isn’t a dud in the bunch.  (Well, okay–I sort of consider Dead End in Norvelt a dud, but you’ll have to read my review to find out why.)

Of course, I’ve done a whole lot of reading aloud, too.  Here are the chapter books my children and I have enjoyed together:

And a few of the DLM’s top picks:

We’ve also been enjoying poetry this National Poetry Month:

My girls and I are currently still making our way through Little Pilgrim’s Progress, which honestly is languishing a bit.  We’re reading Knight’s Castle by Edward Eager as a complement (or is it compliment?  both, maybe?) to our history studies.

I am currently (still) reading Jeeves and the Tie That Binds by P.G. Wodehouse and (still) listening to Heart of a Shepherd by Rosanne Parry in audiobook format.

I am working through my Spring Reading Thing list while trying to ignore the other titles that are clamoring for my attention, like Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which I purchased for the Kindle at a really cheap price long before I watched the movie.  We watched it Friday night, and now I really, really want to read the book.  This is precisely the problem which keeps me from getting to more challenging things, like the books on my Classics Club list.  Next month I will be reading and sharing my thoughts about The Adventures of Tom Sawyer for the Reading to Know Bookclub.  This one is my pick!   Will you join us?
Reading to Know - Book Club

What’s on Your Nightstand?

April nature notes

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We’ve taken several opportunities this month to get outside and intentionally observe and enjoy nature.  In addition to our dogwood tree study, we also focused on that harbinger of spring, the robin, one Fun Friday this month.  On that particular day we went to the library and had a picnic at the park with Steady Eddie.  Since this park is right across the street from the library, we walked, and Mr. Robin obliged us by perching beautifully in one of the trees on the library lawn.  Of course, we took a moment to really look at the bird and notice as much about its colorings and markings as we could before it flew off.

At the park we enjoyed watching the antics of a squirrel that loved our dropped (and tossed!) Goldfish crackers.  I even watched a tiny little bird (I wish I were better at bird i.d.!) try to make off with one of the crackers, but the Goldfish was just too big!  Steady Eddie even tried to photograph down inside the hole in the tree trunk, thinking this might be the squirrel’s home.  (Nature study has definitely become a family affair! :-) )

When we got home I uploaded our pictures and enlarged Mr. Robin and printed it out.

Using the knowledge I gleaned from The Handbook of Nature Study, we once again talked about the colors and markings of the robin.  Then I handed the girls a robin picture to color from the Notebooking Treasury North American birds collection. (My affiliate link here.)  I instructed the girls to do a good job of coloring the robin as true-to-life as possible.  Using the picture for their model, they colored and listened to an mp-3 recording of chapter five of The Burgess Bird Book (as suggested by Barb in her robin study post).  I also had them write down something they learned from the story at the bottom of their coloring page.  Sometimes being patient with an assignment like this is tough for one of my girls, so I’m particularly proud of the attention to detail here.

Something else we did this month was simply go for a walk around our neighborhood and observe signs of spring.  When we got home, I wrote our observations on the list Barb always provides in her newsletter.

Last week, in lieu of some other formal nature study, we simply went on a photo scavenger hunt using the list from Go Explore Nature’s Get Outside Photo Scavenger Hunt list.  I handed the camera over to the girls (which thrilled them to no end!) and we took turns going down the list (skipping items we couldn’t find, etc.) until the camera battery died a very sudden death.  I thought the girls did a lovely job in their photographing of #3 (sky) and #6 (flower).  That little maple tree is my contribution.  Isn’t the deep purple lovely?

This month we also planted a butterfly bush, the beginning of our very own butterfly garden.  The single biggest contributor to our enjoyment of nature, though, are our bird feeders.  Seeing our familiar friends at our feeders daily really makes us stop and appreciate nature.  I hope I can share some of the photos I’ve taken the past couple of months soon.  (Most of them are frequent visitors, so you can see them here.)  Steady Eddie and the girls surprised me Saturday with a new bird feeder station for our backyard.  I’ll share a picture of it soon.  My enthusiasm for bird watching has definitely been contagious.  :-)

 

Sickness, solo parenting, math games, and King Alfred bread

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(I’m trying out a new collage format this week.  I’m not sure I love it, but I thought I’d go with it and see if it grows on me.  I think I prefer my line-’em-up-straight format better.  :-) )

1.  This week we played a lot of math games:  Addition Corners, Find the Remainders (subtraction with four digit numbers), Dot Card Memory (evens/odds), Swim to Ten (mental addition of one-digit numbers).  Part of this is due to the fact that Lulu came down with a sore throat last Sunday afternoon, and she was still puny Monday and Tuesday.  Math games were about the only thing that perked her up.  ;-)   Still, though, we managed to get through lessons 97 and 98 in RS C, which entailed finding perimeters in centimeters and adding mentally.  Both of these tasks were fairly easy for Lulu.  Louise continues to make progress in RS B.  This week we completed lessons 18-20 in which evens/odds and EQUATIONS were introduced.  Oh, and we played a lot of games.

2. The other thing that perked Lulu up was lots and lots (and lots) of American Girl audiobooks.  Both girls spent a large portion of the week, especially Monday and Tuesday, on the couch listening to the stories of Kaya, Rebecca, Julie, and Kirsten.  On Monday night we skipped dance altogether and had a movie night–Kit Kittredge.  Steady Eddie had an out-of-town meeting Monday through Thursday, and I try to do something a little extra when he’s gone; often this is a movie night.  (I hate to say it, but with so many afternoon and evening activities, even a movie night is tough to plan around here!)  It was a bonus for me because I worked on my Project Life scrapbook during the movie.

3. Lulu continues to show great interest in crocheting, and I still haven’t found the time to learn how to do it myself in order to teach her.  My mom spent the night with us Tuesday night, and she was able to help Lulu a little bit.  Heather’s series, 10 Days of Pouring into Your Child’s Passions, is really encouraging me to find ways to carve time out of our day for the girls to do things they’re really interested in.  Lulu is all about making things with her hands–from tiny purses out of Scotch tape to necklaces to crocheted bracelets.  I really want to encourage this.

4.  I have such a hard time with knowing how to handle sick days.  (I’ve written about this before–here and here.)  Thankfully, I’ve wised up a bit and sort of let the sick one take the lead–more “Do you feel like doing ______?” than requirements.  Actually, Monday and Tuesday were fairly productive school days, even though we didn’t get in all of the 3 R’s on either day.  However, I felt way more relaxed about school than I usually do–I even did some things I enjoyed in the middle of the school day and spent extra time working with Louise.  I found myself thinking that that’s really how I want school to be around here–more relaxed on my end of things.  How do accomplish this?  I don’t know.  Maybe trying really hard to not see it as a day-by-day project but more as a week-by-week (or even month-by-month or term-by-term?) project, so that what we don’t get to today we’ll get to tomorrow?  By lowering my expectations?  Hmm. . .lots to think about as we finish up this year of learning.  (This post of Alice’s really resonates with me.)

5.  Wednesday afternoon found Louise, the DLM, and me enjoying some sunshine on a quilt on the lawn of Lulu’s piano teacher while Lulu was inside having her piano lesson.  Louise and I did her “piano school”–we read together and played yet another game of Swim to Ten.  (She absolutely LOVES this game!)  I also brought along The Well Trained Mind which I’m perusing once again as I begin to think about next year.  I’m feeling the draw toward more books (as if that’s possible ;-) ) and less formal curriculum.  Good books + narrations + the basics of math and language + something they’re passionate about = a good education, right?

6. On Thursday I shook up our schedule a bit, knowing we were taking the day off on Fun Friday.  After piano practice, we went on a Get Outside Photo Scavenger Hunt (hat-tip Barb) for which I handed over my little point-n-shoot camera for the girls’ use.  (This is huge–I’m usually pretty stingy with use of my cameras.)  Unfortunately, the camera battery died before we got very far in our scavenger hunt, but at least everyone got ONE turn to take a picture.  (Fairness is very, very important around here. :-) )   When we came back inside, we stirred up a batch of King Alfred bread from the SotW Activity Guide.  We had read about King Alfred the day before, so I knew that pairing a very interesting story from history with a kitchen activity would be a win, and I was right.  Our bread turned out to be more cake-like, so instead of kneading and forming the dough, I ended up pouring it into mini-loaf pans.  It was delicious!  (Must’ve been the butter and whipping cream. . . )  My girls will probably never forget about King Alfred and his cowardice!

7.  We were in a lunchtime rut this week, so on Thursday I made us “snack lunches.”  This day it was cheese cubes/sticks, baby carrots and Ranch dressing, grapes, and King Alfred bread.  What’s your favorite homeschool lunch?

8.  This week we finally got around to starting on a states notebook, which is something I’ve wanted to do since we were in the middle of reading Little Britches (linked to my review).  While reading this wonderful story, I thought it would be great to use this story to talk about the landscape of Colorado and then just about Colorado in general.  Using state-specific notebooking pages from Notebooking Treasury and this state fact sheet from Homeschool Creations, the girls have a nice start on their states notebook.  (I was also inspiree by Jimmie’s 50 States Noteobook Squidoo lens.)  My Favorite Resource This Week, though, is How to Draw Colorado’s Sights and Symbols from the A Kid’s Guide to Drawing America series.  (The link is to Amazon, but the book pictured with the link is about California, so beware if you click it.  I don’t think I’d pay the $25 Amazon is asking, either, but it’s definitely worth a look around for cheap used copies or at the library!)  We’re all a little frustrated by drawing, so having simple, step-by-step instructions on how to draw the map, the seal, etc., was invaluable to us.  Plus, the book includes a lot of good information. 
This, a few informational books on Colorado from the library, and our memories of Ralph Moody’s descriptions were all good resources to get us started.  We also pulled out and studied Geography from A to Z: A Picture Glossary by Jack Knowlton (which I wrote about here) when we weren’t sure of the definition of canyon and gorge.  (That’s the DLM’s contributions to our studies up there in the picture–a Little People pirate, goat, and lion–looking on as the girls pore over this colorful little geography book.)

Favorite Resource This Week9.  I knew Lulu was better on Tuesday afternoon when she remodeled one corner of their bedroom during rest time to make a “dressing room.”  I really, really try to not interrupt their play time to do something as prosaic as lessons.  ;-)

This week Lulu did three days of week 27 in WWE 2, the first part of step 11 in AAS 2, lessons 85 and 86 in FLL 2, some reading aloud to me, and some handwriting practice.  Louise completed lessons 145-147 in OPGtTR.  As usual, we also read a lot.  We took the day off on Friday for appointments and errands.  Steady Eddie was back home, and boy, were we all glad!

Although I hate to make an already too long post even longer, I thought I’d share some of the things the DLM does while we’re doing school.  I have read every suggestion out there on how to keep a toddler busy during homeschooling.  Mostly, we just go with the flow.  Sometimes one of the girls will read to him while I work with the other girl; sometimes he colors in his high chair while we work.  Lately he loves playing with the math manipulatives.  This isn’t ideal, but it does keep him happy.  Plus, it’s cute to hear him count on the abacus.  ;-)

Have you been enjoying the iHomeshcool 10 Days of series all over homeschooling blogdom?  I have!  I have to give a plug for my friend Mary’s 10 Days of Teaching Music series.  So far it has been five days of fantastic information and resources, and I can’t wait to read the next five days!

Something else that keeps the DLM busy and happy: playing "do" on the piano!

 

Normally I link up with Collage Friday at Homegrown Learners, but it has been pre-empted this week for the aforementioned 10 Days of Teaching Music series.  This week I’m happily linking up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers and Learning All the Time.

Carver: A Life in Poems by Marilyn Nelson

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George Washington Carver has completely captured by imagination, so it is fitting that I picked up a volume of poems about his life this National Poetry Month.  I hardly know what to say about it.  It is good–really good, in that sharp-intake-of-breath kind of way.  It’s written from a multitude of perspectives, from the man hired to rescue George Washington Carver and his mother, also a slave, from their kidnappers to a white school teacher who was apparently in love with Carver (and was rumored to have committed suicide years after they parted ways) to “an Alabama Farmer” who solicits Dr. Carver’s instruction on “what maid [his] cotton grow.”  One of my favorites is titled “Clay.”  Here’s an excerpt:

To Carver’s eye, the muddy creek banks say

Here to be dug up, strained, and painted on,

is loveliness the poorest can afford:

azures, ochres. . . Scraps of discarded board

are landscapes.  Cabins undistinguished brown

bloom like slaves freed to struggle toward self-worth.

Beauty is commonplace, as cheap as dirt.

One of Carver's own paintings, done with paint made from Alabama clay

Marilyn Nelson holds Carver’s life up to the light in this volume and shows what a multifaceted jewel it is.  Reading this Newbery and Coretta Scott King honor book has made me hungry to know more about this man.  Highly Recommended.  (Front Street, 2001)

More about George Washington Carver at Hope Is the Word:

George Washington Carver Museum in Tuskegee, Alabama

Tuskegee University (includes pictures of Carver’s gravesite)

Children’s books about George Washington Carver

I’m adding this book review to this month’s Award Winning Books database at Gathering Books.  I’m also joining in the Poetry Friday round-up at Random Noodling.