Mt. Hope Academy @ The Live & Learn Studio ~ December 2013

 

Food for Thought

 

Social

::  The Year We Broke the Internet @ Esquire

“For most, however, the photos were just another thoughtlessly processed and soon-forgotten item that represented our now-instinctual response to the unrelenting stream of information we’re subjected to every waking hour: Share first, ask questions later. Better yet: Let someone else ask the questions. Better still: What was the question again?”

::  Dear Kids: What You Need to Know About Duck Dynasty, Justine Sacco, and Christmas @ A Holy Experience

“Type up a Facebook status update — and it can be radioactive forever. Don’t be fooled by your keyboard: the Internet doesn’t have a delete button. Screenshots can make your words have a half life of eternity. Social media is exactly that — social. It impacts you socially for as long as you are a member of society.”

::  What if we got all worked up about this instead? @ Tsh Oxenreider

 

::  Two thousand mice dropped on Guam by parachute — to kill snakes @ NBC News (Taking “Visit Guam” off the bucket list…)

Education

"By universalizing university, you let K-12 off the hook. College becomes the new high school—which is exactly the opposite of what a dynamic, efficient society would be doing: middle school should be the new high school. Early-year education is the most critical; if you screw up the first eight grades, keeping the kid in class till he’s thirty isn’t going to do much to fix things." ~ Mark Steyn (HT: Odoro Amoris)

::  The Miseducation of Education Reformers @ Sultan Knish

"Education is not a science. It is a relationship. And like all relationships, it works best with a healthy beginning. In its truest sense it is not something that is inflicted from outsi...de on a child, but is the expansion of that child's worldview."

"Education is not a system. It is not a technique. It is a culture. The medium of education matters much less than the message. The content matters much more than the techniques used to teach it. Education teaches techniques, but it need not be a technique. And when it becomes a rigid set of techniques then it has already failed."

 

Words and Writing

::  The End of the College Essay: An essay. @ Slate (Funny and depressing.)

"Sure, this quashes the shallow pretense of expecting undergraduates to engage in thoughtful analysis, but they have already proven that they will go to any lengths to avoid doing this. Call me a defeatist, but honestly I’d be happy if a plurality of American college students could discern even the skeletal plot of anything they were assigned."

::  77 Latin Words, Abbreviations, and Expressions That You Should Know @ Write At Home

::  14 Punctuation Marks That You Never Knew Existed @ BuzzFeed (I personally like the “snark” the best.)

Ideas

::  Inside the Box: People don’t actually like creativity. @ Slate

“Even people who say they are looking for creativity react negatively to creative ideas, as demonstrated in a 2011 study from the University of Pennsylvania. Uncertainty is an inherent part of new ideas, and it’s also something that most people would do almost anything to avoid. People’s partiality toward certainty biases them against creative ideas and can interfere with their ability to even recognize creative ideas.”

Parenting

::  What to do with that child who just doesn’t fit in… and who pushes all of your buttons! @ I Take Joy (Yes. A million times, yes.)

Humor

::  15 Ways Homeschooling Is Like Living in a Fraternity House @ Atlanta Homeschool (I died laughing.)

Lists and Lessons

With an off-kilter December (what December hasn’t been?!), I didn’t keep accurate lists of anything, particularly books. The boys read a ton of Christmas picture books, as well.

Classical Conversations (Cycle 2) Week 11 Foundations classes (includes public speaking). Essentials: (Levi and Luke) (Week 12 was cancelled due to weather.)

Faith:
Telling God's Story, Year Two: The Kingdom of Heaven
Buck Denver & Friends present Clive & Ian's Wonderblimp of Knowledge: 6 Big Questions About God (DVD)
Buck Denver & Friends Present Clive & Ian's Wonderblimp of Knowledge 2: 7 Big Questions About God (DVD)
Independent Bible Reading
AWANAS (Leif)

Math:
Teaching Textbooks (Levi—level 6, Luke—level 5 (finished!!), Leif—level 4)
Life of Fred (Kidneys, Liver, Mineshaft, Fractions, Decimals and Percents, Elementary Physics, Pre-Algebra with Biology)
Timed drill worksheets
Mathtacular 4 (Word Problems) (DVD)

 

Logic:

Science:
CC memory work 
CC weekly science experiments and projects

P.E.:
Swim team practice (Levi and Luke), Swim lessons (Leif)
Archery 4-H (all 3 boys)

Fine Arts:

 

CC Drawing, Tin Whistle and music theory 
Joyful Noise Choir (weekly rehearsals + music theory homework) and performance

Language Arts:
CC memory work (pronouns)
Vocabulary Cartoons: SAT Word Power
MCT Grammar Island (with Leif)
Essentials (Levi and Luke) grammar
IEW Medieval history-themed writing  
IEW Fables and Fairy Tales
All About Spelling (Levi and Luke: level 4, step 18-22; Leif: level 2, step 10-19) 
Read Theory (online reading comprehension quizzes, Luke and Leif)

Latin:
CC memory work (conjugations)
Song School Latin DVD (Leif)
First Form Latin DVD lessons (Luke and Levi (Levi completing workbook lessons), lesson 9) 

Spanish:

Geography:
CC memory work 
Map tracing and “blobbing”
Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? (DVD)

History/Literature/Historical Fiction:
(Nothing formal this month)

Free Reading (Still working through this list.):

Levi:
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle (library)
Little Men by Louisa May Alcott
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
Born to Trot by Marguerite Henry
The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau (library)
Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild (library)
Gone-Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright (library)
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin (library)
The Egypt Game (library)
Betsy-Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelace (library)
Plus a bunch of Roald Dahl books

Luke:
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau (library)
The Great Brain
More Adventures of the Great Brain
Me and My Little Brain
Little House in the Big Woods
Little House on the Prairie
The Light Princess by George MacDonald
The Golden Key by George Macdonald
Plus a bunch of Roald Dahl books

Leif:
A Bunch of Roald Dahl books

Plus many Christmas picture books for all the boys.

Mt. Hope Chronicles @ The Live and Learn Studio ~ November 2013

   

Food for Thought

LOCAL-ish FRIENDS~ Andrew Kern will be speaking on Teaching from a State of Rest and Assessment That Blesses (and more) in Medford, OR on February 18th. I’d love to see you there! (If you can’t listen to him in person, be sure to check out the audio of Assessment That Blesses at CiRCE’s free audio library.)

::  Concerning Beauty @ The Rabbit Room

“To refuse to see beauty—to call a green leaf grey—is to say that God is not good. Beauty is a kind of grace. It comes from outside and changes something on the inside, and it usually comes as a surprise when it does.”

::  Algorithm finds beautiful and goofy haikus in the pages of the New York Times [15 pictures] @ 22 Words

"The words are pondered
briefly in silence before
the roaring begins."

::  20 More SAT Words Quiz from Write at Home (I aced this one, but I wasn’t confident about a couple of my answers and changed them at the last minute. Sometimes multiple choice works in my favor…)

::  Grammatically Speaking Grammar Quiz @ Staples

::  A Textual Analysis of The Hunger Games @ Slate (In comparison with Twilight and Harry Potter—quite fascinating!)

::  The Hunger Names @ Slate (Possible origins of the names in The Hunger Games—again quite fascinating, because I LOVE words and history and depth of meaning.)

::  "Jabberwocky" & the Value of Nonsense @ CiRCE

"As the poem progressed, my kids laughed at the silliness of the words, but I could see their minds trying to grasp what was going on. What is a Jabberwocky? Is it dangerous? Was it like a dragon? Should the “son” have killed it? Should the father have celebrated this? They are used to stories about knights and dragons that need slaying, but they also know that sometimes dragons are Eustace in the midst of repenting."

::  What College Profs Wish Freshmen Knew: Write Well @ Small World at Home

“The professors felt a true urgency to communicate how critical essay skills are for college students. Writing well is a crucial determining factor in whether a student is excellent or just average.”

::  Why Johnny can't write, and why employers are mad @ NBC News

"In a 2011 survey of corporate recruiters by the Graduate Management Admission Council, the organization that administers the standardized test for business school, 86 percent said strong communication skills were a priority—well ahead of the next skill. (When recruiters were asked in a separate question what changes business schools should make to meet employers' needs, the recruiters overwhelmingly called for something different: practical experience.)"

 

::  How to Teach: The Remarkable Mr. Frost @ The Imaginative Conservative

“Frost believed deeply that we approach life with true meaning only through metaphor.  What follows from this conviction is that we must teach metaphor, which in its highest form is poetry, but includes all the humanities.  He insisted that science is metaphor: Freud’s, who was probably a fraud; Darwin’s, whose Voyage of the Beagle was one of his favorite books; Einstein’s, which Frost considered one of the great poetic insights in the history of human thought.  Einstein, Frost knew, saw no gulf between religion and science because the duality of spirit and matter is the essence of the created order.  How full of wonder the world is, when we accept its mysteries and even its contradictions!”

::  I’m working my way through The Question (a logic-stage follow-up to The Core) by Leigh Bortins. I’ll have more quotes later.

“Contentment in questions and mysteries seems to irk the world.”

“How do you know what questions to ask if there are not copious amounts of ideas in your head?”

“Humans long for relationship, and thinking together in an interesting way about hard things is very rewarding.”

“Having questions is a mark of humanity.”

::  Stupor @ Sesquiotica

“The words stupor and stupid originate in the Latin verb stupere, ‘be stunned or benumbed’. (Incidentally, in some parts of Canada, and perhaps elsewhere, stunned is also a common colloqual word for ‘stupid’.) That became, still in Latin, the past tense form stupidus ‘stunned, numb’ and the noun stupor. So stupid is to stupor as torpid is to torpor (and, originally, horrid was to horror). And I suppose you could say stupid is as stupor does…”

::  Homeschooling and the Fear of Man @ Adoro Amoris (On fear and fallen homeschool gurus)

::  Homesick in the Cosmos @ The Imaginative Conservative

“One reason we feel out of place in the universe is because we begin with the universe and not with ourselves.  This is an odd thing to do since we are part of the universe.  Clues to its nature are as likely to be found inside of us as they are to be found someplace else—actually more likely.  But that possibility is denied by modern people.  Our desires, our hopes, our fears, our dreams, all the taproots of humane society, are believed to have no real connection to the universe as it is in itself.  But when we remove the most meaningful features of human interest from our study of the universe we find ourselves on the outside of everything.  Is it any wonder that the world appears indifferent to us?”

::  Helping Difficult Students Read Difficult Texts @ Stanford

'Roberts and Roberts (2008) make a powerful case that our current school culture, which allows savvy students to get dece...nt grades for minimal effort, cultivates surface reading. They argue that the prolific use of quizzes and other kinds of objective tests encourages "surface learning based in... short-term memorization for a day or two... rather than deep learning that is transformative of one's perspective and involves long-term comprehension" (p. 127). Moreover, they argue, many students don't value a course's "big ideas" because deep learning isn't needed for cumulating a high GPA.’

…'In the jargon of reading theorists, students do not have access to the cultural codes of the text-background information, allusions, common knowledge that the author assumed that the reading audience would know. Knowledge of cultural codes is often essential to making meaning of the text. So significant is this cause that E. D. Hirsch has tried to create a national movement promoting "cultural literacy," lack of which he claims is a prime source of students' reading difficulties in college.'

::  The Stereotypes About Math That Hold Americans Back @ The Atlantic

::  Why young kids are struggling with Common Core math @ The Washington Post

::  The Purpose of Mathematics in a Classical Education @ The Imaginative Conservative (I have linked this article before, but I think it answers the problems of both the previous conflicting articles.)

::  Biosensors to monitor students' attentiveness @ The Chicago Tribune (Is it possible to boil down effective teaching to an algorithm? Do spikes in teenagers' emotional arousal necessarily correspond to learning? Do we as a people have "measurement mania"? Is it because we think science and math can teach us everything we need to know? Is there no room left for heart?)

::  Magnificently fragile photos of individual snowflakes [10 pictures] @ 22 Words

::  Rabbit embryo, water flea, dinosaur bones, and more — 2013 Small World Photo Contest winners [19 pics] @ 22 Words (My friend and CC director was a winner back in 2000!)

::  New homeowner opens shelter sealed since 1961 @ The Eagle (I had to go and watch Blast From the Past again—so hilarious!!)

::  Grammar Land: Cycle 2 English Resource @ Further Up and Further In (my friend Danielle shares a charming (free! vintage!) grammar resource)

::  I don’t agree with your parenting choices. Now let me explain how you should raise your own children. @ The Matt Walsh Blog

“OK, I’m calm. But seriously, this is nuts. Parenting is hard enough as it is. We don’t have to turn every movement, every choice, every strategy, into a battlefield, where the bruised and bloodied bodies of unsuspecting parents are strewn about; beaten and defeated by the barbarian hordes who descended upon hearing news that some stranger was raising their kid in a way that doesn’t align with the beliefs and perspectives of every other person on the globe.”

::  3-foot-wide house squeezed into a tiny Polish alleyway, between buildings [20 pics & video] @ 22 Words (I find stuff like this intriguing! If I were going to down-size, though, I’d do it this way.)

::  How not to say the wrong thing @ The Los Angeles Times (Do you know someone in a crisis? This is a revolutionary way to think about relationships and what to say (and to whom) when someone is going through a crisis.)

(I usually link all of these articles and whatnot on my facebook page and then go through them to list here at the end of the month. This month there were a ton of fun Myers-Briggs personality charts. Star Wars, Harry Potter, Downton Abbey. I’d link them all here, but I’m tired of linking. You’ll just have to friend me on facebook. {grin})

Lists and Lessons

Classical Conversations (Cycle 2) Weeks 5-7 Foundations classes (includes public speaking). Essentials: (Levi and Luke)

Faith:
Telling God's Story, Year Two: The Kingdom of Heaven 
Independent Bible Reading
AWANAS (Leif)

Math:
Teaching Textbooks (Levi—level 6, Luke—level 5 (finished!!), Leif—level 4)
Life of Fred (Kidneys, Liver, Mineshaft, Fractions, Decimals and Percents, Elementary Physics, Pre-Algebra with Biology)
Math work samples for charter school
Timed drill worksheets
Mathtacular 4 (Word Problems) (DVD)

Logic:

Science:
CC memory work 
CC weekly science experiments and projects

P.E.:
Swim team practice and meets (Levi and Luke), Swim lessons (Leif)
Archery 4-H (all 3 boys)

Fine Arts:
CC Drawing, Tin Whistle and music theory 
Joyful Noise Choir (weekly rehearsals + music theory homework)
From Mud Huts to Skyscrapers: Architecture for Children (lovely!) (library)

Language Arts:
CC memory work (pronouns)
Vocabulary Cartoons: SAT Word Power
MCT Grammar Island (with Leif)
Essentials (Levi and Luke) grammar
IEW Medieval history-themed writing  
All About Spelling (Levi and Luke: level 4, step 18-; Leif: level 2, step 10-) 
Read Theory (online reading comprehension quizzes, Luke)

Latin:
CC memory work (conjugations)
Song School Latin DVD (Leif)
First Form Latin DVD lessons (Luke and Levi (Levi completing workbook lessons), lesson 8) 

Spanish:

Geography:
CC memory work 
Daily map tracing and “blobbing”

History/Literature:
CC memory work (timeline and history sentences)
The Story of the World Volume 2: The Middle Ages (Ch 20-24) 
A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver by E.L. Konigsburg
The Wise Fool: Fables from the Islamic World (library)
Through Time: Beijing (library, I love this one!)
We're Riding on a Caravan: An Adventure on the Silk Road (library)
Marco Polo (Discovery Biographies)
The Silk Route: 7,000 Miles of History
D is for Dancing Dragon: A China Alphabet (library)
Ms. Frizzle's Adventures: Imperial China (library)
The Great Voyages of Zheng He by Demi (library)
The Kite Rider by Geraldine McCaughrean (library) (historical fiction, 13th century China, Levi and Luke-IR)
The Sea King's Daughter: A Russian Legend
Sir Nigel: A Novel of the Hundred Years' War by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (historical fiction, 377 pp, Levi-IR)


Literature Studies:
Moby Dick: Or, the White Whale retold by Geraldine McCaughrean
Book Detectives Literary Analysis Book Club (Sam, Bangs & Moonshine)

Miscellaneous Picture Books:
Non-fiction:
Fiction:
Fog Island by Tomi Ungerer (library)
And a bunch of others I didn’t take the time to list and link
Hanukkah:
The Golem's Latkes by Eric Kimmel (library)
The Magic Dreidels: A Hanukkah Story (library)
Stone Lamp, The: Eight Stories Of Hanukkah Through History (library)
Runaway Dreidel! (library)
The Trees of the Dancing Goats by Patricia Polacco
(Various Thanksgiving-themed books)

The boys are working their way through this list of Top 100 Children’s Novels. Levi had already read about 55 of them. (We’re skipping The Golden Compass and books by Judy Blume. Harry Potter is on our list for this coming year. Does anyone have any opinions about City of Ember and The Dark is Rising series? Or any other books on the list?)

Levi’s Free Reading:
Son by Lois Lowry (the 4th book in the Giver series, Levi loved it) (library)
Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher: A Magic Shop Book (library)
Holes by Louis Sachar 
The Desperate Adventures of Zeno and Alya (library)
The BFG by Roald Dahl (library)
The Bad Beginning: Or, Orphans! (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 1) (library)
Magyk (Septimus Heap, Book 1) (library)
Maniac Magee (library)
Harriet the Spy (library)
Where the Red Fern Grows (library)

Luke’s Free Reading
Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett
Peppermints in the Parlor
Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher: A Magic Shop Book (library)
Holes by Louis Sachar
The BFG by Roald Dahl (library)
The Bad Beginning: Or, Orphans! (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 1) (library)



Leif’s Free Reading
The Original Adventures of Hank the Cowdog
The BFG by Roald Dahl (library)
Geronimo Stilton (bunches, library)
Life of Fred (always)

Miscellaneous:
Thanksgiving and Green Friday

Mt. Hope Academy @ The Live & Learn Studio ~ October 2013

Food for Thought

::  The Common Topics and the Universe @ Classical Conversations

"Aristotle’s common topics of invention serve as a series of lenses through which we can look at any given subject. In doing some quick research, I was reminded that the word ‘topic’ comes from the Greek topos, which means “place.” Suddenly, I understand Aristotle’s lenses more clearly. They are places in which we can look for clues for understanding anything from flowers to stars to relationships. I must also note that invention is only the first of Aristotle’s five canons of rhetoric: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery."

::  A Model for a Classical Conversation by Courtney Sanford @ Classical Conversations (a fantastic example of subject integration as well as group discussion using the “topic” of “comparison” from Aristotle’s rhetoric)

‘I drew a topic wheel on the whiteboard. A topic wheel is simply one circle in the center and seven more circles surrounding it. I wrote “water” in the center circle. The seven other circles are intended for other subjects. The idea is to provoke thought by having the group brainstorm about what different subjects have in common with the central item. (This would be the topic of comparison if you are familiar with the five common topics.)’

:: 100 Words To Make You Sound Smart (another entertaining vocabulary quiz by Write at Home—I didn’t do quite as well as I hoped)

::  Brave New World and the Flight from God @ The Imaginative Conservative

‘One mutilation he observed was a spreading mediocrity of aspiration. Demanding goals -pleasing God, living morally, partaking of high culture - were being replaced by lesser ones: “fun,” comfort, conformity.[23] Unfortunately, multitudes are not interested in having their souls stretched by either a demanding religion and morality or an inspiring high culture - hence the great danger that the majority would cheerfully make a Faustian bargain, selling their souls for bread, baubles, comfort and amusement.[24]’

::  David Smith, author. (HT: Classical Academic Press)

"Charity in reading involves avoiding quick dismissal and cheap disdain, resisting the ego satisfaction of allowing a text only to confirm one's prejudices, and seeking the good in a text, choosing its truths over its defects. Humility implies a working assumption that the text may offer wisdom that I lack, and that if the road to grasping it is stony then the fault may lie at least as much with ...me as with the text itself. Justice involves reading fairly, working to weigh evidence before making evaluative judgments and seeking to represent the text without distortion, even when distortion would better fit my interests. The act of reading itself becomes an act in which, as in all other acts, Christian virtues out to be exercised."

::  The Joy of Being Awake @ CiRCE

“It seemingly takes me hours to work my way into the day, to arrive at a state of mind and body in which, and through which, I can achieve anything even moderately productive. I wake up sluggish and, far too often, grumpy, and, I am realizing, if I’m not careful my children will see that in me and themselves might begin to wonder if maybe this whole being alive each new day phenomenon isn’t all that wonderful after all.”

::  Peace Talks @ Classical Conversations

“These two things—joy and conflict—are indeed in tension, but they are not at cross purposes! In fact, as much can be learned to increase fellowship and learning through conflict as through joy. In conflict, we also come to understand our subject matter better and to understand each other better. In doing so, we can increase learning and deepen fellowship. The key is that we must be willing to stay the course, acting with love of neighbor as our highest priority. The dialectic that occurs in conversations is a two-edged sword, and we must learn how to value both the harmonious joy as well as the frustrating struggle. We need to learn how to manage conflict and navigate to resolution.”

::  On Language, Loss, and the Fullness of All Things @ CiRCE

"When God speaks, there is not loss of meaning, but creation of meaning."

::  Purpose, Goodness, and the Imagination of God @ CiRCE

“In being like Him - in creating, in speaking, in naming, in tending - we glorify Him. And we fulfill our purpose.”

::  20 SAT Words Quiz (The 20 words on this quiz come from a list of the most common SAT words over the past several years. See how well you know them!)

::  Why I Hire English Majors @ Huffington Post

“I love English majors. I love how smart they are. I love their intellectual curiosity. And I love their bold choice for a major. Most of all, I love to hire them.”

::  Heard at my house:
"Guess what I ordered for boys who get all their work done this week!"
(In the most enthusiastic voice you can imagine:) "Calculus?!!!!!!!"
Um, no. But thanks, Life of Fred

::  Easy? No. Kids today do not have it easy. @ The Matt Walsh Blog

‘Maybe I shouldn’t even use the word “children” anymore. I’m not sure what to call this new sort of human we’ve created; not old enough or wise enough to be an adult, not innocent enough to be a child. Entire generations are sent hurtling into this Limbo, and many never escape it.’

::  Help, doc, I’m bored by boring things. I think I’ve got the ADHD. @ The Matt Walsh Blog (another controversial post by Matt Walsh…but it sounded like he was talking about one (or two or three) of my son(s))

“Yet, I admit, some children have trouble performing well in school, and struggle to sit still and concentrate on tasks, regardless of the factors I listed. With these troublemakers, you could put them in a sound proof room with nothing but a pencil and a copy of their math text book, and they’d spend the whole time staring into space, or drawing pictures on the pages. I know those kid exist, particularly because I was one. I’m still that way. Give me a math test, sit me in a room, and two hours later I’ll come out with a cool idea for a screenplay, or a sketch of a grizzly bear, or an essay about why ADHD doesn’t exist. My wife makes fun of me because I can’t sit down without shaking my leg or scratching my head or otherwise finding a way to occupy one of my limbs. I daydream. A lot. I get lost in my own head. I forget things. I’m horrible at math. I mean, horrible. Seriously, it’s embarrassing. What’s five times five? Really, I don’t know.”

::  16 Fiction Book Characters' Myers-Briggs Personality Types @ Huffington Post (I’m Charlie Bucket married to Willy Wonka, LOL!!)

::  Stunning images of snowflakes under a (frozen) microscope [20 pictures] @ 22 Words

"On an interesting side note, man-made snow doesn’t vary in shape like natural snow does, and, in fact, doesn’t even look like natural snow at all when magnified. It’s just little blobs…"

::  Map of the world showing what each country leads the world in @ 22 Words (a fascinating way to view geography)

::  Map: Six Decades of the Most Popular Names for Girls, State-by-State @ Jezebel (speaking of geography—okay this one isn’t particularly educational, but I LOVE talking about baby names and this is another fascinating interactive map)

::  Drawings of everyday objects made by typing with a typewriter [18 pictures] @ 22 Words (I adore this one!)

::  The October Homeschooling Blues @ Pioneer Woman

It’s the recognition that the bus will never come.

(On a slightly related note, one day this month I was so desperate for solitude that I slept in the car in the Old Navy Parking lot for two hours. True story.)

:: Terse @ Sesquiotica (Oh, for the love of words!!)

The word starts with a little spit of exasperation, the aspiration on the /t/. Then it’s straight into a syllabic liquid (or a neutral vowel for the non-rhotic), and quickly thereafter a hiss that can last as long as the other two phonemes combined. A jab, a sound, a hiss. And that’s it. Pressed reset. Wiped clean. Polished like a cut diamond, and just as cutting.

::  Using Music to Close the Academic Gap @ The Atlantic

“The fact that music engages so much in the brain—including regions we think of as important for language, memory, motor control, executive function and emotion—raises the question of how it interacts with these other activities,” says Patel. It’s not surprising, Patel says, to find that violinists, who make intricate movements with the fingers on their left hand, have enhanced fine motor function and corresponding changes in the regions of the brain that govern left-handed finger control. What’s more surprising is that music training actually enhances the way the brain processes language.

::  How much better is standing up than sitting? @ BBC News

Standing while you are working may seem rather odd, but it is a practice with a long tradition. Winston Churchill wrote while working at a special standing desk, as did Ernest Hemingway and Benjamin Franklin.

And just funny, funny, funny:

::  15th Century Flemish Style Portraits Recreated In Airplane Lavatory (Embrace creativity. Live an interesting life. Do the unexpected.)

::  Warped Childhood, Restoration Hardware-Style @ Suburban Turmoil

Funny and terrifying:

::  Increasing Number Of Parents Opting To Have Children School-Homed @ The Onion (satire)

Deputy Education Secretary Anthony W. Miller said that many parents who school-home find U.S. households to be frightening, overwhelming environments for their children, and feel that they are just not conducive to producing well-rounded members of society.

 

 

Lists and Lessons

Classical Conversations (Cycle 2) Weeks 5-7 Foundations classes (includes public speaking). Essentials: (Levi and Luke)

Faith:
Telling God's Story, Year Two: The Kingdom of Heaven
Buck Denver Asks: What's in the Bible? Volumes 11 and 12
Independent Bible Reading
AWANAS (Leif)

Math:
Teaching Textbooks (Levi—level 6, Luke—level 5, Leif—level 4)
Life of Fred (Kidneys, Liver, Mineshaft, Fractions, Decimals and Percents, Elementary Physics, Pre-Algebra with Biology)
Extra practice with story problems for math work samples
Mathtacular 4 (Word Problems) (DVD)

Logic:

Science:
CC memory work 
CC weekly science experiments and projects

P.E.:
Swim team practice and meets

Fine Arts:
CC Drawing, Tin Whistle and music theory 
Joyful Noise Choir (weekly rehearsals + music theory homework)

Language Arts:
CC memory work (parts of speech, pronouns)
MCT Grammar Island (with Leif)
Essentials (Levi and Luke) grammar
IEW Medieval history-themed writing  
All About Spelling (Levi and Luke: level 4, step 14-17; Leif: level 2, step 8-9) 

Latin:
CC memory work (conjugations)
Song School Latin DVD (Leif)
First Form Latin DVD lessons (Luke and Levi (Levi completing workbook lessons), lessons 4-7) 

Spanish:

Geography:
CC memory work (Europe)
Daily map tracing and “blobbing”

History/Literature:
CC memory work (timeline and history sentences)
The Story of the World Volume 2: The Middle Ages (Ch 16-19) 
DK Readers: Days of the Knights -- A Tale of Castles and Battles
A Medieval Feast by Aliki (lovely)
Castle by David Macaulay
Castle (PBS Home Video)
Stephen Biesty's Cross-sections Castle
Picture That: Knights & Castles
Adventures in the Middle Ages (Good Times Travel Agency)
Everyday Life in Medieval Europe (a favorite)
Castle Diary: The Journal of Tobias Burgess (another favorite, very humorous)
The Making of a Knight
Arms and Armor (DK Eyewitness Books)
Knight (DK Eyewitness Books)
Knight's Castle by Edward Eager (historical fiction, silly fun time travel to the days of Robin Hood and Ivanhoe)
The Red Keep by Allen French, illustrated by Andrew Wyeth (historical fiction, 370 pp, Levi-IR) 
The Hidden Treasure of Glaston (historical fiction, 340 p, Levi-IR)
Anno's Medieval World
In the Time of Knights
Castles (Kingfisher) (a favorite)
Sword of the Valiant - The Legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (cheesy old movie)
A Knight's Tale (one of our family’s favorite movies—with a tiny bit of judicious editing)
Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman (historical fiction, England in 1290, 205 pp, Levi-IR)
The Great and Terrible Quest (historical fiction, Levi and Luke-IR)
Ivanhoe adapted by Marianna Mayer (a beautiful picture book)
Ivanhoe (Great Illustrated Classics) (Luke-IR)
Ivanhoe by Walter Scott (Levi managed parts and pieces of the original though it was a challenge)
Ivanhoe (an animated movie)
As You Like It by Shakespeare (movie, setting inspired by 19th Century Japan)
The Samurai's Tale by Erik Christian Haugaard (historical fiction, 234 pp, Levi and Luke-IR)
The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn (The Samurai Mystery Series) (historical fiction, Levi read whole series, Luke just a few) 
Sword of the Samurai: Adventure Stories from Japan (literature) (library)
Magic Tree House #37: Dragon of the Red Dawn (library)
Sam Samurai (#10 Time Warp Trio) (library)
How to Be a Samurai Warrior (library)
A Samurai Castle (Inside Story)
You Wouldn't Want to Be a Samurai!: A Deadly Career You'd Rather Not Pursue (library)
Real Samurai: Over 20 true stories about the knights of old Japan (library)
Samurai: Arms, Armor, Costume (gorgeous photographs!) (library)
A Single Shard (historical fiction, 12th-century Korea, Levi-IR) 
Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi (historical fiction, Medieval England, Levi-IR)
Adam of the Road (historical fiction, 13th century England, Levi-IR)
Through Time: London (I love the illustrations in these books!) (library)
Saint George and the Dragon retold by Margaret Hodges, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman (literature)
Saint George and the Dragon retold by Geraldine McCaughrean (literature)
The Questing Knights of the Faerie Queen by Geraldine McCaughrean (literature)
The Saracen Maid by Leon Garfield
Saladin: Noble Prince of Islam
The Picture Story of the Middle East by Susan R. Nevil 
Saint Francis by Brian Wildsmith
El Cid by Geraldine McCaughrean
The Boy Knight: A Tale of the Crusades by G.A. Henty (historical fiction, Levi-IR)
Tales of the Crusades by Olivia E. Coolidge (Levi-IR)
The Canterbury Tales retold by Barbara Cohen, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman (literature)
The Canterbury Tales retold by Geraldine McCaughrean (literature, Levi-IR)
Chanticleer and the Fox adapted from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, illustrated by Barbara Cooney
The Magna Charta by James Daugherty (Levi-IR)
The Magna Carta: Cornerstone of the Constitution
Usborne Book of London
DK Classics: Robin Hood
The Adventures of Robin Hood by Roger Lancelyn Green (literature, Levi-IR)
Robin Hood (an animated movie) 
Robin Hood (teacher research only, ha!)
The Race of the Birkebeiners
The Apple and the Arrow (the story of William Tell, literature)

Literature Studies:
Book Detectives ~ Mirette on the High Wire

Read-Aloud With Dad:
The Monster in the Hollows (Wingfeather Saga)

 
Miscellaneous Picture Books:
Non-fiction:
Fiction:

Levi’s Free Reading 
Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank Gilbreth
Belles on Their Toes (sequel to Cheaper by the Dozen)
Here, There Be Dragons ( The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica, Book 1)
The Search for the Red Dragon (The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica, Book 2)
The Indigo King (Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica)
The Shadow Dragons (Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica)
The Dragon's Apprentice (Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica)
The Dragons of Winter (Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica)
The Gammage Cup: A Novel of the Minnipins
Kildee House (The Newbery Honor Roll) by Rutherford Montgomery, illustrated by Barbara Cooney
The Magic City by Edith Nesbit
and various others…

Luke’s Free Reading
Edward Eager Books
The Witches by Roald Dahl
Matilda by Roald Dahl
The Indian in the Cupboard
The Secret of the Indian
Little Eddie by Carolyn Haywood
The Gammage Cup: A Novel of the Minnipins
and various others…

Leif’s Free Reading
Geronimo Stilton, Magic Tree House, Magic School Bus (Chapter Books), Dragon Slayers’ Academy
Half Magic by Eager, Boxcar Children, Life of Fred
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator
and various others…

Miscellaneous:
Testing with distance learning program