A Veteran's Day Tribute

Thank you, Veterans

Tuesday Tidbits: Focus on Eagle Scouts

Very funny video share! Boy Scout humor!


  Focus on Eagle Scout Rank:

Video of the Day!

Really cool video a friend shared with me today. I think you'll like it too!

 

Di's Favorite Three - from home

Barb, from Harmony Fine Arts, posted her favorite three for this week and challenged her readers to do the same and send her the link. I liked that idea, so here is my link-up.

1. I am loving my morning java -- I am sipping it now. I drink it black, and I like it in my big Starbuck's mug that my daughter brought back to me from the Seattle Starbuck's.

2. I am totally loving my spring flowers, which we finally have here in the Northern mid-Atlantic States.

purple bearded iris

                                     beautiful begonia!

            

Lily of the Valley

      Mountain Laurel, and

Rhodadendron.

3. A fabulous writing program that I am working on with my son, to review:

Thoughts this Tuesday

This YouTube video is powerful. When your loved ones are near, tune out of the electronics and tune in to the IRL people!

Classic Argument

I stumbled across this today on a page from Lee Binz, the Homeschool Scholar. It is so funny! Enjoy!

Whose "Choice" Anyway?

Wow, just wow! Wanted to share this one:

Notebooking Pages Black Friday Sale!

I love Notebooking Pages, and I have used them a lot in my home school. Because I love them so much I became an affiliate, and this post will have affiliate links in it. Now, if that bothers you, please just consider that any money that I would earn as an affiliate would go back into my home schooling budget. That said, I have never, yet, earned anything as an affiliate with any company that I am an affiliate for. But FTC laws require that I let you know this post has affiliate links.

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So go check it out. The NotebookingPages website has free samples, so you can look at them and get an idea of the benefit. But I have loved the way I can use Notebooking in my Charlotte Mason Education, using Ambleside Online. I can use Notebooking Pages for Composer Study, Artist Study, Nature Study, Poet Study or Poetry Study, State Studies, and so many other subjects. Go take a look. Thanks for considering.

Blog Post Recommendation

I'm sick with an upper respiratory infection that's trying to decide on a sinus infection or bronchitis, and I thought I'd share this link to an inspiring post yesterday by Hands Free Mama. If I Live to be 100.

Summer Reading for Boys

Tuesday Tidbit:

Summer has finally arrived. In our home it arrived with Math not quite finished for the year. It also arrived with a certain boy in our home having some unjustified attitude of entitlement - a feeling that this summer time is his time; a feeling that he should be allowed to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants; an attitude that he should be allowed to watch television whenever he wants, that computer usage should be unlimited and that "bedtime" is not a word in his vocabulary.

Does this sound like a middle-school boy?

Anyway, this boy-child attitude is hitting a wall against parental attitudes that extended video/computer usage is not good for a 13-year-old, that the person who pays for the internet has some say over how it is used, and that the person who pays for the satellite television has ultimate say over what hours this will be made available to little people. 

We're still trying to find a middle-ground that we can live with here, but for starters this mom has made it clear that before an electronic device goes on a Math page will be done and reading will occur. I wanted one hour of reading a day, but that just isn't happening. And I have to improve on the Math oversight, because I haven't been checking the work. I think I've been getting a chapter a day of reading, so I was thinking of other ways of stating the reading goals.

I was reading over at Ben and Me and her list of 10 Summer Classics for Middle School Boys.

Marcy's list:

The Red Badge of Courage - Print Kindle

Robinson Crusoe - Print Kindle

The Swiss Family Robinson - Print Kindle

Treasure Island - Print Kindle

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Print Kindle

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Print Kindle

Moby Dick - Print Kindle

The Call of the Wild - Print Kindle

Where the Red Fern Grows - Print Kindle

White Fang - Print Kindle

It is a good list, but my son has read some of the titles already. So I thought I would adopt the list idea but take out the titles we have already done, and insert some titles I've been meaning for us to get to. Her goal is for Ben to read five of the ten titles between now and the end of August. That sounds like a good goal for my home, too, but I don't know how well I will be able to enforce it. But if you don't set goals, you achieve what you planned for, so...

I followed Marcy's link to more summer reading for boys titles:

 

That link wasn't working for me when I tried it, so I guess I'm on my own. So, here's the revised list for my home:

The Story of King Arthur and His Knights by Howard Pyle - Print Kindle

The Swiss Family Robinson - Print Kindle

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Print Kindle

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Print Kindle

Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling - Print Kindle 

Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling - Print Kindle

Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates by Mary Mapes Dodge - Print Kindle

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome - Print Kindle

Penrod by Booth Tarkington - Print Kindle

I could go on and on, but I think ten is a good list so I will stop there. What is on your summer reading list?

Tuesday Tidbits: Alice Through the Looking Glass

Oh, Lewis Carroll is so funny! I've posted it before, but I'll post it again -- my favorite poem, which I am working on memorizing:

"Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

        Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogroves,

        And the mome raths outgrabe."

And it is explained as well. This is the first time I was aware of this -- I guess I never read Through the Looking Glass as a child:

 "That's enough to begin with," Humpty Dumpty interrupted: "there are plenty of hard words there. 'Brillig' means four o'clock in the afternoon--the time when you begin broiling things for dinner."

"That'll do very well," said Alice: "and 'slithy'?"

Well, 'slithy' means lithe and slimy. 'Lithe' is the same as 'active.' You see, it's like a portmanteau--there are two meanings packed up into one word."

"I see it now," Alice remarked thoughtfully: "and what are 'toves'?"

"Well, 'toves' are something like badgers--they're something like lizards--and they're something like corkscrews."

"They must be very curious-looking creatures."

"They are that," said Humpty Dumpty, "also they make their nests under sun-dials--also they live on cheese."

"And what's to 'gyre' and to 'gimble'?"

"To 'gyre' is to go round and round like a gyroscope. To 'gimble' is to make holes like a gimblet."

"And 'the wabe' is the grass-plot around a sun-dial, I suppose?" said Alice, surprised at her own ingenuity.

"Of course it is. It's called 'wabe', you know, because it goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it--"

"And a long way beyond it on each side," Alice added.

"Exactly so. Well then, 'mimsy' is flimsy 'and miserable' (there's another portmanteau for you). And a 'borogove' is a thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round--something like a live mop."

"And then 'mome rathes'?" said Alice. "I'm afraid I'm giving you a great deal of trouble."

 "Well, a 'rath' is a sort of green pig: but 'mome' I'm not certain about.  I think it's short for 'from home' --meaning that they'd lost their way, you know."

"And what does 'outgrabe' mean?"

"Well, 'outgribing' is something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle: however, you'll hear it done, maybe--down in the wood yonder--and when you've once heard it you'll be quite content. Who's been repeating all that hard stuff to you?"

"I read it in a book," said Alice. "But I had some poetry repeated to me, much easier than that, by--Tweedledee, I think it was."

I mean, what absolute nonsense! But what fun!

Tuesday Tidbits

I've been wanting to post about our Adventures in Wonderland for a couple of weeks now. Since I didn't post it last week, I'll have to lump it all together.

Last week, we were strolling through Wonderland with Alice. (I love this classical education we're getting!)  We were with Alice, when we came to this lovely, funny, "Ha! Ha!" that we might not have understood a year ago. Alice was swimming in a pool from her tears, that she had cried a few moments before, when she was a giant, but now she was only several inches tall. She heard a noise in the pool, and found it was a mouse. She tried to speak to the mouse, but it didn't respond. 

"O Mouse!" -- Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse; she had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having seen in her brother's Latin grammar, "A mouse--of a mouse--to a mouse--a mouse--O mouse!"

Which, in case you are not studying Latin (which we are), is a take off on the first verb declensions studied: "Amo, Amas, Amat, Amamus, Amatis, Amant".  That doesn't translate exactly, but it is clearly what Lewis Carroll was implying. It was so funny!

She thought, "Oh, maybe it only speaks French!" So she said to the mouse the only French she could remember, "Ou et ma chatte?" (which means, "Where is my cat?"), which was the first lesson in her French book. The mouse reacted by suddenly leaping out of the water and quivering with fright. I'm so glad the mouse, at least, understand French... heh! heh!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So this week's funny (today's funny, actually), was from later in the book when Alice was chatting with the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle. Alice asked the Mock Turtle what he studied in school. He answered, "Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with," ("Reading and Writing"), "and then the different branches of Arithmetic--Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision." ("Addition", "Subtraction", "Multiplication", and "Division".)  And then there was also "Mystery", "Mystery--Ancient and Modern, with Seeography, then Drawling--the Drawling Master was an old conger-eel, that used to come once a week: he taught us Drawling, Stretching and Fainting in Coils." (That would be "History--Ancient and Modern, with Geography, then Drawing...  ...he taught us Drawing, Sketching and Painting in Oils.")

All that word substitution JD really enjoyed understanding the implied and what was actually said. Later in the reading she learned from the lobsters that whitings (a type of fish) were for whiting boots (whereas Alice would put blacking on her boots), and that boots under the see are made of soles and eels (types of fish, instead of "Soles and Heels"), and that no wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise. ("Don't you mean 'purpose'?" said Alice. "I mean what I say," the Mock Turtle replied in an offended tone.)

The nonsense in this book is so extreme that my son wonders if the author was in the habit of sharing that hooka with the caterpillar on the mushroom....

Today's Schoolwork

Since I don't regularly do a Friday Wrap-Up, I thought I would post an occasional "Today's Schoolwork" post. It is one way to do periodic wrap-ups, and it keeps good links that I've searched for and liked (after finding lots of links I did not like).

Bible:

Hymn:
All Hail the Power of Jesus Name 


Memory:
 Working on Revelation 5 for The Edge (youth group at church)

Math:
Horizon's Pre-Algebra, lesson 47

Science:
Apologia Astronomy, Lesson 2 (textbook and Notebooking Journal)

English:
 Literature: Treasure Island, chapter 7

Social Studies:
 This Country of Ours, chapter 88 ("Gettysburg")

Latin:
Lesson 1 (Week 1), Day 2
("o, s, t, mus, tis, nt; amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant; I love, you love, he, she, it loves, we love, y'all love, they love...")

Music:
 We only ended up doing the hymn shown above today. We're still humming Ravel's Bolero.

Phys Ed:
Struggled through Lesson 1 (part of it) of Family Time Fitness. (Decided to repeat it because it is already printed out, and we've been sluffing and are out of shape.) Had trouble getting my pdf reader program to open the youtube links, but got it to work by switching to Adobe to open the document.

Health:
Working on health low-fat, low cholesterol food lessons, whole food, whole grain.

Combined with that, swiped my bathroom sink, but didn't get the commode done, nor the other two bathrooms in my house.

Didn't get my bed made. Wanted to several times, but was decluttering and had left stuff on the bed. Guess I better go do that when I finish this.

Put together a bag of giveaways to post on Freecycle. Not getting that posted quite yet.

Took a load of stuff that needed dumping to the dump.

Figured out what leftovers JD will eat tonight. (I'm going out.)

So, today was supposed to be Weekly Blessing Hour, or at least something from it, but I just don't think I'll have time. I'll post this now and go see if I can start my load of laundry (tried to earlier, but my adult daughter had stuff in the machine, and I just wasn't up to the effort of moving it... ::sigh:: On a schedule here.

So, after I post here (and link my menuplan to orgjunkie.com) I will try to make my bed, swish and swipe commode, start the laundry, get the leftovers out of the freezer, sweep the stairs... and go out by... Nah. I have to leave in ten minutes. Guess I'm just gettting the leftovers out of the freezer. Ciao!

Today's Nugget

Ah, reality sets in. Here is the second "daily" nugget (the first one having occurred three days ago.... ::sigh::)

When I was teaching my kids phonics, I had a bit of a difficult time explaining the “wh” sound.  I mean, I “get” that it has an “h” sound in it, and a “w” sound, but it always sounded more “hw” than “wh” when I pronounced it and explained it. My daughter actually said to me that it ought to be spelled “hw”, but I didn’t know what to tell her.

This week I learned that in Old English, it WAS spelled “hw”. Sometime, when English was transitioning, “hw” was changed to “wh”, but the sound remained the same.

So, hwen English went from Old to New, some things were changed hwich affect our spelling. Let’s try to remember that hwen we are correcting our childrens’ spelling tests next time! J