Hemingway's Home and Cats! (Key West Excursion)

After separating from my daughter, sister, & niece, my mom & I headed to Hemingway's Home.

I was excited to see his famous polydactyl cats!!!

 

Here's a picture of his study which was upstairs in a little building by the pool. My favorite part was a piece of artwork that hung on the walls that showed a 'ghost' Hemingway, in his study, alongside some of his cats! The cats could 'see' him, even though he's a ghost.

Here's a tour guide, not ours, feeding one of Hemingway's cats.

The Hemingway house has approximately 50 cats, all of which carry the polydactyl gene, though only about half of them have the physical trait of having 6 toes (rather than 4 or 5). Hemingway was given a 6-toed cat by a ship's captain, and the cats are descendants of that original cat.

There's a cat cemetery on the grounds and each of Hemingway's cats are buried there. I was impressed that the guide (above - feeding the cat) said he knew the names of all 50+ cats!

And, just a self-portrait in a mirror in the gardens!

Book Review: Education of a Wandering Man

A few days ago I finished Louis L'Amour's memoir, Education of a Wandering Man. Louis left school in tenth grade and "began an earnest self-education stirred by a passion for books." His life, and thus the book, "is a story of an adventure in education, pursued not under the best of conditions. The idea of education has been so tied to schools, universities, and professors that many assume there is no other way, but education is available to anyone within reach of a library, a post office, or even a newstand."

Louis L'Amour's education included the reading of thousands of books. He traveled around the country and world finding work. And, in the process, listened to the stories the various people he met. Those travels and stories became the basis for his popular short stories and books.

Here is a terrific quote about education: "No one can 'get' an education, for of necessity education is a continuing process. If it does nothing else, it should provide students with the tools for learning, acquaint them with methods of study and research, method of pursuing an idea. We can only hope they come upon an idea they wish to pursue."

I enjoyed the book, though it seemed to ramble and be repetitive at times. I went to The Official Louis L'Amour website and read the section titled "brief biography." On page 6 of 6, it talks about Education of a Wandering Man. Here is a paragraph that explains the writing of this book:

"The summer of 1987 Louis caught pneumonia. In a few weeks he threw it off and was seemingly healthy until late fall, when he caught it again. The first round of tests showed nothing but ultimately a needle biopsy caught malignant cancer cells. Going back through the x-rays, doctors discovered a thin veil of cancerous material running throughout his lungs. Because the cancer was not localized in any one spot, surgery was not possible. He began his long postponed memoir, Education of a Wandering Man. As the disease progressed Louis moved his work from his office to a desk in an upstairs bedroom and ultimately into the master bedroom. He was editing the book the afternoon that he died. A few days before he passed away Louis was notified that sales of his books had topped two hundred million."

The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up

“All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, ‘Oh, why can’t you remain like this for ever!’ This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.” - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

As I was doing more research for our European trip, I came across some information about James M Barrie, the author of the Peter Pan books among other things. I was amazed by his story!

James M Barrie was born in 1860 and was the 9th of 10 children. When James was 6 years old, his older brother, David, died at the age of 13. David was his mother's favorite child, and as James grew up he found it difficult to compete with his brother, David, who was eternally age 13....a boy who never grew up.

After earning a college degree, Barrie moved to London to pursue a writing career. He had a Saint Bernard and would go walking in Kensington Gardens. One day, he met three young brothers. He spent more and more time with them and eventually became like a member of the family. He would make up stories to tell the boys, including two younger brothers later on. The stories centered around a charcter, Peter Pan, who never grew up. (One of the boys was named Peter.) In the stories, Barrie's St Bernard became the 'nanny', Nana. Barrie ended up adopting the five brothers when their parents both died within a few years of each other.
Barrie's first story about Peter Pan was published in 1902. In 1912, Barrie commisioned a statue of Peter Pan to be placed in Kensington Gardens, where he had first told stories about Peter. He died in 1937.

Samuel F B Morse - Inventor & Artist

As I've been debating on where to go over Spring Break with Alex, one of my thoughts was a return trip to Washington DC! We both loved it, we were comfortable getting around on our own, and there is so much more to see! One place we didn't see was the National Gallery of Art, and they currently have a special exhibition of Morse's painting, The Best of the Louvre.

We studied Morse way back in 2006, but the books we read about him only covered the telegraph. I hadn't realized that he was a painter before an inventor - or if I'd read that fact, I'd forgotten it. He was also a Christian who described his life work by saying, "'It is His work. “Not unto us, but to Thy Name, O Lord, be all the praise.” (Answers in Genesis has a great article about him here.)

The painting, The Best of the Louvre, showcases many pieces of art that were actually in the Louvre though they were not all in the same room. (Can you find the Mona Lisa?) In the center of the the painting you can see Morse looking over the shoulder of his daughter who is painting. Also pictured, in the left, is his friend and author, James Fenimore Cooper pictured with Cooper's wife and daughter.

In an interview with NPR's Susan Stamberg, author David McCullough said, ""It was an extremely ambitious undertaking because many of the paintings that he was copying were hung very high up. And so he had to build a movable platform, or scaffold, that he wheeled about the galleries of the Louvre to reach his subjects. And he and the movable scaffold became a tourist attraction themselves"

As to why the painting was created, David McCullough said, "There were no museums here, as yet, in the 1830s, and no color representations of paintings, so he was going to bring the culture of Europe — mainly the Renaissance Italian masterpieces in the Louvre collection — back to the United States for the benefit of his countrymen." (Quotes from the NPR site.)

As we also look forward to our trip to France this summer, I am really enjoying this painting! And, I'm looking forward to reading McCullough's new book, The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris. It is the story of Americans, from the year 1830 to 1900, who went to Paris to excel in their work - whether they were artists, authors, doctors, politians, etc.

P.S. Another great site about Morse and his art is found at the Terra Foundation for American Art website. www.terraamericanart.org under "collections".

Birdman of Alcatraz

In preparing for our trip to San Francisco and the Monterey Bay area, my brother suggested we watch Birdman of Alcatraz. The 1962 film stars Burt Lancaster and was filmed while the birdman of Alcatraz, Robert Stroud, was still living and imprisoned. He was in prison from 1909 until his death in 1963.

The film tells his amazing story and only about the last third takes place at Alcatraz. Much of the film describes how he became an expert on birds and their diseases, with only a 3rd grade education. I was amazed at Robert Stroud's level of dedication and learning while imprisoned. What an amazing story! And, there is a lot of "nature" woven into the story... you even get to watch a canary hatch! (And, though Alex and I really enjoyed it, I wouldn't recommend it for everyone. It does get violent at times and there are other parts you might want to monitor.)

Pi Day and Einstein's Birthday

We had fun celebrating Pi Day last year, March 14th (3/14). March 14th is also Einstein's birthday!This year, Pi Day falls on Sunday. We're going to be on the road for part of the day, so I'm not sure how much we'll get to do. But, I have some ideas!

• 
  
  watch BrainPop video about Pi (it is currently featured, so it is free!)
• 
  
  watch BrainPop videos about Einstein and relativity
• 
  
  make your own round pizza, cookies or pie
• 
  
  check out the history of Pi and activites & links listed at Exploratorium
• 
  
  make Kandinsky-like circle art like over at "Blog, She Wrote"
• 
  
  read Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi by Cindy Neuschwander

Those are just a few ideas. And, I'll leave you with some Einstein quotes I've posted before:

I am neither especially clever nor especially gifted. I am only very, very curious.

Love is a better teacher than duty.

Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.

Information is not knowledge.

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

Most people say that is it is the intellect which makes a great scientist.

They are wrong: it is character.

Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin"

So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war!

(quote of Abraham Lincoln upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe-1863)

Alex started an online history class Friday that uses 3 of Joy Hakim's books. We are starting our study with the Civil War and Hakim's 7th book, War, Terrible War (1855-1865). We are truly enjoying this wonderfully written book.

Chapter 3 in the book is about Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. We have been fascinated with this story and Alex really wants to read the book. I have never read it, but plan on getting a copy from the library and we'll see if we are really up to reading it or not. I would at least like to read it myself and perhaps share pieces of it with Alex.

We read A Picture Book of Harriet Beecher Stowe by David A. Adler. We always enjoy his books and this is a great picture book that gives you a quick overview of Harriet's life.

Tonight, I enjoyed watching this video by storytelling actress Paddy Lynn. She is dressed up as Harriet Beecher Stowe and you see clips of her first-person performance. I really enjoyed her show and would love to see it in person. I'll show this clip to Alex in the morning.

And, I found this video about Uncle Tom's Cabin while searching the internet. It is actually the one we watched with our class and I noticed that a lot of the photos are photos that are in Joy Hakim's book.

This class is going to be a lot of work for both of us, but we are already learning a lot!

MLK Day

We watched one-half of the History Channel's movie, King, today. We'll try to finish it tomorrow. We were both learning so much!

We spent the afternoon at a local park and ended up playing volleyball with a dad, his 3 kids, and 2 of his neighbor's kids (3 teens, an 8yo girl - perfect for Alex, and a 5yo boy). I played for 2 hours!!! I'm SORE, but it was so much fun!!!

Alex also watched a movie we bought several years ago called Our Friend, Martin. It's a wonderful cartoon story of Martin Luther King's life. But, as a warning, there are real clips of his life AND some violent clips showing how blacks were treated during this time. So, be prepared and watch with your child! But, we have both learned a lot from this show and Alex has watched it many times.

Lastly, here is a post I made when Alex was 5 that includes some books we read about Martin Luther King when she was younger.

"King" on History Channel - Sunday & Monday

Martin Luther King

Leader

Preacher

Dreamer

Revolutionary

Man

You might want to watch the History Channel's 2 hour special about Martin Luther King. It airs this Sunday and Monday. "Go beyond the dream to discover the man. An unforgettable 2 hour event."

Artful Thursday: Jackson Pollock

Last week, we did our 2nd "Artful Thursday." Our focus was on abstract artist Jackson Pollock. We read the book by Mike Venezia, "Getting to Know...Jackson Pollock." I also picked up the book "Action Jackson" from the library today, but we haven't read it yet. We also watched the YouTube video posted at Boys+ Academy.

Pollock is famous for spreading large canvases on the ground and dribbling paint. He had a very messy style of art, and we got messy trying to paint like Pollock - note Alex's new, blue hair!

Here's Alex's leg after we finished painting.

We tried 4 different ways of painting with tempera paints. In the above painting, Alex squeezed paint out right out of the bottles!

In this painting, Alex covered marbles in paint and rolled them around in a box.

In this painting, she used a stick to apply paint to the "canvas."

And, in this painting, she used a stick (skewer) to apply paint in a splattering motion.

Painting like Pollock is definitely a lot of messy fun!

MoMA Collection Online... and Our Next Trip...

We will be headed on our next trip soon... to New York City! One of our stops will be the Museum of Modern Art. Today, I was doing some research on some of the artists and pieces of art work that we'll see and I came across a link to MoMA on Barb's blog. I am using the site to print out some of the artwork we'll see and I'll be making a matching game.

But, YOU might enjoy this MoMA site to review art on your own! (I enjoyed 'testing' myself to see how much I've learned the past few years... I did pretty good! I'll be testing Alex next week.) You can go to the "Browse the Collection Online" section  and use the "browse filter" button to select "highlights." This button shows some of their most famous pieces of art! (Note: You might want to browse this site without your child as you never know what you'll come across!) You can also create your own account and make your own set of "collected works." This is what I'll be showing Alex instead of risking running into something I'd rather her not see. I think this would be a great review for anyone who has been studying artists.

(Photos are of 2 projects we did in the past relating to artists at MoMA: Jasper Johns and Picasso. Other artists we've studied that we hope to see artwork by include: Warhol, Lichtenstein, Nevelson, and Chagall.)

Artful Thursday: Cool/Warm Colors & Frank Lloyd Wright

This week, Alex and I started something I'm going to call Artful Thursday. I honestly don't know if I've heard of that term or made it up myself, but I thought it sounded like fun! This week, we spent the morning doing art, but I might change it to the afternoon.

We started by talking about warm and cool colors. We used water colors and Alex made this "cool color" painting of a bird and a squirrel.

                                    

I copied what Mrs. Smith did on her post at Art with Mrs. Smith (which is where I got the idea) and did warm flowers.

Next, we talked about Frank Lloyd Wright. We recently listened to the book on tape of Chasing Vermeer by Balliet. Now we're listending to the sequel, The Wright 3, which is about Frank Lloyd Wright. In the story, they talk about Wright's building, the Robie House in Chicago. They also talk about his "art glass" windows. So, when I saw this post by Barb, the Harmony Art mom, I decided we'd do our own "twist" to this project and make Wright windows instead! (You can look at Barb's post for step by step instructions... thanks, Barb!)

I did print out my drawings from the site she linked to, Chantal's Stained Glass. I found that with the black glue, you really need very basic patterns so I skipped a lot of the lines. Also, Barb used transparencies for her clear surface while I used page protectors, since that is what I had handy.

                                              

The photos of Wright's work that I found were very neutrally colored, so I tried to recreate that. Since then, I've found that he really did some colorful work! By the way, according to this site by Julie Sloan, Wright did not like his glass work to be called "art glass." During the late 1800's, a building boom spawned a retailing invention, the mail order catalog. By 1910, those catalogs offered what was called 'art glass' windows. They were cheaply made and so Wright preferred the term "leaded glass."

Here's another site where you can see quite a few examples of Wright's Leaded Glass. They give examples from 4 of his buildings. I found it really interesting that he'd stick to a 'theme' in each building, so the glasswork would be similar inside of that particular building! I like the balloon and confetti theme of the Coonley House.  I might have to try something more colorful like that! I also found it interesting that Wright was one of the most prolific stained glass designers. He designed possibly 4,000 windows or more!!!

I enjoyed working on this dolphin 'stained glass', too, though it isn't a "Wright stained glass." I need to finish this one! And, we really did have fun creating art!

Massachusetts Authors

While I was practicing the piano yesterday, Alex grabbed a "Which Way USA?" book off the shelf and started working. Of course, I had to join her. We both really enjoy these books which are filled with puzzles AND they teach you about each state - geography, landmarks, history, etc. We got a BUNCH (25?) of these books from Half Price Books several years ago for $1 each. We finished this one yesterday, but I know we'll work on another one today as Alex is SICK! So, we're just lying around right now... she's watching TV and I'm on the computer blogging and researching our next project.


So back to the book... one of the activities was a word search using the last names of famous Massachusetts authors. I was excited that Alex recognized quite a few of them and I was telling her about others. Then, I decided to "test" us and see who we recognized. In case you want to play along, here's the list:

Louisa May Alcott
Anne Bradstreet
William Cullen Bryant
John Cheever
Emily Dickinson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Benjamin Franklin
William Lloyd Garrison
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Henry James
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Amy Lowell
Herman Melville
Theodore Geisel, aka Dr.Suess
Henry David Thoreau
Phillis Wheatley
John Greenleaf Whittier

Here's Alex's list:
Louisa May Alcott - "Little Women" & "Little Men" (Yeah, Alex!)
Emily Dickinson - poet (Yes!)
Benjamin Franklin - wrote an almanac
Dr. Suess - The Me Book
Phillis Wheatley - she was a slave - wrote poems (I was the most excited that she recognized this lady! She said she learned about her from the Liberty Kids DVDs.)

My list:
Louisa May Alcott -"Little Women", "Little Men"
Anne Bradstreet - not familiar - looked up here - she was a poet in the mid 1600's
William Cullen Bryant - familiar - looked up here - poet & long time editor of New York Evening Post
John Cheever - not familiar - looked up here - novelist, but best known for short stories
Emily Dickinson - poet - wrote "I'm Nobody Who Are You?" - my high school English teacher's favorite poet :-)
Ralph Waldo Emerson - poet - looked up here - I should have remembered him more for his essays & philosophy of Transcendantlism, from the same English teacher
Benjamin Franklin - Poor Richard's Almanac, letters as "Silence Dogood"
William Lloyd Garrison - not familiar - looked up here - best known for radical abolitionist newspaper, "The Liberator"
Nathaniel Hawthorne - "The Scarlet Letter" (read in same English teacher's class) & "The House of Seven Gables" - I mainly remember this from SEEING this house while visiting Massachusetts as a child
Henry James - not familiar - he is primarily known for a series of novels portraying the encounter of America with Europe
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - poet - "The Children's Hour" - I LOVED this poem as a child and memorized it for a presentation - I can even remember the little red book I learned it from
Amy Lowell - not familiar - poet who won Pulitzer Prize for Poetry posthumously
Herman Melville - "Moby Dick" (I should have remembered "Billy Budd", too - we have an audio CD in the car) - I even mentioned "Moby Dick" yesterday!
Theodore Geisel/Suess - "Green Eggs & Ham"
Henry David Thoreau - "Walden" - same English teacher! (Oh, and I had her 2 years - 10th & 11th)
Phillis Wheatley - slave/poet
John Greenleaf Whittier- familiar - Quaker poet & a "Fireside Poet" - so now, of course, I want to learn about the Fireside Poets :-)

Overall, I was happy with what we remembered. But, I also realized that we are not learning much poetry or about many poets. So, I hope to fix that this year! We'll start by reading a book about Emily Dickinson I've had on our bookshelf - "The Mouse of Amherst" by Elizabeth Spires. It's about a mouse that lives with Emily Dickinson.

Expedition Africa - starts Sunday!

The History Channel will start a new, 8 part series called Expedition Africa this Sunday, May 31st. This series "retraces the 1871 journey of Henry Morton Stanley through the African interior in search of the famed Scottish explorer David Livingston."

This series looks amazing, though I will preview it as it also looks pretty scary. Four modern-day explorers attempt to retrace the steps of Stanley through the perilous African continent. There are video clips about the series at this link. And, there are lesson plans at this link. According to the site, this series would be helpful for "studying history, global studies, geography, social studies & world cultures."

If you have access to the History Channel, you might want to check this out! (Again, I haven't seen it yet so I would recommend previewing these episodes.)

Genghis Khan @ Houston Museum of Natural Science

A few weeks ago, we took a field trip to HMNS to see the Genghis Khan exhibit. Before we went, I'd found a website about Khan that Alexandra and I read through. Unfortunately, I've spent probably an hour looking for the site so I could post a link, but I cannot find it. We also read the book by Demi, Chingis Khan (which is an alternate spelling of his name).


I visited the HMNS site and realized they had lesson plans, but didn't understand how to pull them up. If you go to this site, you actually click on the words "Vocabulary" (this could be useful to anyone studying Khan), "Knowledge Hunt" (I WISH I would have figured this out before we went as it has 10 pages of questions you can fill out as you walk through the exhibit! It would also be a useful guide to anyone studying about Genghis Khan AND Marco Polo), and Extension Activities. Actually, I'm considering going again so I can use the Knowledge Hunt questions!

Where in the World? Eiffel Tower

This week, Alexandra solved clues #2 & #3 of Where in the World is Mrs. Waffenshmidt? I was happy that she solved both of them (King Tut in Egypt and Eiffel Tower in Paris, France) without even having to use the internet!

Besides finding the tower and the country for clue #3, you were supposed to find the name of the famous science fiction author who has a restaurant named after him on the 2nd floor of the Eiffel Tower. We had to look that up and found out it was Jules Verne.

(Above is a photo my brother, "the world traveler", took in 2008.)

We looked up Jules Verne to find out what famous books he has written. Among other things, he wrote Around the World in Eighty Days and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. We were so amazed as we had just started reading 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea the night before! This was also a reminder to me that we need to be discussing the authors as we read. When Alexandra was younger, we always read the title and author and illustrator names. This helped with her reading skills, but it also helped us to find some favorite authors and illustrators.

Lincoln's 200th Birthday

I just realized (through an email) that we will celebrate Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday on February 12th. I'd love to do something fun... and educational... for this day. I'm even thinking about getting a group together for President's Day.

Does anyone have any plans they don't mind sharing? :-)

Albert Einstein Quotes

One of our museums just opened an exhibit about Albert Einstein. Now, I'm in the process of trying to find some books or some activities to do to learn about this amazing man. While searching, I ran across Why Homeschool's blog which had listed these quotes attributed to Einstein: (By the way, if you have any ideas... let me know, OK?)

"I am neither especially clever nor especially gifted. I am only very, very curious."


"Love is a better teacher than duty."


"Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school."


"Information is not knowledge."


"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education."
 "Most people say that is it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character."

Having Fun with Andy Warhol

This week's Unplug Your Kid's theme was cylinders. I'd been planning on studying Andy Warhol and when I saw the theme I thought - "soup cans!" So, today we started a study of Warhol by reading 2 books about him and creating 2 pieces of art.


Our first "assignment" was to draw something that is a part of our every day life. Alexandra chose to draw Ovaltine (a cylinder) - something her and her cousin love to drink when they go to Grandma's.


I drew a modern "Healthy Request" can of Campbell's Soup... just like Andy.


We also tried to make some of his strangely colored portrait collages. We tried several mediums and couldn't find anything we could use to color ON Alexandra's face. So, we ended up coloring the background with markers. I still thought these turned out very neat looking.

If anyone's ever tried this (or knows of a way I can do it on my computer), I'd love to make these more colorful. I'd like to buy some watercolors and see if that would work.

We plan on studying more about Warhol this week... and making more masterpieces! So, if you have any ideas, please let me know!

Next week's theme: INSECTS

1st Day(s) of School

We started school Monday and are off to a pretty good start... though we are having to work around a house painter and running errands to Home Depot.


I meant to get our house painted during the summer, but we just got it arranged to start on Monday. So, we're living in kind of a mess... but an exciting mess! We've always had white walls and we are going to a fairly dark brown. I'm loving it!!! The first 2 rooms to be done are our master bedroom and bath. So, we're sleeping in the spare room and sharing Alexandra's bathroom.
So far, we've had 2 pretty full days of school. For history, we are reading 3 books about Benjamin Franklin. They are a Time for Kids biography, What's the Big Idea, Benjamin Franklin? and Ben and Me. We are enjoying and learning from all three. While I was reading, Alexandra drew a picture of Amos from Ben and Me.

Since we are studying about Benjamin Franklin, I thought we should study electricity for science. I actually have a book of experiments about Ben, but I just couldn't get into it. But, I found one of my science kits (I seem to collect them!) about electricity that we hadn't finished, so we got it out. We started by making a battery... and it worked! Then, we tried an electromagnet... and it didn't. I think it is because we used pennies that were post-1982. Did you know that "U.S. pennies made before 1982 are 95% copper, but newer pennies only have a 2.5% copper coating!" (from this website)

Alexandra has 2 new favorite subjects: Latin & composition.

She is really enjoying Latin for Children - especially the chants. And, she loves finding derivitives for the various vocabulary words. For example, we had the word "terra" which means "earth" and she came up with "terra cotta" and I came up with "terrestrial sphere" and "extraterrestrial." For "porta" which means "gate", she came up with "portal" from Cyberchase... the "gate" which takes them into Cyberworld.

For composition, we're using Andrew Pudewa's Teaching Writing: Structure & Style. So far, it is working great! We both think it is a lot of fun... and effective! For this first step, you basically write an outline and then tell the story back from the outline. I'll share a story she did today. I got the story from a sample of a Scholastic Magazine.

How Many Hurricanes? (retold by Alexandra)

Hurricanes are some of the biggest storms. The hurricane season is June 1 to November 30. Weather experts say that nine could occur this season.

Their winds have to be faster than 74 miles per hour. They can knock down trees, destroy and flood.

Each hurricane gets its very own name. More than one can happen at the same time. People like knowing their names so they can see which is on the news. Hopefully, not all the names will get used this season.