Poetry Month: A Different Kind of Book

My daughter's class is doing several things for poetry month:

1. They must read two books of poetry (Alex chose a book of poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and a Shel Silverstein book)
2. They had to choose a poet to study (actually, they submitted 2 choices and the poet was assigned - Alex got her 2nd choice, Longfellow - her first choice was Emily Dickinson)
3. The teacher is reading aloud the book Hidden by Helen Frost

Alex is loving this book, so I had to read it for myself. The story is a very unusual story about two girls, Darra and Wren. Darra's father is a car theif, and one day he accidentally 'kidnaps' Wren who is hiding in the back seat of her mother's car. The girls, who were eight when the kidnapping took place, are now fourteen years old and away at summer camp. And, they end up recognizing each other.

This is an amazing story! And, what throws a 'twist' in the writing is that it is written in poetry! You see the story unfold from both girl's point of view, and the poetry is written in a different form for each girl! This is free-form poetry and doesn't rhyme. And, at the end of the book, you'll find something else 'hidden' in the poetry.

Alex and I both recommend this unusual book of poetry!

Out of the Dust

The Dust Bowl. My husband's grandparents were children growing up in Oklahoma during that time. Yesterday, I talked to Grandpa, now 91,  about his experience.

(image from Wikiedia)

He said he was probably about 12 years old and he remembers they had a hard time making a living because there was no rain. It was "terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible." He said people were "going to California in droves", but no one he knew personally. They were "going to try to get work. They'd lost everything they had. Maybe they had a few dollars, so they headed to California and maybe on the way they had to find work." They'd stop for a little while and earn a little more money to continue on their way to California. "The dust was really bad," he repeated several times.

Watch Surviving the Dust Bowl on PBS. See more from American Experience.

American Exeperience has a movie called Surviving the Dust Bowl that is available online for free. It's an hour-long movie, but this clip is only about 8 minutes. They also have a Teacher's Guide, interviews, and much more!

(photo by Dorothea Lange - found at Wikiedia)

Of course, you can't forget the documentary photographer of the time, Dorothea Lange! She photographed migrants, many who had come from Oklahoma, and used those photographs to show how badly these people needed help.

I always recommend the books by Mike Venezia, and he has one about Dorothea Lange!

Once again, I recommend Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse. It's an incredible Newberry Award winner for Young Adults that left me in tears at times. It is a well-written, quick read that really helps you to exerience the Dust Bowl of the 1930's.

Historical Fiction and Nonfiction for Children

I am currently taking an online class called "Writing for Children". I'm not sure if I'll really do anything with it, but it is something that interests me. If I did ever try to write books for kids, I would probably do either historical fiction or nonfiction.

Since the best way to become a writer is to 'read, read, read!", we are sent to a library or bookstore for basically every lesson. The lesson I just completed was about historical fiction and nonfiction and I wrote a lengthy post about some of what I'd found during my trip to the library. I thought I'd share it in case it might get someone interested in one of the books I review or even gives them insight into the writing process. So, here's my post from class...

I spent a few hours at the library yesterday and had a wonderful time sampling historical fiction books for YA. My surprising favorite was Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse. Why surprising? Well, first of all, I didn't really care for the cover - just an old hoto of a girl in a hat. It looked kind of boring to me. And, secondly, I opened it and discovered it was all written in poetry! Not rhyming poetry, but definitely set up as poems. But, I started reading and was pleasantly surprised!
The topic of the book is the Oklahoma Dust Bowls. I grew up in Oklahoma, so this is a topic I am personally interested in! My husband's grandparents, in fact, lived on farms in Oklahoma during this time. (And, I'm going to have to ask them about it!)

So, the story is told from the point of view of a 13 year old girl named Billie Jo. She gets upset because some of the neighbors are having a contest to see who can kill the most rabbits because the rabbits are damaging their crops. But Billie Jo says that "grown men clubbing bunnies to death" makes her sick. But, she's glad they gave the rabbit meat to families that really needed it.

Later, she's asked to play the piano for an event, and she dreams of going to DC someday and playing for President Roosevelt. And, another section talks about meal time...how they set the table with the plates and glasses upside down and the napkin over the silverware and they don't turn them over until the last minute - to keep the dust away, of course! But, Daddy comments that the "potatoes are peppered plenty tonight" and likes his "chocolate milk" for dinner, when really they are both just the result of dust.
The book tells a lot about the dust bown and what life was like for a young girl at this time. And, it is probably a quick read with the short, poetic type chapters that read easily. I'm going to finish this one!

The YA nonfiction book I chose to read was An American Plague: The True & Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793. Wow! This is an incredible, true story by Jim Murphy and he did a LOT of research! The back of the book includes 13 pages of "sources", many of them with notes! The sources includ books, newspapers, magazines, personal journals, and letters. I liked that he accomplished his research without any interviews...a process that I'm a little intimidated by!
I think the story reads like fiction...just so smooth and you really get into the lives of the 'characters!' It is not stuffy or factual, though filled with researched facts. He includes quite a few quotes, often short ones like a description by a doctor saying the rash "resembled moscheto bites." It makes the story so much more 'real'! And, of course, it is a realy story!
Since nonfiction or historical fiction is what I'd probably like to write, I really loved this lesson. So, I'd love to talk about two more things....

First, I am listening to a lecture series about cathedrals and requested an ILL book at the library for David Macaulay's Cathedral book. I accidentally got a copy of "Building the Book Cathedral." Well, the book tells about how Macaulay wrote the book! His FIRST! It talks about going to a children's publisher with an idea and two drawings...and how they got excited about a totally different story than the one he'd presented. And, he went with it! The story of building a cathedral. Macaulay actually took half of his advance and headed to Paris to do some research. He shows his sketches, his drafts, his first submitted manuscript (which he said looked like a "war casualty" when he got it back.) I think this is a great book to see the process a first-timer went through in getting published!

Lastly, I went to the children's area and found four books that looked intersting by Kelly Milner Halls, one of the authors mentioned in this lesson. The books are "Mysteries of the Mummy Kids", "Albino Animals", "Dinosaur Mummies", and "Tales of the Cryptids."

The first one I opened was the book about dinosaur mummies. The first page is an introduction in which Halls talks about growing up in Friendswood, TX as a little amateur naturalist. She loved finding anoles and watching their tales grow back! Years later, when she was at her first natural history museum, she saw the dinosaur skeletons that reminded her of the lizards she loved as a child. When she grew up to become a writer, she said, she "got lots of chances to dig dinosaur bones with paleo-experts."

At the back of the book, she gives mini-bios of some paleontologists and a lengthy list of resources for kids (or adults!) to look at if they are interestd. Then, she also gives a bibliograhy with a list of books, articles & websites, and "personal interviews and correspondence" that she used to create the book! That's a lot of research!

P.S. I also visited David Macaulay's site and watched a talk he did on TED called "All Roads Lead to Rome Antics", which is the story of how he created his Rome Antics book (above). I thought this was a great video for an aspiring author to write as it gives a lot of insight to all of the ideas he considered and trashed.

I am also watching a video based on David Macaulay's Cathedral book (embeded above). This is a wonderful movie about cathedrals which goes back and forth between the storybook world of Macaulay's Cathedral and real cathedrals with narration by David Macaulay himself. In the cartoon world, there is a great visual of how the heavy arched roofs were made and another section showing how the stained glass windows were created. Although the video is a little grainy, it is a wonderful addition to anyone wanting to learn about cathedrals! And, I believe you can borrow the same video from your library and the quality might be a little better.

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.

Elements of a Story

We will be finishing up most of our subjects in about 2 weeks! Alex is taking both an online history and an online writing class and those will not finish until mid-June. But, I have been busy making plans for next year. One thing I realized we need to study (though we covered it some last year in Classical Conversations) is the elements of a story. So, I started by going to Google Reader so I could look through the blogs I follow. This always turns out to be so useful! My first 2 "hits" were a post by Free Technology for Teachers (yet again!) and Jimmie's Collage.

Free Techonology pointed me to a neat site by Lerner:

http://www.educationalrap.com/song/characters-setting-plot.html

Mr. Barrington's Mysterious Trunk

A dizzy feeling came over Hannah. She watched helplessly as the threatening funnel spun around and around them like a top. As the smoke completely enveloped them,one last bang of thunder shook the school. The box she was holding crashed to the floor as Nick and Jackie vanished! All at once, everything turned black.Hannah was no longer in Mr. Barrington's classroom.

And the adventure begins...

We are reading a new series of books about Texas history which has us begging for "one more chapter" each day. The series, entitled Mr. Barrigton's Mysterious Trunk, is by award winning author Melodie A. Cuate. The four books in the series are: Journey to the Alamo, Journey to San Jacinto, Journey to Gonzales, and Journey to Goliad.

The story reminds me of the Magic Tree House series, but for older children. In the first book, best friends Hannah and Jackie have just started seventh grade and they have a new teacher, Mr. Barrington. He brings out a mysterious trunk and challenges them to "choose an event in Texas history and become part of it." When he opens the dusty trunk, it is full of books and magazines about Texas. After school that day, the two friends return to the classroom to look in the trunk. Hannah's brother, Nick, joins them and helps them to open the lock. When they look in the chest, it is now filled with memorabilia and figurines regarding the Alamo. Suddenly, there is a crash of thunder and a swirl of dust and the 3 children are transported back in time to the Alamo just days before that fateful battle.

As the children get to know the people of the Alamo fame, the reader learns the history of that important time in Texas independence history. You join the 3 children and become "part of" this historic event.

The second book, the one we are reading now, is about the Battle of San Jacinto where Texas wins its independence. In this book their teacher, Mr. Barrington, is missing. In order to help him, Hannah knows she must go back into time again. Mr. Barrington's niece, Ms. Barrington, joins the 3 children on this adventure.

The third book is titled Journey to Gonzales. In this book, Nick will go back in time to try and alter history and save a friend he met in San Jacinto. Meanwhile, the girls try to stop him from this mission of history alteration. But, they end up in a Mexican camp and learn about life in the Mexican army.

The final book (though I don't know if more will be published) is titled Journey to Goliad. This book is about the massacre at Goliad and I think I'll have to preread this one.

As you can tell, these are exciting, well-written books that teach a lot about Texas history. Even if you don't live in Texas, I think you and your children would find this series captivating and educational.

As an interesting side note, I went to Google Reader to search the posts. I know I read about these books on someone's blog. Anyway, I couldn't find where anyone had posted about them (though if any of you did, please let me know!), but I found a post I'd made about "Barrington." It was a post I'd titled "Birthplace of Texas." Two years ago, we went on a field trip with one of our homeschool groups and visited 3 places related to Texas history. One of them was a working historical farm called Barrington Farm.  Barrington Farm was the home of Dr. Anson Jones, the last President of the Republic of Texas. "Barrington" is named after his birthplace, Great Barrington Massachusetts. I wonder if this is just a coincidence?

Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night"

Sunday night we went and saw a production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night put on by a group of teenage homeschoolers.

To prepare ourselves, Alex and I read Charles and Mary Lamb's version of Twelfth Night from Tales of Shakespeare which you can download free here. I know it is a book used by many who follow Charlotte Mason's teachings, but this was the first time we've used it. I thought it was a great retelling of the story. It took about 30 minutes to read.

A few nights later, we read Twelfth Night for Kids by Lois Burdett. We continue to enjoy this series which includes letters and drawings by Ms. Burdett's young students, many who are 7 to 9 years old.

We had never been to this particular theater and enjoyed the intimacy of the small room. They had a full house (it seats 99) and even had to move in extra chairs.

Twelfth Night is a comedy about a male and female twin whoo are shipwrecked and separated. Each twin believes the other is dead. The female, Olivia, ends up posing as a man to make a living. It is a complicated story of misplaced love. Olivia falls in love with her boss, but he thinks she's a man. The lady he is in love with falls in love with Olivia, thinking she is a man. It is a complicated story which finally untangles at the end.

I also want to remind you of Jimmie's "Shakespeare for Children" Squidoo. She has lots of great ideas, links, etc!

Lessons with Anansi at Story Cove

Today I substituted in one of my daughter's classes. The class is using Story of the World and this week's chapter was about Ancient Africa and included 2 stories about Anansi the Spider.

As I was preparing for this class, I found a site called Story Cove. You need to register, but this site is FREE! They have online cartoon videos of various stories, including a handful of Anansi stories. The stories are sorted by continent, with most of the stories come from Africa and Asia.

The site includes an area for kids to print off coloring pages, mazes, etc. And, it has free LESSON PLANS! Though the plans are mostly for kids in grades PreK-3rd, I found they worked well for my class of 4th & 5th graders. And, the kids REALLY enjoyed the videos! (We ended up watching 4.)

After doing some mapwork of Africa, we watched the video of Anansi & the Pot of Beans. Using the Lesson Plan, we covered:

• similes
• friendly letters
• cause & effect
• acrostic poems

Here's another sample of lessons from Anansi & Turtle Go To Dinner:

• cooking
• verbs
• fact vs. opinion
• proverbs
• onomatopoeia 

It's a great site I've never heard of before, so I thought I'd spread the word. Check it out!

The Goose Club

A few days ago we finished reading the unabridged story of Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Last weekend, we were watching Twas' the Night Before Good Eats in which Dickens ghost shows up and teaches Alston Brown about Christmas in his time. (It'll be on again Monday and Tuesday!)

One thing they mentioned was that the Cratchit family probably belong to a Goose Club. A Goose Club was where a worker contributed part of his weekly wages to a local "club" to reserve a goose for the family on Christmas. The following interesting explanation is from this Learning English site:

Around Victorian times another traditional Christmas feast was roasted goose or roasted turkey. In Victorian times, most Londoners would have been familiar with the "goose club", which was a method of saving to buy a goose for Christmas. Goose clubs were popular with working-class Londoners, who paid a few pence a week towards the purchase of a Christmas goose. The week before Christmas, London meat markets were crammed with geese and turkeys, many imported from Germany and France, although some were raised in Norfolk, and taken to market in London. The birds were walked from Norfolk to the markets in London, to protect their feet the turkeys were dressed in boots made of sacking or leather and geese had their feet protected with a covering of tar. The traditional Christmas goose was featured in Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol'.

To continue with our "Dickens Christmas" theme, we read Charles Dickens: The Man Who Had Great Expectiations by Diane Stanley and Peter Vennema. It is a wonderful book describing Dickens life. Alex LOVES Dickens and is ready to read another book by this great author!

Update: Another great book about Dickens is Stand Up, Mr. Dickens: A Dickens Anthology. This book goes back and forth with a chapter about Dickens life written by Edward Blishen followed by a long excerpt from one of his novels. Books excerpted from include: Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, Christmas Carol, Dombey & Son, David Copperfield, and Great Expectations.

A Christmas Carol

Yesterday, my mom, sister, daughter, niece & I went to see Disney's new version of A Christmas Carol. (At the link, you can learn more about the film, see clips, images, and even play a few games!) It was a great movie, though pretty scary.

As I sat watching it (my mom & I went to the 2D version while the others saw it in 3D), I remembered the play my sister and I had been in when I was about Alex's age. I played one of Tiny Tim's sisters. (If my mom can find a photo, I'll post it!) Anyway, I was amazed at how I was remembering so many of the lines from the opening scene!

Last night, my niece (11) found a copy of A Christmas Carol at my mom's house. My sister offered to read it for awhile as a bedtime story. We all sat around the living room listening to her... she's a wonderful reader! Anyway, I was really surprised at how closely the movie followed the book - most of the time it was word for word!!!

We only read about 4 (of 47) pages in 20 minutes. They are long, hard pages... but very enjoyable! We had a few questions, like why did it say "Stave 1" instead of "Chapter 1?" And, when Scrooge was talking with the two men collecting for the poor, what was the Treadmill?

I got online today and found The Annotated Christmas Carol  which answered both of my questions. It is called a "stave" (an archaic term for staff, a stanza of a poem or a song) instead of a "chapter" because Charles Dickens wanted to continue the "pretense of his story being a 'Christmas carol in prose.' And, the Treadmill was "a mill operated by persons walking on steps fastened to the circumference of a great and wide horizontal wheel." It was a form of criminal punishment. You can see a photo of one here.

Then, today, I was at a homeschool store and came across a barely used copy of A Christmas Carol: The Whole Story. It is an unabridge version with wonderful illustrations and lots of background information, though much less than the annotated version. Many of the illustrations look surprisingly like those found in the Disney movie!

Another great website is found here with more information about Dickens here. This page on the same site is about Dickens & Christmas.  Fascinating reading!!!

I'm excited to be learning about Dickens & A Christmas Carol with my sister & our girls. I bought the girls each their own Dover verion today, too. And, you can find online versions at sites like this one which unfortunately uses the word "chapter" instead of "staves."

So, I hope you find a way to enjoy the classic "A Christmas Carol" this holiday season!

Book Review: "The Teacher Who Couldn't Read"

There's an epidemic in America. One that is stealing the future of our nation's children. One that is suspending millions of adults in childhood. It's name: illiteracy."

Those are the opening lines of this video, John Corcoran: Illiterate Life Story. I recently read this book about John, an illiterate adult who learned to read near his 50th birthday. The story of The Teacher Who Couldn't Read: One Man's Triumph Over Illiteracy is John's story about his struggle with illiteracy. We follow him through elementary school where he sat on the 'dumb row' to high school where he learned to cheat. And, amazingly, we follow him through college and his years as an illiterate teacher. He was even able to hide his illiteracy from his wife, until the day she overheard him trying to read a story to their 3-year-old daughter.

Throughout the story, the pain of illiteracy is gripping. I remembered the children from my own childhood who were part of the 'dumb reader's' group. The kids who the teacher's gave up on. I even thought of some of the trouble makers, both who were my fellow students and students while I taught, and wondered if some of them were in the same position as this young boy - incredibly bright, yet struggling to cover up their own illiteracy.

You can visit the John Corcoran Foundation site to learn more about John, illiteracy, and what we can do to change this epidemic.

Wonderful "New" Blogs

Yesterday, Jill at "History for Children" posted a comment on my blog. So, I went over to her blog to have a look. I love her blog! I actually went through the entire blog in one night!

One of her posts is about a new site that has over 11,000 educational videos. It's called WatchKnow. It links to videos on other sites of the web, but they are pretty well categorized. Alex and I watched a video 'field trip' to the Money Museum in Colorado last night. And, they have A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving posted in 3 parts! 

When I really like a blog, I enjoy seeing what that person is reading. You never know when you'll run across another blog you love. And, I wasn't disappointed when I looked at Jill's blogs and came across I.N.K.: Interesting Nonfiction for Kids. This is a blog whose posts are written by children's authors like Loreen Leedy and David Schwartz. Among other things, they talk about their books and speaking in schools.

I really enjoyed the Metric Musings post by David Schwartz, author of Millions to Measure, and Letters...We Get Letters by Susan E. Goodman, author of the Ultimate Field Trip books I just recently heard about and am trying to get from the library.

I hope you enjoy these 2 "new" blogs as much as I am!

Book Review: A Pearl in the Storm

I read this wonderful book a few weeks ago. It is called A Pearl in the Storm: How I Found My Heart in the Middle of the Ocean by Tori Murden McClure. I could not put this one down!

The author, Tori, writes about her two stormy trips across the Atlantic Ocean... in a rowboat! She even survives a hurricane, though she is battered, bruised, and beaten in the process. Her spirit is incredible. Her education is remarkable. And, this story is a wonderful real-life adventure where those of us who would never dream of such an undertaking can catch a small glimpse of what it would be like.

As You Like It

We LOVED seeing A Midsummer Night's Dream Friday night - all 3.5 hours of it! It really helped that we knew the story beforehand. Tomorrow, we have a chance to see As You Like It. I went back to Jimmie's Shakespeare for Children Squidoo site and watched the BBC videos (below). We also made the Shakespeare doll she had linked to (above). It is from the Toy-A-Day site. Isn't it cute?

I would like to watch a movie production of both A Midsummer Night's Dream and As You Like It. Does anyone have any recommendations? I'm wanting something child-friendly. Thanks!

A Midsummer Night's Dream

We have a chance to go see A Midsummer Night's Dream this weekend. It is being performed by a local group of high school homeschoolers (who use Tapestry of Grace). We 'studied' this Shakespeare play several years ago, but we are busy refreshing ourselves!

We are reading A Midsummer Night's Dream for Kids by Lois Burdett. I still love these books!

I've also been looking at Jimmie's Squidoo site, Shakespeare for Children. It is loaded with information about Shakespeare, so please check it out!  On the site, she has some nice, animated versions of Shakespeare's plays. Alex and I watched these before, and I thought I'd add them here for easy access. I'm looking forward to this play and we're ready to study more Shakespeare!

Messages in the Mailbox: How to Write a Letter (Guest Post by Alex)

I liked this book partly because I love animals and half of the characters are animals. The book is almost18 years old but the pictures are good. There are examples of letters and the page with the headline "congratulations" has really funny letters. Here is one of the funniest things written to a new mommy elephant.

Dear Ellie,

Congratulations on your new baby. His picture is cute! I'm sure he will grow into his ears. See you soon.

Best wishes,

Alice

I suggest you read this book. - Alex

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.

Unplug Your Kids: Slippery

This week's Unplug Your Kids challenge was "SLIPPERY." I had trouble thinking of anything except for slippery soap. I remembered I had bought some Ivory soap quite a while ago as we were studying whales for our Swimming Creatures co-op. We were hoping to use it to make some scrimshaw like the whalers used to do.

When we went to Maui a year and a half ago, Alex and I spent quite a bit of time at a whaling museum. At the museum, we bought some scrimshaw Christmas ornaments (which I couldn't find this Christmas!) Whalers would carve into bone and teeth of whales (and sometimes other body parts) to make beautiful etchings. Well, I read that you can try to do your own "scrimshaw" using Ivory soap.

Ivory has its own site, with patterns, showing you how to carve the soap. We really enjoyed it and it was challenging, but I thought it turned out well. I used one of the patterns while Alex created her own design.

BOOK REVIEW: I've also been meaning to mention a book I read about whaling while in Maui. The book is In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick. (He also has a juvenile version titled Revenge of the Whale: The True Story of the Whaleship Essex, which is also available on CD.)

The book tells the amazing story of the whaleship Essex which was attacked by an angry whale. It sunk and the crew did everything they could to survive, even taking the most drastic meaures. In the end, only a few of the crew survive the 90 days at sea. The book is indeed intense and mezmerizing and this true story inspired Herman Melville to write Moby Dick.

Book Review: Parallel Journeys

I recently finished an amazing book called Parallel Journeys by Eleanor Ayer. The book follows the young lives of Helen Waterford and Alfons Heck, who were born near each other in Germany. But, Helen was Jewish and Alfons was Aryan or non-Jewish. Helen ended up in hiding and then in a concentration camp during WWII while Alfons became a high ranking leader in the Hitler Youth. This story tells their amazing stories, side-by-side.

Alfons Heck later regreted the life he had lead. He felt that because of their age, millions of German youth had been brainwashed by Adolf Hitler. Millions of these Hitler Youth died fighting for their beloved Fuhrer. In his later life, Alfons became a journalist and wrote about his experiences as a Hitler Youth leader. Helen Waterford read one of his articles and contacted him and they eventually joined forces and spoke about their experiences at high schools and other settings.

I found the quote by Alfons Heck at the beginning of chapter 1 to be incredibly powerful:

Unlike our elders, we children of the 1930's had never known a Germany without Nazis. From our very first year in the Volksschule or elementary school, we received daily doses of Nazism. These we swallowed as naturally as our morning milk. Never did we question what our teachers said. We simply believed whatever was crammed into us. And never for a moment did we doubt how fortunate we were to live in a country with such a promising future.

I did not have Alexandra read this book, but I will one day. It is a powerful story showing both sides of this horrible time in our history. Especially in light of last week's events at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC, I found the very last quote of the book very powerful, too. It is actually on the wall of the Hall of Remembrance at this museum (which includes some of Helen's story):

Only guard yourself and guard your soul carefully,

lest you forget the things your eyes saw,

and lest these things depart your heart all the days of your life.

And you shall make them known to your children

and your children's children.