How to Read a Book...the Short, Short Version

I use an adapted form of Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book in my own studies, so I would like to pass this on to you as you and your students prepare for next year.

Mortimer Adler states that to really study a book, you need to read it at least three times.

1st Reading: first impressions.  Handshake of meeting with a new person in your life. Receive the book as the author intends, a work of art.  Enjoy it. Savor it.  But don't study it.

2nd Reading: study and analysis.  We take note of characters as they enter the story, we mark and look up unfamiliar words and phrases that we glazed over during the first reading, and we look critically at the author's use of language.  We keep a reading journal with a running list of characters along the left hand page and quick summaries, key events, and questions that occur to you while reading.  Alternatively or in addition to a journal, have a set of sticky flags or sticky notes nearby while you read.  Assign a sticky tag color to each aspect: characters, plot, questions, utter weirdness...whatever you wish to point out to yourself.  Reading like this during your second acquaintance with a book will aide you in the classroom or in dialectic discussion of any sort...including participating in the Great Conversation.

3rd Reading: for the joy of it.  Reminiscing with an old friend.  It may be years in the future, when their own child is reading these classics, but your student will return to these books in the future again able to receive them as a work of art but with the studied eye of a well-read statesman.

The Cast of my Summer Prep, in order of appearance:

Little Britches by Ralph Moody

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

A Gathering of Days by Joan Blos

Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

Crispin by Avi

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

At this point, I'm down to Crispin!  Yay!

"It's not right for a woman to read. Soon she starts getting ideas, and thinking...  "

Attack of the Blob!

Jump right into geography with one of my favorite exercises: the blob map.

This lesson is adapted from the geography section of the book The Core by Leigh Bortins --a great read. 

Geography is truly the easiest subject to teach classically, yet it is one of the most neglected of all the subjects in every methodology of education. All you really need is a map, drawing utensil, and paper. You can replicate a map with your finger and dirt if you needed to! Sounds like the crucial part of an exciting adventure story, huh?

Hopefully, this will inspire you to add the <10min exercise that is geography to your school day at home and you will be SO amazed at how well your student will be able to replicate a simple world map in just a few weeks!

Blob map:
1. Fold a piece of paper in half, hot dog style [landscape!].

2. Unfold and draw a line on the crease you just made. Label your equator.

3. This step can be done in one of two ways:
a) use a student atlas or atlas that has a picture of the world with the Great Circles labeled. Match your equator with the equator in the picture, then draw the Tropics and the Arctics.

b) (our choice most of the time at home) This works best with manila paper, but we've managed to use the year's supply up already and must use 8.5x11. First, fold the bottom edge of the paper up the distance from the tip of your finger to the first palm-side knuckle crease.

Keeping that edge folded, bring that fold up to the equator.

When you unfold it, you should have two creases that are roughly proportional to the actual lines the tropics and arctics make [the tropic line are closer to the equator and the arctics are closer to the edge of the paper]. Draw in the circles and label them. From north to south, Arctic Circle, Tropic of Cancer, Equator, Tropic of Capricorn, Antarctic Circle.

4. Using the Great Circles as a drawing reference and your world map, draw blobs to represent the continents. Encourage your child to make the blobs more closely resemble the actual continent each time they draw the map.

Here's my atlas boy blob-mapping away...

And my dear oldest knight who rushed through it but still gets the point across...

Blob maps can be used in conjunction with actual tracing--trace the continents first, then make rough ovals/blobs around them, or reverse it and draw your blobs, then trace directly onto your blobs and see how close you are.

Geography is the subject that most utilizes the basic drawing shapes used in our first quarter drawing lessons.  It is very gratifying to our students to watch their curved lines, angled lines, dots, straight lines, and circles slowly changing over the weeks into recognizable countries!

"Did you ever go to ---  I think it was called Norway?"
"No. No, I didn't."
"Pity. That was one of mine. Won an award, you know. Lovely crinkly edges."

Math Tricks...Divisibility Rules Rule!

Numbers are our friends, not foes!  Math need not be feared, my friends.  Mathematics is an amazingly beautiful language through which God communicates so much information about His Creation. 

We NEED to impart to our children an understanding of this amazing language of computation.  They must be well-armed to face life in this world full of this…

Number sense is the understanding of numbers and their relationships with each other using basic operations. In our house, rote memorization of the math facts is essential and required.  I also like for my kiddos to know some tips and tricks to spot factors and to work quickly when they are applying multiplication in their problems.

First, we need to master some basic number sense vocabulary.

In addition, the numbers that are added are called addends and the answer is the sum.

addend + addend = sum

In subtraction, we subtract the subtrahend from the minuend to find the resulting difference.

minuend – subtrahend = difference

Numbers that are multiplied are called factors.  The result is the product.

factor x factor = product

We divide the dividend by the divisor to find the resulting quotient. 

dividend / divisor = quotient

RULES FOR FACTORS AND TESTS FOR DIVISIBILITY

2	All numbers multiplied by 2 are even.	All even numbers are divisible by 2.
3	The sum of the digits of any multiple of 3 is 3, 6, or 9.	All numbers whose digits add up to a multiple of 3 are divisible by 3.
4	All multiples of 4 are even.	All numbers whose last two digits are divisible by four are divisible by four.
5	Odd multiples of 5 are odd and even multiples of 5 are even.	A number is divisible by 5 if the last digit is 5 or 0.
6	The sum of the digits of any multiple of 6 is 3, 6, or 9.	A number is divisible by 6 if it is divisible by 2 AND 3.
7		This one’s a bit tricky, but it does work: If you double the last digit and subtract it from the rest of the number and the answer is 0 or is divisible by 7, then the original number is divisible by 7. (Note: you can apply this rule to that answer again if you want) Really, it’s often faster just to check it the old fashioned way.
8		If the last three digits are divisible by 8, then the entire number is.
9	All multiples of 9 have digits that add up to 9.	If the sum of the digits is divisible by 9, then the entire number is.

This chart is required copywork for my 5^th and 6^th graders until complete mastery.  This, in addition to rote memorization, has been very helpful to them in computing faster.

Check out a much more complete list of algorithms on the Divisibility Rules wikipedia page.

Now, go teach your children math.  Be mean. Be cruel.  Be consistent.  Release your inner dragonlady.  Your child deserves to know what’s wrong with this…

To Macron or NOT To Macron...is it really a question?

I don’t use macrons.  This bothers some Latin teachers.  It bothers some of my students' parents as I tutor classes sans macrons.  Is it a big deal?  My opinion: no.  Just like pronunciation is not a big deal [control yourself...it really isn't].

 Many moons ago, I learned very quickly as a Latin newbie in college that macrons are not present in “real” Latin literature and publishings, and even had professors that mildly ridiculed the students who had spent years memorizing what macrons go where and when.  “Crutches that aren’t present in real research! Forget them ALL!” 

So…this is just something I continue in my own home.  As a part of our Latin studies at home, I have explained to my own kiddos the purpose and place for macrons and have the resources to pull off of my shelf [both ecclesiastical and classical] where they can see NO MACRONS!  AGH!  How so we tell the cases, etc, apart?!  A little thing called context and practice.  It takes a while, but it comes with time.

It’s up to you: memorize a set of rules your students may have an easier time working through Latin with or just say no to macrons they may come to use as a crutch.  No pressure!  It’s kind of by definition a First World Problem.

For elementary Latin, I tend to favor the programs published by Classical Academic Press.  I'm very excited about the gap between Song School Latin and Latin for Children being filled with this week's publishing of Song School Latin Level 2!  

Homeschool moms find happiness in the little things, I know.  

These programs are full of meat and potatoes, my kids love all aspects of them, and I don't get tired of the CD's.  What more can you say?  

Docendo, discimus.

Mr. Bach and the Harpsicord

This week in Classical Conversations, we are introducing our students to Johann Sebastian Bach and the harpsichord. 

The harpsichord was a keyboard instrument with both fantastic flexibility and bummer limitations.  It could not change dynamics, so composers camouflaged this particular limitation by cascading chords and notes quickly with a change in tempo to mimic how other stringed instruments and brass could vary their volume.  The harpsichords limitations stemmed from its design: the strings are plucked, not hammered.  When the player presses a key, a special piece of wood [plastic now] called a jack plucks the string.  Happy, happy, happy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71x4MSlpGUk#

It’s fun to see someone taking such joy in his harpsichords!

We cannot leave our Legomaniacs out of the classical music loop:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj9YntUiX80

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1ZB5pYohRs

The pianoforte [now cleverly shortened to “the piano” by those in the know] was revolutionary in that when a key was pressed, the pressure used by the player determined how hard or soft a hammer hit the strings.  This made amazing dynamics possible, and moved the main keyboard instrument over from the austere, arrogant string family to the way-cool, laid back percussion family.

Another plug for Classical Kids CD’s, Mr. Bach Comes to Call was the very first one to catch my family’s imaginations. We talked in class about the scope of the large Bach family.  They had a musical legacy that lasted over 300 years…longer than our country has been around.

http://www.dsokids.com/listen/by-composer/johann-sebastian-bach.aspx

Kids Classical Hour from WGBH has a great episode call "All in the Family" about composers with family legacy in the business.

Play that harpsichord, jack.

A Little Bit of Essentials Love

The purpose of this post it two-fold:
Fold # 1:
To share a bit of 4th and 6th grade language arts.
Fold # 2:
To see if I can work blogger from my way-cool Transformer.
The knights and I just finished our Daily Practice Sentence.  Using the Essentials program from Classical Conversations, we take a sentence through 6 analytical tasks everyday.
This is way more fun than it sounds...or than my 6th grader makes it appear. This picture actually makes me quite proud.  I survived middle school and high school with a novel on my lap under the desk.
Our finished analysis is best viewed on the big board.

This exercise included with grammar chart copywork and our current paper on what we would miss from modern times if we were whisked back into the ancient world (from the Ancient History Based Writing Lessons from Institute for Excellence in Writing) make a full morning of language arts. 
My younger knights participate off and on.  Today, one is doing handwriting and reading picture books at the table while we do language arts, and the other is running around in training pants and a Batman cape.  He added the blue writing to the bottom of Task 5 [translation: "Batman and Robin save the day."]
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to take Batman to the potty.

Our Current IEW Assignment

For the next two weeks, my heir and spare are working on a creative writing assignment from a prompt - a Unit VII paper in IEW.  They are determining things from the modern world that they can't live without and would miss terribly if God suddenly did a Bill & Ted on them, plopping them somewhere in the ancient world.

To stimulate their brains, we watched this TED Ed about the development of civilization, all wrapped up in 4 little minutes [I don't agree with every point of the thesis, but it made for great conversation and a good jumping point for brainstorming].

Pulling information out of our own heads and organizing it into coherent thought can cause many moms and students to hit huge wall in writing.  Ugh!  It is SO much easier to look at source material and regurgitate it.  Yes, it is. And it is a great set of skills to teach [see Units 1, 2, 3, and 4 for confirmation].  Yet, why are we ultimately teaching writing to our children?  Writing is communication.  Our children need to be able to defend their faith, stand up for what is right, and protect our grandchildren!

The purpose of this structure is paramount to our ability to communicate our thoughts and beliefs to others.  When this unit is mastered, our students will be able to write on virtually any topic in any forum, whether it be blue book exams, timed essays for standardized tests, answering prompts for writing contests and scholarships, or impromptu speech preparation [you know...like the time I was sitting in Olive Garden during college and my Unitarian friend leans over and casually says to me "...so, why do you believe Jesus is God's son?"].

I highly recommend registering an account at the IEW website and listening to the archived webinars, especially the one recorded recently by Andrew Pudewa entitled "Unit 7: Cure for the Blank Page."

The key to harvesting information from the vast and fruitful plains in our own heads is to ask ourselves questions.  Then, the key to successfully writing from a prompt is to...this is a shocker, I know...ACTUALLY ANSWER THE PROMPT.

We have to be mean about this.  Pull out your inner Dragonlady.  If the paper doesn't answer the prompt, your student has to start over.  If we guide them through this process now, they will be set up for success whether they are headed to a university philosophy class or a city council meeting to speak about landowner rights.

Unit 7 promises to be a most excellent adventure.

Classical Conversations Week 20 Ideas

DISCLAIMER: Please preview all resources before showing them to your children.  What I consider acceptable for my young men may not pass your inspection.

Foundations Week 20 of Classical Conversations finds us soaring through the layers of the atmosphere, learning about our neighbor to the south, and gettin' jiggy with one of my favorite mathematical constants, pi. We have tons of opportunity to know God and make Him known through our new grammar this week!

Orchestra:

As we ease into learning about the orchestra, it's advisable to introduce our dear cherubs to the instrument families through pieces of music that feature them.  My favorite go-to pieces for this task are to introduce the brass and percussion with Also Sprach Zarathustra by Strauss, well known to geekdom as the theme to 2001: A Space Odessey, and to introduce strings through Pachebel Canon in D.  Other families can be mentioned in passing as they are not important and quite annoying.  Yes, woodwinds.  I'm talking to you.  Brass is in the house, booooy.

Anywho...

It's also a great time to talk briefly about the timeline of instrument development through the boom of organized military during the age of monarchs which led to the development of bigger [and thus louder] artillery.  This meant that to communicate on the battlefield, the noble brass and percussion were no longer loud enough.  Thank you, war, for cursing us with the migraine-inducing piccolo.  Thank you.  It's the gift that keeps on piercing.

As instruments were developed, the aristocracy surrounding rising monarchies needed entertaining...after all, we are endowed by our Creator with a need for the arts of other human beings.   The intense need for the arts, however, often does not rear its powdered and well-coiffed head until we have the leisure time to enjoy it.

Consider the rise of the noble classes, and eventually the middle class, that led to the revival of theaters and permanent stages.  Entertainers were no longer all forced to live the troubadour lifestyle of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The best ones could stay in one place and have people flock to see them.  Larger venues meant larger stages that could hold more and more musicians.  We see a huge jump in the size of the orchestra from the Baroque to the Classical Period.  Check out the fantastic Dallas Symphony Orchestra's educational website for games, composer biographies, timelines, and more.

My kids also greatly enjoy Classical Kids CD's [check you library for them or talk your dear librarian into investing in them...let me know if you have trouble.  I am totally fluent librarianese] and the Kids Classical Hour.

Dealing specifically with this week's piece, this short program from Ted and Fred of NPR shares information about Handel and his Water Music.

New Grammar:

The history of Mexico is so fraught with danger, excitement, and imperialism!  The CrashCourse channel on YouTube has several episodes on Imperialism, Colonialism, and South America.  Lake Texcoco is important because the Aztecs built their city of Tenochtitlan on an island in the lake, then the Spaniards built Mexico City on top of the conquered city.  Scholars have used information gleaned from the archaeological sites at Mayapan to learn much of Pre-Columbian Maya culture: http://www.albany.edu/mayapan/

And Oaxaca is fun to say.

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/415

The wikipedia article has some beautiful pictures of the many cathedrals and churches in Oaxaca.  The city has some beautiful colonial architecture.  [Also, there are A LOT of restaurants in the world called Monte Alban.  Just try to google some archaeological information about it!  All I turned up were fine dining establishments.].

Chichen Itza is another big Mayan city.  The largest temple in it, known as El Castillo [“the castle”], is a famous landmark to show your kiddos.

Now for something completely different.  I love pi.  And pie.  I always enjoy applying a little pi with my children.  My favorite way to see pi in action involves something round and a non-stretchy string.  I find the circumference of the round object with the string, then show the children that the diameter of the round thing can be used to measure the circumference’s length.  It fits three times, with a tiny bit left over.  Does that ring a bell?  Three with a little bit left over?  3.14!

Rad.  

Do it.  Your mind will be blown. 

I'll wait.

Now, let's experience the layers of the atmosphere with a guy named Felix, shall we?  The atmosphere - not just an ocean of gases surrounding our lush, verdant world.  It is also a place where boys think up bigger and badder stunts to scare their poor mothers.  My kids have also been interested to learn about the aurora that occur in the thermosphere. 

 Enjoy your children every minute you can!  Delight with them in the gift of learning!

 

Open the pod bay doors, Hal.

I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave.

 

A Light Introduction

The Dragonlady is a autodidact married to a handsome, humble knight.  It is a strong, committed relationship that we have to care for and nurture daily. Our love is built on a foundation of Christ and a mutual appreciation for topically appropriate movie quotes randomly inserted into everyday conversation.

We have been gifted the heavy, heady, and messy responsibility of raising four sons to manhood in this haphazard, unchivalrous world.  As I type, the aforementioned progeny are all aged in multiples of three...which I am tempted to write a word problem for you to figure out.  I shall resist.

My life has been a constant search for information.  I love learning more than breathing.  As I try to develop the gift of teaching, I have learned the joy of sharing information with others.

We are striving to be sheep, not goats, as our Savior instructs in Matthew 25.  But I'm okay with that. Goat tastes much better than sheep in my opinion. Unless we're talking about the perfect MLT...you know...mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwich where the mutton is lean and tomato is nice and ripe.  They're so perky.  I love that.