May 16, 2008

I spent part of the day yesterday gathering online materials for our first try at summer school. I think I hit the jackpot. I found so many good resources that I decided to share them with you here.

Resources For Music Appreciation:

Ambleside Online Composer Schedule

Music of the Baroque

The Baroque Period From Capistrano School

Classics For Kids

Core Knowledge Lesson Plan: The Best of Baroque

Lesson Plans Page: Beethoven and Bach

National Core Knowledge Lesson Plans For Music

Core Knowledge Lesson Plan: Going for Baroque- a Study of Bach

Resources For Shakespeare:

Teachers First: The Plays of William Shakespeare

Folger Shakespeare Library Lesson Plans Archive

Core Knowledge Lesson Plan: Student Based Oral Reading & Presentation Study of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

Ambleside Online Shakespeare Rotation

Core Knowledge Lesson Plan: Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, and You!

Core Knowledge Lesson Plan: Twelfth Night, Or, What You Will...Learn!

May 11, 2008

Happy Mother's Day. Except for the terrible storm this morning, I am having a wonderful Mother's Day. Oldest son did not have to work today, so all my guys are home. Dear husband took me to Walmart last night and let me pick out an indecent amount of flowers. I picked out some annuals for my flower pots and a few perennials for my small rock garden and another little clump of flowers for up on the hill near the bee hive. I bought my mom two hanging baskets for her porch.

This morning we were watching CBS Sunday Morning. It has been one of my favorite shows for years. I called the boys into the living room to watch a segment on Neil Diamond. Both of our boys are really good at impersonations and voices and they both do a mean Neil Diamond. Better, than Neil Diamond himself! While we were waiting for the Diamond segment there was a segment on Mother's Day by a photographer that had photographed mothers and their children. While the pix were being displayed, Baby Mine was playing in the background. Baby Mine has always been my favorite lullaby. Instead of seeing the pix on the screen, my mind's eye was flashing visions of my boys when they were precious babies. They are both taller than me now, and I am happy and content with our life where it is at this moment. As I type this they are in oldest dear son's bedroom admiring his new iPod dock. They have always got along, despite being nine years apart. I can hear them laughing and talking and it is one of the sweetest sounds in the world. Hope you are as blessed as I am this Mother's Day.


Baby Mine

Baby mine, don't you cry
Baby mine, dry your eyes
Rest your head close to my heart
Never to part, baby of mine

Little one when you play
Don't you mind what you say
Let those eyes sparkle and shine
Never a tear, baby of mine

If they knew sweet little you
They'd end up loving you too
All those same people who scold you
What they'd give just for
The right to hold you

From your head to your toes
You're not much, goodness knows
But you're so precious to me
Cute as can be, baby of mine

Listen to melody here.

April 30, 2008

The Dogwood Arts Festival is held in Knoxville, Tennessee every spring. Several communities in the area have dogwood trails. You drive your car through, following the pink arrows painted on the road. The yards and sidewalks are full of dogwoods, red buds, crab apples, azaleas, forsythias, tulips, and daffodils, depending on what is blooming at the time.

One year, we drove down a particularly beautiful lane. We were surrounded by blooms and blossoms on every side. To make it even more special, many of the homes had antique cars sitting in the yards or on the curb. These are a few pix that I snapped that day. The fruit truck is my favorite. It was full of real fresh fruit.

April 19, 2008

Anytime we travel, our trips always include a trip to the "record store". If we are in Gatlinburg, we always go to the Rhythm Section. The Rhythm Section is the tiniest little store crammed full of audio cassettes, CDs, DVDs, and even some vinyl. The walls are covered from ceiling to floor with music. We have recently discovered another store for finding music gems: The Disc Exchange. We wandered in after youngest dear son's doctor's appointment and didn't want to leave. I never made it out of the Folk Section. I ended up buying two CDs.

The first one is Songbird, by Eva Cassidy. Here is a youtube clip of her singing People Get Ready. You can also hear it streamed here. Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page.

I also bought an Elizabeth (Libba) Cotton CD called Shake Sugaree. I first heard her sing on Austin City Limits. Being left-handed and not allowed to restring her brother's guitar, she learned to play by holding the guitar upside down. This means that she was also picking the strings backwards. She picks the bass strings with her fingers and the treble strings with her thumb. She has a very unique style.

This is what is written on the back of the CD which was produced by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings:

Elizabeth "Libba" Cotten (1895-1987) wrote her well-known song "Freight Train" at about age 11 and sang it nearly 80 years. Through her songwriting, her quietly commanding personality, and her unique left-handed guitar and banjo styles, she has inspired and influenced generations of younger artists. Cotten was declared a national Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment for the Arts in 1984, and was recognized by the Smithsonian Institution as a "living treasure". She received a Grammy Award in 1985 when she was 90. You can click here to hear Freight Train.

April 8, 2008

Today has went surprisingly well after a couple of rough nights and busy days. Youngest dear son has been sick and when he is sick we have to deal with high blood sugars and ketones. This time, however, he hasn't even had a trace of ketones. We have raised the dosage of the insulin he takes with meals to cover the higher numbers. Now that he is getting better we have to lower the insulin dosage back to what it was before he got sick. The tricky part is knowing when to do this. If you lower it too quickly, he will spike. If you don't lower it soon enough, he will go low. We had lows the past two nights and a nasty low at lunch today, despite lowering the breakfast dose by two units. I went ahead and gave his usual amount for lunch today, hoping that we can get back on track.

Yesterday, I took the time to go to the library. I picked up a couple of books on Shakespeare. I have finally gotten my courage up and this summer we are going to study some of Shakespeare's plays, starting with Twelfth Night. I also picked up Anne of Avonlea for youngest son and me to read, along with three books by Lois Lowry that I hadn't read. I read one of them, Gossamer, yesterday and I loved it. I really like her books. They are very easy for me to get into and read. She has a wonderful imagination. I will never forget reading The Giver for the first time. It is one of my favorite books. I may let youngest dear son read it soon.

On my way out I noticed that there was only one book in the "give away" stack that you usually find at the front door of the library. I figured that no one wanted it because it was so heavy. It weighs four pounds. Youngest dear son weighed it for me. The name of the book is Three Hundred Years of American Painting. The first painting in the book is dated 1690; the last is dated 1956. I thought it was truly a treasure to find a book like this, so of course I swooped it up and took it home. The whole family has enjoyed looking through it. It made me wonder if there are any famous American painters painting now. Anyone? Anyone?

I know it is a little late for this pix, but it is a long and boring story. Speaking of late, we woke up Sunday morning to discover that our VCRs had reset themselves forward one hour. We reset all the clocks in the house for Daylight Savings back in March. I guess someone forgot to tell the VCRs that it had been moved up a month. Still, they showed good effort and I like that in an electronic device.

April 7, 2008

Dear husband and I ran in Food City the other day and picked up a few groceries, otherwise known around here as "trading" or "going to trade". Not to be confused with "going to town". "Going to town" around here is usually referring to going to pay bills. If you have to do both you say, "I have to go trade and go to town today."

So, we are walking the aisles picking up what we can remember we need. This is not my regular trip. We have stopped after working at the shelter and I don't have a list. This is not good. So not good. I stopped taking anyone with me to trade years ago. I always go alone with a list, a hand full of coupons, and after a full meal. This time I had dear husband with me who has absolutely no concept of how high groceries are, or the fact that everything, not just gas, is sky high now. I had to be diligent in keeping expensive items with no nutritive value from making it into our buggy without being the "bad guy". It was hard.

We walked by the "Dollar Shelf" and noticed a lot of band aids. Dear husband works in the coal mines and his hands are in pitiful shape. Last week a rock fell on one of his hands from what is called a "rib roll". This is where the side of the mines just falls over into the work area, usually on a man. Back to the band aids...Every box was just one dollar. I know that band aids are very expensive, so I was surprised and pleased to see all of these for just one dollar. We bring our band aids home. After dear husband's bath that night he asked me to help him put a band aid on his finger. I get out the band aids and open them. Something is not quite right. They are much smaller than what I usually buy. We both get to looking at the box and well I'll be! These aren't Band-Aid brand band aids! How did that happen? They look like Band-Aid brand. They seem to be made of the same tough, brown material, but are much smaller. I wrap one around his finger and it works, but I can't help but feel duped. Not, that my powers of observation are that hot or anything. Unless I am working a logic puzzle or expect something to be off kilter, I just really don't pay that much attention to my surroundings, unless I am outside looking at nature. I will chalk this up as a lesson learned. I still think it should be against the law.


The "real" Band-Aid brand box.



Both products side by side. Impostor!

AND...

Long, but a good read. Nothing to do with band aids. :-)

April 4, 2008

Joy! Rapture! On my quest to relocate some of My Favorites, I remembered a wonderful online book that I had saved. I remembered that it was a wonderful book. I remembered how I felt when I read the first story in the book. I remembered wanting to share my find with the rest of the world. What I couldn't remember was the name of the book or the author. I did remember the site that it was on so I tried to search there. I had no idea where to look. Then I remembered that I had copied one of the stories and read it to my family as a devotion. I dug through the window seat for my big black three ring binder of all my treasures I have discovered on the internet and there was my story along with the title of the book and the author's name! The book is Parables from Nature by Mrs. Alfred Gatty. It is a real gem! Do not miss this one. Go right now and read the first story...I'll wait on you to get back.

While I am waiting, I will also let you know that you can read Understood Betsy and even Anne of Green Gables online. I know it is not the same as actually holding a book in your hand and curling up in your favorite reading spot, but isn't it breathtaking to know that someone has taken the time to see that these treasures are available for anyone that has internet service. Thank you. Whoever you are.

And now I will leave you with a question that has been puzzling me for quite some time now. Just what is "fancy" ketchup anyhow?

April 3, 2008

If you have ever watched Kentucky Wildcat basketball in the time that I have been on this earth, you have seen Bill Keightley. He had been the Wildcat's equipment manager since 1961. He passed away this week at the age of 81. He had served under six coaches starting way back with Adolph Rupp. My family did not watch a ballgame without looking for Mr. Keightley on the bench. You can read more about it here.

I am beginning to think that our computer is headed for another crash. Things just haven't been the same since we had a new hard drive installed. It is slower than it had been and I am not even talking about internet connections. I am talking about opening and closing windows, pages loading, the whole thing seems much slower and glitchy. It may be time for a new computer.

Since our computer crashed, I have been trying to relocate some sites that I had in My Favorites. Out of everything we lost, I miss My Favorites the most. Here are some of the better homeschool sites that I have saved:

Ambleside Online

Paula's Archives of Homeschool Advice

Donna Young

Garden of Praise

I work with a group of children at church and we recently started a boys club and girls club. I meet with them once a month for a character lesson and an activity. I met with the boys this week. I asked them what kind of activities they would like to do. Here are some of their ideas:

1. Make bacon. Evidently, boys really like bacon.
2. Forge sword blades out of steel. I don't think so.
3. Make model cars. OK, this is doable.
4. Bring light sabers and have a reenactments of scenes from Star Wars movies. Their grandmother vetoed this idea.

So next month, after our lesson, we will make bacon and model cars. They will be in hog heaven.

That's it for today. Toodles.

March 21, 2008

We just finished watching Amazing Grace, again, this time for school. Dear husband and I had watched it once before. We hadn't planned on having school today, but dear husband decided to go fishing, so I thought we would just go ahead and get another day in while he was gone. Youngest dear son is covering the British slave trade in World Studies so I thought of this movie. I highly recommend it. Oldest dear son, who is a history major, watched it with us and loved it. I also rented Enchanted, but fell asleep last night watching it. My guys all liked it and that is amazing in itself for a chick flick. I will finish watching it today. I was just too tired to stay up last night. The Amazing Grace DVD also has interactive study helps on the special features section. I am going to check into them after lunch today. We may just do a whole day of Amazing Grace. Youngest dear son would love that!

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the movie:

John Newton: Although my memory's fading, I remember two things very clearly. I'm a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior.

John Newton: [reciting his song] "I once was blind but now I see". Didn't I write that?
William Wilberforce: Yes, you did.
John Newton: Now at last it's true.

William Wilberforce: No one of our age has ever taken power.
Pitt the Younger: Which is why we're too young to realize certain things are impossible. Which is why we will do them anyway.

John Newton: God sometimes does His work with gentle drizzle, not storms. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Richard the Butler: You found God, sir?
William Wilberforce: I think He found me.

March 8, 2008

Here are some of the pix from Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies.

I finally got a decent pix of a lionfish. They seemed to be showing off in the tank during this visit.

Aptly named stonefish. He actually looks like he is made out of sand. He always just sits on the bottom of the tank.

And finally a decent pix of a barracuda. He was in the shark tunnel.

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

This one's name eludes me at the moment, but he held still long enough to get a clear shot.

The Land At Eden's Gate

There's a garden God is tending, where the fields are green and deep
With a harvest never-ending there, by waters cool and sweet
There a man can lay his burdens down, there a man can live in grace, oh,
I hope I see before I die, The Land at Eden's Gate.

Oh, the morning sky has broken, like the dawn at Eden's birth
And it lights the pine and meadowlark, and shines on God's great work
Oh, I'm leaving now and won't be back, won't you come with me this day, oh,
I hope I see before I die, The Land at Eden's Gate.
Oh, The Land at Eden's Gate.

May the children of your children, see the wild, rare primrose grow
Hear the gentle rain a-falling down, among these ancient groves
Oh, may angels watch it evermore, and protect its perfect state, oh
I pray they see before they die, The Land at Eden's Gate
I pray they see before they die, The Land at Eden's Gate.

To hear this beautiful song click here , then scroll down to the bottom of the page.
Homeschoolers, for An Instructional Guide For Music And Diaries From The Oregon Trail click here .