Wild Oak Academy

Week in Review: 01/13/12

2012-01-13T15:43:00.001-06:00

I haven't blogged in quite awhile because the first semester of our year didn't go very smoothly. Somewhere early on, J decided that school was "boring" and simply stopped doing much of his work, despite my every effort to motivate him (I've tried both rewards and punishment, to no avail). My two boys in public school made a similar decision (finding our new school district too hard/overwhelming), so I've had a real problem on my hands and no clue what to do about it.

My highschooler has been begging me to homeschool him again, but I'm full of reservations about this because if he won't do his school work now, what will change at home? I'm not sure I can handle another rebellious student at home, day in and day out. Also, I'm simply not prepared to homeschool high school yet; the mere thought sends me into a panic!

Now, it's a new semester, and I'm full of optimism that things will improve - they simply have to. Perhaps I'm being delusional, but let's hope not. My goals for this semester are simple: a greater emphasis on writing, getting J to do ALL his schoolwork in a timely manner, and grading assignments the moment they are done. (I did great with this last goal all week and, my oh my, does it make it life easier!)

Langugage Arts

Literature:

For literature, M has been reading books from this list that I compiled (though she is not going in chronological order), in conjunction with activities from my "reader response cards." Over winter break, she was on an Elizabeth Goudge kick - her favorite author, thus far.

This week, she read Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome. She enjoyed it tremendously it and requested the remaining eleven books in the series. Unfortunately the second book, Swallowdale, appears to be out of print. We ordered a used copy, but in the meantime I started her on the third book, Peter Duck: A Treasure Hunt in the Caribees.

J did not get anything done in literature this week, though I'm hopeful there will be something to report next week.

Grammar:

We've reverted back to Voyages in English for grammar - simple (for me) and effective, tried and true. This week they continue a study of verbs: verb phrases, regular and irregular verbs, "troublesome" verbs, transitive and intransitive verbs, completing one lesson of two to three exercises per day.

Writing:

We're on Week 9 of Writing with Skill and I'm really loving it. The kids merely tolerate it, but I can already see the improvement it's made in their writing. This week's exercise on "space and distance words and phrases" did cause some stumbling, but otherwise things went well enough.

We also added The Creative Writer by Boris Fishman to our schedule for the first time, designed as a supplement for Writing with Skill. The kids had requested creative writing, so this seemed a good solution, though it is only one day per week.

Science

I've officially given up CPO Life Science this year. After the bumpy start we had, it just never really worked for me (or for M). So now, without a back-up plan in place, I'm essentially winging it for the remainder of the year.

This week, we embarked on an eleven week study of Real Food, Nutrition and Health from Food Renegade, used in conjunction with the excellent (free!) discussion guides from Gnowfglins. The way I've scheduled it, we'll spend roughly three days per week on health/nutrition. On Monday, we begin by watching a documentary - this week it was Food, Inc. (since M hadn't seen it), along with this worksheet. Generally though I've tried to align the documentaries with our reading schedule. On Tuesday, we'll read a chapter from Real Food... and go over the activities and discussion questions for the chapter. Finally, on Wednesday we'll work on the activities (though some are designed to be done over several days).

Thursday and Friday are free days for the kids to pursue something science-related on their own. For example, this week M chose to read about squirrels and write a brief (one-page) paper on them. J never got around to doing anything, because he was still muddling his way through other work, though he did read up on this week's American Astronomical Society report on the potentially billions of other Earth-sized planets in our galaxy.

Math

Math has been blissfully uneventful, M completed one lesson per day from Teaching Textbooks, in addition to a chapter quiz. She's never gotten less than 95% on any assignment, so it's going very well for her.

French

French was review this week, at M's insistence. She wanted to make sure that she remembered everything we've learned so far this year before proceeding. So far, so good, though she's far better at translating written material than actually speaking in French - we'll need to practice this more in the weeks ahead!

History

In history this week, we began Chapter 12 of American Republic and embarked on our Lowell Mill Girls Study Unit. We're way off schedule in history, thanks to J's constant refusal to finish assignments, so will have to really pick up the pace this term.

I'm not sure what I was thinking when I scheduled this unit, but the reading this week has been intense: 3-4 chapters of Lyddie per day, in addition to comprehension questions, plus the regular textbook reading and workbook assignments. It's been A LOT, but M has handled it valiantly.

Not done this week: Religion, Art, Vocabulary and Geography - yikes!

Quarterly Report: 1st Quarter 2011-12

2011-11-17T23:29:00.007-06:00

Since I haven't posted a weekly report in forever, I thought I'd try to at least summarize our first quarter. All things considered, it wasn't horrible (given all that happened), but it certainly wasn't the best either!

In a nutshell, after the kitchen fire that started our school year, we had to temporarily move out of our house while repairs were being done, and then move everything back in - an exhausting amount of work! While that was going on, my husband was laid off, my neck/shoulder/upper back problems returned (they'll require surgery, again), and my two in public school decided to stop doing all of their schoolwork (resulting in a lot of ongoing conflict). It's been rather crazy around here!

Here's what we managed for school during the first quarter:

Religion

We continued our weekly work in Faith and Life: Following Christ and Ignatius Schuster's Illustrated Bible History. We briefly experimented with Faith and Life Online, but decided that it would not work for us.

We wrapped up our study of Saint Dominic, but did not begin another saint biography since this was the single most complained about aspect of our day. With all the other reading I've had the kids doing, the biography was too much, did not hold their interest, and they weren't remembering anything they read from day-to-day. I'm disappointed because I love the Windeatt biographies and Race for Heaven study guides!

Math

Steady daily work in Teaching Textbooks 6 and 7 (one lesson per day) - no complaints whatsoever!

Science

Unfortunately, science got seriously neglected during our first quarter. With all the disruptions we had due to the fire, it just didn't happen like it needed to. I believe we completed three chapters, and that's it. Truthfully, I'm not really enjoying CPO Life Science - it doesn't really seem ideal for a non-science person (like myself) to teach. J finds it too easy and M finds it too hard, so I don't know, but I'm hoping for a better second quarter.

History

In history, we completed three chapters in BJU's American Republic, five "living books" from the supplemental reading schedule outlined here, and plenty of 'miscellaneous' reading. I intentionally went very slow this quarter so that we could enjoy mini-units like the one below, but I think that one textbook chapter over three weeks was entirely too slow!

I had wanted a greater emphasis on People's History this year, and so we've also been following the "Occupy" movement closely since its inception, discussing it a great deal. Some of us have had the opportunity to show our support at Occupy Portland as well.

The most enjoyable thing we did was a mini-unit on flatboats and river transportation history - M got really into this unit and became quite the flatboat expert! Here are some of the highlights:

The kids read Hello, the Boat! by Phyllis Crawford, a wonderful 1939 Newberry Honor selection that is packed full of historically accurate details. Set in 1817, the story follows the adventures of a family traveling the Ohio River from Pittsburgh to Cincinatti on a storeboat.
Our corresponding read-aloud was the equally wonderful Flatboat Days on Frontier Rivers by James McCague.
I created a set of "riverboat vocabulary" cards for the kids (in the style of their other Time Travelers Early 19th Century materials) and they had to look up each word and write out the definitions. Most of the vocabulary was from Hello, the Boat!; fortunately for them, Flatboat Days on Frontier Rivers contains a very handy glossary.
From USKids History: Book of the New American Nation (Brown Paper School) we created the game board and cards for a flatboat adventure game called "Mississippi Trist" (see below). M sculpted itty-bitty model flatboats out of clay to use as game pieces. This was great fun!
We read bits and pieces of the massive book, A Treasury of Mississippi River Folklore, edited by B.A. Botkin (© 1955).
We watched the 1950s Disney classic "Davy Crockett and the River Pirates."
We spent a lot of time exploring the Steamboat Times website and watched the 1941 educational film: Flatboatmen of the Frontier.

"Mississippi Trist" game board

Homemade vocabulary cards

Language Arts

Literature:

M read/studied:

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, supplemented by The Real Alice by Anne Clark [nonfiction]
Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti (we used a 1979 edition from the library - shown at right, illustrated by Ellen Raskin)
The Princess and the Goblin* by George MacDonald

*This was by far her favorite and she's now reading the sequel, The Princess and Curdie.

J read/studied [in an outside class]:

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

For M, I continued to use the reader response cards that I had made (details here) and they've been working quite well.

Reader Response Cards for Literature

Grammar:

We finished the first portion of Grammar Town, but I don't think we'll be continuing with it as it is simply too teacher-intensive for me right now. For the second quarter, we'll be resuming work from Voyages in English (Loyola Press).

Handwriting:

M continued to work on her French cursive daily using the Méthod Boscher books we'd purchased, she is doing beautifully. J worked on weekly handwriting assignments from the Time Travelers Early 19th Century CD.

Writing:

We've managed six weeks of Susan Wise Bauer's Writing with Skill for Composition (we started this later in the quarter) and so far, so good.

Geography

We continued twice weekly work in the Maps, Charts and Graphs workbook, but the Geography and Culture task cards haven't gone over so well. M has been working on geography in an outside class, so I hadn't stressed about it too much, but now that the class has ended, I'll have to come up with a new plan.

Foreign Language

Progress has been slow in French I (So You Really Want To Learn French), mainly because we failed to do anything in the subject for several weeks. However, work has resumed, and M is doing extremely well. She has an excellent memory, which helps a lot, but has already shown a preference for translating written material to speaking the language.

J is doing poorly in Japanese I - he didn't want me to formally schedule anything in the language for him, and instead has been plugging away on his own when he feels like it (which isn't often now that he's discouraged by it).

Wordless Wednesday: Apple Picking

2011-09-28T12:28:00.000-05:00

Photos from a recent apple picking excursion at Beilke Family Farms near Salem, OR (we picked approximately 66 pounds of RubyMac, Honeycrisp, Jonagold, Gala and Golden Delicious apples):

Week in Review: 09/16/11

2011-09-17T07:07:00.001-05:00

This was our second week of school and we are not off to a good start. Last week, I managed three solid days of school work despite our fire on Labor Day, but this week my whole world fell apart. On Wednesday afternoon I received a call from the restoration company hired to repair the fire damage. They informed me that ALL of our property has been "contaminated" by the fire and said that everything in the house would have to be packed up and moved out. Some of the contaminated property could be professionally cleaned (if our insurance will cover it, which is still uncertain) while the rest had to be disposed of and/or replaced. He also told me that we would not be able to live in the house for several weeks while the work is being done and would need to find someplace else to stay. Further, if our property is not cleaned and/or disposed of, we would not be allowed to move it back into the house because we would re-contaminate it. Given that we just barely got settled into the house, after so many months of careful packing and planning, this is all quite a shock.

Religion

This week we read the first chapter in Faith and Life: Following Christ (again) and completed the corresponding Activity Book pages. The kids also read the first four chapters of Saint Dominic: Preacher of the Rosary and Founder of the Dominican Order by Mary Fabyan Windeatt and we worked through most of the Race for Heaven Study Guide questions and activities. Lastly, the kids read the first two chapters of Ignatius Schuster's Illustrated Bible History and answered the chapter questions.

History

Our week began with a field trip to the World Forestry Center Discovery Museum. In trying to fill a gap in our history reading next week, I had considered assigning a book that I'd seen on other middle school reading lists- The Trees by Conrad Richter. The forestry museum seemed like a good tie-in with the book. However, after pre-reading the book on Tuesday (after our museum visit), I decided that it should probably wait until high school, though it is an engrossing book that I enjoyed. That being said, the museum was a bit of a disappointment anyway and wasn't quite what I'd imagined.

To compensate for the museum, we took the beautiful Columbia River Highway to Multnomah Falls - the second highest year-round waterfall in the United States and a place where Lewis and Clark camped twice on their expedition (in November, 1805 and again in April, 1806). We read the applicable journal entries by Lewis and then the boys ran (literally - where do they find the energy?!) to the top of the falls, while M and I only managed to hike halfway.

Multnomah Falls

Field trips aside, history was probably our slowest subject overall this week, but this is mainly because I've stretched my scheduling of our spine out ridiculously so that it will last us another two years. It's the kids' least favorite subject (but my favorite) and since I usually include tons of extras and get easily distracted by rabbit trails, I wanted to have time for everything without overwhelming them. Since this week fell apart, not a lot got done:

One assignment in their American Republic Student Activity Manual ("The Journals of Lewis and Clark")
Watched the second half of Lewis and Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery on Netflix Instant
Finished reading their biographies of Lewis and Clark. M read The Lewis and Clark Expedition by Carol A. Johmann, while J chose to switch to Lewis and Clark: Blazing a Trail West by John Burrows.
Lessons 2 and part of 3 from the Time Travelers Early 19th Century CD: Westward Weekly newspaper and Growth of the Nation map (we skipped the field book project).
Read 'Hasty Pudding' by Cornelia Meigs and 'Johnny Appleseed's Coat' by Mabel Leigh Hunt, both from The Children's Hour, Vol. 11: Along Blazed Trails (©1953).

Language Arts

This week, M finished up Peppermints in the Parlor by Barbara Brooks Wallace (her free reading selection), a book that I loved at her age and was recently reminded of after browsing through one of Don Killgallon's books. She enjoyed the book so much that she promptly started on the sequel, The Peril of Peppermints. J read through two Naruto [manga] books that he picked up at the library.

For Literature, M read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll for four days this week (30 minutes per day); we're loosely using the MCT literature guide for discussion. On Friday, she also began reading from The Other Alice: The Story of Alice Liddell and Alice in Wonderland, a nonfiction book by Christina Björk and Inga-Karin Eriksson. (For older students or adults, I highly recommend Alice I Have Been: A Novel by Melanie Benjamin!)

Despite all of my big plans for J's reading this year, I ended up placing him in a literature class at a local community learning center. I knew the class would be challenging, but I really had no idea it'd be so challenging (especially for someone who only enjoys reading manga). His book list this year include A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, Pride and Prejudice, and Slaughterhouse Five. This week's assignment was to read two chapters per day of A Tale of Two Cities. He was not understanding the book at all, so I broke down and bought him the Cliff Notes. Now, he reads a chapter in the book, followed by the Cliff Notes summary and seems to be doing just fine. We'll see how it goes.

For Grammar, we only managed 10 pages of Grammar Town and four chapters of Grammar-Land (plus the corresponding worksheets); there was no poetry this week.

This was our first week using Susan Wise Bauer's Writing with Skill for Composition and it went surprisingly well. M had a major meltdown on Day 2 (she's such a detail person, summarizing is really hard for her), but pulled it together for the rest of the week and even did a great job on Day 4 which was a longer "challenge" assignment.

Art

This week the kids attended their first drawing class at the community learning center where I've enrolled them part-time (for 2 classes apiece). They both enjoyed it very much and are looking forward to next week.

We did not start a new lesson in art this week, but rather continued with the project we missed last week: a One-Line Abstract Drawing in the style of Paul Klee (this was from Discovering Great Artists by MaryAnn F. Kohl and Kim Solga). We reviewed some of Klee's work before jumping into the project and ended up spending two days on it.

Herr der Stadt (Master of the Town), Oil on paper by Paul Klee, 1937

J - hard at work

M's work

We also briefly studied the contemporary one-line drawings of Nissim Ben Aderet and watched this interview with the artist.

Other

The kids completed two worksheet pages per day from Building Thinking Skills and did some math review worksheets all week, in addition to 45 minutes per day of Khan Academy. I finally got M's math curriculum ordered, Teaching Textbooks Math 6, so we should have that for next week.

In science, we wrapped up Chapter 1 of CPO's Focus on Life Science. Despite the fact that M has been complaining for two weeks that the book is too hard, she did very well on the chapter assessment. We'll probably need to take a short break from science until we're settled back in the house again. There are a number of experiments coming up and I can't see attempting them from a motel room.

For geography, the kids had two lessons from Maps, Charts and Graphs, Level D and worked on their second Geography and Culture task card. They did some additional reading about maps and globes and made maps of their bedroom.

M and I were not able to start French this week because the resources I'd ordered from Amazon.fr were delayed in arriving. Since they finally showed up last night, we'll be able to start French next week.

J continues to work on Hiragana for Japanese I, but really needs a tutor and is not making much progress. Again, I'm thinking this will have to wait until everything is settled with the house first.

Week in Review: 09/09/11

2011-09-09T17:00:00.004-05:00

This was our first week back to school and what a week it was. On Monday, we were enjoying the Labor Day holiday when a grease fire broke out in the kitchen of our new house and spread to the dining room. Below are just a few photos of the damage; both rooms are a disaster with blackened cabinets, blistered floors and walls, melted light fixtures, etc. Further, my husband suffered deep second degree burns on his right hand and arm, and second degree burns on his left arm and face. We were told repeatedly that we were very lucky the fire and injuries weren't so much worse, but still, not a great way to start the week (to say the very least!).

Sadly, we had just purchased a set of eight gorgeous [vintage] Danish modern chairs that matched our dining room table and both the table and four of the chairs were burned. However, this afternoon I received a custom-made oilcloth tablecloth that I ordered from Modern June last month (thinking to protect the table if we did schoolwork there), so at least the top of the table can be concealed until we have it refinished. It is very cheery, isn't it? (The polka dotted oilcloth is just a decorative wrap.)

New oilcloth tablecloth by Modern June

Tuesday was supposed to have been our first day of school, but since I was at the burn center with my husband, school was postponed until Wednesday. Thank goodness for Homeschool Skedtrack because juggling assignments was much easier than it would have been with my old system! Nevertheless, it sucks starting the school year off-schedule!

For our first day, we revisited the schultüte (school cone) tradition of past years; here's M with hers:

We kept things pretty simple this week because I didn't want to jump into a full schedule right away (and to be perfectly honest, I wasn't quite prepared!). Despite this, we still averaged 6 hours of school per day, which has me very fearful for next week. This is roughly what we'll be covering this year (click on the image to enlarge):

It's scheduled to average 7-8 hours per day (9 hours a day on the two days per week that they'll have outside classes) and that seems like too much, yet this week we only managed a fraction of the work and it took 6 hours?! Yikes! One thing I'll be doing differently next week is borrowing this genius timer idea from Satori Smiles; I've already utilized her clipboard idea and love that it completely eliminates lost schedules!

Language Arts

Grammar was largely parts of speech review (nouns, pronouns and articles). We read the first twenty-four pages of Michael Clay Thompson's Grammar Town as well as four chapters from Grammar-Land by M.L. Nesbitt. The kids completed Grammar Land worksheets for the chapters read.

For our poetry study, we read a number of poems by Eugene Field (who was born on September 2, 1850). The kids also completed a fun research page (see below; click on image for full-size) on Fields from The Lookies. The Lookies was an annual bulletin for children published by Field Enterprises from 1949 through the 1970s. It was designed to be used with World Book Encyclopedias.

Next week, we'll be adding literature, handwriting and composition to our language arts schedule.

Science

The kids read sections 1.1 (units of measurement) and 1.2 (the scientific method) from Chapter 1 of CPO's Focus on Life Science and completed the corresponding "Skill and Practice" worksheets. They also read Millions to Measure by David M. Schwartz and did some research on Francisco Redi and spontaneous generation.

Geography

The kids completed one lesson from Maps, Charts and Graphs, Level D (we're not using the books in order) and their first Geography and Culture task card from Creek Edge Press. They also completed several geography notebook pages from the World Maps CD by Homeschool in the Woods. This week's task card was about maps and globes and assignments included filling out a black line world map, drawing a world map and learning various geography terms. While I love the task cards, the kids were less enthused. M, in particular, found them too open-ended and thus rather frustrating.

M got a little sidetracked while looking up geography terms...

Art

We only managed one day of art this week, and not a very exciting day at that. Typically, art and geography will be on alternate days with art occurring three times per week.

We read about how to look at art and the elements of art: line, shape, form, space, value, color, and texture. We then read Lesson 1 (Line) from Scott Foresman Art (6); the kids completed a sketchbook journal exercise, experimenting with various types of lines using various drawing tools. Next, we viewed and discussed a number of contour drawings by Matisse, then the kids created their own contour drawings. Because I would not let them look at their papers while drawing, this proved a frustrating exercise for them.

Studio 1: Contour Drawing:

A squirrel on our patio

J's squirrel

History

As usual, history was our busiest subject this week. Here's what we did:

Read about Thomas Jefferson, the Barbary Pirates, and Lewis and Clark in Chapter 9 of The American Republic (BJU) and completed the corresponding Student Activity Manual pages.
Completed Lesson 1 from the Time Travelers Early 19th Century CD. Our projects were a foldout book on the Barbary Pirates, a 19th century songbook, and a timeline.
Watched Lewis and Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery on Netflix Instant.
Began reading The Lewis and Clark Expedition by Carol A. Johmann (not the book I'd originally planned, but necessary given our condensed week)
Completed five pages in the Lewis and Clark Discoveries on the Trail [activity book].
Each child read a roughly 100-page biography of Thomas Jefferson and created a notebook entry summarizing his life. In the end, these weren't quite the summaries I had envisioned since they each wrote four pages!

Critical Thinking

The kids completed 4 pages from Building Thinking Skills.

Next week, I hope to be adding religion, math and foreign language(s) into our schedule, in addition to handwriting, literature and composition. Wish me luck!

Méthod Boscher

2011-08-31T23:53:00.003-05:00

M. has decided that she would like to begin to learn French this year (which is fortunate for me, since I know at least a little of the language!). After some research, I settled on Galore Park's So You Really Want To Learn French as her primary text for the subject. However, I knew that I'd also want to supplement with some French texts intended for French children learning to read the language. Additional research led me to two different sets of books: Méthod Boscher and Daniel et Valérie, both of which are time-proven and use the syllabic method of reading (a very brief discussion of syllabic phonics vs. the "global method" can be found on TWTM here.). While both texts are a touch old-fashioned, in my opinion the charm of the illustrations more than compensates.

Here are the resources available for Méthod Boscher:

Méthod Boscher ou La Journée des Tout Petits is the primary text for the illustrated syllabic method of reading and writing first developed by Mathurin Boscher in 1906. The two books shown above have both been reprinted by Belin and are identical, with the exception of the illustrations. The "green version" was illustrated by Jacqueline Duché in 1915 (more about her work here) and the "red version" was illustrated by François Garnier in 1945. Preview and/or download the entire "red version" book here at Scrib'd. The "red version" is available for purchase from Amazon.fr, while the "green version" is available from Amazon.ca.

Méthod Boscher mon abécédaire is an alphabet book which also contains simple vocabulary. Preview and/or download the entire book at Scrib'd. Ages 4+.

Méthod Boscher Cahier des sons is the pre-reading workbook of syllabic sounds. Preview and/or download the entire book at Scrib'd. Ages 4+.

Méthod Boscher Cahier de graphisme is the pre-writing workbook which contains exercises that allows the child to master the movement of the letters before moving on to the copybook below. This is especially helpful if you'll be using a fountain pen for cursive. Preview and/or download the entire book at Scrib'd. Ages 4+.

Méthod Boscher Cahier de lecture is the primary workbook for the main text Méthod Boscher ou La Journée des Tout Petits. Preview and/or download the entire book at Scrib'd. Ages 5+.

Méthod Boscher Cahier d'écriture is a cursive copybook which contains both uppercase and lowercase letters. Each page has a corresponding page in the primary text, Méthod Boscher ou La Journée des Tout Petits. Preview and/or download the entire book at Scrib'd. Ages 5+.

Méthod Boscher Cahier de calcul is a math workbook which contains numbers from 0 to 100, plus simple addition and subtraction. Preview and/or download the entire book at Scrib'd. Ages 5+.

Leveled Méthod Boscher readers online:

Méthod Boscher Moveable Letter Cards (in Cursive)

2011-12 U.S. History: First Semester Reading (Westward Expansion)

2011-08-30T18:09:00.002-05:00

1. Lewis and Clark: Blazing a Trail West by John Burrows (nonfiction)

2. Diary of an Early American Boy: Noah Blake, 1805 by Eric Sloane

3. Hello, the Boat! by Phyllis Crawford (1939 Newberry Honor book)

"This is the story of an everyday family who fled the depression of 1817 by moving westward. Rafts and flatboats and Conestoga wagons moved slowly into the new territory beyond the Alleghenies, but the Doak family made the journey down the Ohio river from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati on a boat fitted out as a store, peddling pots and pans, hardware, bonnets, dry goods and Yankee notions. Responding to the call of "Hello, the boat!" from settlers along the banks, Mother, Father, the children, Old Pappy and his fiddle all helped to make the trip as profitable as it was adventurous.

Combining accurate information about those days of tall tales and tall language with a truly spontaneous story, "Hello, the Boat!" recreates the life of young people of another day in a humorously realistic fashion. Remote from great national events, the narrative is extremely simple yet vivid, absorbing because of its truth." (via GoodReads)

We'll be supplementing Hello, the Boat with the excellent nonfiction Flatboat Days on Frontier Rivers by James McCague (part of the Garrard History Series). Two additional options I considered were By Wagon and Flatboat by Enid La Monte Meadowcroft (also very good, according to TruthQuest) and Flatboats and Wagon Wheels by Mildred Comfort.

4. Boy with a Pack by Stephen Meader (1940 Newberry Honor book)

"Seventeen-year-old Bill Crawford refused to be licked by the "hard times" of 1837. Putting every cent he owned into a tin trunk full of "Yankee notions," he set out afoot from New Hampshire for the Ohio country. His adventures on the road, as he crossed Vermont, York State, and Pennsylvania and moved southward through Ohio, furnished abundant tests of his courage and character. A crooked Vermont horse dealer who nearly murdered Bill for his trade-goods; a bullying Erie canal boat captain who hired him as a driver; and a hard-riding Virginia slave-catcher shadowing the Underground Railroad are vivid personalities in the story. Like other popular books by this author, Boy With A Pack is a horsy story. It is flavored with the racy pungency of stagecoaches and tavern stables, the brawl and bustle of the old Erie Canal, the excitement of backwoods trotting tracks, and the dusty plodding of westward migration in full tide a hundred years ago."

5. Apple Tree Cottage by Virginia Frances Voight

"Susan and Candace Warren with horse, Bucephalus, roam the countryside during the summers in their van so their artist father can paint. This summer, their father is too sick to continue to travel and they end up in Apple Tree Cottage, vacant home of Peter Birch, a teen on the run from his evil master, Mr. Snipper. The Warren girls have always wanted to live in a real home and this one comes with neighbors about Susan's age, Janet and Phil Grant. The kids discover Peter's hiding place and they all become friends over the summer while keeping Peter's secret. Candy, a spunky child, who goes "cheerfully about the adventure of living, blissfully untroubled by the state of her clothes," takes food and messages to Peter, and soon the motherless Warrens and orphan Peter grow as fond of each other as if they were true siblings.

They also become involved in the burglary case of Mr. Bramble, a rich patron of the Warren's father. Susan witnesses the robbers escaping the night before the Warrens settle at Apple Tree Cottage. Candy spots a silver William Penn porringer in the road, part of the robbers' loot, which she uses to feed her new kitten Winkie. There are descriptions of pastoral life in the mid-1800's, the countryside, chores, cooking, and picnics and an account of the railway and city when Susan travels with Phil on the quest to earn money for rent ($2 a month) and necessities. Being the talented daughter of an artist, she is looking for work with the famous Godey's Lady Book to paint fashion plates in watercolor. A simple but delightful read." (Source)

6. The Story of Davy Crockett by Enid LaMonte Meadowcroft. We be supplementing this with chapters from Hunters Blaze the Trails by Edith McCall (Frontiers of America Series, reprinted by Royal Fireworks Press), and When Mountain Men Trapped Beaver by Richard Glendinning (Garrard History Series; non-fiction). I will also be reading aloud excerpts from Journal of a Trapper : or, Nine years in the Rocky Mountains, 1834-1843 by Osborne Russell (online here) for a true, first-person account of life as a "mountain man."

7. Lyddie by Katherine Patterson - My plans for this book are posted here.

8. The Great and Only Barnum: The Tremendous, Stupendous Life of Showman P. T. Barnum by Candace Fleming (nonfiction; corresponding film: P.T. Barnum)

9. Toby Tyler, or, Ten Weeks with a Circus by James Otis (Free for Kindle)

"Toby Tyler tells the story of a ten year-old orphan who runs away from a foster home to join the traveling circus only to discover his new employer is a cruel taskmaster. The difference between the romance of the circus from the outside and the reality as seen from the inside is graphically depicted. Toby's friend, Mr. Stubbs the chimpanzee, reinforces the consequences of what happens when one follows one's natural instincts rather than one's intellect and conscience, a central theme of the novel." (Source)

We'll be supplementing Toby Tyler with excerpts from Sawdust and Spangles: Stories and Secrets of the Circus, a 1901 memoir by W.C. Coup. (There is also a picture book version of Sawdust and Spangles by Ralph Covert; Coup was a contemporary of P.T. Barnum.) Additionally, we may read Circus Days Under the Big Top by Richard Glendinning (Garrard History Series) and select articles from Bandwagon (The Journal of the Circus Historical Society). We'll wrap up our unit by watching the Disney film "Toby Tyler".

10. On to Oregon by Honore Morrow (Film: "Seven Alone") and Tree Wagon by Evelyn Sibley Lampman OR The Pioneers Go West (Landmark Series) by George R. Stewart. I'll be reading aloud excerpts from Prairie Traveler: A Handbook for Overland Expeditions, with Maps, Illustrations, and Itineraries of the Principal Routes between the Mississippi and the Pacific by Randolph B. Marcy (1859). Marcy’s Prairie Traveler was an indispensable guide to thousands of American overlanders in their arduous treks to California, Oregon, Utah, and other western destinations, it's also very interesting reading!

The Lowell Mill Girls Study Unit

2011-08-25T11:45:00.002-05:00

Books

Lyddie by Katherine Patterson (historical fiction based on factual accounts of Lowell's mill girls)

The Lowell Mill Girls by Alice K. Flanagan
Kids on Strike! by Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Chapter 1 (J331.892 BAR)
Mill by David Macaulay
[Primary Source] Loom and Spindle, or, Life Among the Early Mill Girls by Harriet Hanson Robinson (excellent!)
[Primary Source] A New England Girlhood by Lucy Larcom

Resources

The Beginning of a Revolution: Waltham and the Boston Manufacturing Company, from The Concord Review: A good overview on how the mills began and their lasting impact. (17 pgs; PDF)
Center for Lowell History: Mill Life in Lowell 1820-1880
Lowell Notes Handout on Lucy Larcom (.PDF)
Lowell Mill Girl Interactive Activity
Questions for Pondering About the Lowell Mill Girls
Women and Factory Labor Lesson Plan utilizes Harriet Robinson's account of mill life (see above).
The Mill Girls and Immigrants Exhibit (.PDF) from the National Parks Service contains information on the Lowell mill boardinghouses
Industrial Archaeology: Living on the Boott: An interesting article about excavation at the site of Boott Cotton Mills boardinghouses in Lowell, excerpted from the book "Living on the Boott": Historical Archaeology at the Boott Mills Boardinghouses, Lowell, Massachusetts, by Stephen A. Mrozowski, Grace H. Ziesing, and Mary C. Beaudry.

Primary Source Documents:

Boarding House Rules from the Handbook to Lowell, 1848 (.PDF)
Documents of Mill Life (.PDF)
Lowell and Its Factory System, 1842, by Charles Dickens (.PDF)
A personal account of the 1836 strikes, an excerpt from Loom and Spindle, or, Life Among the Early Mill Girls by Harriet Hanson Robinson.
The Lowell Offering a monthly literary magazine produced by the mill girls (more about the magazine can be found in Chapter 10 of A New England Girlhood)
Excerpts of A New England Girlhood by poet Lucy Larcom.

A Peak into our School Room

2011-08-24T14:17:00.007-05:00

I thought I'd post a few pictures of our "school room" (also known as our family room), even though it's still very much a work in progress! The room contains a couch, a coffee table, our flat screen TV, two recliners, a rocker, a small bookshelf, our geography cabinet and two sets of Ikea Trofast workboxes. What it does not include is a work table, which was initially part of the room, but later removed.

Last year the kids did at least half of their work at the couch, so I figured we really didn't need to have a big table in the room. The school room is connected to the dining room, so there's always the option of using the dining room table when needed.

People's History Posters from JustSeeds.org (I laminated these at Lakeshore Learning)

Global Peace Flags from Montessori Services

Every year, there seems to be one subject that I lose my head over. This year it was geography and I spent a good portion of the summer collecting vintage geography games and resources (some of these can also be found on my Pinterest geography board). Ironically, geography was the one subject that I didn't need to plan this year since we'll be using the Geography and Culture Task Cards from Creek Edge Press.

A few of our geography books (with more on the way!)

Geography cabinet with a few of my vintage geography games;
stickers and other task card supplies are in the upper drawers of the cabinet.

Vintage Nystrom pull down U.S./World maps from CathodeBlue (this doesn't stay down all the time, but it does work well as a partial window shade!)

Vintage globe and metal file cart (contains my weekly files)

This is probably the ugliest couch ever, but the kids are rather hard on furniture, so I wanted something super inexpensive and durable. It was only $24.99 and looks brand new, though obviously vintage, so it seemed the perfect solution for now.

Behind the couch, to the right of the workboxes, is a huge closet with shelves to the ceiling (there is a staircase on the other side of the wall, so this is the under stair storage area). It looks a mess in the photo below, but is actually fairly well-organized - the left side is mostly games (new and vintage) and the right side contains shelves full of my favorite clear plastic shoeboxes from The Container Store. All of our arts and crafts supplies are stored in these boxes. I have two additional cabinets in the garage which contain extra school supplies, science items, and general overflow.

We two have boring blue recliners, flanking either side of a little table and small bookshelf (see below). The line in the paneling, toward the top of the first picture, is actually a ledge that runs halfway around the room - quite useful for displaying things!

One of the nicest parts of the room is that nearly an entire wall is a sliding glass door. Since wood paneling tends to be dark, I appreciate having such a wonderful source of light in the room! Below is the view onto our patio - and a table so that we can do lessons outdoors when the weather is nice.

Picnic bench for school outdoors (also, the view out of our sliding glass door)

A Century of Literature for Girls

2011-08-24T13:10:00.003-05:00

As I'm deep in planning for the upcoming school year, I thought I'd go ahead and share the literature list I've put together for my daughter, though it's not quite complete. She'll be working through much of this list over the next two years.

Books followed by an asterisk (*) indicate that they are the first in an extended series (more than three books), titles in italics denote authors from the UK, and highlighted titles are for my own reference.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1866) by Lewis Carroll

Little Women* (1868) by Louisa May Alcott
At the Back of the North Wind (1871) by George MacDonald
The Princess and the Goblin (1872) by George MacDonald
The Princess and Curdie (1883) by George MacDonald
What Katy Did(1872) by Susan Coolidge
What Katy Did at School (1873) by Susan Coolidge
What Katy Did Next (1886) by Susan Coolidge
Eight Cousins (1875) by Louisa May Alcott
Black Beauty: The Autobiography of a Horse (1877) by Anna Sewell
Castle Blair: Volume 1, Volume 2 (1878) by Flora Shaw (Based on the author's own Anglo-Irish childhood in the 1850s-60s)
Heidi (1884) by Joanna Spyri
Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886) by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Five Little Peppers and How They Grew* (1892) by Margaret Sidney
Seven Little Australians (1894) by Ethel Sybil Turner (Set in Australia during the 1880s)
The Family at Misrule (1895) by Ethel Sybil Turner
Little Mother Meg (1902) by Ethel Sybil Turner
Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch (1901) by Alice Hegan Rice
Five Children and It (1902) by Edith Nesbit

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903) by Kate Douglas Wiggin (Set in 1870s New England)
The Fortunes of Philippa (1904) by Angela Brazil (one of the first of the "modern schoolgirls' stories")
A Little Princess (1905) by Frances Burnett Hodgson (free study guide)
The Railway Children (1906) by Edith Nesbit
Anne of Green Gables* (1908) by Lucy Maud Montgomery
The Secret Garden (1909) by Frances Burnett Hodgson (free study guide)
The Story Girl (1911) by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Peter Pan (1911) by J.M. Barrie
Daddy-Long-Legs (1912) by Jean Webster
Laddie (1913) by Gene Stratton Porter
Pollyana (1913) by Eleanor H. Porter
Pollyana Grows Up by Eleanor H. Porter
The Story of Doctor Doolittle* (1920) by Hugh Lofting
Swallows and Amazons* (1929) by Arthur Ransome
The Country Child (1931) by Alison Uttley (Set in the late 1800s)
Little House in the Big Woods* (1932) by Laura Ingalls Wilder (Set in 1860s Wisconsin)
Caddie Woodlawn (1935) by Carol Ryrie Brink (Set in 1860s Wisconsin) (free study guide)
Roller Skates (1936) by Ruth Sawyer (Set in 1890s New York)
Ballet Shoes (1936) by Noel Streatfeild
The Family from One End Street (1937) by Eve Garnett
Thimble Summer (1938) by Elizabeth Enright
A Traveller in Time (1939) by Alison Uttley
Betsy-Tacy* (1940) by Maud Hart Lovelace
The Wind on the Moon (1944) by Eric Linklater
Rabbit Hill (1945) by Robert Lawson
The Mitchells: Five for Victory (1945) by Hilda Van Stockum
Canadian Summer (1948) by Hilda Van Stockum
Friendly Gables (1958) by Hilda Van Stockum
Party Shoes (1946) by Noel Streatfeild
Strawberry Girl (1946) by Lois Lenski
Mistress Masham's Repose (1946) by T.H. White
The Little White Horse (1946) by Elizabeth Goudge
Adopted Jane (1947) by Helen Fern Daringer (Set in the late 1800s)
The Doll's House (1947) by Rumer Godden
All-of-a-Kind-Family (1951) by Sydney Taylor (Set in the early 1900s)
The Borrowers* (1953) by Mary Norton
The Children of Green Knowe* by Lucy M. Boston
Christmas with the Savages (1955) by Mary Clive (Set in Edwardian England)
Gone Away Lake (1957) by Elizabeth Enright
Return to Gone-Away (1961) by Elizabeth Enright
Tom's Midnight Garden (1958) by Philippa Pearce
Linnets and Valerians (1964) by Elizabeth Goudge
Charlotte Sometimes (1969) by Penelope Farmer (Set in 1918 and 1958)
The Diddakoi (1972) by Rumer Godden
The House in Norham Gardens (1974) by Penelope Lively
Going Back (1975) by Penelope Lively (Set during WWII)

Short Stories

The Golden Age (1895) by Kenneth Grahame
Dream Days (1898) by Kenneth Grahame

Just William* (1922) by Richmal Crompton

Mary Poppins* (1934) by Dr. P.L. Travers
The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories (1953+) by Joan Aiken
The Little Bookroom (1955) by Eleanor Farjeon

Our New (Old) House

2011-08-12T17:14:00.003-05:00

It's been a crazy summer with our BIG move from Kansas to Oregon, but now we are (finally!) settled in and starting to think about the upcoming school year. First, a little about our new (old) house.

I knew from the start that I wanted house from the 1950s, with as many original features as possible (tricky, since we're renting now). Since I'm obsessed with all things vintage, my goal was to find a house where my various collections would fit in nicely.

Prior to our move, I spent months studying every single post at Retro Renovation, pouring over images on Flickr (and yes, even Ugly House Photos), and collecting decorating books from the 1950s and 60s. I also sold or gave away nearly every piece of furniture that we had so that we could make a fresh start.

Lake Oswego (© catfuzz)

And then finally, we found our house - a charming, spacious 5-bedroom 1958 [semi] ranch-style home in gorgeous Lake Oswego, Oregon. The number one selling point? The original pink American Standard bathroom (see: Save the Pink Bathrooms). I also adored its massive kitchen, numerous large windows (including two with tiled window seats, perfect for reading!), the woodsy backyard, and yes, even the original wood paneling in the family room. After jumping through numerous hoops, the house was ours and we commenced our move.

The Backyard

Now, as I've said, we're mostly settled in and loving our new home. There are a few "issues" here - the internet doesn't work well in the downstairs bedrooms, no matter what we do (and we've tried everything!), our lovely pink bathroom isn't exactly pink after all, but more of a peach-pink (very hard to color match, though Land's End does make towels in a very similar shade!)...also, the toilet is missing its matching pink seat, but just today I found a replacement solution here. Oh, and our yard is so shaded that I'm afraid I'll have little luck with roses here (I'm dearly missing the 50+ rose bushes I left behind in Kansas!).

Part of the kitchen (just prior to moving in)

One corner of the living room (just prior to moving in)

View from the living room into the kitchen (please excuse the boxes in the corner!)

Another corner of the living room: our wall of Ikea Billy bookcases

Pink Bathroom!

Nevertheless, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. It blows my mind just how beautiful it is here! We're still working on new (old) furniture, but the kids' bedrooms are done, thanks to Ikea, and the family room/school room is mostly finished as well. We found a great Danish modern dining table that will seat up to twelve people (!) - and are now waiting on a set of chairs to materialize. Sadly it does not match my very traditional-looking china hutch, but Danish modern is the look I was orginally after, so that's what we got. I've been scouring thrift stores and vintage stores almost daily to find the perfect furnishings, plus all of the little extras (like pinch pleat drapes for all our windows) and that has been both thrilling and frustrating. Fortunately, the house has tons of storage space (closets everywhere!) and for the first time ever, we all "fit" without being crowded for space.

A corner of the dining room

Resources for The Great War

2011-06-16T17:05:00.004-05:00

I'm noting these for future reference...

The Great War: A Musical Fantasy from Archeophone Records

*** See also: The Archeophone Phonographic Yearbooks and

Oh! It's a Lovely War: Songs and Sketches of the Great War (Vol. 1-4)

The Great War, an exceptional 1964 BBC documentary:

Playlist on YouTube: 26 episodes (17 hours)

Also on YouTube, nuclearvault has an amazing collection

of World War I-era newsreel clips (start here).

Week in Review: 04/01/11

2011-04-01T18:13:00.001-05:00

This week our first week back from spring break so work was kept much lighter than usual as we all struggled to get back into the old familiar routine of school.

Religion

We did not do any work out of Faith and Life: Following Christ this week, and honestly, now I'm questioning my decision to begin using it so late in the year. Since I really love the curriculum, I may just save it for next year. The kids were quite busy this week with first communion preparation at church, athough that is still nearly a month away. I've been working like mad at decluttering the house (my goal for Lent), and so far, so good, though there's still an awful lot to do!

History

I kept history as simple as possible this week. The kids continued studying the American Revolution with BJU's American Republic and watched 3 episodes per day of Liberty's Kids. I think they've actually learned more from the DVD's than the textbook, but the textbook stresses them out pretty badly!

They were a bit behind in world history, so I had them read 28 pages per day from Horrible Histories: The Gorgeous Georgians and The Vile Victorians. This was essentially the entire book on the Georgians. In addition, they had reading from The Usborne History of Britain. This weekend we'll be watching a DVD that just arrived from Amazon UK: At Home with the Georgians, though I suspect this will appeal to me far more than it appeals to them! A review of the 3-part series can be found here: Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3.

Math

Math was as uneventful as ever. M's working on geometry and J finished up his unit on fractions. They're both pretty much done with their books, so I think I'm going to have them do Khan Academy math for the remainder of the year, maybe.

Language Arts

In Voyages in English grammar, the kids studied singular and plural possessive nouns, nouns showing joint and separate possession, appositives and appositive phrases. We did quite a bit of extra work on these since they both found them difficult. In writing, they worked on dictionary skills.

We did not learn any new terms from Figuratively Speaking this week. For literature, M continued reading The Doll People by Ann M. Martin and J continued reading Monkey: Folk Novel of China (a book that he insisted on). M is enjoying her book, while J is not.

Art

This week finally included some art since I've been busy planning art for next year (it will happen!). When the kids were little, we used to do art every day. At that time, I worked in the industry and trying out new products and coming up with projects was a part of my job. Both M and J miss those days, and really, so do I. So, my goal is to incorporate more art into our lives from here on out (although this week, it seemed to take over). :-)

Over spring break, we watched two excellent documentaries: Herb and Dorothy and The Art of the Steal, both of which provoked some great discussions. One of the things we learned from Herb and Dorothy was that you don't have to be wealthy to collect art. I guess that should be obvious, but I'd honestly never thought about it before. This prompted J and I to spend some time on Etsy looking at original art, and as a result, we purchased a sketch from Berkshires artist Thor Wickstrom (one of his paintings will be next) and an abstract floral painting from California artist Linda Monfort:

The art arrived this week and was absolutely fabulous in person...the painting, in particular, just screams spring, doesn't it?! Also, M and I have become addicted to playing Master Pieces: The Curator's Game on my iPad - it's a terrific way to learn to appreciate the details in art, as well as memorize famous paintings and their creators.

This week's primary art project was a Giuseppe Arcimboldo-inspired collage, borrowed from Do Art!. When I first found the project I fell in love with it, but couldn't quite fit into my plans for next year, so I decided to do it right away. It helped that I had stacks of garden catalogs that I needed to do something with, since I didn't want to pack them when we move this summer. In the end, however, we mostly used the Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds Catalog which had big glorious pictures.

We reviewed all of Arcimboldo's allegorical portraits (links below), discussed our favorites and learned what an allegory is. As the kids began work on their projects, they occasionally stopped to browse through Arcimboldo's gallery again for inspiration, this time using Art Authority on my iPad. We used a half-sheet of white posterboard for the head, mounted on a half-sheet of black posterboard, so the finished portraits were BIG!

To make the assignment more difficult, I decided that they should use only fruits, vegetables or flowers for their faces, rather than painting on eyes and a mouth. By the time the challenge of composing a face was resolved (this took 3 days), they were pretty much done with the project. The clothing was rather thrown together and it shows!. Overall though, I think they turned out pretty good and they were (initially, at least) a lot of fun.

Links:

Giuseppe Arcimboldo: The Complete Works
Slideshow of Arcimboldo's Work at YouTube
Allegory of the Seasons and the Elements (Composite Heads) at Web Gallery of Art
Composite and Reversible Heads at Web Gallery of Art

Vertumnus by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Oil on panel, 1590

The Clown by M

Untitled by J

On Friday, we also attempted these ink creatures, though they weren't such a success. The kids enjoyed blowing the ink around far more than they enjoyed having to create something from their ink shapes.

Monster by J

Butterfly by M

Art for Grades 6/7, Part Two

2011-03-30T13:19:00.000-05:00

Part One

*This page still needs a lot of fine-tuning!

Unit 4: A World of Art and Artists

Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 15: Interpretation: There Is More to It Than Meets the Eye, pp. 200-205
Lesson 1: Mysteries of Long Ago

Studio 1: Create a Cave Painting (Variation: Making Elemental Drawing Materials)
Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 18: Islands of Time I, pp. 244-246

Lesson 2: Art of Ancient Egypt

Studio 2: Design a Symbolic Throne
Studio: Draw Like an Egyptian
Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 18: Islands of Time I (Egypt), pp. 246-249

Lesson 3: Art of Ancient Greece

Studio 3: Make an Olympic Poster
Studio: Three Columns
Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 18: Islands of Time I (Greece), pp. 250-253

Lesson 4: Art of Ancient Rome

Studio 4: Design a Model with Arches
Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 18: Islands of Time I (Rome), pp. 254-258

Lesson 5: Art in the Middle Ages

Studio 5: Make an Illuminated Storybook
Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 18: Islands of Time I (The Middle Ages), pp. 259-265

Meet the Artist: Diego Rivera
Look and Compare: Faces of Motherhood
Lesson 6: Architecture in the Americas

Studio 6: Design a Mayan-Style Movie Theatre

Lesson 7: The Art of Renaissance Europe

Studio 7: Create a Renaissance-Style Portrait
Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 18: Islands of Time I (The Renaissance), pp. 266-273

Lesson 8: Early Eastern Art

Studio 8: Make a Banner
Studio: Tie-Dye Shibori Vessel
Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 16: Non-Western Art, pp. 206-223

India, pp. 206-211
Southeast Asia, pp. 212-218

Studio 16.1: A Watercolor Wash Landscape
Studio: Cat Painting (China/Shen Quan), Usborne Art Treasury, pp. 56-59

Japan, pp. 219-223

Sea Print (Hokusai), Usborne Art Treasury, pp. 12-15

Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 16: Non-Western Art II, pp. 224-243

Islam, pp. 224-228

Studio: Sparkly Tiles, Usborne Art Treasury, pp. 84-87

Africa, pp. 230-233

African Masks, Usborne Art Treasury, pp. 24-27

Pre-Columbian, pp. 234-237
North America, pp. 238-243

Studio: Aztec Warriors

Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 19: Islands of Time II, pp. 274-305

The 1600s and the Baroque Style, pp. 275-279
The Enlightenment, Rococo, and Neoclassicism, pp. 279-281
Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, and Post Impressionism, pp. 283-288
The Industrial Revolution; Architecture: Frame Construction, pp. 288-289
Art of the First Half of the Twentieth Century (Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, Dadaism), pp. 290-297 (See projects below)
Architecture of the First Half of the Twentieth Century, pp. 298-299
Art of the Second Half of the Twentieth Century, pp. 300-302

Studio: Splatter Painting (Pollack), Usborne Art Treasury, pp. 80-83

Architecture of the Second Half of the Twentieth Century, p. 303
Postscript: The Post-Modern Era, pp. 304-305

Lesson 9: Modern Western Art

Studio 9: Create an Abstract Collage
Studio: Reptile Relief (Kandinsky), Dynamic Art Projects, pp. 29-30

Lesson 10: Modern Global Art

Studio 10: Create a Ceremonial Sculpture
Exit Through the Gift Shop: Banksy/Street Art

Portfolio Project: ~~Create a Clay Vehicle~~ Create a Free Form Vessel

Unit 5: Subjects and Styles Lesson

Lesson 1: People as Subjects

Studio 1: Create a Wire Sculpture

Lesson 2: Proportion and Faces

Studio 2: Draw a Self-Portrait
Studio: Modigliani Inspired Self-Portraits (Stretched Proportions)

Lesson 3: Animals as Subjects

Studio 3: Make an Animal Vessel

Lesson 4: Still Life as Subject

Studio 4: Create a Cubist Still Life
Studio: Still-Life Closeups (Cezanne), Drawing and Painting, pp. 20-21
Studio: Artist's Studio (Vuillard), Discovering Great Artists, p. 55

Lesson 5: Landscape as Subject

Studio 5: Draw a Pointillist Seascape

Meet the Artist: ~~Miriam Schapiro~~ Pablo Picasso

Studio: Picasso-Inspired Soft Sculpture
Studio: Picasso Masks
Studio: Fractured Friend (Picasso), Discovering Great Artists, p. 70
Studio: Clown Collage (Picasso), Usborne Art Treasury, pp. 20-25

Look and Compare: Outdoor Sculpture
Lesson 6: Impressionism

Studio 6: Draw Like an Impressionist
Studio: Mini "Monets"
DVD: The Impressionists

Lesson 7: Expressionism

An Introduction to Fauvism: Matisse and Derain (video + art projects)
Studio 7: Paint in Fauve Colors
Studio: Paintings Like Stained Glass (Rouault), Drawing and Painting, pp. 46-47

Lesson 8: Surrealism

Studio 8: Create a Surrealist Painting

Lesson 9: Pop Art

Studio 9: Make a Pop Art Sculpture
Studio: Comic Dots (Lichenstein), Discovering Great Artists, p. 102

Abstract Expressionism Unit: Action Painting and Color Field (Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko and Helen Frankenthaler)
Portfolio Project: Paint in Your Individual Style

Unit 6: Expression and Meaning

Lesson 1: Murals Tell Stories

Studio 1: Create a Mural for Your School

Lesson 2: Mosaic Expression

Studio 2: Design a Mosaic Mural

Lesson 3: The Art of Assemblage

Studio 3: Create a Combine Painting
Studio: Assemblage Art

Lesson 4: Expressive Points of View

Studio 4: Create an Abstract Cityscape

Meet the Artist: Georgia O'Keefe

Studio: Close-Up Flower Painting (O'Keefe), Discovering Great Artists, p. 86
Studio: Petal Collage (O'Keefe), Usborne Art Treasury, pp. 76-79

Look and Compare: A Change of Styles
Lesson 5: Expression Through Symbols

Studio 5: Create a Totem

Lesson 6: Maks for Expression

Studio 6: Create a Papier-Mache Animal Mask (Variation: Mexican "Tona" Animal Masks)

Lesson 7: Expression Through Humor

Studio 7: Create a Caricature

Lesson 8: The Art of Industrial Design

Studio 8: Create a Model for a Prototype

Lesson 9: Graphic Design as Expression

Studio 9: Create a Poster Portfolio
Studio: Even Poster (Toulouse-Lautrec), Discovering Great Artists, p. 52

Project: Create a Found-Object Sculpture

Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 20: Criticism and Critics, pp. 308-311
Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 21: A Critical Method, pp. 312-323

Art for Grades 6/7, Part One

2011-03-30T13:12:00.002-05:00

This is a very rough draft of my plans for art next year, but I thought I'd go ahead and post them just in case someone finds them useful. First, I decided to go with a proper textbook for art, to help keep myself focused more than anything. After much deliberation, I chose Scott Foresman Art 6 as our spine (preview here) because it seemed to be the most appealing option, though it's ridiculously hard to find information about any of the art textbooks online.

After receiving the books, I also decided to order an inexpensive older (2nd edition) copy of The Visual Experience because, while it's more dry and textbook-like, it includes a lot of information that the Foresman book does not and will be helpful as a supplement. I'm going to try to use these books over the course of two years, and thus have added in a lot of extra art projects (and likely, will be adding many more).

My goal is that we'll do art at least 2-3 days per week, saving Friday as an "open studio" day to experiment with new techniques and/or finish up other projects. I'm also thinking of implementing a 15-20 minute period for sketching every day. Other supplements that we'll be using are included on the blog sidebar - books on technique are here, along with my supply list.

Introduction

The Visual Experience, Chapter 1: Seeing, Wondering, Enjoying, pp. 3-9
The Visual Experience, Chapter 2: When Is It Art?, pp. 10-17
The Visual Experience, Chapter 3: Describing What You See, pp. 20-25

Unit 1: The Elements of Art

Lesson 1: Line

Studio 1: Create a Contour Drawing (Variation: Blind Contour Drawing)

Hi-Res Matisse Drawings

Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 4: Line, pp. 26-39

Studio 4.1: Varieties of Line
Studio 4.2: Expressive Line Drawings
Studio 4.3: Contour Lines
Studio 4.4: Hatch and Crosshatch (Variation: Sketching and Hatching, Drawing and Painting, pp. 22-23)
Studio 4.5: Lines Express Feelings

Studio: Straight Line Design (Mondrian), Discovering Great Artists, p. 61
Studio: One Line Designs (Klee), Discovering Great Artists, p. 62 (Variation: One-Line Drawing, Drawing and Painting, pp. 30-31)
Studio: Mixed Media Lines (Stella), Discovering Great Artists, p. 64

Lesson 2: Shape

Studio 2: Create with Shapes
Studio: Seeing Shapes Still-Life (Cezanne), Discovering Great Artists, p. 48
Studio: Painted Victorian Homes
Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 5: Shape, pp. 40-43

Studio 5.1: Reversible Drawings
Studio 5.2: Reversible Patterns

Lesson 3: Form

Studio 3: Create Clay Forms
Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 5: Form, pp. 44-55

Studio 5.3: Foreshortening
Studio 5.4: Distance
Studio 5.5: Sculpting without Seeing

Lesson 4: Space

Studio 4: Change Space with Shapes
Studio: Graphite Embossing
Studio: Abstract Cityscape (Klee), Usborne Art Treasury, pp. 10-12
Stusio: Painting Around the White (negative/positive space), Celebrate Your Creative Self, pp. 14-15

Lesson 5: Space and Distance

Studio 5: Draw with Perspective
Studio: Simple Perspective with the Artist's Grid Canvas
Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 7: Space, pp. 74-91

Studio 7.1: Depth in Collage
Studio 7.2: Identifying One-Point Perspective
Studio 7.3: Applying One-Point Perspective
Studio 7.4: Identifying Two-Point Perspective
Studio 7.5: Applying Two-Point Perspective
Studio 7.6: A Landscape with Aerial Perspective

Meet the Artist: Vincent van Gogh

Van Gogh Resources
Van Gogh: A Brush with Genius (Amazon Instant Video)
Studio: Van Gogh Clay Plaque
Studio: Painting Like Van Gogh, Drawing and Painting, pp. 48-49

Look and Compare: An Artist's Style
Lesson 6: Value

Studio 6: Create a Value Drawing
Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 6: Value, pp. 57-61

Studio 6.1: Value Contrasts

Lesson 7: Color

Color Wheel Lesson Plan
Studio 7: Paint with Warm and Cool Colors (Alternative: Warm/Cool Weaving Paintings)
Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 6: Color, pp. 62-69

Studio 6.2: Related Colors
Studio 6.3: Monochromatic Colors
Studio 6.4: Mixing Dull and Bright Colors
Studio 6.5: Matching Colors
Studio 6.6: Warm and Cool Colors

Studio: Color Contrast Circles (Kandinsky), Usborne Art Treasury, pp. 52-55
Studio: Mean Green (Interpreting the Emotion of Color)

Mark Rothko (Color as an instrument for conveying emotions)

Studio: One Color Painting (Picasso), Discovering Great Artists, p. 69 (Variation: Analogous Arrangements, Drawing and Painting, pp. 56-57)
Studio: Magic Squares (Klee; mixing intermediate colors), Drawing and Painting, pp. 50-51
Studio: Surprising Colors (Gauguin), Discovering Great Artists, p. 51

Studio: Story Color Collage (Matisse), Discovering Great Artists, p. 58

Lesson 8: Color and Colorists

Studio 8: Paint in Complementary Colors
Studio: Color Scramble
Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 6: Color, pp. 69-73
(A fascinating look at the palettes of famous artists can be found here.)

Lesson 9: Texture

Studio 9: Create a Scene to Show Texture
Studio: Texture Critters
Studio: Watercolor Texture Casts
Studio: Berthe Morisot: Texture Paints, Discovering Great Artists, p. 42 (We'll be doing a variation of this project, using Golden's Gel Mediums mixed with acrylics instead of tempera as suggested in the book)
Studio: Painting on Textured Surfaces, Celebrate Your Creative Self, pp. 23-37
Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 8: Texture and Movement (Texture), pp. 92-97

Studio 8.1: Simulated Textures
Studio 8.2: Textures in Clay

Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 8: Texture and Movement (Movement), pp. 98-107

Studio 8.3: Suggesting Movement in Clay
Studio 8.4: Movement in a Comic Strip
Studio 8.5: Make a Storyboard
Studio: Resist in Motion (Degas), Discovering Great Artists, p. 40 (See also: The Dancers and Degas)

Portfolio Project: Paint a Colorful Landscape
Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 9: Analyzing What You See, pp. 110-115

Trois Danseuses by Edgar Degas

Unit 2: The Principles of Design

Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 10: Design, pp. 116-122

Quilted Work (Ringgold), Discovering Great Artists, p. 104

Lesson 1: Balance

Studio 1: Draw to Show Balance
Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 10: Balance, pp. 122-127

Lesson 2: Emphasis

Studio 2: Draw with Emphasis

Lesson 3: Proportion

Studio 3: Draw with Altered Proportions (Variation: All Out of Proportion, Drawing and Painting, pp. 26-27)

Lesson 4: Pattern

Studio 4: Show Pattern in Clothing
Studio: Line, Pattern and Color Collage (Bearden), Drawing and Painting, pp. 28-29
Studio: Patterned Interiors (Matisse), Drawing and Painting, pp. 54-55
Studio: Crazy Quilt (Klimt), Dynamic Art Projects, pp. 98-99

Meet the Artist: Henri Matisse

Studio: Colorful Collage, Usborne Art Treasury, pp. 40-43

Look and Compare: The Art of the Everyday
Lesson 5: Rhythm

Studio 5: Create Op Art

Lesson 6: Unity

Studio 6: Create a Unified Design

Lesson 7: Variety

Studio 7: Use Variety in a Drawing

Portfolio Project: Paint a Still Life

Unit 3: Media and Methods

Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 11: Introduction to Media, pp. 130-133
Lesson1: Drawing, pp. 108-109

Studio 1: Create a Gesture Drawing
Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 12: Two-Dimensional Media, pp. 134-136

Studio 12.1: Contrasts in Chalk Drawing

Lesson 2: Painting

Studio 2: Paint a Landmark
Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 12: Two-Dimensional Media, pp. 137-142

Studio 12.2: Watercolor Washes (Variation: Oil Pastel Resist, Drawing and Painting, pp. 40-41)
Studio 12.3: A Tempera Painting

Studio: Paul Klee Landscape (watercolor techniques), Dynamic Art Projects, pp. 18-19

Lesson 3: Printmaking

Studio 3: Create a Relief Print
Studio: Flexi-Cut Collagraph
Studio: Papier Collé Printmaking (Georges Braque)
Studio: Tempera Monoprint (Mary Cassatt), Discovering Great Artists, p. 44
Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 12: Two-Dimensional Media, pp. 143-149

Studio 12.4: A Linoleum Block Print
Studio 12.5: A One-Color Screen Print

Lesson 4: Collage

Studio 4: ~~Make a Hobby Collage~~
Studio: Gelly Bowls (Dimensional Acrylic Collage)
Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 12: Two-Dimensional Media, pp. 155-157

Studio 12.6: A Unified Collage

Studio: Muse of Chance Collage (Arp), Discovering Great Artists, p. 74

Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 13: Three-Dimensional Forms (Jewelry), pp. 177-179
Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 13: Three-Dimensional Forms (Soft Sculpture and Glass), pp. 182-185

Studio: Soft Sculpture (Claes Oldenburg sculptures; The Visual Experience, Meet the Artist: Claes Oldenburg, p. 101)
Studio 13.6: A Window Panel with Paper (Stained Glass)

Lesson 5: Fiber Artworks

Studio 5: Make a Fiber Weaving (Variation: Burlap Weaving)
Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 13: Three-Dimensional Forms (Woven Fiber Forms), pp. 179-181

Meet the Artist: M.C. Escher
Look and Compare: Arts and Crafts
Lesson 6: Sculpture

Studio 6: Create a Relief Sculpture
Studio: Wireform Figure Sculpture
Studio: Modern Figure Sculpture in the Style of Alberto Giacometti (Variation: Foil Figures, Usborne Art Treasury, pp. 64-67)
Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 13: Three-Dimensional Media (Sculpture), pp. 159-171

Carving, pp. 160-161

Studio 13.1: A Sculpture with Movement
Studio: Carving Clay (Rodin), Discovering Great Artists, p. 50

Casting, pp. 162-164
Modeling, p. 165
Coiling, p. 166
Slab Building and Papier-Mache, p. 167
Construction and Assemblage, p. 168-171

Lesson 7: Architecture

Studio 7: Create an Architectural Model
Studio: Environmental House
Studio: Box House Architect (Wright), Discovering Great Artists, p. 82

Lesson 8: Pottery and Ceramics

Studio 8: Make a Hand-Built Pottery Vessel
Studio: Slab Vase (uses self-hardening clays)
Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 13: Three-Dimensional Media, pp. 175-176

Lesson 9: Still Photography

Studio 9: Make a Photomontage
Additional Reading: The Visual Experience, Chapter 12: Two-Dimensional Media, pp. 150-153 (Film, Video and Computer Art)

Portfolio Project: Tessellation Design (Variation: Vasarely Was a Colorful Fellow)

Vasarely: The official artist website; includes many examples of his work.

Part Two

Art Supplies for Grades 6/7

2011-03-30T13:08:00.001-05:00

Paint Brushes ©Lindsay Rogerson

My Supply List:

The vast majority of these items are things that I almost always keep on hand for projects, with a few things added for special projects next year. While less expensive brands can be substituted, I personally believe it is important to use "artist quality" materials with kids whenever possible.

Riverside Tru-Ray Construction Paper (in a variety of colors)
Strathmore 140lb Watercolor Paper
Sulphite 90lb Drawing Paper
Strathmore Visual Journal (one per student)
Spectra Kolorfast Tissue Paper (in a variety of colors)
Blick Studio Artists' Boards (for special projects)
Prang and/or Crayola Tempera Paint (especially white, black, red, yellow, blue)
Golden Heavy Body Acrylics: Principle Set of 6 Colors (or, Liquitex)
White Acrylic Gesso
Shiva Liquid Masque
Sakura Cray-Pas Expressionist Oil Pastels
Chalk Pastels
1/2" Flat Brush (one per student)
1" Flat Brush (one per student)
No. 8 Round Brush (one per student)
Watercolor Brushes (one set per student)
Paint Tray
Foam Brushes (a variety)
General's Charcoal Pencil Drawing Kit No. 15 (one per student)
Factis Erasers (1-2 per student)
Tortillons
Sharpie Chisel Tip Markers, Black
Sculpture Wire
Scratch-Foam Board (for printmaking projects)
Brayer
Palette Knife (one per student)
Paint Scrapers
Lyra Aquacolor Crayons
Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor Color Pencils
Stabilo Point 88 Pens
Stabilo 68 Pens
Tacky Glue
Mod Podge
Scissors

Not totally necessary, but nice to have:

Books on Technique:

Celebrate Your Creative Self: More Than 25 Exercises to Unleash the Artist Within by Mary Todd Beam
Rethinking Acrylic: Radical Solutions For Exploiting The World's Most Versatile Medium by Patti Brady
Acrylic Revolution: New Tricks and Techniques for Working with the World's Most Versatile Medium by Nancy Reyner
Acrylic Innovation: Styles and Techniques Featuring 64 Visionary Artists by Nancy Reyner
Drawing with Children by Mona Brooks
Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists: 52 Creative Exercises to Make Drawing Fun by Carla Sonheim
Collage Lab: Experiments, Investigations, and Exploratory Projects by Bee Shay
The Pastel Book by Bill Creevy
Magazines: Somerset Studio and Cloth Paper Scissors -- both are good for new mixed media techniques.

An Introduction to Fauvism: Matisse and Derain

2011-03-14T18:34:00.001-05:00

"Henri Matisse" by André Derain, Collioure, 1905

"André Derain" by Henri Matisse, Collioure, 1905

Resources

Matisse Biography
Derain Biography
The Fauves Web Tour from the National Gallery of Art
artfactory has a nice overview of Fauvism
Fauvism - an essay from the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Fauvist Art: Part One, Part Two [Slideshow]
Paris: The Luminous Years (PBS) is currently available to watch online and includes information about the Fauvists.

Lesson Plans

Henri Matisse: Color and Light, from the National Gallery of Art (More on the Fauves new approach to color can be found in this article)
Henri Matisse Unit
Exploring Painting with the Fauves
Painting a Fauvist Self-Portrait (.PDF) from Scholastic Art
Creating a Colorful Landscape (.PDF) from Scholastic Art

Resources for Teaching Poetry

2011-03-11T14:30:00.002-06:00

"Les Voiliers" by Henri Matisse, 1906

SEE: Introductory Poetry Terms

Poetry for Young People (Excellent series from Sterling Publishing)

1564-1616 William Shakespeare by David Scott Kastan
1757-1827 William Blake by John Maynard
1770-1850 William Wordsworth by Dr. Alan Liu
1807-1882 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow by Francis Schoonmaker
1809-1892 Alfred, Lord Tennyson by John Maynard
1809-1849 Edgar Allan Poe by Brad Bagert
1812-1888 Edward Lear by Edward Mendelson
1812-1889 Robert Browning by Eileen Gillooly
1819-1892 Walt Whitman by Jonathan Levin
1830-1886 Emily Dickinson by Francis Schoonmaker Bolin
1832-1898 Lewis Carroll by Edward Mendelson
1850-1894 Robert Louis Stevenson by Frances Schoonmaker
1865-1936 Rudyard Kipling by Eileen Gillooly
1865-1939 William Butler Yeats by Jonathan Allison
1874-1963 Robert Frost by Gary D. Schmidt
1878-1967 Carl Sandburg by Francis Schoonmaker Bolin
1879-1955 Wallace Stevens by John N. Serio
1883-1963 William Carlos Williams by Christopher MacGowan
1892-1950 Edna St. Vincent Millay by Francis Schoonmaker
1902-1967 Langston Hughes by David Roessel
1928-0000 Maya Angelou by Edwin Graves Wilson, Ph.D.

Poetry by Theme:

Poetry for Young People: The Seasons by John N. Serio
Poetry for Young People: Animal Poems by John Hollander
Poetry for Young People: American Poetry by John Hollander

Poetic Form

A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms by Paul B. Janeczko, Chris Raschka

Writing Poetry

Poetry Matters: Writing a Poem From the Inside Out by Ralph Fletcher
Pizza, Pigs, and Poetry: How to Write a Poem by Jack Prelutsky

Teaching Poetry

The Power of Poems: Teaching the Joy of Writing Poetry by Margriet Ruurs
Poetry Lessons: Everything You Need by Kathy A. Perfect
Poetry Writing Handbook: Definitions, Examples, Lessons by Greta Lipson and Judy Mitchell

Picture Books for Teaching Figurative Language

2011-03-10T12:26:00.002-06:00

"La Lecture" by Henri Matisse

Hypberbole

Swamp Angel by Anne Isaacs, Paul Zelinsky
The Giant of Seville: A "Tall" Tale Based on a True Story by Dan Andreasan
Doña Flor: A Tall Tale About a Giant Woman with a Great Big Heart by Pat Mora, Raul Colon
Thunder Rose* by Jerdine Nolen

Idiom

Monkey Business* by Wallace Edwards
The Cat's Pajamas by Wallace Edwards
There's a Frog in My Throat: 440 Animal Sayings a Little Bird Told Me by Loreen Leedy, Pat Street
You Are What You Eat: and Other Mealtime Hazards by Serge Bloch

Imagery/Sensory Language

Saturday and Teacakes* by Lester Laminack, Chris Soentpiet
Dream: A Tale of Wonder, Wisdom and Wishes by Susan V. Bosak, Leon Dillon
One Leaf Rides the Wind by Celeste Mannis, Susan Kathleen Hartung
Wild Child by Lynn Plourde, Greg Couch

Metaphor

Tar Beach by Faith Ringold
Prairie Train by Marsha Wilson Chall, John Thompson
In November by Cynthia Rylant, Jill Kastner
Owl Moon by Jane Yolen
White Snow, Bright Snow by Alvin Tresselt, Roger Duvoisin
Hide and Seek Fog by Alvin Tresselt, Roger Duvoisin

Simile

Elephant Dance: Memories of India* by Theresa Heine, Sheila Moxley
Chanticleer and the Fox by Geoffrey Chaucer, Barbara Cooney
Everyone Knows What a Dragon Looks Like by Jay Williams, Mercer Mayer
The Little Island by Margaret Wise Brown, Leonard Wisegard
Owl Moon by Jane Yolen
White Snow, Bright Snow by Alvin Tresselt, Roger Duvoisin
Hide and Seek Fog by Alvin Tresselt, Roger Duvoisin
Quick as a Cricket by Audrey Wood, Don Wood

Personification

New York is English, Chattanooga is Creek* by Chris Raschka
Hello, Harvest Moon by Ralph Fletcher, Kate Kiesler
The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton
Gilberto and the Wind by Marie Hall Ets
Flossie and the Fox by Patricia McKissack, Rachel Isadora
There is a Flower At the Tip of My Nose Smelling Me by Alice Walker, Stefano Vitale
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr., John Archambault, Lois Ehlert

Symbolism

I Have an Olive Tree by Eve Bunting, Karen Barbour
The Lotus Seed by Sherry Barbour, Tatsuro Kiuchi
The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco
Grandfather's Journey by Allen Say
Home of the Brave by Allen Say
The Rag Coat by Lauren A. Mills

Alliteration

Assonance and Consonance

Animalia by Graeme Base
Alligators All Around by Maurice Sendak
Walter Was Worried by Laura Vaccaro Seeger
A Little Book of Alliterations by Felix Arthur, Jenny Capon
More here

Onomatopoeia

Langston's Train Ride* by Robert Burleigh, Leonard Jenkins
Charlie Parker Played Be Bop by Chris Raschka
Snow Sounds: An Onomatopoeic Story by David Johnson
Arctic Lights, Arctic Nights by Debbie S. miller, Jon Van Zyle

Books marked with an asterisk are included in Teaching Literary Elements with Picture Books by Susan van Zile.

CPO Life Science Supply List

2011-03-10T08:03:00.001-06:00

All items are from Home Science Tools except those in light blue which can be found at Carolina Biological Supply.

Microscope
Digital Stop Watch
Slides
Depression Slides
Coverslips
(4) Plastic Cups with Lids (2A, 2B)
Clover Seeds (2A)
(4) Graduated Cylinder (2A)
Sample Tray (2A, 2B)
Brine Shrimp Eggs (2B)
Magnifying Glass
Balance (2B, 8A)
Safety Goggles (4A)
Apron (4A)
(4) 40ml Containers with Screw Caps (4A)
Bromothymol Blue Solution (4A)
Beakers (4A, 5B)
Petri Dishes
2-5cm Sprigs of an Aquatic Plant (4A)
Funnel (4A)
Brine Shrimp (5B)
Plastic Droppers
Iodine Stain (7A)
Prepared Slide: Human Muscle Tissue (7B)
Live Ulothrix (7B)
Methylene Blue Stain (7B)
(2) 600 ml Beakers (8A)
50 ml Beakers (8A)
Live Euglena, Amoeba, Paramecium Cultures (9A)
Prepared Slide: Onion Root Tip Slide (10A)
Prepared Slide: Horse Ascaris Slide (10A)
PTC Paper (11A)
Pop Beads and Clear Plastic Connectors (12A, 12B)
Leaf Cutaway Slide (16A)
Zebrina Plant (16A) (*Order 3-4 weeks prior to Investigation)
Forceps (16A)
Glucose Solution (16A)
Dissecting Scissors (16B)
Live Planarians (17A)
Cow Eye Dissection Kit (17B)
Sphygmomanometer (18B)
Stethoscope (18B)

Illustrations by Charles Harper, Giant Golden Book of Biology, 1961

CPO Focus on Life Science, Part Two

2011-03-09T21:39:00.006-06:00

Part One: Units 1-3

Unit 4: Evolution and Change

Chapter 11: Evolution

Section 11.1: Evidence for Evolution

Student Record Sheet: Investigation 13A: Crazy Adaptions
Skill and Practice Sheet 13.1: Charles Darwin
Suggested Reading: The Tree of Life: Charles Darwin by Peter Sis, Charles Darwin and the Beagle Adventure by A.J. Wood, On the Origin of Species: The Illustrated Edition by Charles Darwin, David Quammen. (Additional Literature Tie-In: The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly)
An excellent 53-page booklist on Darwin and evolution can be found here. See also: Charlie's Playhouse.
DVD(s): Creation, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Darwin's Secret Notebooks

Section 11.2: How Evolution Works

Section 11.3: Natural Selection

Student Record Sheet: Investigation 13B: Natural Selection

Websites

Tree of Life Web Project
Charles Darwin from The Open University: Includes "Devolve Me" activity.

Chapter 12: Earth and Life History

Section 12.1: Evidence from Rocks

Section 12.2: How Earth Changes

Skill and Practice Sheet 14.2: Alfred Wegener

Section 12.3: Life History

Skill and Practice Sheet 14.3: Averaging

Unit 5: Structure and Function of Living Things

Chapter 13: The Diversity of Life

Section 13.1: Taxonomy and Systematics

Student Record Sheet: Investigation 15A: Creature Cladogram

Creature Cards for Creature Cladogram

Graphic Organizer 15.1: Taxonomy
Skill and Practice Sheet 15.1: Carolus Linnaeus
Skill and Practice Sheet 15.1: Primate Cladogram
Animal Kingdom Labels (.PDF) for animal classification; from Montessori Materials

Section 13.2: Algae and Fungi

Graphic Organizer 15.2: Algae and Fungi
Student Record Sheet: Investigation 15B: Bread Mold
Spore Print Lab at Middle School Science
Yeast Experiments at Home Biology
Growing Fungi Lab at Home Biology (And for fun, a Glow in the Dark Mushroom Kit)

Chapter 14: Plants

Section 14.1: What Are Plants?

Section 14.2: Roots, Stems, and Leaves

Section 14.3: Reproduction in Flowering Plants

Suggested Reading: John Muir: My Life with Nature by Joseph Cornell and John Muir

Supplements

Science in a Nutshell Kit: Flowering Plants at Delta Education
See: Planting Science

Botany Survey Set at Home Science Tools

Chapter 15: Animals

Section 15.1: What Is an Animal?

Graphic Organizer 17.1: Animals
Student Record Sheet: Investigation 17A: Observing Planarians

Live planarians at Carolina Biological Supply (also here)
Extra Lab Idea: Stem Cell Research: Plenty of Planarian and Planarian Dissection

Section 15.2: Invertebrate Structure and Function

Graphic Organizer 17.2: Invertebrates
Invertebrate Critter Cards (.PDF): Students will classify invertebrates into 5 of the main groups.

Section 15.3: Vertebrate Structure and Function

Cow Eye Dissection Kit at Home Science Tools

Skill and Practice Sheet 17.3: The Mammalian Eye

Supplements

Science in a Nutshell Kit: Animal Observatory at Delta Education

Unit 6: The Human Body

Chapter 16: Human Body Systems

Section 16.1: Circulation and Respiration

Supplements

Science in a Nutshell Kit: Body Basics (Digestive, Respiratory and Skeletal Systems) at Delta Education
Science in a Nutshell Kit: A Peek Inside You at Delta Education

Chapter 17: Support and Movement

Section 17.1: Bones and Muscles

Section 17.2: The Human Body as a Machine

Supplements

Science in a Nutshell Kit: The Human Machine at Delta Education

Chapter 18: Vision and Hearing

Section 18.1: The Nervous System

Graphic Organizer 20.1: Nerve Impulses
Skill and Practice Sheet 20.1: Brain Diagram
Neuroscience for Kids [website] and Backyard Brains [website + kit]

Section 18.2: Vision

Section 18.3: Optics
Section 18.4: Hearing

Supplements

Science in a Nutshell Kit: Vision and Hearing at Delta Education
Science in a Nutshell Kit: Smell, Taste, Touch at Delta Education

CPO Focus on Life Science, Part One

2011-03-09T09:35:00.024-06:00

Very shortly, we'll be starting on a new year of science with CPO Life Science. The company publishes two life science textbooks, Life Science (ISBN: 1588924874) and Focus on Life Science (ISBN: 1588922537), the California standards-based edition. For whatever reason, it is much easier to obtain student copies of the California books (in fact, the entire CPO Focus on Life Science student textbook can be found online here as a .PDF), and teacher's editions of Life Science. At least, that's the case at the moment, as well as the most cost-effective solution.

There is also a wealth of free material available at CPO's website, but all of it is aligned to Life Science. To simplify things, I decided to match the two books up so that I could make better use of what we've got and what's available online. Fortunately, they match up fairly well. The chapters listed below are from Focus on Life Science and the corresponding student supplements are from Life Science. My list is still quite rough, but I will be improving upon it as I get further into my planning. A supply list for the entire course can be found here.

Unit 1: Living Systems

Chapter 1: Studying Life

Section 1.1: Measurements

Section 1.2: Thinking Like a Scientist

Section 1.3: Graphs

Chapter 2: Cell Biology

Section 2.1: Is It Alive?

Student Record Sheet: Investigation 2A: Plant Growth

Plastic Cups with Lids at Home Science Tools
Graduated Beaker at Carolina Biological Supply

Skill and Practice Sheet 2.1: Internet Research Skills
Is It Alive? activity at My Science Box

Section 2.2: What is a Living System?

Student Record Sheet: Investigation 2B: Brine Shrimp

Brine Shrimp Eggs at Carolina Biological Supply
Plastic Cups with Lids at Home Science Tools
Graduated Beaker at Carolina Biological Supply

Testing for Life's Molecules activity at My Science Box
Graphic Organizer 2.2: Organization of Living Systems
Skill and Practice Sheet 2.2: Bibliographies
Skill and Practice Sheet 2.2: Control and Experimental Variables

Section 2.3: Types of Living Things

Creature Cards for Investigation 3B: Dichotomous Key

Life on Mars Assessment from My Science Box

Supplements

Science in a Nutshell Kit: Is It Alive? at Delta Education

Chapter 3: Interactions of Living Things

Section 3.1: Variables in Habitats

Student Record Sheet: Investigation 4A: Carbon Dioxide and Living Things

Bromothymol Blue at Carolina Biological Supply

Student Record Sheet: Investigation 4B: Variables and Growth
Student Record Sheet: Investigation 5B: Testing Pollutants

Adult Brine Shrimp at Carolina Biological Supply

Student Record Sheet: Investigation 6A: Environments Around School
Student Record Sheet: Investigation 6B: Field Study (Organisms in Your Biome)

See: Zipcode Zoo

Graphic Organizer 4.3.1: Physical Variables of Land Habitats
Graphic Organizer 4.3.2: Physical Variables of Freshwater Habitats
Suggested Reading: Tree of Life: The Incredible Biodiversity of Life on Earth by Rochelle Strauss, OR, The Sea, the Storm, and the Mangrove Tangle by Lynne Cherry

Section 3.2: Populations and Communities

Student Record Sheet: Investigation 5A: Food Webs
Graphic Organizer 5.1: Ecosystems
Graphic Organizer 5.2.1: Food Chain
Graphic Organizer 5.2.2: Food Web
Skill and Practice Sheet 5.1: Parts of an Ecosystem
Skill and Practice Sheet 5.3: Ecosystem Interactions
Skill and Practice Sheet 6.3: Wangari Maathai
Smithsonian Wild: View animals in their native habitats via research cameras from around the world; sortable by species.

Supplements

Science in a Nutshell Kit: Ponds and Streams at Delta Education

Unit 2: Living Systems

Chapter 4: Chemistry and Physics Connections

Section 4.1: Elements, Compounds, and Reactions

Section 4.2: Carbon Compounds and Cells

Graphic Organizer 4.2: Carbon Compounds in Living Things

Section 4.3: Light and Living Things

Chapter 5: Cell Structure and Function

Section 5.1: What Are Cells?

Section 5.2: Cells: A Look Inside

Student Record Sheet: Investigation 7B: Animal and Plant Cells

Live Ulothrix at Carolina Biological Supply
Methylene Blue at Carolina Biological Supply

Graphic Organizer 7.2: Plant vs. Animal Cells
Skill and Practice Sheet 7.2: Animal Cell Parts
Skill and Practice Sheet 7.2: Plant Cell Parts
Inside a Cell Animation and worksheet from the Genetic Science Learning Center (See: Amazing Cells for much more)

Suggested Reading: The Cell Works: Microexplorers: An Expedition into the Fantastic World of Cells by Patrick A. Baeuerle and Norbert Landa

Chapter 6: Cell Processes

Section 6.1: The Structure and Function of the Cell Membrane

Student Record Sheet: Investigation 8A: Diffusion and Osmosis

50 ml Beakers at Carolina Biological Supply
600 ml Beakers (2) at Carolina Biological Supply

Osmosis set from Home Science Supply
Graphic Organizer 8.1: Cell Transport
Skill and Practice Sheet 8.1: Working with Ratios

Section 6.2: Cells and Energy

Student Record Sheet: Investigation 8B: Photosynthesis and Color
Graphic Organizer 8.2: Comparing Cellular Respiration and Photosynthesis
Cell Energy activities from My Science Box

Chapter 7: The Microscopic World

Section 7.1: Protozoans

Student Record Sheet: Investigation 9A: Protozoans

Live Euglena, Amoeba, and Paramecium cultures at Carolina Biological Supply

Student Record Sheet: Investigation 9B: Investigating Pond Water
Graphic Organizer 9.1: Types of Protozoans
Skill and Practice Sheet 9.1: Francesco Redi
Suggested Reading: Pond Water Zoo: An Introduction to Microscopic Life by Peter Loewer and Jean Jenkins

Section 7.2: Bacteria

Graphic Organizer 9.2: Comparing Bacteria and Protozoans
Skill and Practice Sheet 9.2: Louis Pasteur
Lab: Where Can We Find Bacteria? at Middle School Science
Lab: Part 1: Soda Bottle Compost, Part 2: What's Living in Our Compost Tube?
Lab: Growing Bacteria Cultures

Section 7.3: Viruses

Supplements

Bacteria Experiment Kit at Home Science Tools
Bacteria Gram Stain Kit at Home Science Tools
Microbes in Action website from University of Missouri; includes classroom activities

Microscopic Life Kit at Home Science Tools

Unit 3: Genetics

Chapter 8: Reproduction

Section 8.1: Growth and Cell Reproduction

Student Record Sheet: Investigation 10A: Observing the Cell Cycle

Ascaris (Roundworm) mitosis slide at Home Science Tools
Allium (onion) root tip slide at Home Science Tools

Section 8.2: Sexual Reproduction and Meiosis

Chapter 9: Heredity

Section 9.1: Traits

Section 9.2: Predicting Heredity

Student Record Sheet: Investigation 11B: Crazy Traits

Alternate Activity: Making Reebops: A Model for Meiosis or Reebops: A "Model Organism for Teaching Genetics Concepts (Google "Reebop Genetics" for much more.)
Easter Egg Genetics Activity

Section 9.3: Other Patterns of Inheritance

Chapter 10: The Code of Life

Section 10.1: The Role of DNA in Heredity

Student Record Sheet: Investigation 12A: The DNA Molecule

DNA Simulation Student Kit at Carolina Biological Supply
Build a DNA Molecule [Online] from the Genetic Science Learning Center

Graphic Organizer 12.1: The Steps of DNA Replication
Skill and Practice Sheet 12.1: Rosalind Franklin
Skill and Practice Sheet 12.1: James Watson and Frances Crick

Section 10.2: DNA and Technology

Student Record Sheet: Investigation 12B: DNA Forensics

DNA Simulation Student Kit at Carolina Biological Supply

DNA Extraction from a Strawberry at My Science Box
How to Extract DNA from Anything Living from the Genetic Science Learning Center
Cloning, The Bioethics of Human Cloning (.PDF) and The Timeline History of Cloning (.PDF) from the Genetic Science Learning Center

Supplements

Science Whiz DNA Kit
DNA Necklace Kit (Reviews here)
Science in a Nutshell Kit: One and Only You at Delta Education

General Resources

Home Biology: An invaluable resource for homeschool biology.
Khan Academy Biology Lectures
Backyard Biology
Print-and-Go Index: Printables from the University of Utah Genetic Science Learning Center (many more activities can be found on their website as well)
Hands-On Activities for Teaching Biology from Serendip/Bryn Mawr College
Life Science Lesson Plans from Middle School Science
Wayne's Word: Life Science an online textbook of natural history
Taking Microphotographs

Part Two: Units 4-6

Week in Review: 03/04/11

2011-03-05T07:14:00.003-06:00

"Marguerites sur fond bleu,"Albert Marquet, c. 1943/44

This was, quite simply, the week that was too much. We took last week off so that I could schedule all of our new curricula, and it seems that I went a wee bit overboard. Despite having been at this for two years now, I appear to be incapable of finding that perfect happy medium - just the right balance of work. This week the kids spent an average of 7-8 hours per day on school work (solidly working) and still didn't get everything done. Looking over everything we did this past week, I'm honestly not even sure what was so time consuming. This weekend I'll be revisiting my master schedule to see how it might be adjusted, though the very thought makes me cringe because I had everything arranged so precisely.

My current plan is that we'll continue school through the end of May, break for the month of June (so that we can move to Oregon!), and resume work in July. Hopefully that's doable. In the upcoming months I've got to get our house ready to sell, declutter like crazy, and of course, pack. My husband has already been living in Oregon for some time, so will not be around to help, lucky him! Needless to say, when I made our recent curricula changes to such teacher-intensive programs, I was not considering all of this!

Religion

This week, we begin using Faith and Life: Following Christ from Ignatius Press and I really love it! It is exactly what I'd hoped to pull together on my own, but never found time to do.

I deliberated on whether or not to buy the Teacher's Manual, but am so glad I did. It's a massive book (truly), but is incredibly helpful for scheduling purposes and includes valuable supplemental materials.

We had one lesson per day and one activity page from Faith and Life: Following Christ.

The kids memorized the following catechism questions: CCC 1692, CCC 2055, CCC 2072, CCC 1855, 2072, in addition to the Ten Commandments.

In addition, the kids attended two faith formation classes at our parish this week; they continue with preparation for First Holy Communion.

World History

Recently I purchased, and fell utterly in love with, The Usborne History of Britain (preview here). Primarily because of this book, I decided that we needed to add world history back into our schedule.

On Monday, we read about Louis XIV, the Sun King of France, in The Story of the World, Vol. 3 and completed the mapwork in the activity book. We also enjoyed browsing through this Versailles photo set on Flickr.
On Tuesday, we watched "The Man in the Iron Mask," set during the reign of King Louis XIV, and based on the legend of The Man in the Iron Mask.
On Wednesday, we read about George I of England in Tony Robinson's Kings and Queens and in The Usborne History of Britain.
My plans for the remainder of the week fell apart because we ran out of time.

U.S. History

From BJU American Republic, the kids read Chapter 5 (one section per day over four days) about the French and Indian War and completed the corresponding pages from the Student Activity Manual. This kept them very busy! This was our first week using American Republic as our spine and it had poor M in tears a number of times, though J seemed to enjoy it very much.
The kids watched 3+ episodes of Liberty's Kids per day.

Language Arts

Grammar and Writing:

This week we switched to an updated version of Voyages in English (Loyola Press, 2006). We had been using the 1958 Lepanto Press reprint, which was wonderful, but didn't offer nearly enough practice or review. The new version has the added benefit of a practice book, and, because it so closely correlates to the old version, the old books can still be used if additional exercises are needed for review.

The new books were a smashing success and the kids actually enjoyed grammar this week! Though the content hasn't changed significantly, the full color pages were a nice improvement.

I opted to have the kids start back at the beginning of the grammar section so that they could do the corresponding writing portions in the proper sequence. I adapted these lesson plans for our 2006 books, which made scheduling a breeze.

Grammar was largely review this week. The kids studied singular and plural nouns, count and noncount nouns, concrete and abstract nouns, and nouns as subjects and subject complements. The kids completed two pages daily from the grammar portion of Voyages in English (an average of four exercises), in addition to the corresponding practice book pages.
From the writing portion of Voyages in English, the kids completed four activities pertaining to personal narratives, in addition to one practice book page and an assignment on "Introductions and Conclusions."

While I am quite satisfied with the writing instruction found in Voyages in English, I will be adding significantly to our writing program in the weeks ahead. However, this is a matter of personal choice, not because Voyages is lacking in any way.

Spelling:

For spelling, we completed four lessons plus a review lesson from Dictation Day-by-Day: A Modern Speller by Kate Van Wagenen. Misspelled words were written ten times each.

Literature:

This week's assigned literature selections were: The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare (J) and Calico Bush by Rachel Field (M), both set during the French and Indian War. In the end, this proved way too much reading for them with all of the other work we had this week. J finished his book, but I allowed M to stop after she'd read roughly half the book because she was getting behind on other assignments. J and I discussed The Sign of the Beaver on Friday following Susan Wise Bauer's guidelines for literary analysis.

Next year I'll be handling assigned selections differently, but now I'm pondering how I'll manage them for the rest of this year. Neither of the kids enjoy historical fiction, and while they do occasionally like a book that I've assigned, it's pretty uncommon. I suppose as long as they're reading quality literature, it's not necessary that it be historical fiction that is oh-so-carefully aligned with our history schedule. Neither of them enjoy history and would much rather stick to textbook work.

On Monday, we reviewed the definitions of connotation and denotation from Figuratively Speaking and read about "The Ways a Poem Suggests" (from An Introduction to Poetry by X.J. Kennedy -- an amazing resource, by the way). We read and discussed "There is no frigate like a book" by Emily Dickinson and then completed this lesson about connotation and denotation in poetry.
On Tuesday, we learned about hyperbole in poetry. We listened to and discussed "Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout" by Shel Silverstein from Where the Sidewalk Ends (25th Anniversary Edition Book and CD) (loosely following this lesson plan), and also identified and discussed hyperbole in "The Dirtiest Man in the World," by Silverstein. The kids were then asked to write a poem utilizing hyperbole. They had so much fun with this assignment and wrote some exceedingly clever lines, but unfortunately never managed to finish a complete poem.
On Thursday, our focus was hyperbole in prose, and in tall tales specifically. We read a part of Lies and Other Tall Tales by Zora Neale Hurston and Joyce Carol Thomas, followed by Thunder Rose by Jerdine Nolen (the kids completed this Tall Tale Checklist for Thunder Rose). I loosely followed the lesson plan in Teaching Literary Elements with Picture Books by Susan Van Zile and Mary Napoli.
On Friday, we read and discussed the poem "Yarns of the People" by Carl Sandburg and continued work on the poems started on Tuesday.

Science

Science continues to be muddled. I am, however, committing myself to the subject in a big way next year. Both M and J are very science-minded and I've let them down by largely ignoring it this year.

For science this week, the kids read and completed narrations from Colonial American Medicine by Susan Neiburg Terkel, which they found quite fascinating. It's a shame the book has been allowed to go out-of-print because it contains a lot of very good information not readily available otherwise.
From Time Travelers Colonial American Life, the kids colored, cut and assembled "A Glimpse in the Apothecary" and "The Pharmacopoeia."

Math

The kids continued daily work on fractions in their Singapore Math books.

Personal Notes

Last week, in a quest to learn more about Wallis Simpson, I began reading The Duchess of Windsor: The Secret Life by Charles Higham. A massive biography, I finally finished the book this week. While it was obviously exceedingly well-researched, I got bogged down by the sheer amount of detail in the book, though I did learn a great deal from it.
This week I also read the short, sweet and rather sad, Lady Rose and Mrs. Memmary (Persephone Book No. 53) by Ruby Ferguson, a "fairy tale for grown-ups." I'm haven't time for a proper review now, but Dove Grey Reader wrote very nicely about the book here. I accidentally ordered two copies, so if anyone would like my extra copy (free), just let me know in the comments! I've got a few other Persephone extras that I'll be giving away in upcoming weeks, so stay tuned. ;-)

Teaching Science Fiction

2011-02-13T12:40:00.000-06:00

There is a wide range of options available when it comes to teaching science fiction. One of the first things I read when deciding to put together a science fiction literature study was the article, Why Teach Science Fiction? by Professor James Gunn. In it, he writes:

The kinds of subjects that can be taught through science fiction involve all the social and physical sciences, history, ideas, futurology, religion, morality, ecology, reading skills, and many others. In fact, looking at the course descriptions gathered for this issue of Science-Fiction Studies, I am impressed by the fact that they are addressed to almost every issue but the genre itself.

When teaching science fiction from a literary perspective, he outlines three approaches, any or all of which would be valid:

The "great books" approach, in which the focus is on novels and critical analaysis of what makes them great.
The "ideas in science fiction" approach, dealing with how science fiction stories can be used to dramatize contemporary problems.
The historical approach - what is science fiction and how did it get to be that way?

Before I get back to planning our literature study, here were a couple of other ideas that captured my interest:

Teaching Science with Science Fiction

Bibliography:

Teaching Science Fact with Science Fiction by Richard Raham
The Science of Star Wars: An Astrophysicist's Independent Examination of Space Travel, Aliens, Planets, and Robots as Portrayed in the Star Wars Films by Jeanne Cavelos
The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence M. Krauss

Websites:

Planning a Middle School Science Fiction Unit: Contains an excellent book list for evolution and genetics-based science fiction.

Teaching Writing with Science Fiction

Bibliography*:

*The first three books are specifically for middle grade students, while the last two are for adults, but still of value.

Create-A-Future: Writing a Science Fiction Story by Eleanor Hoomes
Adventures in Fantasy: Lessons and Activities in Narrative and Descriptive Writing, Grades 5-9 by John Gust
Writing Magic: Creating Stories that Fly by Gail Carson Levine
The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction by Philip Athans
World Building: A Writer's Guide to Constructing Star Systems and Life Supporting Planets by Stephen Gillet (Educational even for non-writers!)

Websites:

Teaching Science Fiction Writing from Teachers Network

Miscellaneous Resources

Science Fiction and the Future: A Middle School unit from the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute
Sample High School Science Fiction Course from AboutSF
AboutSF Lesson Library: Sadly, many of the links are currently broken, but hopefully they'll be fixed soon.
Science Fiction Websites and Other Resources from the University of Kansas Center for Science Fiction Studies
Science Fiction Reading List for Kids from the Golden Duck Awards (promoting excellence in children's science fiction)

Retro-Futurism

2011-02-13T09:11:00.004-06:00

As a spin-off to our year-long science fiction literature unit, we'll also be taking a look at retro-futurism, just for fun. This would also make a quirky tie-in to a study of technology or the history of inventions. Here's my reading list, though there may be some overlap between titles:

The Wonderful Future that Never Was: Flying Cars, Mail Delivery by Parachutes and Other Predictions by the Editors of Popular Mechanics
Where's My Jetpack?: A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future that Never Arrived by Daniel H. Wilson
How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion by Daniel H. Wilson (This pertains to more to the history and future of robotics)
Your Flying Car Awaits: Robot Butlers, Lunar Vacations, and Other Dead-Wrong Predictions of the Twentieth Century by Paul Milo
A Brief History of Tomorrow by Jonathan Margolis
DVDs: Walt Disney Treasures: Tomorrow Land: Disney in Space and Beyond (1959) and The Jetsons: The Complete First Season (1962)

Paleofuture is a terrific blog that explores "The Future That Never Was" and Dark Roasted Blend also has some amazing stuff.

Middle Grade Science Fiction

2011-02-12T16:49:00.242-06:00

One of my recent ideas for school next year was to put together a science fiction unit for J, something that he would absolutely love (he wants to be an astrobiologist). Below are the books that I initially purchased, though I expect that some will be culled and others added as I get further into my pre-reading and planning. In particular, I like the idea of studying the books by sub-genre (time travel, dystopian, apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic, etc.), so there's clearly some organizational work to be done. More than likely our "spine" will be the amazing Prentice Hall Anthology of Science Fiction and Fantasy, a college text which I'll use selectively.

Amazing Journeys: Journey to the Center of the Earth, From the Earth to the Moon, Circling the Moon, 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas, and Around the World in 80 Days (1864-1873) by Jules Verne
The Time Machine (1895) by H.G. Wells
Space Cadet (1948) by Robert Heinlein
Red Planet (1949) by Robert Heinlein
I, Robot (1950) by Isaac Asimov
The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet (1954) by Eleanor Cameron (This is ideal for younger kids, but I didn't realize that until after I had purchased it!)
The Stories of Ray Bradbury (Everyman's Library)
Tunnel in the Sky (1955) by Robert Heinlein
House of Stairs (1974) by William Sleator
Interstellar Pig (1984) by William Sleator
Ender’s Game (1985) by Orson Scott Card
Spacer and Rat (2004) by Margaret Bechard

A fascinating blog documenting non-fiction children's books about space flight, from 1945 to 1975, is Dreams of Space.

The Tom Corbett - Space Cadet series was inspired by Robert Heinlein's Space Cadet and published between 1952-1956. The series inspired comic books, a daily and Sunday newspaper strip, radio shows, and a television series.

Thanks to Boom Pop!, I discovered that 7 of the 8 titles are available as free eBooks at ManyBooks:

While these books might not have much literary value, I thought they might be fun to include anyway (or maybe not!).

Dystopian Fiction*
*I picked these books from the excellent lists found here and here.

The Giver by Lois Lowry
Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry
Messenger by Lois Lowry
The Silenced by Jame DeVita
Gone by Michael Grant
Into the Forest by Jean Hegland
Feed by M.T. Anderson

Top 50 Dystopian Movies of All Time

Week in Review: 02/11/11

2011-02-11T17:40:00.003-06:00

Since I haven't done a weekly report in forever, I decided that I should force myself to write something this week. Overall, I'm feeling unusually dissatisfied, and have been since winter break. In particular, language arts (which I've written more about below) and history are distressing me - and distracting me from most everything else. I think I'm only upset about history because I'm working on a plan for next year which is utterly unique and rather brilliant and I'm impatient to get started on it! It's really hard to focus on this year when it seems positively dull in comparison!

Religion

We've been shamefully lax about religion this past month, though the kids are still attending religious classes twice weekly at church. I hope to piece together a plan this weekend to get us back on track!

History

The kids read A Colonial Town: Williamsburg by Bobbie Kalman.
From Time Travelers: Colonial Life we read Lesson 14 about colonial village and city life and Lesson 21 about colonial crime and punishment.
From Time Travelers: Colonial Life the kids completed a number of projects (including several from last week that never got finished). While I really love Time Travelers, the projects do take an awful lot of time. This forces us to spend week-upon-week studying the same period in history, which I think we're all sick of at this point.
The kids read two chapters from Eating the Plates: A Pilgrim Book of Food and Manners by Lucille Recht Penner.
Maddie finished reading The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare while Jaymon finished reading The Witchcraft of Salem Village by Shirley Jackson. On Friday we discussed the books.
We watched the following DVDs: In Search of History: Salem Witch Trials and Three Sovereigns for Sarah.

Math and Science

The kids read and narrated a chapter per day from Isaac Newton and Physics for Kids: His Life and Ideas with 21 Activities. As usual, there wasn't enough time to actually complete any of the activities (nor was there, quite frankly, much interest). J has been doing his own science reading as well lately, studying the topics that interest him.
The kids continued with daily lessons from their Singapore Math books. They're currently working on fractions and all is going blessedly well.

Language Arts

Since December, I've been feeling enormously discontented with several aspects of our entire language arts program. With D at public school again this year, and headed to an academically rigorous private high school next year, I've become increasingly aware of his weaknesses in language arts. There are deficiencies that I wish I had seen sooner, so that we could have worked on them during the brief time he was at home. This has made me especially mindful of M and J's education, since they remain home with me. What an enormous responsibility a child's education is! Silly as it may sound, I think the full weight of that has only just hit me.

In analyzing the potential "gaps" in their education, I found it helpful to first compile a list of goals. To do this, I consulted the state's curriculum content standards and the result was, quite frankly, overwhelming (here, for example, are the reading goals). Then, I decided to take a step back and listen to Susan Wise Bauer's excellent audio lectures (specifically those on writing and literary analysis). They're really such a joy to listen to, and very comforting, but at the same time, too simplistic I think.

So, I've been puzzling over all of this for awhile now and, while I still don't have a clear plan in place, I am getting closer. Nevertheless, I expect there will continue to be a slight amount of chaos until everything gets sorted out. With that in mind, here's what we did this week:

Daily cursive copywork from the Bible and George Washington's Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour In Company and Conversation, part of the Time Travelers: Colonial Life unit.
In Voyages in English, the kids completed five lessons pertaining to limiting adjectives, demonstrative adjectives, possessive adjectives and the position of adjectives. Overall, I'm quite pleased with Voyages in English, but realized this week that while the books cover a lot of ground, there isn't nearly enough review (and thus, retention suffers). Beginning next week, I plan to resume daily or thrice-weekly review drills. We did this with Rod and Staff English and I found it fairly effective.
For spelling we completed four lessons plus a review lesson from Dictation Day-by-Day by Kate Van Wagenen. Misspelled words were written ten times each. Though we haven't been using the book for long, I really like it.
From Figuratively Speaking, the kids learned about denotation and connotation, with an emphasis on the shades of meaning a word can have. I stretched the lesson to last all week and supplemented with a few additional worksheets found online (here, here and here).
We took a week off from writing/composition work this week while I assess where we're at and where we need to be. Moving forward, I know that I will continue to use Methods and Material for Composition in Intermediate and Grammar Grades by Alhambra Deming. I'm also expecting Grammar for Middle School: A Sentence-Composing Approach by Don Killgallon to arrive today, and have a few other ideas that I'm working on.

Personal Notes

I feel as though I've been going in about a hundred different directions at once these days! I recently learned that the company I work for may be closing soon and am feeling quite conflicted about that. Since high school, I've never not worked, but at the same time, after working from home for seven years, I think I would find returning to a 9 to 5 office job very difficult! So, it's not likely that I will get another job if/when my present job ends. That would, of course, free up so much more time for me, which would be wonderful. At the same time, my income pays for all of our books and fun stuff. Needless to say, I've been spending every penny on books these days - in a panic for the future!

At present I'm trying to sort out all of our lesson issues (see above), pre-read M and J's books for next year to forumulate ideas (honestly, I think I've got at least two years of books so far!), read books on teaching reading and writing, and, in the time that's left, read for pleasure...Needless to say, I fall asleep every night with a book in hand and am, overall, utterly exhausted. I just finished Kate Morton's The Forgotten Garden, which is quite simply the best novel I've read in a long time - I loved everything about it.

7th Grade Reading Goals

2011-02-11T12:34:00.000-06:00

For the most part, I've simply copy and pasted the Kansas curriculum content standards for 7th grade here, and added the resources that I've found to assist in teaching them. Thus far, this is a largely a collection of graphic organizers, but I hope to add more varied resources in the future.

Vocabulary

Goal: The student expands their vocabulary.

Determines meaning of words or phrases using context clues (e.g., definitions, restatements, examples, descriptions, comparison-contrast, clue words) from sentences or paragraphs.

Use cloze reading strategies.

Determines meaning of words through structural analysis, using knowledge of Greek, Latin, and Anglo-Saxon roots, prefixes, and suffixes to understand complex words, including words in science, mathematics, and social studies.

Word Roots Software from The Critical Thinking Company (also available in workbook form).
Vocabulary from Classical Roots: Greek and Latin word root study (workbook format), available in five levels.
Words on the Vine: 36 Vocabulary Units on Root Words: Workbook for grades 5-8.
Rummy Roots and More Roots: 4-in-1 card game set to learn Greek and Latin roots.

Identifies and determines the meaning of figurative language (similes, metaphors, analogies, hyperbole, onomatopoeia, personification, and idioms).

Figuratively Speaking: Using Classic Literature to Teach 40 Literary Terms: Workbook for grades 5-8.
An Introduction to Poetry by X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia
Teaching Literary Elements with Picture Books: Fifteen lessons for using picture books to teach literary elements such as point of view, voice, irony, theme, metaphor, simile, and more.
Using Picture Storybooks to Teach Literary Devices: Recommended Books for Children and Young Adults: A reference book containing over 120 picture books useful for teaching 41 literary devices.
Figurative Language: Part of a 36-page packet of graphic organizers (.PDF).

Identifies word connotations and word denotations.
The choice of words that a writer uses, and the tone of those words, is what evokes an emotion in us. As an active reader, you should question the author's use of words: Why does your author use neutral, positive, or negative connotative language? How does it affect the characters and you?

Figuratively Speaking: Using Classic Literature to Teach 40 Literary Terms: Workbook for grades 5-8; contains a lesson on connotation and denotation.
Connotation and Denotation: An excellent 8-page handout with exercises (.PDF).
Shades of Meaning: A lesson plan from Visual Thesaurus.
Denotation and Connotation: A worksheet on identifying positive, neutral, and negative connotations (.PDF).
Teaching Connotation and Denotation: Part I, Part II

Reading Comprehension

Goal: The student reads and comprehends grade-level-appropriate material. They describe and connect the essential ideas, arguments, and perspectives of the text by using their knowledge of text structure, organization, and purpose. The student comprehends a variety of texts (narrative, expository, technical and persuasive).

The student identifies characteristics of narrative, expository, technical, and persuasive texts.

Narrative Text Structure: A 34-page packet of lessons and graphic organizers, aimed at grades 4-5 (.PDF).
Five Expository Text Structures and Their Associated Signal Words: Handout (.PDF)
Persuasive and Instructive (Technical) Texts: Handout (.PDF)
Find a Purpose for Reading: How Does the Author Communicate?: Graphic organizer, part of a 36-page packet of graphic organizers (.PDF).

The student understands the purpose of text features (e.g., title, graphs/charts and maps, table of contents, pictures/illustrations, boldface type, italics, glossary, index, headings, subheadings, topic and summary sentences, captions, sidebars, underlining, numbered or bulleted lists) and uses such features to locate information in and to gain meaning from appropriate-level texts.

Teaching Students to Read Nonfiction by Alice Boynton and Wiley Blevins
Gathering Information on a Topic Graphic organizer, part of a 36-page packet of graphic organizers (.PDF).

The student uses prior knowledge, content, and text type features to make, to revise, and to confirm predictions.

Reading Strategies Checklist for Students: Part of a 36-page packet of graphic organizers (.PDF).
Prediction Chart: Part of a 36-page packet of graphic organizers for teachers (.PDF).

The student generates and responds logically to literal, inferential, evaluative, synthesizing, and critical thinking questions before, during, and after reading the text.
The student uses information from the text to make inferences and draw conclusions.

Making Inferences Graphic Organizer from Scholastic (.PDF)
Drawing Conclusions Graphic Organizer from Scholastic (.PDF)

The student analyzes how text structure (e.g., sequence, problem-solution, comparison-contrast, description, cause-effect) helps support comprehension of text.

Cause-Effect Graphic Organizer (.PDF)

The student compares and contrasts varying aspects (e.g., characters' traits and motives, themes, problem-solution, cause-effect relationships, ideas and concepts, procedures, viewpoints, authors' purposes) in one or more appropriate-level texts.

Compare/Contrast Venn Diagram Graphic Organizer from Scholastic (.PDF)

The student uses paraphrasing and organizational skills to summarize information (e.g., stated and implied main ideas, main events, important details) from appropriate-level narrative, expository,
technical, and persuasive texts in logical order.

How to Summarize and Paraphrase : A Handout from Freeology (.PDF).
Summarizing Graphic Organizer from Scholastic (.PDF)
Use Text Organization: Summarize Sections: Graphic organizer, part of a 36-page packet of graphic organizers (.PDF).

The student identifies the topic, main idea(s), supporting details, and theme(s) in text across the content areas and from a variety of sources in appropriate-level texts.

Main Idea and Supporting Details Graphic Organizer from Scholastic (.PDF)
What's the Main Idea? Fishbone Graphic Organizer from Scholastic (.PDF) or Fish Bones Graphic Organizer from Freeology (.PDF): The students write the main idea of the story across the backbone of the fish and on lines stemming out from the fish, they write answers to the questions “Who is the author talking about?”, “What did they do?”, “When did they do it?”, “Where did they do it?”, “How did they do it?”, and “Why did they do it?”

The student follows directions explained in a technical (instructive) text.
The student identifies the author's position in a persuasive text and describes techniques the author uses to support that position (e.g., bandwagon approach, glittering generalities, testimonials, citing statistics, other techniques that appeal to reason or emotion).

Identifying Voice: A persuasive text lesson plan (.PDF).
Find a Purpose for Reading: Create a Pro and Con Chart (.PDF)

The student distinguishes between fact and opinion, and recognizes propaganda (e.g., advertising, media, politics, warfare), bias, and stereotypes in various types of appropriate-level texts.

Fact and Opinion Graphic Organizer from Education Place (.PDF)

Literature

Goal: The student uses literary concepts to interpret and respond to text.

The student describes different aspects of major and minor characters (e.g., their physical traits, personality traits, feelings, actions, motives) and explains how those aspects influence characters' interactions with other characters and elements of the plot, including resolution of the major conflict

Character Sheet and Traits Graphic Organizer from Scholastic (.PDF)
Characterization Graphic Organizer (.PDF)
Cluster Chart: To keep track of character traits or main ideas; part of a 36-page packet of graphic organizers (.PDF).
Character Predictions: Graphic organizer; part of a 36-page packet of graphic organizers (.PDF).

The student identifies and describes the setting (e.g., environment, time of day or year, historical period, situation, place) and analyzes connections between the setting and other story elements (e.g., character, plot).

See: Deconstructing Penguin: Parents, Kids and the Bond of Reading by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone and Fresh Takes on Literary Analysis: How to Teach What Really Matters About Character, Setting, Point of View, and Theme by Jeffrey Wilhelm

The student identifies major and minor elements of the plot (e.g., problem or conflict, climax, resolution, rising action, falling action, subplots, parallel episodes) and explains how these elements relate to one another.

Story Map (1) Graphic Organizer from Education Place (.PDF)
Story Map (2) Graphic Organizer from Education Place (.PDF)
Story Map (3) Graphic Organizer from Education Place (.PDF)
Plot Map Graphic Organizer (.PDF)
Story Plot Graph and Story Plot Terms Handout (.PDF)
Visualize: Create a Story Strip: Graphic organizer; part of a 36-page packet of graphic organizers (.PDF).
Predict Outcomes: Graphic organizer to predict the outcome of a piece; part of a 36-page packet of graphic organizers (.PDF).
Use Text Organization: Making a Story Map: Graphic organizer, part of a 36-page packet of graphic organizers (.PDF).
Use Text Organization: Fill in a Plot Diagram: Graphic organizer, part of a 36-page packet of graphic organizers (.PDF).

The student recognizes aspects of theme (e.g., moral, lesson, meaning, message, author's ideas about the subject) and recurring themes across works (e.g., bravery, loneliness, loyalty, friendship).

Find a Purpose for Reading: Keeping Track of the Author's Key Ideas: Graphic organizer, from a 36-page packet of graphic organizers (.PDF).

The student identifies literary devices (e.g., foreshadowing, flashback, figurative language, irony, metaphor, tone/mood, symbolism).

Reading Response Form: Includes a place to write the literary device(s) used and explain how the device is used (.PDF).
Figuratively Speaking: Using Classic Literature to Teach 40 Literary Terms: Workbook for grades 5-8.

The student contrasts point of view (e.g., first and third person, limited and omniscient, subjective and objective) in narrative text and explain how they affect the overall theme of the work.

Goal: The student understands the significance of literature and its contributions to various cultures.

The student identifies common structures and stylistic elements in literature, folklore, and myths from a variety of cultures.
The student compares and contrasts customs and ideas within literature
representing a variety of cultures.
The student recognizes connections between cultures and experiences through a variety of texts.

"Just William" Online

2011-01-26T15:56:00.000-06:00

Just William is the first book of children's short stories about a young schoolboy named William Brown, written by Richmal Crompton, and published in 1922. She wrote 38 other William books between 1922 and 1970. The first two William books can be found online at Project Gutenberg: Just William, More William, and many of the others are available from Book Depository.

A "Just William" television series was produced in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1990s, with the BBC creating four new episodes again last year (these will be released on DVD in the UK March 2011).

Below are the episodes from 1994 with links to those that are currently available online.

Series One:

William and the Russian Prince
William's Busy Day
William - The Great Actor
William and the White Elephants
Finding a School for William
William's Birthday

Series Two:

BBC: Just William, 2010 (Available on DVD 03/2011)

The Art of Alice Bailly, Part Two

2011-01-22T14:06:00.000-06:00

L'Elephant

Femme en rouge

Nature mort aux mimosas

Le village

Paysage à Orsay (L'Arbre Vert)

Femme au miroir

The Art of Alice Bailly, Part One

2011-01-22T13:54:00.004-06:00

Alice Bailly (February 25, 1872 – January 1, 1938) was a radical Swiss painter, known for her interpretation of cubism and her multimedia wool paintings. Biography

Femme au gant blanc

Hochzeitsfest

Arlequin et femme

Danseuse avec arliquin

Portrait d'un jeune homme

Au bord du ruisseau

Notes on Dictation...

2011-01-19T13:54:00.032-06:00

Dictation, often largely adopted as a method of teaching, is really only a method of testing spelling. A child who makes no mistakes learns nothing from it. Still, dictation, employed, like oral spelling, with moderation and intelligence, is a useful and necessary exercise. It may be made an incentive for the careful study of all the hard words in a given 'piece,' and it shows what pupils and what words call for special attention.

Having selected the passage to be dictated, the teacher reads it aloud. A knowledge of the meaning of the whole will help the childdren to catch the sound of each separate word, and to decide between the different spellings by which the same sound is sometimes represented.

The passage is then dictated in sections of from two to six words, according to the age of the children and to the sense. The teacher should speak clearly enough for every one who is listening to hear and understand, and there should be, as a rule, no repetition. Children will not attend the first time if they think that there will be a second time. The rate of dictation should be regulated by watching a good writer of average speed. 'Copying' must be prevented by every means, moral and mechanical.

After the dictation comes the correction. If this be not thorough, the exercise is worse than valueless. A misspelling indicates a false impression of the form of a word, and this is deepened by iteration. Every mistake must, therefore, be discovered, and the correct spelling written a sufficient number of times to remove the false and imprint the true impression. The best method of correction is for the teacher to examine every exercise himself (the children, meanwhile, being usefully employed), but this is possible only with small classes. The method of mutual correction generally adopted is open to three objections—the corrector's own right spelling may be confused or wrong spelling confirmed by the mistakes of the corrected; errors may be passed over; and there is a constant temptation for the child to look at his own exercise instead of the one before him. This temptation can be largely overcome by good discipline, and entirely obviated by a simple device. The child at the upper end of each row of desks takes his own book (or slate) and that of his neighbour to the lower end of the row; the remaining books (or slates) are then passed up two places.

A better plan than mutual correction is for each child to correct his own, but this can be followed only when the training in honesty and carefulness has been successful.

Whatever method is adopted for marking errors, all words misspelled should be written accurately several times. While this is being done some pleasant occupation should be found for the children who have no errors, and the teacher should go round the class glancing at each exercise, and more than glancing at the exercises of children likely to have many errors.

A note should be made of the words misspelled, and after a few days they should be dictated again, for it must be remembered that memory impressions are deepened by interest or by repetition, and, as spelling cannot often be made interesting, repetition is essential.

(From The Art of Teaching by David Salmon, 1898)

The Dictation Day by Day/Modern Speller Series

Suggestions to Teachers: One dictation exercise constitues a day's lesson; but, in addition, assign three or four words from the review lists which follow every fourth lesson. When the four dictations and the review have been taught, review the week's work and teach no new matter. Keep a list of the words misspelled daily, and on Friday drill on these.

The Modern Speller, Book 1 by Kate van Wagenen
The Modern Speller, Book 2 by Kate van Wagenen
Dictation Day by Day, A Modern Speller, 3rd Year by Kate van Wagenen
Dictation Day by Day, A Modern Speller: 4th Year by Kate van Wagenen
Dictation Day by Day, A Modern Speller: 5th Year by Kate van Wagenen
Dictation Day by Day, A Modern Speller: 6th Year by Kate van Wagenen

The Journal of a Disappointed Man by W.N.P. Barbellion

2011-01-15T21:18:00.024-06:00

"Every man is an inexhaustible treasury of human personality. He can go on burrowing in it for an eternity if he has the desire - and a taste for introspection. I like to keep myself well within the field of the microscope, and, with as much detachment as I can muster, to watch myself live, to report my observations of what I say, feel, think. In default of others, I am myself my own spectator and self-appreciator - critical, discerning, vigilant, fond! --- I never cease to interest myself in the Gothic architecture of my own fantastic soul." (The Journal of a Disappointed Man)

This week I read The Journal of a Disappointed Man by W.N.P. Barbellion, my third book for 52 Books in 52 Weeks. The Journal was recently re-published by Little Toller Books in the UK and is also available in the public domain via Google Books and the Internet Archive. It has been called a "masterpiece of personal observation," likened to the work of writers such as Franz Kafka and James Joyce, and was described by Ronald Blythe as "among the most moving diaries ever created."

W.N.P. Barbellion was the nom-de-plume of Bruce Frederick Cummings (7 September 1889 - 22 October 1919). The initials W.N.P. stood for Wilhelm Nero Pilate, whom the author thought to be the most despicable people in history (Wilhelm being Kaiser Wilhelm the II since the diaries were published during the First World War). Barbellion was a name above a shop in South Kensington that Cummings passed every day.

The Journal begins in 1903 when the author is 13 years old. His brother would later recall:

"He read all kinds of books, from Kingsley to Carlyle, with an insatiable appetite. It was about this time, too, that he began those long tramps into the countryside, over the hills to watch the staghounds meet, and along the broad river marshes, that provided the beginnings and the foundation of the diary habit, which became in time the very breath of his inner life.

In these early years, I remember, the diary took the outward form of an old exercise book, neatly labelled and numbered, and it reflected all his observations on nature. The records, some of which were reproduced from time to time in The Zoologist, were valuable not only in their careful exactitude, but for their breadth of suggestion, and that inquiring spirit into the why of things which proved him to be no mere classifier or reporter. They were the outcome of long vigils of concentrated watching."

He taught himself how to dissect, and afterwards his patient and unerring skill surprised his examiners. "Scientists and naturalists of repute--reading his published records of observations--called upon him and were puzzled to find him a mere boy." By the time he was fourteen, "his fixed determination to become a naturalist by profession was accepted by all of us as a settled thing." (A.J. Cummings, A Last Diary)

Despite being almost entirely self-taught, in October 1911 he placed first in an examination for a position at the British Museum of Natural History in London, and in January 1912 commenced an assistantship there.

Bruce Frederick Cummings c. approx. 1910

"For an unusually long time after I grew up, I maintained a beautiful confidence in the goodness of mankind. Rumours did reach me, but I brushed them aside as slanders. I was an ingénu, unsuspecting, credulous." (The Journal of a Disappointed Man)

Gradually, as his ambitions began to change, his writing evolved from the dry scientific notes of the earlier Journal into something more personal and literary (and hence, imminently more readable!).

"He wrote down instinctively and by habit his inmost thoughts, his lightest impression of the doings of the day, a careless jest that amused him, an irritating encounter with a foolish or a stupid person, something newly seen in the structure of a bird's wing, a sunset effect. It was only on rare occasions that he deliberately experimented with forms of expression." (A.J. Cummings, A Last Diary)

There is an element of despair throughout the Journal as he struggled with chronic ill-health (and a fair amount of hyperchondria), and also occasional bouts of depression. "Chronically sub-normal" was how he once described his condition to his brother. In London, he grew slowly and steadily worse and, upon the advice of his brother saw a "first-class nerve specialist" who promptly diagnosed him with what we now call multiple sclerosis. Yet the decision was made not to tell him the true nature of his illness, so as not to precipitate his demise.

In October of 1914, he discovered the Journal of the Russian painter Marie Bashkirtseff (1858–1884). “I am simply astounded," he writes. “It would be difficult in all the world’s history to discover any two persons with temperaments so alike. She is the ‘very spit of me’!” This seems to have inspired his decision, in December of that year, to "prepare and publish a volume of this Journal."

The diaries, up through the winter of 1917 were eventually published in March 1919 and the book was an immediate sensation (though many believed it was a work of fiction, written by H.G. Wells who had written book's preface). A later journal entitled A Last Diary was published after his death in 1919, as well as a book of essays, Enjoying Life and Other Literary Remains.

"I do not think that there can be two minds about the great literary qualities and the poignant interest of his one tragic work. It is a book that is continually sought and steadily reprinted – the story of a soul in the grip of the obscure and pitiless arterial [sic] disease that finally killed him, resolved to find expression and a use for itself in the ever darkening shadow of death. 'Barbellion’s Diary' I am convinced will still be read with interest, curiosity and sympathy, when most of the larger more fluid successes of to-day have passed out of attention." (H. G. Wells, letter to Barbellion’s widow, 8 September 1925, Source)

"For as long as his remarkable journal is published he will live with it, his constrained existence celebrated for the courage that so brightly distinguishes it." (William Trevor, “On the Shelf”, Sunday Times, 5 November 1995, Source)

"To me the honour is sufficient of belonging to the universe — such a great universe, and so grand a scheme of things. Not even Death can rob me of that honour. For nothing can alter the fact that I have lived; I have been I, if for ever so short a time. And when I am dead, the matter which composes my body is indestructible—and eternal, so that come what may to my 'Soul,' my dust will always be going on, each separate atom of me playing its separate part — I shall still have some sort of a finger in the pie. When I am dead, you can boil me, burn me, drown me, scatter me — but you cannot destroy me: my little atoms would merely deride such heavy vengeance. Death can do no more than kill you." (The Journal of a Disappointed Man)

The Photography of Bill Brandt

2011-01-12T13:10:00.001-06:00

Bill Brandt, British photographer and photojournalist

3 May 1904 – 20 December 1983

Biography - Photography Archive

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Lambeth Walk, 1936

Parlourmaid in Window, Kensington, 1936

1936

Halifax, 1937

East End, 1937

Children in Sheffield, 1937

The House Opposite 12 , Anguir Street, Dublin
(Birthplace of Thomas Moore)