Today is the birthday of author Christina Bjork (b. 1938), author of the beautiful book, Linnea in Monet’s Garden. In the book, Linnea, a young girl,, and her neighbor, Mr. Blom get to visit Paris and Giverny and see the places where Monet created his paintings. The book is a wonderful introduction to impressionist art and to the work and life of Claude Monet.
Picture Book Preschool:Week 31
Picture Book Preschool is a preschool/kindergarten curriculum which consists of a list of picture books to read aloud for each week of the year and a character trait, a memory verse, and activities, all tied to the theme for the week. You can purchase a downloadable version (pdf file) of Picture Book Preschool by Sherry Early at Biblioguides.
WEEK 31 (July) MATHEMATICS
Character Trait: Honesty
Bible Verse: Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. Luke 12:7
1. Anno, Mitsumasa. Anno’s Counting Book. Harper Collins, 1977.
2. Hoban, Tana. Count and See. Macmillan, 1972.
3. Giganti, Paul Jr. Each Orange Had 8 Slices. Greenwillow, 1992.
4. Macmillan, Bruce. Eating Fractions. Scholastic, 1991.
5. Giganti, Paul Jr. How Many Snails? Greenwillow, 1988.
6. Cook, Bernadine. The Little Fish That Got Away. Addison-Wesley, 1956. OP
7. Slobodkina, Esphyr. The Wonderful Feast. Greenwillow, 1993.
Activities: Make a habit of counting with your child. Things to count could include blocks, toy cars, raisins, pennies, etc.
Siggies
I’m visiting my mom, and one of her hobbies is designing “siggies.” I never heard of it until she started doing it, but it looks like fun.
All for One, and One for All!
On the first Monday of the month of April 1625, the town of Meung looked as if it were in as complete a state of revolution as if the Huguenots had just made a second La Rochelle of it.
Alexandre Dumas , pere, was born near Paris on July 24, 1802. His grandfather was a marquis, and his grandmother was a black slave. Dumas’ father was soldier in Napoleon’s army. Dumas himself was a prolific writer; he wrote hundreds of plays and novels. However, his critics were numerous also. They said he plagiarized mnay of his works, and he made no secret of the fact that he employed several anonymous collaborators who wrote much of what Dumas published in his own name. Often Dumas provided the plot summaries, and his stable of writers fleshed out the stories and plays. His son, Alexandre Dumas, fils, became a famous playwright who wrote the story upon which the opera La Traviata is based.
The Three Musketeers is Dumas’ best-known novel. It is the first in a trilogy which consists of three novels:
Les Trois Mousquetaires,
Vingt Ans Après (Twenty Years After), and
Le Vicomte de Bragelonne ou Dix Ans Plus Tard (Ten Years Later).
This third novel is often split up into three pieces when published in English:
The Vicomte of Bragelonne,
Louise de la Vallire, and
The Man in the Iron Mask.
Dumas also wrote The Count of Monte Cristo.
If you’ ve never read these, you should. If you’ve only seen movie versions, you should read the book(s). You might get the impression from the movies that have been made that the musketeers were quite amoral or even immoral; however, in the books they are only chilvalrous and rather foolish knights who, in the romantic tradition, have lady loves, mostly worshipped from afar or at least chastely. There are all sorts of intrigues and plots, but the musketeers are loyal to their king and to one another. And the books are great fun.
Born July 23rd
Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore, b. 1823, Catholic poet and essayist.
Raymond Chandler, b. 1888. Author of “hard-boiled” detective stories and novels.
Elspeth Huxley, b.1907. Author and daughter of Aldous Huxley.
Robert Quackenbush, b. 1929. Go here to enter the Miss Mallard Art Contest.
First lines anyone?
Michael Berube teaches literature and cultural studies at Penn State. On his blog, he’s started a l-o-n-g discussion (187 comments and counting) of Great First Lines in Novels. Some place called Center for Book Culture (??) is taking nominations in order to compile a list of the 100 best first lines.
Here are some of my favorites, not necessarily my favorite novels, but favorite first lines:
1. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
2. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only
3. Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.
4. There once was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb and he almost deserved it.
5. Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.
6. Now, Bix Rivers has disappeared, and who do you think is going to tell his story but me? Maybe his stepfather? Man, that dude does not know Bix deep and now he never will, will he?
7. “Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.
“It’s so dreadful to be poor!”
8. Dr. Strauss says I shud rite down what I think and evrey thing that happins to me from now on.
9. It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen.
10. All children, except one, grow up.
Not too hard. Who will be the first to guess all ten?
Friday Blogamundi
Jollyblogger is Wrestling with Forgiveness. He draws a useful distinction between the obligation to forgive and the expectation that privileges will be restored to the offending party in a relationship.
We are to extend forgiveness to others in direct proportion to the amount of forgiveness Christ has extended to us. We may withhold forgiveness from others in the same way that Christ withholds forgiveness from us. And the point of that is very plain, Christ does not withhold forgiveness from His people, therefore we have no right to withhold forgiveness from others.
BUT we are not obligated to restore privileges to someone who has sinned against us: trust a thief with our money, give marital privileges to an adulterer, etc.
Carmon at Buried Treasure blogs about what’s wrong with HP. Although I think she has some valid concerns, and although I don’t plan to read the books, and although this blog was supposed to remain an HP-free zone, my older urchins are reading the books and enjoying them immensely. That’s all I’ll say about the matter.
Well, one more note: Go to Jollyblogger again for a different take on HP. And neither I nor Carmon nor Jollyblogger has even read the books we’re discussing so freely.
Debra is surprised to find herself watching a reality-TV show, something called Brat Camp. Read about it here. Has anyone else seen this show, do you have an opinion? Does the experience really help the kids to change or not?
Adrian Warnock is asking: Who Are Your Favorite Well-Known Living Preachers? I commented on R.C. Sproul, as did several others. I really didn’t realize how many pastors and preachers have audio versions of their sermons available on the web. It could be very helpful to listen to one or two sermons a week from a variety of Godly men. Who are your favorites? Are their sermons available via the web? Where?
Marla and firends are discussing “quiver full” again. My short response is: “You keep using that word (QF). I do not think it means what you think it means.” My long response will have to wait.
Dooner’s Spay, I Mean . . .
Spooner’s Day, is named for Rev. William Archibald Spooner, b. 1844, Dean and later Warden of New College in Oxford. This article from Reader’s Digest describes Spooner :
Spooner was an albino, small, with a pink face, poor eyesight, and a head too large for his body. His reputation was that of a genial, kindly, hospitable man. He seems also to have been something of an absent-minded professor. He once invited a faculty member to tea “to welcome our new archaeology Fellow.”
“But, sir,” the man replied, “I am our new archaeology Fellow.”
“Never mind,” Spooner said, “Come all the same.”
He was most famous, however, for getting his tang tungled. Spoonerisms are words or phrases in which sounds or syllables get swapped. Some of Spooner’s spoonerisms:
fighting a liar–lighting a fire
you hissed my mystery lecture–you missed my history lecture
cattle ships and bruisers–battle ships and cruisers
nosey little cook–cosy little nook
a blushing crow–a crushing blow
tons of soil–sons of toil
our queer old Dean–our dear old Queen
we’ll have the hags flung out–we’ll have the flags hung out
GWB’s most famous spoonerism:
“If the terriers and bariffs (barriers and tariffs) are torn down, this economy will grow.” (January 7, 2001 in Rochester, New York)
And here, for your further enjoyment, is the spoonerized fairy tale, Prinderella and the Cince. We used to have an old recording of Andy Griffith telling a spoonerized version of this story, not this same one, though, as I remember it. On the other side of the record was Griffith’s monologue called “What It Was Was Football” about a country boy who gets trapped into watching a football game. He can’t figure out why all those boys on the field are fighting over that little pumpkin and in all the excitement the narrator “dropped his Big Orange drink.”
Anyway, anybody else have any examples of spoonerisms?
Born July 21st
Ernest Hemingway, b. 1899. OK, Hemingway fans, why? What is it about Mr. Hemingway’s spare prose that inspires, resonates, causes you to say, “Wow, that’s a good book!”? Which of Hemingway’s novels do you like the most? Why? I’ve read four of Hemingway’s novels, a long time ago, and I must say that I mostly remember a lot of very drunk characters and something rather poignant about The Sun Also Rises. Hemingway website
Robin Williams, b. 1952. Great comedian. The movie Dead Poets Society makes my list of 105 Best Movies Ever.
Homeschooling Tip of the Week #2
READ. Out loud. Daily. Read picture books. Read science books. Read history. Read chapters from your favorite children’s fiction. Read nonfiction. Reading is better than lecturing. Reading is more fun and stimulating to the imagination than television.
We try to read picture books to the younger set every day. We are usually reading through a longer fiction book with whoever is old enough to sit still and listen. Right now we’re reading Little House on the Prairie. We also use many of the books from the Sonlight curriculum catalogue. Reading aloud is a way of life in our homeschool, and it should be in yours. too.