A Fortnight's Review

It's the 'official' school holidays here, not that we follow them, but we tend to end up changing our usual schedule because we don't have our regular weekly activities. Last week Moozle and I taught a group of ten children how to weave using a hula hoop as a loom in kid's holiday programme our church runs twice a year. Benj volunteered as one of the leaders and helped to run games & activities. At other times he's been rostered on First Aid as he has his Senior First Aid Certificate.

The ten children in our workshop were aged around 6 to 10 years of age; about equal numbers of boys and girls. None of them had ever done anything like this and had no idea what they were in for. One little boy wasn't impressed at first. The workshop he volunteered for was cancelled so he got put into ours. "I can't do this...this is boring!" Not a great start, but I kept telling him he'd actually enjoy it once he got the hang of it. The workshop was about an hour and a half long and Moozle & I had already put the warp on the looms (and spent a couple of days cutting up old t-shirts...) so we just had to teach them how to weave. About 10 minutes before the end of the class I told them we'd have to start looking at finishing the weaving and getting it off the looms. The kids didn't want to stop - including the reluctant boy! They kept saying, "Just one more colour..." so their weaving would be bigger. I took some photos once they got the hang of it and they were all thrilled with their finished work.

There are oodles of links on Pinterest and tutorials on youtube on how to weave on a hula hoop.
Update: a video link is here (they use a fancier sort of hula hoop in this one but we just had the normal cheap version) & here.
 

Our Reading

Benj:

The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis - I wrote about this book here.
He's also continuing with The Root of the Righteous by A.W. Tozer which I finished recently.

Moozle:  

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin - this is a well-written mystery story that Moozle really enjoyed. A good puzzle with twists that keeps you guessing until the end. A Newbery Medal winner, 1979.

Me:

Stalin: Russia's Man of Steel by Albert Marrin. A good biography for ages 13 years and up. Some thoughts on it here.

A Decline in Prophets by Sulari Gentill - this is the second book in this murder series. I wrote about the first one here.
Set in Australia during the 1930's, this book picks up in pace from the first one, as I predicted, and launches almost immediately into the action. The very likeable main characters from the first book turn up again and find themselves caught up in a crime scene on board a cruise ship. Again, the author weaves crime and mystery with historical events and some notable people of the time and creates a very interesting and unusual story. A great way to learn about some not so well known parts of Australia's history.

Other bits & pieces:


I've been using Singapore Maths for a few years now with Moozle and while I think it's very good at showing the 'why' behind some of the maths, I don't think it's a thorough as some of the maths I've used with her older siblings. I was going through some books I'd packed away and found some unused "Key to..." workbooks so I started using them plus I'm going back to an A Beka text I used in the past as it covers things like clocks!! Most of the clocks at our place are digital and I was shocked recently when I realised that she had difficulty telling the time on a normal clock. She'll still do Singapore until we've finished the books I've already bought and then we may shift to Saxon for high school.

My husband and I have very different tastes in movies but we watched this together and both thought it was very good. Set at the time of the building of the Berlin Wall, it is based on real events and  raises some thoughtful questions regarding moral codes and law. See History vs Hollywood for more details.

Linking up at Weekly Wrap-up

Living Books for Maths

This post is an updated version/redo of one that I did when I first started this blog. I've added more books and some links that have been inspiring and helpful to us in teaching our children.
Living - producing action, animation and vigor; quickening; flowing, opposed to stagnant.

Anno’s Counting Book is a wordless picture book that is full of beautifully drawn images. The book appears very simple, but in fact it contains a sophisticated introduction to ideas about counting, incorporating varied ways of representing number. The idea behind this book is to introduce counting to young children in an appealing and natural way. Each double-spread page uses an array of blocks on the left side, a picture in the middle and the numeral on the right side. As the reader progresses through the numbers, they also move through the months of the year. In February for example, the reader can count 2 buildings, 2 trucks, 2 fir trees, 2 rabbits, etc. within the picture itself. The numeral 2 is also given, as well as a pictorial representation of two blocks. These two aspects help introduce children to common methods of representing number in the beginning years of school.

(Thanks to my daughter Zana who came across Mitsumasa Anno's book while doing research for a mathematics' scholarship and wrote this for me.)


String, Straight Edge, & Shadow: The Story of Geometry by Julia E. Diggins; Illustrated by Corydon Bell

Originally published in 1965 and reprinted in 2003, this book tells the story of Geometry from ancient times up to the time of the writing of Euclid's Elements, using archaeological and historical records and legendary accounts of famous mathematicians of the past.

In ancient times the lines and forms of nature were observed and copied and eventually incorporated into a practical art later known as geometry (from geo, 'earth,' and metria, 'measurement').

Three tools, which are still in use today - the string, straight edge and shadow - were the foundation of this practical art upon which the concepts of theoretical geometry were gradually built.

Well written and full of graphic illustrations, this book gives a thorough, accessible and understandable introduction to geometry, its use and development throughout history and is a wonderful living book for students learning geometry for the first time as well as an interesting book generally. A good read aloud.
I bought my copy from Waldorf Books a few years ago and the postage at the time to Australia was very reasonable, but that may not be the case anymore.

A Piece of the Mountain: The Story of Blaise Pascal by Joyce MacPherson

Joyce McPherson has written several biographies of famous men in history who not only earned a reputation in their varied fields of science, art and Mathematics, but were prominent apologists for the Christian faith.

Her writing style is appealing and crisp and her books are written for around a 5th to 6th grade reading level and work very nicely as family read alouds as she includes details of the childhoods and early influences of each of the men.

This story of Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) is a wonderful introduction to an important mathematician who lived through the turbulent times of the 1600's when King Charles I lost his head, Descartes was writing on philosophy and Tasman was exploring downunder. Pascal was educated at home and his father encouraged his early interest in mathematics.

'Every morning Blaise's father spent time with his children's lessons. But what lessons! They were different from the meaningless repetitions of facts founding the schoolbooks. Blaise's father wanted to teach his children to think. His own experience had taught him that schools often attempted to fill a pupil's heads full of facts instead of allowing the pupil to find the truth for himself. Thus, Blaise's father had decided to leave his successful job....and devote himself to science and the instruction of his children.'

Pascal laid the groundwork for Analytic Geometry; he made the first digital calculator, developed a theory of mathematical probability and wrote an enduring defence of the Christian faith which has been read for over three hundred years.

Today his name is used for a programming language, Pascal, and his work on probability was a precursor for development in areas such as genetics, statistics and analysis.

The Ocean of Truth: The Story of Sir Isaac Newton by Joyce McPherson

Although Sir Isaac Newton is largely remembered in relation to his theories of motion and gravitation, he was also a mathematician, a natural philosopher and a theologian. Along with another scientist, Gottfried Leibniz, he is credited with the development of Calculus. As with McPherson's other books, she brings these famous people to life without neglecting their faith and the role it played in their lives and work.


How We Found Out About Numbers by Isaac Asimov

In this book Asimov traces the discovery of numbers in an engaging narrative. I've used his non-fiction books with different ages and my children have enjoyed them. This one is suited to around age 9 years and up. It's a short read of 54 pages but covers quite a lot of ground.

Mathematics: Is God Silent? by James Nickel

Now I haven't read this, but it comes highly recommended by my husband. Years ago we heard the author speak at a Home Ed conference and my husband, who loves maths and thinks Calculus is fun, (??) really enjoyed what he had to say, so bought his book. Our older children read it when they had done some highschool level maths and I would like to read it at some stage...

Annie Kate has a review of this book here and there is another at The Imaginative Conservative.

Snippets of a Week Of Ambleside Online Year 8 with a 15 Year old

*  History readings as per Ambleside Online schedule. Benj plans his own readings from the weekly list. With Churchill's books, he has always preferred to read a whole chapter per week rather than how it is scheduled (the chapters are divided as they are fairly long) so he has just finished the book this week.

*  Shakespeare's Macbeth - we've just started this play using the Arkangel BBC recording.

*  We're not doing a Plutarch Life this term as our days are full enough at present. I'm happy if we do at least two Shakespeare and two lives per year but sometimes we do more.

*  The Holy War by John Bunyan - each week Benj adds to his poetic saga narration.

*  Francis Bacon Essays - a re-writing of the essay Of Studies.
There were a few Latin phrases such as, Abeunt studia in mores and cymini sectores, which we were unsure of until we found this site which helps explain them.

*  Maths - continues with Saxon Algebra II which he's almost finished. We were talking this week about what he'd like to study at University so we can plan towards that. We've used the SAT and units from Open University as a means of providing 'formal' documentation for university entry and as he has a mathematical bent, we'll probably get him to do some subjects related to that starting either this year or the beginning of next.

He watched this video this week:




Science

Understanding Physics by Isaac Asimov - Volume 1: Motion, Sound & Heat.
Science Notebook & experiments
Apologia Exploring Creation With Biology - selected modules only

Combining two loves, mathematics & soccer:




Art & Poetry

 La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John William Waterhouse (1893)

 The painting above is based on John Keats' 1819 poem of the same name.

I really liked the sound of this book when I saw it on Janice Campbells's Excellence in Literature site and thought it would be good for me to work through myself as a devotional. So I am, but Benj is also now using it to read through the poems of George Herbert, which are unique & beautiful. Working it Out: Growing Spiritually with the Poetry of George Herbert by Joseph L. Womack.

There is a sample of the book here.
At the beginning of the book is a short section in which Janice Campbell gives suggestions on using the book in the writing process.


Linking to Weekly Wrap-up