CCCW - Roget and The Right Word

As an unapologetic logophile and someone who owns and frequently uses 10 different thesauruses, I was delighted to find the awesome biographical picture book The Right Word - Roget and His Thesaurus. Not only does this book give an astounding amount of information about a remarkable person, Peter Roget, it is also a visual delight in its illustrations (hence the Caldecott honor). 

I used this book both for Biography Club and creative writing. Inspired by the story and illustrations, and my newfound knowledge that thesaurus is Greek for "treasure house," I created this to show at Biography Club as I shared the story of Roget.

The next day I talked more about the book with my own children and asked them to each re-read it on their own, slowly drinking in the pictures. I then tasked them with making their own synonymous, listed creation as an artistic approach to playing with words.  Here are a couple of their creations.

Quick Literary Lesson from The Mansion

A few years ago, during the annual First Presidency Christmas Devotional, President Thomas S. Monson gave a talk titled, "Because He Came." In this talk, he shared the three things he traditionally reads each and every Christmas season and what they mean to him. One of the three was the story "The Mansion" written long ago by Henry Van Dyke. Though President Monson shared a brief summary of the story in his talk, I figured that if this is a story the prophet reads every year, I should at least read it once in my life.

As per usual, Deseret Book jumped on that and published a new edition of the story in its own book. This being the 100th Anniversary Edition, it contains both the original story as written by Van Dyke, and an abridged picture book version for younger children. This book is very well done, and it lends itself perfectly to a one-day lesson on what unabridged  and abridged mean. Further, it exposes children to the rich language of the original, while also bringing the meaning of the story to younger minds not yet full able to understand that language.

When I shared this with my children, I read aloud the original unabridged version first. I wanted to see if they would be able to understand and follow it before I gave them the simplified version. Every so often I paused reading and asked questions. If we came to a word we/they were unfamiliar with, we searched its meaning. Happily, they were able to follow it. Then we talked about what abridged books are and I read the picture book story. Both versions are short enough to make this an easy-to-grasp lesson in one afternoon, as opposed to reading two whole novels over the course of days or weeks to see the difference.

I will say that everyone should read Henry Van Dyke's original unabridged story. If you think that knowing the summary of this story is enough because you "get" the meaning, think again. I learned a lot from the son in this story and the dialogue between him and his father, which isn't well represented in the abridged version, or a summary. While it's important to know the moral of this story, a summary is just half a serving of the meal this story is.

While I Was an Ugly Duckling

H.P. Paull's 1872 English translation of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Ugly Duckling" concludes with the now beautiful swan saying,

"I never dreamed of such happiness as this, 

while I was an ugly duckling."

The loneliness and heartbreak of before was gone once this creature came to know who and what he really was. I've been thinking about this today as I began a literature unit with my children on the works of Hans Christian Andersen. I can't help but correlate it to the happiness, healing, and purpose that comes when one knows, above all else, that he or she is a beloved and eternal Child of God, created in the image of Heavenly Parents, possessing a divine nature and enormous potential. That knowledge changes everything. 

I've also been considering this phrase in relation to the realm of education. "The Ugly Duckling" is in many ways autobiographical. Hans Christian was very different from those around him and was often rejected in his personal life. No one today would say that he wasn't born to write stories, yet he was miserable as a student and had difficulties in his education:  he was a poor speller, was treated badly, and educators actually discouraged him from writing. Not surprisingly, however, it was exactly those things that he was not--stiff and artificially formal in his writing like the Victorians would have demanded--that made his stories so universal and wonderful. His was a unique voice and genius. He was not the ugly duckling his educators might have believed, but a beautiful creature who, thankfully, discovered who he was, spread his wings, and soared through the stories he gave the world. How often in today's approach to children and education do we confuse ducks and swans (and hens, robins, chickadees) and shame them for what they are not and hold them back from discovering who they are? How often do we work against them instead of with them?

Of course, I can't discuss "The Ugly Duckling" without also stopping to think of how I treat others. Was there a time that I labeled someone, made assumptions at first glance? Was there a time that I only saw what was on the outside, or didn't value someone for who they are? And that brings me to a most profound quote by C.S. Lewis from The Weight of Glory that I return to again and again to remind myself to be careful, because no one should ever feel like an ugly duckling.

"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no 'ordinary' people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously -- no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner -- no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment."

Favorite Picture Books for St. Patrick's Day

Once upon a time there weren't many books for St. Patrick's Day. As our society has increased its marketing mayhem of anything and everything, there has been an increase in reading material, but much of it is just nonsense. These two books, however, are gems.

Best Books on Babies, Maturation, and Intimacy

I dusted these books off again today for another child who is growing up quickly. These are my favorite assisting resources.  Books do not and should not replace candid and reverent one-on-one discussions, but they can be a big help.

Where Do Babies Come From by Brad Wilcox works for many different situations and ages.  The main picture book story works for even very young children without going into details they aren't ready for. A Q&A in the back of the book follows up for older children who are ready for more information.  There are also tips for parents at the beginning.  This gentle, loving, but honest and forthright approach is a very nice way to introduce the topic of "the talk."

Growing Up:  Gospel Answers about Maturation and Sex by Brad Wilcox is a great book to study after the talk, for  straight up biological information about maturation, as well as good direction on matters of chastity and virtue.

I take my children to temple grounds to have our discussion so as to hopefully impress upon them the sacred nature of our bodies and sexuality.  We find a quiet place to be by ourselves in sight of the temple to discuss this topic of eternal significance.

Music in Units--Part 2, Resources Galore

One of the biggest tragedies of public education these days is the continual reduction, if not outright elimination of, the arts.  Suits and Skirts decide students need more math and science and in the interest of time and money take away music and recess, the very things that would help students better understand math and science.  Psychology Today, in an article entitled "Einstein on Creative Thinking: Music and the Intuitive Art of Scientific Imagination" writes:

"For Einstein, insight did not come from logic or mathematics. It came, as it does for artists, from intuition and inspiration. As he told one friend, 'When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come close to the conclusion that the gift of imagination has meant more to me than any talent for absorbing absolute knowledge.' Elaborating, he added, 'All great achievements of science must start from intuitive knowledge. I believe in intuition and inspiration.... At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason.' Thus, his famous statement that, for creative work in science, 'Imagination is more important than knowledge' (Calaprice, 2000, 22, 287, 10)."

In addition to being an amazing physicist, Einstein was also a violinist and pianist. It is well documented that in addition to just enjoying the heck out of music, he relied on it to help him think. Whenever he got stuck on something, he played music until the solution revealed itself.

I could go on and on about the merits of music and the arts, but this post is about resources and ideas for music in units.

Of course, you can straight up do a music unit study. You can do a unit on a specific composer, or on a musical period such as Baroque, Classical, Romantic.  You can do a comprehensive unit on the history of music, or the instruments of music, or a smaller unit on a musical genre like Jazz. There are so many publishers of ready-made music units, and great books on instruments and composers, etc., that it would take all day to point them out. One lesser known, but fabulous supplement to music unit studies is Patrick Kavanaugh's Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers.

In addition to materials by big publishers Dover, Bellerophon, Usborne, Teacher Created Materials, etc., there are single teachers creating and sharing or selling helpful materials or lesson plans. Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now has put together a ton of Montessori-Inspired Music Unit Studies. Julia Jooya has created many tools and mini music units.  Her (free) unit on Blues Music can be both a unit in itself, or a portion of the music part of an American history unit that covers some history, language arts, and music instruction.  It isn't hard to find unit study helps ON music.

What can get tricky is finding ways to incorporate music into unit studies of other topics, especially if they're science topics. Examples like Tom Lehrer's "The Elements Song" and James Fodor's "Periodic Table Song" and "The Atoms Family" song, sung to the tune of "The Addams Family," demonstrate the possibilities.  (As these three songs all use the tune from other more familiar songs, you and your children could take cue and try to write your own catchy science songs in the same way.)  I love the science songs and videos from They Might Be Giants like "The Bloodmobile."  (You can order CDs and DVDs of these as well, including ABC and 123 albums.)  

As my children's piano teacher, I've taken advantage of being free to kill two birds, so to speak. I like to use piano music to enhance geography and social studies with music books like: 

Around the World on 88 Keys

My First Book of Cowboy Songs

There are musical memorization tools, also, like Audio Memory's States and Capitals Songs, which gave my children a HUGE edge in a geography bee several years ago.  (My then three-year-old had more state capitals memorized than the rest of the participants two and three times her age because we listened to this on car rides.)

From "Wee Sing America" to "Wee Sing Around the World" to "Wee Sing Halloween," my young children and I have always appreciated Wee Sing CDs.  They have been staples in some of our units.

I've shared several resources here, but really they're just the tip of the iceberg. With the ease of an internet search, it isn't hard to find some way to include music into each and every unit.  So make sure you do!

Quotable Day

Our activities today have, quite accidentally, made me think of several familiar quotes from past readings.

We spent most of the day working in the yard, everyone contributing with different tasks based on age, ability, and aptitude.  I asked one of my boys to create something to put over the strawberries so that they could grow unhindered but so birds cannot get to them.  As some of the children were doing more manual-type labor in the sunshine and heat, this son spent quite a bit of time sitting in the shade.  It may have seemed unfair, and like he wasn't really working, but in fact he had been measuring and thinking and designing and gathering materials and creating scale drawings of what he wanted to build.  He was working, just in a different way.  It reminded me of what Ralph's father told him in Little Britches by Ralph Moody:

"There are only two kinds of men in this world:  Honest men and dishonest men.  There are black men and white men and yellow men and red men, but nothing counts except whether they're honest men or dishonest men.

"Some men work almost entirely with their brains; some almost entirely with their hands; though most of us have to use both.  But we all fall into one of the two classes--honest and dishonest.

"Any man who says the world owes him a living is dishonest.  The same God that made you and me made this earth.  And he planned it so that it would yield every single thing that the people on it need.  But He was careful to plan it so that it would only yield up its wealth in exchange for the labor of man.  Any man who tries to share in that wealth without contributing the work of his brain or his hands is dishonest."

I love, love, love this lesson from Ralph's father!  (Actually, if you really study it, it's at least THREE lessons in one.)

I'm sorry to say that after an entire day's work of planning, etc., my son's original design did not work out.  He had a great idea, but the materials available weren't quite what he needed. (He actually spent quite a bit of time hammering metal and trying to reshape it to get it to work, but it wasn't thick enough so it started to crack.) He was frustrated, but I felt the exercise of it, and even the "failure," were both valuable.  My husband came outside about 5:00 p.m. and  together they rigged up something a little simpler.

I asked him tonight if he learned anything today.  He said, "Yeah, don't use crappy parts."  Meaning, he learned that quality materials make a difference.  Not a bad lesson.  I think his father also showed him that you CAN use what you have, you just need to modify your plans.

While I was watering a newly planted flower bed, a butterfly ((or maybe a moth) joined me.  I don't know what it is about butterflies, but they make me feel so happy.  I'm so glad God created them!  The encounter reminded me of these two similar wise quotes by two famous authors.

"Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it the more it will elude you.  But if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder." - Henry David Thoreau

"Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you." - Nathaniel Hawthorne

Finally, after a long, hot day of work, a little play was in order.  The kids asked if they could run through the sprinkler and I said yes.  I next found them, on the one day this week that no one had an evening baseball game, playing baseball together in the sprinkler!  

I'm so thankful that each of my children loves this game because it bonds them together at any and all points in time regardless of their age and other differences.  I was once told I had bred my boys for baseball and I was quite offended.  I've done nothing but allow and encourage them to pursue excellence in their talents and interests, whatever they be.  They just happen to all love the game.  They each play it differently, and have a different skill set and specialty, but they all love it.  In fact, I cannot get them to stop playing baseball, today's example being just one in a long list of free time baseball creativities.  And in fact, it reminded me of this, from Plato:

"You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation."

I'm thankful for work.  It gives purpose.  I know children are happier when they have learned to work and to appreciate the value of work done well.  I'm thankful for literature and the time to work with my brain so that when I need to work with my hands my mind has something to reflect on.  (And the same for my kids.)  I have such clarity of thought when I'm working!  I love it when we experience things together as a family and one of the children makes an association with something we've read.  I'm so thankful for homeschooling, which gives us so much to reference together in both our reading and our experiences.  And I'm thankful for bases of wet t-shirts and home plates behind a sprinkler, where an 18 year old, a 9 year old, and everyone in between enjoy playing at home together.