Orlando

Phyllis guessed correctly - we went to Florida! We visited my mother in Orlando (the kids call her "Tutu," which is the Hawaiian name for grandmother) and my sister in Orange City. Then we visted Miss Roxie in Hobe Sound. Along the way, we did some tourist things, too. But we didn't do Disney World or Sea World or Universal Studios. Standing in 45-minute lines in Florida's heat isn't our idea of fun.

Miss M was excited and the first one ready to leave. She packed her own suitcase all by herself the night before we left (Mommy had to re-pack it after she went to bed to make sure she brought enough clothes and not just toys!)

Miss M was our first travel casualty. She tripped on the sidewalk at a rest stop in South Carolina and skinned one leg and foot.



The very next photo on the roll, coincidentally, was this. Tim was snapping photos of the roadside scenery, and this street sign he photographed by accident nicely sums up Miss M's injury.



We stopped for just a few minutes at the beach near Hilton Head; it was too cool and windy to stay longer than that. There was a storm on the way. We didn't know it, but that storm meant that it rained every single day of our vacation until the day we planned to leave!




We spent an afternoon browsing the Florida Mall in Orlando. Who ever guessed that such a place as M&M's World existed??

Yes, M&M's World! M&M's in every color of the rainbow, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, peanut, almond, mint, vanilla, peanut butter - a chocolate lover's paradise!
No coconut flavored M&M's, though. Then it would truly have been paradise. :)

L. finally replaced his baseball cap, which had been falling apart. He needed to have his wardrobe in tip-top shape for the Red Sox game in Tampa during our week there.

And we checked into our hotel. Our non-smoking room smelled like cigarette smoke and had roaches, but we stayed because our room had a loft, which was fun for the boys, with its own half-bath. Two bathrooms and room to sleep six (one on the floor of the loft) for the price of one room was too hard to pass up, even with the defects. And we loved the courtyard with this very nice fountain.

I'll post the rest in another post or two.

Self Made Scholar

This was posted on a message board and I'm saving it for a closer look later.

Self Made Scholar

Guess Where We Went

A Playmobil Mystery Solved

My sons are really into Playmobil. OK, so that's no mystery. If I was a kid, I would be, too. But one particular piece mystified us - it came with a Victorian child's bedroom set, and in an individual set that had a child with a backpack and a big, cone-shaped thing.

We finished the book we were reading - Children of the Old House by Ruth Borchard, set in Germant. One chapter is about six-year-old Inga's first day of school. She has her lunch, her sachel of books and a big cone-shaped thing. All the first-grade children have one. Apparently, the children carry them to their first day of class, and just after the parents leave, the teacher has them open them, and they're filled with candy and toys. It's a way to make the kids feel better about school, and to take their minds off the fact that their parents just left. Neat idea, huh? I even found a page about it with a picture here. It's called a Schultüte [school cone] and Wikipedia has an entry about it.

I'm not sure whether the parents buy these (are they required to, is it on their list of supplies needed, and their targets and Walmarts are filled with these cones in a display bin??) or do the schools issue them?

Anyway, Playmobil is a German company, so it all makes sense now.

Mendelssohn and Goethe

I've been reading Volume 5 of Charlote Mason where she's talking about how Goethe's education shaped the man he later became. I'm very interested in Goethe - he was interested in everything - acoustics, music, light/color, botany, rocks and minerals, politics, literature.

I've just started reading a book that Goethe wrote when he toured Italy as a young man. The Book is called Italian Journey, and it's pretty good so far - he writes about everything - the people, the plant life, even what the gravel on the road is made of! Reviewers say that it's good introduction to Goethe, although I've read Faust and Elective Affinities (and enjoyed both), so it's not my first introduction to him. I tried to read his work on color, but it was over my head.

Mendelssohn is one of my favorite composers, so I bought a book about him a few years ago and started reading it, but never finished it - I think I got side-tracked when it went on and on about Goethe, so I read a book by Goethe and never got back to the Mendelssohn book (but I will one day soon!)

They first met in 1821, when Mendelssohn was 12 years old and Goethe was 73. The Mendelssohn family greatly admired Goethe at a time when Goethe was 'little read and a rather unpopular author.' (Probably relating to Goethe's refusal to involve himself in Germany's troubles at a time when Germany could have used his help; Charlotte Mason refers to it, but I don't know the specific details). Goethe compared their friendship to young David playing soothing music to calm old King Saul. When they first met, Goethe put him to a number of tests, including setting some unknown music in front of him all smudged, to see if he could do anything with it. It was actually an original Beethoven composition (!), and Mendelssohn not only recognized it as Beethoven because of the style, but played it on the piano, when even his music teacher, who was also there, couldn't make any sense of it! At twelve years old! Goethe, who had also met Mozart as a child, said that this meeting was similar - apparently suggesting that Mendelssohn was another Mozart.

They met a number of times. Mendelssohn once described Goethe as the 'gracious imperial sun of my life' and put two of Goethe's poems to music. Here's a quote from the Mendelssohn biography that shows how versatile Goethe was, and how varied his interests:

"What attached [Mendolssohn] to Goethe--not just Goethe's works, but to Goethe's personality--was the many-sidedness of Goethe's nature, the variety of his interests, any one of which might suddenly come to the fore in conversation. Posterity, Mendelssohn wrote, would some day assert that Goethe had not been a single person, but had consisted of a number of small Goethides: satellites revolving around a central sun, as it were. But what exactly was this central sun? At this question, Felix would fall silent, for there was something staggering about Goethe's craving for knowledge. Logical enough the talk should turn to Scotland and Spontini--these were topics on which Felix could be informative. But pretty soon Goethe had moved from these to questions of theology. What did people in Berlin think of the dispute that had just broken out between the orthodox party of Geheimrat Hengstenberg's Protestant church newspaper and the anti-Pietists Wegscheider and Gesenius? Was there serious danger of secession? No sooner had Felix replied--his own tastes were not particularly Pietistic--he tended to follow Schleiermacher who pointed out the existence of certain Greek-Pantheistic roots of Christianity--than the old man shifted to Hegel, under whom his guest had studied, after all. What, he wanted to know, did sceptical Berlin think of a man who considered himself the messianic absolute, who believed that there would be no more philosophers after him? This question was difficult to answer, and called for the utmost diplomacy. For who did not know that Goethe, with utter naivete, considered himself the 'last poet'? And none the less was astounded by Hegel's hubris...
The versatility of this mind became even more impressive when Goethe started holding forth himself. His thoughts would range from La Muette de Portici--Auber's masterpiece, which later in that year of 1830 was to stir up a revolution in Brussels--to Walter Scott, whom Felix had visited at his home in Scotland; from Scott to the pretty girls in Weimar; from the girls to the students, then to 'The Robbers,' and to Schiller. 'And now he gaily talked on for a good hour or more without interruption about Schiller's life, his writings, his position in Weimar; by way of that he came to the late Grand Duke and to the year 1775, which he called Germany's intellectual spring. Nobody would ever be able to describe all that as finely as he himself, he said. He had planned to reserve the second volume of his autobiography for that, but what with the botany and meteorolgy and all the other stuff that no one would thank him for, he never got round to it. Then he told stories about the time he was directing the theatre in Weimar, and when I tried to thank him for these reminiscences, he said: 'It's just chance, you know; all that comes to mind by the way, summoned up by your dear presence.' Those words sounded wonderfully sweet to me; it was one of those talks you don't forget for the rest of your life.'" (That last long quote, by the way, is from a letter Mendelssohn wrote about their last meeting.)

[Felix Mendelssohn and His Times by Heinrich Eduard Jacob, 1963]

Seasonal Reading

A cool wind has been blowing all day today. The sky is heavy with clouds, there's a familiar smell in the air, and remembrances of all the things I have loved are coming in a rush: books and invented words and chess games and poetry, the smell of wind and rain and damp leaves, cloaks and scarves and boots and sweaters, apples and potatoes and the clink of dishes in the kitchen, walks in golden weather and reading under blankets afterwards;--even Latin verbs and putting on more socks to try to keep my feet warm (nostalgia can be a funny thing sometimes). Autumn is coming soon, and I'm making a list of books to read by the fire or under an open window. What are your favorites for Autumn reading?

Persuasion by Jane Austen
An Acceptable Time by Madeleine L'Engle
The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis
The Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

An Old Favorite

When I was young, there was a small town library that we used to go to, with a small but cozy children's section. I used to check out the same books a lot and re-read them. I don't remember what they all were, just snatches - I guess I was about 11, because we moved soon after that. Some of the books I've come across again as we've been homeschooling - Half Magic by Edward Eager, The Saturdays, The Railway Children. But my very favorite one, I couldn't remember. I couldn't remember much of anything about it (I guess I don't have a very good memory!) except that there were five kids, and the baby was called Honey. Mama Squirrel suggested that I ask at Stump the Bookseller, so I did - and within a couple of days someone had solved my mystery and provided me with the name and author of the book - The Children of the Old House by Ruth Bouchard (1963, Doubleday). So I ordered a copy - it's not an easy book to locate - and it's been sitting on my shelf for a long, long time. I'm finally getting around to reading it. J is away this week; he went to Biloxi with some guys at church to do some post-Katrina work, so I started reading this book to L because he's bored with his brother gone. And, as I'm reading, I'm remembering, and I'm sure this is the same book.

Here's what the inside book jacket says:

"What could be more exciting than to move from Grandfather's too-small house in town to a big house all one's own right near a river? That's what the children thought until they saw the house: it had no front door, only a big opening where a double door should have been. The sun poured through empty window holes and everything was dirty--but there was a garden, wild and beautiful, with plenty of room. Almost anything could happen in such a house and such a garden, and this the story of what did happen in the house in which Ruth, Michael, Peter, Inga and Honey grew up and had their funny, sad, and dangerous adventures. Moving to a new town meant the excitement of new friends and a new school--but it also meant lots of money needed for proper furnishings and house repairs. The brothers and sisters embarked on some hilarious projects to help make money, and through their loving and imaginative efforts, combined with several serious family crises, the family finally turned the old house into a real home."

What I liked about the book was that each child was allowed to choose a place in the house, any place they wanted, to be their very own, and after they had done something to earn the privilege, the father would fix it up for them as a private place.

The littlest one, Honey, was born at midnight on Midsummer Eve, and the mother is convinced that he's special. The rest of the family agree that he's a beautiful baby, with a honey-colored glow and honey brown eyes to match, but they don't see him as unusual. He's just a baby in the book and doesn't really come into the story too much.

The story feels like All-of-a-Kind Family, or The Moffats.

Anyway, here's how chapter 9 begins:

Almost An Accident

It was on Granny's birthday that something terrible very nearly happened. It was Ruth's fault. It was the greatest trouble she ever caused, but it came about through one of her usual faults--tormenting Michael.

Of late Ruth had been even nastier to Michael than usual. She did not want to, but she could not stop herself. The truth was she was jealous of Michael. For one thing, Ruth was jealous because she had not yet earned her own place. But she minded even more about Daddy. He had become quite interested in Michael's doings in the attic, and he often visited him there. Nobody else was allowed in Michael's own place. He had put up a notice: 'Private.'

... All this made Ruth jealous. She ran Michael down more than ever. Again and again she had to be told to leave the table. Again and again Mummy told her she had a proper poison tongue. And still she crossed Michael whenever she could.

Then Granny's birthday came along, and on that day something happened that did change Ruth at last ...

-----------------------------------------

The back of the book jacket lists 'Books About Children in Other Lands': Mario by Marion Garthwaite (Mexican), Ten and a Kid by Sadie Rose Weilerstein (Lithuanian), Aloha Susan by Helen Hoyt (Hawaii), Su-Mei's Golden Year by Marguerite Harmon Bro (Chinese), Esmeralda Ahoy by Elisabeth Fairholme and Pamela Powell (British), Sword of the Winds by Nancy Faulkner (Cornish), Children of the Soil by Nora Burglon (Scandinavian). This one is apparently the German one, although when I was a kid, I never saw any others in the series and never even realized that this was a story about turn-of-the-century Germany. Listen to some of the illustrators of this series: Kurt Weise (Ping), Peter Spier, Edgar Parin D'Aulaire, C. Walter Hodges.

Golden Windows by Laura E. Richards

I'm going to do a running post, a short summary of each chapter of this text, which is online here. Laura E. Richards is probably better known for her poem Eletelephony.

ch 1 The Golden Windows - a farm boy sees a house on a hill with windows made of gold and diamonds. One day his father gives him a day off, so he goes to see this house. When he gets there, he finds that the windows are just regular glass like his own house. But he meets a girl his age who tells him that she, too, has seen a house with windows made of gold and diamonds. She points to a house on a hill, and it's his own house!

Stories of the East From Herodotus by Alfred J. Church

I guess I should be doing narrations of what I'm reading.

I had to re-read this one; I read the first three chapters, but I'd gotten so hopelessly lost somewhere in chapter two that I ended up abandoning my whole reading schedule last week. I re-read cchapters 2 and 3, and then read chapter 4, and did much better this time. So here's what happened in those first 4 chapters.

Croesus is the king of Lydia, and this is during the time when Cyrus the Persian is conquering the world. Croesus has everything he could desire - wealth, power, family, friends, comfort. So he tries to impress Solon. After showing all that he has, he asks him, "Who is the happiest man in the world?" But Solon says that some poor man who was content and died peacefully after a good, long life is the happiest man of all. Croesus is offended that Solon doesn't say that he, Croesus, is the happiest, so he asks him why. Solon says that you can't truly judge a man's happiness until his life is over because a man might be very fortunate for the first part of life, but then have such bad misfortunes later that when his life ends, everyone thinks of his life as unhappy.

In the second chapter, Croesus asks the Greek gods on Olympus whether he'll be successful if he goes to war with Persia. The prophecy says that 'if you war with persia, a great kingdom will fall.' Croesus takes that as a good sign, but he wants confirmation, so he asks how long his kingdom will last, and the prophecy says that his kingdom will last until a mule reigns in his stead. he takes this as a good omen, too - how could a mule rule instead of him? So he attacks Persia, but by chapter three, Lydia has lost to Persia and Croesus has been taken prisoner. Cyrus puts Croesus on a pile of logs and sets fire to it, and Croesus remembers Solon's words. he cries, "Solon, Solon!" and Cyrus wonders why. So he asks him, and Croesus tells him the story of his meeting with Solon and how you can't tell whether a man's life is happy until you've seen the end of it. He tells Cyrus that he was once a rich, powerful, happy king like Cyrus, but he's come to this end. Cyrus has pity on him and sees the truth of Solon's words, so he sets Croesus free and grants him a boon. Croesus says he wants someone to go to Olympus and ask why the gods deceived him with their prophecies.

So Cyrus sends someone to ask, and here's the response: The prophecy about a great kingdom falling meant that Lydia, not Persia, would fall - yet the gods had had mercy on Croesus because Lydia had been fated to fall, and only because of their mercy on Croesus had it lasted as long as it had. And what about the mule? Cyrus was the mule - a mule is a half-breed, half regal horse, half low-bred donkey. Cyrus's father was a prince, but his mother was a poor commoner of no royal blood.

Our National Parks by John Muir

I finished this book this afternoon; the plan is to suggest it as a nature reading option for the lightened version of AO's Year 11 along with Fabre's book about Caterpillars - choose one or the other. The Caterpillar book is lots more interesting, but the National Parks book has some real gems scattered throughout it. It tends to drag at times with descriptions of trees (you might call it a veritable detritus of description), so I think some students might find it slow going. Here's a bonus for those who wondered if the word "detritus" ever appeared anywhere other than the Jackson Browne song Casino Nation: John Muir uses it no less than four times in the last half of this book. Maybe he heard the song while he was in the middle of writing this book, looked it up, and to display his new knowledge, thought he'd cleverly and naturally work it into his text? No, probably not--that sounds more like something I'd do.

Here are some really nice quotes from the book:

chapter 4: "Going to the woods is going home; for I suppose we came from the woods originally . . . Here everything is hospitable and kind, as if planned for your pleasure, ministering to every want of body and soul. Even the storms are friendly and seem to regard you as a brother, their beauty and tremendous fateful earnestness charming alike. But the weather is mostly sunshine, both winter and summer and the clear sunny brightness of the park is one of its most striking characteristics. . . . the park is a paradise that makes even the loss of Eden seem insignificant."

various animal quotes from chapter 6:

"In my first interview with a Sierra bear we were frightened and embarrassed, both of us, but the bear's behavior was better than mine."

"(Snakes) will teach you that scales may cover as fine a nature as hair or feathers or anything tailored."

"Trout-fishing, regarded as bait for catching men, for the saving of both body and soul, is important, and deserves all the expense and care bestowed on it."

(Describing song birds in the redwood forests) "How romantic and beautiful is the life of this brave little singer on the wild mountain streams . . . No wonder he sings well, since all the air about him is music; every breath he draws is part of a song, and he gets his first music lessons before he is born; for the eggs vibrate in time with the tones of the waterfalls. Bird and stream are inseparable, songful and wild, gentle and strong,--the bird ever in danger in the midst of the stream's mad whirlpools, yet seemingly immortal. And so I might go on, writing words, words, words; but to what purpose? Go see him and love him, and through him as through a window look into Nature's warm heart."

quotes from chapter 9:

"In summer the days go by in almost constant brightness, cloudless sunshine pouring over the forest roof, while in the shady depths there is the subdued light of perpetual morning. The new leaves and cones are growing fast and make a grand show, seeds are ripening, young birds learning to fly, and with myriads of insects glad as birds keep the air whirling, joy in every wingbeat, their humming and singing blending with the gentle ah-ing of the winds; while at evening every thicket and grove is enchanted by the tranquil chirping of the blessed hylas, the sweetest and most peaceful of sounds, telling the very heart-joy of earth as it rolls through the heavens."

"One of the most interesting features of the grove is a small waterfall with a flowery, ferny, clear brimming pool at the foot of it. How cheerily it sings the songs of the wilderness, and how sweet it tones! You seem to taste as well as hear them, while only the subdued roar of the river in the deep cañon reaches up into the grove, sounding like the sea and the winds. So charming a fall and pool in the heart of so glorious a forest, fool pagans would have consecrated to some lovely nymph."

Cotting Sop

"Mommy, I want my cotting sop."




That's what Miss M asked me for this afternoon. I had no idea what she wanted.





After unravelling some clues, I figured it out.




She had gotten the words backwards; she meant to say 'sopping cot.'




That's a lot closer to what she wanted: her toy shopping cart.