Saturday, November 26, 2016
Native American Unit: Books...
Here are some of the books we read in November for our Native American unit:
Friday, November 25, 2016
Thanksgiving: Books
We are long time Bear Snores On fans, so this one is a favorite. Besides, we got it free at Chick-fil-a.
This one is good, each page has a banner title, that Miss R could read them I read the small print. She likes using her budding skills...
This is Miss R's favorite. Again, because she can read the titles while I read the rest.
This is my new favorite Thanksgiving book. It is charming and wonderful.
A good overview of all Thanksgiving traditions.
The big girls enjoyed reading this one.
They also liked this one, although I found the way the words were set up on the pages a little hard to follow.
This one is long, but very good. I was surprised that the big girls were pretty entranced by it.
This is an early reader chapter book that the girls like. I was letting Miss R read all the words she knows or could sound out, but then we got impatient to see what was going to happen and I just finished.
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
British Isles Unit: Movies...
There is so much to do and learn and watch about the British Isles! It has been so fun.
On British accents, this short you tube movie has a great sampling of them.
To get a taste of Ireland and leprechauns we watched one of my favorite movies:
It's so good! And where else do you get to listen to Sean Connery sing?
We watched a 26 minute movie here about the Scottish games in a town called Braemar that was very interesting. Good background, because our unit happened to line up nicely with the Celtic festival and Scottish games in Richmond, which is fairly close. So we got to go to those.
I found an interesting little video with strange facts about Scotland here. How about the world's shortest commercial flight? (47 seconds)
We watched a variety of short videos showing scottish dance.
Some other movies to get in the mood...
And finally, Ivanhoe.
The ONLY version to watch, or read come to that, is the 1982 miniseries. I grew up on this, and when I finally read the book as a teenager, I remember being bored because the dialogue and everything was just straight from the movie. But, you know, reversed. The girls were glued to this, which surprised me. It got a little intense in the end, when Ivanhoe is fighting for Rebekah's life. Miss A: "I'm all for watching a sword fight, but not this time..."
On British accents, this short you tube movie has a great sampling of them.
To get a taste of Ireland and leprechauns we watched one of my favorite movies:
It's so good! And where else do you get to listen to Sean Connery sing?
We watched a 26 minute movie here about the Scottish games in a town called Braemar that was very interesting. Good background, because our unit happened to line up nicely with the Celtic festival and Scottish games in Richmond, which is fairly close. So we got to go to those.
I found an interesting little video with strange facts about Scotland here. How about the world's shortest commercial flight? (47 seconds)
We watched a variety of short videos showing scottish dance.
Some other movies to get in the mood...
And finally, Ivanhoe.
The ONLY version to watch, or read come to that, is the 1982 miniseries. I grew up on this, and when I finally read the book as a teenager, I remember being bored because the dialogue and everything was just straight from the movie. But, you know, reversed. The girls were glued to this, which surprised me. It got a little intense in the end, when Ivanhoe is fighting for Rebekah's life. Miss A: "I'm all for watching a sword fight, but not this time..."
Saturday, October 15, 2016
British Isles Unit: Books From England...
I realize that these books are not all from England, but about, inspired by, or possibly from...
To start, we read a basic info book:
Then this one was interesting:
I knew some, but others were a fun surprise to learn about: like Christmas cards, staplers, matches, lawn mowers, and of course sandwiches. The book has a list of some of the famous English nursery rhymes. The girls liked that part; that Three Blind Mice, Humpty Dumpty, Jack and Jill, and others had been told to English children for five hundred years.
We read a couple versions of this story, the best is from this book:
It's a nice story about a boy who's fortune is increased by listening to church bells, and by having the sense to buy a cat. Dick Whittington really lived, 1358-1423. The afterword tells about the story, and says that "Now there are twelve bells in the steeple of Bow Church, each bell inscribed with words from the Psalms. The first letter of each of the quotations spells D-W-H-I-T-T-I-N-G-T-O-N." I really love that about England, tradition and great age seem to be very present.
We also read a couple versions of this:
The girls enjoyed it. I'd like to watch the old disney movie, here.
We read a Beauty and the Beast version from England that was very good:
The end papers have a sort of code of flowers and their meanings, which are worked in on each page of the story. We liked looking up the flowers to see what the characters were feeling.
This is an old Cornish version of the Rumplestiltskin story:
The language was great.
And a good old Tomie dePaola, which is not specifically from England, but it's medieval and cute and funny.
My girls also have become Harry Potter obsessed! And it does take place in the British Isles... Their piano teacher's kids were watching the movie for Prisoner of Azkaban, and Miss A really wanted to watch it. I told her she had to read the book first, and she did! We had recently listened to the first four books (as far as I want them to go until they're a little older...). Now Miss A has read 3, 1, and is halfway through 2. Miss M has read 1, 2, and most of 3. And I had to go buy three new movies. I love the books of course, and I'm so happy to have them reading all the time. Every time I say something like "Stop reading, and come and eat!" I get a happy thrill, and a memory of my own childhood, which was almost entirely spent reading.
To start, we read a basic info book:
Then this one was interesting:
I knew some, but others were a fun surprise to learn about: like Christmas cards, staplers, matches, lawn mowers, and of course sandwiches. The book has a list of some of the famous English nursery rhymes. The girls liked that part; that Three Blind Mice, Humpty Dumpty, Jack and Jill, and others had been told to English children for five hundred years.
We read a couple versions of this story, the best is from this book:
It's a nice story about a boy who's fortune is increased by listening to church bells, and by having the sense to buy a cat. Dick Whittington really lived, 1358-1423. The afterword tells about the story, and says that "Now there are twelve bells in the steeple of Bow Church, each bell inscribed with words from the Psalms. The first letter of each of the quotations spells D-W-H-I-T-T-I-N-G-T-O-N." I really love that about England, tradition and great age seem to be very present.
We also read a couple versions of this:
The girls enjoyed it. I'd like to watch the old disney movie, here.
We read a Beauty and the Beast version from England that was very good:
The end papers have a sort of code of flowers and their meanings, which are worked in on each page of the story. We liked looking up the flowers to see what the characters were feeling.
This is an old Cornish version of the Rumplestiltskin story:
The language was great.
And a good old Tomie dePaola, which is not specifically from England, but it's medieval and cute and funny.
My girls also have become Harry Potter obsessed! And it does take place in the British Isles... Their piano teacher's kids were watching the movie for Prisoner of Azkaban, and Miss A really wanted to watch it. I told her she had to read the book first, and she did! We had recently listened to the first four books (as far as I want them to go until they're a little older...). Now Miss A has read 3, 1, and is halfway through 2. Miss M has read 1, 2, and most of 3. And I had to go buy three new movies. I love the books of course, and I'm so happy to have them reading all the time. Every time I say something like "Stop reading, and come and eat!" I get a happy thrill, and a memory of my own childhood, which was almost entirely spent reading.
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