WR: Reading Thru Winter

*1*

After enjoying The Best of Times with Cub I requested Math for All Seasons and The Grapes of Math for Flower. She was determined to solved all of the math riddles just like Cub had done. These are great little books that reinforce addition and re-grouping. Life of Fred is a thumbs up winner here. Horizons 1 is about to be done and I'm really leaning towards Singapore Math for the notsolittles but will probably just get a workbook from Sam's till spring. Thinking Skills Imagery (for grades 1-3) rocks. Mazes, visual riddles, patterns. Good stuff.

*2*

Feche-boy finished The Odyssey. We have a couple of questions to go over together in the study guide and he'll start the Iliad on Monday. He's still making his way through Ghengis Khan and the Making of the Modern World and has The Mongol Queens waiting in the wings. Cub is reading The Samurai's Tale this week. Flower continues to read through VP's early readers. They are delightful. Nice phonetically graded books, beautiful full color illustrations.

*3*

Found the CD and workbook to IEW's Language Acquisition Through Poetry Memorization amidst some boxes and got back on track. There are many good reasons to memorize poetry including the development of more complex language and memory skills. Pudewa, who is a Suzuki Trained Violin instructor organizes the program in much the same way that Suzuki would; constant repetition, simple to complex. The poems allow kids to enter The Great Conversation from a different angle and teaches them rhythm and rhyme. Pudewa says it all better in the intro to the program, which you can purchase from IEW: www.excellenceinwriting.com/

*4*

This weeks read for me was The New Global Student: Skip the SAT, Save Thousands on Tuition, and Get a Truly Global Education, Maya Frost. It was written in the same vein as Grace Llewellyn's Teenage Liberation Handbook and did have some interesting ideas about higher ed for kids. A worthwhile and quick read. By far the most valuable part of the book, from my pov, were the resources listed in the Notes section. Richard Florida's The Rise of the Creative Class and Tim Ferris' The Four Hour Work Week are now on my request list at the library.

*5*

We watched the 1995 version of Jane Austen's Persuasion starring Amanda Root and Ciarin Hinds. Delightful. One Amazon reviewer states this: The film builds slowly, occasionally leaving you wondering if anything at all is going to happen. When it does, you realize how carefully crafted a film this is, and the final result is grandly rewarding. Even the boys watched, though Cub claims he was playing Lego's the entire time.

*6*

Were gifted with a cooler-full of meat this week. We've been gifted with meat before and in the Territories that could mean many things including, but not limited to, field dressed deer (think RED) or pheasant so fresh that the feet make it to the freezer with the rest of the bird. So, we are always a little, how shall I say... grateful, yet curious, when Viking Man comes home bearing gifts. Yesterday you would have heard a chorus of Ohhhhs and Awwws as we discovered a cooler-full of Buffalo Meat, ground, steak and roast. Ohlala. Treat Meat.

*7*

Beit Midrash. After studying the Book of Genesis for just over a year we've finished it. Chapter by week, it was an awesome study. Read. Observe. Apply. It always amazes me how rich Bible Study is in a group of involved, committed friends. Great prayer, great observation, great application. More than good. Enriching. Next up: The Exodus.