Artful Wednesday: Colorful thing

A to Z Poetry - Convictions

Thinking - David Restivo 

Convictions

Why would you choose

to go along like a sheep?

Instead of a wolf

and take an independent leap.

They said, you must.

But was it just,

As you look back at reality.

Who is the judge,

who gave you the nudge

to live conditionally?

You've never been one

to obey the rules.

You bend, you lean,

you turn around

to find that which is

out of bounds

and make it fit

to suit yourself.

Why would you go along?

It had never been asked,

when you were tasked

to take a stand, 

to be strong.

Why would you go along

rather than sing

an independent song?

March Reading Wrap Up

Come on in, grab and seat, and join me for a margarita and let's talk books.  My reading slowed way way down during March.  I think everyone has been having a hard time concentrating on books lately.  I can't settle on any one book right now and have been dipping in and out of a few books:  Lee Child's Night School in his Jack Reacher series, Claude and Camille by Stephanie Storey, Arrows Flight by Mercedes Lackey between watching White House briefings, keeping up with our governor's latest, what's happening in our county, and general news.  I think I need to take a news break because it only creates more anxiety.  My 52 books group is diving into The Fellowship of the Ring, the first book in the Lord of the Rings series, which should serve as a great diversion. 


During the month of May I read 6 physical books and 3 ebooks.  James and I are still listening to an audiobook of Godzilla, and I've been listening to Faith Hunter's 2nd book in her Jane Yellowrock series, Blood Cross.

I finally dove into the stories of a new to me author;  Deborah Harkness's All Souls series with A Discovery of Witches,  Shadow of Night, and The Book of Life.  Intriguing story about witches and vampires and daemons, time travel and magic.  They took time to read as there were lots of details and fun reimaginings of various historical figures.  (Love and Mystery/Dragons and other Fantastical Creatures) 

For our March Ladies of Fiction bookology, I read Deborah Crombie's A Share of Death and look forward to reading more in the series.  The first book introduces Superintendent  Kincaid and Sergeant James and  Kincaid is taking a well deserved vacation at a time share and of course stumbles into a mysterious murder.  All the guests are suspect and I thought I had figured it out early on, but turned out to pleasantly surprised and wrong. (Ladies of Fiction)

I love Patricia Brigg's Mercedes Thompson series and thoroughly enjoyed the newest release, #12 Smoke Bitten in which a creature has escaped from the fae's underhill and is preying on the werewolves and vampires.  (Fantasy).   I finally jumped into Dragon Bones, the 1st book in her Hurog Duology.  The hero has pretending to be dumb for years so everyone underestimates him.  (Dragons)

I've been reading the Jack Reacher series for quite a while now, surprisingly not in any special order.  My introduction to Reacher was 61 Hours and I've been sipping from the series every since. One of these days I'll read it all in order.  Completed Running Blind, #4 in which Reacher actually has settled down with a girlfriend, inherited a house, and is drawn into a murder mystery and is coerced to help the FBI solve it. (Mood/Dusty)

Finished one of my sip reads for Lent: Luke, a religious commentary brilliantly written by Michael Card and provided an indepth look into the mind and heart of Luke.  (Nonfiction/Feed my Muse)

And just for fun, I burrowed into my boxes of fantasy and science fiction and decided to revisit the Arrows of the Queen, the first book in the Heralds of Valdemar series by Mercedes Lackey.  I'd first read the books back in the late 80's and enjoyed getting to know the characters all over again.  (revisit old friends/Fantasy/mood) 




What have you been reading? 

Homeschool Advice during Covid: Great Kid Books

One of the best resources we ever discovered was through Five in a Row created by Jane and Steve Lambert, utilizing  outstanding children's books. There are different guides for different ages and each volume has a choice of approximately 16 books. You pick a book from the guide and read it everyday for a week. The guide is simple to use and everything is laid out for you. They provide step-by-step instructions for teaching social studies, language, art, math, and science.  Some weeks we choose to simply read the book and talk about it. Other weeks we dove into the lessons and activities. 

Many of these books came out in the early 30's, 40's, 50's so you may have read some of them when you were little.  Most of the books are available through Libraries on Overdrive, online stores in physical form as well as ebook and audiobook.  I prefered buying the books. We have a tendency to read the books over and over and over again. 

We had fun “rowing” a different book each week and learning new things. One week we rowed “Snowflake Bentley.”  Have you ever heard of him? I hadn’t. He is actually a real person by the name of Willie Bentley. He studied snow flakes. Yep, that is right. Snow Flakes. He spent his life studying and photographing them. In 1931 at the age of 66 he had a book published called "Snow Crystals" that shows over 2400 images of snow crystals. He died of pneumonia the same year after walking through 6 miles of snow during a blizzard, trying to capture and photograph more snow crystals. 

We baked an apple pie from the recipe listed in the back of How to Make an Apple Pie and see the world. Turned out delicious!  We learned how to write Haiku's from Grass Sandals. Big fan favorites in our household were Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel and Katy and the Big Snow.  We read them over and over again. 

My son and I had many delightful afternoons reading and many of these books are still on our bookshelves today.  Check out the book list from Well Read Kid for ages 4 to 8 as well as Goodread's Listopia of five in a row book selections and you'll see what I mean.  

Happy Reading! 

A to Z Poetry: Haiku - Kitten Cuddles

Kitten Cuddles

Dawn, soon eyes open

Warm pink skies, kitten cuddles

bed too warm to leave

Homeschool Advice for covid: What is your learning style!

Hello, ladies and gents.  We are in an unprecedented time in which many, many parents are being asked to homeschool their kids for a while.  We started homeschooling our son in kindergarten and although we didn't plan on it, continued all the way through until he graduated from high school.  I won't say it was easy, but you really get to know your child, his learning abilities, his interests, and yes, the things he hates.  I decided to share a bit from our years of homeschooling in hopes it will help you, if even a tiny bit.  This is a repost from 2007.  

What is your Learning Style? 

The ladies and gentlemen (yes, there are stay at home dads) from the Well Trained Mind forums are a font of information. Some had been home schooling their children for a couple years to eighteen years. Yes, some people do home school their kids from kindergarten to High School. They guided me to so many different books to read about learning styles and everything else imaginable.

One of the first things I thought about was James learning style? Did I know my learning style? Once again with God as our guide and leading us down this home school path, I read Dreamers, Discoverers and Dynamo’s by Lucy Palidino.

According to Psychologist Lucy Jo Palladino:

“20 percent of children have what she calls the Edison trait: dazzling intelligence, an active imagination, a free-spirited approach to life, and the ability to drive everyone around them crazy. She named the trait after Thomas Edison, who flunked out of school despite his obvious brilliance. Edison-trait children think divergently, while school is geared to children who think convergently (one idea at a time).”

“He was a boy who learned only by doing. At age six, he had to see how fire worked and accidentally burned his father's barn to the ground. The next fall he began school, where he alternated between letting his mind travel to distant places and keeping his body in perpetual motion in his seat. Because he was distracted and restless, he did not last long in a formal classroom. His teacher called him "addled." Eventually, his mother had to home-school him. As an adult he would recall: "My father thought I was stupid and I almost decided I must be a dunce."

Who was this boy? Thomas Edison!

The book asks these questions:

"If your child is a Dreamer
1. Does he get absorbed or intensely involved in his own ideas much of the time?
2. Is he prone to saying things out of the blue?
3. Does he procrastinate to an extreme?
4. Are his interests and activities eclectic?
5. Does he start at least three projects for every one he finishes?

If your child is a Discoverer
1. Is he easily attracted to sights and sounds around him?
2. Is it vital for him to express his opinion?
3. Does he crave novelty, power, and excitement?
4. Is he always ready to speak, especially if you're talking?
5. When he wants his own way - which is almost always - is he relentless?

Or, if your child is a Dynamo
1. Does he get aggressive or intensely emotional about his own ideas much of the time?
2. Is some part of his body always in motion?
3. Are chances to run and climb as vital as the air he breathes?
4. Does he have boundless energy, enough for about three children his age?
5. Do you find yourself wondering if he lacks common sense?"

Remind you of anyone you know? Hubby and James have a combination of all three.


“It is a natural human tendency to assume that all minds work the same way. We tacitly agree that all minds should naturally be able to follow through on one idea at a time, from beginning to end, with attention to detail. We call convergent thinking the norm and we presume it's what comes naturally if a brain is "normal." Divergent thinkers are viewed as having "attentional problems."

”We label convergent thinking as right and divergent thinking as wrong. We base the methods we use to train our children on this premise. We expect children to focus in a linear fashion for as long as we say they should. This is true at home and at school. And at school, as class sizes get larger and children get more diverse, a teacher's tolerance for a student's divergent thinking necessarily diminishes. The same curriculum gets taught to all students in the same way and at the same pace.”

”The brains of Edison-trait children are misunderstood, not inferior. As students they are attentionally disadvantaged because we punish, and fail to appreciate, their unique creative slant. They get blamed for not completing desk work in the allotted time. They are scolded for not staying in their seats until recess. They are forced to work at an unsuitable tempo, and then get graded down for poor handwriting, and errors in grammar, spelling, and math facts. These outcomes are inevitable artifacts of a mismatched approach.”

”We teach to their weaknesses, not to their strengths. We insist that they see things our way, but we won't see things theirs. These children are stunningly divergent. They are on a quest for discovery, exploration, and stimulation. Surely we can be flexible and accommodate their style. They can and will develop convergent skins, but only if their desire to learn is protected and kindled with success.”

Excerpted from Dreamers, Discoverers and Dynamos by Lucy Jo Palladino


James is a divergent thinker. So, homeschooling allows us the flexibility to cater to James learning style. We have discovered that I am a divergent thinker and hubby is a convergent thinker.


Then someone told me about Upside Down Brilliance: The Visual Spatial Learner by Dr. Linda Silverman. Amazing, awesome book because I discovered something about myself, I am a visual spatial learner.

“Do you know things without being able to explain how or why?”
“Do you solve problems in unusual ways? “
“Do you think in pictures rather than in words?”

“Dr. Linda Silverman coined the term “visual-spatial learner” in 1981 to describe the unique gifts of people who think in images. They get the big picture because they see the world through artists’ eyes. 

They remember what they see, but forget what they hear. They’re disorganized, can’t spell and have no sense of time, but they have an infectious sense of humor, wild imaginations and can lose themselves completely in the joy of the moment. Visual-spatial brilliance created the computer and the Internet, the vivid displays at the Olympics, and the International Space Station.”

Oh My Gosh! Doesn’t everyone think in pictures? I have always thought in pictures and didn’t realize that it was different. No wonder I was bored by literature that was poorly written. While reading I literally see and get into the story. No wonder I had been so darned bored by classroom lectures.

When ever hubby would go into a long explanation of a new electronic gadget, I would catch about half of it, then my mind would wonder off because I couldn’t picture what he was talking about. Now, when he describes a gadget, I have him draw a picture of it and I see what he is talking about.

James is like me in so many ways and is also a visual spatial learner. So these books were real eye openers. I discovered something new about myself and was actual able to make changes in my life to improve it. Life is so full of discovery and changes and no matter how old you get, you need to be open to it. Father and I dove in Home schooling without knowing how much it would change our lives. All I can say is hang on for the ride, because it is amazing what you learn and discover about yourself along the way.

There are many books out there that will help you determine not only your learning style, but your child as well which will help you figure out how best to teach them. 

Good luck and stay safe.

A to Z Poetry - Paper and Pen

"I write on paper with a dipped pen and ink and type on a manual typewriter in order to have three dimensional activities with my hands- but again and again, I discover how far words are capable of going, both in the world and on the page. " ~ Susan Minot.

Paper and Pen

dipped in ink.

Words.

Rambling and disjointed,

pointed,

purposeful.

Images

formed,

a tale told and retold.

Torn apart;

blended,

thoughts and plans

ebb 

like the tide.

New

elements of life

abandoned,

found.

Circular,

Ideas flow.

Lessons to learn,

Time to think.

Paper and pen

dipped in ink.