A time to imagine...

Kids ask tons of questions. And at some point, they're ready for the real scientific answers. But as parents, we need to be discerning of when that is. Sometimes, they just need room to imagine. There's a certain beauty in leaving a question unanswered. In wondering along with your child. We live in a world where all the answers are at our fingertips, but imagination and creativity are dying.

http://www.hdwallpapers.efreez.com/wallpapers/rainbow-child-1440x900.jpg

As we were driving yesterday, Jane saw a rainbow and asked me, "What does a rainbow feel like?"

What a beautiful question. Do you remember wondering that as a child? Maybe you still do. I know I still sometimes imagine walking up to the edge of a rainbow and sliding my hand across it. What would it feel like?

It was definitely not the time for science. Where is the wonder of saying, "Nothing. A rainbow is nothing more than an optical illusion caused by water and light. Even if you could touch a rainbow, it would feel like nothing. Like air. Possibly damp air."

Yuck.

So instead we dreamed. And Rob, bless his wonderful soul, went right along with us.

As for me, I think a rainbow feels like soft silk.

Rob thinks it feels like a fluffy blanket.

Jane thinks it feels like flowers.

As we drove, the rainbow came more into view. Wouldn't you know it? One end was definitely touching down in the park by our house. Of course, it disappeared as we got closer. But we had fun imagining how we could catch up to it. Those rainbows. They're wonderful, beautiful things.

One day, there will be a time for science and answers. But yesterday? Yesterday was a day for dreaming.

Preschool/Kindergarten Music Appreciation: A is for Accelerando

New to Music Appreciation? Check out this post for a quick run-down!

A is for Accelerando, Angels Watching Over Me, and Andersen

                Sing your gathering song.

                Introduce the word.

Accelerando – literally, to accelerate. To gradually go faster and faster

Ritardando – the opposite of accelerando. G get slower and slower.

Atempo – return to original tempo (speed)

Flashcards with Illustrations

               

Activity.

Have the kids do some sort of movement (marching around the room is always a good one. Jumping up and down, pretending to swim, crab walk, wiggling, you get the idea.) Have them do this action when you say go. When you shout "accelerando" they have to keep speeding up and speeding up until you shout “ritardando.” Now they slow down. Shout “atempo” for them to go back to the beginning speed. Continue to play this game, switching the action as needed, until the kids have had enough.

               

Learn the new song for the week.

Angels Watching Over Me is the song for the week. It is a children’s spiritual. As you’ll see in the lyrics below, it is basically a prayer and so much fun to sing! You’ll find a few different versions of the lyrics, but these are the ones I sing.

All night, all day,

Angels watching over me, my Lord.

All night, all day,

Angels watching over me.

When at night I go to sleep.

Angels watching over me, my Lord.

Pray the Lord my soul to keep.

Angels watching over me.

All night, all day,

Angels watching over me, my Lord.

All night, all day,

Angels watching over me.

And here's an adorable groups of second graders singing it if you want to hear how it goes. 

If you want, discuss with your children how spirituals were sung by slaves while they worked on plantations in the south. They usually have a distinct style of a “call” and an “answer.” One person would usually sing the “call” and then everyone else in the fields would “answer.” 

Which parts of this song are the call? Which are the answer?

For more interesting information about African American spirituals as a secret code to send messages, check out the info on this site. http://www.negrospirituals.com/

Sing through the song a couple times with your kids. The words are pretty easy to learn. Give them instruments to play while you sing, have them clap their hands, or pat their legs.

The last time you sing it, designate someone to call out your words for the day. Speed up and slow down the song according to their commands (you might have to sing the song many more times now so that each child can do this)

                Introduce the Composer of the day

Joachim Andersen – He was considered one of the best flute virtuosos and composers of his time. In 1882 he co-founded the Berlin Philharmonic, where he was solo flutist and a conductor. However, in 1893 he had to resign because of a paralysation in his tongue. He then became a great teacher and composer.

Here is his piece, “Hungarian Fantasie Op. 2”  Have children listen, dance, and pretend to play the flute.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7e1eoH8EYs

Additional words you can teach with this video: Piano, flute, pianist, flutist, duet, solo

Can you hear where there is an accelerando or ritardando?

                End by singing a few “requests.”

Preschool/Kindergarten Music Appreciation A-Z (for young children and other non-musicians)

Everyone loves music, especially children. But a lot of people, especially those with little musical background, don't feel equipped to introduce their children to music. This series of 26 music appreciation lessons is designed for you. None of the lessons require the ability to read music or play an instrument. All it takes is 15 minutes with your family!

Music Appreciation A-Z is meant to be done as a "family music night" every week to go along with a letter of the alphabet. Each lesson, you and your family will learn at least one new musical term and song, as well as get exposure to a composer and his/her music. This music appreciation is set up for young children, preschool-first grade, but there are plenty of "rabbit trails" for you to follow with older kids as well.

You don't need any instruments or musical experience to enjoy this with your kids, but if you do happen to play piano or guitar, I highly recommend buying Dan Fox's The Great Family Songbook.

My kids also love this set of percussion instruments. They're high quality and lots of fun!

(If you do decide to buy these for your family music night, I'd love it if you did so through the links here or in the sidebar!)

All of the lessons are set up as follows.

Gathering Song - You can choose which song works best for your family. We sing "Here We Are Together," but if there is one you like better, by all means do that one. I like to start with a gathering song because it eases transitions with the kids and works as a signal.

Introduce the New Word/Words - Every lesson also includes printable cards with the words and a picture to illustrate the word.

Activity - Reinforce the new musical term with a fun game or activity.

Learn the Song - I will either sing it for you so you can hear it, or provide a link, just in case you are unfamiliar with the song. I will also try to give a little history or other musical tidbit to talk about with the song, although it is totally up to you whether you talk about it or not.

Talk About the Composer and Listen to Music - The amount of time you do this depends on your kids. I will give a very brief snippet of information for you to share with your kids, as well as a link to listen to a performance of one or two of the songs. I will also give ideas of questions to ask about the music and vocab words to introduce if you so desire. Most of these pieces will be very long. Encourage your children to listen, talk about and dance to them as long as their interest holds, but do not expect to get through the entire piece with kids giving their undivided attention. To increase exposure, try playing to music throughout the rest of the week.

Sing "requests" - One of my great hopes with these family music nights is to build up a repertoire of songs we can sing as a family. When your children's interest wanes in the composer's music, reel everyone back in by singing some favorite songs. They can be ones learned in previous lessons, or anything else your family knows and loves. Sing as long as everyone is happy.

Finish Happy - Don't drag this out. Always keep it fun. End when the kids no longer seem to be enjoying singing.

Are you ready?

Our first Music Appreciation lesson is A is for Accelerando!

Are you eating cement?

Have you ever heard of 2-hydroxypropane-1,2,3-tricarboxylic acid? Probably not. Too bad you're eating it every day! This common food additive is found in all sorts of industrial products. It's used to clean circuit boards prior to soldering, and is added to cigarettes. 2-hydroxypropane-1,2,3-tricarboxylic acid is used to make cement and to prevent coagulation in the slaughtering business.

Cement? Anti-coagulation? And it's in your food! I can't even imagine the havoc this TOXIN is wreaking in your body.

It maybe approved by the FDA, but you know we can't trust them since they're in league with Big Ag and Big Pharma.

Now that you're officially scared of this terrible, terrible chemical (and let's be honest, if it's in cement that means it IS cement), let me tell you everything you're eating that contains cement!

Orange Juice!
Apple Sauce!
Soda!
Stock cubes!
Ice cream!
Tomato Based Sauces!
Mayonnaise!

People you are eating cement every single day. How can our government allow this to continue? They're poisoning us. It's in everything! As we speak it is raging through your veins, making it so the next time you get a scratch your blood won't clot! 

This is cement! It's a chemical which means it's a toxin!

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

P.S. The common name for 2-hydroxypropane-1,2,3-tricarboxylic acid is citric acid. 

PPS - Were you scared?

PPPS - I want to say that as a whole foods enthusiast, I am not a fan of preservatives. But as a chemist, I am also not a fan of these wholesale scare tactics about "chemicals" and "toxins."

What is a "good" education?

As I've waded into homeschooling, this is something I've thought a lot about. What is a good education? Is it the ability to know thousands of facts? Do math in your head? Long division? Score high on a college entrance exam?

Sometimes, I think we've ended up on the shallow end of the education spectrum. Let me give you examples of what I mean.

I came out of school able to do loads of math problems, without really understanding the foundations those processes are built on. It took a hard and arduous college math class for me to understand that math is not a set of steps to get to the end of a problem. It is a logic puzzle, built from the very most basic premises.

I read many good books in school and I could write a winning essay on anything I read. But I didn't really learn to delve into a book and draw out the life lessons for myself until I joined a book club.

I memorized lots of dates, places and people in history. But I didn't learn to really put myself into history, instead of looking at it in hindsight through my own modern lens, until I read the writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Abraham Lincoln.

In our digital age, if you forget how to find the area of a circle, you can google it in 2.5 seconds. If you can't remember the exact year of Pearl Harbor, or the plot of Pride and Prejudice, you can find out almost instantly. Today, an education has to be so much more than memorizing information.

And these days, there's SO MUCH information. Too much to be able to truly know all of it. But what if, instead of training our children to memorize facts so they can bubble in answers on a test, we teach them to make connections? We tend to put history, math, science, literature, all in their little subject bubbles. But they are all interconnected.

I think we live in a time where we have to find the connections, see the overlaps, pull out the lessons. Sure, you can search it on google and find plenty of people to tel you what to think about one thing or the other, but a truly educated person should be able to come to their own conclusions.

To me, a good education will result in a person who knows quite a bit, but even more importantly, knows what they don't know and then how they can come to know it. Someone who can pick apart the flaw in others logic.

And beyond that, a good education should lead to a lifelong love of learning. Teaching kids to read means nothing if they don't ever do it after school. A truly educated person knows that they are always furthering their education and enjoys doing so.

A good education is more than knowledge, it is also life skills. A high ACT score is great, but we also need to make sure that people know how to manage finances, eat healthy, cook, take good care of themselves! There are so many skills I wish I had learned before now. How to fix a car, home repair, gardening.

A good education results in people who see a problem and not only want to help, but try to help, rather than assuming someone else can do it. They don't have to always be the leaders, but they should always be involved.

A good education leads one to look at the world in wonder and amazement. To go beyond the surface and see the miraculous in every day. It should teach compassion as well as independence.

These are just my hodge podge of thoughts. What do you think makes up a good education?

Christ even loved the loud and squirrely kids

This Sunday we discussed the Sacrament. Someone made the comment that really, we should be partaking of it as if Christ, himself, were handing it to us. Because that is really what it is like. That is where our thoughts should be. And are we being reverent enough? Are we focusing enough at that time and really allowing it to change us?

I couldn't help thinking about my sacrament experience only two hours before. The one where I told Max to sit up, stop spitting, put his tongue in his mouth, get his feet off the pew. The one where I told Jane to stop crying, took away whatever was causing a fight between the two, told her to whisper and tied and retied the "necklace" she was making. I think Rob remembered to whisper to them to, "Remember Jesus."

So when I imagined what I would be doing if Christ were passing the Sacrament at church, I had to think, what would my kids be doing? Would they understand the true weight of that moment? Would they sit there in awe and gratitude.

Maybe. For approximately 8.4 seconds.

I can tell you one thing, they probably wouldn't look like the kids in this picture.




Or this one.


This picture gets a little closer. At least some of the kids have removed pieces of their clothing and one is carrying a stick.



And as I pondered if my kids would just SIT STILL AND BE QUIET FOR TWO MINUTES so I could appreciate the wonder of the Savior, I realized, Christ loves my kids just the way they are. In fact, He's told me to become more like them.

Christ loved all little children. Not just the ones who sat quietly with their hands in their lap, or the ones who look up at Him with their angelic, sweetly smiling faces.

It occurred to me that Christ would still love a child who wanted to show Him a funny face.

Or is having a bad day.

Or can't seem to figure out whispering.

He thinks they're all great and wonderful and beautiful. And He knows I'm trying to teach them and we're all just learning and doing our best. 

And you know what? Because Christ was once a child. I'm sure he understands what it's like to have so much pent up energy that you just have to wiggle, or the need to jump off that really high table because it's just sitting there challenging your abilities every day, or how hard it is to use an inside voice when you have something REALLY IMPORTANT to say.

He knows. 

He loves. 

My kids. Your kids. All kids. Even the loud and squirrely ones.

Can we get a picture of Christ with some of those kind of kids please?

Preschool Week of March 17th - WATER

Art Project
Science Experiments: Make frost, make dew, make rainbows, make ice cream in a bag
Field trip to Aquarium and beach

Circle Time

Poem:
Little Drops of Water

Little drops of water,
Little grains of sand,
Make the mighty ocean
And the pleasant land.

Song:  Water Song
(sung to The Bear Came Over the Mountain)
We’re jumping in the water
We’re jumping in the water
We’re jumping in the water
And splashing everywhere

We’re swimming in the water
We’re swimming in the water
We’re swimming in the water
And splashing everywhere

We’re spinning in the water
We’re spinning in the water
We’re spinning in the water
And splashing everywhere

We’re sinking in the water
We’re sinking in the water
We’re sinking in the water
And splashing everywhere

We’re shaking off the water
We’re shaking off the water
We’re shaking off the water
And not splashing…any…more!

Words by Joe Stover

Read science book on water

Map activity: Name the oceans

Go "fishing" for letters with string and a paperclip. Have kids identify letters at the end of the line.

Vocab: solid, liquid, gas, evaporation, condensation, precipitation (water cycle)

Finish reading "Winnie the Pooh," and "My Father's Dragon."