Sunrise, from the balcony

Wednesday Hodgepodge: Up and Down

1. April showers bring May flowers or so the saying goes. Has your April been filled with showers? Do you carry an umbrella, wear a slicker, or make a run for it? Besides rain, what else has filled your April? 

Some years we seem to go almost straight from winter to summer, but this month has been very springy, meaning we've had some warm days, the snow stomped off in disgust, and yes, there's been some rain. People are, as usual, over-eager to buy things at the garden centres and get something into the ground, but around here they really should wait a bit, because frosts can sneak up.

I am not really one for walking in the rain just for fun (sorry, Charlotte Mason).

What else has filled our April? If you're just popping in here for the first time, One Word: Moving. The rest of you already know that.

2. What's something you could you give a 30-minute presentation on at a moment's notice and with zero preparation?

I have sort of done that, more than once. Usually it's been on a homeschooling topic, like ways to stretch your budget and re-use what you have.

3. Share with us a favorite food memory from childhood.

Food memories: Campfire Pie Irons. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were the best, alhough the filling got hotter even than a McDonald's fried apple pie. But bologna and cheese ones were good too.

4. What's a song you thought you knew the lyrics to, but later discovered you were wrong?

"Fly Robin Fly," by The Silver Convention. When I was younger, I thought (for no good reason) that they were saying "Fly Muffin Fly."

Muffin says, "What???"

5. According to one travel website, the most overrated tourist attractions in America are-
Niagara Falls (NY), Hollywood Walk of Fame (California), Times Square (NYC), Epcot (FL), Seattle Space Needle (WA), and Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market (Boston). How many of these have you seen in person? Did you feel like a tourist? Did you care? Tell us about a place (not on the list) you've visited that might be considered a tourist trap, but you love it anyway.

I have been to Niagara Falls and Epcot Centre. I used to walk past the C.N. Tower in Toronto all the time, but never went up there, and I probably never will. Too expensive, for one thing, and (okay I admit it) going up that high just scared me. A lot. But we're moving to the almost-top-floor of an apartment building, so we can just pretend we're up there.

Since I seem to be in a You-tube mood this morning, here's what's going through my head:

6. Your signature clothing item?

Do I have to have just one? Here's my 10 x 10 Wardrobe Challenge for our pre-move.

7. What's an experience you've had you think everyone should experience at least once? Why?

Not sure about that one! Sometimes things we're glad we went through...weren't that fun at the time.

How about....having a job with a boss that you don't entirely like, or that you don't think entirely likes you, and having to stick it out anyway? Good practice in relationships and the way the world works. (See #8.)

8. Insert your own random thought here.

Not my own thought, but something from a friend:

"And parents are persons. Teachers are persons. Each of our homeschools or our classrooms is unique, and the way things are this year might not be the way things are next year. So we adapt, according to the principles we know. If the weather takes on a deeper chill, we build up that burning fire to keep the room warm. If a child is struggling in math, or we’re adding another first-grader to our homeschool this year, or we have a chance to visit a foreign country, or…fill in the blank with your own special need…well, we have some solid principles to guide our decisions about curriculum, and language study, and schedules." ~~ Karen Glass, "The Spirit and the Letter of a Charlotte Mason Education"

Linked from the Wednesday Hodgepodge at From This Side of the Pond.

From the archives: the golden age of science publishing?

First posted February 2007, edited slightly.

On the "Golden Age" of children's science publishing: I'm just guessing but I think it started just after WWII and probably extended sometime into the sixties. I'm not talking so much about the little kids' Read-and-Find-Out books, although some of those are semi-classic too (like Benny's Animals And How He Put Them In Order), but something more; a collaboration between scientists, writers, and well-known (or well-known later) childrens' book illustrators. These books were written...let's say...to appeal to junior George Baileys ("Then I'm coming back here and go to college and see what they know…and then I'm going to build things"), Little Eddies, and Homer Prices. Kids like my dear Mr. Fixit who wanted to know how things worked, and who weren't scared off by having to read information instead of getting it delivered in multimedia format.

I picked up three books like this at the thrift shop last week. One is The Story of Sound, by James Geralton. (James Geralton is the pen name of Harvard physics professor emeritus Gerald Holton.) The illustrations are by Joe Krush; you might have seen Beth and Joe Krush's illustrations in The Borrowers or Gone-Away Lake. The cover is terrible, especially with the dustjacket missing; the title is boring (gee, thanks Uncle Max, just what I wanted, The Story of Sound).

But the text draws you in, keeps you interested, and teaches you something along the way. Some examples (they're not consecutive paragraphs):

Wind whistling through a forest may sound mysterious and frightening. But we can now explain that noise quite simply. When the wind hits a branch or a leaf, or a blade of grass, its smooth flow is broken up--just as the pillars of a bridge break the passing stream into small whirlpools and eddies. The eddies of water try to stay and hide right behind the pillars. The little eddies of air, too [no, not those Little Eddies], lie behind the twig or blade, leaf or telegraph wire, while the wind that rushes past pushes them lightly back and forth. The whirls of air vibrate to and fro behind their hiding place, like a flag on a stormy day that flutters from its pole. This vibration of whirling air sets up sound waves, just like any other vibration!

Hot gases, too, like the exhaust from the engine of a car, expand quite rapidly. To make one's automobile trips pleasanter a muffler is usually attached which lets the gas expand more slowly through a widening tube of metal. Thus the noise is deadened a little.

Now we have come to a large and interesting family of noises: those made by explosions! [ooh yeah]

The other two books are sixties paperback reprints of earlier books: Everyday Weather and How It Works, by Herman Schneider, illustrated by Jeanne Bendick; and Research Ideas for Young Scientists, by George Barr, illustrated by John Teppich. The George Barr book in particular is terrific and asks all kinds of questions that young scientists can find answers to: How far did your helium balloon travel? What accounts for the force of a collision? How quickly can you stop your bicycle? Does a blindfolded person walk in a circle? What is the traffic picture at a busy corner? [I'm visualizing Policeman Small here...] Why are ships pointed? How reliable is your camera's shutter?

"Have you been getting poor snapshots lately, even though you used the recommended exposure? Maybe your shutter speed is not what is supposed to be....The next time you use a roll of film, save your last shot for this test. Take a record player, with an extension cord, out into the bright sunlight. Use the standard 78-rpm speed. Place a 10- or 12-inch record on the turntable. Tape a thin white paper strip to the record from the center to the edge....[take a picture while it's going around]....When the picture is printed, measure the angle with a protractor--or compare it with the one shown in the diagram...."

Of course the experiments (like that one) are sometimes anachronistic; other experiments involve roller skates, milk bottles and "stapling machines" ("Dad, can I use that 'stapling machine' you have on your desk?" "Sure, Beaver"). But many of them are still workable; and some of them are more relevant than ever (How much water is wasted in your home?).

Moral: don't be scared off by boring titles or cover art showing tin-can phones; there's gold in some of them thar Golden Age books.

Another kind of fall

Cold weather...you can have it.

Summer or fall? Last days of warm

 Maple in front of our house--always one of the first to turn red

 Beside our house--still blooming

 Why you need to look very, very closely at these flowers: they're covered with bees today!

Mama Squirrel's Library Pile

From the public library, reading and leafing through:

The Map That Changed the World, by Simon Winchester
Why Geology Matters, by Doug Macdougall
The Seashell on the Mountaintop, by Alan Cutler
Eric Sloane's Weather Almanac