Dollygirl's Grade Six: Term 3, Week 8

This is a four-day school week because of Victoria Day.

Tuesday

New Testament: finish Saviour of the World this week

Poetry and The Aeneid: finish “Aeneas Seeks Aid From Evander”

Arithmetic: finish Key to Percents Book Two, page 10

Natural history: continue The Search for Planet X by Tony Simon.  Finish “Off Course Again,” start “Percival Lowell”

Sight Singing

Repetition: work on passage from Matthew 16

History: Augustus Caesar's World, “Of India and the Hindus”

People Pages

French: Lesson 8, "George’s Kite." (Translation of this week's passage: George is very clever. He has made this kite himself. The kite is taller than George. The artist has painted a house, a little dog, a man, the moon, and a bird.) You-tube video: watch “Trotro et le cerf-volant.”

Afternoon work


Wednesday

Natural history: The Search for Planet X, continue “Percival Lowell”

Balance Benders Level 2

History: “Pater Patriae” (very short) and “Buddha and the Kingdom of Truth”

Sight singing

Arithmetic: page 11, Writing a Percent Statement as Two Equal Fractions



Composer study: Handel, Concerto Grosso, Opus 6, No. 10 in D minor.

Geography: Lesson 2 on Devon, “North Devon.” “The combes along the north coast lie between the spurs of Exmoor, which come down to the water’s edge.”

People Pages

French

Thursday

Old Testament: continue Lore Segal's The Book of Adam to Moses

Poetry and The Aeneid: start “The Trojans Besieged.”

Arithmetic: continue previous lesson, page 12

French

Picture study: later pictures of Matthijs Maris

History: “December 25, Year 1”

Repetition

Love's Labour's Lost

Afternoon work

Friday

New Testament: Saviour of the World

Poetry and The Aeneid: finish “The Trojans Besieged.”

Arithmetic: continue previous lesson, page 13

Drawing lesson

Citizenship

People Pages

Singing

Recitations

Saturday shopping: snow and the Salvation Army

1.  Weather: wind and snow.  People, this is not right.

2.  We stopped at the Salvation Army thrift store this morning.  Their book section was a mess--they don't even try to organize them, and the prices range from dirt-cheap to outrageous.  Which means you can totally luck out, or come away with nothing.

I guess this was our week to luck out:

The Once and Future King, older Dell paperback

The Writer in the Garden
Carrots Love Tomatoes, by Louise Riotte
Roses Love Garlic, by Louise Riotte

Picture books:
Enchantment in the Garden, by Shirley Hughes
Hattie and the Wild Waves, by Barbara Cooney

Handel Classic Hits CD
Chrissa Stands Strong, an American Girl DVD (for Dollygirl)

A sweater for Ponytails
A top for Mama Squirrel

Dollygirl's Grade Six: Handel and other things on Thursday

Some of this will be done in the afternoon--it depends on how much we can get finished before lunch.

Old Testament: readings from The Book of Adam to Moses, "with necessary omissions"

Arithmetic:  Clue Finders CD-Rom, or do one puzzle from Arithmecode.

Grammar (30 minutes allowed, but may not take that long): Continue with "Case closed"

French songs, break (30 minutes total).   "Joli Tambour"

History (20 minutes): Story of Greece.  "Pelopidas and Epaminondas"  (Illustrations here.)

Memory work: work on chosen poem

Shakespeare play (30 minutes)

Composer study (begin study of Handel).

1.  General information about Handel  (Boyhoods of Great Composers)

2.  History of "The Harmonious Blacksmith."  "Although the title was supplied by his publisher, not Handel himself, it remains a compelling image - not just as a blacksmith whistling while working, but also as musicians shaping harmonies into works of art. Harmonious Blacksmith also alludes to Pythagoras's ancient discovery of acoustics, as he passed a blacksmith's forge and noticed the higher and lower pitches of smaller and larger hammers striking the anvil."  (From the Harmonious Blacksmith website)  "According to Iamblichus, Pythagoras immediately ran into the forge to investigate the harmony of the hammers....He analyzed the hammers and realized that those that were harmonious with each other had a simple mathematical relationship--their masses were simple ratios or fractions of each other. That is to say that hammers half, two- thirds, or three-quarters the weight of a particular hammer would all generate harmonious sounds. On the other hand, the hammer that was generating disharmony when struck along with any of the other hammers had a weight that bore no simple relationship to the other weights."  (this story found here, along with some neat illustrations)

What about the piece of music itself?  There are several different stories about this, all involving blacksmiths.  Here is one of them:  "The title “Harmonious Blacksmith” was bestowed on the music in the nineteenth century, and a story of its origin claims the piece was a favorite of a William Lintern, a blacksmith apprentice and an amateur musician. He was often heard whistling his favorite piece, Handel’s “Air and Variations”, giving his friends the reason to call him “the harmonious blacksmith”. Lintern later became owner of a music publishing company, the first to publish the piece under The Harmonious Blacksmith title."  (Program notes found here.) 

Pip, the main character in Great Expectations (which we read last year) is fondly given the nickname of Handel by the character Herbert Pocket: "We are so harmonious- and you have been a blacksmith."

3.  Listen to the theme carefully (midi file at the second link given above).

4.  Listen to the whole piece, including the variations.