Links for Friday
Our week of endless VBS is almost at an end. I must admit that the free time in the mornings and evenings has been very nice, but I’m not sure it’s worth the over-tired and cranky-from-too-much-sugar kids. Next year will be different, since Natalie will have finished 6th grade, and therefore aged out of the VBS they’ve been attending for the past several years. I’ll have a daughter entering junior high next August - how did that happen?
Our weekend is looking to be much slower and quieter than our week, and that’s just fine with me. We need a quiet week to gear up for Independence Day weekend, when my sister and her family will be visiting, and we’ll be spending the bulk of our time at Mom and Dad’s. The following weekend we take Natalie to Bible camp. She comes home on Thursday the 17th, and on Saturday the 19th, the kids will participate in a Tae Kwon Do tournament. The following weekend, we leave on our trip. When we get back, it will be three weeks until school starts again. When I look at it like that, the summer’s almost over already!
From the news:
~ This is scary and ridiculous: a Canadian court rules that a father cannot discpline his daughter by grounding her from a school camping trip. The judge said that the punishment was excessive. The father was attempting to discipline his 12-year-old daughter for posting her information on an internet dating site and for fighting with her step-mother. The girl took her unhappiness with the situation to court - and won.
~ Owners of a family plantation in Maryland discovered a treasure trove of documents in their attic - dating from the 1660s through World War II.
~ Yellow Science at the Wall Street Journal:
Nevertheless, over the past several decades an increasing number of scientists have shed the restraints imposed by the scientific method and begun to proclaim the truth of man-made global warming. This is a hypothesis that remains untested, makes no predictions that can be tested in the near future, and cannot offer a numerical explanation for the limited evidence to which it clings.
Some great videos:
~ Electric strings group Scala appears on Britain’s Got Talent. These girls are amazing! Hat tip: Angela Hunt.
~ Where the H*ll is Matt? Hat tip: Chris Rice’s blog. Check out Matt’s web site, and his about page that explains how we had the opportunity to travel all over the world to make the video.
~ BBC Worldwide has its own YouTube page. Check out the QI clips - they are hilarious!
Movie stuff:
~ The movie version of Inkheart is coming in January - here’s the trailer. Looks like they made quite a few changes to the plot. I’ll reserve judgment until I actually see it. I guess.
~ Another book to movie: The Tale of Despereaux - coming in December. Here’s the trailer.
Education and learning:
~ Homeschoolers in college can sniff out the BS. Of course they can.
~ David McCullough’s commencement address at Boston College. Hat tip: Mental Multivitamin.
Read. Read, read! Read the classics of American literature that you’ve never opened. Read your country’s history. How can we profess to love our country and take no interest in its history? Read into the history of Greece and Rome. Read about the great turning points in the history of science and medicine and ideas.
Read for pleasure, to be sure. I adore a good thriller or a first-rate murder mystery. But take seriously –read closely –books that have stood the test of time. Study a masterpiece, take it apart, study its architecture, its vocabulary, its intent. Underline, make notes in the margins, and after a few years, go back and read it again.
Make use of the public libraries. Start your own personal library and see it grow. Talk about the books you’re reading. Ask others what they’re reading. You’ll learn a lot.
Win a book:
~ Head over to Puss Reboots for a chance to win Virus Games, the first in a new series geared toward 9 to 12 year olds.
At Books and Movies this week:
I guess that’s it - that’s enough, right? Oh, I also joined Facebook, so let me know if you’re there, too, so I can add you to my friends list.
Checking them out! Have a lovely weekend!
June 27th, 2008 at 3:53 am- that Canadian ruling: I feel compelled to point out it was in Quebec, which has a LOT of laws & stuff different from the rest of Canada.
- Sarah is reading Kafka. And *likes* it. Your readers should know she also reads the Gossip Girl books, so there.
- I can’t stand Facebook.
They’re not getting my info to hold on to.
June 27th, 2008 at 5:33 amLisa - you, too!
Andrea - I didn’t realize that about Quebec. Do your provinces work differently than our states - have more autonomous power, etc.? I have to admit, I’m fairly ignorant when it comes to Canadian government.
Oh, and how awesome of Sarah. I haven’t even read Kafka! I loved your post yesterday about Emma and the photons, too. You’re doing something really right as a mom.
About Facebook - why don’t you tell me how you really feel?
June 27th, 2008 at 5:46 am- re: Quebec is the only province that is like a country-within-a-country. You’ll see a lot of fine print up here that says “offer different in Quebec”. It’s mostly French and thus a lot of, uh… how can I put this… latent Anglo/French hostilities?
Just whenever you read anything that says Canada but it happened in Quebec, it’s kind of an exception. They’re not even *allowed* to have English signs up there.
- re: Emma. This is the part where I confess she got it from tv. She watches Discovery Kids for a large chunk of the day. Although today and yesterday she’s going through all her Pixar movies because I said I’d take her to see Wall-E.
I’m trying to be embarrassed about the amount of tv she watches, but… I learned a huge chunk from tv myself. Visual learners and all.
But books are still big, as you can see with Sarah & her hoard. I was just saying the other day that I think we’ve accomplished one thing I set out to do: teach the kids that books were books. There weren’t school books or books-you-have-to-read or junk books. They’re all just *books*. You read them, you learn something from every one. There’s only two categories: fiction and non-fiction.
And I should probably paste this comment in my blog & expand on it.
June 27th, 2008 at 6:16 amMy daughter is going into the 7th grade this August. I have to admit I am a little emotional. I can’t believe where all the time has gone.
I am amazed at the ruling in Canada/Quebec. It makes you wonder if it could happen here.
June 27th, 2008 at 8:06 amMy oldest is also going into the 6th grade this year, then junior high next year. I can hardly believe it.
I’m off to read about the daughter taking the dad to court ..
June 28th, 2008 at 7:46 pmI “friended” you on Facebook.
June 28th, 2008 at 10:39 pmAndrea - books are books - yes! That’s what we’ve tried to instill in our kids, too. Definitely, you should post on that.
Jennnifer - it sure goes fast, doesn’t it? That’ll be me next August - my oldest heading into 7th grade. Sheesh.
LisaMM - I didn’t realize we have daughters the same age!
Kev - cool - thanks.
June 29th, 2008 at 7:39 am