Lionden Landing

Thanks to our great Scholar in Residence program and author, Gil Marks, I got to take a food tour of Sephardi.  I was not able to attend the Moroccan dinner Shabbos evening.  But we did get to share in the delightful Kiddush. Prep in the kitchen for the weekend.  Kiddush was a tasting menu from Central Asia and the Mediterranean. There was a complete Fleishig menu from each country including dessert.  Our favorites from the meal crossed country lines.  The Georgian Chicken in Walnut Sauce and the Red Pepper Walnut Spread were fantastic.  It is so sad that Ms. G is allergic to walnuts.  I am going to have to try substituting almonds in some of these recipes.  Sunday was the kicker with the "World of Vegetarian Purim".  Rabbi Marks is a very interesting person who shared much more than his recipes with us.  If you want to know more about food than just how to make it I strongly recommend his book, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Food...

Froggy recently said Goodbye to a few literary friends in a very short period of time.  We finished Understood Betsy, which we had started back in roughly September. We also finished the Trickster series which meant saying goodbye to all the friends who live in Tortall, after spending literally years of falling asleep immersed in their lives. Froggy's heartbreak at saying goodbye to these special friends how important and beneficial it really is to savor a book rather than race through. Froggy was very reluctant to start her new read-alouds and need a time of almost mourning before commencing. We finally did commence though and welcome the new friends in.  Our new daytime read aloud is Wind in the Willows. We are enjoying our time with Rat and Mole by the riverside.  We read many books with an old fashion speech pattern and very language.  Yet this book feels somewhat daunting in its language.  The chapters are very long but we are working our way through ...

Charlotte Mason introduced me to the idea of living books.  Froggy enjoys the ones in her curriculum. So with the recommendations of several friends, I have been reading some living books myself.  The first is Never Fall Down .   It is a novel based on the life of Arn, a Cambodian refuge who is 11 when the Khmer Rouge came into power. Like many living books, this is a fictionalize account based on a real story.  In the novel, Arn tells all the horrible things he endured to survive until by luck he was adopted along with two other boys and brought to America. The book is listed as young adult but is sufficiently graphic that I would say it is not for a sensitive youth. Music is the magic ticket in Arn's life that garnered him the attention he needed to escape. The book ends in 1984 with a speech Arn gave at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York, during which, for the first time, he found release in tears. Since then, Arn has spoken out ...

Froggy's best friends come from books.  She talks about the characters in her favorite books as though they are real and her dearest friends.  Her dolls change names as her favorites shift. This deep bond is part of why she likes series so much. Some of her newest friends are Tova, Pippi and Greg One of her Hanukkah gifts was the first two books of the Tova Bloom series.  Tova and her five sisters live in Philadelphia during the American Revolution.  What makes Tova special to Froggy is that Tova is Jewish.  The book does not focus on Tova's Judaism but it is sprinkled with Yiddish phrases and off-hand references. Tova is a middle child who for the most part is a regular girl.  It is bittersweet watching Froggy's dolls become Tova's sisters and see the love they share with one another and the antics they engage in.  Tova calls her father Tati, which is what Ms. G calls her father too. That clinched it for the book and made Tova "real". Froggy a...

We are finishing up Anastasia: The Last Grand Duchess on audiobook.  Froggy is fascinated by her life and the changes in the world that occurred during it.  We started out discussing World War 1 and spent hours poring over various map including this one which shows the progress of the war.  We talked about alliances and how they contributed to the war getting so big. It surprised me how interested Froggy is in the progress of the war and the who "was friends with whom" Later as the book progressed, we got into a discussion of the Russian revolution.  And I realized how little I knew.  I answered Froggy's questions to the best of my ability but that was not enough.  So we checked out The Russian Revolution by Adrian Gilbert from the lib r ary.  It was the perfect extension evenif it was not a living book .  Froggy wanted to see the other side of the revolution.  The next step may be a book about Lenin and/or Communism.  We will s...

I haven't posted a book review in awhile and there are so many good ones I am excited about.  First my books. I am currently reading Raising Lifelong Learners.  It is really geared towards someone with younger children.  Still in addition to validating lots of the choices, we made with Froggy as a toddler, it does offer guidance and suggestions for the middle childhood years.  I recommend it for every parent especially homeschoolers. The other new book I am excited about is my Interlinear Chumash.  I have struggled long and hard during services to follow along with the Torah reading.  I have had to choose, either follow the Hebrew or read the English.  Now I don't have to choose any more.  My new Chumash has the translation directly under each word so I can read both at the same time.  It will actually help me improve my Hebrew as well as making the Torah reading section of services more meaningful.  Froggy is thrilled with a co...

Our third stop on the Tour de France took us back to Paris and the Opera House.  There we learned tha t it was one of Edgar Degas' favorite places.  A lot of aspects of the Paris Opera House inspired his works from the rehearsals in the classrooms to the final productions on the stage.   For our tour this time we came in the afternoon rather than the morning and had a different docent than we have ever had before.   We are very grateful for the wonderful docents we have during our regular morning visits.  This docent talked to the children as if they were 2 rather mostly 5 and 6.   But even with a less than stellar docent the program is wonderful.  The book for this tour stop was  Bijou, Bonbon & Beau: The Kittens Who Danced for Degas.   The book is a perfect mix of fiction and history.  Degas while a significant character in the book is not the main character but it shows his sketching process as well as his love fo...

Now that Froggy is older and reading longer books, sometimes it takes a while for the book to really get interesting.  I am working with her not to give up too fast on a new book.  A great example is Mr. Poppers Penguins.   We have a paper copy of this book that Froggy has picked up and put down several times without really giving a valid chance. This week I picked up an audio version of it.  When I put it on in the car, her cmment was "I know this book and don't like it"  After listening to only 2 chapters her new impression was totally captivation and enthusiasm, so much so that she wanted to continue the story with the paper version when we came inside. I also wanted to share my latest treasure, Surely You're Joking Mr. Fyneman.   This memoir is far outside my typical reading material.  When I was a bit older than Froggy is now I read lots and lots of biographies and memoirs but as an adult generally the only non-fiction I read is for educat...

Froggy has been enjoying her new series.  Not only is Thea Stilton a fast friend now, but Geronimo Stilton is also a great friend.  She checked out four different ones on the last trip to the library and that is only because I did not let her get more.  These books are complete twaddle and the reading level is not up to her ability but she loves them anyway. We just finished Once Upon A Crime , the fourth book in the Sisters Grimm series.  It is just as delightful as the first three.  It is so fun to see the girls meet their fairy tale favorites "in person" and see how different they are from their stories.  We are now listening to Pinocchio.  Froggy keeps saying over and over "that's not right"  and I have to keep telling her it is right because this is the original.  It is Disney who got it wrong.   Thanks to Auntie Fawn, we have renewed our interest in American Girl.  Froggy played with her two dolls , Samantha and Kit, ...

It has been a pleasure this week to have an almost complete absence of Rainbow Fairies. At our weekly trip to the library, I talked with the librarian about some new series for Froggy.   Ambleside helps us find quality literature and stories we love but not fun books that Froggy will read on her own. Froggy's new best friend is Thea Stilton.  She is Geronimo Stilton's sister.  Despite giving her name to the series, she does not actually go on the adventures.  Five young mouseling girls who admire her create a club and call it, The Thea Sisters.  Their adventures are a bit more travel based rather than school based which is perfect for a homeschooled little girl.  Each book goes to some new location and has a mystery to solve.  Sometimes the place are real, like Paris, and sometimes they are in Mouseland.  We checked out two of the books and will certainly be getting more when we go back. We also picked up Kristen Saves The Day. ...

In addition to our Yom HaAzmaut books, we have done lots of other fun reading as well.  I picked up some astronomy books for our new unit and Froggy found some as well while I was browsing.  She chose My Friend, the Starfinder.   From the cover, it looked like it was a book about constellations but it is not.  It is twaddle describing a young girl's relationship with an older neighbor.  Unfortunately Froggy loves it. Frequently I am not fond of Froggy's choices.  She often picks twaddle like the Rainbow Fairies .  Her motivation for going to the library is new Fairy books.  She is limited in how many she can get each week but always wants more.  I justify allowing her to read these books because she will also of her own choosing read books that are not twaddle.  I like mind candy at times so I suppose she should be allowed some as well. For instance, she also chose Keeping The Promise .  I found this book at the used booksale ...

The Holocaust is a hard topic to explain to a little person. Yet they are part of our lives and to hide the Memorial Days from them gives them a skewed perspective of reality.  After we lit our yellow Shoah candle , I showed Froggy this picture of six survivors lighting remembrance flames at Yad Vashem.   In Israel, it is easy because the Memorial Days are given the honor and respect they deserve. Here is a clip showing how everyone pauses to show respect for the two minutes of remembrance.  The siren sounds and everyone nationwide actually stops to remember whether they are in school, at work, or on even on the road.   Warning the siren is loud. You may want to adjust your sound So our Yom HaShoah studies have consisted of mostly reading books and Ima answering the questions that arise.  We pulled back out One Candle   which is really a Hanukkah book but also shows how the family remembers those who perished and honors their perseverance.  We also...

It has been far too long since I chronicled our favorite books.  I know because there is no mention of the wonderful series we just finished.   Our bedtime book (read by Abba) for the last several months have been the Song of the Lioness series by Tamora Pierce.  Abba and I first read this series many years ago.  It was fun finally sharing it with Froggy.  The series is aimed at tween.  Alanna starts as a 10 year old and becomes an adult through the course of the series.  Abba did need to do some on the fly censoring as Alanna begins her explorations of romance. To me it is worth it, since Alanna buck gender assigned roles and shows that women can be strong.  She is honorable and requires those around her to be honorable. We just started our next series in this same universe, The Immortals which again takes a young girl and watches the struggles she faces as she grows to adulthood.  Daine is gifted with animal magic but did not know it at...