The boys did well at their swim meet last Saturday, not well as they did last year with all the gold medals and first place ribbons, but with a flurry of other-colored ribbons and lots of fun. And there’s another swim meet the weekend after next, so they have the chance to try again.
We spent most of Sunday and Monday at the fairgrounds for the 4H beef club achievement day. Laura showed her cow-calf pair, and placed third for the junior class and for showmanship. Now she’s getting ready for the 4H baking club achievement days this Friday and Saturday, which includes a bit of community service Friday evening, planting flower boxes for some local businesses. Don’t ask about the weeds in my own garden, or the potatoes that have yet to be planted.
Lots of odds and ends to sort out as various activities come to an end — I have a library board meeting this afternoon while the kids are swimming, have to type up the 4H results from the weekend to include in Laura’s article for the local papers.
A moose walked through the backyard, and we found a ground sparrow nest with several eggs. The kids and I are reading, and listening, to some good bird books, some new and some old, and I’ll post those titles when I have a chance.
I don’t think I can, and don’t particularly want to, catch up, but these links have caught my eye. You’ve probably found them elsewhere since I’m late, but here they are, just in case:
- On the weekend, string theorist, author, and physics professor Brian Greene made an eloquent case in The New York Times to “Put a Little Science in Your Life”: “Science is the greatest of all adventure stories, one that’s been unfolding for thousands of years as we have sought to understand ourselves and our surroundings. Science needs to be taught to the young and communicated to the mature in a manner that captures this drama. We must embark on a cultural shift that places science in its rightful place alongside music, art and literature as an indispensable part of what makes life worth living.”
- The website of children’s history and science author Joy Hakim has been updated and redesigned. I had an email from Smithsonian Books, publisher of her science series, The Story of Science, with the news, also letting me know that Johns Hopkins University has recently completed Teacher and Student Quest Guides for the newest volume, Newton at the Center. Pricey and curriculum-y, these strike me as more useful, or at least more affordable, for institutional classrooms rather than home schools.
- The battle over evolution in children’s science textbooks continues in Texas, with a new strategy as well as ramifications for the rest of North America, Laura Beil writes in today’s The New York Times. Read the article, if only for the thoughts of Dr. Dan Foster, former chairman of the department of medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.
- I’m on a roll here with science subjects, so I should mention a few recent posts by science professor and naturalist Chet Raymo at his website, Science Musings, and blog, Science Musings Blog. At the website, don’t miss his essay on science and children’s books, “Dr. Seuss and Dr. Einstein”; The essay was originally published in the September-October 1992 issue of Horn Book, adapted from a talk Prof. Raymo delivered at Bridgewater State College, Massachusetts, that year. Also, a lovely post on The Wind in the Willows, which is celebrating its centennial this year, and news of Prof. Raymo’s new book, When God Is Gone, Everything Is Holy (Ave Maria Press, September 2008).
- The latest from Derfwad Manor: Mrs. G. on books and reading and kids (yours and others’), and kicking around the idea of an online magazine for the above-average average woman, and looking for said woman’s honest advice and thoughts on the matter.
- Melissa Wiley, founder of the Carnival of Children’s Literature, is hosting the latest Carnival over at Here in the Bonny Glen
- Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect is hosting June’s edition of Learning in the Great Outdoors. One post that looks interesting is the one by Barb at Handbook of Nature Study on “Nature Journal or Nature Notebook?”
Filed under: Blogging, Books, Carnivals, Children's Books, Education, Family, Farm Life, Fun & Games, Natural History, Outdoor Education, Physics, Science
Have you written anywhere about the Hakim science books? Do you use them? Are they worthwhile (without the school-y additions)? Thanks,
JoVE, I’ve written just a bit, most recently here,
http://farmschool.wordpress.com/2007/09/20/a-new-dimension-to-science-studies/
We read them and they’re very worthwhile, probably more so — in my opinion — without the school-y additions. Without the lesson plans, the kids think the books are fun to read in bed and elsewhere on their own time. Though not a stand-alone science course.
I stumbled across the first two at BookCloseouts several years ago but would gladly have paid full price. I’d rather the books had a higher opinion of their readers — they seem pitched toward average institutionally schooled kids who don’t necessarily like science — but since no-one else is writing such comprehensive “history of science” books for children, I suppose it’s a minor quibble.