Hope.  What a name.  And fitting.  I listened to Dick Gordon’s The Story yesterday, an interview with John Hope Franklin.  Dr. Franklin had some serious, important stories to tell.   Look and listen here. 

Dr. Franklin died two days ago, March 25, 2009.

Some of the stories Dr. Franklin told involve racial hatred, Dr. Franklin having been a victim of that even as a child.  My children will be listening to The Story, but you might want to pre-listen for much younger children. 

Lynn

In connection with Follow the Drinking Gourd, Princess of the Universe and I spent my lunch break looking all around this website:  Sweet Honey.  First we just listened to some of the tracks on there.  Their voices together are like honey. 

It took a few minutes to find, but they have a section just for kids with some really fun activities.  We probably had the most fun trying to match the baby pictures with the current pictures of the group.  The kids page is here. 

**Be sure and click on the counting songs to hear Sweet Honey In The Rock sing numbers in different languages. 

Includes Japanese (Grass Sandals: The Travels of Basho, Grandfather’s Journey)

Includes also several other languages too!  Great go-along activity for many books.

Lynn

Ahhhh, Monday.  Another work day. 

But lesson plans are mostly written out and Princess of the Universe seems to be getting over her cold. 

There are a few things I wanted to write about this morning. 

First of all, Steve Lambert, publisher of Five In A Row curriculum.

Many in the homeschooling community already know about this as The Old Schoolhouse magazine sent out a note to subscribers a couple of days ago.  I wanted to mention it here too.  Steve Lambert just underwent surgery to release pressure from his skull after taking a fall not too long ago.  The good news is that the surgery appears to have been successful and Mr. Lambert is on the road to a full recovery.  I just feel that this would be a good time, if you haven’t already, to purchase something from Five In A Row.  There’s no way I can say in one blog post how much Five In A Row has enriched our homeschool experience.  Five In A Row offers a variety of products, including beautiful Five In A Row manuals as well as digital downloads.  How timely that they have a Black History Month Fold-N-Learn and a Valentine’s Day Fold-N-Learn that you can download!  Why don’t you look around their site and see what you can find to buy?  I will be making some purchases this month.  No, the Lamberts didn’t ask for this, I just know the integrity that the Lamberts have and how they — for years — have provided mesage boards to the Five In A Row family, keeping them ad-free and really, as the forum says, like a “family room.”   They are self-employed as publishers, and I cannot imagine that it would hurt one bit to purchase something from them right now.  I know first-hand that hospitalizations and surgeries aren’t cheap.  I also know first-hand how great their curriculum is! 

A photograph from last April. I hope you don’t mind.

Second, in light of February being Black History Month, our copywork this week will include some poetry by Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes.  “Incident” by Countee Cullen breaks my heart. 

Last of all, we are moving on from Grass Sandals: The Travels of Basho and there’s excitement in the doll house!

I think for our rowing this week we’ll revisit a wonderful book, Follow the Drinking Gourd.  Actually, I think PBS airs that book on Reading Rainbow today.

Lynn