Homeschooling

Praise the Lord, Sing Hallelujah

October 7, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Praise the Lord, Sing Hallelujah is based on Psalm 148.

Praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord from the heavens;
    praise him in the heights above.
²Praise him, all his angels;
    praise him, all his heavenly hosts.
³Praise him, sun and moon;
    praise him, all you shining stars.
⁴Praise him, you highest heavens
    and you waters above the skies.

⁵Let them praise the name of the Lord,
for at his command they were created,
⁶and he established them for ever and ever—
he issued a decree that will never pass away.

⁷Praise the Lord from the earth,
    you great sea creatures and all ocean depths,
⁸lightning and hail, snow and clouds,
    stormy winds that do his bidding,
⁹you mountains and all hills,
    fruit trees and all cedars,
¹⁰wild animals and all cattle,
    small creatures and flying birds,
¹¹kings of the earth and all nations,
    you princes and all rulers on earth,
¹²young men and women,
    old men and children.

¹³Let them praise the name of the Lord,
    for his name alone is exalted;
    his splendor is above the earth and the heavens.
¹⁴And he has raised up for his people a horn,
    the praise of all his faithful servants,
    of Israel, the people close to his heart.

Praise the Lord.

With music part of his life from an early age, it’s no wonder that William J Kirkpatrick has music be part of his life. Even though he spent time as a carpenter, his passion was for music. He learned to play a variety of musical instruments including violin, organ, fife, pipe organ and vocal. He held a variety of positions over his life, most of them centred around his love of music. His compositions are still well-known today.

Lyrics

1 Praise the LORD, sing hallelujah,
from the heavens praise his name;
praise the LORD, our great Creator;
all his angels, praise proclaim.
All his hosts, together praise him,
sun and moon and stars on high;
praise the LORD, O heavens of heavens,
and the floods above the sky.

Refrain:
Praise the LORD, sing hallelujah,
for his name alone is high,
and his glory is exalted,
and his glory is exalted,
and his glory is exalted,
far above the earth and sky.

2 Let them praise the LORD their Maker:
they were made at his command.
God established them forever;
his decree shall ever stand.
Let the earth sing hallelujah:
raging seas, you monsters all,
fire and hail and snow and vapors,
stormy winds that hear his call. [Refrain]

3 All you fruitful trees and cedars,
every hill and mountain high,
creeping things and beasts and cattle,
birds that in the heavens fly,
kings of earth and all you people,
princes great, earth’s judges all;
praise his name, young men and maidens,
aged men, and children small. [Refrain]

World War 1: Pre-War Alliances

October 6, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Do you recall that we are learning about the World wars this year? Last time we learned about the assassination of ArchDuke Ferdinand. Over the past week the lad has been studying up the Pre-War alliances.

The lad read from these books.

The story of the first world war for children.
The war to end all wars.
The First world war.
First World War.
Canada in World War One.
Roots of the conflict.

Maps

We discovered this map of the Pre-war alliances. We thought about creating our own small one but the lad wants to add flags to the large map that he is working on. This is his brief run down on what he wants to do.

This is the progress he has made this week.

The lad took the time to explain what some of the countries are.

Videos:

We watched some videos, in particular these from The Great War

There are three parts, I’m not linking them all here. 🙂 but it’s a fascinating series so you really should check them out. We found videos 2 and 3 ran together.

Vocabulary Learned:

Nationalism: an extreme form of patriotism, especially marked by a feeling of superiority over other countries

Militarism: the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests.

Imperialism: a policy of extending a country’s power and influence through diplomacy or military force.

Anti-Semitism: hostility to or prejudice against Jews.

Taking it further:

We had a science class this week. We did electrolysis (taking the hydrogen out of water). The lads were fascinated and found it a lot of fun. The lad has been busy expanding his knowledge of this process since then.

I was talking with the lad today about how the war was like electrolysis. You had countries that naturally were drawn together and yet you can change one thing and they are forced apart. You should have seen the startlement in his eyes and his understanding deepened. Neat way to connect dots I thought.

Research?

Normally after a week of research the lad works on a research project to further his knowledge, but this week he said all the questions he had got answered by the different books he read or by the videos we watched. He was able to narrate why the different countries had the alliances they did. For instance Britain made one with Belgium because Belgium was a way to protect a piece of their lad. He compared this with the Canadian sale of Alaska to the USA because the USA wanted to protect a point of entry. People liked Russia because of it’s sheer size. And some of the other countries liked each other because of proximity or what they could gain etc. It’s always good to listen to a lad explain his understanding. We’ve decided we’re going to have him start writing a report of everything he is learning so we can track it better.

Share life with an international student

October 5, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

International student
Comes with wide eyes!
Some fear, some excitement
What is in store for him here?

A new Land, a new people
What kind of food?
A new room? A bed?
Or maybe on the floor?

A new flag?
Maple leaves!
Red and white
not yellow, green and blue.

A new school?
My teacher, says I come play baseball?
I hear people speak good Portuguese!!!!
but I learn English!

Youth group
HEY! Your ride is here?
Oh I go with him?
I have fun!

I’m going to a wizardry weekend?
You want to come?
We volunteer and then go have fun
YES.

This weekend it is
Thanksgiving to share
A new holiday to see
Turkey and taters!

Family, come meet
My new son for five months
Conversation and laughter
Welcoming grins.

Games to play
Uno a hit!!!
Play every night?
Uh.. let’s try another for a bit. 🙂

Homeschooling what is?
The question is asked
So off to a teen night
Fun to be had!

I heartily recommend
an International student to have
Share ideas, share laughter
New experiences to be had.

Come join us won’t you? Kate is hosting a five minute freewrite this week (Friday). The word this week is Share. Visit others, think on a word, blog or not. Just share your thoughts. 🙂

Ancient Wonders: Then & Now

October 4, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Imagine that you could see a building from the past as it was meant to be… taking you back to the then. Now that you see that… see the now. Can you see that old building more clearly now? Ancient Wonders: Then & Now is a lift the flap book by Lonely Planet kids that helps us to understand these ancient wonders better. Let us delve into this review hmm?

From the cover?

From the Colosseum and the Great Pyramid of Giza, to Machu Picchu and Stonehenge, take an interactive our through the world’s greatest ancient wonders.

Discover what remains of them today, then open gatefolds and lift flaps to see what they once looked like and learn about the ancient civilizations who built them.

What do you get?

12 Ancient wonders from around the world. Easter Island, the Colesseum, the Great Pyramid of Giza and more.. walk into the lives of those building these wonders, and into the glory days of each build.

Two large fold out pages, combined with relevant text and lift the flap elements is sure to keep the reader engaged with what they are seeing and learning about.

I love how books like this always spur me on to learn more, so like always I took to youtube where I learned this about Easter Island.

My Thoughts:

I really like this book, those huge fold out pages and the well-written text help me to make the connection between the place now and the place it would have been in its heyday. Did you know the huge colesseum had 76 doors and now-a-days you can find actors roaming the outskirts?

The book is printed on a heavy cardstock almost board book quality paper. This hardcover book is well made and the pages easily lie flat. This book would be an excellent book to supplement a study on the Ancient Wonders of the world. I really like how it brings what you see now into the history of the past, bringing the past to life.

Ancient Wonders: Then & Now
Stuart Hill Author
Lindsey Spinks Illustrator
Lonely Planet Kids
Hardcover, 24 pages,
History, Architecture, Geography
Lift the flap, hands-on
Reviewed for Raincoast Books.

Gottfried Leibniz, philosopher

October 2, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Gottfried Leibniz lived in 1646 -1716, he was a rationalist from Germany. He thought that there were two kinds of truth, the truth of reasoning and the truth of fact. A rationalist claims that knowledge is gained by rational reflecltion alone.

What made Leibniz unique was that he divided truth into two different paths. His thinking was that Everything in the world has a distinct notion… this notion contains the truth about that thing, including how that thing connects with everything else. So you look at the thing and all it’s connections by rationally reflecting on it. That reflection will lead you down two different paths. Reasoning… this finite fact is final truth. And Fact … this infinite reasoning can only truly be understood by experience in order to reach a truth.

He explained his thought process in his book Monadology.

He believes that everything in the world is connected by notions, and that each notion is connected to other notions. To truly understand a thing you need to be able to follow those how those notions connect to each other. Understanding those connections will lead you to things that are rational truths, and to truths you can’t really understand unless you experience them due to our limited ability to reason our these rational truths.

Discovering monads

This leads to the discovery of monads which are simple substances isolated from everything else. Each monad represents completely the hole whole of the universe, and every monad is synched which is how God created everything. All these individual monads completely synched and individual. The human mind is a monad and since it holds the universe completely it is possible therefore for us to be able to understand everything completely, but we can’t determine everything in a finite way. For instance I can’t go to a star and measure it’s surface temperature, so it’s a matter of figuring how to do so!

There is admittedly some struggle between understanding where the truth of reasoning and the truth of fact separates. As the finiteness of reasoning can bend into the infinite truths of fact (such as the example of the star’s temperature). We can guess (infinitely so) at what the star’s temperature is, but if we accurately use equipment to do so, it becomes a finite fact of reason.

Leibniz goes on to differentiate between necessary and contingent truths as well. Math, for instance, is a necessary truth. 1 + 1 will always equal 2. But saying it’s “raining in Spain”, may or may not be true and even if it were true in some areas it might not be in others. These contingent truths are ones that only God can truly see. God has eternal truth. God is the only one who always understand. “God understands everything through eternal truth, since he does not need experience”

Did he find Truth?

Leibniz saw God differently than people. He’s spot on with understanding that God is so much more and understands everything already. He also saw that everything has a spark of knowing all truth. His Monads as containing all truths of the universe…. Such an intriguing notion don’t you think?

Gottfried Leibniz, philosopher Click To Tweet

My Thoughts

In Romans 1 we are told that everything knows the truth of God

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

When I read of the monads in Leibniz’s ponderings, these verses came to my mind. If the monads hold the truths of the universe… we can either find them as we seek for truth, or turn our reasoning to alternative explanations. Our experiences in the world help us to discover more truths. Dividing them into fact or reasoning seems understandable as there are somethings that are just true … I can’t change the fact that our cat Milo is a tuxedo brown tabby. I can’t reason out that his colour is anything other than what it is. I can ponder how genetics came into play, and why his markings turned out as they did.

Free Printable

You can find it here find it here. Probe into Leibniz further.

Let All Things Now Living

September 30, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

I was flipping through a hymnbook that is new to me and I was reminded of this living song and just had to share it with you. I hope you like it as much as I do. 🙂 Let All Things Now Living, a song of thanksgiving.

Written by Katherine K Davis in 1939, Ms. Davis was an American woman who served as a teacher, classical music composer, and pianist. She also wrote The Little Drummer Boy (one of my favourite Christmas Songs). Born in Missouri she wrote her first composition at age 15. She died in 1980 at age 82. She willed all royalties from her music to Wellesley College where she was trained and taught. This has been a good support to the music program there.