Another Greek connection

In Elementary Greek, we learned the verb pher- meaning "to bear or bring". In our new Greek course, Athenaze, they translate it as "to carry". What English word can you think of that has a similar sound and a similar meaning? Besides pheromone, of course, or any word that looks like it comes from Greek. How about ferry, either the noun or the verb? We had to look it up to see if it came from Greek. Nope, it comes from an Old English word "ferian", to transport, from Germanic "farjan", to ferry. So now we have to look back at Indo-European roots, to see if there's a connection. The Online Etymology Dictionary gives the Proto Indo European root *por as the source of ferry, and *bher as the PIE source of pherein. Thefreedictionary gives the Indo-European root as per-.

So far, no connection, but I'll keep looking.

Tiptoe through the Tulips

The pink tulips have been around for a week or so, but I didn't know what they were. The pointed tips threw me off, because I've only seen tulips from the florist, and they usually have rounded tips. When the white one popped out yesterday, I realized that the pink ones must be tulips as well, because they have the same leaves. There are about 150 species of tulip.



Were these supposed to be tulips? I don't know, but they must have been yummy.

And here are the tulips opened up:





That was another thing I didn't know about tulips, that they open during the day and close in the evening. When I took the open pictures, I was disappointed that I hadn't gotten a picture of them looking tulipy. But, a few hours later, they had closed up. Audrey was with me when I took the closed pictures, and she asked, "Now can I pick them?" So she picked the white one, and we put it on the dining room table in one of the little blue bottles from Chuck and Nancy's wedding.

1. Poison ivy
2. Virginia creeper
3. Wild blackberry
4. Lamb's Ear
5. Great laurel
6. Fireworks Goldenrod
7. Orange Jewelweed
8. Blue Anise Sage
9. Sage
10. Greek oregano
11. Rosemary
12. Azalea
13. Stilt grass
14. Crocus
15. Daffodil
16. Hyacinth
17. Camellia
18. Little Sweet Betsy
19. Tulip

Little Sweet Betsy (Trillium cuneatum)

Scott and I went for a walk in the Coker Arboretum while the kids were in Sunday school, and I found out the name of this plant that's blooming in my backyard. Today the arboretum was full of people with cameras. Spring is that beautiful.

I couldn't find any interesting information about Little sweet betsy on the internet, except for one person who posted a photo of it on Flickr, and described the smell as "between green apple and new car plastic." I'll let you know after I smell it for myself.

1. Poison ivy
2. Virginia creeper
3. Wild blackberry
4. Lamb's Ear
5. Great laurel
6. Fireworks Goldenrod
7. Orange Jewelweed
8. Blue Anise Sage
9. Sage
10. Greek oregano
11. Rosemary
12. Azalea
13. Stilt grass
14. Crocus
15. Daffodil
16. Hyacinth
17. Camellia
18. Little Sweet Betsy

Big Art

We got out the big roll of paper the other day and did some big art. Mary worked on a mural of our forest hike. She drew Audrey's toy mouse going on an adventure down the creek. Audrey and I traced each other and then drew faces, clothes, jewelry, and assorted decorations.

Balanced Smarts

Here's an excerpt from a book review in the New Yorker:

Reading is a form of explicit learning. When you play a video game, the value is in how it makes you think. Video games are an example of collateral learning, which is no less important.
Being “smart” involves facility in both kinds of thinking—the kind of fluid problem solving that matters in things like video games and I.Q. tests, but also the kind of crystallized knowledge that comes from explicit learning. If Johnson’s book has a flaw, it is that he sometimes speaks of our culture being “smarter” when he’s really referring just to that fluid problem-solving facility. When it comes to the other kind of intelligence, it is not clear at all what kind of progress we are making, as anyone who has read, say, the Gettysburg Address alongside any Presidential speech from the past twenty years can attest. The real question is what the right balance of these two forms of intelligence might look like. “Everything Bad Is Good for You” doesn’t answer that question. But Johnson does something nearly as important, which is to remind us that we shouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking that explicit learning is the only kind of learning that matters.
In recent years, for example, a number of elementary schools have phased out or reduced recess and replaced it with extra math or English instruction. This is the triumph of the explicit over the collateral. After all, recess is “play” for a ten-year-old in precisely the sense that Johnson describes video games as play for an adolescent: an unstructured environment that requires the child actively to intervene, to look for the hidden logic, to find order and meaning in chaos.

("Everything Bad is Good for You" by Stephen Johnson, reviewed by Malcolm Gladwell)


So, if we work on Greek and math steadily four days a week, go on hikes, have lunch at various ethnic restaurants with Scott, the kids play together a lot, read some history, get ready for Script Frenzy, dig up worms, use stuff in the garage to create carnival rides for stuffed animals, earn science-related Brownie Try-It badges, label capitals and measure distances on maps of Asia, and play video games, we're learning a lot, right?

Duke Forest hike

Today some families from our homeschool group went for a hike in Duke Forest. One of the moms used to work there, and she led the hike and told us about the ecology and management of the Forest. It's owned by Duke University, and they use the land for research. About 100 years ago it was all meadow. It had been farmland, but when the farmers abandoned farming in favor of factory work, pine trees started to spring up. Several girls from our Girl Scout troop worked on some of the requirements for a forest Try-It badge during the hike.



The most exciting part was crossing New Hope Creek. The sidewalk was underwater, so we all took off our shoes and socks and splashed across (and back, and across, and back, and....).




The end destination was an old farm site. I was bringing up the rear with Audrey and her friend Deanna, and we didn't make it that far. We picked up lots of pieces of quartz, then found a stump to sit on and eat our snacks. The rest of the group explored the ruins of the farm and ate snacks there. Mary carried her own pack because I knew we would be going at different speeds. The weather was great. It was a beautiful day for a hike.

Camellia (C. japonica)

Camellia is one of the plants I already knew before moving here, because Papa had a beautiful camellia bush in his yard. I don't think I would recognize it just by its leaves, though. Some of the camellias here bloomed in the fall, and they're blooming again now. There are about 100-250 species of camellias, including the tea plant (C. sinensis). Most camellias grown for their flowers are hybrids or cultivars of Japanese camellia.


1. Poison ivy
2. Virginia creeper
3. Wild blackberry
4. Lamb's Ear
5. Great laurel
6. Fireworks Goldenrod
7. Orange Jewelweed
8. Blue Anise Sage
9. Sage
10. Greek oregano
11. Rosemary
12. Azalea
13. Stilt grass
14. Crocus
15. Daffodil
16. Hyacinth
17. Camellia

Hyacinth (hyacinthus orientalis)

I'm pretty sure this is a hyacinth. There are more and more plants in the yard deciding it's spring. One of the trees (I don't know its name yet) has real leaves, not just buds. The redbuds up the hill are really blooming, but ours are just budding so far. The azalea under the deck has a few flowers. There's a circle of grass in the front yard. From a distance the trees still look bare, but looking closer will reveal tiny leaves or buds, and even flowers.

Here's my list now:
1. Poison ivy
2. Virginia creeper
3. Wild blackberry
4. Lamb's Ear
5. Great laurel
6. Fireworks Goldenrod
7. Orange Jewelweed
8. Blue Anise Sage
9. Sage
10. Greek oregano
11. Rosemary
12. Azalea
13. Stilt grass
14. Crocus
15. Daffodil
16. Hyacinth

Spring Weather

Spring weather sure is changeable. On March 11, the weather was like this:





Then on March 13, the weather was in the 30s and rainy for Mary's Girl Scout Camp-out:



We had to make sure she had enough clothes to keep her warm and dry. She's got 5 layers on top (shirt, sweater, fleece jacket, raincoat, coat) and two on bottom (fleece pants, rain pants) plus wool socks and rain boots. Doesn't she look ready for adventure? She loved the hike, the food, the stories in the tent, and helping the Juniors. The leaders said she had a hard time sleeping, because of some problems with her sleeping bag, but when I picked her up, she was cheerfully sipping Adventure Hot Chocolate and excited about her first real camp out.

Thankfully, it's warmed up a bit this week. Here they are exploring the creek. All that rain really added up. The frogs like it, too. They keep singing, "Creeeeeek, creeeeek, we live in the creeeeeeek."

What's this plant?

Wacky weather

Monday it snowed, and today it was warm enough to wear shorts. Mary and Audrey really enjoy playing in the snow, but they enjoy wearing their sundresses even more.

Burwell School

Mary's Time Travel class visited Burwell School, one of the earliest female academies in North Carolina. The Burwells opened their school in 1837. The house, school building, and Necessary still stand on the property.

The kids took a tour of the house and school room. While they were mixing up some home remedies from household items, Audrey and I explored around in the garden and found the Necessary. Apparently, brick ones were rare.



After the home remedy workshop, there was a choice of an architectural scavenger hunt or a demonstration of getting dressed. Audrey and Mary both went to the clothing demonstration. The docents talked about the different items of clothing women from different stations in life would wear, and then the girls got to find out how many layers a lady would have to put on each morning.

Daffodil (Narcissus)

I didn't know that the daffodil was a narcissus. Mary and I read the story of Narcissus earlier this winter when she was working on the Mythology Try-It for Brownies. This picture is of the first daffodils to bloom in our yard. I took this picture on February 20. Spring had already sprung higher up in the neighborhood, but it took a while for it to get downhill into the bowl where our house is. These daffodils are at the highest point of our yard near the driveway. Now, two weeks later, we have a crowd, a host of golden daffodils down in our garden.





So here's my plant list:
1. Poison ivy
2. Virginia creeper
3. Wild blackberry
4. Lamb's Ear
5. Great laurel
6. Fireworks Goldenrod
7. Orange Jewelweed
8. Blue Anise Sage
9. Sage
10. Greek oregano
11. Rosemary
12. Azalea
13. Stilt grass
14. Crocus
15. Daffodil

Bennett Place

Mary has been taking a history class called "Time Travel into America's Past" with the homeschool Friday Enrichment group. We've gone on some field trips to nearby historical sites. This one is Bennett Place, a Civil War-era farm. The largest troop surrender of the Civil War was negotiated there, but our visit focused on farm life during the mid-1800s. The tour guide showed the kids the house, separate kitchen, smokehouse, and a film about what farm life was like for children.