A Wednesday : Xavier's Spirit Bird, mathematics samples, The Watcher, outdoor kitchens, MagdelanaMade.
The beginning
Few songs can match the power of kicking off a morning with soul and heft and grace like Xavier Rudd’s 2018 live rendition of Spirit Bird.
But you’re dreaming and your warrior spirit lives on and it is so, so, so strong
In the earth, in the trees, in the rocks
In the water, in your blood and in the air we breathe
Soldier on, soldier on my good countrymen
Keep fighting for your children now, keep fighting for your land
Mathematics
Here’s a sample problem from each age for today:
Age 2 - Addition
He sat in the living room, intently, carefully going through a pack of addition flash cards he’s seen his elder brother doing. He murmured to himself the answers, every one of which was completely wrong in fact, and simultaneously completely correct in spirit.
No, 5 + 6 is not 22. But it could be the beginning of a story or a poem or a good philosophical argument.
Age 5 - Addition
He sat at the table, intently waiting for me to quiz him with flash cards (see above). His face grimaced in a smile, his blond hair falling in front of eyes as he squinted with pride and tried remember or figure out the correct (mathematical and factual) answer to the question: What is 5 plus 6?
I would have been proud had his grinning face come up with something different. But I was also pleased to tell him that Yes, 5 + 6 does equal 11.
Age 11 - Dividing decimals
317.8967 ÷ 17 = ?
Age 14 - Find the Greatest Common Factor (GCF)
3p⁴ + 15p² + 6p
-3p⁴ = -1 * 1 * 3 * p * p * p * p
15p² = 3 * 5 * p * p
6p = 2 * 3 * p
GCF = 3p
3p (-p³ + 5p + 2)
The Watcher: Inspired by Psalm 121 by Nikki Grimes, illustrated by Bryan Collier
A beautiful story of empathy and compassion, rendered as a type of of golden shovel poetry. I don’t think there can be too many stories emphasizing the importance of listening and trying to understand others’ stories. This is set between two antagonists at school, as we see each of their home lives and the struggles they’re dealing with unbeknownst to others or each other…and the journey toward friendship they find when one reaches out.
There is a special place for books that remind of the power of the Bible to connect and heal, rather than tear down and harm.
Play
Two of my students wanted to jump on a bed. It seemed like a good opportunity to talk about Physics. So that’s what we did, except we forgot the talking about Physics part.
Inventions
I’ve occasionally wondered how librarians feel about books getting returned that have toilet paper bookmarks in them. If I was a librarian, I imagine I wouldn’t be super excited about it.
Outdoors
They headed to their kitchen; a place directly offset from our front door which looks suspiciously like a dirty, muddy patch of ground filled with various tools, branches, containers, pinecones, sticks, etc. but is, in fact, a kitchen. Their kitchen. Their attire included the following:
overalls
a supehero cape
their mom’s blouse
a fedora-type hat
a fringed vest
Velcro shoes - backwards
rubber boots - strangely not backwards
They collected pine cones for many minutes, and I followed and sneakily threw the ones I found at them.
Then we read books outside in the late-winter sunlight. The highlight was Dr. Seuss’s underrated 1939 classic The King’s Stilts, one of his only stories to be narrated in prose rather than verse.
Additional
A Post Office run was necessary, as our daughter’s booming Etsy business had another order to send out.
Did that last sentence contain a bit of not well-disguised parental pride? Whoops. She has worked hard, worked diligently, and pushed herself to build a business around handmade accessories and jewelry. It’s been really neat to see all she’s learned in the process. So yeah…we are proud of how hard she’s worked and the joy she’s found in building it.
Other
There were other learnings, other conversations, other books and play and discussions. But these microhappenings (see above) are what stood out today.
