Working toward Success
Check out this short animated movie for a very true look at how many of us spend so much time reaching for the end, that we forget to pay attention to the middle.
Blog Nod: Tammy Takahashi
Archive for July, 2007
Book List
Jax has this up, and since I seem to be traveling in ever wider circles trying to get something - anything - accomplished, I figured I’d give this a go. Ought to be able to finish IT!
Look at the list of (100) books below.
Bold the ones you’ve read.
Italicise the ones you want to read. (my italics turn to bold automagically, so I’ll use an *)
Leave blank the ones that you aren’t interested in.
Movies don’t count.
1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. **Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. **Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. **The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. **The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. **The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25 . Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie(Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb) (quit halfway through)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. **The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. **The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. **Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. **Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davies)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. **A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)
Going Organic?
Head on over to 5 Minutes for Mom and enter to win $300 worth of Horizon Organics coupons. I couldn’t pass this one up; I strive to go organic when I can, but boy it hits me right in the wallet.
Happy Harry Day!
Unless you’ve forked out for more than one copy of Harry Potter so everyone can read at once, your household will likely resemble mine: one kid reading, the other staring at him and mentally murmuring, “Hurry Up! Hurry Up!”
If, like me, you’ll be needing ways to keep the non-readers occupied, check out these ideas:
How about photography? There’s a photo contest going on over at Picture This, open to kids 13 and under (Blog Nod: Fast Times @ Homeschool High).
Or you can introduce the restless few to Sodaplay.
Maybe pull out a cardboard box and get the creative juices flowing - kinda like magic!
Of course, your bookless kids may just prefer to sit and stare!
UPDATE: Picked up book at 7:00 am from our local indie, stayed for a magic show, pancakes, and Kona coffee. Evan has been reading for 3 hours and is on page 169. He has read the book in four different rooms and disengaged long enough to exclaim, “this is so GOOD!” about five times. Meanwhile, his brother has been working on his latest project. And he’s being incredibly patient.
UPDATE:
Hey Fans
Because apparently I have at least two.
If you have a copy of any of my books, might I impose upon you to post a review at Amazon or Barnes & Noble or Powells? I’m working on putting together some presentations for teachers locally, and it would be very excellent for them to be able to see that these books are working for other people if they happen to look at the books online.
Review:
Team Challenges at:
Amazon - Powell’s - Barnes & Noble
Tools of the Ancient Greeks at:
Amazon - Powell’s - Barnes & Noble
Great Colonial America Projects at:
Amazon - Powell’s - Barnes & Noble
Thanks!
‘Ukulele
I know that most people hear the word ‘ukulele and think immediately “Tiny Tim”. Serious ‘ukulele players rue the day that Tiny Tim played his ‘ukulele in public. Remembering Brad’s affinity for ‘ukulele, Debra shared a link with me in the comments of an old post. It’s for a video that is very well known and oft-played around here, but I thought it would be fun to point you all to it, so you have a different picture in your head when I say (type) ‘ukulele. It’s a better image - trust me.
I Have a Fan!
DEAR MR. BORDESSA,
I´M A GREAT FAN OF YOU. PLEASE SEND ME AN AUTOGRAPH, SIGNED BY PERSONAL SIGNATURE. PLEASE !
THANK YOU !
WITH COMPLIMENTS
[name and address here]
Dear Fan,
I am not a mister.
Smooches,
Ms. Bordessa
Creative Thinking
I’m implementing a new weekly creative thinking prompt over on my other blog. I’d love it if you’d take the time to head on over and add a creative comment to my What Else Wednesdays post.
CLEP for Older Homeschoolers?
I wrote awhile back about Brad reaching high school and our uncertainty about how to move forward. He has requested more structure for his schooling, which is a reasonable request (though one I’ll have trouble with). He’s concerned about having all of the knowledge he needs in order to enter college - as am I! A friend sent me a worksheet detailing standard graduation requirements (10 units world studies, 10 units physical science elective, etc) and it just frustrates me. The whole concept of placing learning into categories like this feels so false.
Another friend loaned me a tape of a conference session about something called the College Level Examination Program (CLEP). I’ve since read more about this and I’m finding it to be an interesting possibility. The premise is that students study one subject thoroughly and then take a CLEP assessment test. If they pass, they earn college credit, which means that with a few of these credits under their belt, students become transfer students – as they already have a college transcript – thereby eliminating the need to fulfill those aforementioned graduation requirements.
An added bonus is cost. These tests are pretty inexpensive to take, and for every completed “course”, that’s one less class that a student will have to pay tuition for. If a student is able to complete enough courses and earn enough CLEP credit during his high school years, it could mean that a year or two of college could be completed from home, thus saving housing costs as well.
Homeschool Enrichment has an article about CLEP online, and Mary Pride has an article from an issue of Practical Homeschooling posted at Homeschool World. Both are an interesting look at the CLEP program.
So, anyone here with kids old enough to have experience with the CLEP? Anyone considering it?
One Down, Two to Go
Just turned in the final draft for the game article I’ve been working on. Now I’m on to the final two. We have a four day vacation planned early next month, so if I’m going to be able to relax, I’ve got to get these last two done by month’s end.
