singapore

March reading

22 Mar 2012

8 Comments

I was reading and blog posting in a nice orderly fashion there for awhile. *Pats self on back* And then suddenly things went hay wire. My reading is quite disorganized lately and my lack of blog posting reflects that! New interests have come up and I am waffling about writing about them here on the blog or keeping it completely focused on literature “reviews”.

The new direction my reading and life are taking, is towards education. Well, self education is nothing new to me. I always have to be learning something or I am bored with life! So I guess this is just a new facet of that. When I started helping my daughter in a more focused way with her school work and began to introduce new subjects to her, I realized I really love teaching her. I love our discussions, love searching and finding new curriculum and books for both of us (seriously I am becoming a curriculum junky!) I love to see her enjoy learning. We have so much fun together talking deeply about books, working out new math strategies (although sometimes we have meltdowns over that lol), and learning about history.

I decided I will probably go to school in the Fall and work towards an Education degree. I don’t plan to be a teacher in the traditional, public school setting. But maybe tutoring or writing curricula for homeschool use. I don’t know yet but I am just enjoying learning about the art of teaching. So a lot of my book purchases and reading reflect that. I am not abandoning my literature quest at all. I am still very determined to read all the great books. But I have to find time for both fiction and non-fiction.

With that in mind here is what I have been reading or adding to my book shelf. The shelving situation btw is now completely beyond all hope lol.

1- A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
I’m not sure what’s going on with me and this book. I just can’t seem to get into it. The problem may be that the story and narration feels so different to me than the other Dickens I’ve read. The bigger issue though, is probably that I just can’t concentrate on it. I’m not giving the book my full attention. Too many things pulling me in too many directions right now. I don’t like the idea of setting it aside and starting over, so I will probably pick it up again next week and try to give it a fair chance and full attention.

2- The Catcher in The Rye by J.D. Salinger
I could not resist picking this up from the library the other day. I read it about 5 times as a teen and have been wondering how different I will feel about the book now 15-20 years later. Right off the bat, I notice that the narration feels different. When I was a kid I felt Holden was talking directly to me. As an adult I read it as him talking to an adult. A doctor maybe? I will probably finish this up over the weekend and then get back to A Tale of Two Cities.

Now for my new non-fiction books…

3- Perrine’s Sound and Sense and Introduction to Poetry
You know I was reading Mary Oliver’s intro to poetry but it was taking me forever and I decided I should stop bogarting it from the library. I heard good things about the Perrine book, so I ordered a used copy off Amazon for a nice price.

Sound and Sense introduces the major elements of poetry in simple, easy-to-understand terms– and offers interesting examples of each– walking students through the process of close reading, with in-depth guidance on how to think and write critically about poetry.

4- The Lively Art of Writing by Lucile Vaughan Payne
I ordered a couple books to brush up on my writing and grammar skills prior to enrolling in school. This one is primarily focused on the art of writing an essay. I am not used to writing to form, so I am a little worried about how I can meld my own writing instinct with the structured demands of a college essay.

For all too many, good writing seems a gift reserved for the “talented” few. Yet this is far from the case. Writing is a skill that can be mastered by anyone willing to learn its relatively few basic principles, and to put them into action. With superb clarity, this book strips away the mystery from wirting. It illumines the uses- and misuses- of words, sentences, paragraphs, and themes.

5- The Only Grammar Book You’ll Ever Need by Susan Thurman
I purchased this book to revisit the parts of a sentence. Not sure yet if it will turn out useful but it was part of Amazon’s 4 for 3 sale, so why not? I’ll use the above two along with a couple other books I already have on my shelf to get my writing in order, hopefully! I already have Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style and On Writing Well by William Zinsser. Zinsser’s book changed the way I wrote after the first read so I am looking forward to reading it again.

6- The Art of Teaching by Gilbert Highet
This is a rather old book, written in the 50s. Some say it is completely out of date and useless. Others say is it one of the best books on teaching ever. So I had to find out which it was for myself!

The noted classicist presents his educational methodology, within the context of history, from the Sophists to modern teaching.
“This book is called The Art of Teaching because I believe that teaching is an art, not a science. It seems to me very dangerous to apply the aims and methods of science to human beings as individuals.”

7- Elementary Mathematics for Teachers complete package

This book focuses exclusively on K-8 mathematics. It develops elementary mathematics at the level of “teacher knowledge”.
(a) How the nature of a mathematics topic suggests an order for developing it in the classroom.
(b) How topics are developed through “teaching sequences” which begin with easy problems and incrementally progress until the topic is mastered.
(c) How the mathematics builds on itself through the grades.

I’ve been wanting to read this for a while but was waffling about buying just the teacher manual or buying the whole set. Finally I decided, with Dh pushing me over the edge lol, to just get the set since the teacher manual refers to the student books and Dd will be able to use all the student books at some point anyway.

This book is from the Singapore Math website, which is the curruculum that I have been using with Dd at home. What I like about the Singapore method is that it really stresses a full understanding of math, not just a superficial procedural understanding. In other words, I want to make sure dd knows what she is doing with numbers and becomes flexible with them vs learning how I did, which was a teacher just telling you “follow these exact steps to the answer” without any greater understanding of why those steps worked.
I don’t know why, but I suddenly find myself fascinated with how to teach math and I am turning into a real math nerd :P

8-Arithmetic for Parents by Ron Aharoni
Since I was ordering for Singapore’s website, I figured I might as well get the last teacher book I was interested in. This one is written by a professor of mathematics turned elementary teacher and I am really interested in reading his point of view.

One of the insights I came by while teaching in elementary school is that elementary mathematics isn’t simple at all. It has depth and beauty. This message slowly found its way into the book and gave it an additional direction: a description of the beauty of elementary mathematics and, consequently, mathematics in general. Thus my original target audience expanded to include the reader who wishes to return to his childhood mathematics, from a different angle. For this group of readers the book provides a second chance. Those who have learned how to multiply fractions or how to perform long division, but never understood why it was done exactly so, are invited to take a look from a new, mature perspective.

By: Shannon Category: Add to the shelf, Afterschooling, Non-fiction, Now reading, Self education Tags: , , , , , ,

Wishing I could somehow cram all these books into my head instantaneously

1 Mar 2012

2 Comments

Right, so you already know about the 200 classic lit books waiting to be read on my shelves. Well somehow they keep multiplying! I don’t know how it happens. There are just SO many books in the world that need to be read. I have been somewhat good in that I have branched out a little on the book topics and I added several books on PDF that I can read on my iPad. Most of the other books are from the library, so I haven’t actually added too many to the physical shelf.
Still there are so many I want to read, simultaneously, that I don’t even know where to start. Here’s what’s been going on in my reading life these last couple weeks…

1- Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
I finished Shirley awhile ago, read as an ebook so no shelf clutter. I don’t know that I am going to post about it.. It was a good book but no Villette or Jane Eyre.

2-The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
I am almost done with this one, have about 100 pages left. Again an ebook from Gutenberg. I liked this one a little more than Shirley but it is completely different from Anne’s other novel, Agnes Gray. Great plot but the narration structure is kind of questionable lol. It’s written in letters (epistolary) but these are the longest and most detailed letters ever written.

3-The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway
From the library, I read the first 40 pages but didn’t immediately fall deeply into the story like I did with Hem’s other books. I do think I will like the story but I am going to hold off and read this when I am in the Hem. mood.

4-The Complete Short stories Hemingway
Library. I’ve only read Hills Like White Elephants so far and I totally did not get what the ‘unsaid thing’ was. >>>is dense<<<< It probably did not help that I was standing at the stove making dinner while I read it. I want to read all of these stories but no way I can before it’s due back. Better to put this on my To Buy list but on the other hand, I’m not sure if I am a huge fan of Hem’s short stories.. They seem so abrupt! (so I googled abrupt to make sure I spelled it right, I know duh, but it was correct so yay me. And the definition is: Brief to the point of rudeness, which I thought was very funny because it perfectly describes Hemingway’s short stories lol).

5-Classic Myths to read aloud by William Russell
Library. I love this book! I actually checked it out to read to Dd, the stories are abridged for children, but her to be read pile is as long as mine! SoI haven’t had time to read it to her but I am enjoying it myself. The books give you a brief 4-8 pages version of a ton of Greek Myths. I plan on reading the adult versions some day lol, but it’s nice to get the general idea of each story since you come across them so often in other lit. Plus I love that it tells you how to pronounce the Greek and Roman names. Also, the stories have notes at the end about Greek stems and how the names of the Gods in the stories relate to our modern language. I’m on page 90 of about 250. I may have to buy this one too since I still want to read it to Dd.

6-Rules for the Dance by Mary Oliver
Library. This is the poetry book I posted about last month. I’m only on page 26. It’s been hard to find the right time to read this because I need quiet and concentration to really pick up on what she is talking about. It helps to be able to read the poetry examples out loud too. I’m not sure yet if this is THE poetry book for me. I tend to fall asleep while reading it..oops.

7-Decontructing Penguins by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone
My last library book, I have not even opened this one yet. It is about analyzing literature in a similar method to the one I outlined in my Lit Analysis Elements post, only this book is aimed at children. The idea is to discuss and analyze books with kids in a book group setting.

Now for something completely different….

 

 

8-Knowing and teaching Elementary Mathematics by Liping Ma
This is another book that contributes to understanding of the “Singapore way’ or how mathematics is taught in Asia; but this one actually focuses on the difference in understand and teaching math between teachers in China and the US. Apparently Chinese teachers do not go to school as long or have as much education as US teachers, and yet they do a much better job teaching math. Because they have a deeper understanding of mathematics and emphasize the conceptual with their students. I’m excited to read this one and will probably start it this weekend.

9-Art of Problem Solving Pre-algebra
Alright, now you are not allowed to laugh at me but this math book is for me lol. I decided I want to go back to school, probably for an associates in education…and later a BA in lit?? So I was looking at the college placement test and realized I pretty much have forgotten everything I learned in middle and high school. I am totally clueless about algebra, fractions, etc. The Art of Problem Solving is a curriculum for kids who are gifted in math. I thought it would be perfect for me since it not only goes over the basics, rather quickly which is good, but it also goes much deeper into mathematical understanding and really challenges the student at every level. The website has several video tutorials and I’ve already remembered much of the math I thought was completely gone from my brain. But I decided to go ahead and order the text book because I want to really understand the WHY this time and learn algebra so well it won’t vanish again.

10-Teaching resources, lesson plans, and activity PDFs…. x18
Umm I went a little crazy with the Scholastic teacher express sale.. They have a ton of PDF books on sale for $1. How could I resist that?! I’m most excited about the lesson plans and activities I got for Dd on Greece and Rome. I am going to use these PDFs as well as the book Building Language (a Latin stems book by Michael Clay Thompson) to put together a Greek and Roman curriculum for Dd and I to use this summer. I mentioned the MCT Building Language book awhile ago, when I was talking about ordering his poetry book. I did finally order both (but held off on the Grammar books). Dd and I flipped through the Building Language book already and she really likes it. It’s fun to see a little lightbulb go on in her eyes when she gets the connection between the latin stems and our own language. The MCT poetry book is also beautiful but I need to do quite a bit of work before we use that. There are many references in the book to classic poets, which I love, but I want to pull examples to illustrate the lessons that are more at Dd’s level as well. I imagine reading the classic poems for her so she can HEAR the words instead of focusing on what the poem means and then
using elementary level poems for meaning, metaphor, etc. I have a couple poetry pdfs that will go with that.

So that is what is on my shelf right now. And I haven’t even decided what fiction to read after I finish with Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I should probably pick something from my TBR challenge list…Do I dare start Les Mis?

PS-I’ve included Amazon links to the books so you could read descriptions, reviews, peek inside, etc; not because I think you should buy from them

By: Shannon Category: Add to the shelf, Afterschooling, Non-fiction, Poetry, Self education Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,