Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Misc.

Mamma Mia was a great movie! It was the most fun movie I've seen in a long time. The music is great. Since seeing the movie yesterday, I've been looking for a CD of pictures and video that Mike's father took when Madi sang Dancing Queen in a play. We have it video taped on our "old fashioned" recorder, but I know somewhere I should have the CD, so I can put that on the blog. It is from about 18 months ago. It was Madi's first big solo/duo. Looking for that I'm kicking up a lot of dust and reminding myself that I'm really not as organize as I'd like to think I am. That is frustrating because the end of the summer, for us homeschooling Moms, marks the end of Theatre camps and VBS's and long periods of time to organize.

Here's another thing that's been on my mind...the History Curriculum I am using with Jonathan and Madison covers the time period from 1850 to the present. It includes Story of the World Volume four. Many, many times while getting started I have read in different places in the book, in the My Father's World teacher's manual, etc... how this is really only appropriate for 4th grade and above (that's OK they are 5th and 7th (ish)) because of the violence, and gruesomeness of it all. Well, I can certainly appreciate that. We also have the knowledge that Papa actually fought in WWII and Grampa Carlie in Vietnam. Plus we all know how the whole world felt on Sept 11th 2001, but objectively is this more violent that the time periods we've already studied? Last year we learned how hundreds (thousands?) of Native Americans were forced to walk (barefoot) from their homes in Georgia all the way to Oklahoma on the "trail of tears" (I think they were beaten a long the way too). What about Marie Antoinette and the guillotine? What about when they would cut people's heads off and carry them around on a platter? Wasn't that just a little gruesome too? Maybe it's just me.

Here's another one...the natural food company that I bought my whole wheat berries from which also sells all kinds of natural products from foods to cleaning supplies, etc...ships their stuff in styrofoam packing peanuts! Wouldn't you think they'd use the biodegradable cornstarch kind?

6 comments:

Cindy said...

I agree with you about that wording in the book. Especially with all that we have seen in the recent wars. One of my patient's father-in-law's was a POW in WWII and suffered all kinds of torture at the hand of the Japanese, including walking miles and miles blindfolded and if you stepped out of line (literally), you were decapitated. Plus the "experiments" conducted on them were more gruesome than anything Hitler did (not to minimize any of that). Most of them came home weighing 50 lbs.

Cindy said...

Oh I forgot to mention (since I got off on my tangent) that I'm glad you liked Mamma Mia! I think I may get it on DVD (I don't usually buy movies for me on DVD so they have to be pretty special!)

ann marie said...

Violence has existed forever. I think when people say things about how bad things are today they are showing that they haven't done much history study. Okay, I'll shut-up now, because I could go off here.
That movie looks like a good one. It sounds like fun.

Cheryl said...

Bible history can be gruesome too. I agree...any serious study of history has violence.

I loved Abba during the day!

Smith Schoolhouse said...

Even the Bible itself doesn't leave out the gruesome details of history. besides that is why we homeschool so we can help them digest life- real life.

Randi Sue said...

Aren't you glad you can learn along with your kids? I know I am.