Moon Facts and Trivia Links

 No I didn't take this photo, but I found it at Keith's Moon Page. There's a lot of interesting facts about the moon here, like why we have what we call a blue moon, an animation explaining the phases of the moon, why the moon looks bigger near the horizon, and a list of when full moons fall on Friday 13th. I didn't see tomorrow's Friday the 13th listed however, but that may because tonight is its actual full month date, but it should be full tomorrow night as well.

All this done to have something to bring to class tomorrow for my 4th grade reading class. I thought they would love to see the time lapse video I found of 3 1/2 weeks of the moon going through its phases. If you go to this link, you'll have to scroll down to find the video, but I promise you will want to check out all the other photos and videos time lapse and in real time of the moon.

Anyone ever read Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress? It was my first science fiction novel. Read it in high school. And I read Moonstone in High school in Literature class. Can't think of any other moon titles.

Can you? Enjoy the links.

http://www.netaxs.com/~mhmyers/moon.tn.html This is the actual URL address of the place where I found the moon phases video in case you want it. I realized after saving all those links the way I did, I wasn't giving any URL addresses, and I certainly want folks to be able to get there quickly and find these cool facts themselves.

http://home.hiwaay.net/~krcool/Astro/moon/ And this is Keith's Moon Page, the very interesting facts and trivia page with great moon photos and links. It's also where I found the photo above of the Orange Moon 

http://home.hiwaay.net/~krcool/Astro/moon/moonorange/).

 Bea

"Waxing Gibbeous"

The girls in my reading class had no trouble understanding the phases of the moon. Explaining to them where the earth was in relation to the moon and the sun as each phase was named was easy. We role played. I was the Sun, of course, and one girl became the moon, and the other the earth. I didn't even have to tell them what to do. After I showed them the pictures in the Astronomy book, they stood up to demonstrate, and did a great job. Even I understood it better after that.

I gave them each a sheet to take home. I told them they could record the phases of the moon over the next few weeks. The pictures of the phases, and their names (like waning gibbous, waxing gibbous, crescent, full, new, first quarter, third quarter, etc) were at the top of the sheet.

The next day, I asked them if they had seen the moon and recorded its appearance on the tracking sheet the night before. One girl had tried to, but the other said, "No, I didn't try to draw what it looked like, but it was definitely waxing gibbeous."

"Gibbeous?" I asked, trying not to laugh.

"Yep, it was gibbeous."

I didn't correct her on the pronunciation just then. The time would come for that when we read the word in print again. She was using it appropriately, confidently, and how many people even know how to say that word anyway? Who knows what it means (well aside from the space buff folks)?

I was impressed that she understood what it meant.

 

Living on the Internet?

I had a good day at school except for the one student I had to send to the principal's office.

I found out this week that we are going to "test drive" a new teacher website program that will help us maintain our lesson plans, and even share them with teachers across grade level, and if it were a system-wide program, across schools.

I'm going to be one of the first to check it out and give feedback... what a tech geek I have become. I'm practically living on the internet anyway, might as well use it professionally as well.

Goodnight.

When It Is Good To Be Alone

The Dalai Lama says:

Spend some time alone every day.

That is a mantra for myself. I have others, but this is one that suits me, and has suited me long before I became a teacher.

I remember when I was as young as fourteen seeking moments and places where I could be alone. I didn’t understand it then. I just knew I wanted to be alone. I didn’t do anything significant when I found these moments and places, but that was because I didn’t know that what I did really was more significant than I could know.

Often, I would do absolutely nothing but think. It was the thinking that was significant, but I never would have considered thinking as an important thing to do. Not as a child.

I didn’t get rave reviews for my thinking ability. My grades did not reflect that I was a deep thinker. My verbal responses in a conversation certainly didn’t show off any thinking prowess. Not until I was in my late thirties/early forties did I become truly aware of my cognitive abilities, and how they were a strength for me.

I grew up in a family of seven children. I was the oldest. I was seldom alone. For many years, from the time I was a very small child, until I was about seven or eight, I remember sharing a bed with my sister, so even the act of going to bed did not enable me to be alone. We got along fine as long as she stayed on her side of the bed and I stayed on mine. If one of us strayed too far over the imaginary line that we both understood lay between us, we’d usually start playing and giggling, and that would get us into trouble. So, we stayed on our respective sides of the bed. Most of the time.

Since I was the eldest, I was selected to be the responsible one. I took the role seriously. It wasn’t that I liked babysitting or didn’t like it. I had to do it, and I tried to make it fun whenever possible. Most of the time I could.

Mom  always kept the house clean. We kids did a good job messing it up again. We were, and should have been, told to clean it up. It was our mess. I know that now. I knew it then, but didn’t like it because in my opinion, I didn’t mess the house up, they did, but we older sisters were given the chores, and often, I had to supervise them. That put me in the role of “boss,” and who likes the boss? That’s why I tried to make the work fun.

One way I did that was to play music while we worked. Music helped me get my work done, made the work more pleasant. I figured I’d try it on the younger kids, sort of motivate them, although I didn’t realize that is what I was doing. I remember a particular story we had. on record, about the wolf and the seven little billy goats.

We loved that story because we imagined that we were the seven little billy goats. As the story was being narrated, a song would interrupt to entertain the listener further. The song would be catchy, easy to remember and sing along with. I loved the story, though I was nearly 14. I could recite the story by heart, using the same intonations and phrasings as the narrator. My siblings loved it when I repeated the story imitating the record version. (We didn’t have access to tv and video games back then.)

One day I got the idea to play one of the songs, “Sweep, Sweep, Sweep the Floor.” It was a silly little rhyming song, but it was catchy. Easy to sweep floors by. I remember playing the record, and sweeping the living room floor. I danced with the broom, and was having such fun collecting all the dust, hair, dirt, etc from the floor that my younger brothers wanted to join in. I gave one of them the broom, while I kept singing and dancing beside him. I don’t remember which one it was that took over the job of sweeping the floor, but we were all singing and dusting, and cleaning, and sweeping, and putting toys and clothes away while we sang. It really was fun and the work got done.

The point to this little narrative is this: I found times to be alone, and during those times, I was able to leave the noise and the confusion of growing up for a little while. I think that by allowing myself to do that, by seeking solitude, I was able to be more imaginative and free to enjoy the special moments we had in our family.

I remember hearing remarks from other well-meaning adults as I grew older. Some thought I was withdrawing into my shell. I heard thatI was escaping reality. Another was that I lived in my own little world.

Certainly, I may have been doing all of those things. But when I was there, in the silence, in the stillness, I could calm down inside. I didn’t think or know God had anything to do with it, but looking back, I see that He was the One calming me, comforting me, and holding me. I always felt safe and secure in this aloneness.

When I seek this quiet place of being alone, even if only for a few minutes during a busy day, I feel the same calmness embrace me.

Only now, it is Christ I imagine with me.

Phases of the Moon

 I've been studying about the phases of the moon this evening in preparation for my 4th grade reading class this week. Before they read a book, focusing on generalizations, I need to give them some background on the moon phases. The story will make much more sense if I do this before we read.

Well, the lesson plan requires me to use scientific diagrams to show and explain the moon phases, and why the moon looks the way it does at different times of the month. In other words, I am going to have to tell them about the new moon, the quarter moon, the half moon, and the full moon, and if possible, explain where the moon is in relation to our earth and the sun during each of these phases.

As much as I love reading science fiction, I hadn't thought much about explaining these things, but teachers have to know enough to explain enough, so I found a book about the moon in my bookcase that I had bought before I even became a teacher (because, I guess, I am a geek after all, but only a geek, not a super geek, or a major geek, btw).

The pictures and explanations were scientific enough for even a fourth grader to understand, which means I got it!

The graphic I copied above is from a moon phase website. This is what our moon looks like tonight. Judging from the picture, and from what I see outside, that means our moon at this time is just past the first quarter moon phase, and waxing toward the full moon. ( I hope the link I left works... I tried it once but when I saved it, it wasn't linked).

If you are a moon afficianado, let me know if  I'm wrong... but do it before I tell my students!

Then, as if reading my mind, the phone rings, and it's my friend and neighbor, Alyson, telling me to run outside and look at the moon! What's the chance?

I go outside while she's still on the phone,  and she tells me there is a huge ring around the moon, larger than what we normally call a halo, a very wide diameter... I don't know if that is a weather predictor... I know when we see a halo around the moon, it means snow within ten days. But this was not a typical halo, it was much further away from the moon than most halos I've seen.

Know anything about that? Leave a response if you are a moon watcher.

And if you want to find out what the moon will look like on any particular night in the future, or how it looked on any given date in the past, go to Virtual Reality Moon Phase Pictures, from the US Naval Observatory (http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/), where you can plug in dates and times, and click, a picture of the moon. Really cool if you like these kinds of things.

Thanks, Bea

Only If You Love Your Computer!

  Cleaning Poem  

I asked the Lord to tell me
Why my house is such a mess.
He asked if I'd been 'putering',
And I had to answer "yes."

He told me to get off my fanny
And tidy up the house.
And so I started cleaning up...
The smudges off my mouse.

I wiped and shined the topside.
That really did the trick...
I was just admiring my work...
I didn't mean to 'click.'

But click, I did, and oops I found
A real absorbing site
That I got SO way into...
I was into it all night.<<Sigh>>

Nothing's changed except my mouse
It's very, very shiny.
I guess my house will stay a mess...
While I sit here on my hiney!  

 

This came to me from my Aunt Delvia email this evening.I loved it!

Thought you would, too.

 < : - )  Bea

Friday Fiver on Sunday. OOps. Late again!

"Let's play!!!

This weeks theme is...potatoes. I don't know why...I am just thinking about them.

1.  When was the last time you had mashed potatoes?  Were they regular mashed potatoes or some kind of fancy version?

I had mashed potatoes last Sunday when Alyson and her family came over for a New Year's Day dinner. They weren't fancy, just plain butter, salt, and pepper, just the way everyone likes them. Good old fashioned mashed potatoes. Alyson made them because I didn't have any potatoes, and I had asked her to make them the night before (the firepit, remember?).

2.  Do you grow your own veggies? Have a garden? If so are potatoes one of the things you grow?

I did once upon a time before I became a full time working girl, and gave it up. We never grew potatoes. My husband is the one with the green thumb in this house.

3. French fried potatoes...do you like natural cut fries, with skin still on or the McDonald's kind?

Either way is fine... I love potatoes with or without the skin.

4.  How about potato salad?  Do you like it? Have a family recipe you have used for  years?

I love plain, old fashioned potato salad. I have a recipe that I follow, and ingredients include relish (whatever is in the fridge) to sweeten it up a bit.

5.  Did you have a Mr. Potato head as a kid?  Ever purchased one for someone else's kid?

I don't recall ever having one as a kid, however, I think I may have bought one or two over the years for my child, andfor other kids.

This little game is complement of Robin. Here's her link if you'd like to add your answers. The Five logo is hers also.