Pedigreed Housewife World

I just finished reading a book called ‘Moonwalking with Einstein’ by Joshua Foer for my other pet project, www.readerroundtable.com .   The book is about how Foer, a journalist, set out to understand and report on the US and World Memory Competitions and ended up winning the US Memory Championship and setting a US record in speed cards.   In it he states that memory is the “seat of our values and source of our character” (p. 269) It also stipulates, in defense of rote memorization in schools, that you must have memorized facts to apply them and that in applying them you learn.   I.e . you can’t learn without memorizing.   So I thought we should work on our memories this week.   (By the way, my one and only Reader Roundtable plug – if you want to talk about how children learn and the benefits of rote memorization in schools and/or any other aspect of the value of memorizing, log in and join our Roundtable book club discussion on Nov 16 th at 9pm EST on the website’s forums (

Briana has been asking me to show her how to read a real map for 2 weeks now.   Last week was her 4 th birthday and in all of the preparations I did not plan an activity for the week – the first time since I started the blog that I didn’t do an activity (except holidays and vacations).   While she was happy with new toys to play with, Briana was still angry that we didn’t do an activity.   She made me promise on the way to school on Monday morning that we would definitely do a map activity after naptime.   I’m happy that she’s thirsty for new knowledge. When the kids get up from their naps, I uphold my end of the promise and am ready to teach them how to read a real map.   They, however, insist that Barbie and Ken need new clothes on before we can start.   Apparently, learning about maps is a black tie affair in Barbie’s world.   Now we’re ready. Directions The first thing we do is to learn what directions are on a map.   I draw a star on the dry erase side of their ease

With Halloween coming up, the girls have been learning “spooky” songs in their school music class lately.  Briana told me that one such song was about bones and how they make you move around.  I laughed because she somehow thought bones were like ghosts or something and they pushed you all day.  I then explained to her that bones are under our skin to protect our organs, hold us up, and let us move.   I had the girls touch their knees.  See how hard it is under there?  That is a bone.  We poked our arms and feet for bones and discovered our skull in our head.  But there was a lot of skepticism, so this week I told the girls we’d learn more about bones. I figured that I might as well start with bone songs since that’s what sparked their interest in the first place.  I thought that I knew two songs about bones, but upon looking up all of their lyrics online, I discovered that they were actually the same song.  ‘Dem Bones’ is the chorus of the “Foot Bone’s Connected to the…” so