this blog

Cows low wall (while?) the snow mows the low
Surrounding of dry grass.
I was standing there on a cold winter night.
An owl hooted, then I got scared and fell
Into the grand swimming pool of wonderful dreams.
(beginning of my dream)
In the night, an owl hooted for the morning.
It came, and I, me, as a boy, met a big eagle
that, to my surprise, picked me up, and I, me, for the first time,
Ate an eagle meal, in the eagle’s nest. I felt my
baseball cap fly away. Ahahahahahahahahahah
Ahahahahah! I yelled. And I said, My baseball
cap flew right onto the head of an
Ostrich. Funny! But there are things that
are more worth it to think about. Like the
fact that I woke up from my dream.

(written early this June, age 7.10. Published here with permission…)

This soup is always a hit and it’s very easy to make. For English-speakers, here’s the recipe on the Eating Well magazine website (originally published in Eating Well, January/February 1995).

While looking for a translation of “chicken stock” I came across the Hungry French Man website based in our hometown, San Francisco. Double-whammy nostalgia, tying my past and current lives together.

For French speakers who just want to make the soup (and not do an English exercise), here’s my translation of the Red Lentil Soup recipe into French:
Read the rest of this entry »

You may have noticed/been notified that your antivirus AVG-free is about to expire (May 31). You may be under the impression that you need to pay for the new version, but that is not true. AVG continues to produce a free version of their software. (They just don’t make it easy to understand, because they wish you to pay for their more robust product…).

You can download the free, updated version to your computer’s desktop from here: http://free.grisoft.com/ww.download?prd=afe

After the download is finished, you should double-click on the AVG 8.0 icon on your desktop (or wherever you saved it to), and the installation of the new software will begin.

During the installation, you’ll see a message that the old version must be un-installed; you should agree/say yes.

You’ll be prompted to restart your computer before the installation is complete.

Here’s an interesting presentation of coaching/learning spelling in English. The author uses the term ‘word mapping’ which is the same term used with the Reading Reflex Phono-Graphic Method that combines reading and writing/spelling from the very beginning.

The underlying concept for ‘word mapping’ is that words are composed of sounds (phonemes) and that we represent these sounds with particular symbols (letters and combinations of letters). The Reading Genie website presents a nice progression for analyzing a word and learning its spelling, in 9 steps, where one doesn’t look at the actual spelling until step 6. This approach really puts the emphasis on the sounds involved and then the code necessary to represent those sounds.

There are a number of aspects of the Reading Genie website’s information that I don’t appreciate, e.g. a focus on blending of syllables and developing discrete phoneme awareness last (which I’m not sure is necessary, despite its relative difficulty). But there are some very useful tools there as well, including Developing Fluency, and for parents/teachers, How to Count Phonemes in Words.

(composed this past weekend, age 7.6)

The batle will be soon.
Blue and Red, shall fight but I shall not!
–But you must o noble knit!
I shall not it is to dangerous for me!
–O.K but not next time.

So the armese march twords us. We will not die!
(You can invente the end.)”

———
Re-reading the ‘Thae Magik Hetr’ story tonight made me realize how long it’s been since any of E’s ideas have been published here, and how much her writing has developed since the last time. Thanks, Heidi, for mentioning these entries over the weekend.

‘Tis the season of the “kings’ cake” in France…starting on the day of Epiphany (Jan 6) and continuing…well, apparently until the bakers stop selling their ‘galette des rois‘. This year’s research into what this holiday is really about (in the religious sense) brought in the information that the bible doesn’t mention “3″ kings specifically, just “3″ gifts. So the number of ‘wise men’ (or kings) is uncertain. Which is just fine for the galette tradition, where in a season or at a party, the number of kings (or queens) varies greatly. The kids (the 7 year olds) argued this year about whether the person who finds the one ‘feve’ (a porcelain figurine for us) gets to keep the paper crown or has to give it to his/her queen/king, and who keeps the feve? All this became much too confusing last weekend, and thankfully, the 5-year-olds saved the day by initiating a pass-the-crown sharing game, and we all just ate the lovely galette.

What we know for certain, however, is that the PRICE of these galettes at the local boulangerie is always shocking relative to the size, and we’re always left craving just a bit more of that luscious, fatty, lovely almond filling. So Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a luscious winter favorite. Most kids we’ve offered it to find the concept too weird—they won’t even try it—leaving plenty for appreciative adults and more adventurous young palates. Serve with roasted/steamed potatoes, rice or fresh, warm corn tortillas.

I’ve slightly modified the recipe below for my use in Paris; it’s based on one found at recipezaar. Thanks to that author, Izzy Knight, and to Rose for bringing it our way…

Chicken (or Turkey) Mole
Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s the exquisite corpse we all made up two years ago on Halloween night while sitting around the fireplace at a friend’s country house. The authors include 2 six-year-olds and 5 adults.

Aujourd’hui je suis en vacances. Halloween is tomorrow — and I like its spookiness. Once when I was young, my friends took me to a cemetery on Halloween night. And there, I felt a chill wind on my neck, and I saw a scary sight. The sun had set, but the only color in the sky was red, plus a black bat winged its way towards the window in the old stone north tower. And guess who lived in the tower? You’re right! It was the shaggle-tooth, green-haired frog princess. And she obviously had grown younger since I saw her last, and she was a more luminous shade of green. We thought she was really funny with shining green … especially how the tip of her nose blinked on and off … when she lied. And the lie she was telling me now was a doozy: She told me that her friend got married and the cake was poison! I was shocked and wondered if the bride ate the poisoned cake or if she just had a bad tummy ache. Hoping for the former, I brewed her a cup of broth of eye of newt and made her drink it in an ice-cold bath. Suddenly, she had an inspiration that saved her from this fate: She would cross her toes, blow her nose, sing a song of sixpence, and finally, blow a kiss to the moon … and then all would be well in the world. –FIN–

The .pdf format is ‘universal’ for publishing and distributing documents because the software that ‘reads’ it is free and easy to obtain. On Mac OSX, the integrated Preview opens pdf; on PC, the free Foxit Reader (very small & light) or the free Adobe Reader (very big) open it. Most computers already have something installed that will immediately open a pdf file, and the recipient can immediately read and respond to what you sent (but cannot modify/edit the document).

Anyone can fairly easily create PDF documents to share using free software. On Mac OSX, pdf documents are easily generated from any ‘Print’ dialog–it’s integrated and therefore, immediately usable.

On a PC, you can obtain a free PDF creator called pdf995: Read the rest of this entry »

When you send a file to someone else via email, you want to make sure that person can open the file without any problems…right? But not everyone uses the same software, so the documents (’files’) that you produce on your computer aren’t necessarily readable by others. What controls the readability of documents/files is something called the ‘file format’. It is identified by the ‘dot’ plus three or four letters at the end of a file name, e.g. “.doc” or .wp6″ or “.ppsx”. You can look up file formats and the programs they are created and read by on the internet.

There are a few ‘file formats’ that are more universal than others, i.e. most people have software on their computer allowing these files to automatically open. Some such file formats are Read the rest of this entry »