Is the Internet making us stupid?

NPR has an interview with Nicholas Carr, who has recently written an article for The Atlantic Monthly called, “”Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Carr says that even though the Internet allows us access to a vast amount of information very quickly, it imposes on us a new way of thinking. Rather than reading deeply, or contemplating any single subject, we tend to jump around. As a result, our attention spans are shortening, and our ability to read longer articles and books might even be in jeopardy.

Just as the arrival of Gutenberg’s printing press helped to make reading universal, in the process ushering in enormous social revolutions, Carr says the Internet is producing a revolution of its own that is once again changing how we structure everything. While much of the revolution is positive, Carr says, he thinks that we should be aware that there might be some casualties, including prolonged reading and time for contemplation.

Listen to it here.

Pirates of the Caribbean!

Reading:
Pirates are popular around my house, and stuff about pirates litter every imaginable surface. We’ve got pirate pop-ups, pirate costumes, pirate puzzles, pirate swords, pirate ships and who knows what else. I do have a few favorite books about pirates that I prefer over all the others.

• What If You Met A Pirate? by Jan Adkins is a good place to start. The book begins by describing the popular stereotype of a pirate, then proceeds to show how a peg-legged, one-eyed pirate bogged down by cutlasses, swords, guns, jewelery and a parrot isn’t likely to be a very successful pirate at all. In the rest of the book Adkins explains what pirates were really like, what they wore, and what they did all day.
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I think David first became aware of ancient Egyptian history from a Little Einsteins video, “Disney’s Little Einsteins - The Legend of the Golden Pyramid,” we rented one weekend. It was there that heiroglyph and sphinx were added to his vocabulary. Serendipitously, his Grandma gave him a computer game called “Scooby-Doo: Jinx at the Sphinx,” at about the same time as I purchased a cheap damaged copy of Ancient Egypt Dot-to-Dot (Connect the Dots & Color) at the local bookstore.

So, when we first got around to reading Mummies in the Morning, David was already excited and familiar with ancient Egypt. We must have read this one five or six times in a row before he was ready to move on to the next Magic Tree House book. It’s still one of his favorites.

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David went through a short time when he was fanatical about knights. I think it started with Scooby-Doo. He loved the episode with the black knight. It did, however, confuse him when we later read a version of Ivanhoe where the Black Knight was King Richard the Lionheart. And then, we discovered that nearly every book about knights included some knight dressed all in black. It sort of made me wish that authors would get more creative with medieval colors… how about a chartreuse knight for a change?

Knights, Castles and Medieval Times

Reading:
There are sooo many great books about knights and castles out there for kids, there’s no way I could list them all. I can’t even list all the ones David has in his library. But, I can list a few of my favorites:

• Knight: A Noble Guide for Young Squires (Genuine & Moste Authentic Gdes) — In a letter to his son Hector, Sir Geoffrey de Lance explains that he is being held captive by a French knight and is writing this book to instruct the boy in the ways of knighthood in hopes that he will someday come to his rescue. A fun ‘authentic’ looking book with lots of flaps, envelopes and doo-dads to keep kids engaged.
• Castle: Medieval Days and Knights (A Sabuda & Reinhart Pop-up Book) — I’m a huge fan of pop-up books, and this one (though not as awe-inspiring as the Dinosaurs popup I linked to for the Dinosaurs before Dark book) is still awesome to pop open and explore.
• Knights And Castles (Magic Tree House Research Guide, paper) — This is the research book companion to the Magic Treehouse book, and it’s written in the same engaging, kid-friendly way as the chapter book. The illustrations are great, and it’s fun to read.

Printables:

• The Knight at Dawn Word Search from the Magic Treehouse official website.
• The Parts of Armor from About.com Homeschooling site.
• Skipton Castle – Coloring pages of castle interiors, knights and more
• Great-Castles.com — Color pictures of real castles
• Knights and Castles Crossword (PDF Format)

Games and Online Activities:

• Destroy the Castle — The trebuchet was one of the most devastating weapons of the Middle Ages. During medieval sieges, this destruction machine crushed castle walls. Using trial and error, medieval engineers adjusted the trebuchet to make sure its missile hit the castle wall—and destroyed it.
• Castle Conquest – Man the battlements! Crush the enemy castle and become lord of the land.
• Castle Wars is an online card game where your goal is to be the first to build a 100 storey castle, you also win by destroying your opponents castle.
• Create a castle/medieval city — from City Creator. Careful moms and dads. This one can hoover your time quickly if you get into it.

Other Stuff

• Book Unit - Vocabulary, Questions and Activities for each chapter of The Knight at Dawn

I just found a great site called Wowio that offers free ebooks supported by advertising. Not just a bunch of public domain rehashes, there are some AMAZING books there for homeschoolers — a good number from Nomad Press, my favorite history activity book publishers.

You can download five books per day, as long as you’re coming from a US based IP address. They’re hoping to expand the service to include a world wide audience as much as possible, but it’s limited to US users at this point.

For the last few months, David’s bedtime ritual has included a few chapters of what he calls, “Jack and Annie stories,” more commonly referred to as The Magic Treehouse books by Mary Pope Osborne.

After picking up books in no particular order from used bookstores, we finally decided to fill out the rest of the series from Amazon.com, so we’ve got a full set up to #34. There’s more to collect, I know, and it appears that the author has not yet run out of ideas, but 34 books is a pretty good start, in my estimation, so we’ll leave it at that for now.

David has decided that he wants to read the entire series, in order, this summer — partly because we discovered the official series website and printed off the “passport“. So, we’re starting with #1, reading a book every two or three nights, and of course, collecting the passport stamps along the way.

I decided, after reading the first part of Dinosaurs before Dark this evening, that I may as well find related coloring pages, books and activities for David to work on during the days and mornings to expand on the event or place in the Magic Treehouse books. So, every few days I thought I’d post a Magic Treehouse tie-in to the book we’re at.

The first, of course, is Dinosaurs Before Dark

Dinosaurs

Reading:

• Pteranodon: Winged and Toothless- In Dinosaurs Before Dark, Jack and Annie are saved by a Pteranodon. This page from the Enchanted Learning Center is all about those flying reptiles.
• Encyclopedia Prehistorica Dinosaurs by Sabuda and Reinhart– This amazing pop-up book is worth buying as a work of paper engineering. The text is also quite informative, and serves as a fantastic way to explore the world of dinosaurs.

Printables:

• Dino Word Search - Go digging for Dino words in this printable activity!
• Dinosaur Worksheets - a variety of printable dinosaur worksheets and coloring pages from Learning Page.com
• Dinosaur Who Am I? printable from the Magic Treehouse Website

Games and Online Activities:

• Match the Bones — Choose the dinosaur each bone belongs to.
• Dino Saurs! — Prehistoric winds have blown pterodactyl eggs out of their nests in this dinosaur game and it’s up to you to find them! This arcade-style game with a dinosaur-theme is a great way to get kids excited about these amazing reptiles.
• Dinosaur Dig — Future paleontologists can do their very own Dinosaur Dig. This is a fun exercise in mapping coordinates that also ties into earth science, rocks and minerals as well as exploration.
• Dinosaur Egg Hunt — Play the Dinosaur Egg Hunt to learn about the great lizards that once roamed on Earth! Kids will find this concentration-style memory game to be a fun way to keep their brains limber.
• Dinosaur Quiz Game — Test your knowledge of dinosaur trivia with this short online quiz.
• Dinosaur Playground - A collection of simple online dinosaur games and puzzles.
• Palaeo Pursuit –As a junior palaeontologist, find your way to the dig. On your journey, you will encounter rocks, questions and discoveries!

More Stuff:

• Teaching Ideas page for Dinosaurs Before Dark - from Teachers @ Random
• Vocabulary, Questions and Activities for Dinosaurs before Dark — Activities for each chapter from Mountain City Elementary School

Now that David’s approaching 5, I have finally gotten to the point that I’m confident that I’ll be homeschooling him, and I’m looking at various curriculum options for Grade 1 and beyond.

As such, I’ve been signing up for Home School discussion and curriculum lists left, right and center.

I’ve seen a lot of people with three-year-olds ask about curriculum. And while I sure didn’t have a boxed set for David, I can perhaps help out by showing how we got to this point in his haphazard education.
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