Sound and language

Image from here

Here's an interesting article about different words for sounds in different languages

This explains why some words are so similar in all languages. I was first introduced to that idea when I read these lectures by Leonard Bernstein, and it was an amazing realization for me. I felt like my mind had opened to all these new concepts!

We also talked about onomatopoeia in, among other works, Edgar Allen Poe's "The Bells".

Bunny Unit Schedule and Lesson Plan; Bunnies in Literature

Bunnies! Now there is a topic I've been waiting for my whole life. But when we got a bunny for Christmas, I knew that now was the time. Not for a vaguely applicable "mammals" unit---but for BUNNIES.

Is anyone else in the world bunny-loving enough to have a whole unit on this? Maybe not. But you might find it useful for Easter?

Here is the Pinterest Board for our Bunny Unit.

We watched the BBC documentary "The Burrowers," which talked about bunnies (along with moles and water voles). They built a burrow with one glass cross-section wall so they could observe the bunnies actually in the burrow. Very interesting. We found it on YouTube:
Part I
Part II
Part III

We spent one day talking about Bunnies in Literature, and we read all of our numerous Bunny Books. These are all books we love. And there are others---Watership Down comes to mind, and the other Peter Rabbit stories.

As part of our Bunny Celebration at the end of the unit, we watched the 2010 documentary "Rabbit Fever," about teens competing to become "Rabbit King" and "Rabbit Queen" at the American Rabbit Breeders Association convention. It was fascinating. It struck a good balance, too, between showing the idiosyncrasies in this group of rabbit enthusiasts while still allowing them to be sympathetic, multi-dimensional characters. I don't like mean-spirited documentaries ("isn't this group weird?") so this was just right. We rented the movie from Amazon Instant Video, here.