We had a very busy September!! We wanted to start the year off with either having a picnic on the beach like we usually do every  1st day of school  however this year we wanted to be different and go Apple Picking!! In the past years, we always get the tail end of the season and there is very little to chose from so we decided we would get ahead of things and go! We went to our favorite orchard about 40 minutes from where we live and my daughter drove. She is 15 and has her learning permit. I can't drive anyway because I am recovering from my 3rd brain surgery and a cranial neck fusion:( It works out perfectly that she has her permit!! or we wouldn't be able to go anywhere on our own. 

PLUTARCH

(ad 46?-120), Greek biographer and essayist, born in Chaeronea in Boeotia. He was educated in Athens and is believed to have traveled to Egypt and Italy and to have lectured in Rome on moral philosophy. He frequently visited Athens and was a priest in the temple at Delphi. He spent the later years of his life at Chaeronea, where he held municipal office. Many of the treatises he wrote are probably based on his lecture notes. To his students, Plutarch was regarded as a genial guide, philosopher, and spiritual director.His extant works, written in a modified Attic, a so-called common dialect, fall into two principal classes: the didactic essays and dialogues, grouped under the title of Moralia; and the biographies, the Parallel Lives of famous Greeks and Romans. The more than 80 essays are charmingly written and enlivened by anecdotes and quotations. The essays treat matters of ethics and religion. Some are philosophical works supporting the teachings of Plato in opposition to the doctrines of the Stoics and the Epicureans, and nine books contain Symposiaca,or Table Talks, by wise men on various subjects.Best known are Plutarch's Parallel Lives, a series of 4 single biographies and 23 pairs of biographies. Many of the pairs, such as those on the legendary lawgivers Lycurgus and Numa Pompilius (715-673 bc), the generals Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, and the orators Demosthenes and Marcus Tullius Cicero, are followed with a brief comparison. Composed with great learning and research, theLives are not only historical works of great value, but they are also, and purposely, character studies with a moral. The first translation of the Lives into English was by Sir Thomas North (1535?-1601) in 1579; this is the translation Shakespeare followed closely in the composition of his plays based on Roman history, such asCoriolanus, Julius Caesar, and Antony and Cleopatra.

I just watched Introduction to Philosophy: Values Assessment via Discovery Education

I just watched Introduction to Philosophy: Values Assessment via Discovery Education

Each day we start out writing out a famous quote from various philosophers. Not only do we learn the quote but we research a little bit about the author and what  the quotes mean! Here is a a video on philosophy as we try and understand Plutarch

 Happiness~ What is Happiness?

We spent some time talking about what it is that makes each one of us Happy. How do we Define Happiness and what was Epicurus' solution to happiness.... Friends, Freedom(self sufficient and nothing to prove)  and analyzed life (reflect on our worries)  Here is the link to a video on Epicurus-http://youtu.be/4L3dLWwmDDw

I just watched The Great Age of Exploration (1400-1550) via Discovery Education

I just watched The Great Age of Exploration (1400-1550) via Discovery Education

We are learning about all the explorers as we head into Columbus Day. We are intertwining The Renaissance Art, Music and Writing with the explorers such as Christopher Columbus and Francisco Pizarro. We are quite interested not just in Italian Renaissance but was happening all around the world in the same time period, such as Pizarro battling the Cusco Empire in South America. This two-part program takes students through the history of the Great Age of Exploration, focusing on the period from 1400 to the mid-1550s. Students learn about the shift from the Medieval to the Renaissance era, the trade of Asian luxury goods, the quest to find sea routes to Asia, Prince Henry the Navigator, Columbus, the early slave trade, and Spanish and Portuguese colonization.

Known as the Renaissance, the period immediately following the Middle Ages in Europe saw a great revival of interest in the classical learning and values of ancient Greece and Rome. Against a backdrop of political stability and growing prosperity, the development of new technologies–including the printing press, a new system of astronomy and the discovery and exploration of new continents–was accompanied by a flowering of philosophy, literature and especially art. The style of painting, sculpture and decorative arts identified with the Renaissance emerged in Italy in the late 14th century; it reached its zenith in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, in the work of Italian masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael. In addition to its expression of classical Greco-Roman traditions, Renaissance art sought to capture the experience of the individual and the beauty and mystery of the natural world.~History Channel.com

The Renaissance: Was it a Thing? - Crash Course World History #22