Linda's Thoughts

Here's a site which will high school and college students get the details in how to write a research paper. It is called A+ Research and Writing.

@ GoPiano.com you can get free online beginning piano lessons.

Ways To Strengthen Brain Power

1. Get 8 hours asleep every night.~ I always get all my sleep. This one is not hard.
2. Exercise 15 minutes first thing in the morning.~ I use a treadmill and it wakes my brain up. I also pray for the day while I'm doing it. Another good thing to do is to memorize a Bible verse or good quote.

How well do you know the shapes of the world's 7 continents? Here's an elementary level geography game that can reinforce memorization of the continents. It is taken from the National Geographic site.

Fill in the blank with the correct word.
emulate
expedite
impetuous
innocuous
mundane
penitent

1. _____________(adjective) marked by sudden impulse or passion
2. _____________(adjective) common or ordinary
3. _____________(verb tense) to hasten; to speed progress of
4. _____________(verb tense) to strive to equal or surpass
5. _____________(adjective) marked by sudden impulse or passion
6. _____________(adjective) sorrowful or atoning for guilt
Answers

Pennsylvania's Capital is Philadelphia
Name:
The name Pennsylvania was specified in the charter given to William Penn by England's Charles II in 1680. The Latin Sylvania meaning "woodlands" was added to Penn to create "Penn's woods."

Maryland's is Annapolis

Name:
The charter that Lord Baltimore received from King Charles I of England specified a name for the new colony. It was to be called Maryland to honor King Charle's wife Queen Henrietta Maria (Queen Mary).

Here's a great story that was posted on FoxNews.com on Monday, February 04, 2008. Here's the beginning of the story:

Many mothers cherish the first kicks they feel from their unborn babies.

But unknown to one U.K. mother, the kicking she felt from the twins growing inside her actually saved her life, according to a report from the Daily Mail.

Relative pronouns join dependent clauses to independent clauses. They are who, whose, whom, which, and that. For example, He found his money that he had lost. That joins the two clauses together into one sentence. Clauses will be taught in detail later.

Find the relative pronouns in the sentences, and see how many other pronouns you can find as a bonus.
1. I want the house, which is brick.
2. Jack ordered the meal that we picked up.
3. Freddie is the girl who won the contest.
4. Jon is a man on whom I can rely.
5. The student whose answer was wrong turned bright red.

Part 2
Demonstrative pronouns are pronouns that point out. They are this, that, these, and those. That is my hat. I like these not those.

Find the demonstrative pronouns in these sentences.
1. That is a great idea.
2. I will take those.
3. How much money do you want for this?
4. These are the shoes I want.

Answers

@NetState.org you can learn many details of each of the U.S. States.

Florida Capital is Tallahassee

Name:
As mentioned above, Florida was named by Ponce de Leon in 1512. "la Florida," he called this land, Spanish for flowery, covered with flowers, or abounding in flowers. Historians favor the idea that Ponce de Leon named the state because he discovered it on Easter or Palm Sunday. Others don't discount this theory, but impress upon us that the full flush of spring was on the area and the abundance of flowers in bloom and the "fragrant and delicious odors" certainly played a role.

Georgia's is Atlanta

Name:
The last of the thirteen original British colonies was named after England's King George II in 1733. The terms of the charter granted by the king specified that the colony to be founded by James Oglethorpe be named after the king and so it was.

A mighty fortress is our God

One of the last pharaohs of the 18th Dynasty, probably the son of Amenophis IV, Tutankhamen was born around 1345 bc.

How many answers out of ten can you get on the GeoBee quiz? It can be found @ NationalGeographic.com. Here's a great research site, the CIA WorldFact Book.

By Ginny

Oklahoma's capital is Oklahoma City.

Name:
Oklahoma is a word that was made up by the native American missionary Allen Wright. He combined two Choctaw words, "ukla" meaning person and "humá" meaning red to form the word that first appears in a 1866 Choctaw treaty. Oklahoma means "red person."

Texas's capital is Austin.

Name:
Texas comes from the word "teysha" meaning "hello friend" in the language of the Caddo Indian tribes. Spanish explorers and settlers used this word to refer to the friendly tribes throughout Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas.

I've had a hoarse voice lately. I don't consider it catchy because I've been this way for a week and no one else is talking like me. My husband has known a sore throat remedy since his high school years. It was used by a local Gospel singing family who travelled around.

I like it's taste.

3 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 cup of boiling hot water

ABC's Person of the Week this week is really for two people. They are twin brothers. These adult young men are doctors who have went to Afganistan to care for the poor in need of medical treatment. Of course, their mother must be very proud. Here's more.

Tell us, fool,
who knows more of love--
the one who has joys from it or the one who has trials and griefs?
He answered:
There cannot be any knowledge of love without both of them.

(Ramon Lull, The Book of the Lover and the Beloved)*

Minnesota's capital is Saint Paul

Name:
The name of this state came from the Minnesota River so named by the Dakota Sioux for the river's "cloudy" or "milky water." The Dakota word "mnishota" means "cloudy" or "milky water."

GeoBee quiz of the day @ National Geographic.com
7 Continents game @ NationalGeographic.com

This short romantic story gave me a smile with only one word. My sons will need to put it's truth into practice someday. (:

Taken from Back to the Bible, this is a devotion by Elizabeth Elliot.

There isn't a man or woman anywhere, I am convinced, who does not long for tenderness.

When I was in college, a girl who lived on my floor in the dormitory was pursued by a number of ardent young men on the campus.

Michigan's capital is Lansing

Name:
The word Michigan originally referred to a clearing on the lower peninsula and was derived from the Chippewa Indian word "majigan" which means clearing. Lake Michigan was named after this clearing by European explorers in the area in the 1670's. The state later took the name of the clearing as well.

Wisconsin's capital is Madison

Name:
This state was named after the Wisconsin River. Wisconsin means "grassy place" in the Chippewa language.

Adjectives, another part of speech, give us a great deal of terminology. I will share it with you, but all that is really important is that adjectives modify or affect the meaning of nouns and pronouns and tell us which, whose, what kind, and how many about the nouns or pronouns they modify. They generally come before the noun or pronoun they modify, but there are exceptions to that rule. How and why they are different will be explained in later lessons. They still tell us which, whose, what kind, and how many.

There are seven (7) words in the English language that are always adjectives. They are the articles a, an, and the and the possessives my, our, your, and their. (The possessives are from the possessive pronoun list but are always used with nouns as adjectives.) Being only seven in number, one should memorize them so they are immediately recognized as adjectives.

Examples: The neighbor girl likes chocolate ice cream. Mr. Johanson is tall, dark and handsome.

Some authorities like to distinguish between what they call true adjectives and determiners, but both still just tell which, whose, what kind, and how many. Those words are the key to adjectives and should be memorized to make adjectives easy.

Pick out the adjectives in the following sentences.
1. The heavy red dress of Queen Elizabeth weighed over fifty pounds.
2. My sister chose two shirts for my graduation present.
3. That small Mexican restaurant in the next block serves fresh meals.
4. The little black dog barked at the well-dressed stranger.
5. An old wood fence had caught several discarded candy wrappers.
Copyright 2006 Word Place Inc - - All Rights Reserved.

Answers

A 19th-century painter, Van Gogh is almost as famous for his mental instability as for his vivid paintings. His career as an artist lasted only 10 years and coincided with frequent bouts of depression and anguish; in a famous 1888 incident he slashed off his left earlobe with a razor. He is closely associated with the town of Arles in the south of France, where he created many of his greatest paintings.
Art.

Milton Hershey was a hardworking man who invented the Hershey's Chocolate bar and had many other amazing achievements. You can learn more @ IdeaFinder.com

Montana's capital is Helena

Name:
Created out of the Idaho Territory in 1864, the name Montana is a derivation of the Latin word "montaanus" which means mountainous.

Nevada's is Carson City

Name:
This state was named after the mountain range in the west.

From out at sea Spanish sailors gazed upon the beautiful mountain ranges of California. They called these mountains Sierra Nevada (snowy range). Sierra Nevada seemed an apt name for the new territory that was being carved out of Utah, but when the deed was done in 1859, the name of this new territory had been shortened to Nevada.

Painted by famous dutch artist Vincent van Gogh, this idylic scene of the Langlois bridge in Arles was painted in 1888. It includes two cypress trees, a woman walking over the bridge with an umbrella, and a horse buggy that has just crossed over the bridge. The bridge can still be seen in France, near Arles in Provence

California's capital is Sacramento

Name:
It's thought that the name California comes from a sixteenth century novel, Las Sergas de Esplandian by Garcia Ordonez de Montalvo. Spanish explorers Hernando Cortez and Ortuno Ximenez were familiar with the work of Montalvo and probably named the territory after the gold laden island described in the novel.

Washington's capital is Olympia

Name:
You guessed it! The Washington Territory established in 1853 was named to honor the first President of the United States, George Washington.

Here's a site, JackLondons.net, that has the story by Jack London called Up The Slide.

Here's a vocabulary activity:

Fill in the blank with the correct vocabulary word and then write its definition.

zigzag
perpendicular
chasm
herculean
buttressed
barren
balked
perilous
gully
felled
basin
ventured

1. Twenty feet of nearly _______________ climbing would bring him to where a slide sloped more gently in.
2. A few strokes of the ax _______________ it into the _______________ and peeping over the edge, he indulged in a laugh at the startled dogs.
3. Time and again he _______________ upon the slide, and time and again he was ____________ when he came to the grasses.
4. It was a _______________ task, but it was the only way out of the predicament.
5. This constant numbing of his fingers made his progress very slow; but the zigzag came to an end, finally, where the side of the slide was _______________ by perpendicular rock, and he turned back and upward again.
6. Each step became more difficult and _______________, and he was faint from exertion and from lack of Swanson’s dinner.
7. The _______________ opened out into a miniature _______________, in which a floor of soil had been deposited, out of which, in turn, a tiny grove of pines had sprung.

Answers

Here's an interesting article about a teenager who helped out her mom . . . a little bit!
She's now a teen millionaire. I found her story @ Yahoo's People of the Web.

Alaska's capital is Juneau

Name:
The name "Alaska" was used by the Russians to refer only to the peninsula. This name was used by the United States to refer, first to the entire territory, and then, to the State after its purchase in 1867.
The name "Alaska" is taken from the Aleut word "aláxsxaq" that refers to an object to which the sea is directed, in this case the Alaska peninsula and mainland. This is sometimes loosely translated as "great land."

Here's a site that contains thorough lesson plans to teach students to pass the GED. It has been made available through the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

I found a site called Embracing the Child in which you have links to many different Language Arts websites.

Here's a site which has the Gettysburg Address. This is a very famous speech given by one of the most famous presidents. Study the questions and take the quiz which follows.

You can make your own crossword puzzles @ armouredpenguin.com. I made one about the Klondike Gold Rush. You can even solve them online.

I found a good site which will help students prepare for college by strategically and a efficiently studying vocabulary words and spelling words. It is found @ LearnATest.com