Author Archives: Adriana Zoder

Mar 22 2016

Tuesday Tome Week 12 – Ability Development

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Ability Development from Age Zero by Shinichi Suzuki is required reading for Suzuki parents, those of us who put our children through music lessons with a Suzuki-certified teacher. My children take violin lessons from a Suzuki teacher and so I read this book as part of my preparation to support the teacher in her goals and methods.

Suzuki Method principles for parents

The Bible of Suzuki parents, this book should be read once a year.

First off, this is a short book – only 96 pages. Even if you read only 14 pages per day (that’s turning the page only seven times, friends!) you should be able to cover it in one week. By the way, when a book gets boring, I tell myself I have to turn the page only five more times and then I will put it down. Or something similar. Because motivation to finish something does not come easy, but if I can focus on a short-term goal, that does not seem daunting, I feel better about the task at hand.

Ability Development From Age Zero

This book does not get boring very often though. There are stories and anecdotes about different parents and children who are using the Suzuki method. There is some repetition in it, but I suppose it is a good thing. I know I need some concepts drilled into me and it only happens by hearing them over and over again.

Here are some powerful concepts from this book:  Continue reading »

Mar 16 2016

Protons and Neutrons

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Protons and Neutrons is a great book for your budding chemist. Written by Mary Wissinger, this can qualify as a “my first science textbook” without being all boring and fact-focused, produced by Genius Games.

It is a picture book which introduces small children to the concept of protons, neutrons, and electrons. More specifically, what they do, what their charges are and how they are attracted to each other. Also, how chemical elements are defined through the number of protons they possess.

Protons and Neutrons book for children

One of the pages inside the book

Pete is the Proton, Ned is the Neutron, and the electron does not get a name, but one can tell it is a girl. My six-year-old daughter loved the electron because she loves to see girls and feminine details everywhere.

The first question I got from the kids after I finished reading the book was, “Can we read it again?” The second question was, “Is there another book?” meaning “Is there a sequel to this book?” I answered, “Not yet.”  Continue reading »

Mar 15 2016

Tuesday Tome Week 11 – Good Talk, Dad

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Like I said last week, I needed a funny book after Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Enter Good Talk, Dad, the Anna Porter Public Library Book Group selection for the month of March. We will discuss this in a couple of weeks, so I will only share here my impression of this book.

First off, it is written by liberal journalists Bill Geist and Willie Geist, father and son who work at CBS and MSNBC respectively. As such, the book presents liberal ideas and concepts. It bashes the Vietnam war and wars in general, states that lenient parenting can produce good results and glamorizes choices that go against a biblical lifestyle.

Good Talk, Dad

I don’t even want to start arguing the reverse position of the above, – where WOULD I start? – but I disagree with the values espoused by these two journalists with every fiber of my being. In fact, the first day I started reading it, I wrote inside the front cover “funny book and the reason I reject American public schools.” Continue reading »

Mar 13 2016

Scratch and Code

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Which would you rather have: a son who plays video games or a son who makes video games? The latter, of course. I agree. The same goes for daughters.

So we started our son on coding. A boy who reads well, our son has no problem walking himself through a book like Super Scratch Programming Adventure. He was really excited about all the things he could do with Scratchy, the cat on the screen.

Book on how to learn coding

The perfect book to start learning how to code

The book itself contains nine stages, each with a page of comics-style adventures and then the exercises which should be done on the computer to continue the adventure.  Continue reading »

Mar 8 2016

Tuesday Tome Week 10 – Uncle Tom’s Cabin

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Reading The Scarlet Letter followed by Uncle Tom’s Cabin is like going from a lake to a deep well. If you don’t get this metaphor, it simply means you are not Romanian. In English, the equivalent would be “going from bad to worse.” I am referring to the atmosphere of the book, the subject matter, the darkness portrayed. I sure do need a funny book after these two.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

My biggest revelation with Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the fact that they used to separate family members. I cannot imagine any bigger torture than to take a child from her mother, or to separate husband and wife. That was the toughest part in the book for me.  Continue reading »

Mar 3 2016

Buy Local

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About ten years ago, I became aware that the US was going green. It was a recycling revolution. Words like “going green,” “sustainability,” and “recycling” entered the every day banter in mass media. Then, of course, “buy local” followed closely behind.

Well, we have been travelling to Knoxville for four different activities for the past three years. We are getting tired of the drive. It is two hours both ways, but, of course, you have to also consider driving between the activities once we are there.

Anna Porter Public Library Story Time

We have been attending Story Time at our local library for seven years now.

It’s not the gas money. It’s my emotional fuel. I get tired and then I bring the kids home late in the evening, around 9pm, and by the time we get to bed it is 10pm. The next day, we are dragging and it takes us another 24 hours to recover and get back on schedule.  Continue reading »

Mar 1 2016

Tuesday Tome Week 9 – The Scarlet Letter

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Nathaniel Hawthorne’s masterpiece is set in Puritan New England. If you, like me, have only seen the movie, you should really consider reading the book. I have said this before and I will say it again: there is no comparison between immersing yourself in a book and watching a movie adaptation thereof.

The Scarlet Letter

 

This is only 272 pages, so it’s not as intimidating as Don Quixote or Anna Karenina, so really there should be no problem from that standpoint. If you are familiar with King James Bible language, again, the dialogues in this book should not pose a problem. It is actually very neat to read something in that kind of English which is not the Bible – though Scriptural references are peppered throughout.  Continue reading »

Feb 26 2016

DUPLO Bricks Rock

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The other day my children took their canvas bag of DUPLO bricks and dumped it out on the carpet. They played for hours, building three different structures: a home center, a zoo, and a police station. They told stories about their characters, who went through different adventures. It was the giraffe’s birthday. Then there was an accident and people needed to be carried to the hospital on stretchers. Then things happened at the home center.

Boy and girl playing with DUPLO bricks

They dumped the DUPLO bricks and built, told stories, and created for an hour.

All this happened because they got invited to a little boy’s birthday party and I was shopping for DUPLO sets on Amazon so we could take a gift to this party. Just looking at the different DUPLO sets got their creative juices going. They have not touched DUPLO bricks in a month or more. But they always go back to them.  Continue reading »

Feb 23 2016

Tuesday Tome Week 8 – Three Deuces Down

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For this month’s book group selection, we had to read Three Deuces Down by Keith Donnelly. This is a thriller set in East Tennessee. Knoxville, TVA, the Smokies, Tri-City area, I-40 and I-81 get mentioned quite a bit. But our PI protagonist, Donald Youngblood takes us all over the world, from New York to Ireland and then to Colombia.

Keith Donnelly and Adriana Zoder

Keith Donnelly and I at the Anna Porter Public Library Book Group meeting

If you like thrillers, this is a good one. Of course, with this genre, you will have to expect that somebody disappears, somebody gets killed (at least one, right?), somebody hooks up, and somebody gets philosophical.

This is the first in a series of mysteries featuring Donald Youngblood, a Wall Street whiz kid turned private investigator in a small town in East Tennessee.  Continue reading »

Feb 22 2016

Dracula and Multilingualism

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On February 20, 2016 I gave a TEDx UTK talk on Dracula and Multilingualism. It was a lot of fun to write, re-write, and memorize this talk. I got really nervous the week before the event, but I survived to tell the story.

The video is being edited and will be available in about one month. Once it gets uploaded to YouTube and the TED website I will let you know.

TEDx UTK Rehearsals

The night before the event, we rehearsed one more time. With Katie Lou Rogers, the coordinator, who was giving me the latest details.

It was really cool to work with UT students – the kind of young people I did not think existed anymore. They were professional, focused, and gave it their all in putting this event together. The coordinator, Katie Lou Rogers, was really helpful and made me feel at home during the rehearsals and the actual event.

This is the third annual TEDx UTK event and it was held at McClung Museum of Natural History. My husband took the kids to the Muse while I was busy with my TEDx event. They came with me to the first rehearsal and I just could not focus with them in the audience. We decided it was going to be too emotional for me with them in the room.  Continue reading »