from the Inbox (and other updates)

The Catholic Company is sponsoring a First Communion Photo Contest and all the details are here.

The prize is a $100 gift card.

(It won't be long and Ramona will be receiving her First Holy Communion. How can that be? And, I'm reminded that I haven't blogged about the fact that Anne-with-an-e will be confirmed this spring. But, that's another post.)

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Shmoop.com is a study guide website. We're currently poking around on a rabbit trail about the War of 1812 (sparked by the Charlotte books I've read to Ramona this year.) I haven't dug deeply into the site yet, but so far I like it. From Shmoop's email:

This isn’t your traditional study product, it is designed by Ph.D and Masters students from top universities (many of whom have taught at the college or high school levels) to make learning more fun and relevant for students who grew up with YouTube, MySpace, and video games. Shmoop features deep analysis peppered with snark, challenging study questions, multiple points-of-view, trivia and helps students and teachers explore the Internet for audio-video-photos-documents-links galore.

I can't get the picture of Seinfeld Shmoopie-ing with his girlfriend out of my head ... then I remember that that's the Soup Nazi episode, which leads me to think about how my kids do lines from tv shows and movies they've never seen ... but that's another post, too.

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Another study guide site that I haven't had a lot of time to look at, but am interested in, is Crossref-it.info which aims to study writers, poets and literature in their historical context. From their website:

Crossref-it.info material is organised into four handy subject areas:

* Writers in context covers the life and times of various authors, and what was going on socially, politically and in the world of ideas / beliefs
* Aspects of literature takes particular genres and eras and helps you appreciate the key characteristics of that style of writing
* Texts in detail provides detailed commentary on a growing number of exam texts featured in the current A level syllabuses
* Successful study

I love timelines, and I can imagine us using some of theirs, such as this one on Gerard Manley Hopkins, and this one on Shakespeare.

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And, my blogging time for this morning is now up!