Tutorial on Downloading Google Public Domain Books

Erin asked how you download books from the Google Books site and I thought I would write it out here just because it's easier to explain with some pictures which are hard to do in the combox.

Basic Tutorial on Downloading Google Books

(see bottom of this post for update concerning Australia and downloading Google Books)

Let's say you followed the link from my last post

First Year in Number

Following the link takes you to a page that looks like this:




Now, do you see that gear thing on the top right corner?  If you right-click your mouse on the arrow thingy next to the gear thingy (aren't you impressed with my technically precise language) you should see a list of options including one that says "Download PDF".

If you click on "Download PDF" you will come to a screen which looks vaguely familiar from your experiences trying to leave comments on a Blogger blog.  

After you type in the verification you will get one of those PDF pop-ups asking you whether you want to save or open.  Go from there.   

Now, say you want to look at the book before downloading it.

 

Expanded Tutorial on Ways to Interact with a Google Public Domain Book

One choice is to press the red tab on the left that says "Read Ebook" .
That will take you to a page like this:





 This is actually an online ereading device so that you can flip through the book by clicking the grey arrow thing on the right.   I've read books to my kids this way. 

A second choice is to preview the book.   Click on the blue link next to the book icon on Screen 1.   You should be taken to a screen that looks like this:


I LOVE this screen and here are some reasons why: 

1. For one thing, you can quickly scroll through the pages of the book by using the bar on the far right.
2. For another, you can download the book by pressing the gear-thingy on the top right, as mentioned in the basic tutorial.  Some books have an epub option which allows you to read the book on your epub-compatible device.  
3. For another, you can search the book using the search toolbar on the bottom left.
4. Here is another really cool thing you can do.   See the scissors on the top toolbar?  Press the scissors. They will let you clip a section out of the text that can be directly transferred as an image to your blog or to your computer.  

 Here's an example -- I have used the scissors to highlight in blue the page about building pictures with sticks.



I get a list of options:

• I can copy and paste the text
• I can embed the image (as on a blog)

So I choose to embed the selection and I end up with this on my blog page (or I can download it as an image on my computer)

Aidan loved this page.   He had so much fun making shapes out of sticks. 

I hope this made sense, Erin.    I feel very silly telling YOU how to do anything techy.    It makes me wonder if you have a Mac or something where the interface may be different!    If so this probably doesn't help much! 

However, if you run into problems (or anyone else reading this has problems) please leave a comment and I will try to answer your questions, if I can. 

While I'm talking about tech things, do you want to know how to capture and paste screen shots like I just did in this tutorial? Do you, do you?  : )   

Bonus Tutorial on Capturing Computer Screen Shots:

Most computers have a "PrntScrn" button located high on the right somewhere near the "F"/Function Keys,  Simply press that then you can paste the screen shot into your Bitmap editor or directly onto your blog typing page.  My teenager showed me how to do that.  It's been extremely useful as Aidan often wants to print out a single screen shot on a Youtube video. 

 Because it literally copies your WHOLE screen including your active tabs and toolbar icons, sometimes I have to crop the image on my BMP editor (you can usually find this on your computer desktop if you don't already know where it is, by rightclicking your mouse and clicking "New" -- the Bitmap Editor is one of the standard options under "New")

For Australians:

 Erin sent me this note from Ruth at From Wonder to Wisdom.  This explains an option for Australians who apparently can't download from Google Books.  I quote with her permission: 

.... I think we can't download direct from Google Books in Australia. But there's a kind of "back door" way of doing it.

What I do: I search on the Internet Archive for the title (or author) I'm interested in, and if I find a copy I look at the different options for viewing the book. This particular book is found here:

On the left of the page is a box labelled "View the book", and there are various options. My favourites are "Read online" and PDF. If the latter option says "PDF (Google.com)", skip that, and go down to the "All Files HTTPS" link. This is the one you want to be able to download the PDF file direct.

Of course, if you can download straight from the Google Books page, you can ignore all of the above; but if not, this can be very handy to remember.

She also added that if you like the First Year in Number that I mentioned, the authors have another series on the Internet Archive called Everyday Arithmetic.    She says that there are three volumes in the series and that each is supposed to cover about 2 years work.     Volume 1  Volume 2   Volume 3    Thank you Erin and Ruth!

We've Set a Date! Two Dates, In Fact!

I am pleased to say we have reserved the dates on the calendar!

     Willa and I are getting together in mid-June to spend about a week together.  It will just be the little boys and the moms.  All of the older children have other places to be.  This really will be an interesting time for us....having only five kids between us.  This visit will be our (mostly) annual (for the last five years) time of retreat.  We usually plan our next year of homeschooling together, often do a "book" or "chapter" study........and now that we blog together.....there will be some blogging time.  Yes.

       We are going to try to work hard to get a little nature study in with the boys. They usually play all.day.long.....and we just go with it. It is hard to interrupt their play for outings. We enjoy our own focused time, too. That makes it twice as hard to get out. I have some good trails that I really think Aidan is going to enjoy.

      I know I need this.  It will be such a blessing for us to have this time.





And then.........

.......In July, I will have all six of my children home....and Willa will come back to visit with as many of her kids as can come.  For another week!  There will be dancing, hiking, tea time..... lots of conversations....and no doubt, movies. The kids are really looking forward to this.  I am , too.

     

 Just thought I would share..............my joy.

Spring Blessings,

                              Chari

PS:  I just realized:  Willa will be here in only 12 days!  I have a lot to get done!  I might need a list!

(All pictures of Ryan & Bryan kids are from the past......)

Make New Friends......

..........But keep the old........

     Most of us know this round robin song.....especially if you were in Girl Scouts.


     I am coming off that high you get when you have had a delightful time visiting with someone you have not seen in ten years........and thinking over how ridiculous that we let that much time go by.  Especially when we only live one hour away from each other.  And especially when there is a godparent-godchild relationship involved. 

      Duh.  What were we thinking???  How could we have let this happen??? 



      We have spoken via the phone at least once every year or so, playing catch-up;  I have sent the Christmas newsletter to them.....so they have been in-the-know about our lives........but still, we should have made those in-real-life relationships a priority.  Don't think that I did not muse about it every time I drove through their town on the way to somewhere else......scolding myself. 

      Well, we cannot get that time back now........but, we can move forward.  I am committed to that.

       The story..........


         My fifth child, & second son, has godparents who live in the city about an hour south of us.  We used to go down there to the traditional mass every Sunday, so we saw them a lot.  But once we had another traditional mass to attend in a northern direction, we just never made it their way.  Ten years ago! 

      The last time my son saw his godparents was ten years ago.  He was only four and a half years old. Argh.  Okay, enough scolding already.

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     Well, another here is another good reason to be grateful for the positive effects of Facebook..... his godmother and I have been able to interact on an almost daily basis.  So much easier to send a quick message when the thought occurs than to pick up the phone.  At least for me.

      So, knowing that Garrett had a basketball tournament last weekend in their city........I made contact with his godmother, Anne.........and everything fell so easily into place.  Finally.  We had been trying to match windows of availablity for at least the whole month of April......there weren't any.  But, finally, we found one.  My fifteen year old had the basketball tournament and their sixteen year old, John, had a Youth Orchestra concert.....and even on the same side of town.  One right after the other.  How lucky was I???? to get to attend a orchestra concert.  I love classical music.....oh, that is probably pretty obvious.  :)


      It was just my 15 year old, Garrett and me, hanging out.  We went to his basketball game, which started late.........making us late to meet up with the godparents.  His game was fun to watch.......tied most of the second half......and 50 to 50 with only 23 seconds to go.  Tension high, of course.  The other team scored, now 52 to 50.  With only six seconds left, and the ball on the opposite side of the court from our basket, a member of our team headed down the court, and at about half-way, passed the ball.  When that player appeared to have caught the ball, and then began to fumble with it, you could feel the deflation.  The fans knew it was over.  But.....this player recovered....both physically and mentally.....and with only 1.3 seconds left in the game, remembered to attempt to shoot.  Just as the buzzer went off to end the game, his THREE POINT SHOT made it into the basket!  We won!  53 to 52!  Nice.

Garrett is the one standing, second from the left.

      We rushed over to the junior college for the concert.........we missed the first three pieces, unfortunately, but we arrived perfectly in time to see godbrother John's stunning performance with his violin solo.  Phew. Perfect timing. 


     It was such a gorgeous day!  Because we drive from our home at about 3500 feet elevation down to 495 feet to reach this city, the temperature difference is always at least ten degrees.....it was most welcome to feel a day that was close to 90*.  Our bones are still winter weary........especially after the two long cold seasons we had before this year.  The sky was a lovely blue.  I took this photo below from the parking lot just before we went into the concert.  You can barely see in the background Mount Lassen......of Lassen National Park. It is a volcano of the Pacific Rim of Fire fame, the furthest south in the US.....and last erupted in the early twentieth century.......1915...Ah, I digress...as usual....

Silly iPhones and blurry pics.
John is just to the left of the conductor's podium,
playing a nice long violin solo.

      After the concert, it was easy for Anne to find her godson in the crowd.....she recognized His Tallness from the Facebook pictures, of course.  :)  (See???  Yet another good thing about Facebook....the ability to share photos and watch each other's kids grow and follow family memories.)

     After a bit of socializing following the concert, we ran by the store......Garrett wanted to bring a gift to his godmother.......I wish we had taken a picture of those flowers, they were so beautiful! So unusual, too. I wish I could remember what they were called.......

     Upon arrival to the godparents' house, we found godfather was preparing dinner.  Godmother visited with us, as did the youngest two of the eight kids, the only ones living at home at this time.  Ten years sure grows kids up a lot!!!


      Because Anne has been reading posts here at this blog, as well as on Facebook.....she knew literature was an excellent topic of choice with us.  :)

      She asked Garrett who his favorite author was........Robert Louis Stevenson was his reply.  After a bit more literature chat........she offered him a book and led me into her room where she shared her Bedside Reading shelf.  Oh!  That I may come visit everybody's Bedside Reading shelf!  (Now there is a fantasy waiting to be fulfilled.......maybe my second visit should be to see Erin's shelf???  I wish!)


     Anne had a lovely copy of The Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson........that she gave to her godson.........who came home, so thrilled with his book gift that he showed it off to his literature-loving siblings, who, of course, properly droolled over his luck.  :)


      A fellow-bibliophile, Anne shared her favorite books from her shelves with me........she had a nice collection of books written by writers about writing.  This sample of books below, by author Julia Cameron, I found very intriguing.  I took a picture of these pretty books and sent a picture text to my English education daughter who is also a promising writer.  We are both tempted. I think I may have given one of her titles to my daughter once for a gift......she will have to track it down.

     It was also nice to see where my friend Anne hangs out when she is on the computer writing......I am a visual person and now I can see her room, her books, and her, as she plunks down on the bed with her computer after a long, busy shift of work.  I just love sharing books with friends.  (And strangers, too.  :)  )


      Later we ejnoyed a wonderful enchilada dinner prepared by Rudy, the godfather.  :)  And more conversation........as we "preached to the choir" about vaccinations, the Catholic faith and so on. It was nice to play "catch-up" about what all of our 14 kids are doing these days.  Just crazy.  They were all little guys just a few days ago.....right????

    
      Sweetly, they provided a carrot cake to celebrate my birthday that had just passed that week, but not without first singing happy birthday.  Having been sick on the couch for my birthday and in no mood for singing or cake, this was a nice touch.  Thank you, Anne and Rudy and family!


     We did not actually leave their house till ten pm.......which is okay.....but we still had an hour drive before us.  We stayed till ten because we never ran out of conversation.......which is why we should visit more frequently.......so the conversations can continue.  It is fun to chat with people who are almost completely on the same page about most things.  :)


      So........the reason I am inspired to write this post is because I want to save the memory........and because I want to challenge each of you to pick up the phone and make contact with that one godparent of your kids that you have been neglecting.  If you do not have a neglected godparent......think of a friend or relative, and make that phone call......set up a visit, if possible.  Don't let anymore time pass.  Leave a note in the comments of who that person will be for you........and then go make contact.  Come back here by the end of May and share with us how it turned out for you.

And, no....I was too distracted to remember to get any people photos.  Duh!


Friendly blessings,

                        Chari

      Oh, by the way........keep your eyes on Garrett's beautiful godsister, Anna Maich........her singing will take her somewhere.  :)

All Things Techy

Erin, in response to my complaint about Google Share's disappearance, mentioned Diigo as a reasonable alternative.  I signed up and like it, though it took me a while to figure out how to make it work.   There are more steps than there were to marking "Share" on my Google Reader, but only a couple more

 One added benefit is you can use it for any website you visit, not just blogs, so it's helping me keep track of all the places I visit and want to remember for later.    That's really nice.  I used to have to paste them in a private blog or else clutter my browser with all kinds of bookmarks that were hard to organize.   Diigo lets you add tags and use them to filter for what you are looking for.

 I put an experimental "shared item" type feature down on the bottom of our TUAR sidebar just to see how it will work.   You can direct the widget by tag.   So when I want a bookmark to show up here I just include "TUAR" as one of the tags.     This customizing option gives it a slight edge over Google Share to me, enough to make up a little for the slight loss of convenience.

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While I was trying to figure out how to manage the shared item feature with Diigo I found this post by Melissa Wiley that mentioned Feedly as an easy way to read and share posts.   So I signed up for that, too.  It turns out you can subscribe to Feedly using your Google account, so all your blog subscriptions show up there without you having to import or manually add them.

I guess some people don't like the magazine format of Feedly, but I seem to be all right with it, even though I usually get overwhelmed with visually busy things.   For example, I can hardly go on Pinterest because it's so visually overwhelming.  Feedly's interface works for me better though, and for some reason the magazine format seems suited to the blog reading experience.  I had a lot of fun browsing there, unlike the feeling of dread I've been experiencing when approaching my overstuffed Google Reader which I haven't kept up with for several months.

One more thing!  I was working on homeschool planning and started wondering if there was an easy way for people to download posts as PDF documents.  Turns out there is in fact a widget which lets you email posts as PDFs.  I put it down at the bottom of our sidebar, too.   It isn't perfect but I think it is kind of a neat idea and maybe over time the idea will be upgraded.   I can think of various ways to use it.

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What is this post about?  Nothing really!   It's just pure geekiness.   You should be glad I haven't cornered you at a party, though when I'm really at a party I have enough sense to let other people do most of the talking.  And it looks so strange to be talking about geeky social media features under our vintage header.    So much for bookshelves and rocking chairs!  But I do second Erin's rec of Diigo and I think Feedly's a win for me right now.   Thank you Erin and Melissa.   And I still do read books and sit on rocking chairs.

Since this post is so much about the internet, has anyone found a replacement for Picnik?   Aidan will especially mourn the pencil sketch editing feature which allowed him to have adventures making photos into coloring pages.   I found this Photo Pencil Sketch app but haven't tried it yet.  Next time Aidan finds an SUV he wants to color, I will give it a shot.

Anyone want to share an internet app they really find useful for homeschool and/or blogging?

Chapter Study: Ideas?

Chari and I had an idea for this blog.  Actually, we have many, but here is one I wanted to bring up now that we are in ordinary time and getting into the swing of blogging regularly.

Liking the idea of book studies, but hesitant to jump into a full book discussion since those take quite a lot of commitment, we thought of the idea of a "Chapter Study".  For this we would take a chapter of a book, either public domain or one that we thought a lot of our readers might have on their book shelves, and just post on that chapter.


This is something we've done by ourselves several times.  Once we studied the high school chapter of Laura Berquist's book Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum.   Once we studied the first couple of chapters of Charlotte Mason's book Formation of Character.

Chari has even taken the idea and with another dear friend of hers, much to my jealousy : )  studied a chapter of Francis de Sales' great book Thy Will Be Done:  Letters to People in the World.  Not to be completely left out, I reread a few chapters of this book on my own. 

It works great!  Often we end up rabbit-trailing all over the place, but having a sort of "spine" for the discussion helps us to keep it from just being simple chattering or venting.    And probably Chari, who is an extrovert, knows that for me, an introvert, it is easier to talk and remember when there's some sort of continuous topic to keep all the ideas connected.

Here is a variation also suggested by what we do on our occasional visits.

The variation is one-time book study.    In other words, instead of going through a book chapter by chapter, sometimes we look at a book together (or, often, a curriculum resource) and talk about how we like it, what we get out of it, and how we think we could adapt it to our kids.

This is probably a glorified version of what many homeschoolers do when we visit other homeschoolers -- scan through their curriculum shelves and ask how they like X or Y resource, and sometimes borrow it for a week or a year! 

Maybe we can help each other through the February blues and gain some inspiration to take us through the rest of the homeschooling year!

My question right now is:

Do you have any ideas for chapters, books, resources, that you think would be fun/rewarding to study this way?  We'd love to hear any suggestions.

If you don't have any ideas, that's all right too.  I am sure Chari and I both have a whole list of things we'd love to discuss together and having a blog to share on just makes it better : ).