Shakespeare in Art
Later this year, we’ll be reading Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare
The Genial Hearth
I’ve just put the kettle on, join me for a cuppa and a chat.Archive for Art
Educating Puggle 2009
Technically, this would have been his Kindergarten year.
Although I lost it in terms of blogging what we did, we did keep doing a lot. (The things I talk about below probably aren’t everything I could mention… they’re just the things that were a standout one way or another.)
Things that worked
Story of the World
Puggle loved this! I had heard good things about the audio version, so we got it in addition to the text, and I’m very glad we did! At random other times of the week Puggle has asked to listen to it, and grabbed the book and followed along (more and more accurately as his reading has improved:-) ) We haven’t done all the associated activities. This is our first time through, and he’s quite young yet (certainly not writing in any reliable way), so I’ve mostly just set him some colouring in. But he talks about what he’s heard, and he goes searching for food (like the nomads) or brings up new facts when related things are being discussed (and I really haven’t done a great job about noting those occasions—I can’t think of any now:-( )
Right Start Maths
This hasn’t precisely ‘filled his day with joy’, but he has worked happily with it, and has learnt a lot. It does work for him, but I am still developing strategies (and working on the timing) to allow me to work with him without the other two needing me:-) Bilby is better when she has her own tally sticks and abacus, but Cygnet is starting to require attention at this sort of time. Bilby likes to sing along with the songs as well:-)
Song School Latin
This has been a blast:-) Both Puggle and Bilby sing the songs, and Puggle has enjoyed working through the book. I really like the songs (well, with one exception:-) The Silly Sally one sets me on edge, but that’s not bad:-) ), and I love the range of sounds they’ve used:-) The activities have been nicely pitched (we’ve done a fair bit orally, especially at the start of the year, and used lines to join things rather than writing words out… but it’s worked well). He has been able to be somewhat independent with this. First day of a new chapter I’ve worked with him, but the rest of the week he’s managed on his own.
BlackBelt Recorder
I had not planned on getting anything for recorder. I can play a bit, and we have a couple of beginning recorder books. But we weren’t actually settling down to do it. A friend mentioned this, and I noticed it when I was at Wooldridges, and it’s only $10 (for the student book), so I picked it up. It has been great! I think a big part is the accompanying CD. I have the current tracks in our daily playlist, which means he hears them, and because they have ‘big’ instrumentation, it was actually still fun even when he was only playing 2 notes:-) Now that he’s playing actual songs (nursery rhymes), it’s a blast:-)
Workboxes
This is one of those posts I have meant to do for about the last 6 months, and haven’t got to. I would still like to put it in, with all the links I collected when reading about it, but I doubt I’ll finish the post I’d intended.
Earlier this year (about May), I came across some references to Workboxes, a daily organisation system that swept portions of the homeschooling community by storm. I read a number of blogs on the topic, and thought it looked quite workable, then read a friend’s copy of the book and decided to go for it. Unusually for me, i didn’t leap in all guns blazing, instead I used stuff we had, and printed off copies of other people’s ’setting up’ sheets. I waited until the start of the next block, rather than beginning in the middle of one. And we gave it a go.
And it worked for me. So then, for the next block, I invested the effort to set it up ‘properly’, to make things look ‘right’.
Essentially, you have a given number of receptacles for each child (Puggle has 10, because we had inherited 2 sets of 5 drawers, and they seem to be of a suitable size, Bilby has 5, and i structure hers rather differently). In each draw, you put all the things that are required for one activity. Pretty much, Puggle starts every day with the same four boxes. Copywork (activity card, a pencil, timer, copywork sheets), Latin (activity card, pencil, Song School Latin book, any extras required for the day’s activity), Maths (activity card, pencil, workbook [sometimes], abacus, blocks/cards/tallysticks), Recorder (activty card, his recorder, my recorder, Black Belt Recorder book, pencil and sheet if there’s an activity I’d like him to do). The rest of the boxes are filled with other tasks for the day. This usually includes some independent reading, some read alouds (often beeswax to accompany them), it often includes a meal to cook, art or craft to do. Each day of the week has a focus for the afternoon, so those activities are in here.
I think it works so well for us, because it forces me to get all the little bits organised ahead of time (think about what food he might be able to cook for example, and then print out the recipe), and think about which of those activities need to be done at particular times, and which he might be able to do independently. All that means that he can get on with stuff himself.
Doing it strictly, the child is supposed to work through in order, and complete everything. I haven’t been particularly fussy about that this year, although in 2010 I expect that will probably change.
As I said, I haven’t done Bilby’s the same. I no longer number hers at all (mostly because Cygnet kept stealing the numbers, and Bilby ran off with the velcro that stuck them!) and I pretty much load them for the week. I’m not so happy with how hers worked, but when I stopped putting anything in them, she complained:-)
Activity Cards
The one thing I did take the time to do when trialling Workboxes initially, was to make up activity cards. I printed a pile of titles and images (clipart type) onto coloured paper (4 to a page), cut them out and laminated them. This means that I can write the relevant activity on them, and then wipe it out and write a new one. This has been really useful with the work boxes, but I would anticipate being able to use them just with books as well (like bookmarks).
French
Another post that hasn’t happened:-(
For a couple of years, another friend and I have talked about finding a native speaker to play with all our kids, in French. This year, she finally found someone! Unfortunately, scheduling difficulties meant that we gave up after two meetings. But when we decided to stop, we also decided that we would still get together (at a more suitable time, thus enforcing weekly French use). We pick a topic together, and brainstorm a list of related words (we started with Food, we’re currently doing a combination of (farm) Animals and Christmas, and we’ll go on to Wild Animals shortly after we return). We’re then taking it in turns to lead… we all sing to start, we do a bit of ‘conversation’ (asking everyone in the circle their name and how they are… the babies don’t generally answer:-) ), introduce the new words, move to the table for an activity, sing a song to end. We try to speak as much French as we can while doing the activity. We’re finding our school based vocabulary is not quite sufficient! We’re having to look up ‘glue’ and ’sticky tape’ and ‘popsticks’:-)
We’ve been really amazed at the way the kids have not only picked up the words and can answer them when asked, but at the way they are choosing to use the words in their everyday lives—any fruit we have introduced is now pretty much only referred to by it’s French name (in our home). One of the reasons we think this has worked so well is because the kids of the two families enjoy playing with the words with each other:-)
We’ve only been doing this about six weeks (I think?), so we’re definitely still in the establishing phase, but so far, it’s an absolute delight:-) Part of that is the fact that we’re getting in a playdate (the kids play when we arrive while we get organised, we do French, then they play more) with friends… but part of it is how the kids are responding—and the joy of doing something we’ve been meaning to do for ages:-)
As a support to this, we acquired a copy of Little Pim. It’s designed as a language immersion tool. The little films are short, about 5 minutes, and there’s 7 in each set (well, I have to confirm that… we’re on the second, but the total thing seems to say it’s 30 minutes long… something in that maths doesn’t quite work). Each little film introduces a few words on each topic. The first is Food:-) They’re designed for 2-5 year olds. Bilby is bang in the target group. She loves them—and uses the words (there’s some overlap with the words we had been doing, but there are some which have only been introduced via Little Pim, and she’s using those regularly:-) ). Cygnet doesn’t do anything with the words, but he loves to watch. I am looking forward to hearing him starting to speak and seeing which of the words he starts using:-) Puggle still enjoys it, but where the others will watch it as often as I show it (and would like it more, as far as Bilby is concerned), he likes to watch it, but really he’s not so interested in repeated viewings (although, he has yet to complain about it being on!) He was the first to start using the words from the DVD.
One thing I’ve found really interesting is the way the kids control the language use at home. Most of the time, they don’t mind particularly what language we use (I try at times to use French through the week—when I feel I have the vocabulary:-) ). I’ve been surprised though, by the times that they (Bilby in particular) will call “Maman” instead of “Mama”. If I don’t pay attention and answer with “Yes”, she gets rather put out, and reminds me that she spoke in French. The same happens in the reverse (where I answer “Mama” with “Oui”), but less often:-) They will talk to each other and choose to use the French pronunciation of their names to signify that they are speaking French (their vocabulary is still fairly limited). And Puggle in particular has started playing with his animals in ‘French’. He moves them around and has them talk in nonsense syllables, but they are not ‘English’:-) (We have been reading picture books in French all year, so they do have a sense of the sound of the language, and they are reasonably accurate at identifying when non-English speakers are using French—although, they tend to default to non-English=French when in doubt).
All of this to say that French is finally happening in our house:-) And it’s fun, and the kids are using it in real ways:-)
Copywork
I’m taking this very slowly. Puggle’s fine motor control is what you’d expect of a 5 1/2 year old boy, and as such, I’m not anticipating rushing into lots of independent writing. We’re still working our way through the phonemes (it’s doing double duty at the moment, being the way we’re teaching sounds), and he’s tracing.
I made the decision (after some more reading, and talking with Puggle) to switch to cursive rather than print. I’m not going to bother with print, on the assumption that he will pick up printing as he goes, and if we’re going to invest the effort into learning to write, it might as well be cursive. One phoneme, a couple of times a day (two times generally, unless he makes a big error) seems to be working nicely. Because we started with print, that does tend to be how he writes when he’s working independently, but we’ve only been doing cursive for the last couple of months, and we’re still working through the basic letters.
Cooking
He’s been doing a lot of cooking this year:-) Most weeks (when we’re workboxing) he’ll cook dinner at least once, and he’ll usually help with another dinner as well. He’s also well and truly able to get breakfast and lunch for himself and Bilby (except for cutting the bread… he can do that, but the slices aren’t very uniform—and the remaining loaf is also somewhat hacked… so I prefer to do it until he’s larger). He is developing a recipe book, which contains meals he can cook independently. I still tend to chop the onions (hard and spherical makes me a bit nervous), but he’s moved this year to being able to light the (gas) stove, and cook on it. He has put things in the oven, but not lit it (it can be idiosyncratic) or taken anything out (they tend to be too heavy for him to manage with the added challenge of heat). His chopping is becoming more uniform, and his stamina to complete recipes is improving. The workboxes has been the reason I’ve been happy to have him do this. Because I set it up the night before, he can begin sufficiently in advance of the time we need to eat—he tends to need to start about two hours beforehand!
This will require a little tweaking in the new year. Since we moved French, it’s now on the day on which he tended to cook, and so he hasn’t done so much in that time. But that’s just logistics on my part:-)
Reading
He’s moved from strength to strength:-) Although he had reached ‘reading’, last year, he still required a reasonable amount of support, and on his own, he tended to look at books rather than read them.
Over this year, he has reached the point where he can’t help but read:-) We have a pile (30 or 40?) of early readers (about a dozen pages, with 4 lines per page, and lots of pictures) which will occupy him for some hours. He’s now able to read chapter books on his own, although, he tends to still see them as a bit too big to attack. Somewhere along the way I realised that he is able to read in his head. I asked him about it, where he’d learnt it, and he told me he’d watched Dada reading:-) It does mean I have to actually get him to read to me occasionally, to check he’s reading correctly (he still does the ‘guess based on the first letter of the word’ thing at times). But he is at a stage where he can read independently, and generally understand what he’s reading—and that’s a great thing:-) I didn’t assign him any reading this year, aside from as reading practice, but next year, I expect to be able to give him something to read, that we can then follow up. We’ve continued to read aloud to him though, and I expect this to continue. (I’ve also really enjoyed watching him read aloud to both Bilby and Cygnet:-) )
Swimming
Sadly, Puggle got too old for his previous swimming school, so we had to move. We’re now at StateSwim. While I wouldn’t say we love it (it’s certainly not as much fun, and not as personal as his original), he does enjoy it, and is progressing nicely. He started at the end of term one in Torpedoes, and is now a Dolphin. We do expect a longish stay in Dolphin, because the purpose of this level is to develop freestyle breathing. He is relishing this challenge, however!
Things that didn’t work
Blogging plans
When I managed to get my plans typed up (in Wordpress) by the end of Break Week, I was able to blog them. What I found though, was that if I managed to type them up in the running sheet for the week, and get the workbox planner sorted, I tended not to get to blogging. In actual fact, I could largely copy and paste, but I do like to include links to the texts, and that’s the bit that tends to take the time.
Probably a start would be to improve the layout of the information I include. If I can just copy and paste, rather than switching the order of things between my planning documents and on the blog, that would help, then I could just have the links (which don’t change all the time) in one place and add them in. We’ll have to see how that goes. I’d like to keep blogging my plans… but it’s probably not one of my top priorities, because I do have that information elsewhere.
Blogging progress
This on the other hand, is something I do want to do. It fell by the wayside about the same time as blogging plans, but mostly I think, because I hadn’t mentally switched to ‘it doesn’t matter about the plans’, so it became one more thing in a large pile, rather than a separate thing that needed blogging. I don’t require myself to be very detailed, but I really do want to make a few notes each week about what we did, what we didn’t get to, and what developments occurred. I think I can probably manage that (I did in 2008!), but I need to slot it into my week properly.
Mat Time
The arrival of workboxes pretty much signalled the end of Mat Time as a regular thing. My idea of Mat Time was that it was things that were common to both Puggle and Bilby, with just a bit extra for each of them. Most of Puggle’s extra things ended up happening in his boxes and in the early part of Quiet Time. But the common things, and Bilby’s extra’s rather stopped. This is mostly about setting the rhythm for the day… and it obviously needs some work. I’m not quite sure how I’m going to fix this yet… but it’s a fairly high priority.
Singing
This disappeared a bit with the end of Mat Time. And a couple of the folksongs that I didn’t know. I need to find another solution for the French nursery rhymes… they’ve been a bit hit and miss. Hopefully though, that will sort out as we go through in French.
Composer Study
My failure to source the tracks and add them to the daily playlist is to blame for this… I think it’s been the same problem as I’ve had before. I guess the answer is to make sure I source the pieces earlier in the year.
Nature Walks
We’ve done better at Nature Study, as Puggle likes to be outside and look around him, but Nature Walks continue to elude us. As seems to be a common theme with the things that haven’t worked, it’s all due to my scheduling—or lack thereof.
Art
With the exception of Watercolours (which have been a revelation! We use the dry pans, and Puggle can do all the set up required for he and Bilby, basically getting water, and the clean up. That means they can paint whenever they want to, pretty much!) art has been a bit hit and miss. I keep intending them to do activities from the Art Ideas book, but haven’t yet managed to arrange things in a workable fashion. I did get a large tray from IKEA just before the end of the year, and I’m hoping to set work out on it. Art is probably a good candidate for that.
Memorisation/Recitation
This hasn’t worked in any formal sense. I stopped putting the poems on the TV cabinet, and we stopped repeating them at different times. Earlier in the year, when Puggle was listening to the iPod during Quiet Time, and I had managed to find some of his pieces on Librivox, he was actually doing pretty well. I think this is should be solvable… It’s merely habits I have to reacquire—and I can now add a copy of the poem in one of his boxes. I do need to begin working with him on the Recitation aspect… he will happily let fly with something he’s memorised, but rarely at a pace (or volume!) that allows others to enjoy it!
Generally a good year—and the advantage of writing it all out like this, I can see the common themes:-)
Five and Standing and Mixing Colours!
So yesterday, I sent Bilby to go and get three nappies to put in the nappy bag before we headed out. She came back to put them in, but told me she could only find two. I asked to see them and there were actually two! I quizzed her on a couple of other numbers, and she knows her numbers up to five… and most of her shapes (although, she hasn’t picked up ‘quadrilateral’ from Puggle’s maths:-) That got him a few raised eyebrows the other night at dinner:-) ). She has also apparently got most of her colours sorted—all except for black and brown, which Puggle still confuses…
Cygnet has decided in the last day or so that he’s ready to try standing! He’ll randomly let go of things, and although at first he sat pretty much immediately, now he’s letting go and grabbing hold again:-) Then he gets a look of such delight:-) Of course, it usually earns applause from his siblings, which requires even more grins:-)
Puggle has been colouring in and painting. He’s getting much better at staying between the lines. Today, he decided to use the watercolours to paint his History pictures, so I had a delightfully rendered Spartan Warrior—with carefully mixed purple (’that’s the colour they get from snail shells’), after he collected the colour wheel to help him with his proportions (they are quite fond of the purples, so they’ve used up all that was on the tray:-) )
Planning for 2009
General stuff:-)
This probably seems like a fairly full on year, for what is essentially Puggle’s pre-school year (most of this is for Puggle, although I do have some plans for Bilby included). My plan though, is that we’ll start with this, and it will take as long as it takes. We’ll stick with the three term year, each being made up of three blocks of 4 weeks on, one week break (plus the Christmas block/term).
Language (Including Memorisation and Copywork)
For Puggle, I’m planning a second run through The Writing Road to Reading
We’ll be reading Complete Nonsense Poems
We’ll continue with the Latin nursery rhymes, but this year we are going to begin Song School Latin
Over the year, we’ll be reading from The Gods and Goddesses of Olympus
Bilby isn’t at quite the same stage as Puggle was two years ago (she’s effectively 6 months younger), so I don’t think she’s ready for everything I did with him:-) We’ll still do the Nursery Rhymes
She’ll join us in the Latin and French nursery rhymes, but this year, we’re going to try reading a number of (generally familiar) picturebooks in French:-) La Chenille Qui Fait Des Trous
Maths
We’ve finally made the decision to go with RightStart. It’s a very hands on programme, which should appeal to Puggle (basically I think the manipulatives approach is a good idea for the early stages of maths).
English Studies (including Narration)
We’ll continue the Aesop’s Fables for Children
Obviously, we’ll be including other read-alouds as they occur to us, but they will include The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Health and Phys. Ed
We’re continuing with Waterbabies (swimming) this year:-) Or at least we’ll continue with Puggle for now. His class will probably collapse soon (they only take them until they are five), so then we’ll be looking at other swimming classes.
History and Geography
I’m looking forward to this a lot:-) We’re going to begin The Story of the World: Ancient Times
We’ll also be reading Geography from A to Z: A Picture Glossary 
Science
Unless Puggle has particular things that he wants to immerse himself in, I think we’ll be doing most of our science through the garden:-) I do hope to do Nature Walks more regularly (well, once the weather settles down a little), and I think this would be a good year to start recording the weather, but otherwise we’ll try and do a lot of planting and feeding and watering and seeing what happens. I’ve ordered The Tiny Seed
Art and Music
I’m going to try and be more regular about having family music nights:-) This year we’ll begin recorder (Bilby as well—because I don’t like my chances of doing it with Puggle and leaving her out:-) ). Our composers this year are Johann Sebastian Bach, Franz Liszt and Gustav Mahler/Anton Bruckner. And of course, we’ll sing:-)
I think I’ll probably repeat my art plans from last year… we didn’t really do much of them, mostly because I ended up putting the stuff away:-( I’m working on keeping art materials in a more accessible way. Our artists this year are Sandro Botticelli, Caspar David Fredrich and Vincent Van Gogh.
Technology and Enterprise
Cooking. By the end of the year, I’d like Puggle to feel confident about preparing one dinner:-) When he’s (quite) a bit more independent in his reading, I thought I might start letting him choose recipes to try:-)
“Cuddle Time”
When I chose Julie Vivas as our Picturebook Artist for this year, I requested a number of her books (that we didn’t have) from the library. Cuddle Time
I have to say, I’m delighted by it (enough that I’m thinking about getting it for one of the kids for Christmas!) Very simply, it’s the story of two children getting up in the morning. It makes use of a little repetition, and some gentle rhymes (in fact, gentle is probably a good description of it as a whole). The greatest joy for me thoguh, is that Julie Vivas’ beautiful illustrations show the two children as being very similar in size to my big kids:-) So it depicts waking up as being very like our house (on a good morning:-) )
“Half the Magic Dragon!”
That’s what Puggle was singing as we got into the car… I thought he’d misheard the song, but no, it turns out he’d drawn (on the magnadoodle, so I don’t have the image:-( ) ‘half the magic dragon’… the body and tail:-)
Now he’s all enthusiastic about drawing dragons and is poring (pawing?) over all our dragon books:-)
Art Prints
I finally got sick of the black and white printouts of the artworks we’re using. (Of course, this term is Rembrandt, who tends towards the rather dark—I rather suspect far too dark to show up well in black and white!)
So down I trotted to Officeworks with digital copies of the artworks and they printed them for me. The guy took one look at them and decided they were too dark, so he adjusted them, and printed them again, just a touch lighter. Then gave me both copies:-)
It really changes the appearance of the TV cabinet. And Puggle seems to be paying far more attention to the artwork:-)
This Week
Week 4, Block 1, Boronia Term
Language
Introduce phonograms ’s’, ‘qu’ (sandpaper letters and sand tray)
decem urnae (Ten [green] Bottles)
Gratias (Thank you)
Tête, épaules, genoux et pieds (Heads, shoulders, knees and toes)
Écoute!! (Listen)
English Studies
‘The Wonderful Tune‘ from The Lilac Fairy Book Andrew Lang
‘The Naughty Boy’ from The Complete Illustrated Stories Hans Christian Anderson
Narration: ‘The Kid and the Wolf‘, ‘The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse‘, ‘The Fox and the Grapes‘ (’The Boy and the Filberts‘, ‘Hercules and the Wagoner‘ ) from The Aesop for Children Ill. Milo Winter (He’s really a bit too young for Narration, so I’m mostly going to be keeping an ear out for re-tellings, or incorporation in play)
Recitation: Puppy and I A. A. Milne from When We Were Very Young
Art and Music
Folksong: The Drinking Gourd
Composer: Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Work: Scheherazade (I’d planned for us to move on to another piece, but I haven’t sourced it, and we haven’t really listened to this exhaustively… so we’ll continue)
Artist: Leonardo da Vinci
Work: The Virgin of the Rocks
Music: Loud/Soft (The Kodály Method 1 Lois Choksy) Clap Your Hands
Art: Watercolour
Wet Paper Effects (Art Ideas Fiona Watts)
Progress
Week 2, Block 1, Boronia Term
All in all, pretty good. Much reading and singing (not usually on the mat, but on the couch because Bilby has been awake). Having the books is so much better! He’s also done some watercolours, and much drawing. The latter wasn’t planned particularly, but he saw Drawing with Children
I’m pretty pleased that we do the ‘formal’ part easily in 15 minutes, three days a week. He doesn’t always use the other activities I have set out for him (although, he’s been getting to at least one of them), but the idea is that they are there when he feels the pull.
Drawing
I’ve been following Sarah’s artistic journey at Handmade Homeschool (well, I was following it when she was Poppins… but she’s at HH now), so when I was at the library, I thought I’d look around the art/photography section for some ‘inspiring’ books (or at least attempt to browse… a Puggle is still only partially conducive to that!)
Puggle was reasonably obliging—and joined me in browsing:-) He had to bring home this book so he could learn to draw:-) This morning, he decided he was going to begin. He got out pencils and paper, opened the book to the first page—some information about drawing eyes. The first demonstration was a circle for a face with two dots for eyes, and a mouth. So that’s what he drew!
This is his first ever attempt at a person:-) (There are eyes, but they’re dots, and in light green so they’re a little hard to see.) Pretty good I thought:-) He was quite keen to post it to someone, but instead, turned over and drew more people:-)
This Week
Week 2, Block 1, Boronia Term
Language
Introduce phonograms ‘d’, ‘f’ (sandpaper letters and sand tray)
o mea Maria (Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary)
Amabo te (Please)
Frère Jacques
Viens! (Come)
English Studies
‘A Lost Paradise‘ from The Lilac Fairy Book Andrew Lang
‘Great Claus and Little Claus’ from The Complete Illustrated Stories Hans Christian Anderson
Narration: ‘The Frogs and the Ox‘, ‘The Dog, the Cock and the Fox‘, ‘Belling the Cat‘ from The Aesop for Children Ill. Milo Winter (He’s really a bit too young for Narration, so I’m mostly going to be keeping an ear out for re-tellings, or incorporation in play)
Recitation: Buckingham Palace A. A. Milne from When We Were Very Young
Art and Music
Folksong: The Drinking Gourd
Composer: Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Work: Scheherazade
Artist: Leonardo da Vinci
Work: Ginevra de’ Benci
Music: Loud/Soft (The Kodály Method 1 Lois Choksy) Hop Old Squirrel
Art: Watercolour
Painting a Wash (Art Ideas Fiona Watts)
This Week
(I’ll update the sidebars very soon!)
Language
Introduce phonograms ‘a’, ‘c’ (sandpaper letters and sand tray)
o mea Maria (Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary)
Amabo te (Please)
Frère Jacques
Viens! (Come)
English Studies
‘The Fairy Nurse‘ from The Lilac Fairy Book Andrew Lang
‘The Tinder-Box’ from The Complete Illustrated Stories Hans Christian Anderson
Narration: ‘The Wolf and the Kid‘, ‘The Tortoise and the Ducks‘ ‘The Young Crab and His Mother‘ from The Aesop for Children Ill. Milo Winter (at this stage I’m not going to focus particularly on narration:-) )
Recitation: Corner of the Street A. A. Milne from When We Were Very Young
Art and Music
Folksong: The Drinking Gourd
Composer: Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Work: Scheherazade
Artist: Leonardo da Vinci
Work: Ginevra de’ Benci
Music: Loud/Soft (The Kodály Method 1) Bye, Baby Bunting
Art: Watercolour
Brushwork and Watercolour paints(Art Ideas)
Planning for 2008
General stuff:-)
As I was happy with the structure of our year in 2007, we’ll stick with the same thing in 2008. I have made a decision about the term names. This year we’ll have Boronia, Dorothea and Edith terms. They’re two great-grandmothers and one great-great-grandmother, covering three of the four branches of our family tree. We’ll start the week beginning January 13th. I have plans for a Cornucopia (as I believe they do in Germany at the start of the school year) containing coloured pencils, some new glue and scissors, more sticky tape, counters, and any other bits of stationery type things I think of to include.
Language (Including Memorisation and Copywork)
I have definite plans in this area, but I’m hoping to be able to keep a grip on myself! I’m planning to begin using Writing Road to Reading
Otherwise, we’ll continue with Latin Nursery Rhymes (I have enough for two per Block!) and I’m going to add in some everyday Latin phrases (look, careful, listen, sit up etc.). We’ll start doing the same for French, so a nursery rhyme per fortnight, and everyday French phrases (I still need to sort out which comptines we’ll use).
For Memorisation, we’ll be using When We Were Very Young
We’ll begin Copywork properly this year. I’ll re-introduce the sandpaper letters when we do that phonogram, and I’ll also provide a Sand Tray for practice (still need to finish that). I also need to complete our ‘Metal’ Insets, which he can practice with. For these, he’ll use the ‘Lyra’ coloured pencils which are thick, triangular ones. Hopefully this will assist Puggle’s proper writing grip.
Maths
I’m basically intending a fairly Montessori style approach. I have a number of started Sensorial materials, (Pink Tower, Broad Stair, Square of Pythagoras), some completed (Red Rods, Geometric Solids—a Christmas gift, but still, ready to use), and plans to make some others Geometric Cabinet, Constructive Triangles, Binomial Cube, Trinomial Cube and Geometric Cards. I am similarly in progress with Maths materials, some complete (Number Rods, Sandpaper Numbers, Number Tablets and Number Cards), some almost complete (Spindle Box), and plans to make some of the rest.
My plan is to prepare the materials, present them as he seems ready, but just leave him to work with them as he sees fit. Obviously well also be talking about numbers as a normal part of our day (cooking, measuring and various number related books we read).
I also figured that my resolution to play more games can’t but help with maths:-)
English Studies
We’ll be reading all year from The Aesop for Children
We’ll also be reading a selection of stories over the year from The Lilac Fairy Book
Health and Phys. Ed
We’re continuing with our weekly swimming lessons. I thought I might try introducing some yoga (through cards that he can do himself, once I’ve shown them to him). We’re working on making the ‘back’yard more contained, and we’re digging a hole for the trampoline. When he’s out there he rarely stops moving:-) I would also like to work (again!) on establishing regular Nature Walks.
(At his age I’m not seriously planning things here… But in the future I’ll need to consider this Learning Area, so I’m noting it now.)
History and Geography
We’re basically going to stick with geography for now. Puggle is really aware of maps, so we’ll make use of the Picture Atlas we have, and he got a pretty good world map puzzle for Christmas. I have plans to make a few more, plus some land and water forms (more of those Montessori materials!) We also plan to acquire a globe.
Science
I intend (once again!) to work on including a weekly Nature walk. I’m not going to worry too much about it until the weather gets more pleasant (so, not until at least March), as I figure it’s one thing to maintain a habit when the weather drops off… but it’s much harder to establish it. We will do some more gardening. We’ll also begin observing the weather.
Aside from these, I’ve been working on various ‘Parts of Animal’ cards, and I’ll finish those, and I have plans for some of the Botany Cabinet stuff.
Art and Music
After my library find earlier this year, I was really excited to discover a copy of The Usborne Complete Book of Art Ideas
We’ll continue following the Ambleside Online Artist study schedule, so that means this year will be Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt van Rijn and Jan van Eyck.
When I was at my last school, I was good friends with the music teacher. She was a real Kodály afficienado. She lent me The Kodály Method I: Comprehensive Music Education
We’re also following the Ambleside Composer study schedule, so Boronia Term we’ll listen to Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Aelexander Borodin and Modest Mussorgsky. Dorothea Term will be George Frederic Handel, and Edith Term we’ll listen to works by Camille Saint-Saens and Hector Berlioz.
Technology and Enterprise
(This is probably my least consisdered area… bizarre given that it’s what I taught! I guess there are a couple of reasons for that. I just don’t think as an eary it’s as important as some of the others, but equally, I’m fairly confident of my ability to wing it for a while… no need to plan at all at this stage. I do have an idea of developing a woodwork curriculum for junior primary homeschooled kids… when we reach that stage, so a little way ahead of me for now:-) )
He got a toolbox for Christmas… so we’ll start some woodwork:-) And of course, more cooking:-)
(I could never be an unschooler! But maybe I should re-read my The Latin-Centered Curriculum
In the next week before we start, I have quite a bit of sorting still to do:-( Arranging equipment/books so that they’re accessible and making sure that we have all the bits (music, still need Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances, and the French comptines are proving challenging:-( ) we need. I also have a long list of materials I plan to make (or finish) in the first half of this year… I’m going to be quite busy:-)
Blogging Advent—Monday 10th
We read Wombat Divine
If you’re thinking there seems to be a lot of reading going on, you’re right… Puggle was sick at the weekend (and I’ve been feeling stretched this week), so I’ve done some rearrangement of the schedule so that we didn’t cook.
He’s continued to make cards though, and today we also did some more watercolours. This time it was red and blue—I had an ulterior motive… We have a funeral to go to, and I wanted to make sympathy cards for my cousins. We’ve now cut up his art to put on the front of the cards. They turned out wonderfully.
Lanterns
Today is Martinmas. There’s a tradition of making lanterns and going for a lantern walk. Well, thanks to daylight saving (:-() we won’t be going for a lantern walk… Puggle would never last until dark! But I thought we could make lanterns for the table (and then put them in the window after dinner). We also had wine (there’s a surprise:-) ) and nuts with dinner.
The lanterns were quite simple to make. I found empty glass jars with the lables removed. Then we took plain printer paper and cut it to the appropriate height (basically each page did two jars). Puggle and I used crayons to colour in every part of one side of the paper (colouring in heavily produced the best results).
We lay the paper, crayon side up, on some newspaper. Pour on a swish of oil and spread it over the whole page, then wipe up the excess. The paper will go translucent (and the faint crayon will disappear a bit:-( ). Attach your paper around the outside of the jars. I was a little worried that the oil would make the sticky-tape ineffective, but it doesn’t seem to be a problem—in fact, the oil makes the paper sort of stick to the jar.
I’m quite pleased with how these have turned out, possibly they would have been better with pencil, but I figured the crayon would give better coverage (Puggle ended up only doing most of one, because he had “run out of energy” by that stage). It’s definitely more effective to press firmly with the crayon!
