Prayers and circle time (When the Frost is on the Punkin', and the Johnny Appleseed song, plus our old ones).
Read the story of John Chapman - Johnny Appleseed.
Painting - free painting, with 3 colors each.
PE - this was completely child driven. I have a great video of it, which I'll try to upload. Basically my (assigned) job is to be the coach, tell them when to run, when to "time out" and stretch, and when to start running again. They do not need or want breaks.
More painting.
Tuesday, week 5 ~
Prayer and circle time. Bluejay and Chickadee have the first verse of our fall poem pretty much down. Bluejay pretty much lead circle time today.
Read the story of Jonah, and the story of Christ walking on the water, from our Children's Reader Bible. Talked about the Wind and the Waves in the Water, and the Whale, and Walking, from these two stories of great storms, as well as Noah's Ark, and the Fisherman and his wife.
Kindergartener drew a picture of Waves in the shape of a W, and wrote W's in his workbook. He then asked for homework. So for homework he can practice writing Wave, Wind, Water.
Bluejay drew a rainbow, Chickadee drew lots of pictures. Sparrow ate crackers and peanut butter and cheese and apples. Clean up. Closing prayer. Outside time.
Wednesday, week 5 ~
Prayer and circle time.
Packed up all of the summer items from our school table, shells, pictures, driftwood, carved beach-houses.
Got out the autumn box and re-decorated our table with an autumn cloth, picture, little walnut shell mice and gnome, our beeswax apples, some colored corn cobs.
Read the story of Samson. FINALLY. Bluejay has been asking to read it for weeks. Warmed gold beeswax while we read the story, then made leaves and a sheaf of wheat for our table.
Had a snack of apples and talked about what the animals do in the autumn. We've been reading Little House in the Big Woods, the first chapter of which is about stocking the attic with all the food for winter. Just like the Ingalls, the animals find food and store it, or else eat it and store it in their bodies as fat. Got out Singing Through the Seasons and sang "Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, we must all get fat and furry".
Outside play and fort building.
Thursday, week 5 ~
Prayer and circle time (including our new fall song Hurry hurry).
Talked about the number 5 - how it represents a human being. 5 fingers on each hand, 5 toes on each foot, when you stand with your arms and legs out, it makes a five pointed shape, including your head, and 5 senses (sight, smell, taste, hearing and touch). In our workbook, drew and colored in an outline of our hand with all 5 fingers, and wrote the number 5.
Read the story of Mousekin's Golden House.
Closing prayer.
Homeschool group music class.
Weekend ~
Woodworking for Bluejay with Aaron, clamping, gluing and nailing.
Monday, week 6 ~
Prayers and circle time, including Hurry Hurry and a few others from singing with the seasons. Bluejay has the James Riley poem memorized.
Story of The Wild Swans, from Grimms. Read the first half.
Nature walk, saw a huge spider web with gnats in it. Talked about how the spider wove it, attached it to the tree and ground, eating the bugs, etc. Collected fall leaves for crafts.
Tuesday, week 6 ~
Prayers and circle time.
Read the rest of The Wild Swans. Drew a picture of a swan with a crown, in the shape of an S. Wrote the letter S.
Outside play.
Wednesday, week 6 ~
Prayer and circle time. Bluejay frustrated with this today. He wanted to do a certain song about leaves, but I could not figure out which it was. He finally was happy with Hurry Hurry.
Made chocolate pudding from scratch. Stirred constantly and watched for bubbling and boiling and thickening. Prepped our ingredients and pudding dishes. Dished it all out for dessert and some in little containers for Daddy's lunch.
Helped with recycling, sorting through old magazines and taking them out.
Thursday, week 6 ~
Prayer and circle time.
Go over the story again of the Wild Swans.
Gather our artwork from the last few weeks. Select pieces to mail to far away family. Kindergartener wrote notes on all of his in his best handwriting. Addressed, stamped and mailed our envelopes.
Homeschool group music class, Sixth Hour prayers and picnic and play with the other kids.
Monday, week 7 ~
Prayer and circle time. Then I spontaneously decided not to make this a "formal" school day. No one was grumpy or difficult, it just seemed like a good day to be with each other and play. Bluejay found the Junior Classics books on the shelves and started looking at the drawings, and we ended up reading a tale of magic from Honduras. But mostly they just played and I sat in the room with them and kept them company. In the afternoon, Grandpa came over, and then the story telling/reading, including The Lost Half Hour (one of the great fairy tales), and the understanding of the metaphysical nature of a book, and the questions (oh the questions) really took off. So to be fair, it was probably an even more successful school day than usual. Grandpa and Bluejay even read and discussed a little Beowulf.
Tuesday, week 7 ~
Prayer and circle time. Bluejay led Sparrow in circle time while I took Chickadee to her room to think about why everyone didn't want her to be there for a while.
Discussed the story of the Wild Swans. Talked about how Elise made her swan brothers coats of mail out of stinging nettles. Drew a picture of Elise picking the nettles in the church yard. Nettles in the shape of an N.
Closing prayer.
Played Sorry. Got a marvelous package of art supplies from Aunt Hilaree and spent some time drawing and sculpting.
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| Opening our package. We were also hoping for rain, thus the rain gear. We did get a tiny bit. But not enough for stomping in puddles :-( |
Wednesday, week 7 ~
Prayer and circle time.
For the preschooler's activity, with which we all participated, we took all of the containers and bins and bags and boxes of small treasures, jewelry, hairclips, etc. from her room and organized them. We put hair clips, bands and the like in a little tin. We put all her treasures (pretty rocks, shells, marbles) into a little 3 drawer jewelry box she got from her aunt, her necklaces and bracelets in another drawer, and her little crafts (painted wooden things, etc.) in the third. In one small bin we put her pretty cards, her crowns and scepters/wands from her princess costumes, and her Rainbow Dash My Little Pony. She was very satisfied with this, but I was even more satisfied, because we got rid of two bags and a box. Phew. All my children will collect and collect treasures if they have containers to put them in. I've found the trick is to try to limit the containers.
For kindergarten, we discussed the number 6. Lots of things in nature have 6 - like the shape of the pieces in a beehive, the number of legs on an insect, many flowers have six anthers. We drew a six pointed star with two triangles (the Star of David) and colored other things from nature.
My mom came over in the afternoon and they watched little instructional French videos with her. Then later we visited friends who live on a farm, and saw sheep, lamas, emus, cows, goats, chickens, ducks and geese. We got to feed the goats and the poultry. Much fun was had by all.
Thursday, week 7 ~
Prayer and circle time.
Preschool/Kindergarten. workbooks. We haven't used these a ton, as I'm not a huge fan of workbooks (as in the kinds you can pick up at Target), but I do have a few on hand and they were a big hit this particular day. The kids just kept going and going and wanting to do more.
Homeschool group music class and sixth hour, followed by our weekly picnic and playtime with the other homeschoolers. This is a big hit, especially for Bluejay, who just thrives on some rough and tumble play with the bigger boys. There is one boy, I think he's about 10 or 11, who is just fantastic because he likes to coordinate games, wrestling matches or "ninja training" for the littler guys. Bluejay goes full force into all of this, and I usually don't stop him, although I do think he needs to learn how to throw a "pretend" punch... I have a feeling he'll get there through direct experience better than if I over-coach him.
You have Sing Through the Seasons! We enjoyed that book and LP for decades, singing in the car and at bedtime especially, and my daughters who could play the piano helped with the songs that were not on the LP, because I don't read music. Just last year I got a copy for the next generation. It was a great treasure for us....
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip about the Lost Half-Hour. I printed off a copy that I found here: http://www.tonightsbedtimestory.com/wp-content/uploads/ebooks/The_Lost_Half-Hour.pdf and will read it tonight. I didn't know it before and our house is somewhat short on fairy tales.