Hymns
Basic Bible Studies, by Francis Schaeffer: God’s Grace, part 2 (page 23)
After the man (Adam sinned), he tried to cover himself with the works of his own hands (how?). God took this away and gave him a covering of what? So this shows that people could not come to God by their own good works, but by what? (page 24) Look up Genesis 4:3-5. How does God ask Adam and Eve (and their children) to worship him? What picture does this give us of the promised Messiah?
The Hobbit chp 8: Flies and Spiders (continue)
FRENCH: Continue Le voyage de Monsieur Perrichon
Minds on Math 8, page 76 and 77. Application problems for fractions
Science biography: Albert Einstein, chapter 4.
Write Source 2000: Last week we read about the "Planet of Bad Thinkers," a place where the inhabitants never set goals, never ask questions, ignore evidence, believe whatever they read, and so on. We tried to turn those ideas around to list ways of "Becoming a Better Thinker." Section 309 describes how your mind circles around from simple to more complex tasks while you work on a project. Section 310 shows a chart of thinking "moves" from simple (observing, gathering) through more complex (rethinking, evaluating). Choose a real or imaginary problem similar to the examples in section 308 (How can I...Should I...Is doing this activity worthwhile...I've got to convince my parents that...), and try to come up with a solution by tracing your way through the chart. OR choose a picture book or children's story from our shelf, and show how the main character tries to solve a problem by using this kind of thinking process.
Put the books down and go for a walk.
Folk songs
Canadian history, using Story of Canada: World War II
Copywork
Poems: Robert Frost, You Come Too
Showing posts with label Robert Frost. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Robert Frost. Show all posts
Monday, October 15, 2012
Monday, September 17, 2012
Frugal homeschooling: let me count the ways?
Now that we're a couple of weeks into this fall's homeschool term, and I'm pretty sure of what we're going to keep using this year (vs. things that, like bad sitcoms, disappear after one viewing), I thought I would try adding up what this year's homeschool materials cost us.
I didn't get very far with it. Besides, it would be pretty irrelevant. Most of our stuff came from the thrift shop or was already on the shelf...and out of the books from the thrift shop, I priced a lot of them myself, so I suppose I could have engineered a higher or a lower total. I could have, but I didn't--I try to put fair prices on all the books, even the ones I'm planning on buying myself. Just so you know.
And the other slightly misleading thing about saying that we're using a thrifted math book, or whatever, is that usually we didn't make the choice based on cheapness, but more because we found something secondhand that looked like it would both meet our goals and fit Dollygirl's learning style and our current homeschool situation (Mom teaching Dollygirl, and Dad usually working in the next room). I wanted to use a more "out of the box" approach to math thinking this year, and if I had had to buy something new to make that work, I would have. But I found Minds on Math already on our bookshelf, and that seems to be a good choice so far. If we hadn't had that, there were a couple of alternatives we could have tried, such as buying new workbooks for the Key To series that Dollygirl's older sister used.. But we just picked one and went with it.
With all that said, here are some of the frugal ways and means we've found helpful so far this year.
1. Craft materials: we are using up some of our own stashed yarn and fabric, and buying carefully when it seems we can't find what we want. We went looking for "fat quarters" at the mill outlet store, thought they were a bit expensive, but then discovered a huge box of bandanas priced at a dollar apiece. Did you know that bandanas are about the same size as a fat quarter? Dollygirl picked out a few that she thought would make good doll clothes, and she's already made Crissy a bandana-print blouse.
Dollygirl pulled out her old weaving frame a few days ago, along with some thick, fluffy yarn, and decided to weave her dolls a living room rug. She's almost done.
This week's planned project will be stuffed felt doughnuts. We already have felt, stuffing, and embroidery floss, so we're good there. Maybe we'll make them doll-sized (call it a math exercise in scale).
2. French: Although I did spend money last spring on the next level of the curriculum we were using, I just didn't have the interest (and neither did Dollygirl) in jumping right back into nouns and verbs. I found a school copy of Le Voyage de Monsieur Perrichon at the antiques market, I think for about a dollar, and I also made paper people to go along with the story. We read it, and sometimes I have Dollygirl narrate it or re-read a simple part with me. (I have posted about that before.) We are also singing French children's songs out of a library-discard book we've had forever.
3. Poetry: I've already posted about the two books we're using for Robert Frost, and about the Graphic Poetry books we found. Poetry is not hard to find, and it's not hard to teach, honestly: mostly we just read it. Today I read "Birches" out loud, and then I had Dollygirl pick out and re-read her favourite pair of lines, and I showed her mine. Dollygirl got a cobweb in her face yesterday when she went outside, so she could relate to that part, about wanting to swing on birches, somewhere up above the ground and not where nasty things hit you in the face. Next time we do poetry, we'll use You-tube to let Mr. Frost read it himself.
4. Literature: Dollygirl tried reading The Hobbit when she was too young for it, and I think she got stopped at about "Out of the Frying-Pan." This time around, she can't get enough, and we are going to be done with it way before the term is over. We have a junior LOTR fan in the making. So what's frugal about that? Just this: for the first time in history, probably, we are in a position where books, books, books are all around us, at the click of a button, at the dropping of a few coins at the thrift store, at the flick of a library card. And the large number of North Americans (and others) who admit that they Don't Read and have No Interest in Reading is appalling. Abraham Lincoln used to walk miles to borrow a book-when you have that much footwork invested in reading something, you make the most of it. But these days there is almost no such thing as books costing too much or not being available. Most of us, most of our kids, don't need fancy reading curricula and lesson plans; we just need to spend more time reading.
5. History, geography, science, and all that: we bought ONE brand new book in those areas, and that was The Great Motion Mission for science. And two DVDs, if you count them, about Marie Curie and Albert Einstein. The real key to what we're doing frugally here is not the books we're using, but the variety of ways in which I'm trying to use them. We read out loud, sometimes, often discussing and questioning as we go. (Why was the Kuomintang's idea to get help from the large, powerful Soviet Union probably a bad idea? Because somebody large and powerful can help you at first, but then they just want to take over. Right...) Sometimes Dollygirl reads to herself and reports. Sometimes I have her do something unexpected like re-read a point three times in a row, until it really makes sense. Or make a grapefruit globe. Or go outside and measure a tree (that was for math this morning, but it could have been from the science book). When it's just you, me, and the books, it's important to keep things stirred up a bit. And it also helps when grandpa or somebody asks, "what did you do in school today?"
I could mention other frugal things we've done, like re-using school supplies, but everybody knows that stuff already. The point here isn't what you have. It's what you do with it. It's a clean, re-organized desk space for Dollygirl, and also one for me. (To quote a Mary Engelbreit saying we have posted, everybody needs their own Spot.) It's the routine of starting school mornings with a hymn and Bible verses, but jacked up a bit with the addition of (thrifted) puzzle cards--and the additional motivation of trying to solve them along with Dad. It's the freedom we're trying to achieve this year to take a bit longer on some activities--to throw in a math game or a craft that might take a good part of the morning. (And it's okay, because we don't have other students waiting.) The schedule is there, but it's not bossing us around too much.
Frugal? Yes. But it's not about the money. It's about making sure we keep on caring about what we're doing. Cost of that: priceless.
Linked from Festival of Frugality #354.
I didn't get very far with it. Besides, it would be pretty irrelevant. Most of our stuff came from the thrift shop or was already on the shelf...and out of the books from the thrift shop, I priced a lot of them myself, so I suppose I could have engineered a higher or a lower total. I could have, but I didn't--I try to put fair prices on all the books, even the ones I'm planning on buying myself. Just so you know.
And the other slightly misleading thing about saying that we're using a thrifted math book, or whatever, is that usually we didn't make the choice based on cheapness, but more because we found something secondhand that looked like it would both meet our goals and fit Dollygirl's learning style and our current homeschool situation (Mom teaching Dollygirl, and Dad usually working in the next room). I wanted to use a more "out of the box" approach to math thinking this year, and if I had had to buy something new to make that work, I would have. But I found Minds on Math already on our bookshelf, and that seems to be a good choice so far. If we hadn't had that, there were a couple of alternatives we could have tried, such as buying new workbooks for the Key To series that Dollygirl's older sister used.. But we just picked one and went with it.
With all that said, here are some of the frugal ways and means we've found helpful so far this year.
1. Craft materials: we are using up some of our own stashed yarn and fabric, and buying carefully when it seems we can't find what we want. We went looking for "fat quarters" at the mill outlet store, thought they were a bit expensive, but then discovered a huge box of bandanas priced at a dollar apiece. Did you know that bandanas are about the same size as a fat quarter? Dollygirl picked out a few that she thought would make good doll clothes, and she's already made Crissy a bandana-print blouse.
Dollygirl pulled out her old weaving frame a few days ago, along with some thick, fluffy yarn, and decided to weave her dolls a living room rug. She's almost done.
This week's planned project will be stuffed felt doughnuts. We already have felt, stuffing, and embroidery floss, so we're good there. Maybe we'll make them doll-sized (call it a math exercise in scale).
2. French: Although I did spend money last spring on the next level of the curriculum we were using, I just didn't have the interest (and neither did Dollygirl) in jumping right back into nouns and verbs. I found a school copy of Le Voyage de Monsieur Perrichon at the antiques market, I think for about a dollar, and I also made paper people to go along with the story. We read it, and sometimes I have Dollygirl narrate it or re-read a simple part with me. (I have posted about that before.) We are also singing French children's songs out of a library-discard book we've had forever.
3. Poetry: I've already posted about the two books we're using for Robert Frost, and about the Graphic Poetry books we found. Poetry is not hard to find, and it's not hard to teach, honestly: mostly we just read it. Today I read "Birches" out loud, and then I had Dollygirl pick out and re-read her favourite pair of lines, and I showed her mine. Dollygirl got a cobweb in her face yesterday when she went outside, so she could relate to that part, about wanting to swing on birches, somewhere up above the ground and not where nasty things hit you in the face. Next time we do poetry, we'll use You-tube to let Mr. Frost read it himself.
4. Literature: Dollygirl tried reading The Hobbit when she was too young for it, and I think she got stopped at about "Out of the Frying-Pan." This time around, she can't get enough, and we are going to be done with it way before the term is over. We have a junior LOTR fan in the making. So what's frugal about that? Just this: for the first time in history, probably, we are in a position where books, books, books are all around us, at the click of a button, at the dropping of a few coins at the thrift store, at the flick of a library card. And the large number of North Americans (and others) who admit that they Don't Read and have No Interest in Reading is appalling. Abraham Lincoln used to walk miles to borrow a book-when you have that much footwork invested in reading something, you make the most of it. But these days there is almost no such thing as books costing too much or not being available. Most of us, most of our kids, don't need fancy reading curricula and lesson plans; we just need to spend more time reading.
5. History, geography, science, and all that: we bought ONE brand new book in those areas, and that was The Great Motion Mission for science. And two DVDs, if you count them, about Marie Curie and Albert Einstein. The real key to what we're doing frugally here is not the books we're using, but the variety of ways in which I'm trying to use them. We read out loud, sometimes, often discussing and questioning as we go. (Why was the Kuomintang's idea to get help from the large, powerful Soviet Union probably a bad idea? Because somebody large and powerful can help you at first, but then they just want to take over. Right...) Sometimes Dollygirl reads to herself and reports. Sometimes I have her do something unexpected like re-read a point three times in a row, until it really makes sense. Or make a grapefruit globe. Or go outside and measure a tree (that was for math this morning, but it could have been from the science book). When it's just you, me, and the books, it's important to keep things stirred up a bit. And it also helps when grandpa or somebody asks, "what did you do in school today?"
I could mention other frugal things we've done, like re-using school supplies, but everybody knows that stuff already. The point here isn't what you have. It's what you do with it. It's a clean, re-organized desk space for Dollygirl, and also one for me. (To quote a Mary Engelbreit saying we have posted, everybody needs their own Spot.) It's the routine of starting school mornings with a hymn and Bible verses, but jacked up a bit with the addition of (thrifted) puzzle cards--and the additional motivation of trying to solve them along with Dad. It's the freedom we're trying to achieve this year to take a bit longer on some activities--to throw in a math game or a craft that might take a good part of the morning. (And it's okay, because we don't have other students waiting.) The schedule is there, but it's not bossing us around too much.
Frugal? Yes. But it's not about the money. It's about making sure we keep on caring about what we're doing. Cost of that: priceless.
Linked from Festival of Frugality #354.
Friday, September 14, 2012
Dollygirl's Grade Six Homeschool week: already changed
This week we will have only four days of school, because of a public-school holiday on Friday. I also forgot that Dollygirl is going on a tour of the local airport on Thursday morning. Also I think a couple of the days were a bit overloaded, so we'll probably have to pick and choose a couple of the readings. Here's where things are at now.
Monday
Opening time: Bible verses, hymn, prayer, Mensa puzzle cards
Bible—Schaeffer, Basic Bible Studies. Finish verses on page 13, about the Holy Spirit.
Poetry: Robert Frost, America’s Poet, chapter 4, “Searching.” Read “Birches.”
The Hobbit, chapter 5
Math: Minds on Math pages 44-45. First, construct a clinometer using a photocopied protractor, straw, string, and washer. Go outside and use the clinometer to measure a tree (see instructions in the book). Come back inside and construct a scale drawing to determine the height of the tree. Answer questions 1-3 on page 46.
French: review the two songs we did last week. Le Voyage de Monsieur Perrichon, Act 1, Scene 6.
World history: Story of the World Vol. 4, chapter 25, first half. Explain about Manchukuo. How was this an early test case for the League of Nations? (See also Usborne Illustrated Atlas of World History, page 69.)
Computer time
School of the Woods, chapter 2
Copywork
Skills and crafts: probably start felt doughnuts, from Stitch by Stitch.
Free reading
Tuesday
Opening time
Bible—verses on page 14 (end of study 1). How do we recognize the Christian God? Reminder: “the Bible sets forth God as one God but in three persons.”
Geography: Read pages 13-15 in Hammond Discovering Maps, and narrate. Read Cool Geography, pages 10-14. (Keywords: gazetteer, atlas, marine chart.) Do Cool Geography Activity 3 on page 20: map questions about the United States.
Shakespeare: Cymbeline, Act 1, Scene IV. What is the bet that is made in this scene? What are the “prizes?”
Math: Read the description of geometric models on page 46 of the textbook. In your notebook, write out a definition of a geometric model (what is it? What is it used for?) Get out four cubes (building blocks) and set them up as shown. Compare your cubes with the drawings of top view, side view, front view. Answer questions 5 & 6 on page 47.
Copywork
Computer time
The Aeneid of Virgil. Read from page 31 to the end of page 32 and narrate what has happened to Andromache since Hector’s death and the fall of Troy. Read to the top of page 35, stop, and narrate the first part of Helenus’s instructions to Aeneas. (Who are Scylla and Charybdis?) Read the rest of his instructions, and the rest of pages 36 and 37.
Skills and crafts
Science: Read The Great Motion Mission, page 23-top of page 26. Narrate orally: what is going on at the art gallery? Read this out loud three times: “Visible light is radiation in the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum.” Take the blue sidebar on page 26 to your father and ask him to explain it to you.
Teatime
Free reading
Wednesday
Opening time
Bible—start study 2. What is God’s sovereignty? When we speak of His sovereignty, what two thoughts must we keep in mind? God’s work of creation: Look up the first few verses on page 15.
Poetry: Robert Frost: listen to Frost read his poem “Birches.” Read “A Young Birch.” Robert Frost, America’s Poet, chapter 5, “It’s a Funny World.”
Science: 1. Read “Light Color Optics” by John Grunder, in The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, Winter 2008, pages 72-74. 2. Play the “Light Race” board game from the Eyewitness Action Pack “Light & Illusion.”
Canadian history: Read Story of Canada, pages 230-233
Folk songs
English: Write Source 2000, “Library Skills.” 1. Read the introduction and section 290. 2. Sections 291-293 show you how a "card catalogue" works. What are some reasons that most public and school libraries now use computerized catalogues instead of actual cards? Would there be any advantages to a card system? Disadvantages? 3. Review of the Dewey Decimal System.
Thursday: Field trip morning!
Thursday afternoon:
The Hobbit: continue. Written narration chosen from several suggestions I will give you.
Computer time
French: Act 1, Scene 7.
Science biography: First, read the mini-biography of Einstein on page 27 of The Great Motion Mission. Then read chapter two in Cwiklik’s biography, and narrate.
Free reading
Next Monday:
Opening time
Bible—finish study 2.
The Aeneid of Virgil. Finish chapter 2. Study for dictation later.
Citizenship: Uncle Eric, chapter 3, “Sorting Data.” “Without good models, or paradigms, students have no way to know which facts are important and which are not.”
Math: Use the clinometer you made on Monday to measure one other object outside (p. 47, question 8). Also answer questions 9 (views of an object), 10 (matching pairs), and 12. Weekend homework: p. 49, question 16: construct an object using 8 cubes; draw the front, top, and side views of your object. Give 8 cubes and your drawings to someone else. Challenge him/her to construct an object using the drawings. Is the object the same as the object you created?
Dictation
Canadian history: Read Story of Canada, pages 234-235. Narrate.
Picture study: read about Emily Carr’s breakthrough in 1927. How did her meeting with the Group of Seven change her life as an artist? Compare Lawren Harris’s painting on page 32 (of Anne Newlands’ book) with Carr’s 1928 painting "Skidegate." Also compare "Skidegate" with her 1912 painting on page 25.
Poetry: read these poems from Florence McNeil’s Emily: “Home” (p. 36); “Discoveries II” (p. 41); “Discoveries III” (p. 44); “The Group of Seven” (p. 46).
Art Instruction: Choose something outdoors (maybe a tree?) to paint or draw in Emily Carr’s later style. Try and paint its “inside” more than its “outside.”
Free reading
Monday
Opening time: Bible verses, hymn, prayer, Mensa puzzle cards
Bible—Schaeffer, Basic Bible Studies. Finish verses on page 13, about the Holy Spirit.
Poetry: Robert Frost, America’s Poet, chapter 4, “Searching.” Read “Birches.”
The Hobbit, chapter 5
Math: Minds on Math pages 44-45. First, construct a clinometer using a photocopied protractor, straw, string, and washer. Go outside and use the clinometer to measure a tree (see instructions in the book). Come back inside and construct a scale drawing to determine the height of the tree. Answer questions 1-3 on page 46.
French: review the two songs we did last week. Le Voyage de Monsieur Perrichon, Act 1, Scene 6.
World history: Story of the World Vol. 4, chapter 25, first half. Explain about Manchukuo. How was this an early test case for the League of Nations? (See also Usborne Illustrated Atlas of World History, page 69.)
Computer time
School of the Woods, chapter 2
Copywork
Skills and crafts: probably start felt doughnuts, from Stitch by Stitch.
Free reading
Tuesday
Opening time
Bible—verses on page 14 (end of study 1). How do we recognize the Christian God? Reminder: “the Bible sets forth God as one God but in three persons.”
Geography: Read pages 13-15 in Hammond Discovering Maps, and narrate. Read Cool Geography, pages 10-14. (Keywords: gazetteer, atlas, marine chart.) Do Cool Geography Activity 3 on page 20: map questions about the United States.
Shakespeare: Cymbeline, Act 1, Scene IV. What is the bet that is made in this scene? What are the “prizes?”
Math: Read the description of geometric models on page 46 of the textbook. In your notebook, write out a definition of a geometric model (what is it? What is it used for?) Get out four cubes (building blocks) and set them up as shown. Compare your cubes with the drawings of top view, side view, front view. Answer questions 5 & 6 on page 47.
Copywork
Computer time
The Aeneid of Virgil. Read from page 31 to the end of page 32 and narrate what has happened to Andromache since Hector’s death and the fall of Troy. Read to the top of page 35, stop, and narrate the first part of Helenus’s instructions to Aeneas. (Who are Scylla and Charybdis?) Read the rest of his instructions, and the rest of pages 36 and 37.
Skills and crafts
Science: Read The Great Motion Mission, page 23-top of page 26. Narrate orally: what is going on at the art gallery? Read this out loud three times: “Visible light is radiation in the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum.” Take the blue sidebar on page 26 to your father and ask him to explain it to you.
Teatime
Free reading
Wednesday
Opening time
Bible—start study 2. What is God’s sovereignty? When we speak of His sovereignty, what two thoughts must we keep in mind? God’s work of creation: Look up the first few verses on page 15.
Poetry: Robert Frost: listen to Frost read his poem “Birches.” Read “A Young Birch.” Robert Frost, America’s Poet, chapter 5, “It’s a Funny World.”
Science: 1. Read “Light Color Optics” by John Grunder, in The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, Winter 2008, pages 72-74. 2. Play the “Light Race” board game from the Eyewitness Action Pack “Light & Illusion.”
Canadian history: Read Story of Canada, pages 230-233
Folk songs
English: Write Source 2000, “Library Skills.” 1. Read the introduction and section 290. 2. Sections 291-293 show you how a "card catalogue" works. What are some reasons that most public and school libraries now use computerized catalogues instead of actual cards? Would there be any advantages to a card system? Disadvantages? 3. Review of the Dewey Decimal System.
Thursday: Field trip morning!
Thursday afternoon:
The Hobbit: continue. Written narration chosen from several suggestions I will give you.
Computer time
French: Act 1, Scene 7.
Science biography: First, read the mini-biography of Einstein on page 27 of The Great Motion Mission. Then read chapter two in Cwiklik’s biography, and narrate.
Free reading
Next Monday:
Opening time
Bible—finish study 2.
The Aeneid of Virgil. Finish chapter 2. Study for dictation later.
Citizenship: Uncle Eric, chapter 3, “Sorting Data.” “Without good models, or paradigms, students have no way to know which facts are important and which are not.”
Math: Use the clinometer you made on Monday to measure one other object outside (p. 47, question 8). Also answer questions 9 (views of an object), 10 (matching pairs), and 12. Weekend homework: p. 49, question 16: construct an object using 8 cubes; draw the front, top, and side views of your object. Give 8 cubes and your drawings to someone else. Challenge him/her to construct an object using the drawings. Is the object the same as the object you created?
Dictation
Canadian history: Read Story of Canada, pages 234-235. Narrate.
Picture study: read about Emily Carr’s breakthrough in 1927. How did her meeting with the Group of Seven change her life as an artist? Compare Lawren Harris’s painting on page 32 (of Anne Newlands’ book) with Carr’s 1928 painting "Skidegate." Also compare "Skidegate" with her 1912 painting on page 25.
Art Instruction: Choose something outdoors (maybe a tree?) to paint or draw in Emily Carr’s later style. Try and paint its “inside” more than its “outside.”
Free reading
Wednesday, September 05, 2012
Homeschool things to do for Thursday
Today's schedule seems kind of long, but we'll see how it goes.
Morning:
Opening: prayer, hymn, Mensa puzzle cards. Robert Frost: America's Poet, chapters 1 & 2 (they're short). "Going for Water," by Robert Frost.
Bible: Basic Bible Studies, continue Study 1. (Verses showing that there is more than one person of the Trinity.) Sing "The Lord Our God is One" from Judy Rogers' Why Can't I See God?
Citizenship: Uncle Eric Talks about Personal, Career, and Financial Security, chapters 1 & 2 (they're short).
School year discussions: Introduce The People Notebook Project. This is an alternative I came up with to a formal Book of the Centuries or timeline, for this year. Historical, literary, and other people and/or characters each have a page with a few key questions, such as "best known for," "hardest times," and "beliefs about God." There is also room for pictures--hand-drawn or pasted in. The choice of which people to include is going to be up to Dollygirl, but I will give her a minimum for the term.
Math: see schedule.
Copywork: choose an Albert Einstein quotation.
History: we finished the chapter in Story of the World Volume 4, about the rise of Stalin. This is of personal interest to us since the famine in Russia in the early 1920's led to the creation of the Mennonite Central Committee, and the conditions there also brought many Russian Mennonite immigrants to Canada--some of whom we know.
Lunchtime activities: helped drill a hole in the wall for one of Mr. Fixit's new clocks. Helped make lemon poppyseed muffins, mini-size, for our hobbit teatime (a tribute to the hobbit's "seed cakes").
Afternoon:
Albert Einstein biography--read chapter 1 and narrate.
Crafts and skills: sewing a peasant blouse for a doll. (Note: it's an old Tripod site with pop-ups, so be warned.)
(French: lesson 2--I think we'll leave this until tomorrow.)
English: begin first unit (see previous post about English).
Teatime: "An Unexpected Party." Dwarves are invited (come in your cloaks).
Morning:
Opening: prayer, hymn, Mensa puzzle cards. Robert Frost: America's Poet, chapters 1 & 2 (they're short). "Going for Water," by Robert Frost.
Bible: Basic Bible Studies, continue Study 1. (Verses showing that there is more than one person of the Trinity.) Sing "The Lord Our God is One" from Judy Rogers' Why Can't I See God?
Citizenship: Uncle Eric Talks about Personal, Career, and Financial Security, chapters 1 & 2 (they're short).
School year discussions: Introduce The People Notebook Project. This is an alternative I came up with to a formal Book of the Centuries or timeline, for this year. Historical, literary, and other people and/or characters each have a page with a few key questions, such as "best known for," "hardest times," and "beliefs about God." There is also room for pictures--hand-drawn or pasted in. The choice of which people to include is going to be up to Dollygirl, but I will give her a minimum for the term.
Math: see schedule.
Copywork: choose an Albert Einstein quotation.
History: we finished the chapter in Story of the World Volume 4, about the rise of Stalin. This is of personal interest to us since the famine in Russia in the early 1920's led to the creation of the Mennonite Central Committee, and the conditions there also brought many Russian Mennonite immigrants to Canada--some of whom we know.
Lunchtime activities: helped drill a hole in the wall for one of Mr. Fixit's new clocks. Helped make lemon poppyseed muffins, mini-size, for our hobbit teatime (a tribute to the hobbit's "seed cakes").
Afternoon:
Albert Einstein biography--read chapter 1 and narrate.
Crafts and skills: sewing a peasant blouse for a doll. (Note: it's an old Tripod site with pop-ups, so be warned.)
(French: lesson 2--I think we'll leave this until tomorrow.)
English: begin first unit (see previous post about English).
Teatime: "An Unexpected Party." Dwarves are invited (come in your cloaks).
Sunday, September 02, 2012
Homeschool things to do for Tuesday: Robert Frost's poetry
In the that-was-easy department: We will be reading the 51 poems in Robert Frost's You Come Too: Favorite Poems for Young Readers.
(Warning: there are extremely rude comments below this video.)
We own the 80-page junior biography Robert Frost: America's Poet, by Doris Faber. What do you do with a junior biography, a sixth grader, and a homeschool curriculum based mostly around just reading the poems?
Taking a leaf from the Ordo Amoris tree, I think the best way to include things like this is to put them in a "Morning Time." A gathering where maybe you don't always have to stick to the regular books. Even if you are homeschooling just one, you can make a habit of getting together for some reading, maybe singing or memory work, close to the start of school or at another time that works well--maybe even at tea-time, if you have a regular time for that. We have gotten out of tea-time in recent years, but what I remember was that by that time of the day, the Squirrelings were often impatient if I tried to thrust yet another book on them. Individual poems, yes, but not whole chapters--they were ready to go and play. So I guess it depends.
So Faber's book can go into some kind of a "Morning Time" reading basket.
What else can you do with poems beside read them, memorize them, copy them out, sometimes sing them? Ruth Beechick has lots of ideas: experimenting with word choice, changing verse into prose, and so on. We also have a copy of Rose, where did you get that red? Teaching Great Poetry to Children, by Kenneth Koch, which has some good writing suggestions based on poems by Wallace Stevens, John Donne, African tribal poems, and more.
You can illustrate them. We recently acquired several volumes in Scholastic's Graphic Poetry series, in which each book takes one or two poems by one author, and sets them up in what's basically picture book format--but for older readers, not little ones. I think this would be a fun project in combination with the simpler book-binding and booklet-making ideas in Erin Zamrzla's At Home with Handmade Books. Is that art, literature, handicrafts, or what? Does it matter? We'll work it in to an afternoon time.
(Warning: there are extremely rude comments below this video.)
We own the 80-page junior biography Robert Frost: America's Poet, by Doris Faber. What do you do with a junior biography, a sixth grader, and a homeschool curriculum based mostly around just reading the poems?
Taking a leaf from the Ordo Amoris tree, I think the best way to include things like this is to put them in a "Morning Time." A gathering where maybe you don't always have to stick to the regular books. Even if you are homeschooling just one, you can make a habit of getting together for some reading, maybe singing or memory work, close to the start of school or at another time that works well--maybe even at tea-time, if you have a regular time for that. We have gotten out of tea-time in recent years, but what I remember was that by that time of the day, the Squirrelings were often impatient if I tried to thrust yet another book on them. Individual poems, yes, but not whole chapters--they were ready to go and play. So I guess it depends.
So Faber's book can go into some kind of a "Morning Time" reading basket.
What else can you do with poems beside read them, memorize them, copy them out, sometimes sing them? Ruth Beechick has lots of ideas: experimenting with word choice, changing verse into prose, and so on. We also have a copy of Rose, where did you get that red? Teaching Great Poetry to Children, by Kenneth Koch, which has some good writing suggestions based on poems by Wallace Stevens, John Donne, African tribal poems, and more.
You can illustrate them. We recently acquired several volumes in Scholastic's Graphic Poetry series, in which each book takes one or two poems by one author, and sets them up in what's basically picture book format--but for older readers, not little ones. I think this would be a fun project in combination with the simpler book-binding and booklet-making ideas in Erin Zamrzla's At Home with Handmade Books. Is that art, literature, handicrafts, or what? Does it matter? We'll work it in to an afternoon time.
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