Lesson Planning

By admin, on January 4th, 2010%

Ahhh, the school bell is ringing this morning.  Yes, it is.  The past two weeks have been full of fun and relaxation, and plenty of food and family and friends, but it’s time to put our thinking caps on once again.  I don’t know about you, but mine feels a little loose this morning.  Uh…

As one of my brooches says, I believe that we’ll get back into our school groove.

The brooch pins are coming along nicely.  We are working, working, and Michaela has found her own little niche, but more about that later.  I’ll let her post when she’s ready.  In the meantime, I am working on something special for my Etsy shop for Valentine’s Day.  When the Etsy shop is ready, I’ll be sure and post a link here.

For lessons today, the following is on tap:

  • Ambleside Reading — will all be independent today, as I have to work
  • Practice harmonica
  • Math – Saxon next lesson
  • Work on further training Annie
  • Grammar will be copywork from Snowflake Bentley
  • Review Snowflake Bentley as we have a co-op built around that book this week
  • Science - Bug review sheet from a previous field trip
  • Nature Study – More copywork – write the definition of metamorphosis and then glue pictures of butterfly life cycle onto cardstock for notebook – label.  (The pictures are lovely pictures from our garden from this past summer.  I think Charlotte Mason would approve.)
  • Work on craft project
  • Practice sketching
  • Review Raphael prints for Ambleside art

I do hope you have a wonderful Monday.  Mondays are work days for me, and they are sort of hard for me — a real transition after being off with my family on Sundays.  But it is okay.  It really is.  I try my best every morning to smile out at the world and focus on everything that’s lovely and pure and of good report.  I believe God gives us grace when we really want to have a right spirit for His sake.

12 comments   My Crafty Self, Snowflake Bentley, Working and Homeschooling   , ,  

Narration Through Drawing

By admin, on September 9th, 2009%

One of Michaela’s narration assignments today was this:  Choose any one of the fairies we have talked about from The Fairy-Land of Science and draw me a picture of what you think she looks like.

This is the completed assignment and I absolutely love it.  I asked her which fairy this is, but I shouldn’t have had to ask. The shield on her chest is a snowflake. (Of course, six sides!) Her cheeks are rosy because it’s so cold.  Her wand is tipped with ice and represents the power that she has in nature.  That’s a snowball on her crown and the smaller snowballs have upsidedown icicles on them.  I think she was paying attention to the story.  :)   Did you notice that fairy Crystallization is able to wear flip-flops in the snow?

One of her assignments for tomorrow (her boxes are all full and ready to go) is to look at this picture and tell me how it makes her feel, and she can do this by writing or by drawing at her easel.  I’m anxious to see what she chooses.  I’ll let you know.

I’m liking that the paintings from our artist study for this term are in the noteook in covers. At this point I am introducing one at a time with an assignment.

Lynn

5 comments   Daily Thoughts   , ,  

Ambleside Online – Written Narration

By Lynn, on September 5th, 2009%

We’ve completed our second week of school, our second week of using Ambleside Online, and all is well.

Michaela’s first written narration attempt was so cute, folded up like a little love letter and slipped into my “in box” on the Narration Station. I want longer entires with more details, but no way will I be too critical on this first attempt!  She did it with willingness and seems to be enjoying this particular book very much.  I believe as we go along, the written narrations will improve and we’ll find more and more ways to incorporate written narration.

I have already found two ways of incorporating narration: one will be her art appreciation notebook and another will be her timeline.

As we cover people and events in our reading, I am providing images to Michaela. (One more reason to love old, tattered history books from the thrift store.) Each image is glued onto a note card where she can write down information, dates, copywork, or narration and then the whole card can be trimmed of excess and glued onto the time line. The timeline is a series of 8-1/2 x 11 art pages taped together. This will easily come down at the end of the year where it can be folded accordian style and glued into her end-of-year notebook.

The thought of written narration has mae me really excited about all we can put on the timeline. Why can’t narration and even copywork be glued onto the timeline for us to see regularly?  :)

One of the facets of Ambleside Online that I have not written much about is the artist study. Each term of every year one artist is studied. There is a group online that has links to PDF images (so kindly put up by one of the members — thank you) for personal school use. I copied the files to a CD and had them printed onto beautiful 8-1/2 x 11 glossy photo paper for around 1 dollar each.

Michaela now has an art notebook in which these will be kept in clear protectors. Michaela put them into the protectors and then the notebook yesterday, in the order she wanted, and we talked about the name of each painting.

Her art appreciation notebook will be another way to implement narration and copywork. The only way she will truly remember about Raphael and these paintings is to read about them, talk about them and look at them. I will assign narration and copywork related to this art throughout the term and she can put it into her notebook to refer back to.

We have done an art wall in the past, but I think including copywork and narration in a notebook will help Michaela learn the artist even better.

I feel like we are really getting into a nice routine here, but we need to step up the reading. I’ve been very relaxed this first two weeks, allowing us two weeks to do one week’s worth of reading. (The assigments are plenteous!)

To complicate our already busy schedule, Michaela, as she put it, “messed up her peace sign” this week.

Yes, her left index finger fell victim to a backyard stunt that went terribly wrong and we spent an evening in the ER, didn’t get to bed until after midnight, and slept late the next morning. 

In a nutshell, she tried to jump through a seat-swing hanging from a swingset (running, by the way), got her finger tangled in the rope which twisted her, by her finger, so hard that it threw her to the ground, abraded all the skin off the underside of her finger and made her finger turn blue and become as big as her brother’s finger.  I think she thought that last part was cool, if it weren’t for the pain.  We’ve been icing and buddy-taping and waiting to see the orthopedist to make sure there’s no hairline fracture around a growth plate.

Hopefully we’ll be even more on track with reading next week. Real construction began on the potting shed today, so I’ll be putting up pictures soon. We have science experiements to talk about, and more! Until then…

Happy Saturday!

8 comments   Charlotte Mason   ,  

Ambleside Preparation Continues

By admin, on August 17th, 2009%

Preparation continues for the uncoming school year; however, our first official school day is still not set.  Ambleside’s Online Yahoo! group is such a rich resource, I want to follow along with them for the school year, and Term I begins in September.  That does not mean I can’t start a few days early, but for studies such as art, Plutarch, hymns, folksongs, etc., it’s nice to work as a group for information sharing purposes.

Meanwhile, the Year 5 books keep rolling in.

A few of these I had on hand already, like the “Little House” series which qualifies as free reading, but many I have been ordering at the best prices I can find on line.

One book in particular I had to think about was Bulfinch’s Age of Fable: whether or not to get this illustrated version, The Illustrated Age of Fable.  The inside cover says this:

Since it was first published in 1855, Thomas Bulfinch’s masterly collection of the myths and legends of Greece and Rome has proved so popular that even today it makes essential reading for any newcomer to mythology.

Now for the first time, Bulfinch’s stores are published with the full-color honors they deserve. For this special edition, his ninetheenth-century literary references have been replaced by paintings — 100 of the most stunning and dramatic masterpieces ever inspired by myth. The array of artists includes Michelangelo, Botticelli, Titian, Poussin, Rubens, and Burne-Jones.

Some of the paintings are disturbing in the sense that they interrupt our comfortable existence and show us pictures of tragedy, suffering, revenge and conquest. Some pictures, such as An Allegory with Venus and Cupid, I wondered about. There’s nudity, as is not uncommon in art from the time period. There’s also seduction, envy, father time and more. I must admit it’s a good lesson even for me to have a visual of how tricked one can be in the face of beauty and temptation. But is Michaela old enough for this painting?  Is anyone old enough for this painting? :) I won’t put it here because I don’t really want it on my blog in case some of my readers think it’s better done without.

Some of the paintings inspire me!

At any rate, I purchased the illustrated copy.  I am a very visual person and I think Michaela is the same way. The art books we already have, she will sit and look at them for hours, carrying them with her from room to room.

I like that Ambleside is broken into Terms and that the group follows some subjects together.  I noticed that in Term III we’ll be studying Monet and some specific paintings of his.  (You can see the Art Schedule on this page.)

Over the weekend, Michaela and I drove over to Barnes and Noble. I was so excited to find a book of 14 large framable Monet prints, at least two of which are included in our Term III Ambleside art study.

I love that we’ll have a large version of Women in the Garden.  This book was only $9.98 and they let me apply my teacher discount.  They have new teacher discount cards, by the way, that can also be used online!

Reading in Charlotte Mason’s original series continues with the CM Series group.  The feedback from reading with a group will be of great help I think. 

I am still getting the hang of it.  The group sent a notice that reading was in volume 6, pages 112-119, but then they sent an updated notice that reading continues in Volume I.  It was, however, good for me to read what was assigned in Volume 6!  I am finding that Charlotte Mason did not care for unit study where connections were made for the child ad nauseam.  I must admit that there have been times when we’ve been on rabbit trails before and my children had stopped running long before I had.  They were ready for a new idea.  I’ll need to be careful of this!  This is not to say that I don’t like Unit Study. I love that Ambleside offers room for free reading and biography, and we’ll be using Beyond Five In A Row for some of  this.  What I am saying is that I need to make the distinction between doing something because I’m enjoying it and doing something because it is benefitting Michaela.

Following along with the group reading is a good way to read the original CM series and not be overwhelmed.  It was easy to join the group (if you’re using Ambleside, or plan to), then print the assigned pages, and read and discuss via e-mail throughout the week.

It’s Monday, a work day, so I must run.  Happy planning!

Lynn

10 comments   Charlotte Mason   , , , , ,