Less Traveled By ~ Homeschool Edition

Homeschooling Highlights - End of January

The last few weeks have zoomed by; and I am a bit behind on our updates, so I'll briefly recap the end of January.

The weather has been great and we have visited the zoo three times since I last wrote!  We've gone at different times of the day on each trip, and we've been able to see animals in action that we often don't see up and about when we go earlier in the day.  The lions were up and about on one trip and we got to see the black bear sipping water from his small pond and eating a small bird on the most recent trip.

We began a series of picture studies by the artist Johannes (Jan) Vermeer.  The first piece we studied this was The Milkmaid which I am able to picture below as it is in the public domain: 

We used the prints from the Ambleside Online related Yahoo Group, and then found the work online at a site where we could look at some parts of it more closely.  We also found the answer to "what is that box on the floor?" 

We've also studied The Geographer, pictured below.

DG completed two more units in Creation to Christ and continues to work diligently through her Math and English assignments. We were also fortunate to make another trip to the symphony and our local paint on plater place.  Fun times!

I will close with pictures of some of her recent work:

Science journal sketches:

The Parthenon:

Alexander the Great's Horse- Bucephalus

Poetry Painting-

 

Fun at the Art Museum

Last week we went to one of our local art museums with friends. We had a great time and I snapped a few pictures in the children's section and outdoor gardens.  JB's favorite part in the children's section is a huge screen where she can dance around to the music playing and watch the screen change.  And I have just as much fun watching her!

It was beautiful outside!

First Grade Weekly Report-Week 2

We had another good week this week!  We are continuing with the basics mentioned in our last report and adding in some other new things.  We'll keep adding a bit here and there throughout the summer until we're settled into somewhat of a routine for the rest of the year. 

This week we added in natural history (James Herriot's Treasury for Children) and literature (Aesop and fairy tale) readings from Ambleside Online Year 1.  JB completed her first two "official" (as in required) narrations* of two of Aesop's fables.  She did a wonderful job!  I will most likely transcribe some of her narrations this year, and I'll post some when I do.  She tends to narrate naturally when she really enjoys a story (anything NARNIA!  :-)  ) at various times, but I want to focus on the readings for lessons in history, literature and nature study/science, and make it a habit to narrate from all of these areas by the end of the year.   

We also began reading and listening to fairy tales by Hans Christian Anderson.  We listened to Thumbelina in the car and JB liked it so much she sat down later that day and wrote a complete story all by herself called "The Girl and the Bird".  Later in the week, we read The Little Mermaid (different in many ways from the Disney version) and she has now started on another story inspired by that called "The Mysterious Mermaid".   

We added in our first "Tea Time" of the year.  The picture above shows two new tea cups that I received for Mother's Day this year, sitting out and ready to go!  :-)  Quite awhile ago, we were in the habit of having tea time on a regular basis at least several times a week; but we got away from it in the hustle and bustle of moving and settling in afterward.  This year, I'm planning for us to have at least one tea time a week (hopefully two) and to incorporate our artist and composer study then.  We'll also take turns reading scripture and poetry to each other.  Here is a picture of some of our resources for this first block of study:

We will be learning about Mary Cassat and Mozart and using the Free and Treadwell readers (from Yesterdays Classics) for JB's poetry reading (and other reading throughout the week).  I'm selecting poems to read from The New Oxford Book of Children's Verse.   JB enjoyed reading the works by Mother Goose in the First Reader so much, that she read two to her Dad when he got home and flipped through the whole book to find them all after tea time.   It is a treat to hear words like "doth", "master", "sire" and such coming from her.  We've read Mother Goose quite a bit over the years, but not this particular version.

JB also composed a couple of poems this week that she would like to share:

Friends
by JB

Friends are fun
They're fun to see
Be joyful when together

and

Pets
by JB

Pets are fun,
        and funny too.
They make you smile,
        and laugh too.
Take good care of pets.

Until next time......

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*I'm working on a  short informational post about "narration" as defined by Charlotte Mason.  I hope to post it soon.

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If you like to read Weekly Reports from others, be sure to visit Trivium Academy, the home of the Weekly Report. 

Art Study

Charlotte Mason advocated picking an artist and having children study at least six pieces of his or her work in detail.  While we have not yet done that fully, I did want to share this calendar that we are enjoying:

It is a page a day calendar from the National Gallery of Art and it has enabled us to look at and talk about the new piece for the day.  (We found ours locally at a Books A Million store.) JB has begun to talk about lights/darks and colors that she likes on her own, as well as her favorite parts of some of the prints.  We have also talked about seasons/weather from picture clues and things like all the types of colors that might be found in a sky.  There will be many more things that we'll discover as the year continues, I'm sure!  We keep our discussions very simple and short right now, and they are great fun.  She enjoys seeing the new print for each day!

One of the neatest things about this calendar is that instead of it being a page a day that is ripped from the calendar, it is actually set up where all the pages are loose and you simply lift the current date and put it at the back of the calendar which held together in an acrylic easel/stand.  The paper quality is better than that of the rip off a page a day calendar also.  Half way through the year, you flip the pages over......so each loose page has a print on front and back.   If the whole print is not represented on the calendar page, there is also a tiny thumbnail near the top right corner so one may get a sense of how the enlarged scene fits in the bigger piece. 

After the year is over, I'm sure this calendar will still get much good use!  It will be perfect to use in notebooking, on timelines or in a book of centuries, to make notecards/greeting cards out of, and so on!