On Monday, we continued the story of Katie's quest for knowledge as she learned about the letter M through the Grimm's fairy tale, Simeli Mountain. We also learned the form drawing for this week. After Grant found the letter M in my drawing, he practiced drawing the form and the letter M on his chalkboard. Then we drew a picture of mountains and he wrote the letter M in his lesson book. When we were outside enjoying some play time before lunch, I drew the form on the driveway in chalk and Grant and Johanna enjoyed walking it forward and back. Grandpa Russ even helped Julia get in on the action.
On Tuesday, we reviewed the story of Simeli Mountain, came up with a short summary and I wrote it in his lesson book. Then we looked at some geographical maps of the different continents and found that all of them have mountains. We talked about the fact that we don't have mountains around us, but we have hills (which are a lot like mountains, according to Grant). Then Grant reviewed the letter M by tracing with his finger in flour. We also made bread today, and as the kids were kneading and shaping the dough, Grant made this week's form using the dough. When we went outside I collected a handful of sticks and then asked Grant to make the letter M and this week's form out of them.
On Wednesday, we checked back in with Katie and her family as they set up camp near a valley so she could continue with her lessons. Today we learned the letter V as I told the Grimm's tale The Vagabonds. Grant easily found the V in my drawing, and then he practiced writing it on his chalkboard before writing it in his lesson book. Julia is certainly making school interesting as she is always trying to get up on the benches at the table and be part of what is going on. She is not very happy when she doesn't get her way!
Once we were outside, the kids collected buckets of broken hickory nuts as we talked about how the squirrels cracked them all open. (Wouldn't you know that we were able to relate it back to our story for the day as the first line of the story was, "The cock said to the hen, "It is nutting time; let us go together into the mountains and have a good feast for once, before the squirrels come and carry all away.") We also admired the myriad of mushrooms all around our house including one that was as shiny and smooth as bronze when the sun was shining on it. In the afternoon we did some wet-on-wet watercolor painting. Grant and I used red, blue and yellow paint to make a blue sky, with purple mountains, and a green valley down at the bottom. Johanna used red and just had fun exploring the color.
On Thursday, we reviewed the sounds that M and V make while tossing bean bags as part of our circle time. I tossed him a bean bag while saying either M or V, and then Grant tossed it back to me while saying a word that started with the letter. He tried to make up some words, but I told him they had to be real words! Grant re-told me the story of The Vagabonds and we wrote a summary of it in his lesson book. After that, he copied some "V" words I had written on the chalkboard into his book. Then we continued our geography lesson by looking a Map of Missouri. No Mountains, but plenty of rivers, forests and roads. We found where we lived, where his Grandmas and Grandpas live, and where his friend in Illinois lives. After we looked at the map, Grant drew his own "Indiana Jones" map and we all went outside to follow the map to the treasure.
On Friday, we had our first day of homeschool co-op. Julia is in the nursery, Johanna is in the preschool class, and Grant is in a class that teaches about the rainforest and another one called community helpers. I asked Grant what the special guest talked about in that class, and he said, "Ah, she was talking about health. All the stuff that you guys know about. I was thinking my Mom and Dad already know all this stuff." They do pay attention sometime!
Sounds like a fun week of school - keep up the good work Grant! G-Ma Webb
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