Arabian Nights, Week 2

Maybe I missed something but I thought the Arabian Night block from Earthschooling was going to last us a month and it only lasted a week. Darn it! I love the format of the stories in our 3rd grade curriculum. Maybe we were supposed to focus on one story per week, which is entirely possible but either way, I know what works for Minerva (this is our new ‘internet name’) and doing a new story each day fits our style much better.

Last week we finished 3 stories, so we had one left from our Earthschooling book. I told the story of The Fisherman and then we drew the vase the genie came out of for her MLB. I crayon the picture while she watches and then she does her picture, editing as she sees fit. Generally she will change a few colors or move things around in order to exercise her creative license, which is fine by me. I’m amazed at how much nicer her drawings are this year than last, when we really started learning how to use our crayons for MLB drawings.

Open Sesame!

Today she outdid me for the first time ever. Her drawing is beautiful. They generally are but today hers was much better than mine. She is learning to go slowly, to take her time and look at what she is creating while she’s still in process. I see an amazing unfolding of this child as she grows and is formed by this beautiful approach to education.

 

Arabian Nights, Week 1

Our Arabian Nights scene

This was our first week of school and I was very excited about the fun things we would get to do. First off, following the Earthschooling 3rd grade guide, we are studying The 1,001 Arabian Nights. We do our Arabian Nights block after lunch each school day. We spend quite a bit of time in the mornings on math, and we finish our deep work after language arts with social studies, in this case the story of Sheherezade and Shahriar and Dinarzade.

Martina is enthralled with these stories and I make them fun and somewhat easy for her, focusing on the story and the art, more than writing or researching harems or ancient India.

I preread once or twice then tell her the story as we cuddle up on the sun porch sofa. She is completely in line with Shahriar–no way anything is happening to Sheherizade before the next story!

Thus far, we’ve done days 1-4 and I am including a few of our MLB pics below. I tell the story, then we go to the table and I draw the picture from the story while Martina watches. It is then her turn to put the crayon drawing into her MLB. Now, I have to say that we do have some BRAND NEW Lyra Ferby pencils, so you will probably also notice a pencil drawing or two. I’m not dogmatic. If she wants to use her pencils that’s fine. I am more comfortable with the forgiving nature of crayons.

The Genie and the dust storm

These stories are the perfect close to our main lesson work for each day. Above is her drawing from the story The Merchant and the Genie. The Genie comes out of a dust storm with a scimtar, which is what we were illustrating. Notice the date pits in the lower left corner? These are key to the story.

The Old Man and the Hind

The next story with the evil wife casting spells on the slave and her son, turning them into cattle.

The Man with the Two Black Dogs

The last one for now and my favorite for this week.

I love including our MLB drawings because I think it’s important to know that not all MLBs look like they were illustrated by a professional artist. This is our first year using a focused attempt at using almost entirely Waldorf materials and academic work. These are just a few examples of what our social studies look like this week.

Best wishes.

 

Language Arts This Week

The last word in that rhyme is ‘potatoes’.

Our phonogram for this week is -oe. I tried to use more than one phonogram but none of the others were helpful in coming up with a rhyme so I just went with the one. This week we are also working on the capitalization of first names and surnames. Martina’s copy work will come from the story Rip Van Winkle which she is reading independently as her Difficult Reading Assignment for this week. She reads the story in small chunks and I understand that it isn’t enthralling because it is difficult going for her at her reading level but it stretches her reading muscles and that’s the plan.

We are also enjoying the fable of Peter and the Wolf this week.

Today I told her the story of the boy who cried wolf. We then got out our crayons–she has commandeered the Lyras so I have to use the Stockmars–and she followed along as I crayoned a picture of Peter and the Wolf. The picture is her crayon drawing. Tomorrow I will retell the story and then she can write about it for her MLB. Peter’s name will be Peter Shepherd in order to practice capitalization of first and last names

Resources for this week: Barbara Dewey’s ‘Science as Phenomena’; The Writing Road to Reading‘s phonogram cards; and The Natural Speller, which I use for finding words with our weekly phonograms for use in my rhymes.

 

The Best Mother’s Day Gift of All…

To: Mommy    (I LOVE YOU!)

from: Martina

note: Happy Mother’s Day! This pic is of the hopeful futsher.

The crayon drawing is my daughter’s wish for time spent with Mommy: she on her pony and I on my horse, each of us wearing our red woolen cloaks, riding down a tree lined path.

This is the sweetest, most purely beautiful gift.

(Educator’s note: When I looked at the drawing I was pleased to see that she didn’t outline everything, that she made a golden glow over the background before she drew and that she colored in clouds and what lines there are were applied after she had made the shapes. So her crayoning lessons are sinking in, too.)

 

Bible Unit, Joseph interprets Pharoah’s dreams

Old Testament MLB

For our unit on the Old Testament I read stories from our children’s bible. Martina never wants me to stop reading because she loves the stories. When we get to Thursday, I ask for the story she wants to draw and write about in her MLB.

She chooses her story and I read it from a NrIV so that she can hear the full text of that story.

We get out the block crayons and I draw first and she copies what I’ve drawn into her book. Then she free writes her own retelling. We have tried various layouts for her handwriting. She is not yet confident enough to write on one line and so I’ve done the blue, green and brown lines for the sky, grass and earth. While that is a pretty way of doing things, I often don’t have time to line enough paper for her lengthy tomes. Yesterday I gave her some 2nd grade writing paper and it worked beautifully. The lines are the proper size for her handwriting, there are 3 lines for writing on: sky; grass; earth, and so that’s what we’ll use. She did a full page, front and back. We taped it into the MLB so that it’s hinged on the side and can be read and reread.