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.

 

Where the Red Fern Grows

If you could have seen us last night, Mommy, Daddy and little girl all cuddled up in our big ole bed, sniveling like idiots. You see, we finished Where the Red Fern Grows last night. Maybe Martina is too young to have heard it just yet but there was no stopping once we were almost at the end. Mark would read until he couldn’t any more and then hand the book to me. Then I’d do the same. We switched off repeatedly, until we got to the end which I read in a reedy, choke-throated whisper.

I love this book.

 

One, Playdate

Leah with her One Art

Sadie with her One collage

David with his Uni Boat

Martina, still working along on her One Art

For six Fridays, beginning yesterday, a few friends are sharing their adorable little people with me for a couple of hours. These kids are all so tiny and so cute and even though none of them know me well, they know me well enough to seem comfortable. They talk a lot, if that’s any indication

We started out by bundling up and walking over to the barn. Martina led the goats out and all the little people followed along with her. The goats sleep in the barn and go outside during the day where they clear brush and briars for us. One of the goats is teenie tiny and quite charming. The kids loved her. When they came back, I had each child grab a pad of hay and put it in our cart then Martina again led a parade of mini-people out into the center of the pasture to put out hay for the horses. We fluffed it all up into a huge pile. David got a ride in the cart but Sadie and Leah weren’t interested. We cleaned out the water trough while the horses finished their grain and then let everyone out and headed back to the house. There were several tempting mud puddles along the way.

Once inside we all gathered round the hearth where I had laid a fire the night before. We sang Come to the Circle by Shea Darian and began learning a poem by Eugene Schwartz. Because our focus for yesterday was the number 1, we recited the first stanza of the poem. For a guide, I am using Sixth Sense & Holistic Math, by Kristie Burns. We focused on the number one by talking about the rhythms of one. Using Kristie’s e-book, I talked about Sadie eating breakfast, ‘munch, munch, munch,’ walking down the hall, ‘pat, pat, pat,’ and a few other things. The kids loved it. We talked about things which are unique and the children almost immediately recognized that they, themselves, are the most unique things of all. We discussed unity by looking out the window at the trees, one tree with many branches, the one yard with many things in it, our one group with many members.

To tickle their sense of smell, I took 4 craft sticks and put essential oils on each one. One had rose, one had lemon, one had cinnamon bark and one had all three. Each child had a different scent preference.

I also read the story of Little Tuppens. You can find a great summary of that story on Sadie’s blog. It’s a story about a little chick and his mama. There are a lot of things that happen in the story, all in increments of one.

We went outside with paper bags and the children collected things but only one of each. We then made collages with them. We did one more ‘One’ rhyme to close and the children scooted off to play and Lydia and I had a few minutes to chat. I hope the children had fun, I know that I did…even if the fire didn’t burn.