Handel Composer Study

We're going slightly out of order on our timeline resource because I wanted to review the Classical Conversations composers first.

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We read George Handel (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Composers).

We listened to Water Music and Messiah.  Here's just the Hallelujah chorus, and I also made a Handel playlist on Youtube of those and a few others.  We just played it in the background while we did school or ate lunch.

Classics for kids has a radio show about Handel which we listened to.

We read the Thomas Tapper book about Handel.  You can listen to it here.

Bear read and narrated the George Frideric Handel biography at Making Music Fun.  She used the notebooking paper at That Resource Site (page 4 of the set).  At the end of all the composers, we will bind the biography printouts and the narrations into booklets.  I think I will keep them separate so that I can reuse the printed biographies for J-jo in later years.

 Both kids colored Handel from the timeline resource and glued it onto their timeline.

We also put up Handel's composer card on the wall with Bach.

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Heart of Dakota Little Hearts for His Glory Week 1

We decided to start J-jo's new work last week.  He LOVES Little Hearts for His Glory (LHFHG) so far.


Each day is separated into boxed categories.  I am such a visual person.  I love those boxes.

History:
We've read a couple pages each day from History for Little Pilgrims.  The selections are very short and then some days you read a Bible story that ties in with the history in Little Pilgrims.  J-jo asks lots of questions and the text has led to interesting discussions with him.  Bear is allowed to listen in but is not permitted to say anything during the reading or discussion time, as this is meant to be J-jo's special time.

Rhyme:
Every week is a new rhyme that teaches something.  This week it was a rhyme to remember the continents.  I have been trying to get him to remember the continents for a year, to no avail.  Finally the song in this guide did the trick. We did the actions to the song over the Montessori world map and placed some Playmobil people on the continents as we sang.

We had just finished swinging to South America (for monkeys) and the Playmobil had clip-clopped to Europe (ponies), but I asked J-jo to swing one more time for a photo.

Science:
We sat in the laundry room in the dark and shined a flashlight on different objects, taking turns describing them.  It seemed more a language activity than a science activity, but J-jo just wanted to keep doing that the rest of the day.

We placed a sun in the middle of the room and walked around it holding the earth to demonstrate how the earth revolves around the sun.  We sang happy birthday to the earth to reinforce that it takes the sun a whole year to go around the sun.

On another day we sorted land, air, and water animals.  I was thankful for all the plastic animals we had accumulated from our Montessori days.  We had some great discussions about animals that lived on land but near water sources (he wanted to put the bear on the water tray because they eat fish), and about how birds fly but need to spend time on land for food, nesting, etc.

The activities so far are a bit simple for my liking.  J-jo enjoys them, but I will be adding Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding: A Science Curriculum for K-2 to HOD in August.

Fine Motor Skills:
The guide alternates Do it Carefully (Rod and Staff) and A Reason for Handwriting.  It's 1 to 2 pages per day, but J-jo did double the pages every time this week, as well as lots of cutting from the I Can Cut book I reviewed in August when J-jo was barely 3.  He's in the sensitive period for the cutting book now, whereas before it was way too hard for him.  It is so satisfying when you find that perfect amount of challenge and see your child excited about doing an activity. I bought him the next I Can Cut cutting book as a reward for doing so well.

Since he seems to really like the workbooks, we've added Explode the Code (he's working through Primer A that I found unused at Goodwill, but I bought him ETC1 and 2 for when he has finished the Primer).

(Yes, we often school in pajamas - J-jo does, anyway.  He is usually the last to get dressed)

Art:
An abstract black, grey, and white drawing with a cross in the center to remind us that Jesus is in the center of history.  J-jo insisted on three crosses and gave his artwork to his Awana leader.

Math: 
He's completed many Miquon addition pages this week and has done a few pages in Mathematical Reasoning.  He's asking for so much school now that he isn't leaving me enough time to work with Bear! What a change from 6 months ago!

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Reader Question Answered

Here's a great comment I received yesterday:

I'm confused (after reading your 2012/2013 plans). Are you participating in CC in the the year to come? If so, what purpose does it serve in your homeschooling? (enhancement, core, socialization, etc.) Have you done any posts on how you balance CC with other curricula (I noticed you use a considerable amount of other curricula; would like to, but I don't want to burn me or my children out so I'm always curious as to how others manage the balance.) Thanks much. Blessings, Toni on Classical Conversations Cycle 2 and Montessori Print Shop Match-Ups

I'm sorry for any confusion.  I hadn't been ready to say that we are not joining a CC community in the fall. Our decision at the point of writing a couple of my past posts was just not finalized. I know some will wonder why we aren't continuing in our community.  I  just really want a fifth day for our leisure, as opposed to having it be a day of rushing in the morning to get somewhere.  I want a day to follow our hearts' desires, be it a hike, an art project, a day just for science, music appreciation.

I will still be blogging about CC to some extent, but not like before.  We will still do memory work, but it will be a strange mix of CC memory work, CC inspired memory work, memory work derived from First Language Lessons, and memory work from the book Living Memory.  My friend and I have undertaken a huge project to summarize, in three to four sentences, each CC timeline cards for our new history memory work for our children.  We were both dissatisfied with the memory work for history as written in the CC guide.  It jumped around too much and in Cycle 1, there would be a question, like, "Tell me about Buddhism," and the answer included Taoism and Hinduism.  Stuff like that bugged us a bit.

So, we are using other curricula (because I don't consider CC a curriculum, but rather a method) and will add memory work that is within context of what we are learning within that curricula.  I just don't fully agree with memorization out of context.  To some extent, but not completely.

I still love CC, but I need that fifth day and I am not willing to bend on some of my curriculum choices.  Since I won't be in a community, why not go ahead and tweak our memory work so it fits better for us?

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Kindergarten Math

I was checking out Maria Miller's recommendations for kindergarten math one day and realized that J-jo has already mastered many of what Maria states as goals for K math.

She states that: 

The goal of kindergarten mathematics is to prepare children for first grade math. Please see below a list of objectives and goals for kindergarten math:

• To count by rote at least to 20, but preferably a little beyond.

• The concepts of equality, more, and less

• To count backwards from 10 to 0.

• To recognize numbers 

• To be able to write numbers (He can trace them and write about 4 or 5 of them without guidelines.)

• To recognize basic shapes

• to understand up, down, under, near, on the side, etc. (basic directions)

• To have a very basic idea of addition and subtraction (not sure just how basic she means, but since J-jo can add and subtract with manipulatives up to ten I am considering this mastered.)

• It also helps to expose the student to two-digit numbers. (We have worked on the teens and tens board and do place value when we get around to doing calendar, which has only been 45 days this school year.)

I like her game suggestions (at that same link under "Counting") and J-jo and I have been playing the two domino games listed there. One involves making domino trains (a matching activity) and one involves adding the dots on both halves of your domino and seeing who has the most.  I'll let you visit her site for the directions.

Below, J-jo counts his dots (he saw it automatically as 5) and triumphantly snatched up my tile which only had 2.

This is all to say, that even though I worry about J-jo not being like Bear who desired to sit all day with Mommy to do learning activities, it seems that the 5 minutes here and there that we have been sneaking in have been very effective in teaching him.  Recently, he is requesting lessons more and more.  It's an exciting change, but they are still very short and only as long as his attention desires them.

Here's some other things he has enjoyed.

I leave the hundred board as below, with some squares filled in, and the rest a scrambled mess.

 He comes in and fills it in.  It usually takes a few days.  This particular day, I had the rods out to show him how to build some of the numbers. 

He loves Rosie's Education Unboxed videos and though we don't watch them often enough, he remembered seeing one of her girls doing this and was determined to follow suit.

I think we may play with time and money next as he likes to tell me what "time" it is.  (As in, "Mommy, I'm tired because it is 7:40," or "it must be lunch because it is "11:40." - There's almost always a 40 when he tells time:)

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Bach Composer Study

Now that Classical Conversations is done for the year, we get a bonus fun day during the week.  We've been using that day to do composer and artist studies, and art and science projects.

Currently, we are reviewing Cycle 1 composers (Bach, Handel, and Mozart) and have spent a week on Bach.  We'll continue with Bach for a couple more weeks and then move on to Handel.

There's a free ebook about him here and at this link, you can hear the book. More Thomas Tapper composer books are found here. I contemplated purchasing Sebastian Bach, The Boy from Thuringia, but in the end, "free" won out.

From the library we borrowed Johann Sebastian Bach (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Composers) and Sebastian: A Book about Bach .

We listened to the Well Tempered Clavier, and Twelve Little Preludes.

Lastly, Bear read a short biography and then did a notebook page about the main things she remembered about Bach.

We plan to eventually cover all the composers listed at Making Music Fun.  I am printing all the biographies (they are each one page long) and am going to bind them into a book.  We will be adding composers to this timeline.  I found some great composer cards that I have printed out and laminated as well and those have biographical information on the back, but Bear loves to color, so I couldn't resist the timeline.

Links:
Composer Biographies at Making Music Fun
Composer Cards
Composer Notebook Pages that we are using.  There are so many out there, it is overwhelming.  I also liked the ones at Blessed Beyond a Doubt and may end up printing those instead. (I discovered them after I had already printed out the Bach one at That Resource Site.)

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What curriculum will we use for 2013-2014?

We will be schooling 4 days per week, with the fifth day a nature study, hiking, big art or science activity kind of day.  I've been blessed and found a lot of our curriculum used and am looking forward to a fresh start.


J-jo - PK4

I wanted a little more guidance for J-jo, especially in the hands-on activities department so I will be getting some help from Heart of Dakota's Little Hearts for His Glory.  I am very excited to be trying this curriculum, which I only just discovered a short while ago.  It is an all-inclusive kind of curriculum (meaning it teaches all the subjects) and J-jo's skill sets fall right into the Kindergarten level.

Math - Singapore, Miquon, and Mathematical Reasoning , activities from Heart of Dakota Little Hearts for His Glory

Reading - continue with building fluency.

History and Science will come from the Little Hearts for His Glory curriculum.


Bear - 1st grade

Heart of Dakota just looks so good.  It just looks like a better fit for us than Sonlight. Visually, I love the boxes and the daily plans (as opposed to weekly).   I really want something already planned out for me this year as I am suffering from burn out and insomnia and just feel really tired. I wanted to try it for a year for Bear.  We'll continue to do our own thing for math and language arts (see below) and we will still read Story of the World at bedtime, but for our main meat of the day, we will use Bigger Hearts for His Glory.  I found the teacher's manual used with the core history books and the rest of the books are easily found at the library.  It makes it much less expensive than Sonlight.  Plus, I think Bear will love the daily science (she's been asking for science and art) and the art activities planned into each week.

Math - Singapore Math and some Miquon to shake things up when she's tired of Singapore.

Spelling  - All About Spelling level 6 and 7 (we will probably start 6 in the summer)

Writing - Writing with Ease Level 2 and PAL writing the third part of the curriculum in which they learn to do key word outlines.  We started PAL this year but are averaging one lesson every two to three weeks so we will continue it in the fall, with the plan to move on to the other levels of IEW when Bear is in 2nd grade.

Reading - we are going to try DITHOR (Drawn into the Heart of Reading) from Heart of Dakota.  Bear will be reading whatever she wants all the time, but I wanted to direct some of the reading in a more "schoolish" sense. She just reads non-stop.  Perhaps this will slow her down a bit and make her digest those books she reads.

Grammar - First Language Lessons 3 .  We will need to finish this up and then we will do MCT Grammar Island, which we have started but will go into fully once FLL 3 is done.  I think we will decrease the amount of grammar we do anyway as Bear is so far ahead in grammar.  We currently do grammar every day and we will probably do it 2 times a week next year (which may make the rest of FLL 3 last the entire year).

History - Story of the World 3 and 4 without activities; only narrations and map work.

Fifth Day Science - Apologia Swimming Creatures (per Bear's request) and Real Science 4 Kids Physics (which we will be doing with a friend, meeting up for the experiments).

Things may change and I may have to tweak things, but this is the plan as of right now.

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Montessori Friendly Baby Board Books

When I was searching for books for J-jo when he was first born, I was on the look-out for vibrant books with photographs of single objects for him to learn words and their association with objects.  I've just found the perfect Tiger Tales books that fit this criteria that I will have to save for a future baby:

My First Lift and Learn books from Tiger Tales (First Numbers and First Colors )

They are lift the flap books and here's a photo of one of the flaps from each book.  I like how the concept being explored is expanded beneath the flap.

I also searched for books with multiple photographs on a page to play language games such as "I Spy".

Again, now come the perfect books: My First Book of Things to Learn and My First Book of Things to See.  Both are great for language acquisition.

Here's a sample page spread from each of the books.

And lastly, my babies always love touch and feel books.  Farm (My First Touch and Feel) and Pets (My First Touch and Feel) would have been nice to have for them at the time.  

Any of these six books would make a lovely addition to a baby shower gift or to your own baby's personal library.

Now for hoping that we can soon have a third to enjoy ours!  

Disclaimer: I received these books from Tiger Tales in exchange for this review.  I was not required to write a positive review.  

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