Archive for March, 2009

Posted on March 31, 2009 - by

Books We Love: Matisse: The King of Color

A bit about the book…
Laurence Anholt has done a beautiful job of telling the story of Matisse and his nurse, Monique, who became a nun, in a way that children can relate to and enjoy. Since I didn’t know anything about this artist, I also enjoyed getting to learn more about his personality and his art, too.

What we loved…
While the illustrations were quite unique, I also loved the way that the author used typesetting to help ‘illustrate’ certain passages. During a passage about “diving in tropical lagoons and rowing on blue-green seas”, Anholt typesets the words in curves that go around the fish in the picture behind the words to hint at the motion of swimming and waves. But, more than anything, it was the story itself that captured both my attention and the attention of my six year old. There’s just something fascinating to me personally about an artist creating a chapel in a new and different way.

(Continue reading this article…)

Posted on March 12, 2009 - by

Year 0: Week 23

Our school days are Tuesdays and Thursdays starting at 9:30am, when we return from dropping off Ethan at Mother’s Day Out. Each bullet point is a 5-15 minute period of time.

Monday:

• Mommy’s book club
• Errand, cleaning day

Tuesday:

• Pledge
  Weather: Record temperature, outside conditions
  Calendar: Write out weekly schedule
• Poem of the Month: A Frisky Lamb
• Handwriting: Practice all Upper Case and lower case letters
• Literature:
  • My First Ballet Class, by Katharine Holabird
  • The Tale of the Pie and the Patty-Pan, by Beatrix Potter
• Artist Study: Katie and the Sunflowers, by James Mayhew (another great story where Katie disappears into the paintings in a museum – this time they’re all of the postimpressionist era)
• Lunch (1hr)
• Literature: Kate’s choice
• Independent Reading/Rest Time

Wednesday:

• Story time at the Library (11:30 am)
• Turn in old and check out new books (12:00 pm)
• Lunch (1hr)
• Outdoor Play (1hr)
• Literature/Art Study:
  • I Spy: An Alphabet in Art, by Lucy Micklethwait (Awesome introduction to the alphabet and to art at the same time. Micklethwait has hand-picked 26 pieces of art and then asked the reader to spy the element in it that starts with that letter. Very cleverly done, and actually encourages the reader to stop and study a piece for a while before turning the page.)
  • Ellsworth’s Extraordinary Electric Ears, by Valorie Fisher (A very clever alphabet book that has a one-sentence story with as many words starting with that letter as possible. For instance, “Alistair had an alarming appetite for acrobats.” The picture for that page includes the alligator, Alistair, as well as the acrobat along with several other ‘a’ words for the children to spy. At the back of the book is a list of all the ‘hidden’ elements for each letter. It was fun to see if we could find them all without looking at the back of the book first!)
• Independent Reading/Rest Time

Thursday:

• Pledge
  Weather: Record temperature, outside conditions
  Calendar: Write out weekend schedule
• Handwriting: Finish writing lower case letters, discuss which letters we need to work on for next time.
• Poem of the Month: A Frisky Lamb
• Sign Language:  Review all words, check against Signing Savvy
• Composer Study: Strike Up the Orchestra, by Carin and Joan Dewhirst
• Literature: Mother Earth and Her Children, by Sibylle Von Olfers
• Lunch (1hr)
• Outdoor Play (1hr)
• Literature: Kate’s choice
• Independent Reading/Rest Time

Friday:

• Nature Walk