Posted on November 6, 2009 - by Kay

Year 1: Week 10

(November 2 – 6, 2009)
Our school week will see the heavier loads on Tuesdays and Thursdays, as those are the days that ds is at Mother’s Day Out so that dd and I have less interruptions. Each activity is designed to take only 10-15 minutes at the most as this is one of the defining characteristics of a Charlotte Mason approach to education.

*Please feel free to leave your comments or questions below. I always love learning from other people!*

• Monday
• Tuesday
• Wednesday
• Thursday
• Friday

Planning Day

• Science – Free Reading:
  
  The Digestive System, by Christine Taylor-Butler.
  
  Every time we go to the library, I encourage my kids to check out at least one or two non-fiction books to encourage their natural curiosity about things other than story books. This past week, both Ethan (my 4yo ds), and Kate picked out a book about the digestive system. This series of books also includes the other body systems (circulatory, skeletal, etc). The information is laid out in easy 1-2 page ‘chapters’ on different topics. The ‘chapter’ we read was about burping. Of course, my ds was completely enthralled! That’s one of his favorite things to talk about!

School Day

• **NOTE** We are making up for lost time last week (see Tuesday’s post about FLEXIBILITY), so today’s work load is pretty tough. This is normally WAY too much for one day, but we wound up making it actually work.
• To Start: Pledge/Calendar/Weather
• Reading Log: Record non-school books Kate’s read for the reading program called Book It!.
• Memory Work: “Be thankful in all circumstances,for this is the way God wants you to live.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18.(My mash up of NLT and The Message.)
• Spirituality: “Mother Teresa” Ten Amazing People: And How They Changed the World, by Maura D. Shaw.
• World History:
  • “The Story of a Warrior Queen”, from Our Island Story
  • Add this story to the timeline in our Book of Centuries.
• Phonics: Nouns (person, place or thing fill-in-the-blank), from Brain Quest Workbook: Grade 1, by Lisa Trumbauer, pgs 96-97.
• History:
  • “Androclus and the Lion”, from Fifty Famous Stories Retold, by James Baldwin.
  • Add this story to the timeline in our Book of Centuries.
• Nature Study: Read more from Tell Me, Tree, by Gail Gibbons.
  • Complete Seeds, Parts of a Trunk, and Roots mini-books for our lapbook on trees.

• Literature: “The Farmer and the Stork”, from Aesop’s Fables (Milo Winter Edition).
• Literature (during nap time):
  • Read “The Tempest”, from Tales from Shakespeare, by Charles and Mary Lamb.
  • Use barbie dolls, puppets, and stuffed animals to ‘act out’ the story as we read along. There are too many characters with unfamiliar names in Shakespeare’s stories to be able to read it off the page alone. Following along with the puppets and barbies, Kate was actually able to understand the story and then retell the major points after we were finished reading.

Library Day

• Nature Study – Free Reading:
  The Magic School Bus Plants Seeds: A Book About How Living Things Grow, by Joanna Cole.
  Kate actually picked out this book to go along with our lapbook learning about trees. She LOVES Magic School Bus Books and actually chose to read this out loud to her brother and sister during Tea Time today.

School Day

• To Start: Pledge/Calendar/Weather
• Reading Log: We’ve started a reading program called Book It!, where Kate sets a monthly goal of how much she wants to read (either pages, time, or number of books). At the end of the month, if she’s reached her goal, she gets a coupon to Pizza Hut for a free personal sized pizza. She’s set a goal for November of 20 non-school books.
• Memory Work: “Be thankful in all circumstances,for this is the way God wants you to live.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18.(My mash up of NLT and The Message.)
• Spirituality: Kate wanted to read about another ‘amazing person’ today and chose “Black Elk”, from Ten Amazing People: And How They Changed the World, by Maura D. Shaw.
• Geography:
  • Chapter 9 of Paddle to the Sea, by Holling C. Holling.
  • Fill in another square of our Paddle to the Sea Story Board with a picture depicting this chapter and a one sentence summary on the back.
• History:
  • “King Alfred and the Beggar”, from Fifty Famous Stories Retold, by James Baldwin.
  • Add this story to the timeline in our Book of Centuries.
• Literature: “How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin”, from Just So Stories, by Rudyard Kipling.
• Math: Read The Coin Counting Book, by Rozanne Lanczak Williams.
  
  Great introduction to the concept of money/coins. Covers ALL the denominations including half dollars and dollar coins, too. Love the photography, too, as it’s not all of just one side of the coin. It shows both sides of the coin, and almost never is it shown straight up and down. Great way to help kids recognize coins from any different angle.

Field Trips/Nature Study

• Literature – Free Reading:
  
  Ignis, by Gina Wilson.
  A story of a little dragon who can’t find his flame, Ignis goes on a quest to find out who he really is, since he can’t be a real dragon without fire! As he discovers who he’s not, he’s reminded that his flame can be found inside. A happy ending allows for a great discussion with kiddos about finding their true passion or true self inside.