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Help me plan the rest of our year!
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I’m trying to fill in the gaps on the rest of our grade 2 school year (planning on going until June 19th). We’re coming off a Waldorf journey.
Math and science are covered. We’re using Rod & Staff math and we’re using science from Spirited Autumn Hope. Language Arts, I think we’ll just continue his daily reading practice, do read alouds and narration. We’ll set aside one day a week for poetry. For handwriting we have been using the Print to Cursive Proverbs from here, but based on recommendations from his OT, we are about to start HWOT.
So, we have math, science, LA. And that’s really it. I want to add in picture and composer studies and nature studies, I’m just not sure how to go about doing those. I thought of picking up a couple of the “Come Look with Me” books. I had also come across these books for composers:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1477514651/ref=ox_sc_act_title_7?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
Thoughts? Better suggestions?
We’re not really doing a “Bible” program per se this year. It’s my son’s first communion year, so he’s been receiving a lot of catechism at Sunday School. I was torn between just buying a good children’s Bible and just reading through it, a story or two per day. Or using the Laying Down the Rails, perhaps both?
Again, input is welcome.
Hi 2Corin57 – I’m so excited for you and your family as you transition into a Charlotte Mason education! Simply Charlotte Mason has some phenomenal resources for picture study and composer study in their bookstore. I’ve linked them up in case you haven’t seen them.
All my best,
Richele
In our family, the “simple is better” theory works best for us. So, one day a week, I hang a new picture from the SCM artist portfolios (TOTALLY worth the money, in my opinion). On that day, we read a bit of the included bio and talk a bit about the picture. Then I just leave it hang on the wall. The next week, a new picture goes up……or not. Sometimes life happens and a picture will hang for two (or more) weeks. It’s all okay. (Or so I keep saying over and over, under my breath! *L*)
The Come Look with me books don’t work here because I have two sides and four daughters. That means two will complain…..so, no Come Look here.
For Composer study, we either listen to or read aloud an Opal Wheeler book (just a half a chapter or so – her chapters seem long) one or two days a week and try to listen to that composer’s works every day. Simple.
We’re not as dedicated with Nature Study, but I keep tying and even if it only happens a few times a month, that’s better than never.
Best wishes!
We’ve read, and own, several of Opal Wheelers’ books (reprinted by zeezok publishing) and they are wonderful living books. Even more than those though, my kids really enjoyed “The Story of the Orchestra” by Levine. I can’t recommend it enough for anyone starting out with composer studies. It’s fun, engaging, and has taken us from focusing on composer biographies to just plain enjoying their music! Which is the whole point of music study! 🙂
Perhaps choose some short passages from your read-aloud’s for him to use for copywork for more complete Language Arts. This will help with spelling, capitalization, punctuation etc. and help set him up for prepared dictation down the road.
We really enjoy The Child’s Story Bible. I think it’s by Catherine Vose. I got mine used on Amazon. Laying Down the Rails is for Habit/Character training as opposed to a Bible lesson, though it does have scripture.
For artist & composer study, we chose 3 of each to focus on for the year and we rotate every 6 weeks to keep it more fresh. I Keep it simple, looking at the really large picture books from the Library (letting my daughter choose a new picture to study each week…Sonya has a video on YouTube on how to do this… Only takes 5 min or so. And I read a couple of living books from the Library. For the composer, I play the music during math and once a week, have her listen to a song while sitting or dancing (she prefers dancing) and again, usually a living book or two from the library.
For Nature Study, I have heard wonderful things about Outdoor Secrets and the companion book. If you read The Burgess Bird Book and use the Copywork pages from ThatResourceSite.com and use the bird watching guide list they have and some bird related outdoor activities, then you would be covering Science, Nature Study & Language Arts all at once.
Opal Wheeler wrote a bunch of books about composers…….I’ve tired of them. The chapters are long-ish, and I just get tired of reading them out loud. My girls seemed to enjoy them enough, though.
And there aren’t really very many options for young children that tell the story of a composer’s life without telling all the nitty-gritty stuff. (For example, Wheeler never mentions that Tchaikovsky had “gay” tendencies. I don’t want my children to know that until they are old enough to handle that info.)
I did just hear of Thomas Tapper who wrote some books on composers for children. I have never seen the books, though……so I’m not sure of the quality or the “living-ness” of them. They are on my “look for” list, though.
We just finished up our study of the Instruments of the orchestra, using the Levine book – I really enjoyed it and so did the girls. We found the London Philharmonic website so informative. http://www.philharmonia.co.uk/explore/instruments/keyboards
My third grader is really enjoying English Lessons Through Literature. It encompasses literature, Aesop’s Fables, narration, picture study, poetry, and age-appropriate grammar. It also includes Bible passages from time-to-time.
Scripture memory is a great blessing in our homeschool. As a family we memorize one passage each week that we will hear at mass on Sunday. We’ve been doing scripture memory for three years now, and since the Catholic Church is on a three-year cycle, each mass my kids hear a passage we’ve already memorized! Each week I can either choose to reinforce one they’ve already memorized or add a new passage.
Finally, I assume you are Catholic since you mention your son’s First Communion. The Bible Tells Me So is an amazing resource! I highly recommend it. I’ve been reading through it with the kids this year (ages 5-13) and we’ve all learned so much – especially me! It will take us two years to go through the book (I’m going through each lesson slowly and reinforcing as we read through). I can see myself using this book again in a few years. It’s so rich and elaborates and unpacks Bible stories in a way that all of us can understand. Fantastic!
Music Study Resource Ideas:
You can get the Thomas Tapper books free for Kindle or from gutenberg.org.
I just found at our library (and haven’t listen to yet!) a series of 18 composers that have both narrative biographies and some of their music on the same CD. I thought that they might be worth looking at. Here is a link:
Another easy and fun way to introduce a child to a composer and hear a story about one of their compositions is by using Anna Harwell Celenza. There is a fun story, nice illustrations, and a CD that features that particular piece from the story. We have several of those. So far we have enjoyed the one about Gershwin.
We also LOVED the Carnival of the Animals book/music, the Peter and the Wolf book/music, and the Story of the Orchestra. I have several links to YouTube videos featuring those pieces that my children enjoyed so much that I find them watching them together after school in their free time. So fun.
I bought CD’s of their other music, but these were fun to introduce my kids. My 6 yo still asks me to listen to them and loves them.
Mr. Bach Comes to Call was a fun listen as well.
Artist study Resource Ideas:
In addition to the SCM portfolios, we have used the following series:
I really enjoy Laurence Anholt’s books about artists. This particular book was such a delightful introduction to van Gogh and many of his works! I recommend this one. 😉
James Mayhew also wrote some great stories about artists. Here is a link to one of his:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art puts out wonderful books full of pictures by different artists. They have some about Mary Cassatt and Vincent van Gogh. They also have several where they have matched art with poetry. We like those too.
Poetry Study Resource Ideas:
We like the Poetry for Young People series. =)
Wow, thanks so much! I went ahead and ordered the Story of the Orchestra book, looking forward to receiving that. We have a musical home, I am a RCM pianist and vocalist, and my son is currently learning recorder (one thing I did love about Waldorf, was their focus on teaching instruments), and we plan on adding formal music lessons this fall, looking as though he is going to try brass. Lol, secretly I hope he goes for saxophone, since I fiddled around with it a bit in school and would love to re-learn as well, but we’ll see what he chooses. We’ve always exposed the children to classical music from a young age, and my children love it, but it’s never been focused, so I’m looking forward to being a bit more intentional with that.
I also ordered the Giotto art portfolio, so we will start that tomorrow as well (I bought the e-version). I have ordered a few of the books listed from the library.
Yes, we are Catholic, thank you Jawgee for those recommendations. I love the idea of memorizing scripture from Mass. It just dawned on me that I have a calendar from Catholic Missions, that shows the gospel readings for each day, so that would certainly be a beautiful way to start our day, and I could use that for copywork, as well, as someone mentioned incorporating copywork. A year or so ago my husband’s aunt (and Godmother to our daughter) gave the children this book:
I think it’s time we put it to use! I would love to do a study on the saints as well, but that’s another thing I’m not really sure how to approach. Suggestions?
If you go to http://usccb.org/ you can see daily mass readings. Choose an appropriate one for the upcoming Sunday and study it all week. It’s definitely good to use for copywork, too. There are so many places online to create handwriting sheets, if that is what he needs.
This week we are doing Psalm 95:6-7:
Come, let us bow down in worship;
Let us kneel before the Lord who made us.
For he is our God,
And we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.From that we’ve discussed that the Psalms were written by King David, that “psalm” is the Greek word for song, that we hear the Psalms in between the OT and NT reading at church, that we’ll have a refrain to sing, etc. It has helped my kids listen at mass, and my 6YO and 5YO give me a “thumbs up” when they hear our memory verse at mass.
I don’t know if your son is involved in Scouts, but my son is studying the Saints by doing the Footsteps of the American Saints program with Boy Scouts. This year he has done Andre Bessette, Fr. McGivney, and next month he’ll do Junipero Serra.
Aside from that, though, we just celebrate Feast Days and invite other homeschool families over for celebrations. Our JPII celebration was a real hit this year!!
Hope that helps you some.
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