Poetry Month - Silverstein

To begin celebrating National Poetry Month, I gave DD (8) my old copy of Where the Sidewalk Ends in one of her workboxes this morning, and she enjoyed reading some of Silverstein's zany works.  The official Shel Silverstein site is very entertaining, with games and printables for kids among other things, but I also saw a link for a great iPhone app that features animated excerpts from Silverstein's poetry as well as a link to the ShelSilversteinBooks YouTube Channel.

New Year's Copywork

Just a few for this week, then we'll move on to winter copywork (coming soon).

New Year's Copywork

Christmas Workboxes - Pt. 2

Two books featured prominently in the kids' workboxes over the last week or so.

DD (8) throughly enjoyed Christmas around the World, by Mary D. Lankford. In the first section of the book, the traditions of twelve different countries are highlighted, with each country receiving a two-page spread. The countries covered are Australia, Canada, Ethiopia, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Guatemala, Italy, Mexico, The Philippines, Sweden, and the United States (Alaska). The second part of the book features crafts from window stars to pinecone pine trees (to be attempted this week--wish us luck!). A glossary of terms from advent to yule, a pronunciation guide, a list of Christmas superstitions (e.g., wearing new shoes on Christmas Dy will bring bad luck), a bibliography, and an index fill out the remainder of the book.

I gave an unabridged copy of A Christmas Carol--Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, by Charles Dickens, and gorgeously illustrated by P.J. Lynch, to DS (11) to read over the course of last week, and it made its way out of the workbox up to the top bunk in the boys' room, which is always a good sign. When the book was finished, DS read a short biographical sketch about Dickens from abcteach and answered some reading comprehension questions to go along with it. Now I'm searching to see if there is a "real" biography of Dickens out there that is both engaging to and appropriate for an almost-twelve-year-old. Two I'm looking at are Tales for Hard Times, by David R. Collins, and Dickens (The Great Writers), by Nicola Barber.

A couple of read-alouds this week: The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, by Frank L. Baum (oh, the rich language in this one!), and How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, by Dr. Seuss, to prove to DD (8) that the Grinch is not as scary as Jim Carrey's creepy interpretation in the live action movie, which she has never seen except in commercials. But she did get completely freaked when the Grinch slithered his way across the screen in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade one year, and that was it--no more Grinch for her. I'm hoping that the read-aloud combined with the gentler animated version from 1965 will get her past her prejudice, as the story is one of my all-time holiday favorites.

Workbox Wednesday, Thanksgiving edition

Thanksgiving has been the workbox theme around here since last week, and here a few samples.

Copywork slips with Thanksgiving quotes can be found in this cornucopia basket, which was my grandmother's.

I chose to give different quotes to each of my older two kids, so I stamped each slip with either a leaf or an apple and made sure they knew whose was whose. The writing paper is from abcteach.

DD (8) has some alone time with her grandmother tomorrow so I'm leaving this hinged puppet project in her last workbox; from History Pockets: Life in Plymouth Colony.

Thanksgiving-themed verbal analogies from Enchanted Learning. DS (11) is getting the Thanksgiving version of a "grammar potpourri" worksheet from that same site in one of tomorrow's boxes.

Word problems having to do with Thanksgiving from abcteach are keeping both kids' math skills sharp while we take a little break from Right Start Math. We'll hop right back into the curricula as soon as December 1st rolls around.

Schlessinger Media DVDs are great--we were lucky enough to get this one (Early Settlers) and one about Plimouth Plantation via interlibrary loan to watch this week. Wish this company would start streaming videos, and soon!

A few of the many Thanksgiving books that have made their way into the boxes in the past week or so.

Squanto's Journey, by Joseph Bruchac

Thank You, Sarah--The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving, by Laurie Halse Anderson

The First Thanksgiving, by Jean Craighead George

The New Americans (part of The American Story series), by Betsy and Giulio Maestro

I'll post more as time allows.

Workbox Wednesday, Columbus Day edition

They're not all related to Columbus Day, but here are some highlights from last week's workboxes:

Kumon Let's Cut Paper pages

Melissa & Doug World Map Floor Puzzle

Three ships coloring page

Asterix the Gladiator (soon to be followed by others in the series)

The Discovery of the Americas tells more than just the story of Columbus (authors: Betsy and Giulio Maestro)

Draw Write Now, Volume 2

Animals Christopher Columbus Saw by Sandra Markle

Latin worksheet and flash cards

What serves for logic these days: Mind Benders from Critical Thinking Press

Workboxes are still making our days run pretty darn smoothly, though the almost-five-year-old has lost a bit of interest, unless there's play-dough or Playmobil in his boxes. But he did come running when he heard Jim Weiss reading Story of the World this afternoon (Rome finally fell today, YEAH!), and his conversations are still full of words like "illustration" and "adjective," so I think we're okay.

Workbox Wednesday, Pt. 2

More highlights from this week:

The book is A Pocket Dictionary of Greek and Roman Gods and Goddesses, by Richard Woff. The idea was for O (11) to thumb through, pick a couple of favorites, read & write about them and then draw a picture of them as he sees them. Everything but the drawing happened. Sigh. Kid has major issues when it comes to artistic confidence.

Geography flash cards by region and a worksheet to reinforce the information learned.

A consistent favorite: an audiobook of Rosemary Sutcliff's Eagle of the Ninth.

E (8) loved reading about the contrast between light and dark in Looking at Pictures, by Joy Richardson. Revised edition due out October 1st, though already in stock at Amazon. We currently have it checked out of the library, but will be buying our own copy.

Review of telling time to the quarter hour with Time & Money.

Interesting experiment--I'd never asked E to do anything like this. I think she'll like it better the second time, now that she knows what she's aiming to do. It was surprisingly difficult for her to draw a mirror image of the pictures shown.

Workbox Wednesday, Pt. 1

Week three with workboxes is going pretty well, though I am still up way too late at night (or early in the morning). We've tweaked a bit here and there to get some more group time, and I split up the older two on a couple of subjects with which E (8) was getting frustrated working at her older brother's level, which basically means I am sitting down with someone (or several someones) at all points of the day. Good thing I enjoy my job.

Here are some highlights from this week:

corn meal, a small cookie sheet, and a chart of patterns to make

M (4) loved this activity. I did not like the clean-up, though, so I'm thinking it will make a good on-the-deck activity until it gets too cold. Maybe then we'll try something that doesn't resemble beach sand quite so much.

Clip the clothespins to the tongue depressors craft sticks. Each stick has a number and the corresponding number of spots to clip (except nine--that one was an oops as a result of late night workbox-filling).

Someone in the workboxes yahoo group gave me this idea, so I made up a card (it's laminated now--have I mentioned how much I ♥ my laminator?), and showed M. what I meant. The result is below.

More after I've slept a little and had a lot of caffeine.

Good finds of the week and Book Sharing Monday

Since my good finds are all books, I thought I might kill two birds with one stone.

1. The Roman Army--the Legendary Soldiers Who Created an Empire, by Dyan Blacklock with illustrations by David Kennett. DS (11.5) loved this award-winning book--snatched it from his workbox and ran to the sofa with it, in fact. The illustrations have a refined graphic novel appeal, and the information about a specific part of Ancient Rome was a perfect focus in what can be an massive unit study. Another book by this team is Olympia--Warrior Athletes of Ancient Greece, which appears to be OOP.

2. National Geographic's Photography Guide for Kids by Neil Johnson. From "All about Cameras" to "How a Camera Sees," and from the composition of photographs to the choosing of subjects, this guide was enjoyed by both DS (11.5) and myself. DS had the book (with pages marked to read), our camera, and his nature journal in a workbox, with the idea that he would take photos of nature, pick his favorite, and tuck it into his nature journal, since getting him to draw in it has not been successful at all. The book doesn't have an overwhelming amount of information--just enough to catch the bug. Shutterbug, that is. ☺

3. Geography through Art--International Art Projects for Kids, by Sharon Jeffus and Jamie Aramini. I must admit we are in the early stages of investigating this book, but I like what I've seen so far. I've had the two older kids reading about chiaroscuro (the contrast of light and dark--such a fun word to say) in art in preparation for our first project (on deck for tomorrow), which is to create a representation of the Earth in shadow on black construction paper. Art-happy DD (8) will likely love this undertaking, and I'm hoping at the very least for cooperation from DS (11.5). I love that it ties in with our Earth Science studies, as well.

Book Sharing Monday is hosted at Serendipity.

Week 1, part 3

And finally, the four-year-old's boxes. Trickle-down homeschooling is not this kid's only choice these days, thank goodness.

Feel and Find by Guidecraft, a classic Montessori-style preschool activity.

The letter of the week, with a printable book from Enchanted Learning.

We've had these sorting bears and pattern cards since O was in preschool. So glad M is getting use from them now!

Another classic Montessori-style preschool activity. I printed and laminated a twelve-part color wheel on cardstock, colored in one side each of twelve clothespins with Prismacolor markers, et voila! a great sorting activity that strengthens the oh-so-important pincer grasp.

Reading time with Mom: Our Earth, by Anne Rockwell.

Did I mention the letter of the week was A? ☺ This activity required some help, as each sticker has a very specific spot on which to, ehm, land.

I wasn't as ready with the camera during group time as I would have liked this week, but here is one I thought to catch (as we didn't save the bisected spheres), a science activity from Earth Logic: Our Dynamic Earth, plus the control cards from a Montessori card set, which is just a small sample of the many free resources at Montessori Materials.

I've got tomorrow's boxes all ready to go--hopefully I'll remember to take some photos as the week rolls on.

Have fun!

Week 1, part 2

On to the eight-year-old's boxes:

E. is my natural speller, so I'm taking it easy on her right now. Worksheets from Enchanted Learning for spelling and alphabetizing.

This girl loves her geography. She had a great time with these flash cards this week.

Why is it my children seem to forget math over the summer? We are doing a review for this very reason. We've tried both the Miquon and the Singapore math programs, and needed to keep looking for both kids. Right Start Math is an excellent match for my visual-spatial learners.

E's favorite one day was her nature journal with a new set of compact binoculars (to replace the ones her little brother threw across the room and broke). She sat on the deck and drew happily for half an hour.

Science reading. She read about half one day and half the next.

The Usborne Latin Words Sticker Book was fun for E., too, though she requested help a few times.

Besides the nature journal, E's favorites this week were the States and Capitals flash cards, Draw Write Now, and math (once we switched to a review of what she did last year). Only one day did she have a least favorite, and that was to read a few pages of Who Were the Romans? (Usborne Starting Point History), which surprised me a bit.

Part three coming soon!