St. Patrick Lapbook

We have arrived at the Story of Saint Patrick in our history readings so even though it isn't St. Patricks day (march 17th) we idd a lapbook about Saint Patrick and some of the ideas that go along with the March 17th celebration.

We read about him from Our Island Saints by Amy Steedman, and did the mini books etc. I apologize for losing many of the links to the things we used in our book, if I find them I'll update this post.

Cover image 

St. Patrick note booking page

illumination pocket

The project that this image came from was not really designed to be a pocket but we made one by glueing the illumination image to another sheet of card stock and folding down the edges to make the flaps for our pocket. Much sturdier construction this way.

I lost the link to this vintage St. Patrick's Day greeting Card image. So sorry. Inside the boys wrote, "Have a Happy St. Patrick's Day."

I lost the link for the four leaf clover flip book. Inside the boys wrote down a sin or too they were thankful Jesus has given them power to overcome.

I lost the link for the cross mini book. Sorry. Inside we wrote down the facts about St. Patrick and his building of churches in Ireland. This came form our reading about him in Our Island Saints.

shamrock shape

twirling fairy 

The real Saint Patrick story

Symbols of St. Patrick's Day flip book

Zak is making his fairy coin box

At the end our project day we did a short treasure hunt for fairy gold.

Treasure hunt with Limerick clues and fairy gold

limerick 1

limerick 2

limerick 3

limerick 4

pot of gold image

Enjoy!

History Lesson

We are studying the Middle Ages this year. It is so much fun for it is full of castles and knights, and classic stories I have been wanting to read to my boys for years like Robin Hood and the Story of King Arthur. There is so much out there to make this year wonderful it was truly hard to pick and choose for fear something fun will be left out. See my pinterest board on the Middle Ages/Renaissance. My saving grace was the spine, Story of the Middle Ages by Christine Miller and Passport to the Middle Ages a hands on trip through this historical period by Homeschool in the woods. Between these to resources I have just what I need to flesh out the middle ages time period with fun activities, great books and with more ease and peace of mind than I first thought was possible.

Apparently we have the old out dated cover image. If you checked out the link to The Story of the Middle Ages you can see that it has been redone. I think I like our old version better. One of the best aspects of this book is the suggested book list in the back. It suggests living books that fit in with the story of the Middle Ages narrative. It also give you an idea just where they go in the flow of the historical story. So by using this suggested book list I was able gather together relevant living books and plan them out with the spine readings, and with the help of the SCM panner, I know it will all fit into the school year. Yeah!

Below is a portion of my master list of books and where they fit into the spine. I have not stuck to the 20 minute lessons here as my boys can absorb more so my readings are a bit lengthy. It is working for us but it may not work for you. See for yourself, maybe you can do more. :) I also supplement with audio books when I need a break. See my other post on the ones I found for free at Librivox.

SOTMA: Europe Long Ago-Ceasar in Gaul and Britain (one lesson)

SOTMA: Europe under the Romans-The 1st Martyrs (one lesson)

In God's Garden by Amy Steedman(7 lessons/days)*

SOTMA: The Patron Saint of France- The Early Germans (one lesson)

Children of Odin by Padraic Colum (portions of it in 3 lessons)

SOTMA: How the Franks Came into Gaul-The first Kings (one lesson)

The White Stag by Kate Seredy(two lessons)

SOTMA: Theodoric and Ostrogoth-The Bishop of Ireland (one lesson)

Our Island Saints by Amy Steedman chapter on St. Patrick begin lap book (two lessons)

Lantern bearer by Rosemary Sutcliff (11 lessons)

SOTMA: The Anglo Saxons-King Arthur (one lesson)

King Arthur by Howard Pyle (five lessons)

SOTMA:  The story of St. Augustine (one lesson)

Augustine came to Kent by Barbara Willard (six lessons)

* If the book has 14 chapters in it like In God's Garden, it will take 7 lessons/days to complete the book if I can read two chapters/saint stories a day. Some books will be shorter or longer so the days it will take to read each one is different. 

Following is the rest of the list of living books we plan to use for History.  

Son of Charlemagne by Barbara Willard

Story of Roland for Children by H.E. Marshall

Castle by David MaCaulay

DK: Castle at War 

Castle Diary by Richard Platt

Vikings by Janeway

The Story of Rolf and the Viking Bow by Allen French

The Viking adventure by Clyde Robert Bulla

Leif the Lucky by Ingri and Edgar D'Aulaire

Dragon and the Raven by G.A. Henty

Illuminations by Hunt

Little Duke by Charlotte M. Yonge

Cathedral by David MaCaulay

If All The Swords in England by Barbara Willard

God's Troubadour by 

Winning His Spurs by G. A. Henty

Magna Charta by James Daugherty

In Freedom's Cause by G.A. henry

Otto if the Silver Hand by Howard Pyle

The Apple and the Arrow by Mary and Conrad Buff

The Door in the Wall by

St. George for England by G. A. Henty

Canterbury Tales by Barbara Cohen Illustrated by Trina Hyman (a favorite illustrator of mine)

Joan of Arc by Diane Stanley

You may have observed as you read through the list that some classic books noted to be good for this time period like Robin Hood and Adam of the Road are missing. I have scheduled them into our literature readings instead of our history lesson and they should correspond also with the flow of history as it moves through time in the middle ages. 

Passport through the Middle Ages is something we do on project day which is the last day of our week. Project day was instigated last year because we love hands on activities but we also value the simplicity of Charlotte Mason's methods. One thing I wanted to make time for in our school week was to include more living books to fill them with ideas, "a banquet of mind food", and I also wanted to limit our hands-on work so we could practice narration which stimulates the mind to work on the ideas gained instead of and activity which may or may not accomplish this. So Project day is the sixth day in our week and it is where we do the fun activities, games etc. that we enjoy without losing the great advantage of sticking closely to a CM method during the week.

This is TJ's notebook where he keeps his passport notebooking type activities. 

Sample of one of their notebooking pages describing the different class levels in the Middle Ages. 

The boys also keep up a time line as we go along.

The boys write fictitious newspaper articles.

And illustrate some.

Here is Max's passport to travel into the Middle Ages. 

Each week I also read from a tour guide about that particular time in history, it sets the stage for the activities. Sometimes there are audio tours as well as the readings. This last week we listened as a reporter interviewed different people about their role in the Medieval class structure.

Now and then we get postcards from historical people telling us about the event in history where they played a part. The boys then illustrate the front of the post card and place into their post card rack.

We also are creating lapbook mini books as we go along and at the end of the year we will assemble the whole lap book. It should make for a fun review of all the things we have studied. 

There will be recipes to make, things to make like a castle out of sugar cubes and a Robinhood hat. We will also learn about every aspect of Medieval life. More about all that as we go along. I also have found oodles of wonderful you tube videos that go along nicely with each weeks readings and activities which I will be showing the boys each project day. 

NOTE: Many of the titles below are not suitable for children. We got around this by downloading the video and editing it in a editing program. Then we can be sure they boys get the content that is worthwhile for them at this age.

Here is our list of Medieval history videos. You can find them all on you-tube:

BBC Rise and Fall of Rome Series

History Channel's "The Dark Ages"

Merchant of Venice

Terry Jones Medieval Lives: The Peasant

Terry Jones Medieval Lives: The Knight

Medieval Warfare: Castle at War

Who were the Vikings BBC part 1/3

Viking Trading Empire BBC part 2/3

End of the Viking Age BBC part 3/3

History Channel's : "The Real Vikings"

Terry Jones Medieval Lives: The Monk

Illuminations BBC parts 1-6

History Channel's "The Plague"

El Cid

Terry Jones Medieval Lives: The Kings

Terry Jones: The Crusades parts 1-4

Terry Jones medieval lives:  The Outlaw

Christina: a Medieval Life

Terry Jones Medieval Lives: The Damsel

Terry Jones Medieval Lives: The Philosopher

Terry Jones Medieval Lives: The Minstrel

Bye for now....Enjoy!

Week Nine Wrap-Up

Last week I wrote about our progress towards dropping the use of treats and rewards for lessons and I truly thought this week was going to be tough, however to my surprise the boys just slipped into line and followed my lead on this. I can count on one hand the times the subject of not getting treats was brought up and three out of the four incidents included the one who mentioned missing the treats to also remember we are not doing teats anymore and correcting himself. I am so pleased!

How could it have been so easy. I am not entirely sure, but a couple of things come to mind that I know were helpful. Firstly, I did eliminate treats for doing good work for their lessons but that did not mean I could not add in fun treats during our week just because. So I did. When I made a batch of strawberry ice cream in the morning before lessons to put away in the freezer I elicited their help to clean out the last bits in the ice cream maker. Spoonfuls of cool yummy ice cream just because. So I did not take good things away from them all together, I just reallocated them for a new purpose. They know I love to bless them when it is good for them, so they can trust me to be good and that the new change is ok.

Secondly, I realized this morning when I read a new post up over at Simply Charlotte Mason about too often the habit is a frustrater of the will, that I had a habit in place that was my ally not my opponent. 

"Habit is either the ally or the opponent, too often the frustrater, of the will." Vol. 1 pg. 326 

We have spent much of last year focusing on the habit of obedience, so this year when I made a change in the way I approached school they were already in the habit to follow me so the habit worked for their benefit and the switch was not so painful had it been if they were not already in the habit to just follow along. Yeah it is encouraging to see some of our hard work paying off.

The last of the flowers this year.

Bible: We are just about to finish up Acts our reading through the book of Acts, just a few more chapters left an we are onto read Ephesians. Both of these books go well with out study of Greece and Rome this year as many of the places mentioned are in Greece and Rome. In Paul's trips to Rome we are getting a new picture of the historical cities mentioned in our history lessons as it is told from the Bible and from the point of view of the Christians who wrote it and live during that time period.

Mathematics: Same as last week but with X9.

Stories of Faith: In The Adventures of Missionary Heroism we have been reading about John Horden, James Evans and The Riggs. They all working to share the gospel message to the indians of Canada and North America. We have gone from the hot places in Africa to the cold places in the Arctic. The boys like the stories but find the language and all the names of languages, people tribes etc very challenging. So we are taking the narrating slowly reading one paragraph or two before they retell it back to me. We could put the names on the board but they would still have a little trouble reading them just now, and it seems better at this point to be simply working on retelling the main ideas and not simply parroting back details. They are improving on this.

Ancient Greek History: We completed our reading of In Search of a Homeland by Penelope Lively on friday and will be moving on to The Children's Plutarch: Tales of the Greeks by F.J. Gould next week. I am taking Charlotte's advice and spending five days a week giving the boys a feast of ideas depending only on the narration, living books, and their hunger to learn to be enough to feed their minds good "mind stuff," and thus educate them. Last year I did a lot of hands on narration type projects feeling all the while the lessons were more mine than theirs and wondering how I could get out of doing so much. By doing what I mentioned above I am out of the way and their minds are meeting daily with great writers more equipped than I to share with them the knowledge they hunger for.

"I soon perceived that children were well equipped to deal with ideas, and that explanations, questionings, amplifications, are unnecessary and wearisome. Children have a natural appetite for knowledge which is informed with thought. They bring imagination, judgment, and the various so-called faculties to bear upon a new idea pretty much as the gastric juices act upon a food ration. This was illuminating but rather startling; the whole intellectual apparatus of the teacher, his power of avid presentation, apt illustration, able summing up, subtle questioning, (perhaps even hands-on-activities instead of a narration) all these were hindrances and intervened between children and the right nutriment duly served (literary ideas in living books); this, on the other hand, they received with the sort of avidity and simplicity with which a healthy child eats dinner." -Vol 6 Book 1, part 3

Having said this we still do a day of projects at the end of our week. This is done after five days of nourishing meals of literary ideas much the way as CM did handicrafts in the afternoon. I am being careful to fill them up with ideas from a literary source and not to replace that feeding with activities. This is not to say that we all do not benefit in some way from a hands-on-activity or a questioning say in the socratic method, but we must be sure they are fed plenty of literary ideas for their minds to grow on and let them digest it on their own as they need it. As my children are growing older I can see they are preferring the 'mind stuff' over the other types of lessons we have done in the past which they often found wearisome. Not to say that they do not find narrating wearisome at this point too because they do, however not as much as cutting coloring etc we did last year. When we did hands-on-projects last year they begged to have something read as they worked. They are hungry for ideas.

Our history project this week was to do the armor of God hands-on-activity from The Homeschool in the woods New testament activity pack. To introduce the lesson I played The Full Armor of God You Tube Video and The Armor of God Song and this Armor of God Song while they worked. We also listened to this rendition of Ephesians 6:10-20 read by James Earl Jones.

Aesop's copy work: Another 'ping' for Charlotte Mason here. Last week I adjusted the lesson so that the boys had five minutes of quiet time to complete the copy work portion of the page. Thus having only one focus for their minds. Then while they colored the picture I read from Aesop and In Search of a homeland. This week while narrating from In Search of a Homeland Zak is called on to retell the passage. He looks up frustrated from his coloring and says, " I don't know! How can I do two things at once!" Caught. My desire to fit in all in has divided his attention. But I will give myself some credit here, for when I was first having them narrate last year I read the Ten Things to do with Your Child Before the age of Ten by the Bluedorn's and felt guilty because I wasn't allowing them to play with anything while we narrated. Have you ever been caught between two knowledgeable people who recommend mutually exclusive things and not known what to do? Well I had already been thinking it may not be a good idea to have them playing while we narrate, but wasn't sure. Zak gave me the final answer. On other readings they will start playing with something and if they do not narrate well they must drop whatever it is and just listen. With boys that means they begin squirming around in their seat, smacking their lips, moving all the time. I find it a bit distracting so I am praying again about just how to handle this.

Science, Birds: Our reading of The Tales of Rusty the Wren has been completed and we are onto The Tales of Bobby Bobolink by Arthur Scott Bailey.

Nature Notebooks: I began to read a little from A Pocket Full of Pinecones on the day we go outside to put an entry in our nature journals. I edit out some of the "teachy" parts written just for us mom's and just give them the story. Since literary sources for ideas stick best I am thinking that this little story may give the boys a fresh new idea about their nature notebooks.

Language Arts:  We spent most of this week memorizing the poem Lady Moon. Though we approached it much the same way as we have before I switched it up a bit for I thought the boys would memorize this one easier than the two before. So we began the week by reciting the poem aloud. First I read the beginning lines and they repeat. Then I read the beginning lines and the next section, there are four sections. We repeat this pattern until they have the whole of the poem under their belt. Then the following day they copied the first and second sections into their composition books and drew a picture. Same thing the next day with the third and fourth section of the poem. Then on the fourth day we orally recited like we did on first day. They had the poem down well. Even with funny voices and al lot of laughter it was well done. On the fifth day we did a simple exercise in Primary Language Lessons about was and were.

Latin: Our dialogue this week introduces verbs and the declensions for "I am" and "he/she is." So we spent most of the week listening to and reading and translating the dialogue. Once they had that down I asked them questions leading them to the discovery about when to use the 'o' ending for "I am" or the 't' ending for "he/she is" using inductive type questions used so often on our Primary Language Lessons.

On project day I read aloud to them the story of Pandora as the newest character in our dialogues is named after the Pandora in this famous story.

On a side note I was wondering if anyone has ever tried to learn to read Latin using the CM reading method. After all much of the use of latin in later years is to read the original text of those writing in Latin. I may try it next year with the boys.

Art/Music: 

Zak is busy cutting out and choosing three of his favorite art works by Paul Klee to add to his Artist's Notebook page below. Usually we use Dover art stickers but I did not have any for Paul Klee, so I made some and printed them off for the boys to cut out. They will be included in my newest Artist Helper for Paul Klee soon.

Below are two of the four pages we filled with Klee artwork. This is their art work Gallery. The idea for this was inspired by this post from Charlotte Mason Help. We use a three ring binder and plastic money collectors pages. Then I made the cards and they put them into the pockets as they like. If you would like a set of these they are here for FREE.

So this is our last lesson on Paul Klee. We go now to five weeks of drawing lessons.

In our lessons with Tchaikovsky we watched a you tube presentation of swan lake. It took us three lessons to finish the four act ballet. The boys really enjoyed it. They were ecstatic when the Prince went to the lake in act two with his cross bow. They have been reenacting that all week long. They couldn't wait to see the evil guy come in every scene asking when he would return again and again. It was cool they enjoyed it all the way through even some of the long uneventful parts. They asked lots of good questions like, "How do the girls get their skirts to stay up like that?" and "Are they really dancing on their toes!?"

Outside of school the boys are helping my dh to paint the wall around our porch. Zak takes his turn.

Hope you have had a great week!

Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and making a cloud

Uranus and Neptune are also gas giants like Saturn and Jupiter. They are blue because of the methane gas in their atmospheres so we made our background paper color two shades of blue. One shade for Neptune the other for Uranus.

The next chapter and the last one for us this year is on Pluto and the Kuiper belt. We have been using Jennie Fulbright's text Exploring Creation through Astronomy.

There has been a big debate whether of not Pluto is a comet or a planet. Officially it is now a comet, but we looked at the evidence and I gave the boys a chance to vote for themselves...they voted that Pluto is a planet, I think it is a comet. What do you think?

How to make a cloud in a jar

1. add warm/hot water to a jar.
2. light a match and top it in.
3. place a ziplock bag with ice in it over the opening of the jar and seal the opening closed.
4. watch the cloud form.

This T.J's final map drill of the planets. Great job Guys!!

And that is all for our astronomy studies this year....we are already onto looking at birds and insects.

The Artist Study Helper: Henri Matisse

This last week I set out to put together some montesorri cards for all the post-impressionist artists and some of the modern artist for our artist study next year and I ended up creating The Artist Study Helper for Henri Matisse instead. I am sooo excited about it, and I hope to be able to make Artist Study Helpers for all of the impressionist artists that I have made Montesorri cards before. Now to just get some time....(smile).

The Artist Study Helper is a resource packet of tools and ideas to help you as you study a specific artist, this one is on henri Matisse. At the front of the e-book I have included some ideas for using these materials and a sample seven week plan for implementing some of the resources. There is so much in this little e-book you could spend a whole year on it, or you can just choose one or two activities you enjoy and do those. Whatever you do your children will love looking at this colorful artist.

Come have a peek inside...

There are twelve montesorri cards to use for playing concentration or go fish or whatever creative ways you use them.

There are notbook pages to be filled in. For one of the pages I have made small replicas of the art work so you can print, cut and glue them to the bottom of your Artist bio sheet. Using these same replicas you can add it to the page at the top and your copy of that painting below it. There are also pages for each of the twelve paintings chosen for your student to write about the work of art.

There is a short biography of Henri Matisse you can display on your wall or in your notebook.

There are five coloring pages for you to color.

There are three art lessons. One designed so you too can draw with your scissors like Matisse.

There are six large pictures which can be used for picture study. I also included instructions for how to do a picture study and a list of books introducing Herni Matisse for children that can  be checked out of the library or bought.

The Artist Helper: Henri Matisse and The Artist Helper: Vincent Van Gogh are now available at Currclick.

Astronomy Catch Up

Well I am about three chapters behind in chronicling our events in Astronomy. We have had a lot going in our neck of the woods and we also plan to do some traveling soon, so here is a very short nut shell version of our recent pages and project.

Space Rocks Title page by Max 

Each time we begin a new set of pages we try to think of a color or in this case a way to decorate the page so it reminds us of the planet we are studying. We had alot of fun splattering paint to make these pages.

Space Rocks Title Page by Zak

Two page Spread by Zak

Space Rocks Title Page T.J.

Two Page Spread of Jupiter by Max

Jupiter Fact Pocket by T.J.

 Saturn Two Page spread by Zak

 Because Jupiter and Saturn both rotate so quickly they have strong winds, or hurricanes. We made this hurricane in a bottle to see how this happens.

All of our lapbook mini books came from these two sources:

Exploring Creation With Astronomy Black and white lapbook

Exploring Creation With Astronomy Lapbook - Lessons 7-14

And the solar system map drill which we do at the end of each chater is found here.