Of Sparrows and Sheeps
We started off today's lessons with a book about sparrows as an extension from the activities we had with the US states and the Salar de Uyuni. It's strange how you can find birds in a lot of themes. I read the book 'Sparrows' by Haans Post and Keiss Heij which incorporated the life cycle of the birds and the seasons into the story,among other things. I mean, you can draw a lot of topics from one story book: )
For memorisation for the coming fortnight, I read 'The English Sparrow' by Mary Isabelle Forsyth for Ihsan from Comstock's Book of Nature Study. He then copied the poem into his lesson book, yes I've returned to Waldorf again, but didn't want to decorate his work as encouraged to and was satisfied with just the bare words. I didn't push and thought that future lessons could inspire him as we go deeper into the subject.
I retold the story of Princess Cranky Pants to Sofiyya with the paper puppets. Today we touched on rhyming words that can be found in the story of the things that the princess requested.
For Umayr, we did double letter words and distinguished between what happens to the letter when it is a consonant and a vowel. I drew the words into pictures like WordWorld, although I feel this is a tradition that has always existed in Waldorf where we incorporate letters into the pictures we draw during storytelling for the younger children. I then let Umayr choose three words he'd like to draw/write into his language arts exercise book.
Yesterday, we played a game of arranging things in the universe from the Milky way to atoms and so on using cards which displayed the pictures of the items and had numbers to show which one is bigger. As the numbers ranged from positive to negative numbers, I had to explain to the younger children that it's just like when we owe money to others that we actually have less than zero dollars. Hmmm...not really sure they got the concept but they looked out for the negative and positive signs in front of the numbers and really enjoyed it. I mean, why arrange pictures of buildings and pebbles when you can arrange the universe and cells?
For Ihsan, I printed out the periodic table and explained how it is read. The piece was laminated and accompanied by a blank laminated table which he can fill in himself for fun and at the same time learn the tables.
We had been visiting museums since last Friday and brought home a bundle of stuff and activity books. So, on Tuesday, we put together the crafts we did at the museum and stuff like tickets and pamphlets onto our lapbooks. That took half the morning and we didn't even get to the activity books. We also did a diorama of "The Enchanted Forest", one of the exhibits at SAM at 8Q that we visited.
I happened to have 'Maisy at the Museum' at home which Sofiyya borrowed and happened to ask me to read that day. Could this be the next theme? Hmm... I wonder. There are a lot of activities to look forward to at the museums in June and the Circle Line which we explored last Friday has opened new possibilities for travel.
As a swingin single I was a museum lover and spent a lot of time alone in contemplation in the different museums; although I have to admit some exhibits can leave too much in the imagination of the freaky sort, something I am very sensitive to when I take the kids to the museum as children may not be able to come to terms with such items which may internally destabilise them.
For memorisation for the coming fortnight, I read 'The English Sparrow' by Mary Isabelle Forsyth for Ihsan from Comstock's Book of Nature Study. He then copied the poem into his lesson book, yes I've returned to Waldorf again, but didn't want to decorate his work as encouraged to and was satisfied with just the bare words. I didn't push and thought that future lessons could inspire him as we go deeper into the subject.
I retold the story of Princess Cranky Pants to Sofiyya with the paper puppets. Today we touched on rhyming words that can be found in the story of the things that the princess requested.
For Umayr, we did double letter words and distinguished between what happens to the letter when it is a consonant and a vowel. I drew the words into pictures like WordWorld, although I feel this is a tradition that has always existed in Waldorf where we incorporate letters into the pictures we draw during storytelling for the younger children. I then let Umayr choose three words he'd like to draw/write into his language arts exercise book.
Yesterday, we played a game of arranging things in the universe from the Milky way to atoms and so on using cards which displayed the pictures of the items and had numbers to show which one is bigger. As the numbers ranged from positive to negative numbers, I had to explain to the younger children that it's just like when we owe money to others that we actually have less than zero dollars. Hmmm...not really sure they got the concept but they looked out for the negative and positive signs in front of the numbers and really enjoyed it. I mean, why arrange pictures of buildings and pebbles when you can arrange the universe and cells?
For Ihsan, I printed out the periodic table and explained how it is read. The piece was laminated and accompanied by a blank laminated table which he can fill in himself for fun and at the same time learn the tables.
We had been visiting museums since last Friday and brought home a bundle of stuff and activity books. So, on Tuesday, we put together the crafts we did at the museum and stuff like tickets and pamphlets onto our lapbooks. That took half the morning and we didn't even get to the activity books. We also did a diorama of "The Enchanted Forest", one of the exhibits at SAM at 8Q that we visited.
I happened to have 'Maisy at the Museum' at home which Sofiyya borrowed and happened to ask me to read that day. Could this be the next theme? Hmm... I wonder. There are a lot of activities to look forward to at the museums in June and the Circle Line which we explored last Friday has opened new possibilities for travel.
As a swingin single I was a museum lover and spent a lot of time alone in contemplation in the different museums; although I have to admit some exhibits can leave too much in the imagination of the freaky sort, something I am very sensitive to when I take the kids to the museum as children may not be able to come to terms with such items which may internally destabilise them.
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