Capital Letters: Week Four & Week Five

Please refer back to my How Waldorf Teaches Capital Letters post for important information concerning this main lesson block.

• Week One & Week Two lessons
• Week Three lessons

Thursday, October 24 (Q - Queen, K - King, C - Cinnamon, G - Ginger)

• review F - Feather and G - Goose
• look at illustration of G - Goose in L M N O P and All the Letters A to Z by Howard Schrager
• add finished and dry handmade paper Goose illustration to MLB
• create MLB artwork: colored pencil drawing of a Feather
• read The Queen Who Couldn't Bake Gingerbread by Dorothy Van Woerkom
• look at illustrations of Q - Queen and K - King in L M N O P

Friday, October 25 (H - House)

• find embroidered Feathers hidden near each nursery rhyme in Mother Goose Remembers, illustrated by Clare Beaton using textile art (painstakingly created fabric collage pictures & embroidered details)
• review Q - Queen and K - King
• discuss how C - Cinnamon and G - Ginger can also be for this story!
• explain hard and soft C and G, discuss the value of more than one illustration and showing more than one picture/sound combination
• look at the curl of a cinnamon stick as seen from the side, look at gnobby gnarled ginger root shapes
• make "Gingerbreadiest" Play Dough
• create MLB artwork: colored pencil drawings of Queen, King, Cinnamon, and Ginger
• read "The House That Ate Mosquito Pie," page 37 of Fairy Tales by e.e. cummings

Monday, October 28 (Y - Yak)

• review H - House
• build a house with two chimneys (the house from The House That Ate Mosquito Pie) using Teifoc mini bricks, masonry trowels, and mortar

  

• consider other kinds of housebuilding around the world, look at several pictures of Mongolian yurts, discuss the similarities with the Native American tipi design-wise (well suited to a nomadic lifestyle, easily taken down and put up, lightweight) and biome-wise (grasslands biome of Asia, grasslands biome of North America)

  Houses of China by Bonnie Shemie, pp.16-17

  If You Lived Here: Houses of the World by Giles LaRoche

  Metropolis: Ten Cities, Ten Centuries by Albert Lorenz, pp. 16-19

  
  

• read the poem "Yak" by Jack Prelutsky, page 67 of Eric Carle's Animals Animals edited by Laura Whipple

Tuesday, October 29

• review H - House and Y - Yak
• wet felt flat pieces of felt using white wool batting, colorful bits of wool roving, grated soap, basin of hot water, lengths of bubble wrap, rimmed cookie sheets, and plenty of towels
• create MLB artwork: colored pencil drawings of House and Yak

Thursday, October 31

Morning (A - Asparagus, Z - Zucchini)

• read "Mongolia: A White House in the Grasslands" from Wonderful Houses Around the World and look at yurt information, pp.2-5
• work with Ms. Shelby to assemble Uni Yurt Kit (click link for video)
• read Eating the Alphabet: Fruits and Vegetables from A to Z by Lois Ehlert
• taste our delicious Stone Soup

Afternoon (P - Parrot, X - Xylophone)

• review A - Asparagus and Z - Zucchini
• create MLB artwork: cut paper collage illustrations of Asparagus and Zucchini à la Lois Ehlert
• read The Horrendous Hullabaloo by Margaret Mahy

Friday, November 1 (I - Icicle, J - Jump)

Morning

• review P - Parrot
• use "Shampoo Dough" recipe on page 45 of Mudworks: Creative Clay, Dough, and Modeling Experiences by MaryAnn Kohl to make a batch of rumplebumpkins
• create MLB artwork: create a "Fine Feather Collage" of Parrot using instructions on page 85 of Storybook Art: Hands-On Art for Children in the Styles of 100 Great Picture Book Illustrators by MaryAnn Kohl

Afternoon

• review X - Xylophone
• play boisterous music using a variety of classroom instruments (including Xylophone)
• look at the sound X makes in English (Xylophone as well as Xenarthra and Xenophobia from the SWI lesson this morning) and in Chinese (Xigua, which is pronounced "she gwah," from Eating the Alphabet)
• note that there are 26 letters in English but 44 sounds
  (see The 44 Sounds (Phonemes) of English chart for a nice PDF)
• create MLB artwork: colored pencil drawing of Xylophone
• read Sun Bread by Elisa Kleven
• create MLB artwork: colored pencil drawings of Icicle and Jump
• point out to students that J actually was the last letter to join our alphabet!

On Monday we will finish each MLB by writing in page numbers, adding the table of contents, and decorating the front and back covers.

We got somewhat pressed for time there at the end, but it was such a cool opportunity to actually have a Yurt kit made in Kyrgyz Republic to assemble (thank you very much to the family who shared this with us!), so I gave extra days to H - House and Y - Yak. And of course our seasonal Pumpkin Decorating activities also cut into our work time quite a bit. Worth it!

We have had lots of other miscellaneous things going on, such as finishing up our October read aloud story, The Enormous Egg. Our next book will be a collection of Hawaiian Mythology in preparation for our Class Play in December. We have also finished learning "Mr. Slatter" and are beginning to work on a new poem in Speech & Recitation. The new poem is called "Knitted Things" by Karla Kuskin, Poetry Speaks to Children Book & CD. We spend two weeks working on each; this will be our fifth poem of the year:

"A Promise" by Barbara Dawson Betteridge
in Whittle Your Ears, page 13

"The Kind Mousie" by Natalie Joan
in A Child's Seasonal Treasury

"I Have a Secret Dragon" by Jack Prelutsky
in The Dragons are Singing Tonight

"Mr. Slatter" by N.M. Bodecker
in Talking Like the Rain: A Read-to-Me Book of Poems, page 38

"Knitted Things" by Karla Kuskin
Poetry Speaks to Children Book & CD, page 26

All of the students also completed their Haunted Houses of Speech and took them home, and we started a new Math concept (algebra) by playing Ghostie Number games. In this game, I emphasize that the "=" sign means "is the same as" and I present number sentences of all varieties, with different combinations of operations and the variable in different places, to help students develop flexibility in their thinking. In each number sentence, a number is "wearing his Halloween costume," which is a little sheet with two eyes cut out of it. The children have to figure out what the number is under the costume. It is so much fun, and can be made easier or harder, depending on the math level of the child.

Happy Halloween!

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