Literature Circle: Mr. George Baker

Mr. George Baker
by Amy Hest

Because literature circles and literary analysis are new to my group, we began together with a picture book. The students here are 9-13 years old.

Tue Sep 8

read the story

discuss author's craft, making predictions, using the text to support your arguments, topic vs. theme

independent activity to practice finding text support
Finding Theme with Concentric Circles - FREE at TpT

Wed Sep 9

whole group: truisms activities from Gretchen Bernabei's excellent
Reviving the Essay: How To Teach Structure Without Formula

Lesson 1: Truisms

Step 1: Get familiar with truisms with photo

Step 2: Write truisms from photo

Step 3: Write truisms from prompts

Debriefing Questions

Thu Sep 10

continue with Gretchen Bernabei book

Lesson 1: Truisms

Spin-offs #4

After having read a piece of literature, let students write a truism and find a graphic to go with it and with the literature. Then ask them to write what that truism and graphic have to do with the piece of literature, or why they chose it. This is a wonderful kid-friendly way to teach literary analysis.

Gretchen Bernabei's website, trailofbreadcrumbs.net

visual prompts for teaching truisms

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This story worked extremely well as our introduction to literary analysis for the older children and a review of place value for the younger children.

see my Books for 100 post for more details!

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

Books for 100

In Montessori, we use green for units place, blue for tens place, and red for hundreds place. I like to use this color coding in a Waldorf classroom as well, beginning with grade 2 when we study Column Algorithms / Place Value.

An excerpt from the Column Algorithms / Place Value page on my website:

Activity One - Gems / Pouches / Basket

Many years ago I was at a homeschool training at Barbara Dewey's and a woman named Misty shared with me what she had done to introduce place value. A group of families worked together to set this up for the children in their homeschool group. They laid out 100 individual gems in a long line on the ground. The children counted as they picked them up: 1, 2, 3, etc. When they got to gem 9 their hands were beginning to get full. Right beside the tenth gem was a small pouch. They made a group of ten gems in a pouch, then picked up the eleventh gem, etc. After nine pouches (each of ten) and nine individual gems, they finally reached gem 100! For this they were provided the tenth pouch and a basket to put all ten pouches in.

It was a lovely idea and she said they always understood it thereafter.

To do this in a way that is compatible with the Montessori color coding for the digits, use green glass gems, small blue pouches for the 10, and a large red basket for the 100.




for small blue pouches of 10:

Etsy white linen favor gift bag
beautifully made 100% white linen and so easy to dye blue

LinenForest sells these as a set of 10 (and it would be fun to dye these with your child first and keep a mystery what you were going to use them for...)

If you prefer to purchase blue pouches, I suggest these





small sheer organza pouches



red willow basket with folding handles


A red box, bin, pie plate, platter, Christmas cookie tin, etc. would work just as well. The color is what's most important. To introduce this place value activity with a Waldorf story you could use The White Snake from Grimm's (organizing the grains of millet into sacks)




The Hundred-Year Barn

You could also use The Hundred-Year Barn by Patricia MacLachlan. This story does a wonderful job of showing the passing of time. It is a really lovely way to talk about the number 100 and, as a bonus, the barn is red which is the color we use for the 100s place.






The Firehouse Light

Just found another possibility for the number 100, particularly for the idea of skip counting by tens. It also highlights the color red AND is a true story! The Firehouse Light by Janet Nolan.






Mr. George Baker

*NEW* A new idea for introducing 100! Mr. George Baker by Amy Hest. This book highlights the importance of school and of learning to read, and the two of them each have a red backpack. So you could use a red backback or satchel to hold your ten baggies of ten gems!

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

Literature Circle Brainstorm

This year we are going to be doing Literature Circles on Mondays & Wednesdays.

There are lots of different ways to do a book study! Ms. Megan and I have decided to give the children traditional independent pencil & paper activities on Mondays (vocabulary words, comprehension questions, graphic organizers, book reports, etc.) and a relaxed book group-style "sit and chat about the book while we eat lunch together" social time on Wednesdays.

We are going to have two book groups. The children will be of mixed ages, grouped more by their reading speed than their birthdate. I think this will make for rich discussions as well as reduced frustration. If anyone does need a bit more time to catch up to the group, they can take their book home on the weekends so as to be ready for the Monday assignments.

Now I'm going through and looking for books that I have three copies of. Here are 9 options for each group:

Group One

Superfudge
by Judy Blume


The Family Under the Bridge
by Natalie Savage Carlson


Runaway Ralph
by Beverly Cleary


Frindle
Andrew Clements


Because of Winn-Dixie
by Kate DiCamillo


The Mousewife
by Rumer Godden


A Long Way from Chicago
by Richard Peck


Missing May
by Cynthia Rylant


Justin and the Best Biscuits in the World
by Mildred Pitts Walter

Group Two

The Witches
by Roald Dahl


The Tale of Despereaux
by Kate DiCamillo


My Side of the Mountain
by Jean Craighead George


From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
by E.L. Konigsburg


A Long Walk to Water
by Linda Sue Park


Bridge to Terabithia
by Katherine Paterson


Holes
by Louis Sachar


Call It Courage
by Armstrong Sperry


Surviving the Applewhites
by Stephanie Tolan

I did eliminate books that two out of the three children in each group had already read. As we go through the year, I'll write up a post with the activities and resources I used for each book. I'm really excited about this!

I am comfortable with my students marking up the text as they read -- underlining, circling, writing in the margins, dogearing pages, etc. -- so the books will probably be recycled afterwards or given to the children to keep.

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

Art History Picture Books

This year we are focusing on contemporary local artists, but I loved teaching four years of Art History. Hopefully those studies laid a good foundation for our upcoming in-person artist discussions. I have to give a shout out to Lotus Stewart at Art History Kids because her course Magnificent Modern Art was really life changing for me and inspired me to give teaching Art a try!

Lotus just made a YouTube video of her 25 favorite art books for kids and I cannot resist making a list with links (Amazon) to each title. Here you go!

Uncle Andy's Cats by James Warhola

Miró's Magic Animals and The Boy Who Bit Picasso by Antony Penrose

Frida Kahlo and Her Animalitos by Monica Brown

Cézanne's Parrot by Amy Guglielmo

Saving the Countryside: The Story of Beatrix Potter and Peter Rabbit
by Linda Marshall

Dancing Through Fields of Color: The Story of Helen Frankenthaler
by Elizabeth Brown

The Iridescence of Birds: A Book About Henri Matisse
by Patricia MacLachlan

My Hands Sing the Blues: Romare Bearden's Childhood Journey
by Jeanne Walker Harvey

Vincent Can't Sleep: Van Gogh Paints the Night Sky
by Barb Rosenstock

Antsy Ansel: Ansel Adams, a Life in Nature
by Cindy Jenson-Elliott

Mary Blair's Unique Flair: The Girl Who Became One of the Disney Legends
by Amy Novesky

Alma's Art by Roda Ahmed

Georgia in Hawaii: When Georgia O’Keeffe Painted What She Pleased
by Amy Novesky

Just Being Dalí: The Story of Artist Salvador Dalí by Amy Guglielmo

Faith Ringgold: Narrating the World in Pattern and Color (What the Artist Saw)
by Sharna Jackson

Degas and the Little Dancer (Anholt's Artists)
by Laurence Anholt

Mornings with Monet by Barb Rosenstock

Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave
by Laban Carrick Hill

Action Jackson by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan

A Life Made by Hand: The Story of Ruth Asawa
by Andrea D'Aquino

Cloth Lullaby: The Woven Life of Louise Bourgeois
by Amy Novesky

Prairie Boy: Frank Lloyd Wright Turns the Heartland into a Home
by Barb Rosenstock

Building Zaha: The Story of Architect Zaha Hadid
by Victoria Tentler-Krylov

Out of This World: The Surreal Art of Leonora Carrington
by Michelle Markel

I have a lot of these books but it's always fun to learn about new titles!

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

Vertical Teacher Planner

My first choice and my second choice of teacher planbook are BOTH no longer being made, so today I spent a good hour and a half searching through all the remaining options. I finally discovered this nifty little item -- Elan Publishing Company 4 Period Teacher Lesson Plan; Days Vertically Down The Side (P4-97) -- and I'm very happy! For just $12.95, this bare bones stripped down planner comes with no stickers. It is simply an undated planner with the days vertically down the side, and four blocks of time.



For Waldorf homeschool families, these four blocks could correspond to Head / Heart / Hands plus a column to also list doctor appointments, etc.

For me, it goes beautifully with our three blocks of time in the day -- AM (before snack), MM (mid-morning, ie. after snack and before lunch), and PM (after recess). The fourth section is for my notes on individual children and it has eight rows, enough for each child to have a personal note each day.

I do a combination of whole group, small group, and one-on-one lessons every day and it's hard to find a planbook which will accommodate all those notes! This one looks like it will work well.

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

Fishing! And More Fishing!

We are just coming to the end of a lovely summer vacation.

Besides all the usual time at the pool and community house and walking the beach hunting for sharks' teeth, Zac played lots of pickleball and pétanque. He went crabbing in the Chesapeake Bay. We went to the Maryland Science Center in Baltimore and had lunch at the Rusty Scupper for his birthday.

We also went to upper New York state and Zac had his first experience with canoe camping, rowing out to a tiny private island on a beautiful lake in the Adirondack Mountains. Zac spent most of his time there practicing his cast, and got his own fishing vest and his very first fishing rod and tackle box.

And he spent a weekend in Philadelphia with friends, visiting the Mint and the Federal Reserve, and getting to try food from several new countries.

Now we have just a few days left before we head back to Illinois, and I asked him what he wanted to do before we left. His response? More fishing!

Luckily I found this site: Fishing & Crabbing - Calvert County MD.

So today we are going to look for more places for my boy to fish...

Seasons in Poetry

Here is a page last updated March 1, 2010 called "Seasons in Poetry."

I have a lot of new poetry collections that I would recommend since then, but it's still fun to look back at my past thinking!

Winter

Snow
by Cynthia Rylant

Talking Like the Rain: A Read-to-Me Book of Poems
ed. by X. J. Kennedy et al.

• "Winter Morning" by Ogden Nash
• "Cynthia in the Snow" by Gwendolyn Brooks
• "First Snowflake" by N.M. Bodecker

Poetry of Earth
illus. by Adrienne Adams

• "Velvet Shoes" by Elinor Wylie

Poetry Speaks to Children book & CD
ed. by Elise Paschen, et al.

• "Skating in the Wind" by Kristine O'Connell George
• "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost - read by the poet
• "Winter" by W.D. Snodgrass - read by the poet

---

Spring

Basho and the Fox
by Tim Myers

Basho and the River Stones
by Tim Myers

How to Write Haiku and Other Short Poems
by Paul Janeczko

Red Dragonfly on My Shoulder
ed. by Sylvia Cassedy

Eric Carle's Animals Animals
ed. by Laura Whipple

Zin! Zin! Zin! a Violin
by Lloyd Moss

---

Summer

The Hutchinson Treasury of Children's Poetry
ed. by Alison Sage

Pigs in the Mud in the Middle of the Rud
by Lynn Plourde

Every Time I Climb a Tree
by David McCord

• "Glowworm"
• "Far Away"
• "The Grasshopper"
• "Bananas and Cream"

The Dragons Are Singing Tonight
by Jack Prelutsky

• "I Am Boom!"

Handsprings
by Douglas Florian

• "Growing"
• "Rain Song"
• "Rain Reign"

Insectlopedia
by Douglas Florian

• "The Army Ants"
• "The Inchworm"
• "The Praying Mantis"
• "The Whirligig Beetles"
• "The Termites"
• "The Locusts"

Creatures of Earth, Sea, and Sky
by Georgia Heard

• "Hummingbird"
• "Fishes"
• "Frog Serenade"

---

Autumn

Where the Sidewalk Ends
by Shel Silverstein

Here's a Little Poem
ed. by Jane Yolen, et al

Whose Garden Is It?
by Mary Ann Hoberman

I Love You As Much…
by Laura Krauss Melmed

In the Land of Elves
by Daniela Drescher

Child of Faerie, Child of Earth
by Jane Yolen

Louella Mae, She's Run Away!
by Karen Beaumont Alarcón

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!