Week Eleven Notes

Monday, Nov 14

SSR

Morning Meeting - recall the Solstice and the Equinox lesson and ask, why do they not have Daylight Savings Time in Hawai'i?

Board Games - play our our new educational board game, Hello from Around the World Memory Game (thank you to the family who donated this!); use the Colored Globe of the Continents to find locations around the world; compare this list of countries with the children pictured in I Never Forget a Face to see if any are the same



Morning Math ages 10 & 11 - Basic Skills Daily Practice Warmups
(grade 6, 1st 6 weeks, week 1)

Basic Skills Daily Practice Warm-ups
these review 5th grade math

Morning Work Time: Plastic Utensils - individualized math MLBs
CR long division with the Racks & Tubes (Activity Set card 2.05),
AH & AG multiplying mixed numbers, KLL NOAA Data in the Classroom: Investigating Coral Bleaching module

Super Six! A Multiplying or Dividing Fractions Partner Game

Fable at Snack - consider different kinds of puppets and puppetry; read a legend suitable for shadow puppetry, The Crow & the Pitcher (link is to a wonderful collection of Aesop's Fables available free online at the Library of Congress)

Read Aloud at Lunch - Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, chapter 5, Advice from a Caterpillar (link is to read this book online for free at Carnegie Mellon University)



Afternoon Work Time: Pterodactyls - Place Value & Redwood Trees

recall that we talked about 100 with The Hundred-Year Barn and The Firehouse Light, recall that we talked about 500 with The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, now we are going to do even bigger numbers!



read Redwoods by Jason Chin, get out the Number Cards and Golden Bead Material and make some of the numbers from the story




Legends of the Saints - read the legend of St. Martin of Tours (feast day Nov 11) retold by Ethel Marbach in More Once-Upon-a-Time Saints, discuss Martinmas and our Lantern Walk to be held on Friday at 5 pm, make lanterns (glass jars, tissue paper, glue, paintbrush)

Foods of the World: North America - make Fungi (foon-gee) from the Virgin Islands and the book Turtle Knows Your Name by Ashley Bryan

Tuesday, Nov 15

SSR

Morning Work Time: Pterodactyls - 45 Layout, read The Autumn Calf by Jill Haukos, make and compare numbers with the Crocodile Game (197 < 200)



Morning Work Time: Plastic Utensils - individualized math MLBs
CR long division card 2.06, AH & AG continue multiplying mixed numbers, KW multiplication mosaic with the Colored Bead Material

Multiplication Mosaic #1

Fable at Snack - read lesser-known fables from the Library of Congress: The Frogs & the Ox, The Young Crab & His Mother

Read Aloud at Lunch - Alice in Wonderland chap 6, Pig and Pepper

Foods of the World: North America - make Arroz Con Leche (Rice Pudding) from the Dominican Republic

Board Games - Yeti Slap, Plop Trumps Extreme, Dr. Eureka, I Never Forget a Face, Cauldron Quest, Lion in My Way

Wednesday, Nov 16

SSR

Morning Work Time: Pterodactyls - Dice Game (3, 4, and 5 lines)

Afternoon Work Time: Pterodactyls - Infinity Street

Morning Work Time: Plastic Utensils - review of long multiplication with the Montessori materials (Checker Board, Checker Board Beads, Number Tiles), KLL What Is the World Record Flight for a Chicken?

Multiplying Fractions with Cross-cancellation

Fable at Snack - read lesser-known fables from the Library of Congress: The Two Goats, The Wolf & His Shadow

Read Aloud at Lunch - Alice in Wonderland chap 7, A Mad Tea-Party

Foods of the World: Oceania - find Guam on our map of the world, make Beef Tinaktak



Legends of the Saints - use craft wire and jewelry to add handles and charms to our Lanterns for the Lantern Walk

Handwork - finger knitting, knitting, embroidery, counted cross-stitch

Science Club - see detailed notes at Air Pressure: How and Why

Thursday, Nov 17

SSR

set up Waldorf birthday ring for student turning 10 today!

Morning Work Time: Pterodactyls - review first three families on Infinity Street, read A Million Dots by Andrew Clements



Morning Work Time: Plastic Utensils - review of Order of Operations, math facts practice

Multiplication Mosaics - sample pages from Mindware

Division Designs - sample pages from Mindware



Fable at Snack - read lesser-known fables from the Library of Congress: The Monkey & the Dolphin, The Two Pots

Read Aloud at Lunch - Alice in Wonderland chap 8, The Queen's Croquet-Ground

Handwork - make knitting needles (AR, LL, CH)

How to Make Acorn Cap Knitting Needles blog post

Indoor Play - caravan, dollhouse furniture, wooden animals, play kitchen foods, Grapat mandala kits

Special Guest - Angela Davis, Superintendent of the Southeast Wastewater Treatment Plant for Carbondale

Friday, Nov 18 - Lantern Walk

Week of November 21 - Autumn Break

ages 10 & 11 assigned math practice over break

Assorted Math Practice (PDF)
KW - Time Units, green cards, pp.4-6, 10 (answer key)
CR - Open Ended Problems, yellow cards, pp. 14, 16 (answer key)
AH - Open Ended Problems, blue cards, pp.15, 17-18 (answer key)

AG - Decimal Competency Packet, pp.16-20
Multiplication
Multiplication by Multiples of 10
Division by Multiples of 10
Division by Whole Numbers
Division by Decimals

The photos to go with this week are here.

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

Good Night Oppy

I just watched Good Night Oppy and it's surprisingly wonderful. I'm so excited to show it to Zac! Free on Amazon Prime, it's about the twin Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. Given a very short expected mission duration, Opportunity astounded everyone by lasting over 14 years!

I highly recommend this excellent heartwarming documentary, and it's very family friendly. It's rated PG for some very mild language (dammit).

Spirit rover
Landing date: January 4, 2004
Last contact: March 22, 2010

Opportunity rover
Landing date: January 25, 2004
Last contact: June 10, 2018

Curiosity rover
Landing date: August 5, 2012
still active

Perseverance rover
Landing date: February 18, 2021
still active

The newest rover exploring Mars is Perseverance (the mission mentioned at the very end of Life on Mars, the early reader by Mary Kay Carson which has a very nice overview of the missions sent to Mars thus far, with pictures).

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

Puppet Inventory

As part of getting ready for December, I'm working on an inventory of our existing puppets (marionettes, finger puppets, table puppets, rod puppets, and hand puppets).

Sadly one of the Moulin Roty La Grande Famille soft velour hand puppets that my girls had when they were small was damaged this summer at Touch of Nature. But I still have Agathe the cat, Charlotte the cow, Julius the dog, Nini the mouse, and Sylvain the rabbit.

La Grande Famille also includes Albert the lamb, Amédée the duck, Apolline the mole, Arsène the squirrel, Barbabé the donkey, Blanche the doe, Camille the turtle, Emile the hedgehog, Félicie the hen, Gaspard the fox, Gaston the raccoon, Hugo the horse, Igor the wolf, Isidore the owl, Jeanne the second duck, Léon the hedgehog, Mimosa the second cat, Perlette the frog, Philémon the pig, Pierrette the goat, Simon the raccoon, Victor the badger, and more.

And they have interchangeable clothes, which is super fun. I love these puppets so if we need some for a fable retelling I'll gladly get more. They are getting hard to find here, so the best thing is to order from France.

Walter the Scottish Terrier
NOT on the French website
available on Amazon!

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

What Do You Do with Old Birthday Candles?

This week we are making Lanterns for Martinmas. The Feast Day for Martin of Tours is actually November 11th but our Lantern Walk will be this coming Friday. It is common for Martinmas to do a coat drive or canned food drive; we are doing a canned food drive.

We've also made Tissue Paper Transparencies in the past (these are absolutely beautiful but best for 6th grade and up because of the time commitment, planning and organization, and fine motor skills required).

There are lots of ways to make Lanterns but this year we are doing small glass jars. I really want to find a loving use for old short birthday candles and I think this is it! We are using the adorable tiny jars from Petit Pot puddings (available right now at Misfits Market).

First:
Thoroughly wash your jar and dry it. Cut or tear small pieces of tissue paper and use liquid white glue or Mod Podge and a paintbrush to adhere the tissue paper scraps to the outside of your jar. We used Elmer's glue with a bit of Sparkle Mod Podge mixed into it. It looks great (and this is the ONLY use I've ever found for Sparkle Mod Podge)!

We had lots of colors of tissue paper left over from a Valentine's Day Suncatcher.

I also had some gift wrap tissue paper with glitter in it and that worked well too.

Pro Tip - put your fingers of your non-dominant hand inside the jar and "wear" it like a mitten so that you can work with your dominant hand and decorate the jar without getting all sticky.

Second:
Let your jar dry for several days. We turned ours upside down and left them on a painting board.

Third:
Make a handle for your lantern. We are using wire since the children had so much fun doing wire sculptures for Alexander Calder. I also went through my bin of costume jewelry, donated to the school over the past few years, and pulled out charms that I thought would make good dangly embellishments.

Fourth:
Find the short candles (our jars are particularly tiny). For us, the beeswax candles that fit in a Waldorf birthday ring are the perfect size. These are beautiful and handmade... and somewhat expensive... so you really want to burn them all the way to the end. But having a super-short candle in a birthday ring doesn't feel very festive. So this craft is absolutely perfect!

Fifth:
Go on a Lantern Walk with your child one evening after sunset. Enjoy! ❤️

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

Place Value & Redwood Trees

This is a lesson I have mentioned on the Column Algorithms / Place Value page on my website but I wanted to give a more complete explanation of it here. We did it on Monday and it went so well!

she was tickled pink to share her family's magnet
of a car driving through a redwood tree!

Waldorf always centers a lesson around a story. For this one, I like Redwoods by Jason Chin.

There are lots of different numbers that you can pull out of this book and make with the Number Cards and Golden Bead Material (Montessori hands-on math manipulatives) but I think the best are 2000, 200, 29, and 2.

Small Wooden Number Cards with Box

Montessori color-codes the digits to show their place value.

units place - green

tens place - blue

hundreds place - red

Note that the thousands place is green again because it is the units place of the Thousands Family. Every set of 3 digits between the commas always follows the predictable pattern of units, tens, and hundreds.

134 , 237 , 984

My earlier post, How I Teach Place Value, goes into this in more detail and also explains the Dice Game, which is wonderful for learning how to read big numbers!

We aren't up to the Dice Game yet. We are just working in this lesson on understanding that the digit 2 can mean different things depending on where it is in the number.

NOTE: I explain Fractions in a similar way. The top number, the numerator, tells "how many." The bottom number, the denominator, tells "what kind." The bottom number in a fraction is which kind of piece you are getting from the Cut-Out Labeled Fraction Circles. In place value, the location of the digit is what kind of piece you are getting from the Golden Bead Material!

100 Golden Unit Beads

45 Golden Bead Bars of 10 with Box

10 Wooden Hundred Squares

9 Wooden Thousand Cubes

So, here is what we did.

First, we read the book Redwoods together.

Then we got out the Golden Bead Material and reviewed which piece is which (units, tens, hundreds, thousands). They hadn't see the thousands pieces before so that was very exciting! (I introduced the Golden Beads after we read The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins by Dr. Suess. At the end of the book the king gives him 500 pieces of gold for his hat. A perfect transition!!!! We looked at the units, tens, and hundreds pieces of the Golden Bead Material and made some numbers from the story and wrote them in colored pencil.)

Then we got out the Number Cards and I suggested that -- just as we did with The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins -- we make some different numbers from the story with the Number Cards and then build them with the Golden Beads.

The four numbers I like to use from Redwoods are presented in the story in just this order, so it is absolutely perfect.

2000
"One tree can live for more that 2,000 years, which means that there are trees alive today that first sprouted during the Roman Empire."

200
"Redwoods regularly grow to be more than 200 feet tall."

29
"A redwood trunk can be twenty-nine feet in diameter at its base. That's so wide that a tunnel can be cut in it, big enough for a car to drive through."

2
"With enough light and water a redwood sapling can grow fast -- up to two feet per year."

Notice that in 29, two cards are used. I love the Number Cards because you can unstack them from each other and lay them side by side to see expanded notation (20 plus 9), and then "slide 'em and stack 'em" to see standard notation. This makes it easier for the children to figure out how to build the desired number with the Golden Beads as well.

Once we had built all four quantities, I worked on writing them down in colored pencil and while I was doing that I asked them to look and see, "there's something really interesting here... what is the same about all of these numbers?"

They looked for a bit and then noticed that all of the numbers have 2 in them! How can that be? They are all 2 but some of these numbers are really big amounts and some are really small. And then we were able to talk about how the 2 means something different depending on where it is in the number. I introduced the terms thousands place, hundreds place, tens place, and units place.

We will work more with this idea in the coming days and weeks. But it was such a nice and interesting way to introduce it!

NOTE: In Montessori we use the term "units" instead of "ones." In the Simple Family, it is true that the units are worth one. But the units of a Thousand Family are worth 1000. In the Millions Family, the units are worth a million! So it may seem calling them "ones" is making it more clear for the child but in the long term I think it is actually more confusing.

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