JGB series 2 - First Semester

I don't have my teacher's guide (I always write ideas in the margins) from my old school, of course, so as we begin to go through the anthology I am sure different ideas from the past will come floating up to me. I'd like to keep track of them here. I find my blog and website much easier than paper notes because I can't lose them! If you are also teaching with this anthology, and have a great connection to share, please feel free to leave a comment!

Junior Great Books Series 2 First Semester Teacher's Edition (1992)

The first semester stories are as follows:

First Semester Student Anthology

"The Happy Lion"
by Louise Fatio

"The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin"
by Beatrix Potter

"How the Camel Got His Hump"
by Rudyard Kipling

"Kanga and Baby Roo Come to the Forest, and Piglet Has a Bath"
by A.A. Milne

"Arap Sang and the Cranes"
African folktale as told by Humphrey Harman

"Blue Moose"
by Daniel Manus Pinkwater

"Anancy and Dog and Puss and Friendship"
West Indian folktale as told by James Berry

"Jack and the Beanstalk"
English folktale as told by Joseph Jacobs

"The Magic Listening Cap"
Japanese folktale as told by Yoshiko Uchida

"The Jackal and the Partridge"
Punjabi folktale as told by Flora Annie Steel

"Nail Soup"
Swedish folktale as told by Linda Rahm

"The Apple of Contentment"
by Howard Pyle

Misc. Notes

"The Happy Lion"
by Louise Fatio

use a Venn Diagram to compare/contrast with The Un-Terrible Tiger by Miroslav Zahradka

"The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin"
by Beatrix Potter

read Beatrix by Jeanette Winter



refill bird feeders, have lunch outside and watch the antics of the squirrels

enjoy some more riddles!


The Big Book of Silly Jokes for Kids
Carole P. Roman (traditional resource)


One, Two, Three: A Collections of Songs, Verses,Riddles, and Stories for Children Grades 1 — 3
by David Adams (Waldorf resource)
here's the link to the FREE PDF of the book


A Knife and a Fork and a Bottle and a Cork
riddle rhymes for the 50 U.S. states by Howard Schrager

"How the Camel Got His Hump"
by Rudyard Kipling

we will try this peer feedback activity that I learned from an Acton Academy guide and which I think relates to this story (and if we like it, we will adopt it as a weekly routine); at her school, at the end of every week, the children have a meeting and give one another public verbal feedback (on a scale of 1 to 10) on the following attributes:

making your best effort

to be kind
to work hard
to stay focused


this was shared at a Growth Mindset conference and is part of building a growth mindset classroom community; it is done to be helpful and all comments are made in the spirit of loving kindness

"Kanga and Baby Roo Come to the Forest, and Piglet Has a Bath"
by A.A. Milne

at a recent SWI conference, the suggestion was made to study a sentence of the week (first by identifying the parts of speech -- which we do with the Montessori grammar symbols -- and then doing some Structured Word Inquiry with any words of interest)

for us, this means that our rhythm of exploring the JGB stories will be as follows:

Monday - first reading of the story, symbolize the sentence of the week (using the paper grammar symbols and chart paper)




Tuesday - first discussion

Wednesday - second reading (close reading, underlining and making notes in the book), SWI explorations of the sentence of the week

Thursday - second discussion

If you are interested in more about using the Montessori Grammar symbols in a Waldorf environment, join my Ruzuku course! Montessori Grammar is a perfect fit because it's visual and kinesthetic and beautiful and engaging!

Grammar 3/4
$30.00

"Arap Sang and the Cranes"
African folktale as told by Humphrey Harman

do "The Water Bird" game from Games Children Play: How Games and Sport Help Children Develop by Kim John Payne, #94, p.50

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

Quality of Numbers: Field Trip for the Number 9

I'm very proud of myself for coming up with such a cool field trip idea for the number 9! Here's what we did today.

First, we read Pezzettino by Leo Lionni. I'm so glad this book is back in print. It's excellent, and just wonderful for the number 9 especially.

Pezzettino
by Leo Lionni

Then the children solved today's riddle, the answer being rock. I spent several hours yesterday evening looking high and low for a rock or stone riddle that I liked and couldn't find one, so I wrote my own.

You can find me in the water
You can find me on the land
I can be too heavy to lift
You can hold me in your hand
Mountains are made of me
And so is the sand

~ rock

After solving the riddle, they continued with our Quality of Numbers container story about Calendula and Plantain, and used the beautiful shell to move the salt and reveal the magic symbols. I made a big deal about how the number for 9 was going to be very surprising... and might give them a hint about the number 10... but they had to keep their guesses to themselves until Monday morning. I'm curious to see if they make the connection between IV (one less than five) and IX (one less than ten).

I explained that the number 9 is special because it is a square number. I have a beautiful piece of square number artwork, made of nine tiles which my students made for me for Christmas several years ago with their art teacher (she wrote a guest blog post with the how-to), and so we got that out and counted the tiles. Yes, there were nine!

I then set out lots of scrap pieces from our collection of beautiful scrapbooking papers, and gave them each a little square block (the smallest pieces from the Grimm's Large Stepped Pyramid). They each chose 9 papers and traced the block once on each paper, giving them 9 squares. On Monday, they will cut out each square and make a collage with the 9 squares making one larger square. Leo Lionni's artwork in Pezzettino inspired this project. Both tracing work and cutting work are really important for six-year-olds.

Then I asked them, do you think every number is a square number?

Our field trip -- which ties in with the idea of rocks and of smaller pieces making up the whole -- was to the stunning Mandala Gardens in Marion IL. The entrance fee is $2.00 per person. I hit upon the idea of having us pay in quarters, so that the children could review the number 8 by counting out their quarters. I gave them their quarters and asked them if they could arrange them into a square. No! Eight is not a square number. They quickly discovered, however, that four is!

Once we had our 8 quarters per person, it was time to head out the door. We had a grand time exploring Mandala Gardens!

Pezzettino falls and breaks into 9 pieces

choosing the beautiful papers

hmmm... not a square number

welcome to Mandala Gardens

even the animal enclosures are beautiful

What a perfect Autumn day!

Thank you, Trish, for reminding me about this amazing local garden!

If you're getting ready to teach the Quality of Numbers block, detailed notes such as these are available for all of the numbers, including stories, riddles, art suggestions, MLB pages, and more hands-on activities to explore each number. Join my new Ruzuku course with others teaching the same block!

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