Telling, Resting, Composition

Some more details on the rhythms of storytelling...

When I went to Barbara Dewey's homeschool training this summer, our presenter (grades 5/6) was saying that they have a homeschool coop that they participate in each Friday, so that takes a day out of their rhythm. So she does this:

Monday - story, draw picture for MLB
Tuesday - retelling of story and composition, tell the next story
Wednesday and Thursday repeat Tuesday

So that's how she fits in three stories each week. On Monday, since there's extra time, they do Form Drawing before the storytelling for the day.

We do two stories per week, as I described in the last post, and have Cooking on Wednesday. Of course, instead of being able to tell another story we have the Montessori individual work time. But I can attest to the fact that retelling orally, composing your own summary, and illustrating the story REALLY works for helping children to learn content and they love it as well! It is always so fun to make your own books. I, personally, love doing the chalkboard drawings too, on Day 2. (I don't have the children do their drawing on Day 1, I just tell the story and let it rest. Then, on Day 2, I can move around and help children with their composition pieces while other children are working on their drawings.) It always makes the classroom look so beautiful and I find that it helps guide children who have only ever learned to draw by outlining.

Two Day Rhythm

Although I prefer a three day rhythm, we are doing a two day rhythm this year because I need to be able to allow time for the Montessori individual work. So this is our school year plan:

Monday storytelling/Tuesday composition in MLB
Wednesday is Cooking Day
Thursday storytelling/Friday composition in MLB

Recess at 10:45 am. Heart at 11:30 am -
Monday wet on wet watercolor painting
Tuesday beeswax or clay modeling
Thursday form drawing
Friday Gardening

Specials
Monday/Thursday Music
Tuesday Storybook Art
Wednesday/Friday Spanish
Friday Games and Sport

daily nature walk at 1:45 pm

Hurricane Irene

I haven't had Internet in almost two weeks! Finally blogging from work (the first day of school was postponed by three days), here is what we've been doing:

FD lessons 1, 2, 3 a b c from Form Drawing Grades 1 through 4

"Who's Under the Blanket" and "Water Bird" games from Games Children Play

Watercolor painting single colors (verses from Eric Fairman's POD volume 1: grade 1) and then color stories for Little Blue and Little Yellow on the playground from Kelly Morrow's watercolor painting DVD

Circle time verses "Five Little Soldiers" and "See the Little Ducks" from POD 1

Greek Myth "Echo"

Gardening: set up the worm bin!

Cooking: harvesting rosemary and drying it in the microwave

Storybook Art:
Pigs from A to Z
How Thunder and Lightning Came to Be
Barnyard Banter

Handwork - sewing felt beanbags with barnyard animal decorations (patterns from Around the World with Finger Puppet Animals by Suzanne Down)

Vermicomposting

Today I bought red wigglers.


Uncle Jim's Worm Farm 250 Count
Red Wiggler Live Composting Worms

Our school year starts on Monday. We are doing the first great lesson (required for Montessori), sewing felt beanbags to use with our morning circle time, beginning form drawing and watercolor painting, making applesauce with the crab apples that grow locally, and starting a new topic for Hands which is Gardening. I am hoping to have a Gardening lesson every week on Fridays. This week's topic is setting up our classroom vermicomposting bin.

Our poems for circle time this week are "Here is a Tree" and "Five Little Soldiers," both from Eric Fairman's Path of Discovery volume 1 : grade 1.


Five Little Soldiers

Five little soldiers
Standing in a row
Theree stood straight
And two stood so

Along came the captain
And what do you think?
They all stood straight
As quick as a wink

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

900

My Yahoo Group hit 900 people today!

I am back from vacation (snorkeling, sailing, swimming, canoeing, fishing, and visiting the beautiful Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake, New York) and made a small change to the pricing structure on the website. Instead of $30.00 every six months, I've changed the subscription fee to $45.00 for the school year. It does NOT auto-renew. I've also added a new option, which is Consulting. Many people have asked for email support during the school year so I have added a consulting option which provides this, a FREE subscription to the website so that you can download whatever you need, plus use of my lending library if you want to borrow a book and see it before you decide whether to buy it, and more!

I hope these new pricing options are convenient for people. I also accept money orders if you prefer not to use PayPal, and barter if you prefer to pay by way of some product that your family produces. I've received wonderful items this way, including a beautiful Waldorf doll, hand-knitted play kitchen food, a fairy dollhouse and set of flower fairies, and dress up costumes for my girls. My children are older now so I'm not in need of toys, but I still think that barter is a lovely option.

In a few days I'll be attending some Waldorf training for parents homeschooling in grades 5 & 6 so if you have any particular questions that you want me to ask at the workshop, I'd be happy to do so and pass on the responses.

Pajama Day and a Great Bread Recipe

Sunday we celebrated Pajama Day, where we wore our jammies all day and just stayed home. The girls read books and played games including Bingo, Blink, and Boggle. I did a ton of cooking -- homemade yogurt, homemade bread, roasted chicken -- and washed and folded all the laundry. It was the most relaxing day I've had in a long time.

I want to share the Easy Multigrain Sandwich Bread, which I adapted from the March/April 2006 issue of Cook's Illustrated magazine

I love how they use multigrain hot cereal mix to provide the nutrition of the multiple grains without them making the bread heavy and dense. This is a nice subtly sweet sandwich bread. We're having some now for lunch with Watermelon, Orange, and Feta Salad.


Easy Multigrain Sandwich Bread

Place 1 ¼ cups multigrain hot cereal mix in a medium mixing bowl and pour 2 ½ cups of boiling water over. Let stand, stirring occasionally, until mixture cools to 100 degrees and resembles thick porridge, about 1 hour.

Combine 3 cups all purpose flour and 1 ½ cups whole wheat flour in another medium bowl.

Melt 4 T unsalted butter and let cool.

Once grain mixture has cooled, add ¼ cup golden syrup, melted butter, and one packet of active dry yeast. Stir to combine. Add flour mixture, ½ cup at a time, and stir. Knead for two minutes until a ball of dough has formed. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rest for 20 minutes.

Turn dough out onto a clean floured surface. Sprinkle with 1 T table salt and knead for 5 minutes. (Optional: add ¾ pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds and knead another minute.)
Dough should form a smooth taut ball. Place dough in large greased mixing bowl with 4 quart capacity, turn dough so that it is oiled all over, cover, and let rise until doubled, 45 to 60 minutes.

Grease two 9 x 5 inch loaf pans.

Transfer dough to lightly floured work surface and pat into 12 by 9 inch rectangle. Cut dough in half crosswise.

Shape each piece into a loaf as follows. With short side facing you, starting at farthest end, roll dough piece into a log. Keep roll taut by tucking it under itself as you go. To seal loaf, pinch seam gently with thumb and forefinger. Spray loaves lightly with water. Roll each dough log in ¼ cup old-fashioned rolled oats or quick oats. Coat evenly. Place loaf seam-side down into greased loaf pan, pressing gently into corners. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until almost doubled in size, 30 to 40 minutes. Dough should barely spring back when poked with a knuckle.

Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat to 375 degrees.

Bake 35 to 40 minutes, until internal temperature registers 200 degrees on instant-read thermometer. Remove loaves from pan and cool on wire rack before slicing, about 3 hours.


Yield: 2 loaves


Storage: Bread can be wrapped in a double layer of plastic wrap and stored at room temperature for 3 days. Wrap with an additional layer of aluminum foil and freeze for up to one month.

Edible Landscaping

One of the things that I've become interested in lately is Edible Landscaping (both personally at home and as a way to increase what we are able to grow at school). I'm pretty overwhelmed, though, by all the books that are now available about this topic. Here's the list I've gathered.


























Next I will start looking at the library for those that I can find and I will post reviews and which ones are my favorites. If you have one of these books and you love it, please please let me know.

And I've learned something new already... an artichoke is a flower!