Philosophy Club: Alan Watts

Philosophy Topic: Time

It has taken four weeks to do our Paper Plate Tree Weavings in Philosophy for the topic of Time.

Week 1 we painted the ground color and the clouds in the sky.

Week 2 we read Thomas Locker's Sky Tree and decided on our time of year, then added additional seasonal details to the background.

Week 3 we cut the notches around the edge of the paper plate and warped the loom (adding the tree trunks and branches) and chose our tree colors.

Week 4 we wove the tree's colorful leaves (or snow, if you're Becca).

During this time, of course, we've also been learning about our philosophers. We started with Augustine. Last session, when we were weaving our colors, we discussed Alan Watts and the Buddhist concept of real time...

Who can resist debating questions like:

"What would it be like to have a watch that was always set on now?"

"Do you think it is possible that only the present moment really and truly exists, and if so how would you explain it?"

"Do you think that if you were always living in the present moment you would become selfish?"

"How long can you concentrate on any one thing without becoming distracted? Is it hard to keep your mind focused on what is right before you? Why?"

"What are some things that time does not change?"

"In as few words as possible, describe forever."

"What does it mean to waste time? What does it mean to use time well?"

"If you take good care of the present, the future will take care of itself. What does this mean to you? Do you believe it?"

We started our final session of Time with one of Marietta McCarty's suggestions on page 116:

Sit with the children as each of you looks at one thing, and one thing only, for ten minutes. Concentrate on a blade of grass, a leaf, or a bird's nest. Listen to the sound of crickets. Savor the fragrance of hyacinths. Touch the bark of a tree. Slowly taste an apple one small bite at a time. Afterward, ask the children if they can describe what those ten minutes were like. Have them tell you whether they prefer to talk about this experience or not and why. Do they have any idea how much time went by as they were sitting? Did it seem like a long or short period of concentration?

I'll take a picture of the bulletin board display once I've put it together. Our next, and final, Philosophy topic of the year will be Humanity.

UPDATE: Wednesday, April 11

This post contains affiliate links to the materials I actually use for homeschooling. I hope you find them helpful. Thank you for your support!

Capital Letters X and P

This week in my one-on-one Capital Letters session, we reviewed S is for Stars and O is for Otter and added the illustration and words to our book.

We spent some time working with the Golden Bead Material, laying out the Small Number Cards in three columns for the numbers from 1 to 9, 10 to 90, and 100. Then we made the numbers from 1 to 9 with the unit beads. We slid the 10 card under the unit cards to make the teen numbers one at a time, and I placed a ten bar beside each set of unit beads to show how the "teen" in the numbers is a reference to "ten."

Thirteen is 3 plus 10. Fourteen is 4 plus 10. Fifteen is 5 plus 10. Etc.

Being able to physically build the numbers helps the patterns make sense.

Then we moved on to laying out enough ten bars beside the 10 cards to make 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, and 90. We counted from 20 to 60, by ones, showing how the "ty" in the numbers is also a reference to "ten."

Twenty is two tens. Thirty is three tens. Fourty is four tens. Etc.

The difference between "teen" and "ty" is that "teen" means to add ten, and "ty" means to multiply by ten. Seventeen = 7 + 10. Seventy = 7 x 10.

The Small Number Cards introduce the color coding for place value which is carried forward throughout the rest of the Montessori materials. I love how they can be slid apart to show expanded notation, or layered on top of one another to show each digit in its correct color. Green is for units; blue is for tens; red is for hundreds.

Then it was time for a new pair of letters!

X is for Xylophone
P is for Parrot

We looked at the illustration for X in The Wise Enchanter: A Journey through the Alphabet.

Then, of course, we played my xylophone!

Next, I read The Horrendous Hullablaoo by Margaret Mahy (the illustration for a parrot in the shape of a P is on the front cover), and we followed it with a hullabaloo of our own, experimenting with my collection of musical instruments and playing along to Hap Palmer. Several of these songs are excellent for building auditory discrimination.

Rhythms on Parade

"Woodpecker" - I had two rhythm sticks; he had the xylophone

"Tap Your Sticks" - We both had a pair of rhythm sticks

"Bean Bag Shake" - Do this standing; we each had shaker eggs

"Stuff It in the Closet" - Do this walking around in a circle with a large variety of instruments in the middle; pantomime shoving a variety of things in as he is singing; when the stuff all falls out of the closet grab an instrument of your choice and make a lot of noise with it!

"Play and Rest" - Again, make all instruments available

I have a lot of musical instruments in my classroom including the xylophone, rainsticks, drums, shaker eggs, rhythm sticks, castanets, a cow bell, and frog drums in a variety of sizes.

This post contains affiliate links to the materials I actually use for homeschooling. I hope you find them helpful. Thank you for your support!

Lesson Planning for Out of the Dust

It is Sunday evening and I'm looking over the pacing of our last few topics of the school year.

In our next two weeks we will be finishing up our Norse Mythology block. Out of the remaining stories in D'Aulaires' Book of Norse Myths, I decided on

Monday April 2
listen to Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries (4:53)
The Valkyries and Valhalla

Tuesday April 3
Freya's Wonderful Necklace

Thurday April 5
Idunn's Apples of Youth

Friday April 6
The Theft of Thor's Hammer

Monday April 9
Thor and the Jotun Utgardsloki

Tuesday April 10
The Death of Balder

Thursday April 12
Loki's Punishment

Friday April 13
Ragnarokk, the Destiny of the Gods
A New World

Leah has finished reading Pride and Prejudice and is working on her essay, due Friday. The students who were reading Holes finished it and they will be watching the movie version this upcoming weekend.

Leah and I will be moving on to Hamlet as her introduction to Shakespeare and her final literature study of the year; the other novel study I'll be teaching is Out of the Dust. I didn't choose to do it in April because this is National Poetry Month. It is just a coincidence!. I had a particular student in my homeschool co-op in mind when I chose this book. His favorite book from last year was historical fiction written completely in verse. It was Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village, set in England 1255.

Out of the Dust, on the other hand, is set in Oklahoma in 1934 and 1935.

Although I bought a unit of lesson plans from TpT (I'm using traditional materials to help this child transition into public school next year), I'm also really interested in the treatment this time is given in What Was It Like? Teaching History and Culture Through Young Adult Literature by Linda Rice.

Chapter 2 is called "Overcoming Economic Hardship and Physical Disability During the Great Depression (1929-1939)" and she recommends a trio of young adult novels.

I like how interwoven her teaching ideas are with bigger themes, like understanding how the stock market works. We have the vintage card game Pit, and I remember playing The Stock Market Game over a decade ago in my fourth grade public school in Maryland. Those would be GREAT things to weave in, since we will also be doing our third Math main lesson block while we are reading this book!

Rice also presents five Active Learning Project options:

Going on Location with Photography

Handbook for Hoboes

Vocabulary Skit

Independent Endeavors

Character Change Illustrations

She also lists two ideas for Role Play and Simulation:

News Broadcast

Learning Centers -- "As a way for students to engage actively and think creatively about vicariously experiencing the challenges faced by the characters in a story, they will work in groups to create Learning Centers that simulate challenges present in their novel." I really like the student-created idea for a dust storm simulation, p.40.

Finally, she lists a vareity of Creative Writing options, all poetry:

Found Poetry

Recipe Poem

Stepping into a Historical Photograph

Villanelle

Repetition to Emphasize a Point

Adding a Scene

My traditional lesson plans from TpT came as a folder containing 16 documents:

Teaching Guide - her thoughts on pacing

Response Pages
(this is a packet, print pages 3-13 for the child to complete while reading the book)

Response Pages Key

Freewrites
(open ended prompts to show on your computer screen, 10 total)
Winter 1934
Spring 1934
Summer 1934
Autumn 1934
Winter 1935
Winter 1935
Winter 1935
Spring 1935
Summer 1935
Autumn 1935

Freewrites Response Pages
(paper for students to write on, space for 10 entries labeled with season & year)

Friendly Letter Assignment, Websearch Activity, Websearch Key

Friendly Letter Writing Rubric

Objective Summary for Summer 1935

Determining Theme
(I will use her four terms but do the good/bad grid activity from Reviving the Essay lesson 2, Prompt Generator)

Determining Theme Key

Plotline Chart
(graphic organizer, complete before doing final assessments)

Plotline Chart Key

Conflict Page

Conflict Page Key

Vocabulary and Key - we will not do this

Test and Key

This is subject to change, but right now I'm thinking

Monday April 9
in class - begin The Stock Market Game

focus on the stock market in class for the rest of the week, check leaderboard daily and make more trades if desired

Monday April 16
in class - play vintage Pit card game, anyone seen Trading Places?

dust storm simulation with fans, chairs arranged around the kitchen, blindfolds, play Howling Wind on Youtube for background sound

look at biome map of N. America, where did the Dust Bowl happen?

read Leah's Pony by Elizabeth Friedrich


at home - read Winter 1934

Tuesday April 17
in class - complete free write and response packet
at home - read Spring 1934

Wednesday April 18
at home - do websearch activity

view “Surviving the Dust Bowl – The American Experience”

and/or read Children of the Dust Bowl: The True Story of the School at Weedpatch Camp


look at Root Systems of Prairie Plants poster ($30)

Thursday April 19
in class - complete free write and response packet
at home - read Summer 1934

Friday April 20
in class - complete free write and response packet
at home - read Autumn 1934

Monday April 23
in class - complete free write and response packet
at home - read Winter 1935

Tuesday April 24
in class - complete three free writes
at home - rough draft friendly letter assignment

Wednesday April 5
in class - complete response packet, final draft friendly letter
at home - read Spring 1935

Thursday April 26 - Poem in Your Pocket Day 2018
in class - rough draft of poetry assignment from What Was It Like?
at home - final draft poetry creative writing assignment

Friday April 27
in class - complete free write and response packet
at home - read Summer 1935

Monday April 30
in class - complete free write and response packet
at home - complete objective summary assignment

Tuesday May 1
in class - read aloud in class Autumn 1935, complete free write and response packet
at home - complete plotline chart and conflict page

Thursday May 3
in class - Prompt Generator exercise from Reviving the Essay
at home - Character Change illustration from What Was It Like?

Friday May 4
in class - take test
at home - Going on Location with Photography from What Was It Like?

I think Going on Location with Photography will be a very interesting final assigment! It's always a challenge to make a story come to life. My 16 and 14 year old daughters, Natalie and Leah, just came home from seeing Ready Player One with their friends. Leah read the book and hated the movie. Natalie didn't read the book and loved the movie.

On the way home in the car, listening to them talk back and forth about the movie, I came up with the most BRILLIANT IDEA.

Any movie execs out there listening?

Film studios always try to capitalize on the success of a book by making it into a movie, opening themselves up to hatred when audiences don't like their interpretation. Instead of taking a best-selling book and making it into a film, why not make a movie of the (as yet unwritten) sequel to the book? That way people who love the book and the characters will still come to see the movie to see what might happen next... they will joyfully write fanfic and discuss it ad nauseum... and movie makers don't expose themselves to the criticism of purists. Yet, they can still capitalize on a huge fan base!

Even better...

Different movie studios could write different sequels/screenplays and RELEASE THEM AT THE SAME TIME and people could go to more than one and see which one they like. Like when three different endings were released to the movie Clue in 1985, and competing movie theaters would show different endings and people would happily pay more than once to see the film. Wouldn't that be so fun???

This post contains affiliate links to the materials I actually use for homeschooling. I hope you find them helpful. Thank you for your support!