October is here! We have had gorgeous weather again, mixed with rainy days…perfect home schooling weather…
We read a lot of poetry here..one of our selections this week was from ‘Around the Year’ by Elsa Beskow
We ate Blackberry jam tarts and dragon bread on Michaelmas
The girls have spent a lot of time reading
Our reading time is early in the morning…7am to be precise! I get up between 5 & 6 am, have some quiet time & a shower, then I wake the girls, & everyone troops downstairs in their pyjamas. I read to them from our current read aloud & from our poetry books, then they read to themselves for 20-30 minutes. I also read with Rosie during the day. This is where Beatrix Potter is coming into our day right now. We cuddle up together on the sofa & read ‘popcorn’ style ~ taking it in turns to read a page.
Ellie tends to do her assigned reading at bedtime, with a cup of tea & a biscuit! At the moment, she is reading Twilight Child, The Story Of The Romans and Age of Fable. Twilight child is usually read one chapter a day, The Story of The Romans & Age of Fable are a couple of chapters a week. Age of Fable we read together, again popcorn style. It is an extremely ‘meaty’ book, with complex sentence structures, rich vocabulary & big ideas to consider. She is very taken with Astraea, & wants to create some art inspired by her, so we shall see where that goes. Ellie is very deeply interested in myths and has a real passion for them. She has been reading D’Aulaire’s Book of Norse Myths and D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths, which are both beautiful, classic books.
This week has brought several new books into our home…The Orchard Book Of Roman Myths & D’Aulaire’s Book Of Trolls for Ellie, these wee ‘fact’ books for Rose; Dogs, Cats and Farm Animals. We literally have heaps of these Usbourne books & Rose devours them. More Beatrix Potter books arrived too. We have all her tales in our Treasury, but Rose prefers the wee individual books. Squirrel Nutkin, The Story Of a Fierce Bad Rabbit and Little Pig Robinson all arrived.
There has also been a lot of creating going on this week…Rose has been working on her water colour, plus freeform painting in the garden.
She made monster puppets…
Masks…
Sketches…
And Elianna has been working on a clay model of Jotunheim.
Both girls are working on small tapestries; Elianna is working on something to hang on her bedroom door – it says ‘Warning! Danger’ & Rose is working on a tapestry of a wee squirrel.
I chose this one as it ties in nicely with The Tale Of Squirrel Nutkin. Rose has also enjoyed lots of imaginative playtime with finger puppets this week. Using an owl & a squirrel to play ‘Squirrel Nutkin’.
Last week I mentioned I was changing up our science plans. Building foundations of scientific understanding is the resource I am planning to use. I really like the idea of laying down foundations, mastering a topic before moving on. It does, however, require a lot of teacher prep for the science-phobe such as myself…I shall see how I get on, if I can do it, it will be worth the effort.
We began with the Physical Science thread – Energy C1 Making things go.
Fortunately as we began the lesson Rose dropped a full jar of tiny golden cake decorating balls all over the floor! This made for a great example of gravity & movement (mechanical) energy!
We worked through the lesson, then played Energy Flows, the girls wrote in their science notebooks, & we finished off by watching Bill Nye The Science Guy – Energy.
Little Passports arrived this week! That deserves a post all to itself 🙂
Some of the books we have been reading this week:
The World of Columbus & His Sons
D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths
The Orchard Book Of Roman Myths
Mountains of Usborne Beginners fact books.
Various comic books
Lots & lots of poetry ~ focusing on Beatrix Potter & Walter de la Mare.
Happy Weekend!
Please post about the Little Passports. I have heard about them and would like to know more.
Little Passports coming soon…
I’m new to exploring Charlotte Mason and I love that you’re sharing what you’re reading! It sounds marvelous!!!
We are not CM purists here, but I do treasure her gentle but thorough methods. Thank you for taking the time to comment.
You’re so welcome. I probably won’t be a purist either. It’s hard to kick out what’s been so heavily ingrained in me. But I love the philosophy and I’m finding it hard not to just dig in with everything! But my little guy is only 4 and my oldest guy is already in high school so that would be a huge transition. So….Little steps.
Golly, how are you finding juggling the two very different stages? It must be so lovely to be ‘starting out’ again with your wee man 🙂