LA Block: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

"Where the Mountain Meets the Moon"

by Grace Lin

Carrie from The Parenting Passageway tipped me off to this great book this summer. As usual, she was right. It's a wonderful mix of fairy tales wrapped into a lovely cultural story about a young poor girl in China who wants to change her family's fortune. After hearing inspiring stories told by her Ba (father), she follows her heart on a magical journey complete with talking goldfish and a lovable dragon on her way to find The Old Man of the Moon who will hopefully tell her how to help save her family from their difficult reality.

The chapters are short, but don't kid yourself, your children will not want you to put this book down - lol! We are more than half way through it and I ended up changing gears and have been planning our whole Jan block around this book.

I am drawing a picture from the book twice a week that the girls will then copy into their MLB's. They have been helping me write sentences/summaries that they are placing in their book, on the page next to their drawing. Above the drawing, is also a very short sentence in which the nouns are identified in blue (and the verbs will be identified in red starting this week as we are covering a part of speech each week). Here is an example:

.

We are writing down words to keep on a large piece of paper that pertain to the book that they are learning. These words are helping them to form sentences of their summaries and are helping reading, writing, and spelling. They are also learning the beginnings of punctuation.

Along with beeswax modeling, a traditional Chinese meal, and a little lesson on the Chinese New Year (Feb 3rd this year), we are enjoying painting.

Elena is the type of child who is more comfortable following a model. When she feels satisfied, she then takes little steps to branch out to make something her own.

Charley, on the other hand, has always marched to the beat of her own drum. Even though we've discussed why we lay down the background first and then remove paint to add an element, she was very insistent on trying it this way - putting the dragon down and then painting around it. It was a good way for her to see that it does not layer the picture well, though I admit, it does have a pretty neat effect. It is also more challenging if the paint runs a bit, as wet on wet tends to do. Her picture took a lot longer than the others.

Elena's is listed below...

Setting them out to dry...

The girls are happily preparing to make their First Reconciliation at the end of this month, so we've been heavy into religious education, which fits beautifully in with the studies of the Saints this year. Here Charley is with our long term foster pup, Stanley (10 years old). He's helping her prepare :) Stanley had a dental whereby he lost most of his teeth, so his little tongue hangs out to the side permanently. Once in a while he pulls it all the way in his mouth, but we think it just adds to his charm! He doesn't see well, but he is a total sweetheart. I have fallen really hard for this little senior. We've had him a month now, but he's been in the rescue since August and no interest in him yet (good for me, right?!?! :D)

Another part of the 2nd grade curriculum is learning the basic parts of speech. We have started learning about nouns and verbs. The first week, we tackled nouns. I found some fun books to enhance our understanding. Brian P. Cleary has written some simple books which rhyme and add to the fun. The other selection of books are more advanced, so I cover the first few pages, but then when it goes off on specifics that we are not yet ready for (branching off into more detail than we are ready for at this moment "Imperative", "tenses", "helping verbs") then I am just stopping there. These books (by Ruth Heller) will be great as we progress, but I am finding the Cleary books to be more on our current level.

We always allow lots of time for freeplay and the Ostheimers are still favorites!

This week's saint was St. Antony of Egypt. His feast day was on January 17th, the day after the girls daddy (who is also an Anthony) had a very special b-day!

For this St. Antony, I gleaned inspiration from "Stories of the Saints", as well as the Catholic teachings found online. EWTN has more extensive explanations, like St. Antony of Egypt's found here. Not sure how much I like this book yet, but we'll see over time. We are doing St. Agnes tomorrow for her feast day and a lot of liberties have been taken in the "Stories of the Saints" book. My question is - how true do we need to make them to be historically accurate, especially as a Roman Catholic who wants to respect that history of the church - versus making the story speak to the child with fantastical liberties, ya know? I am trying my very best to do both so I'm finding that pulling some elements from the prewritten stories, coupled with the accounts from the church is probably the best way to tailor it to our little ones.

It was Daddy's birthday on Sunday...

Charley is holding little Ralph - our one week foster

as we help out the head of our rescue.

And finally - some delicious homemade granola!

Charley loves her granola so I decided it's about time I make my own organic granola. I asked the awesome mamas at the Green Tara Mama Yahoo Group and got several great recipes to try. This one came in first and so we gave it a whirl - very good (and easy)!

This recipe came from Leslie K. from the Green Tara Mama Yahoo Group:

Slow Cooker granola (A friend sent this recipe to me, she said it came from "Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker" by Robin Robertson).

5 cups oats
1 cup sliced almonds
3/4 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup sesame seeds
2/3 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup canola
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Mix all of the ingredients in a crockpot. Do NOT cover with the lid. Cook for 1.5 hours on high, then turn to low and cook for 2 more hours. Stir occasionally. Spread on cookie sheets to cool and dry until crispy. Yields about 8 cups.

Catching Up...Fables - "The Ant and the Grasshopper"

"The Ant and the Grasshopper"

In an attempt to catch up a bit, I am going to be posting some highlights of some of our work in the fall that I neglected to post. I didn't take pictures of everything as time was short, but I am going to make an effort to do better in this new year! So without further ado, here is some of our continuation of a Language Arts Block with fables...


Told the story of the Ant and the Grasshopper (Aesop) using props we had on hand (the moral should not be told - it is left for the child to come to). A tuft of green wool was the grasshopper and a tuft of black was the ant. The random wool was the food being gathered.

We had fun over three days covering the story, drawing it, painting it, and writing about it, learning words and beginning basic parts of speech.

A flower Elena painted...

And my fox & the grapes painting...

A pumpkin scene Charley painted (this was in Oct that we did this block)...

To Be Continued...

Grade 2: LA Block with Fables - The Fox & the Grapes

October brings us a slight chill and a bit of rain (how welcomed!) and it also brings us back to Language Arts lessons. This month, our vehicle is Aesop's fables and here are some pictures to share...

First of all, I decided to start off with one of my favorites as a child, "The Fox & the Grapes". Attitude is everything in life and learning to be gracious, honest and humble just can't be underestimated, especially in today's world.

I started a new tradition this year (and will photograph it next week) - but I have decided to add the magic of a *storyteller's chair*, along with a *storyteller's shawl*. When the girls see me putting it on, they know a tale is about to begin :)

I hid my chalkboard drawing under a silk, and we followed the three day rhythm. I introduced the story on the first day, we retold it together the second day, and the third day, the girls each got to retell it. I pulled out my trusty playscape and a needle felted fox. We pretended the tree was really a vine and I quickly stuck a blob of purple on there to represent our grapes...

When it was the girls turn to retell the story, they took turns, and put on the storyteller's cape. They also wanted to wear a storyteller's babushka (we are part Polish, after all :)! The girls had so much fun - boy did that fox go flying all over the place trying to get those juicy grapes!

After the story was told, on Day 2, I revealed the chalkboard drawing and we began to copy it into our MLB's. This year, I find that they have more control and more patience over their fingers and drawing, so while last year, I allowed them to use various colors for their drawings, this year, we are focusing on using just the three primary colors and blending. While it may be ideal to start with just the primary's in Grade 1, as homeschoolers, I found I had to do more coaxing than I would have if the girls were under a teacher they didn't really know. They are ready for this challenge and I was very pleased with how their drawings turned out.

We also wrote a summary together to copy down onto another blank page in our MLB's.

Both of the girls need work trying to stay in a line and sometimes the letters still get away from us. Using the stick crayons to write words is harder than using a pencil, so I am taking that into account, as well. And perfectionism isn't pushed - just doing the very best you can do at this moment is what I usually stress. And I often point out errors I make (my fox's head is too small - oh look, I will try to make it a little bigger)!

And, of course, in the style of Earthschooling, who could forget to bring the grapes - for multisensory fun! They look a little mealy here, but they tasted good - lol! I stood on a chair and held the sprig up high while the girls jumped for them like the fox and giggled all the while!

We took the time to think of words that rhyme with *fox* and they saw how "ox" and "ocks" makes the same sound!

And another fun way to encourage writing, spelling, and reading, is to have the kids create their own mail boxes out of old cereal boxes or shoe boxes. They cut up paper bags and we taped them on and then they painted designs, and we even made little flags for them, so they know when they have mail!

My hubby works late, so this has been a fun way for them to connect with him during the day. They receive and leave messages for him and get all excited to see when the flag is raised!

We actually did this exercise when they were very little and they would draw things for him, but now it's so fun that they can write little notes. I even got a few lovely ones, myself - and some fun Michaelmas and Halloween drawings!

We went on a bunch of field trips over the last two weeks, so I'll share a few shots from them in my next post - some really fun local places to see!