Monday, April 11, 2011

The King of Ireland's Son



Padraic Colum

What a fun month March was for us - Springtime and Irish legends, along with some Language Arts tied into the block. We had such fun!

We're have been preparing a nature project and found some old stumps from a Christmas tree farm that we collected. You can contact one by you and ask them if you can pick up a bunch and they usually will welcome the clean-up and you get some free nature supplies for various craft and school projects! We clean ours off and then bake at a low setting to be sure we're not bringing termites and things into the house.

I apologize that this post will be somewhat short, but we are restructuring things in our home and I have been so busy that I haven't taken the time to document as much or share, but I'm goint to start back as soon as I can and until then, wanted to share this for the month of March and Grade 2!

Our monthly book was "The King of Ireland's Son" and we wove it into our homeschooling, as well. Here are a few pictures of some drawings and MLB's that we did that were tied into the story. Following Eric Fairman's suggestion of color coding grammar, we put our nouns in one color and our verbs in another and formed short sentences. Here are a couple more pictures that we tied into the story. I also wanted to share one of my favorite resources for Irish Legends and it is this book by Yvonne Carroll. Irish Legends for Children contains several wonderful stories to tie into this March Irish block! We also enjoyed stories of St. Patrick and some great legends using some of our favorite Tomie dePaola books! I have been working on various Saint stories that I was hoping to put in one big post and will do so eventually, even if it ends up being summer - lol! Great time to get caught up, right?

Also, I'm really excited because we have decided to move our school back into the old school room upstairs, which had been used recently as a play room. So we emptied it out and prepped it and I just primed it yesterday. I have big plans for this room that I will be sharing as soon as it is finished! Can't wait!

Hope you are all having a wonderful spring and enjoying your little elves and pixies grow!