Pennsylvania Geography Main Lesson

I must say, it's proven a lot more difficult to plan a main lesson for my fourth grader than for my second grader. Maybe because I know what a main lesson for a first/second grader looks like, but not so much a fourth grade one. I do have Oak Meadow's fourth grade syllabus, as well as Melissa' Little Garden Flower fourth grade syllabus.

We've been gearing up for this since this summer, when we visited Philadelphia on vacation. There I bought two books that have been helpful: The Pennsylvania Reader and Pennsylvania from the Hello USA! series. We also found another book on sale at Borders: K Is for Keystone.

We've also already read The Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz as a read-aloud. Now Michael is reading Miracles on Maple Hill independently. I've looked at some other PA-based books--The Light in the Forest and I Am Regina-- but I am concerned that they may not present Native Americans in a fair light. I'm also concerned they may be too "heavy" for Michael. One problem with a kid reading years above his grade level is finding books that are challenging enough, but still have appropriate content. Then again, Michael continually amazes me with what he can handle, so I may be overthinking it.

Moving on...

We focused a lot on the idea of maps this week. It's not a new concept. Both Michael and Katie Grace answer a question or two in their Daily Geography books each day. We looked at many different types of maps--topographical, political, maps of waterways, maps of railways, maps that show tourist and industry in PA. Most of the week was spent making and painting a salt dough map.

It actually looks kind of garish, but Michael chose the colors. The blue is the water. The red are the mountains.

I don't have a whole lot of pictures. He's going through a bit of an anti-main-lesson-book phase. I kind of get it. He's got some spatial issues, and I think lined notebooks give him some guides. So, he choose a notebook for this lesson. He's also in a sloppy work phase.

In his notebook, he labeled pages A through Z and has been adding things as he learns about them to create a Pennsylvania Alphabet. He's been doing copywork from William Penn's Some Fruits of Solitude, and he glued that into his book as well.

We talked a lot about Pennsylvania resources, tourism, and industries. Tomorrow we're visiting an anthracite coal mine and museum.

Towards the end of the week, we started learning about PA's flag, state tree, state flower, etc. He drew pictures and glued them in as well.

Some other components of the lesson included:
Grammar: We discussed the four types of sentences (declarative, exclamatory, interrogative, and imperative) and wrote PA-related sentences to illustrate each type.

Math: Calculadder, as well as reviewing division facts with online drill games.

Next week we're going to focus on the Susquehanna river and Native American tribes in PA. We'll also be reviewing long division, although I'm not quite sure how to work that in. I really want to try and figure out how to help Michael do neat and careful work-- his best efforts, rather than sloppily trying to work through things as quickly as possible.

Happy Halloween!

We didn't get to have our jack o' lantern pancakes, but we made do with jack o' lantern tortillas.


We did an art project with those fat little water bottles


And for dinner, jack o' lantern pizza! It really didn't turn out.


This year, we went trick or treating out at the mall.

We have Michael with his paper mache head-- St. Denis on All Saints' Day, just a headless dude tonight. Katie Grace decided to be St. Elizabeth of Hungary instead of St. Lucy. Daniel is just wearing his skeleton jammies. We were hoping he would fall asleep on the way home. No deal. Finally, Nicholas is a dragon.


She's just so deceptively sweet, LOL!


I'm not going to smile... I'm not going to smile... OK, I'll smile. See those rosie cheeks? He's either teething or has something viral going on.


And finally, our little dragon was draggin'.

From my notebook...

Pumpkin Cookies

1 C shortening
1 C sugar
1 C solid-packed pumpkin
1 egg
2 C all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt

Cream the shortening, sugar, and pumpkin together with a mixer. Add the egg and mix well. Sift together the dry ingredients and then add them to the creamed mixture. Drop rounded teaspoonfulls onto an ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 375 for 10-12 minutes.

OK, the shortening part isn't so great (but do you know they make organic shortening? So it's OK, right? Because it's organic!) but these are really, really yummy.

From my notebook...

I rake and rake the leaves into a great big heap.
Pretend to rake
Then into the leaves I jump and take a great big leap.
Jump and squat.
I cover myself with the leaves and hide from you.
Then I jump up and, "Peek-a-Boo!"
Jump up!

Celtic Saints Main Lesson Block

For Katie Grace (Year 2) we're smack in the middle of our Celtic Saints Main Lesson Block. This is the first time we've done a block, so bear with me. :)

We enjoyed this YouTube video:


We started off with St. Columba or St. Columcille. We told the story from Oak Meadow Grade 2, but you can also find it here. I feel like this saint and his love of the written word really spoke to Katie Grace, who is herself discovering the magic of letters and words and sentences. Legend has it that, as a small child, St. Columcille was fed a cake on which his letters were written. This really inspired Katie Grace, and she begged to make an alphabet cake of her own:

She's wearing part of her Halloween costume, LOL!

I told her the story, and the next day, she told it back to me. Then I drew a picture and she replicated it in her main lesson book. (The main lesson book is more like "main lesson pages" for now. She wants to bind it "for real" when she's finished.)

You can also see the words I added and she copied the next day.

The following day, she narrated the story. I wrote it down for her and she then illustrated it. Note the alphabet cake.


We also made ink. Well, we tried to make ink. It wasn't much of a success. We followed the instructions here.

We spent two days on St. Columcille and then moved on to St. Brigid. Again, another Celtic saint with a strong emphesis on darkness and light. It seems especially appropriate as the days grow longer, colder, and darker.

Like before, we followed a formula. I told the story--you can find some stories of St. Brigid here. Then Katie Grace illustrated it.


The she dictated a narration to me and illustrated that.


We're also making a St. Brigid's cloak. It's going to be part of her Halloween/All Saints costume as well. I'll have to post pictures when we're done. I also ordered the book Brigid's Cloak, but it hasn't arrived yet.

We moved on to St. Brendan today, and will follow the same pattern: I told the story, then she illustrated it, and tomorrow she'll dictate a narration and illustrate that.

Here's today's picture:


I have a Thames and Kosmos Little Labs Boats Kit that I think we'll open up tomorrow to go along with St. Brendan.

Some other parts of our main lesson block have included:
Copywork: I downloaded The Happy Scribe Irish Proverbs e-book from CurrClick. I'll try to link when their site is back up.


Grammar: We're discussing punctuation. Each day, we read a Dorothy Harrer poem about the different types of punctuation/sentence, and she writes a sentence or two illustrating it.

Math: She's been doing addition and subtraction drills with computer games, as well as Calculadders. We've also done some story problems that tie in with the saints' stories.

There are other things I would like to add: more handwork, perhaps knitting or crochet, some singing, some other forms of artwork. But I'm pretty satisfied that I've been able to work out a way to do main lesson blocks.

from Some Fruits of Solitude

On fault finding

We tend to be very quick about finding faults in others, though we do not tolerate advice ourselves. Nothing shows our weakness more than to be so sharp-sighted at spotting others' faults, and so short-sighted about our own.
-- William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude

Wordless Wednesday: Daniel and Sully Kitty Kisses

From my notebook...

Go batty over Halloween!

At the easel, ask your child to fill white paper with yellow paint. Alternately, you could do a watercolor painting with all yellow. Cut a large circle from the painted paper once it dries, and glue it to a sheet of purple or dark blue construction paper (you could also paint this background paper). Now you have a harvest moon in a nighttime sky. Cut out one or two bat shapes from black paper, and have your child glue them flying in front of the moon. For a 3-D look, fold up the wings a little.

A Day in the Life...

I won't go into the before-school routine. As usual, we got off to a late start.

We started off with devotions. This week we're talking about being thankful in all things. That's a tough order!

We started off with Katie Grace's main lesson. She's in the middle of a saints main lesson block. This morning, she narrated the story of St. Brigid to me and the illustrated it. She then copied an Irish saying "May God keep you safe beneath St. Brigid's cloak." She wrote some sentences about St. Brigid that ended with periods. We ended up her lesson cuddling up so she could read to me from Little Bear. Then she did a Calculadder.

While Katie Grace did this, Michael made his paper mache head for Halloween. Did you know paper mache means "chewed paper" in French? Crazy.

Nicholas, meanwhile, played with the baby.

We had a quick chat about Sts. Jude and Simon, whose feast day is today.

Now it was time for Michael's main lesson. He's studying Pennsylvania. He read a little about PA's economy and then added a page on Pennsylvania's resources, industries and manufacturers to his PA Main Lesson Book. We talked about the four types of sentences--declarative, interrogative, exclamatory, and imperative-- and he wrote PA-related sentences for each. His copywork was from William Penn's Fruits of Solitude:

Right is right, even if everyone is against it.
Wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it.

He followed this up with his independent work. He did his daily geography and read a few more chapters from Miracles on Maple Hill. He updated his reading log and did his Calculadder on his own.

Katie Grace, meanwhile, did her daily geography on her own and practiced her spelling words. Then I set her up with a Calculadder, and then she was done with her independant work.

We did a quick art lesson--How to Draw a Cat-- and then the big kids were done for the morning. That left me free to do Circle Time with Nicholas (Katie Grace and Daniel joined in as well).

Then lunch!

We started listening to an audiobook we downloaded from the library website--The Chocolate Touch. We had only intended to listen to the first two chapters, but the kids enjoyed it so much, we listened to eight! Before we knew it, Michael had to leave for orchestra.

Daddy came home and put the baby down for a nap, and Katie Grace and Nicholas watched Between the Lions while I took Michael to orchestra.

When I got back, we read Story of the World.

Then I told a nature story about the leaf cycle. Both the older kids drew a picture for their main lesson books. Nicholas and I worked on a spider book we're making.

Then we cleaned up, and we were done for the day!

from Some Fruits of Solitude

Let us begin where nature begins, go her pace, and end where she ends, and we cannot miss being good naturalists. Creation would no longer be a riddle to us. We would better understand the heavens, the earth, the waters, each with their numerous and varied inhabitants... If we better studied and understood God's creation, this would do a great deal to caution and direct us in our use of it.
--William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude

Menu Plan Monday on Tuesday

Monday: Stir-fried teriyaki beef
Tuesday: Potato corn chowder
Wednesday: Ham and broccoli skillet
Thursday: Minute steaks and potato ragout
Friday: Pizza
Saturday: Thighs and peas
Sunday: At church!

From my notebook...

Twice-Baked Cookies, or Mandelbrot from Family Fun Magazine

	3 tbsp. plus 1 cup sugar
	1/2 tsp. cinnamon
	1 cup vegetable or canola oil
	3 large eggs
	3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
	2 tsp. baking powder
	1/4 tsp. salt
	1 tsp. vanilla extract
	1 cup chopped almonds (or chocolate chips, raisins, chopped walnuts, other nuts or a combination)

1. First, mix the 3 tablespoons of sugar with the cinnamon in a small bowl and set aside. In a large mixing bowl, mix the oil and 1 cup of sugar with a wooden spoon. Stir in the eggs, one at a time.

2. In a separate bowl, mix the flour with the baking powder and salt. Gradually stir the flour mixture, one cup at a time, into the liquids. Stir in the vanilla extract and the nuts, chips or raisins.

3. Gather the dough into a ball, cover with plastic and refrigerate for 1 hour. Heat the oven to 350 degrees, and grease two baking sheets or line them with parchment.

4. Divide the chilled dough into four equal portions and shape into logs about 10 inches long. Place the logs, at least 2 inches apart, on one of the prepared baking sheets. Sprinkle the logs with cinnamon sugar.

5. Bake on the center rack for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven. Once cool enough to handle, cut each log crosswise into 14 pieces, about 3/4-inch wide. Arrange the cookies, flat-side down, on the cookie sheets.

6. Return the cookies to the oven, and bake for 18 more minutes or until the edges begin to brown and the cookies are golden. Once cool, the cookies can be stored in airtight containers or frozen in zippered plastic bags. Makes 56 cookies.

7. Variations: Replace the almonds with chocolate chips and chopped walnuts. Experiment by substituting other favorite ingredients, such as raisins or dried cranberries or cherries.

A (slightly) spooky Halloween circle

Call to Circle
Sing, sing, of the candle a-glowing.
Sing, sing, of the candle a-glowing.
Sing of the pumpkin and sing of the night.
Sing of the autumn and sing of the light.
Sing, sing of the candle glow.

Candle Lighting (We actually light the jack o' lantern)
Jack O' Lantern, Jack O' Lantern,
Your light it doth shone.
Sitting up upon a window
And your light it is mine.

Once you were a yellow pumpkin
Sitting on the sturdy vine.
Now you are my jack o' lantern
And your little light will shine.


Circle Time
Let's go to the pumpkin patch!
I am a pumpkin, big and round.
Once upon a time I grew in the ground.
Now I have a mouth, two eyes, and a nose.
What are they for do you suppose?
When I have a candle inside shining bright
I'll be a jack-o-lantern Halloween night!

Cut into a pumpkin;
Scoop it with a spoon;
Carve a little mouth
That is shaped just like a moon.
Cut two eyes to twinkle
And a big three-cornered nose.
Use for teeth ten tiny seeds
And set them in a row!

Five little pumpkin sitting on the gate.
The first one said, "Oh my! It's getting late!"
The second one said, "There's a chill in the air."
The third one said, "But we don't care."
The fourth one said, "Let's run and run and run!"
The fifth one said, "I'm ready for some fun."
Whooo-oooo went the wind and out went the light
And the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.

Oh look! There are some spiders!
The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout.
Down came the rain and washed the spider out.
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain
And the itsy bitsy spider went up the spout again.

Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet
Eating her curds and whey.
Along came a spider and sat down beside her
And frightened Miss Muffet away.

to the tune of Ten Little Indians
One spider up and two spiders down.
Three spiders turn around and around.
Four spiders smile and then they frown.
All on an autumn night!

Five spiders in and six spiders out,
Seven spiders spin around and about.
Eight spiders climb up the waterspout.
All on an autumn night!

Nine spiders each have eight little legs.
Ten spiders lay little spider eggs.
All spiders wiggle their little legs.
All on an autumn night!

to the tune of Daisy Daisy
Spider, spider, you are a friend, I know.
You eat bugs that eat little plants that grow.
You really are not so scary.
You're not so very hairy.
You have eight feet. Your web is neat,
Little spidery friend of mine.

Listen! There's a wise old owl!
A wise old owl sat on an oak.
The more he heard, the less he spoke.
The less he spoke, the more he heard.
Why aren't we all like that wise old bird?

Circle has ended. Time to blow out the candle.
Merry have we met
And merry have we been.
Merry shall we part
And merry meet again.
Goodbye! Goodbye!

Book Club: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!

A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.
-Roald Dahl

Today was the second meeting of the Homeschool Book Club. I need to come up with a catchier title. I had meant to blog after the first meeting, but life got in the way.

We're meeting once a month at our fabulous library. The original plan was a Writer's Workshop that met on the second Monday and a Book Club that met on the fourth. I don't think the writing club is going to work out, but the Book Club is a hit!

We planned the following for this quarter:
September: Because of Winn Dixie
October: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
November: Sarah Plain and Tall
December: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

I do need to get better at planning because we either don't get to everything I hope to, or we run out of stuff to do.

Today we started out with a discussion. Some of the questions were:
Do you think each of the Golden Ticket winners deserved to win the tour of the factory? Why or why not?

Do you think the five children were changed by their experiences inside the chocolate factory? (Alas, the readers didn't feel anyone but Charlie had changed. There was hope that some of the parents would change, however, and thus effect a change in their children.)

Have you ever been tempted to eat something you shouldn't? (This was particularly amusing as a baby in attendance had just attempted to eat her shoe.)

How did greed come into play with each character?

I also read some passages from Roald Dahl's autobiography, Boy, which really showed how important sweets and chocolates were to him as a child. At his boarding school, the scholars actually tested chocolates for the Cadbury factory! "Sweets were our lifeblood," wrote Dahl. The readers all seemed to understand the sentiment.

Afterwards, we created our own candy bars and decorated candy bar wrappers which we then slipped over chocolate bars brought from home. We made a few for the library staff as well, because the surest way to be sure we're unvited back to the library is to feed the library ladies chocolate.

I also found a few worksheets online that I copied for parents to take home.

What I wish we had time for:
I had paper and would have loved for the children to make replicas of Whangdoodles, Oompa Loompas, Snozzwangers. and Hornswogglers. It would have been fun to make a mobile out of them and ask if it could be displayed.

Another fun idea would have been to write a newspaper article about an event from the book: a review of a new candy bar, an interview with a Golden Ticket winner (both before and after!), an advertisement for a new kind of candy.

It also would have been fun to do a real cooking project, melting down some chocolate and adding different toppings.

Other books you might enjoy:
Alas, this is something else I had no time for. Here is a list of other books along the same vein:

The Chocolate Touch by Patrick Skene Catling
Chocolate Fever by Robert Kimmel Smith
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl
Boy by Roald Dahl
The Story of Chocolate by Caryn Polin
Revolting Recipes and Even More Revolting Recipes by Raold Dahl

From my notebook...

Here's a great toddler tamer-- give your child an empty 2-liter bottle and some wooden clothespins. Show her how to push the clothespins through the top. Not only are they fun to put in, it's fun to shake them out!

Weekend Round-Up!

How low can you go? Cutting back to a minimum from Get Rich Slowly.

Art Projects for Kids presents "How to Draw a Cat"

Pumpkin bowls and crocheted acorns from Resurrection Fern

Pioneer Week! This looks like a super fun homeschool project from Crunchy Chicken. I need to think about this. I can't decide if we're going to try it or not...

Young love gone wrong from Passive-Aggressive Notes


Frugal heating, parts one and two.

Autumn Splatter Tree from Let's Explore

Laundry: 10 ways to save on it! from Frugal Blog.

Landscape Photo Scenes from Let's Explore

! And a bonus: Make your home more energy efficient this fall from BeCentsAble

Happy Fall!

This week's feasts and festivals, plans and projects

Monday, October 27
Holy Hannah, how did we get to the end of October already?!?!?!
Today we have our homeschool book club. We're discussing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Michael also has orchestra all week, and a soccer game tonight. I think it's the final soccer game. Hooray! We made it through another season!

Tuesday, October 28
Saints Simon and Jude.
Just ballet for the girl-child today.

Wednesday, October 29
Soccer for the middle two, and that's it.

Thursday, October 30
The Brownies have their Halloween party. Poor Michael just has chime choir.

Friday, October 31
Happy Halloween!
Trick or treating, obviously. At least I think it's trick or treating. Note to self: Find out when trick or treat night is. Also fix porch lights.
It's also Founders' Day for the Girl Scouts.

Saturday, November 1
All Saints' Day!
Also Habitat for Humanity work day for the youth. I think we'll bake some cookies and take them over for the workers.
It's WVIA Day at the Lackawanna Coal Mine, but I'm only going if I can take a helper. I think it would really fit in well with our Pennsylvania History lesson block.
Of course, that all depends on soccer being finished. I really, really hope soccer is finished.

Sunday, November 2
All Souls' Day
Also, the end of Daylight Savings Time. I love getting an extra hour of sleep. It's also amusing to see how many people are late to church.

School Plans
Michael: Continue with his Pennsylvania Main Lesson Block. He's going to paint his salt dough map of PA and do copywork from William Penn's The Fruits of Solitude. We're going to talk a bit about PA's waterways. Also review basic multiplication and division facts.

Katie Grace: Continue with a main lesson block on Celtic Saints. I think we're going to cover St. Brigit and St. Brendan this week. Also review addition and subtraction facts.

Nicholas: We really enjoyed Miss Muffet last week, so in the spirit of Halloween, I think we'll carry on with The Itsy Bitsy Spider.

Science: Still working on tree identification and seasonal changes.

Social Studies:We're up to Chapter 10, "The Bottom of the World" (Australia and New Zealand) in Story of the World. We'll be having our Japanese meal Monday night though, since we missed it this weekend.

I hope you all have a lovely week!

A Little Flower Garden deal

Hop on over to Melisa's blog! She's got a wonderful deal going on her homeschool books-- $75 for the complete e-book set, or buy one e-book, get a second free. Feel free to put me in as a referral. :)

Wordless Wednesday: Recycling Day!

I think that I shall never see...

a poem as lovely as a tree. We spent the morning at the park identifying and collecting leaves. This was about a week or so ago, before they really started to turn in earnest.