Michael's Main Lesson Block: Botany Unit Redux

OK, let me start by saying I picked a stupid, stupid time to do a botany main lesson. January. In Pennsylvania. There really isn't a whole lot growing around here right now. It ended up being A LOT more theoretical than I would have liked.

The two major resources we used:
Christopherus Homeschool's Botany book by Donna Simmons

and
The Green Kingdom, an old Childcraft Annual
For literature, Michael really enjoyed reading "My Side of the Mountain" by Jean Craighead George.
We started off with some copywork
One suggestion made by Donna was to have them choose a "tree friend". Michael took pictures of his
and wrote a story from its point of view
and did bark rubbings.
As we learned about the different families of plants, we copied out summaries.
It was a good chance for Mama to practice her chalkboard drawings.

He did get to collect a few things from outside, like pinecones, and we sifted through the seeds we have saved from last spring.


We've been trying to get everyone back into watercolor painting and Michael did a beautiful one of a sunflower.
We had a surprise field trip to the Maryland Science Center in the middle of the third week, and Katie Grace and Michael got to be scientists, extracting plant DNA in the wet lab.

Learning about mushrooms and fungus brought an opportunity to do some modeling and drawing.

I will admit we lost our steam a bit the last week of January, but Michael was hard at work on his pinewood derby car. It was worth it, too, because he placed third!
He's happier than he looks, trust me.

We'll be revisiting botany in the spring (piggybacking with the third grader's farming/gardening main lesson block) and will hopefully have a lot more hands-on opportunities then.

Workbox Wednesday: Michael

A day in Michael's life... minus his main lesson.

First up was spelling. No picture, but trust me, it wasn't very exciting.

Then he had Christian Ed. He's v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y working his way through Christian Studies. Today he copied the memory verse in his main lesson book.


As part of his botany main lesson, he's "adopting" a tree in the yard. He took this photo, using the "law of thirds" he learned about in the Digital Photography club at our homeschool co-op. When he came in, he wrote a story from the tree's point of view.


Life of Fred: Decimals and Percents. He passed the Bridge!

His independent reading right now is My Side of the Mountain. He's really enjoying it!
Of course, he had to be a bit of a ham for the picture.
He practiced cello, but didn't really have anything to do since he hasn't started back up again after the holidays. So he taught himself to play the theme from Star Wars! The video is sideways and Daniel is singing along VERY loudly, but you can still get the idea.


He went online and read the story of the corn spirit, and then did a narration and illustration in his botany main lesson book.

He wrapped things up with three short review questions in his math book.
If you're counting, that's only 8 workboxes rather than the recommended 12. There may have been one I missed. Michael would much rather have 10 plain old workboxes than be thrown any sort of extra fun stuff to keep him busy. He's a very "down to business" kind of kid, LOL!

Michael's Main Lesson Block: Poetry

Michael, sharing a funny Shel Silverstein poem with his sister.

We've been doing the second of two books I bought from Moving Beyond the Page, and I'm just as underwhelmed. The 9-11 year old Poetry book is really just a series of worksheets and I don't think I'm going to be using Moving Beyond the Page again.

What I do like about it is the supplemental books is uses. Love That Dog by Sharon Creech is a wonderful story about how a boy comes to relate to poetry and to a poet, Walter Dean Myers. My America: A Poetry Atlas of the United States has selections from Lee Bennett Hopkins with illustrations by Stephen Alcorn, and really ties in US geography with poetry. Finally, R Is for Rhyme: A Poetry Alphabet by Judy Young introduces kids to poetic styles from A to Z. My only complaint about these books is that, with the exception of Love That Dog, they mostly use kiddie poems rather than "real" poetry, I suppose under the supposition that kids can't handle adult poems. Silly.

Michael did write some lovely poems in the main lesson, though, and I'd like to share them.

I bet you can guess what inspired this one.

So much depends
Upon an old old hammer
Frosty cold
In the toolshed.

A NEWSPAPER
A newspaper is like a voice,
Telling me who should win the game
Or what the government is going to do,
And when I get the comics
The voice tells me a joke.
The newspaper is like a voice.

PENNSYLVANIA (An acrostic)
Plains of grass
Entering here you gasp
No state is better
Not even Georgia.
Someday please visit
You may want to stay forever
Lovely cows in fields
Very wonderful, you shall say
Another state just would not do
Not one could have such prowess at farming
I think its football teams play well also
Awesome place to live

SUMMERTIME IN WILLIAMSPORT
I always liked summertime
Where I could waste all my time
And watch TV until the clock hits nine
Or go to a friend's and play away the time
Instead of learning to read and write
At school and when it's time to go home
You get some homework
Then time's spent multiplying numbers by 10.
I wish the whole year was summertime.

Haiku
Fireworks flash at night.
Cheering Americans sing--
The fourth of July.

A SATURDAY AT MY HOUSE
A Saturday is always crazy for us.
Everything is always rush, rush, rush
And then my brother throws a fuss.
Oh, we're busy on Saturday!

My mother can't handle four kids
And three have basketball games
And then when we lose, nobody says
"Oh, such a shame! Such a shame!"

It always makes me like
The hours locked up in a school.
But compared to a Sunday at our house,
SATURDAYS RULE!

Shakespeare, Week One

Remember how excited I was to start Shakespeare with Michael? Well, a week into it and I'm still excited! One of my favorite parts about homeschooling is getting to be the one to introduce books and stories I love to my kids.

We're using the Charles and Mary Lamb adaptations, Tales from Shakespeare. I remember reading these in Mr. Garbrick's seventh grade English class, back in the day.

I also found a great book from the library called Starting with Shakespeare. This book has lots of great ideas for making Shakespeare accessible to kids without dumbing it down or trying to be too trendy, two approaches that always send Michael running for the hills.

We started with The Tempest. We've also been reviewing adjectives, so Michael drew the five major characters and included adjectives to describe them all.
He also did some copywork from the play.
We read some of the original play, including Come Unto These Yellow Sands

COME unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands:
Court'sied when you have, and kiss'd,—
The wild waves whist,—
Foot it featly here and there;	5
And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.
Hark, hark!
Bow, wow,
The watch-dogs bark:
Bow, wow.	10
Hark, hark! I hear
The strain of strutting chanticleer
Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow!

and Where the Bee Sucks, There Suck I
Where the bee sucks, there suck I:
In a cowslip’s bell I lie;
There I couch when owls do cry.
On the bat’s back I do fly.
After summer merrily:
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

We looked at art inspired by The Tempest as well, and talked about the appeal of "stranded on a desert island" stories.

Finally, inspired by this lesson plan, we watch Cast Away together. This led to some really great discussion.

Next we read A Midsummer Night's Dream. I had to giggle when Michael complained about how frustratingly confusing it was, and I could tell he felt relieved when we learned it was Shakespeare's intent that the play be a bit confusing and difficult to follow.

Michael made a map of the fairyland in the story.


And since we were discussing similes, he did a page of similes for Puck.
He chose 4 characters and drew their pictures, copying some of their words from the original Shakespeare.




Some other activities included discussing laws and customs of Greece, discussing Helena and journaling about things he had a choice about and things he didn't, and memorizing Nick Bottom's speech:

Let me play the lion too: I will roar, that I will
do any man's heart good to hear me; I will roar,
that I will make the duke say 'Let him roar again,
let him roar again.'

Michael likes roaring.

We also spent some time this week learning who Shakespeare was and where he fit in history. Here is Michael's timeline.

And last, but not least, the cover of his main lesson book:
I'm not sure who first said "virtue is its own reward," but it wasn't Shakespeare. Michael, however, thought it a very Shakesperian thing to say. He did say, however, "Assume a virtue if you have it not."

Michael's Main Lesson Block: Folk Tales

Michael just wrapped up a main lesson block on American folk tales. While folk tales are often covered in the Waldorf curriculum in fifth grade, I decided to use a non-Waldorf resource for teaching this block. I'd heard a lot about Moving Beyond the Page, and decided to try it out. Because we're also hitting American geography pretty hard, I decided to go with American Tall Tales and Legends.

Billed as "a homeschooling curriculum for creative, hands-on, and gifted learners," Moving Beyond the Page has been the talk of the message boards this past year. In my opinion, it doesn't live up to the hype. The books' organization is confusing, with information needing to be pieced together from two or three different places. There was a good bit of creative writing involved, but "hands on" seemed to be a bit of an overstatement, with a lot of cutting and pasting and worksheets involved. As far as the claim that it's great for gifted kids, it did not present much of a challenge for my fifth grader.

The best thing this curriculum had going for it was the recommended books: Cut from the Same Cloth and American Tall Tales.

Cut from the Same Cloth: American Women of Myth, Legend, and Tall Tale fills in an empty gap in folk tale canon-- stories of strong, courageous women. Bess Call, Annie Christmas, Old Sally Cato, Sister Fox, and Otoonah are just a few of the tales told. The stories represent America's rich multicultural heritage as well, featuring women from Native American, African American, Mexican American, and Canadian backgrounds.

American Tall Tales by Adrien Stoutenberg tells the tale of eight American folk heroes: Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, Stormalong, Mike Fink, Davy Crockett, Johnny Appleseed, John Henry, and Joe Magarac. These were a quick, no-nonsense read... other than the nonsense of the tall tale of course! Last of all, we used some Stephen Kellogg's picture books to fill in the gaps.

Workbox Wednesday: Michael

Workboxes are great for the little ones, but my older children were somewhat resistant to the idea. To make it a little more palatable, I use file folders rather than boxes for my older two. Here is what Michael, my ten-year-old fifth grader, is up to.
Today was the feast of Sts. Simon and Jude. Michael read about St. Jude in A Year With God. It was a rather cutting edge graphic novel presentation of the saint's life. Very cool. He then made a main lesson book page.

Next he visited Spelling City on our very messy computer and practiced his spelling words. Test tomorrow! Also, looking at the picture, there's some weird shadow stuff going on. Our computer area is messy, but not that messy!

Next he revised some writing.

And then on to Life of Fred.

Fellowship of the Rings was next.

And then grammar-- pronouns in Voyages in English. I generally try to make grammar more interesting, but today just opted for some exercises in the text book.

Then he moved into the kitchen for Calculadder, a timed math drill we do several times a week. To save paper, I bought the CD-ROM from Rainbow Resource. I then printed them out and put them in page protectors in a binder so they can erase and re-do as needed.

Next was a logic puzzle. Michael is doing a critical thinking class at co-op and really enjoys these.

He conducted an experiment on how salt melts ice and lowers the melting point.
And then added a "lab report" to his science main lesson book.

Mad Libs--especially Star Wars Mad Libs-- are a great way to review the parts of grammar.

And finally, he wound things up by writing in his journal.

Keep in mind, his files are by no means a complete curriculum. He also has a main lesson with me each day, which lasts anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes. This month, we worked on folk tales, although as I admitted in an earlier post, October has been a bit of a loss. Every other week he also practices cello as part of his independent work (on alternate weeks his cello is at the local elementary school, where he participates in orchestra daily).