Signs and Wonders

Summer Seasonal Plans for February

 The holidays are drawing to a close and a new school year is about to begin and I am woefully unprepared. Much of December and January have been a blur of morning sickness that has left little time or brain space for lesson plans. I do have my school program, written for my older children to fall back on but I'm finding more and more that the books, lesson plans, and resources I used in educating my older three children are not always a good fit for my current primary level children. So with this in mind I have been trying to sift through the various books, curricular and resources that we own ( trying not to spend a lot of money on new resources) and looking at each child's needs, learning styles and interests in order to  create lesson plans that will fire each child's imagination, inspire their thirst for knowledge and be academically challenging. AND I need to have all this achieved and in order so that we will be ready to start school TOMORROW!!!! all is not lost I have done some planning just not enough, maths,English and geography are pretty much ready to go but I still have to prepare book lists for science and history. I am also keen to try and walk through the year both seasonally and liturgically this year. This has been a little easier to organize so I"ll share the plans I have ready for February.

 

Living the liturgical Year

St. Brigid 1^st

Presentation of our Lord 2^nd(Candlemas)

St. Scholastica 10th

Our Lady of Lourdes11^th

St Valentine 14^th

Feast of the chair of St. Peter the Apostle 22^nd

Ash Wednesday 25^th

• prepare for lent
• Buy candles for Candlemas

Read

Brigid’s Cloak by Bryce Milligan

St. Brigid and the Cows by Eva K Betz

The Holy Twins Benedict and Scholastica  By Tomie de Paola

St Valentine by Robert Sabuda

A Child's Book of Celtic Prayers By Joyce Denham

 

Summer fun reads

A Mid Summers Night Dream form Lambs Tales from Shakespeare and listen to the audio by Jim Weiss. (try and find DVD to watch)

The Rainbow By Gary Crew & Gregory Rodgers

The Sparrows Song By Ian Wallace

Hubert and the Apple Treeby Bruno Hachler

Summer’s Story Tellers by Margarette Thomas-Cochran

The Sunflower Parableby Liz Curtis Higgs

Windsongs and Rainbows by Burton Albert

Something is Growing  by Walter Lyon Krudop

The little Islandby Golden MacDonald & Leonard Eeisgard.

Polly’s Picnic By Richard Hamilton.

A seed grows by Pamela Hickman

 

Learn the following short poems

Summer Morning By Rachael Fields.  

We have a little garden by Beatrix Potter  

Barefoot Days By Rachael Fields

 

Summery activities and craft

A visit to the beach

Make a toilet roll bird feeder

Make this insect repellent

Make Natures play dough

Make a sundial or shadow clock

Press summer flowers

Weed the gardens

Make home made icy poles

Make sun tea

Make a paper plate flower wreath

Learn about flowers craft

Make a nature note book of plants and animals in our garden.

Story Book Travels

   We have taken a slightly different approach to the study of geography this term. Earlier this the year I purchased the book Storybook Travels By Colleen Dunn Bates and Susan Latempa. This book provides travel itineraries for more then thirty locations in North America and Europe that bring to life many much loved and classical books such as Madeline, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and The Little House on the Prairie just to name a few. The only draw back of coarse is that travel to North America or Europe is a little outside our budget at the moment so we have had to be content with a virtual vacation instead.

So instead of traveling to the destinations contained in our read alouds we use the story as a jump start into the study of a particular location be it a country, or individual city. Learning where to find our destination on the map, what language is spoken, how the people live and work, the national flag, floral and animal emblems, places of interest to tourists, primary industries, land forms and so on. This has been so much fun and brings to life our read alouds in a way we haven't experienced before it's so much more interacive and we are learning so much. Unlike regular literature studies or book reports that can, at least in my children's experience take the enjoyment out of a good book. This approach increases our knowledge of the characters and their environment bringing the whole story to life for us.

At the moment we are reading The Wheel on the School by Miendert DeJong. I have fond memories of my fourth grade teacher reading this book to the class I loved it back then and felt sure my children would love it as well, which they do. The wheel on the School has sparked two separate units of study the first on the Netherlands as the story is set in Holland early in the twentieth century and the other on storks. As there are no storks in Shora (the setting of our story) and the children of this small North sea fishing village set out to change the situation. We have learned in our study that storks nesting on roof tops is very common in the Netherlands and that old wagon wheels were each year placed on the roof tops for the storks to nest on. thus the title of our read aloud. For our storks unit we mainly used this lapbook from Homeschool Share. The children wanted to know if we had storks in Australia and could we please put a wheel on our roof. Though Luke soon changed his mind when he discovered that storks eat baby chickens. This of coarse lead us to research the Australian Jabiru or Black Necked Stork which is an endangered species here in NSW. Of coarse now the hunt is on to see if we can find any "Storks" around our local area.

Here are a few links that have provided some great information of the Netherlands

Firstly a general fact sheet on the Netherlands

There are some great recipes on wikipedia we hope to try a few this week I especially like the sound of  Bossche bol

 You'll find a colouring page of the Netherlands flag here   

 This is a great site and gives a great look at "A kids life in the Netherlands"

shutter map  where in the World is Holland Shutter Map

We will also do a quick rabbit trail and briefly look at the life and work of Rembrandt