Lessons
- Maths: made pie charts contrasting use of time in school with homeschool, and talked about the differences; began work on substraction module in our maths book
- Memory work: reviewed days of week, months of year, seasons, location, capital and symbols of France, the poems learned so far
- Narration: from Le Feuilleton d’Hermes
- Oral conjugation of verbs in French
- Writing: capital letters in cursive, spelling of common words in French
- Piano: officially began work on Suzuki 1, piece 4
- Non-fiction: Co-read un festin au moyen age by Aliki, about medieval feasts; Au royaume des dragons by Serge Strosberg, about Darwin in the Galapagos
The Unschooled Stuff
Language Arts
- Invented a sock puppet story play about 2 snakes
- Wrote a blog post for her fungus and a very silly poem
Reading
- Independent reading: Loebel’s Owl stories
- Co-read: one of the Winx books, Charlotte aux Fraises: Bienvenu a Fraisi-Paradis, Baba Yaga, Le chateau d’Anne Hiversaire, Usborne Young Readers book of monsters
- Read-aloud: Le petit cochon fute from Contes dela rue Broca, Max and Moritz, Tistou les pouces verts, Peau d’Ane
Maths/Logic
- Antonia made a map of our village, copied from the Google map
- Played with mosaic blocks
- Played with cuisenaire rods
Science/Nature Study
- Remembering the names of such flowers as are around in two languages
- Drew a rainbow with great concern for colour order, but it ended up inside out!
- Started germinating sunflower seeds
- Brainpops: leap years, acne(!), multiplication
- Discussion of leap years, talked about Pirates of Penzance which she knows
History/Geography/Social sudies
- Major discussion of prisons and law and order inspired by the Tistou book. I am really happy as this is the first long read-aloud book in French that has ever captured her interest. Without any conscious previous input from us, it’s interesting that she vehicles the ‘social norm’ idea of prisons that the book sets out to counteract.
- Went out for Japanese food and looked at a kimono
Arts and Crafts
- Made herself a bound book containing spirograph drawings, a game, a compass rose… and scribbles
- Saw a Hong Kong animation, McDull dans les nuages
- Watched Mr Bean (I couldn’t), laughed like a hyena and developed an affection for Whistler’s Mother
- Drew a portrait of Mike from life
- Collage of natural objects
- Made a watercolour
- Looked at art calendar
Practical Life/Cooking
- Built and decorated the stunning multi-tier cake
Music
- Lots of piano improvisation
Sports/Games
- Went swimming
- Built a huge Kapla zoo with little train, animals, people over several days
- Did most of Lapin Malin CE1
Out and About
- Afternoon at the park
- Went shopping for art supplies
- Three afternoons and one whole day with friends
- Walk to favourite stream with friends
Other stuff
- Some of our reading led us into major ethical discussions so I now know that she distinguishes between beauty and goodness (she didn’t till quite recently). She’s starting to perceive a relationship between power and badness explicitly and struggles with other issues: why are people bad? what is the role of external consequences versus conscience, are people who are rough and rude necessarily bad (Baba Yaga)?