Norse Myths

Moonshine has been thoroughly enjoying the Norse myths, and it really shows in her work.  She has become such a wonderful artist-- quite attentive to detail and completely absorbed in what she's doing.  Her enthusiasm is delightful.

It's my second time introducing a child to these wonderful stories, and this time around I'm pulling ideas from two additional sources-- Charles Kovacs' Norse Mythology and Eugene Schwartz's Grade 4 files-- as well as D'Aulaire's Norse Myths.  When I did this block with Sunburst so many, many moons ago, I just had the latter book to pull from, and it was fine.

This is not the first time that I'm left wondering if too many sources is a bad thing.  The Kovacs' book was just released in the last couple of years, and because I've grown quite fond of his work, I was eager to buy it.  Twice, as it turned out, because I inadvertently loaned out my first copy.  Anyway, so far it's a lovely book.  Both the Kovacs' and D'Aulaire's have engaging stories.  Visually though, the D'Aulaire's is incomparable.

There are discrepancies between the two re-tellings-- different names, different outcomes, and a different order to the stories.  Some characters are highlighted more in each source, which is neither good nor bad, just an observation.  I will probably continue forward with both books when we return to finish up next month.

The files from Eugene Schwartz have some good phrasing with the writing examples.  Moonshine wants to tell every part of the story in her writing, and I found the beginning a good compromise with some of his phrasing and some of our own.  Moonshine was smitten with the beginning of the Kovacs' story, so we borrowed his poetic introduction as well.  We're also borrowing ideas from Sunburst's main lesson book when it feels right.  It seems like that was created a lifetime ago... has it only been three years?

Both Moonshine and I were completely surprised with the quality of her work this time around.  There has definitely been a palpable shift.

We're having a bit of an issue with the quality of the latest batch of main lesson books that I ordered.  The ink from the fountain pen runs right though!  We've ended up doing a lot of pasting into our books.  As you can see below, it looks like she forgot to make a background and paste one in.   Oops.

When she's done with this block, I plan to have her go back to these images and work in some celtic knot form drawings where she can fit them in.

 

Sunburst would like me to point out that the following is a poem that she and I wrote together when she did this lesson.  Moonshine liked it so much that she asked to copy it into her own book.  Except for the opening pages, the rest of the writing was created from Moonshine's verbal retelling of the stories, and then me telling her, "It's too long, how can we make it short enough to fit in your book?"

 

Middle Ages

The kids and I are all down with colds, but I wanted to give you a little peek at some homeschooling from the past few months.

I thought I'd start with Sunburst.  We had so much fun studying the Middle Ages.  We're on a break from it now, but in a couple of weeks we'll go back and finish up our admiration of Gothic architecture and put the final touches on our maps.  We have big plans to create something special, and frankly I need the downtime to brainstorm a way to make it work.

We decided to incorporate a lot of illuminations in her main lesson book this time, and they turned out beautifully.  Lyra makes a metallic gold pencil which worked perfectly for this.  I simultaneously drew only a couple of the drawings with her this time, far fewer than I have in the past.  It's a sure sign that she's growing up.

For this lesson I pulled ideas mainly from the first half of Charles Kovac's Age of Discovery, various online resources, and Eugene Schwartz's grades 6 and 7 files.  As you can see, the artwork is still our gateway into learning.  Sunburst enjoyed mixing it up by drafting letters between the major characters, as well as trying her hand at different calligraphy styles.

As always, Sunburst would love to hear what you think.

 

 

 

  

 

 

  

Week of lions... and Greece!

Last week, to meet Moonshine's request of more "boy saints," I presented her with a story about St. Jerome and the lion. I wrote her a flute song based on this story, and I was so glad that it was such a hit because I had planned a whole week of lions.



I also mentioned last week that Moonshine is trying out some new behavioral territory. Could it be the nine-year-change approaching already? I'm hesitant to label it as such, but I do know that it's making us all crazy, herself included. She's being antagonistic to everyone and she's not sleeping well. It's a dangerous combination... and well, she rather is like a lion.

I carried over the heart theme from last week, and challenged Moonshine with a poem I wrote just for her. She copied it into her copy book, memorized it, and recited it--- all with great joy! And because she's insisting to write things phonetically and without help, I pulled some words from the poem and challenged her to her very first spelling quiz. She was so excited!! She remembered every single word, and she can't wait for her next quiz.

The poem was very simple, but the message is also very clear:

Fill my heart
with gladness.
Fill my heart
with joy.
Fill my heart
with love
For every girl and boy.

Fill my heart
with kindness.
Fill my heart
with care.
Fill my heart
with tender thoughts
For creatures everywhere.

To extend the heart theme, I invited the kids to watercolor-paint some hearts. Then to extend our lion theme, I went ahead and pulled from my second grade materials and told the story of the Lion and the Mouse. It was a good reminder of kindness as well. --Those of you who have Teaching With the Fables by Sieglinde de Francesca will recognize my attempt to recreate the picture from the cover of her lovely, lovely book.








Sunburst and I worked on Greece, Greece, and more Greece. And math, of course. I also tossed another wondrous geometrical form her way, shown at the top of this post. She is lapping it up.

This is our rendition of Helios and the sun chariot with Prometheus stealing fire to give to the humans:





We also worked together to copy out the amazing family tree from the front of D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths. It was a challenge, for sure, but we worked at it little by little over the last two weeks, and it's already helping us to keep all the Greek mythological gods and goddesses sorted. Greece is definitely a lot of fun!

Word World... a world of words

Last week I posted about the struggles Moonshine has been having with school, and the struggles I have been having figuring out how to teach her. This week it's as if all of that is behind us. Moonshine is having a blast making words.

I dug up an old lesson idea I created for Sunburst-- Word Family Village. Moonshine remembered it well from helping Sunburst color in all the roads, and she was super pleased to be able to conjur up this world of her own accord. She's calling it Word World, which is really fun to say five times fast. I can't do it, and she loves that even more.

My dear friends in Wales happen to be also doing the word family block this week. While I was reading about her fun variation of it on her blog, here and here, I noticed a link to my old lesson... I had entirely forgotten that I had created a cute little story to go with it.

Sometimes I forget to read my own blog.

The greatest part of this lesson right now... baby silent e. With Moonshine's help he's causing a load of trouble. Can becomes cane. At becomes ate. It makes her giggle. (Of course sometimes he's not silent-- at becomes eat, etc.)




Kitty Bill got in on the fun, too... He made houses with doors so he could hide his little people inside them. Everything has got to have moving parts with this boy.




All in all, we're having a fantastic week!