Notes from the week of 9/20/10
Our Week.
Monday Notes:
While we did begin (Latin) grammar last week, our first official Latin lesson began today. I would say overall it was a success though it took far more time getting through it than I had planned originally. We started by going over the sounds of Latin vowels, consonants and diphthongs, then moved to illustrating the new vocabulary and finished up by doing chants.
My voice has been feeling a little hoarse these last few days, so I had Mara do most of the reading. We finished up our Science lesson in hardly any time at all and as usual Mara was begging for more math! I had to say 'no,' I'm such a party pooper. We ran out of time for her daily journal page, outside of her Proverbs page and even then we didn't have time to finish coloring.
In the afternoon we walked down to the Pantheon to meet the Adda-bird for lunch and to stop at a nearby art supply store to pick up some craft paper for our timeline project. We had originally planned to do today's History lesson in one of the piazza on the walk home, however I realized I had bought some perishables while we were out at the markets and thought it best to bring them straight home to prevent spoilage. We did start History once we were arrived, but only made it through a couple chapters before my voice began to crack.
Tuesday Notes:
Our day went so much faster by not beginning with Latin. We started with journaling, moved to science, math, history, then Latin. I worked on science vocabulary cards while Mara illustrated her 3 new Latin words for the day.
In our reading today we finished up Hawthorne's A Wonderbook, read Chapter 2: The Coming of the Romans, The Island Story, and also began reading Parables for Children with A Lesson of Faith. Mara really enjoyed today's parable... and the Coming of the Romans... and The Wonderbook. (Is there anything she doesn't like?)
Mara did request more Italian language practice at home. I am very proud of her language skills. Yesterday she said hello and asked other children their name in Italian while at the playground. Today she engaged with older gentleman while he spoke to her. Her tendency has been to avoid speaking to others by looking directly at me, but she is slowly starting to break out of the language barrier and I couldn't be happier.
Tomorrow we are planning a trip to the country side to a town called Frascati. I will bring along the vocab cards, the mini-book, and the Roman arch activity for Mara to work on while we're on the train perhaps. I imagine we'll pack a lunch and bring along Tanglewood Tales for the train ride back home.
Wednesday Notes:
We managed to make our way to Frascati today. My intentions were to bring several things along to occupy our time on the train, however it was such a short trip I'm glad I settled on bringing only The Wind in the Willows. We wouldn't have had time for anything else. Though we seemed to have come to this town on a good day as a local group was putting on an science exhibition of sorts with all sort of bugs on display. The children received an english translated hands on lesson about walking sticks, roaches, meal worms, larvae, pupa, and all sorts of other creepy crawlies. I will have to do a separate post about it. Such a great experience. Needless to say that we didn't do any new memory work today, any latin, math or history, but I think the field trip was well worth the sacrifice.
Thursday Notes:
Today was not the best day that we have had as a team. Our day began with frustrations on Mara’s end with drawing in her journal. We decided it best to put that aside for the time being and bring out her favorite subject, Math, but that quickly grew into frustrations on my end while teaching subtraction. Subtraction is tough when immediately following addition. The concept is less tangible, I think. We wound up tossing the workbook lesson aside, had some therapeutic color book time for both of us and afterwards tried the subtraction lesson anew using markers and a hand made worksheet. Mara felt more confident with her new skills by the end of it and I felt better for not succumbing to my aggravation as well. But phew, for comparisons sake, we are usually done with lessons by 12:30 at the latest while today has been a much more gradual push to even finish everything by taking frequent breaks and even a couple walks in the neighborhood.
Monday Notes:
While we did begin (Latin) grammar last week, our first official Latin lesson began today. I would say overall it was a success though it took far more time getting through it than I had planned originally. We started by going over the sounds of Latin vowels, consonants and diphthongs, then moved to illustrating the new vocabulary and finished up by doing chants.
My voice has been feeling a little hoarse these last few days, so I had Mara do most of the reading. We finished up our Science lesson in hardly any time at all and as usual Mara was begging for more math! I had to say 'no,' I'm such a party pooper. We ran out of time for her daily journal page, outside of her Proverbs page and even then we didn't have time to finish coloring.
In the afternoon we walked down to the Pantheon to meet the Adda-bird for lunch and to stop at a nearby art supply store to pick up some craft paper for our timeline project. We had originally planned to do today's History lesson in one of the piazza on the walk home, however I realized I had bought some perishables while we were out at the markets and thought it best to bring them straight home to prevent spoilage. We did start History once we were arrived, but only made it through a couple chapters before my voice began to crack.
Tuesday Notes:
Our day went so much faster by not beginning with Latin. We started with journaling, moved to science, math, history, then Latin. I worked on science vocabulary cards while Mara illustrated her 3 new Latin words for the day.
In our reading today we finished up Hawthorne's A Wonderbook, read Chapter 2: The Coming of the Romans, The Island Story, and also began reading Parables for Children with A Lesson of Faith. Mara really enjoyed today's parable... and the Coming of the Romans... and The Wonderbook. (Is there anything she doesn't like?)
Mara did request more Italian language practice at home. I am very proud of her language skills. Yesterday she said hello and asked other children their name in Italian while at the playground. Today she engaged with older gentleman while he spoke to her. Her tendency has been to avoid speaking to others by looking directly at me, but she is slowly starting to break out of the language barrier and I couldn't be happier.
Tomorrow we are planning a trip to the country side to a town called Frascati. I will bring along the vocab cards, the mini-book, and the Roman arch activity for Mara to work on while we're on the train perhaps. I imagine we'll pack a lunch and bring along Tanglewood Tales for the train ride back home.
Wednesday Notes:
We managed to make our way to Frascati today. My intentions were to bring several things along to occupy our time on the train, however it was such a short trip I'm glad I settled on bringing only The Wind in the Willows. We wouldn't have had time for anything else. Though we seemed to have come to this town on a good day as a local group was putting on an science exhibition of sorts with all sort of bugs on display. The children received an english translated hands on lesson about walking sticks, roaches, meal worms, larvae, pupa, and all sorts of other creepy crawlies. I will have to do a separate post about it. Such a great experience. Needless to say that we didn't do any new memory work today, any latin, math or history, but I think the field trip was well worth the sacrifice.
Thursday Notes:
Today was not the best day that we have had as a team. Our day began with frustrations on Mara’s end with drawing in her journal. We decided it best to put that aside for the time being and bring out her favorite subject, Math, but that quickly grew into frustrations on my end while teaching subtraction. Subtraction is tough when immediately following addition. The concept is less tangible, I think. We wound up tossing the workbook lesson aside, had some therapeutic color book time for both of us and afterwards tried the subtraction lesson anew using markers and a hand made worksheet. Mara felt more confident with her new skills by the end of it and I felt better for not succumbing to my aggravation as well. But phew, for comparisons sake, we are usually done with lessons by 12:30 at the latest while today has been a much more gradual push to even finish everything by taking frequent breaks and even a couple walks in the neighborhood.
We did manage to complete a journal page, a new math lesson, an Italian lesson geared for the playground, Padre nostro, Latin chants. Today’s moral to Aesop’s Fable blended rather nicely with today’s Proverb so that worked out well. Mara was able to make a comparison between the two as we worked on those back to back. We also read poetry by Walter de la Mare, which quite inspired Mara to do a little drawing.
Tomorrow will be a big review day. We’ll finish up our History reading and perhaps draw some pictures on the timeline. Review science vocabulary, chant our Latin, finish up any details leftover from this week’s journal pages, go over spelling words for next week and call it a day.
Friday Notes:
We worked on journaling in the morning along with Latin review. We finished up our text reading for History though we are skipping Chapters 18-22 for the time being. We will pick up at Chapter 23 next week. In mid-day we took a walk for a few groceries for tonight... :: fresh fish, parsley, lemon, rice and carrots :: ...and came back to finish up the unit in subtraction.
Mara's spelling words for Monday are: dream, people, stream, empties, sleeks, sorrow
Appropriately enough all but one of her words have to do with those pesky diphthongs. So we'll go over the spelling rules pertaining to these misspelled words for this week this evening. Should be easy enough. Oh, and at bedtime... continue with The Wind in the Willows.
Tomorrow will be a big review day. We’ll finish up our History reading and perhaps draw some pictures on the timeline. Review science vocabulary, chant our Latin, finish up any details leftover from this week’s journal pages, go over spelling words for next week and call it a day.
Friday Notes:
We worked on journaling in the morning along with Latin review. We finished up our text reading for History though we are skipping Chapters 18-22 for the time being. We will pick up at Chapter 23 next week. In mid-day we took a walk for a few groceries for tonight... :: fresh fish, parsley, lemon, rice and carrots :: ...and came back to finish up the unit in subtraction.
Mara's spelling words for Monday are: dream, people, stream, empties, sleeks, sorrow
Appropriately enough all but one of her words have to do with those pesky diphthongs. So we'll go over the spelling rules pertaining to these misspelled words for this week this evening. Should be easy enough. Oh, and at bedtime... continue with The Wind in the Willows.
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