November begins

We finished up our October math block learning about/reviewing place value.  Now we are back to language arts, with a block featuring American Tall Tales.  I'm hoping the new baby doesn't come for at least another week so I can get through a few more of the fun stories that I have planned!

 I've decided that each month, Dallin will learn a poem.  The goal is to be able to recite it from memory, and it will also be copied and illustrated in his main lesson book.  (Good handwriting practice!)  Mostly the poems will be seasonal.  I have been writing the poems neatly on large paper and putting them up on the wall so we can see and read them easily.  He memorizes better than I do!

 Our first story this week was Paul Bunyan.  I think Dallin might have heard about him before, but there were so many fun activities attached that I decided to present him again anyway.  On the second day, we came up with a summary of the story together, wrote it on the board, and edited it.  (Nouns are blue, verbs are red.)  Dallin is actually pretty good and coming up with most of the summary on his own.  I just help him tweak a few words and remember his punctuation. 

 We made split pea soup, because there was a Paul Bunyan story involving it.  Both my kids love to chop things!

 Dallin and I modelled Babe the Blue Ox out of beeswax.  Beeswax is so fun to work with!  I highly recommend it.  It can also be reused several times.  Our only problem is keeping Sariah from eating it!

 We also made a giant pancake, Paul Bunyan-style.  Dallin loves to cook pancakes and can pretty much do it on his own.

 Dallin's main lesson book page on Paul Bunyan--some of his best work yet, I think.  (We collaborated a bit on the picture...)

 Pecos Bill was our next story. 

 Since Pecos Bill supposedly invented the practice of branding cattle, we made our own "brands" out of potatoes and stamped them on the back of paper grocery bags.  We also made Cowboy Beans and Cowboy Fry Bread for dinner.

 Dallin's page on Pecos Bill.

 Our main language arts activity for the week and month: introducing verbs.  In Waldorf-speak, they are referred to as "doing words".  I think Dallin touched on nouns and verbs in school last year, but upon being questioned, he couldn't remember anything about them.  I had Dallin name all the animals he could remember from the story of Pecos Bill, and then we added a few more desert animals.  We wrote them on one side of the board in blue (nouns are always blue).  Then, I had him come up with something that each animal did.  We wrote these on the right side of the board in red.  Then I explained that "doing words" are words that show what we do.  That's a pretty elementary explanation, and I know that in reality the concept of a verb is a bit broader than that.  But even this he had a hard time getting.  Finally I asked, "Dallin, can you bite?"  Yes.  Can you howl?  Yes.  Can you hop?  Yes.  OK, Dallin, can you horse?  Huh?  Dallin, can you horse?  What are you talking about, Mom?    OK, can you cougar?  (More scratching of the head...)

But that did it.  I think he got it.  You can run, hop, fly, bite, buck, eat, etc.  But you can't horse.  You can't ant.  You can't cow.  We'll be doing more similar exercises for the next week or so.  I thought he might be ready to move on to nouns (naming words) next week, but now I think we'll stick with doing words for awhile.


My first time ever of completely making up a game on a whim.  This was spelling, words left over from September when we were hearing about knights and dragons.  So for review, I drew on paper a knight and a dragon.  I asked if he wanted to be the knight or the dragon, and he picked the dragon.  Then I wrote each word on a card, once spelled correctly, and once misspelled.  Each time he drew a card, he had to read the word and tell if it was spelled right or wrong.  If he got it, we put the card on the dragon.  If he missed it, it went to the knight.  Whichever had the most cards at the end of the game was the winner.  Of course Dallin the Dragon won, as you can see by the look on his face in the picture.

I spent this week focusing on form drawing as well.  Next week we'll start back into some math review, spending a few minutes each day reviewing place value (up to the ten thousands place), the four processes, and the times tables.