The Angel Letters

Five beautiful angels came to visit our house during the month of October.   They were sent by God to help people on earth learn some important things about how to treat each other.  Each angel came with a heavenly sound, that when used in speaking, would help remind them of the things they should do to make the world a better place.

Angel A taught people to say "ah" as they enjoyed the beauties of nature.

Angel E taught people to say "ee", as in the words "seek", "need", and "be".  She taught humans to look for ways to serve one another.

Angel I taught people to look to the light and see what their unique gifts and talents were.  She taught us to say "I", as in "I can try!"

Angel O taught people to look for those who are lonely and downtrodden, and to love and protect all people and creatures.  Her heavenly sound is "oh", said with compassion as she enfolds those in need of her comfort.

Angel U taught people to always speak the truth and to listen to the true inner voice that tells each person of her beauty and worth.  Her sound is "oo".

The angels each floated down a rainbow to earth and met specific people who needed them.  They also shared their earthly sounds with the humans they met (the short vowel sounds).  Each angel was introduced with a short story about her adventures, written by yours truly.  The first story came from a wonderful free curriculum, a teacher training manual for Waldorf teachers in East Africa.  Unfortunately, I have not been able to get the links to work anymore, so I don't know how to share this resource.  It has been invaluable this past month!

The stories that I wrote were OK, but not quite as magical as I'd hoped they would be.  However, they did get the point across.  Maybe next time I teach this grade I will have more time for creativity.  The curriculum also suggested physical gestures for each vowel sound, to help aid in remembering the sounds, and had short poems highlighting each sound.  I introduced one story, angel, and letter every two days.  After we played with the verses and gestures for a bit, we thought of words that used those sounds.

Angel U courtesy of Sariah.

With each letter that we learned, we formed it with our bodies.

A #1

A #2

Writing A with toes--this girl is A-mazing at writing with her toes.

Then the work was put into her lesson book.

 

Letter O was a two-person job.

O #2

Book work.

Walking letter U.

Letter U outdoors.

The final products:

 I think Sariah got a bit bored with this block by the end.  Luckily it was only three weeks long.  Part of it is that we are ready for math and to have a break from just letters.  But I wanted to get through these so she could start attempting to write and read.   Part of it that I have been very distracted this past few weeks and haven't had the extra brain-power available to liven things up, change things around, and make things more creative.  My husband lost his job at the beginning of this month and so my mind has been in several places at once for the past few weeks.  So it was a lot of the same old routine day in and day out.  She really got the hang of drawing female figures, after having five angels to practice on, so that was a great thing.  And she has had fun sounding out simple words.