I feel like we finally began to hit our groove this month. Sariah seemed to mellow out a bit and settle down to work, for the most part. She really enjoyed the Old Testament stories we read from Jakob Streit's book Journey to the Promised Land. I am handling the Old Testament differently than I did when Dallin was in grade 3. I followed the plan laid out by Marsha Johnson in her fabulous Waldorf homeschooling files and started with the story of Abraham and Isaac. We covered up through Joshua and the Israelites' taking the land of Canaan this month. In December we will go back and paint the seven days of creation and copy the scripture verses associated with each day. The rest of our covering of the Old Testament will take place during our math blocks: Noah and the Tower of Babel will come during our measurement block, and the rest of the Old Testament will come next April in a math block.
I am trying to incorporate some unique movement activities into each morning to prep Sariah for focused work. I am using two books: The Extra Lesson: Movement, Drawing, and Painting Exercises to Help Children with Difficulties in Writing, Reading, and Arithmetic by Audrey E. McAllen and Take Time: Movement Exercises for parents, teachers and therapists of children with difficulties in reading, writing, and spelling by Mary Nash-Wortham and Jean Hunt. Is it coincidence that since I've been trying to do these each day, Sariah's days are going better? It's too early to tell, but I'm encouraged.
Sariah fought me on this exercise the first time we did it, but after several weeks she's mostly cooperative, and the last time she actually set up her doll with paper and crayon to "draw" with her. This exercise consists of using one hand to draw a straight line while the other hand draws a lemniscate--both move continuously for at least 3 minutes (the part that is challenging for her--she has to remain focused for such a long time, and she always wants to stop long before the 3 minutes are up), then you switch and turn the paper upside down so that the hands are doing the opposite figure they were doing initially for another three minutes.
(Note to my Waldorf readers--I did not photograph her during the actual activity as that would have been a huge distraction. This is a staged photo taken afterward. She is holding a stick crayon in her hand, but it is actually done with block crayons.)
We are also working heavily on phonics and reading and trying to do so in a multisensory way. One activity Sariah really enjoyed was when I wrote some of our review words on the driveway in chalk, and she had to rollerblade to the correct word as I said it aloud.
Phonics Twister was another popular choice--I wrote words on cards using letters/sound combos we've been working on. I taped these to our Twister game mat. I called out certain sounds, and she had to put the proper body part on a word using that sound.
We've gotten back into form drawing this month as well. I have always been a stickler about form drawing--this is the first year that I've gotten out of the habit of including it in our week. This is because I changed the time when I wanted to do it, and things always came up that made it easy to let it go for that day. But in October I was determined! It is such an important activity for will-building, and right now Sariah really need will-building.
Here is just one of the forms we did:
Sariah's version--this one was NOT easy.
This was a free-rendering recall activity for the story of Joshua. I allowed Sariah to pick any part of the story she wanted to. She had 10 minutes to come up with any way of her choice to show what she knew about the story. She decided to make a giant poster of Rahab hanging her red thread out the window and then the walls of Jericho crumbling down.
And now for her main lesson book! I am really proud. She worked hard on this all month. I decided that we will focus on the Old Testament this entire year for painting. I bought an extra large main lesson book so we could glue the paintings into the book. I used the book Painting and Drawing in Waldorf Schools for the guided painting lessons. I am seeing huge progress in her abilities. These lessons mostly focus on using color effectively. I guided but did not dictate color choices--we did discuss personalities of different colors--for example, what color might show sorrow or what color might show anger. Aside from the first painting, I did not paint ahead of time because I did not want her to copy what I did.
Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac--as you can see she was still having trouble getting the right amount of water on the brush, so the blue paint ran.
Then the summary--I had her do all titles in cursive this month. This was a copywork summary, but she had to fill in the blanks with the words of her choice.
Jacob's Ladder--very meticulously done on her part.
Moses in the Bulrushes. She got bored at the end and wasn't as careful with the green reeds, but I still think the painting looks great.
Very nice handwriting and decorating on the summary. I believe this one was a dictation.
Moses and the Burning Bush. Now we're getting somewhere! I loved the progress she made here with colors, though we are still learning just how strong that Prussian Blue is.
This one she wrote herself, hence the reason it is so short.
Moses and the 10 Commandments/the Golden Calf. Painting the figures first and then the mountain around it is time-consuming and tricky and something that has been challenging for her in the past.
I believe this was a copywork summary as well.
Moses and Joshua looking over the mountain into the land of Canaan. This one's a keeper for sure--I'm so proud of her; it takes such focus and patience to do this.
The final summary, which she wrote herself. Apparently she's really impressed with Rahab; since this was a lengthy story, I let her choose which part to summarize.
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