Norse Myths and Grammar

We divided our study of Norse mythology into three blocks.  The first block I have already blogged; it was where we introduced each of the principal gods and goddesses and introduced colored pencil drawing by making a portrait of each character.

The second and third blocks just continued the stories, ending of course with Ragnorrok.  I used both of these blocks to focus on grammar, and even during some of our other blocks we learned new grammar concepts through the Norse stories.  I discovered something very powerful.  My daughter connected strongly with the Norse myths, and everything else that I taught her through those stories has stayed with her in ways I could not have imagined.  The power of story is very real!  Next year I plan to teach all of our grammar concepts through the stories we will be hearing.  

First, some art from back in December:

Idunn and her apple tree, idea courtesy of the book Learning About the World Through Modelling.

Sariah's illustration of the story of Frey and Gerd.

In December we learned about all nine part of speech.  I had Sariah make a poster with each type, its definition, and examples, all in different colors.  I don't seem to have a picture of that poster.

In February we learned about past, present and future tenses through the story of the Three Norns.

Sariah kept a notebook in which she wrote down what she'd learned and illustrated it.

The story of the Three Norns is a well-known one in the Waldorf world for teaching the tenses.  But what comes next, I'm proud to say I came up with all on my own.

First we learned about the four sentence types: statements, questions, commands, and exclamations.  I had drawn Loki, Thor, Odin, and Balder on the board, and we decided who represented which type of sentence.  We had ALOT of fun with this and did a number of activities to cement the idea.

Here's one entry in her notebook.

A few weeks later, I was ready to teach quotations.  I drew our gods on the board, and we reviewed the four sentence types.  Underneath each god, I wrote "Loki asked, Thor exclaimed, Odin commanded, and Balder said."  Then, above each one's head, I drew a cartoon dialogue box.

Then, I asked her, "What is something _______ would say/ask/exclaim/command?"

As she gave her suggestions, I wrote them in the space.  She had ALOT of fun coming up with these.

After this was done, we talked about what the dialogue "cloud" was there for.  (To show what they are saying...)  Then I asked her if she knew what kind of mark was put into actual writing--in books, not cartoons--to show what people are saying.  She described it, but didn't know what it was called.  That led us into learning about quotation marks.  We erased all the cartoon dialogue clouds and replaced them with quotation marks.  I was amazed how well this stuck, and I credit it all to the power of the stories and characters we used to learn it with.

Here's a page in her grammar notebook for apostrophes, also using phrases from one of the myths.

 This is a painting from one of Sariah's favorite stories, where Thor goes to reclaim his stolen hammer from the giant  Thrym and has to dress up like a bride to do so.  She was very proud of this painting.

 
The death and burial of Balder.

This is her painting of Ragnarrok, of Odin fighting Fenris the wolf and Thor fighting the Midgard's serpent. (Painting ideas came from Painting and Drawing in Waldorf Schools.)