The Classic Book Farmer Boy, By Laura Ingalls Wilder
Before I chat about this lovely book above: Have I mentioned what a relief it is to finally be done with our Old Testament (OT) block?? I have definitely learned a lesson here: make your blocks shorter! I now see the wisdom laid out in typical Waldorf curriculum writings to keep blocks to about 4-6 weeks. I could have (and possibly "should" have?) broken the OT block into two parts, one 4-6 week block at the beginning of the school year and then another 4-6 week block somewhere in the middle. I should have shaved the entire block down to around 10 weeks instead of what turned into a 6 month odyssey! As mentioned in my previous post, we did only do OT once a week, but still - that's a really long time to still be working on the same theme!
Having said that again...We're starting a Literacy block. I'll get a little more specific about it in a bit...I get some questions from friends about how these blocks work, so I wanted to touch on that in this post.
When I say that we're starting a Literacy block, this doesn't mean that we don't do anything with literacy the rest of the year...of course we do! When they speak of "blocks" in Waldorf circles, what they are referring to is the "main lesson". In Waldorf schools, there is a main lesson each day that takes up a good hour-and-a-half of time to go over. In that time, they might read (or listen to) a story, listen to a lecture, study an intricate chalkboard drawing and listen to its explanation, get up and stomp or clap their way through new information being presented, and any number of other methods to allow the children to absorb a lesson that is being taught.
After the main lesson, there is often a written component. This is when the students will fill in what they have just learned into their main lesson books (MLB). They will include drawings alongside carefully-written explanations of the new material. There may also then be an art project component, that could include modelling clay, watercolor painting, woodworking, arts-and-crafts, etc. to further reinforce learning.
Later in the day, there would still be some time spent on some other subjects, but that would not be such a long and intricate lesson. One example of such a shorter lesson might be to have the students form a circle and clap their hands as they recite multiples of four (as an example). They might then run through several times tables doing other movement activities. This shorter lesson might last only twenty minutes and then the students might have some free time before starting other shorter activities for a couple of different subjects before returning to the original main subject towards the end of the day to reinforce what they learned in that long session in the morning.
A main lesson, then, is covered in-depth every single day of the week for several long weeks until the teacher feels he/she has exhausted as many aspects of the material as possible. It's entirely possible (and likely!) that the main lesson could include some interdisciplinary aspects (such as writing, history, science and math rolled into one), but the main theme will typically answer to a specific subject. This is why you might hear a Waldorf teacher say "We're starting a math block this week". They don't mean that they never do math any other time...but rather that they are going to do INTENSE math for 4-6 weeks, and then when that math block is done, they will only reinforce whatever they learned in that block in those shorter activities I spoke of before. Usually, there are two of each block per year, but not always....and there are times when a teacher will include two blocks at the same time, especially where art and music are concerned, but those secondary blocks will be less intensive and will often weave nicely into the true main lesson block (ie. a main lesson block of Literature might be for, as in this case, the book Farmer Boy. The secondary block then might be Farming (and as such, satisfying science and anthropology along with history).
OK, so now that we've discussed blocks a bit (and please realize that not every Waldorf schools uses the "block system" in exactly the same way, and certainly homeschool families might mix it up a bit as well - I know I certainly do!)....
One book that is suggested for grade 3 is Farmer Boy, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I remember reading these books when I was a girl and being completely enthralled with them! I am such a fan of classic books, and so when I saw that this book was included in a book list for this year by a Waldorf teacher, I was thrilled! As it turns out, I have a lovely collection of such classic books that I had shipped to us here in the tropics from Maine before we left the States.
This book will be read aloud to the children (mostly DS8, as DD6 does not always have patience for long stories). As we go along, we will pick bits and pieces out of the reading to write and craft about. We'll be doing some "farming" of our own as well. Because we rent a very small flat and do not have permission to dig into the ground, we will plant into containers and document our observations of the growing plants. We'll do some cooking and baking similar to what we'll read about in the book as well. I am going to plan a visit to a local farm after we have finished the book as a culminating activity, which of course we will document in our MLB's.
We'll add in some interdisciplinary elements, such as math: seed counting, counting weeks till harvest, measuring, etc.....art: drawings, paintings, clay sculptures and other crafts that are farm related....writing: MLB writing about the chapters we've read and observations made....science: farming, baking, learning about animal husbandry and seasons....movement: clapping and stomping to memorize important information, you get the idea.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As always, we will still continue to do Math U See as our main math component. We are still using turtlediary.com and prodigy math online, but not as often as we once were. I've been trying to aim for a couple of hours a month on each subject on turtlediary. As far as prodigy math, I would say DS8 spends a couple of hours on that a month as well.
DS8 really enjoys playing games on Roblox, so that does take up a lot of his computer time. We also are still watching science documentaries (including Bill Nye episodes) as well as history documentaries and movies. We haven't done much with Story of The World this year...I think the main reason is that we've been going soooooo in-depth with the Old Testament stories this year that I think our patience and desire for too many additional historical stories just hasn't been there. Now that we're done with the OT, we may discover after a short break that we're ready for some more SOTW once again.
So, Witchy Mom, what is your sweet DD6 up to these days? Well, I realize I do not post a lot about her curriculum. That is partially because her autism makes her learning much less structured (as well as a bit more challenging to pull off). We still have not been sorted out with the disability system here to pay for her to have a speech therapist for her, so I have to do that myself. What we do is spend time on certain autism speech apps on her ipad that she really enjoys. We are also still doing the letter-of-the-week in her MLB (we just finished the letter K for King). She has been hit-or-miss in terms of how patiently and cooperatively she will sit for this writing time.
She also enjoys turtlediary, so I will have her spend about fifteen to thirty minutes at a time on it a few times a week. She is happy to read a couple of books a week, but SHE has to be the one reading the book aloud (if I try to read a book aloud to her, she may or may not sit still through the entire thing). Otherwise, she loves to work on little craft and coloring projects each week and creates her own little dance routines alongside abc-kids shows or videos. She gets a lot out of those shows in terms of her speech practice (and her comprehension - since she suffers from MERLD), so she is allowed to watch several abc-kids programs each day as a part of her therapy.
Assuming anyone is reading this....I'd love to know what your children are reading right now!
No comments:
Post a Comment