Seasons of Joy Looking for a way to bring peace and joy to your day?
Seasons of Joy is my 10-week seasonal guidebook to add rhythm and fun to your daily routine. Each guidebook has ten weeks' worth of circle times, stories, arts, crafts, and handwork, painting, playtime activities and more!
Seasons of Joy seeks to empower families to create peaceful rhythms and routines and joyful celebrations that follow the circle of the year. The blog also chronicles our adventures in living simply, loving exuberantly, and Waldorf inspired homeschooling.
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 It’s parent observation day at ballet class.
Those around me observe with varying levels of attention. Some watch. Some text. Some whisper behind their hands. Some are attempting to corral younger children, finally giving up and leaving.
Not me.
I stare at the not-so-little girl, fifth from the end, as she stretches gracefully at the barre.
I watch her raise her hand, Hermione-like, to answer every question, confident that she knows the answers.
I can’t stop grinning when she’s on the floor, body strong and head held high as she moves across the room. Read more...
Fourth grade this year looks a bit different than a couple years ago. I’m neither able to be up and about supervising complex projects, nor am I able to run around town picking up tons of supplies, so we’re making do with a more traditional curriculum. I do still hope to hit on some of the typical Waldorf main lesson content for fourth grade– specifically Norse mythology, man and animal (including some beginning animal taxonomy), local and state studies, and a focused study of fractions and measurement in addition to other fourth grade math skills. But it’s not going to look like a Waldorf main lesson block. Read more...
So, what’s my third grader up to this March? Here’s a summary.
Christian Ed: She’s getting to know her new Bible she received for her first communion.
 
Math: We spent the first half of the month reviewing the four processes. Now we’re moving onto multiplying double digits and next week we’ll look at more complex multiplication. The base ten blocks are really helpful in explaining regrouping.
 
Language Arts: We’re continuing to work through Catholic Heritage Curricula’s Catholic Speller. Handwriting is covered though copywork. We’ve been a bit lax on creative writing/the writing process, and for grammar we’ve been visited by The Grammar Witch. Read more...
What do flood stories from different cultures have to do with a review of the four math processes?
Not much, LOL! But they’re two things I really wanted to hit on this third grade school year, so we’re squishing them together and seeing what happens. Read more...
We’ve been visited by a dear little friend this month- the grammar witch! She’s helping us sort out how to write letters, capitalization, and sentence fragments. I hope to have more details about the grammar witch as she continues to take Katie Grace on adventures through the English language. Next stop– punctuation potions!
 
We’re starting Astronomy!
Next week I’ll share some activities, but I thought I would start by sharing some resources. I’d love to hear your ideas for great sun, moon, stars, and planet resources as well!
The Science Explorer Out and About from The Exploratorium has some great ideas. We enjoyed the shadow tracing yesterday!
Sunshine Makes the Seasons is a great early reader for primary grade kids. It also includes the awesome orange experiment you see pictured at the beginning of this post.
I adore our old Childcraft annuals I was lucky enough to purchase at a thrift store. The World and Space book is definitely getting good use! Read more...
I’m not sure what prompted me to choose this as a main lesson focus this month. It’s not a Waldorf main lesson. I think it might be recommended in the Ambleside third grade course of study. It seemed like a natural jumping off point from Christmas.
 The two main books we’re using are Tomie dePaola’s Book of Bible Stories and, later in the month, The Parables of Jesus, also by Tomie dePaola. They’re really lovely books, beautifully illustrated, and the retellings of the stories are very true to Scripture. Read more...
It’s Miss Katie Face’s turn to be featured on Workbox Wednesday!
She started off with a little bit of spelling. We use “My Catholic Speller” from Catholic Heritage Curriculum. I know, I know, the kids are being raised Lutheran– but we tried A Reason for Spelling last year and all the stories about alcoholic fathers and impending divorce and doom were depressing.
Next, a little wet-felting to make beads. So fun. We have no idea what we’re going to do with them though.
  Read more...
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Our Current Read Aloud: When You Reach Me
In the car we’re listening to… The Mysterious Benedict Society and Prisoner’s Dilemma
Character Counts! This month’s character trait is: Courage!!
"Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." ~C S Lewis Blessed Mother Teresa, Pray for Us! 
Love begins by taking care of the closest ones - the ones at home.
~Mother Teresa |
