Monday, November 21, 2016

Circle Time Term 2

We just finished up our exams for Term 1 last Friday so today we started Term 2! It's always exciting to start a new term because we get to study new things! Some books stay the same, of course, but some do change and our artist & composer changes too!

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Today I thought I would share my Circle Time plans for Term 2 :

8:45 Prayer

8:50 Bible Reading (during Advent I am using selected passages)

9:10 Bible memory work (The Nicene Creed & Psalm 8)

9:15 Poetry - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

9:20 Artist Study - John Constable (Mondays)
        Copywork (Tuesdays/Thursdays)
        Hymn & Folk Song Singing (Wednesdays/Fridays)

9:30 Composer Study - W. A. Mozart (Mondays)
        Spanish Lesson (Tuesdays - Fridays)

9:40 Grammar / Dictation (Mondays/Wednesdays)
        Shakespeare "As You Like It" (Tuesdays/Thursdays)
        Drawing (Fridays)

We are using Simply Charlotte Mason's Artist Portfolios for our John Constable study. The pictures are beautifully done.

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This term, our hymn selections are "O God our Help in Ages Past," "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence," and "Great is Thy Faithfulness." Our folk songs will be randomly chosen from my American Treasury of Songs book.

For our study of W.A. Mozart, I created a playlist of Mozart's most famous pieces (it's about 2 hours worth) on my Amazon Prime music library (all free!) that we will slowly listen to over the next 12 weeks. We also listen to the website Classics for Kids on the shows pertaining to Mozart- we do this at lunchtime because the selections are short and sweet.

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This website has some free printable pages about Mozart that help the girls stay focused while they are listening to music.

We also will be reading this Opal Wheeler book during our Composer Study time:

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We continue to use the Duolingo app on our iPad for our Spanish lessons. It moves pretty fast but the girls are catching on and so far it has worked well. They are able to translate sentences pretty well and their vocab is decent but I've noticed that they don't incorporate many greeting phrases or everyday ways of using Spanish. We will stick with it for at least another term and then reevaluate.

So, these are our Circle Time plans for Term 2, which is the funnest time, because we are doing it all together!

Friday, November 4, 2016

October reading

Before we went on our long road trip, I bought a few new books for the girls to read. They had been recommended and on my list for awhile so I thought this was a great time to purchase them!

For Louisa:

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Louisa especially liked The Little White Horse and they both fought over reading it on the way home.

For Kailyn:

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Kailyn loved all her books but said Where the Red Fern Grows made her cry. She read it twice on our trip.

Have your kids read any good books lately? I am always looking for suggestions!