May. 16, 2006 - Learning in our life - Independent activities
Monday 15th May 2006
The kids did their work all independently this morning while I had a meeting.
Josh worked on his math, Latin, copy work and writing a story. He then completed another chapter in his Introduction to Chemistry book.
Jessica’s first “assignment” was to keep peace and harmony amongst everyone, to help the younger two through their assignments and to work on her own work when she could! She managed to work on her math, writing, art and science. (Plus there was peace and harmony when I got back to the room!)
Nomi completed a typing session, art and science. While Daniel also completed some math, art, English and science.
Their writing was to draw a picture of their best dream. The girls actually wrote a paragraph and Nomi illustrated hers. I am going to edit their writing and do it as some copy work over the next week to get a final good piece of writing. Daniel drew a picture and told me all about it. Their Science was to copy draw an insect and Jessica was to complete a contrast/compare worksheet using the same insect. Their art exercise was to use torn paper templates and chalk pastels and to use the finger to smudge the chalk around the templates. Jessica’s is a beautiful sunset over the mountains type picture while Nomi’s originally was just different shapes she played around with, it really looks like the angel at Jesus’ empty tomb. Daniel didn’t do this activity but rather just drew a picture using his regular colouring in pencils.
I have been using a variety of black line masters for such situations as this. The Anti-Colouring in Book, TOPScience-Animal and various other resources I have collected from Teacher Resource shops over the years. Though I choose not to use such worksheets every day I do find they have their place. The ones I use are not fill in the blank comprehension sheets but rather open ended in their questions or open up for artistic expression. Daniel in particular likes working through a pile of worksheets (considering he isn’t reading yet I think this gives him a feeling of doing school like the others).
Over lunch, throughout the afternoon, and over dinner they continued to listen to their Narnia tapes. This is doing as our read aloud at this stage. While they are listening they are generally fiddling around doing something – filing or tidying, or drawing or creating something.
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