We're finally ready to start our second winter unit. We've started our winter nature table by putting the big white silkscape on the nature table. I had a set of wood arctic animals that I'd planned to give the girls for Christmas and decided to wait, so I'm "secretly" adding one to the nature table every few days. Despite "revealing" that Tiptoes the fairy was mommy at the end of the last unit, the girls are excited that "Tiptoes is back" LOL.
The circle emphasis for January is winter, and for February it is Love.
Religion, we'll continue reading through the Read & Learn Bible. I'm thinking when we finish it, we'll just start over, they're at an age where they put the pieces together a little more each time, so I think they'll enjoy the repetition. If, when we finish the Adam & Eve Lapbook, they say they enjoyed it and want to do more of them, I may try to continue finding lapbooks that go with the main SS lesson theme for each month, and we'll do one a month. (Because some smaller churches combine Beginners (age 0-4) and Kindergarten (age 4-6), the lessons are designed such that (usually) all of the Kindergarten lessons for a month are parts of the same general story that is that month's Beginners lesson. So, for example, this month's Beginners lesson is creation. For K, 2 weeks ago our lesson was the 6 days of creation (not including Adam), last week was Adam & Eve, this week is the 7th day Sabbath, and next week is Eve eating the fruit.)
The art in this unit uses watercolor pencils and some watercolors, I think the girls will be happy to art that is painting and drawing instead of the textile arts of the last couple units.
The nature emphasis for this unit is on creating a sanctuary garden. While I love the theory & someday WILL use the book as a guide and create my own sanctuary garden, now isn't the time. We're not planning to stay in this house long enough to justify putting any real money into something like this, it seems illogical to me to try to create a garden in the coldest part of the year, and I feel the girls are still abit young to fully appreciate this type of a garden. So I'll probably be pulling nature activities from other sources, or I might go back and pull some of the ideas from last winter's unit, which, if I remember right (need to go check) focused more on making bird feeders and such.
The handwork emphasis, in keeping with the overall sound theme, is to make a variety of instruments out of gourds. I've reserved the recommended book from the library but it hasn't come in yet, I'll have to see how involved the projects are and whether I can find affordable gourds, I'm thinking we might look through the book and choose the instruments we'd like to make, then grow the needed gourds this next summer (or ask grandpa to LOL) and actually make the instruments NEXT winter, when Papa (who is retiring this summer) might have more time to help with any more complicated construction elements of it. But we'll see once I can actually look through the book.
Books for this unit include:
Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin
Ty's One Man Band
Georgie
Owl Moon
Three Billy Goats Gruff
Charlie Parker Played Be Bop
The Dragons are Singing Tonight
If You Listen
The Singing Snake
Mousekin's Close Call
Peter and the Wolf
The Cat's Purr
Plink Plink Plink
Hiccup
Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?
January Circle Theme: Ollie's Ski Trip
February Circle Theme:
Love is a Special Way of Feeling
The Power of Love
All I See is Part of Me
The Rainbabies
No comments:
Post a Comment