Happy 238th Birthday America!

My Yankee Doodle baby

Our preschoolers celebrated the 4th of July a few days early this year. The group's founder pulled out all the stops, putting together a sparkless sparkler craft (pictured above), two patriotic stories, tricolored costume pieces, patriotic marching band music, a preschool parade around the park's picnic area, and a picnic potluck.

This book - Betsy Ross by Becky White - was one of ours. The text is minimal ("Betsy ripped. Rip, rip."), but it does have a few preschool-vocabulary-expanding-words such as crimson and indigo. The amazing illustrations by Megan Lloyd are made entirely from fabric! (I sew, so when I look at these illustrations, I see how much work went into them, and I have so much respect for Megan Lloyd's artistry.) The book is simple, but in its simplicity, it teaches concepts like the first American flag had 13 stars, 7 red stripes, and 6 white stripes, that the stars were originally in a circle, and that another name for the flag is Old Glory. (The reason I'm including this information is because I always question whether or not a book is useful & beautiful or twaddle. This book is useful & beautiful.)

(image from http://familycrafts.about.com/od/fireworks/ss/spsparkler.htm)

The sparkless sparkler craft is brilliant! It's festive and my three-year-old loves wands, so this is was a hit.

My daughter's sparkless sparker

You need a thin wooden dowel (you can even use a new unsharpened pencil for a shorter sparkler), red tape (wide), and items like sparkly garlands from Dollar Tree, a fake flower, and a styrofoam star on a stick. You can also use sparkly pipe cleaners and curling ribbon curls. You lay down a strip of red tape as long as your wooden dowel, put the dowel in the middle of the tape, and lay down your fun sparkly accoutrements at the top. Wrap the tape around the dowel and sparkly stuff. Finally, take a short piece of red tape and wrap it around the top to secure everything in place. You're done!

Outdoor Library

On a quiet corner in our neighborhood, one homeowner - I've never met this person - has set up a library. While I sat today reading to my three year old, an older man came up and "checked out" a book. There are no cards, no late fees, and there is no librarian.

Charlotte Mason Meet Cooperative Grouping

In a public school classroom, an alternative to whole class instruction in cooperative grouping. This is exactly what it sounds like: students work cooperatively in groups. What is the role of the teacher, what are the roles of the students, and how can one use the Charlotte Mason method in conjunction with cooperative grouping?

The teacher's role is to:
1)Organize
2)State the Learning Objective
3)Observe/Monitor
4)Debrief
5)Evaluate

Some students' roles include facilitator, timekeeper, writer/recorder, artist, reporter, encourager, praiser, cheerleader, gatekeeper, coach, question commander, checker, taskmaster, secretary, reflector, quiet captain, materials monitor, safety patrol.

Now for a question on which I'm reflecting: How can one use the Charlotte Mason method - which Ms. Mason did not design for cooperative grouping - in conjunction with cooperative grouping? For example, would Group Narration prove effective?

(For people familiar with Literature Circles, Group Narration would not be the same thing.)


I've only started thinking about this, so I'll post more after I've reflected a bit.

VBS

The theme for VBS this summer is Workshop of Wonders. Every morning this week, from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., I've been attending Vacation Bible School with my three-year-old. (We've never done drop off, and a group of preschoolers can always use an extra grown-up to blow up balloons or assemble a curvy swervy race car ramp.) These pictures show some of what my three-year-old has been up to this week (and why I've been way too worn out to blog).

Thursday was Slide and Snow Cone Day!

Playing "Make Me an Instrument" in Music Class

In the sanctuary, talking to the puppet mascot (an ant named Rivet)

Walking home after VBS through the Wednesday Farmers' Market with a blue sky painted on her forehead - it's what she asked for. Also, it was Crazy Hair Day, so she has half a dozen little pony tails. (She ate that entire basket of raspberries.)

Tuesday's snack was fresh fruit in a waffle cone, topped with whipped cream. It was Color Day, and the preschoolers are the blue group.

Planting seeds in plastic cup terrariums in Science Class

Making a sand angel

Playing dress-up

 

Though we only live a mile from the church, it takes us two hours to walk home. We stop at the mall's food court for lunch and play-time in the play area. Then, she gets to walk around the Disney Store for exactly three minutes (when my phone's timer goes off, it's time to go). We continue on to the court house because there's a fountain filled with lily pads and seagulls, and it has a shallow water feature that little ones can splash in. The last leg of our journey involves stopping at the civic center's covered walkway and calling out "Echo!" until we are satisfied with the quality of our echoes.

You would think she would need a nap after all that - Mommy sure does - but napping is so last week.

Birds and Mastodons

Citizen Science Projects for Kids

Last week, I had dinner with two of my mentors from grad school, one of whom - Sharman Apt Russell - is coming out with a book on citizen science in the fall. The book is called Diary of a Citizen Scientist: Chasing Tiger Beetles and Other New Ways of Engaging the World. The book is available October 1st, so I haven't read it yet, but because I've read several of Sharman's other books (Hunger, An Obsession with Butterflies, Anatomy of a Rose, Songs of the Fluteplayer, etc.) I'm fairly certain I will love it.

Citizen science is when amateurs participate in scientific research. As part of her research, Sharman participated in several citizen science projects, including one about tiger beetles, hence the subtitle of her book.

When I googled "citizen science" with interest in bringing a project into my public school 4th grade classroom, way too many results popped up. Where does one start?

I asked Sharman for ideas about projects I could do in the fall, and here are the two she suggested...

Her daughter Maria is a third grade teacher, and Sharman adapted the Mastodon Matrix project for use in Maria's classroom. For the mastodon project, citizen scientists sift through a kilo of dirt from a mastodon excavation to find and bag "shells, bones, hair, pieces of plants, and rocks."

The second project Sharman suggested was Celebrate Urban Birds which involves watching an area for birds for 10 minutes and submitting data to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Sounds like a fun Nature Study project!

*The above photo is from the Paleontological Research Institute (Mastodon Matrix).

Cursive will no longer be taught. Right?

 
4th through 6th graders in Charlotte Mason schools transcribed "two perfectly-written lines every day."

The truth is that Common Core is silent about cursive. Basically, it's up to the state. But, because students are not tested on cursive, and they are tested on whether or not they can convey their ideas using a keyboard, states will most likely de-emphasize cursive instruction. After all, there are only so many hours in the day.

"Experts have said handwriting training helps small children develop hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, and other brain and memory functions. Mims [an educator] said cursive writing could be important for children who grow to be a surgeon, a painter or some other professional requiring laser-like precision with their hands." (From a USA Today article)

Tim's Vermeer

Tim Jenison's painting on the left; Vermeer's original painting on the right*

Tim's Vermeer is the most fascinating documentary I've seen this year. It's about a man named Tim Jenison and his obsession with discovering how Johannes Vermeer was able to paint the way he did. (Its PG-13 rating is solely for language - 3 words, one of which is in print and two of which are spoken in a scene where the wind blows down Jenison's window.)

Vermeer lived in the 1600s in the Dutch Republic. When Vermeer died, he left his family in debt, and there are only 34 paintings attributed to him (Van Gogh produced about 900); Vermeer probably painted very slowly. When you look at Vermeer's paintings, you'll notice they're mostly interiors. You'll also notice that some objects are used in multiple paintings (like the viola da gamba and the blue chair in The Music Lesson above).

Jenison is a successful inventor, and his success has afforded him the time and money to pursue his interests. A few years ago, he became curious about Vermeer's paintings. Jenison (whose company produces video tools and visual imaging software) thought Vermeer's paintings looked like video images. He had to figure out how Vermeer had done it. He read books about Vermeer. He traveled to the Netherlands so he could visit Vermeer's house. He learned to read Dutch.

Jenison believed that Vermeer must have used a camera obscura and an angled mirror. To read about this, click here.

To test his hypothesis, Jenison built a room that looked exactly like the one in The Music Lesson. He ground his own lens for his camera obscura, ordered a viola da gamba, and bought a Persian carpet for $8,000 in an auction. He had his daughter, on her month-long vacation home from college, pose in a 17th century costume with her head in a head clamp. He made his own paint.

Then he started painting. It took Jenison 130 days to paint his Vermeer, and he estimates Vermeer took just as long. Remember, only 34 paintings are attributed to Vermeer, and his career was over 20 years.
 
As Jenison painted, he noticed that he was painting the harpsicord with a curve - a mistake - but a mistake that Vermeer himself had made in the original. Vermeer would not have done this had he not viewed the room through a lens (a lens is curved and curved the harpsicord's straight lines).

Additionally, the human eye can't distinguish shades of white when they aren't right next to each other. This is demonstrated in the film. So how did Vermeer paint the white walls of his studio? You'll have to watch the documentary because it can only be explained visually.

Jenison's whole project took about five years, and his finished painting now hangs above the fireplace in his bedroom.

*This image is from genisyscorp.com.