I was anxious to begin studying the time period the wheel of time landed on - 300 BC - so I could make preparations and be ready for the next week. I thumbed through our history encyclopedias and at first thought all I could find was Alexander the Great. So I envisioned a craft and something else to entertain the kids. But as I continued to research my resources, I realized my understanding was inaccurate. The 3rd Century BC actually is 201 BC through 300 BC and Alexander was in the 4th Century BC. So I changed my search parameters and was deciding what to filter out and what to focus on. Needless to say, I was having great difficulty. Everything thing I read was exciting and important. I couldn't decide if I wanted to focus on only one or two aspects in that century and really create a relationship with the story - or do a broad and brief summary of a many stories so as to make connections between them. It seemed I was making this up as I went along even though I tried to plan everything out in the beginning.
When I was reading in the scriptures for my personal study and ran across what was happening in 300 BC in the Book of Mormon, it was so exciting to connect that with secular history that I decided to go broad. I made little pictures representing the stories along with dates to place in their timelines. During class, I pointed to the place on the map and explained briefly what was going on their during that time. This is what I came up with for the 3rd Century BC.
The Book of Omni - America
Asoka the Great - India
Ptolomy Dynasty - Egypt
Punic Wars - Rome and Carthage
Qin Shi Huangdi - China
Archimedes & Erastothenes- Greece
I brought along modeling clay for the kids to mold like the terra cotta army as I told them the stories, and coloring pages of Hannibal crossing the Alps. I was intending to do a simulation but was afraid I wouldn't have enough time to get through all the stories.
Some of the kids had difficulty gluing the pictures in the correct places in their timeline and others seemed to not even care about gluing them into the timeline at all - but a few caught on and hopefully will make memories with the stories.
To spin the wheel, I had all the kids stand in a circle around the wheel and explained that we neededall of their energy in order to travel back in time. They all neededto make a movement and a sound as we all became part of the time machine as we spun it. I could tell that some of the kids thought it was retarded but I made them participate anyway.
All in all, the 2nd week was much better and encouraging.
Friday, October 28, 2011
The Wheel Of Time - Week 1
This year I have been keeping busy doing one thing I am very passionate about. Studying history. When I asked myself if there was any class I wanted to teach for my kids at iFAMILY, I realized that I haven't given the deep foundation of history with my current love of learners as I did for the older ones - so I considered teaching it. And as most of my teaching experiences, I am so pleased with the things that I am learning - breakthroughs in understanding, making connections, and simple increased appreciation for lessons learned from history.
Even though the semester is almost over, I thought I would post the summaries and log what has happened in my class. The very first day, I was somewhat concerned. Aside from the fact that Aristotle had not yet completed constructing the Wheel for my class, I chose an introductory game - Timeline Trivia - that was way over the kids experience and ability to play. I thought it would be a good one, because when I made the game in our home, it was such a hit, that they begged to play it frequently. But with a classroom of 8 to 12 year olds who obviously don't have much exposure to history stories - let alone trivia - it was a bad choice for an introductory game. I even lost two students who seemed the most promising.
With the blank stares and impatient to leave fidgeting, I kept promising that next week would be more fun. Not a promising beginning, but it gave me the determination to try something new for the next week.
Even though the semester is almost over, I thought I would post the summaries and log what has happened in my class. The very first day, I was somewhat concerned. Aside from the fact that Aristotle had not yet completed constructing the Wheel for my class, I chose an introductory game - Timeline Trivia - that was way over the kids experience and ability to play. I thought it would be a good one, because when I made the game in our home, it was such a hit, that they begged to play it frequently. But with a classroom of 8 to 12 year olds who obviously don't have much exposure to history stories - let alone trivia - it was a bad choice for an introductory game. I even lost two students who seemed the most promising.
With the blank stares and impatient to leave fidgeting, I kept promising that next week would be more fun. Not a promising beginning, but it gave me the determination to try something new for the next week.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Savoring the Scriptures
We have been implementing our new and improved efforts to study the scriptures and I'm so thrilled with the results.
For years I have held morning devotional every day - without my husband. Finally, I responded to the idea that we should include him - or more likely - encourage him to lead us out. So in the evenings before saying family prayers, we've undertaken to read the Book of Mormon as a family - reading, discussing, marking, and testifying of its truthfulness. Whew. I felt amazing and proud of myself for handing that responsibility over to him. I'm anxious for his growth as well and the families response to his leadership. Granted, it is hit and miss due to his hit and miss work schedule but that is the plan in the evenings.
And so our daily devotional shrunk... dramatically. I wasn't sure exactly what to do during that time since we turned the family study time to the evenings. We dabbled a little with scripture master and personal scripture reading for 5 minutes, but basically the substance of our starter was weak and meaningless. I'd thought and played with the idea of customizing devotional activities for the special day child and had done it a little on Fridays - Joan of Arc's special day. But the other day, I sat down to brainstorm how to study scriptures without it being simply scripture study and discussion. How could I approach it so that my children get specialized attention for their needs. I did a little research, made a master list, and this is what I came up with.
Daily: Individual Personal Reading from the scriptures for at least 5 minutes. (I'm hoping to work that up to 30 minutes. Also, we are taking a conference talk and listening to it, taking notes, discussing. etc. The neat thing is that when we do the same talk the very next day - it's as if it were a completely different address but we got different notes the next day. Our intent is to clearly identify what the brethren are counseling us to do and then analyze whether we are doing it and implement an action plan to more completely follow the prophets voice. This is going to be fun.
Mondays - Doctrines and Principles Day: This is the day that we choose a doctrine and really get to the depth in research, analyzing what our understanding of the doctrine is and compare that with what the scriptures say. We identify the underlying principles in a verse. We analyze the scripture references found in their personal progress/faith in God/ or lessons. We choose a subject that we've studied and give a talk and bear our testimony on it. Eventually we will be making scripture journals and compile our faith promoting stories.
Tuesday - Markings and Values Day: This is the day that we learn how to mark our sciptures, not just the scripture mastery or meaningful scriptures, but putting titles on the top of the page, sectionalizing the entire chapter, color-coding, recording insights, stickers, and cross-reference notes. We practice the rule of three (reading a verse or selection three times - recording more insight with each reading). This is also the day that we recite our family value for the month and the scripture we have chosen to represent it. We find examples in the scriptures of that value being exhibited and then we find examples of ourselves exhibiting that value.
Wednesday - Scripture Master & Hero Day: Wednesday is our day away from home so we will use the travel time to memorize our scripture mastery. Using a combination of flashcards, repetition, fill in the blank, first letters, and scrambled words. We also are doing a combined Hero Study to make the people in the scriptures come alive and personal to each of us. We've chosen to start with Esther and will not only do a biography study but compare her character with our time lifestyle choices (media, Sabbath, Friends, gospel principle application, etc.)
Thursday - Storied Scripture Day: This is the time that I read directly from the scriptures the account of a particular story, and while I read, each child is creating a story book - drawing and writing a summary of the story on folded and stapled pages. Hopefully we'll have a large collection of little scritpure story books that the child has a relationship with. We will also read from the scripture readers.
Friday - Scripture Snack Day: Yes a snack, a treat of some kind that the kids get to eat as I tell the account from the scriptures in my own words, followed by a verbal testing of their understanding or application of principle discussed. Sometimes the scripture snack (for my drama loving kids) will be re-enactment the story. Sometimes it will be to play with some special toys during the story.
We've only just begin this regime this week, but already our morning devotional is rich, filling, and spiritually satisfying. So between evening family study and personally challenging devotional, I'm hoping the scriptures will take on sweet personal meaning.
For years I have held morning devotional every day - without my husband. Finally, I responded to the idea that we should include him - or more likely - encourage him to lead us out. So in the evenings before saying family prayers, we've undertaken to read the Book of Mormon as a family - reading, discussing, marking, and testifying of its truthfulness. Whew. I felt amazing and proud of myself for handing that responsibility over to him. I'm anxious for his growth as well and the families response to his leadership. Granted, it is hit and miss due to his hit and miss work schedule but that is the plan in the evenings.
And so our daily devotional shrunk... dramatically. I wasn't sure exactly what to do during that time since we turned the family study time to the evenings. We dabbled a little with scripture master and personal scripture reading for 5 minutes, but basically the substance of our starter was weak and meaningless. I'd thought and played with the idea of customizing devotional activities for the special day child and had done it a little on Fridays - Joan of Arc's special day. But the other day, I sat down to brainstorm how to study scriptures without it being simply scripture study and discussion. How could I approach it so that my children get specialized attention for their needs. I did a little research, made a master list, and this is what I came up with.
Daily: Individual Personal Reading from the scriptures for at least 5 minutes. (I'm hoping to work that up to 30 minutes. Also, we are taking a conference talk and listening to it, taking notes, discussing. etc. The neat thing is that when we do the same talk the very next day - it's as if it were a completely different address but we got different notes the next day. Our intent is to clearly identify what the brethren are counseling us to do and then analyze whether we are doing it and implement an action plan to more completely follow the prophets voice. This is going to be fun.
Mondays - Doctrines and Principles Day: This is the day that we choose a doctrine and really get to the depth in research, analyzing what our understanding of the doctrine is and compare that with what the scriptures say. We identify the underlying principles in a verse. We analyze the scripture references found in their personal progress/faith in God/ or lessons. We choose a subject that we've studied and give a talk and bear our testimony on it. Eventually we will be making scripture journals and compile our faith promoting stories.
Tuesday - Markings and Values Day: This is the day that we learn how to mark our sciptures, not just the scripture mastery or meaningful scriptures, but putting titles on the top of the page, sectionalizing the entire chapter, color-coding, recording insights, stickers, and cross-reference notes. We practice the rule of three (reading a verse or selection three times - recording more insight with each reading). This is also the day that we recite our family value for the month and the scripture we have chosen to represent it. We find examples in the scriptures of that value being exhibited and then we find examples of ourselves exhibiting that value.
Wednesday - Scripture Master & Hero Day: Wednesday is our day away from home so we will use the travel time to memorize our scripture mastery. Using a combination of flashcards, repetition, fill in the blank, first letters, and scrambled words. We also are doing a combined Hero Study to make the people in the scriptures come alive and personal to each of us. We've chosen to start with Esther and will not only do a biography study but compare her character with our time lifestyle choices (media, Sabbath, Friends, gospel principle application, etc.)
Thursday - Storied Scripture Day: This is the time that I read directly from the scriptures the account of a particular story, and while I read, each child is creating a story book - drawing and writing a summary of the story on folded and stapled pages. Hopefully we'll have a large collection of little scritpure story books that the child has a relationship with. We will also read from the scripture readers.
Friday - Scripture Snack Day: Yes a snack, a treat of some kind that the kids get to eat as I tell the account from the scriptures in my own words, followed by a verbal testing of their understanding or application of principle discussed. Sometimes the scripture snack (for my drama loving kids) will be re-enactment the story. Sometimes it will be to play with some special toys during the story.
We've only just begin this regime this week, but already our morning devotional is rich, filling, and spiritually satisfying. So between evening family study and personally challenging devotional, I'm hoping the scriptures will take on sweet personal meaning.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Adventures in Music
We chose to go with a theme for our adventure box this week and we chose to taste a little inspiration from music.
Spiritual lives of Great Composers
Discussion of what the ancient philosophers defined music
Classical CD's & Bio's of composers
Listen to a wide variety of music and compare the spirit they bring
Invite a guest musician to perform here in my living room
Find samples of music from different locations and different time periods
Study the mechanics of instruments & how they create the sounds
Watch youtube videos of an orchestra performance & discuss the different types of instruments
Make homemade musical instruments.
Overview basic musical notations - fill in a blank staff & then play it (compose)
The Math of Kahn
Yes, I'm using someone elses title but it was just too good to pass up. We've discovered a valuable free resource that is so inspiring. Kahn Academy has over 22,000 youtube clips (about10 minutes each) with explanations of most academic subjects. These videos are not boring or uninformed as you sense Salman Kahn's mastery and passion of the subjects he's teaching. Even though he is obviously well advanced in understanding the concepts, he can explain it to the student in the simplest and thorough manner. Obviously, I'm in love with this concept.
At first, I was thinking this might be something that Shakespeare could look into in her preparation for the GED test, but as I looked at all the subject matters, I got excited about learning some subjects myself. And as I was working through the knowledge map so I could see where gaps in my math learning are, several of my children stood around desiring to have their turn to work on the problems.
Yep! I'm loving it. Anything that inspires my children is worth a few moments of internet use.
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