ThadenPierce School

These ideas came from here and a few other articles on that site. I’m compiling them…

- Ask children how the music makes them feel, encourage them to dance to it.
- Make art while listening, have them paint what they think the music says or how they feel about it.
- Learn about orchestras and play games to match the instruments to the right section (brass, woodwind, percussion, strings.)
- Regarding lessons: let the teacher critique, you encourage and cheer.
- If it’s within family/church standards, let them play whatever music they enjoy.
- For the first practice after lessons, sit with your child to make sure they remember what they need to work on for the week.
- Keep lessons brief for little ones, two short practice sessions instead of one long one.
- Don’t overlook the importance (and effort) of theory. I’ll be using some of this to learn about theory myself!

We’ll be using this list for composer ideas after we finish up Mozart. I think we may do a brief overview and do one composer per month, instead of per semester. So that means for the next year we’ll do:
Gabrieli for October.
Bach for November.
Handel for December (that’s fitting!)
Lully for January.
Monteverdi for February.
Vivaldi for March.
Beethoven for April.
Hadyn for May.
Mozart for June.
Berlioz for July.
Bizet for August.
Brahms for September.

Update: Scratch that, I can’t find anything about some of these composers at the library so instead we’ll do time periods for a couple months and see what I can find from the more famous composers. Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/

http://www.ezschool.com/Games/

http://gardenofpraise.com/lesson.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing/

(Thanks, Abby & Jenny for sharing those!)

Moira has officially finished her Saxon Math 1, first grade math. Woo-hoo! Go, Moira! She did her final assessment today and she’s eager to begin second grade math.

We’re reading from Story of the World volume III and as we read we put the events on our timeline on the wall. (Not just history but artists, musicians, biographies we read, etc.) We realized the rulers we’re reading about were in charge when Bennet Meade Hatch was born in England in 1565. (16th great-grandma for the kids? I lost track of the number of “great” she is.)

How incredible is that for us to be reading about these queens and kings of long ago and to see their ancestors on the timeline, to imagine what the world was like for their own family throughout history? I love that. I think it brings it to life in a whole new way for them and I hope it makes these lessons stick in their minds.

From Little Four Eyes:

Flashlight Tag – In a dark room (we play in the evening) the child takes their flashlight for an eventful game of flashlight tag. The parent slowly moves their light along the wall in all sorts of directions and the child’s job is to catch their beam. This works best if you have 2 flashlights or laser pointers that make a very clear beam on the wall.

Hit my ballon (or ball) on a string. – Tie the balloon on a 1-2 foot string and have your child watch the ball and “hit” it when it comes close to them. We aim for making contact 10 times. Today we played with a ball, but it moved too fast and Elly was not able to keep her eyes tracking on it and ended up just batting at it and getting lucky a few times. A balloon would slow the game down.

Dancing Finger Puppets. – Hold the puppets in front of the child’s face and have them follow the dancing puppet as you move it slowly back and forth, up and down and in a circle. Ask them to tell you the attributes of the puppet – what color is the face? How many dots are on the tummy?

Pop the bubble. – Have your child put out their pointer finger and practice popping imaginary bubble gently with a slow tap. The key is to make sure the kids are looking at the bubbles. Then begin blowing bubbles and having your child slowly pop them. If they are having trouble with their fingers, a paintbrush also works and they can “paint” the bubble to pop it.

Tricycle or Bike obstacle Course- Set up a few cones and place a card on top of the cone with a picture or letter on it. Have your child “Drive” through the course avoiding the obstacles. Encourage them to read and call out what is on each card as they go around it.

We’re still studying Michelangelo and today the kids are using the IKEA table as their roof, taping paper to the underside so they can paint. This is an idea from Discovering Great Artists.

And Joseph is “helping” – maybe he’s the artists’ waterboy.

Heard from under the table:

Mom, did Michelangelo ever get to take breaks? (yes)

Mom, did he ever get to eat? (yes)

Mom, my arm is hurting. I think I know how he felt.

Mom, is it lunch time yet? (no)

Mom, can we come out?

I started laughing and said, YES – you don’t have to stay under there!!

American Citizen’s Guide to Government & Politics.

I think I’m going to sign up for it (good refresher!) and see what age it would be appropriate for so we can use it later with the kids. It’s an online course, 11 lessons, for free from BYU Independent Study.

And I compared prices – Texas Tech & BYU are the two universities I heard about that had extensive online/independent study programs from high school up through college. BYU is cheaper, though I’ve not explored TT yet to see what courses they offer. I think that’s a good way to let the kids see the extent of a college class without having to attend a local university if they’re not ready yet. I remember when I worked at BYU Independent Study that they advised students not sign up for university level courses until they are at least 14 years old. Classes will show up on an official BYU University transcript and transfer most anywhere so you want to be sure your child is going to get a good grade on it and are academically ready.

I loved playing school when I was a kid. My Mom would do all sorts of lessons with us over the summer and I remember the McGuffy Readers and flat marbles for math and all kinds of fun stuff. Chalkboards, art stuff… I loved playing school and I remember making my little sisters be my students. Probably in part why I considered education for my major in undergrad and why I liked teaching with the community outreach program through the shelter (visiting local schools) and why my final career plan pre-dropping out of grad school was to get my Ph.D. and teach and why teaching college was so fun. It felt like playing school!

I thought about that this week when I announced, “Circle Time!” and the kids all grabbed chairs and lined up by the couch in the sunroom. Not that this level of attentiveness lasts more than 32 seconds without someone knocking someone else off their chair or a toddler wandering off but still. Starting our new school year and these eager little ones waiting wide eyed for me is really, really fun. I love it, it feels like I’m playing again.

We bought some posters at the Dollar Tree and one had the pledge of allegiance so I had the older two learn it. And then I heard Bennett reciting it. I didn’t know if he had memorized it (an impressive feat for a 4 year old) but I think actually he’s just reading it. I went through it pointing to each line to see which it was and yes, he’s reading it. He stumbled on “indivisible” so I know he didn’t memorize it. He did not, however, stumble on “allegience” or “republic” or “justice” – just “indivisible” was hard for him.

I’m linking to some ones I wanted to review later, old stuff I wrote:

My thoughts on CM part I.

Part II

Part III

Changes to our day based on CM.

Habit Training Ideas

Implementing short lessons.