Greeced Out

 

Sunburst finished up her study of Ancient Greece in October.  My initial plan was to let it rest after our trip, but she refused to take a break.  This block was the most fun yet!

We ended up with more than we could fit in one main lesson book, so I showed Sunburst how to put together a small accordion-style book (similar to a Greek scroll, but folded-- maybe the blurry picture below helps?).  The smaller book ended up holding the bulk of Greek history (30 - 5x6 inch pages), from the early settlement to the famous battles and leaders.  She included form drawings, portraits, and relevant quotes.  She is really proud of this little book, and her work truly reflects that, both inside and out.

 

Her regular main lesson book is packed with the mythology and the wonderful stories.  Sunburst read Rosemary Sutcliff's retellings of both Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, then she copied out the beginning of the original Odyssey in Greek.  She also read Padraic Colum's book The Golden Fleece.  They all made it into her main lesson book, as well as the Greek alphabet, a study of Greek columns, a small subset of Greek words, a map, and her sketches from our trip to the Acropolis.  Her enthusiasm for the work and her focus continues to impress and amaze me.  Here's a little sampling:

 

 

Here are a few of my chalkboard drawings from The Iliad, The Odyssey, and Perseus, respectively:

We love, love, loved our study of Greece, but a person can only do so much before becoming Greeced out.  ;)  We took a break from history in November (with the minor exception of mathematical history), and we're feeling rested and ready for more.  We're hoping to ease our way into Ancient Roman history next!

Homeschooling at the Acropolis

If you were looking for us on Saturday, you would have found us here causing quite a spectacle.  I'm certain the Acropolis has seen homeschoolers before, but for some reason we attracted quite a bit of attention.  What were we doing that was so exciting??

Drawing.

We must have looked rather curious, as lots of people approached us, including the Acropolis staff.  They were horrified at the site of Kitty Bill, age 5, sitting with a tin of colored pencils and a notebook.  They were concerned that he might go wild and start drawing on the gazillion-year-old marble rocks.  After all, defacing the place is punishable by law... apparently, so is singing.... which we do a lot.  But we managed to restrain ourselves just this once.  And rest assured, Kitty Bill was completely engrossed in drawing a picture of Lykavittos Hill that he didn't even think about drawing on the marble.

It was a long walk up to the Acropolis.  First in surprising torrents of rain, and then just as quickly, melting in the glaring sun.  We stopped in the tiniest bit of shade cast by the Parthenon behind us, resting and sketching the caryatids of the Erechtheion.  One woman was so taken with the sight of us that she thought we needed pictures.  She grabbed our camera and started snapping away.

Our visit to Greece was absolutely fantastic.  More on that to come...

The last two weeks

Fables and heroes - finishing up second grade work with Moonshine:

Hiawatha




The Peacock and the Nightingale/Peacock and the Crow -- I combined the two, and they went together very nicely:




We all painted peacocks together, but Moonshine's came out the best.




The Sun and the Wind:






Studying the Greek gods and goddesses with Sunburst:

Oh, what a joy Ancient Greek mythology is! The timing really seems to be perfect for her-- I'm so glad we waited for fall and didn't try to cram it in before summer holidays.





We covered the whole set of Greek gods/goddesses. Not all of them made it on the chalkboard. All of them did make it onto paper. Here's just a little taste. The first one is mine, the next two are Sunburst's drawings. The poems were a joint effort.









Sometimes Kitty Bill comes and copies my drawings off the chalkboard. He's almost five. Here are his renderings of Hiawatha and Apollo... notice he didn't draw Artemis?!





With thoughts of a bow and arrow he made a short leap to Robin Hood. He made sure to write the name on the chalkboard because I had written Apollo's name. Sunburst wrote the letters down for him, as he requested, and then he copied them onto the board. Very cute.





We have these lovely, very simple Robin Hood readers from Rosie Earnshaw that we picked up for Moonshine in Sherwood Forest last summer. Can you see the striking resemblance to Kitty Bill's drawing?



With bows and arrows on his mind, Kitty Bill went outside and promptly made a set from branches he pulled off the tree. It worked, somewhat, so Sunburst rushed in and showed him how to make a proper bow and arrow set. Apparently you have to bend the branch as you tie the string on so it will stay taut. Between the two of them I have seen enough "arrows" whizzing through the house to last me a very long time. The phrase "not in the house" doesn't seem to register... I'm starting to think they don't speak English anymore. Perhaps they only speak warrior now?

Week of lions... and Greece!

Last week, to meet Moonshine's request of more "boy saints," I presented her with a story about St. Jerome and the lion. I wrote her a flute song based on this story, and I was so glad that it was such a hit because I had planned a whole week of lions.



I also mentioned last week that Moonshine is trying out some new behavioral territory. Could it be the nine-year-change approaching already? I'm hesitant to label it as such, but I do know that it's making us all crazy, herself included. She's being antagonistic to everyone and she's not sleeping well. It's a dangerous combination... and well, she rather is like a lion.

I carried over the heart theme from last week, and challenged Moonshine with a poem I wrote just for her. She copied it into her copy book, memorized it, and recited it--- all with great joy! And because she's insisting to write things phonetically and without help, I pulled some words from the poem and challenged her to her very first spelling quiz. She was so excited!! She remembered every single word, and she can't wait for her next quiz.

The poem was very simple, but the message is also very clear:

Fill my heart
with gladness.
Fill my heart
with joy.
Fill my heart
with love
For every girl and boy.

Fill my heart
with kindness.
Fill my heart
with care.
Fill my heart
with tender thoughts
For creatures everywhere.

To extend the heart theme, I invited the kids to watercolor-paint some hearts. Then to extend our lion theme, I went ahead and pulled from my second grade materials and told the story of the Lion and the Mouse. It was a good reminder of kindness as well. --Those of you who have Teaching With the Fables by Sieglinde de Francesca will recognize my attempt to recreate the picture from the cover of her lovely, lovely book.








Sunburst and I worked on Greece, Greece, and more Greece. And math, of course. I also tossed another wondrous geometrical form her way, shown at the top of this post. She is lapping it up.

This is our rendition of Helios and the sun chariot with Prometheus stealing fire to give to the humans:





We also worked together to copy out the amazing family tree from the front of D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths. It was a challenge, for sure, but we worked at it little by little over the last two weeks, and it's already helping us to keep all the Greek mythological gods and goddesses sorted. Greece is definitely a lot of fun!