Classical Charlotte

We traveled around the world today, observing both mother nature and human nature.

Lentil lives in a small town in Ohio, just like Doo’s Tia (a close family friend.)  Tia was kind enough to send us a package of Ohio goodies and we rowed Lentil today while focusing on that state.  We took our lesson to The Huntington and found a quiet spot by a lone statue to read our book.

Tia gave Doo an Ohio ABC book a couple of years ago and we read through it after Lentil.  Doo was very excited to see that the cardinal was the state bird since she had her very own singing stuffed animal cardinal.  We read about buckeyes, presidents, the Wright brothers and Columbus, OH.  We had fun looking through Tia’s package which included leaves from Ohio, a magnet, yummy Ohio potato chips and a map of Cleveland.

Tia had also made a book about her life in Ohio for Doo when she had moved back after Doo’s third birthday so we brought that along as well.

After our lesson, we explored the Palm Garden for the first time (which is surprising since we’ve visited The Huntington many times) and checked out the Rose Garden as well since it was bare the last time we stopped by.

Anyone know what kind of bird this is?

And a random aside – I can’t figure out how to not include the Ohio/Lentil pics in the gallery without totally deleting them from this post.  Very frustrating!

Mrs. Katz immigrated from Warsaw, Poland to America when she was young.  Today we read about Poland, looked at photos and watched a video over of the Nat Geo site.  Doo easily found Poland on her bedroom world map and colored a picture of the country.

We also discussed the country’s recent tragedy where they lost their president, his wife and many others in a plane crash.  As we watched a short video of his funeral, we recalled learning about funerals back when we rowed The Rag Coat.

We just continued our lesson on Judaism and as I type this the Doo is reading out loud the story of David and Goliath from One Minute Jewish Stories that I borrowed from the library.

We also read sections from Eyewitness Guides’ Judaism - I read a little bit about past hardships but skipped the pages on the Holocaust (that can be for another time when she is older unless she asks while looking through the books on her own) and concentrated on the religious practices and culture of Jewish people.

Then Doo read several one-minute stories to herself and looked through both books.

We enjoyed the 2 1/2 week Spring Break.  I got this blog up and running plus started a new job.  I am still working full time but just 4 days a week and I will have 2 weekdays off.  That will be very helpful for local homeschool group activities (we’ll probably get more involved in those starting in the Fall, her Kindergarten year.)

I am going to be making some changes to our homeschool “curriculum” which I will share at some point.  For now, we will continue with Five In A Row.

We started rowing Mrs. Katz and Tush today.  This is a story about 2 neighbors, one an elderly Jewish widow and the other a young, African American boy.  They form a friendship and Mrs. Katz introduces many aspects of Judaism/Jewish life to the boy.  He joins her for Passover, etc…  Tush is the kitten he gives her when he wants to help her feel better because her husband had passed away.

Doo and I reviewed the Yiddish words found in the story before I read it.  After our reading, we read a little about Judaism and also watched a couple of videos.

Mirette lives in Paris, France (as did Madeline) so we continued our discussion of France by learning a little bit about its capital.  We looked at photos, read up on the Eiffel Tower (which she is now attempting to recreate with her Legos) and watched a video of photos.  Doo announced she wanted to live in France.  I said maybe we’d visit some day.

Since both Madeline and Mirette on the High Wire take place in Paris, France I combined the 2 readings today to go along with our France lesson.  After the reading we read a little bit about France and watched a few videos on Youtube showing images from the country.  Doo also did a connect-the-dot activity from Enchanted Learning.  Today was our last Madeline reading and we will continue with Mirette.

I am going to have a schedule change in mid-April so I have been planning on extending our homeschool lessons beyond just what we do with FIAR.  Once I get everything worked out I’ll post more here.

For our last Another Celebrated Dancing Bear lesson, we learned about Russia.  Doo easily found it on the map (she already knew where it was) and we looked over some Russian facts such as the capital and how lovely Siberia must be.

We then headed to a Russian deli about 10 minutes from our home.  The deli was inside a Russian market plus there was a bakery as well – “Fairytale Bakery.”  Doo helped pick out some items for lunch and we also grabbed a couple of bags of Russian cookies and a juice.  The woman at the cash register started to speak Russian to me until she actually looked at me and immediately spoke English.  I guess nothing about me appears Russian.  Maybe it was the L.L Bean sweater?

Our lunch consisted of some sort of veal and rice dish (I did not know it was veal until I had it in my hands – it was Doo’s choice.  That aside, it was delicious), stolichniy salad and beet salad.  There was also wafer cookies, a chocolate-type of cookie and cherry juice.  Doo did pretty well with the new flavors and consistencies.  She was not a fan of the beet salad and definitely preferred the veal and rice the best.  I liked the rice a lot plus the stolichniy salad.

Eva, in Very Last First Time, is an Inuk girl who lives in Northern Canada.  We read a little bit online about the Inuit culture and also discussed the singular and plural forms of the word (plus that meant discussing what singular and plural even meant).

We also filled out a little info booklet about the Inuit and used Google to find most of the answers.

Today we started rowing Very Last First Time by Jan Andrews and Ian Wallace.  The story takes place in Canada and is about a young Inuk girl who walks on the bottom of the sea for her very first time.  She lived on the tundra and the people of her village would go to the ocean, wait for the tide to go out and then cut a hole through the ice to go underneath where the tide pools were.  There they would collect mussels to eat.  The story chronicles her experience with collecting mussels on her own (without her mother) for her “very last first time”.

Our social studies lesson was about Canada.  We reviewed some facts about the country and then found it on Doo’s world map (she knew exactly where it was from looking at her map in the past).

She colored a map plus the flag, national animal and national symbol (maple leaf). And then we read the lyrics to the Canadian national anthem and watched/listened to the English and French versions.

We topped off the lesson watching a little video full of Canadian imagery. Doo was very excited about the horses and swings.