Our Homeschool grew by one child this month. Evelyn, a girl in our neighborhood, turned 3 just a few days after her mom had a new baby. I offered to take her in my Kindergarten for the rest of the year so that her mom could have some quiet time with the baby in the mornings. Although she is barely 3, Evelyn transitioned very smoothly into our little group and we really enjoy having her with us.
In Kindergarten
The Frog Princess - For the first week and a half of November, the kids were at the Hutchins' house. They finished their unit on "The Frog Princess". Carl told me that he liked the story because Ivan had to have the help of all his friends to defeat Koschei. As far as summaries go, that is probably the sweetest.
In Kindergarten
The Elder Brother - The story I chose to spend the majority of November on was called "The Elder Brother". The text is available at mainlesson.com in the anthology called For the Children's Hour. (As a brief aside: I love this anthology and used many of the stories from it for my Kindergarten units last year. The seasonal stories are especially nice as they help to bring our wonderful, changing earth to life for little children.) "The Elder Brother" is like an extended riddle; the "elder brother" is actually an autumn leaf but this is not explicitly stated in the story. I enjoyed watching the kids figure that out over the course of a few tellings. And then, I enjoyed the new sense of wonder they felt about the falling leaves. On our walks, they would excitedly show me leaves of different colors, naming them all "elder brothers". I showed them the little buds left on the tree: "little brothers" that would grow into leaves next spring. The unit was especially appropriate because Evelyn and Michael had new brothers born this month. To round out circle time, I chose nursery rhymes and songs that were about families: "There was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe", "Rock-a-bye Baby", and "Love at Home". I taught them to play "I Spy" and one of the days on our walk we raked leaves into a pile (for jumping, of course!). We also did leaf rubbings for one of our art projects.
Little Jack Frost - The last week we did a (very) short unit using the poem "Little Jack Frost" by Charles Sangster. I memorized the text word for word rather than paraphrasing, as I do with most of the stories. Ironically, the weather was especially fine this last week and there was no frost to be seen anywhere. I am hoping to keep the poem ready for recall when we do begin to see signs that Jack Frost is about. For a nursery rhyme I chose "Georgie Porgie" (another impish young man) and for a hymn, I taught the kids "I Need Thee Every Hour" (don't ask me why). Since it was Thanksgiving week, many of the neighborhood kids were out of school and we had a huge crowd at my Kindergarten. For an outdoor game, I taught them all to play freeze tag.
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