Make dreams your plans.
Maybe some of these ideas inspire you or guide you away to something better.
Summer Ideas
☀️Model the morning routine I hope to establish this fall. See how far it takes us. (20 minutes each: Sweat. Study. Scribble.) Jo March calls writing-scribbling, and that makes a great alliteration. The writing to clarify-is journaling.
🌺Garden
👨🏻🎨Study Great Lives
🗺Geography. I want to embrace the fact that I have an abundance of concrete and create sidewalk chalk maps. We’ll have a family chalk art festival, 4 square, and hop scotch too. My husband has found two geography games: Globle, Worldle.
🏔Weekly hikes
🚐Weekly adventures
🎼Practice challenge with incentives and celebrating. I want to create a pattern of sight reading, scales, review with the metronome and learning a mix of songs self selected and from the music books.
📚Read alouds: Summer of the Monkey’s, Coot Club, Carry on, Mr. Bowditch.
🫖Spanish tea parties. Select three phrases to include in our lives each week.
♟A project of choice for each person. Cole has already chosen chess. I want to do the Jane Austen Writer’s Club book coupled with reading Sense and Sensibility. Caroline wants her project to be candy. Eli chose animation. Della wants to write.
Fall Ideas
Rotation of History, Science
Stick to my rotation for three years. The rotation outlines the topic of the month. Each topic includes readings. I dapple in the Forgotten Classics Library and add a new book. The link is the new way to access the Libraries of Hope.
Science Books
How the Mountains Grew (geology)
The Ocean by Chris Dixon (oceanography)
Mysteries of the Universe by Will Gater (astronomy)
Case Closed by Samuel Hughes (labs)
Honeybee Democracy (entomology)
Around the World in 80 Trees by Jonathon Drior (botany)
Amazing Wildlife by Judy Hoy (animals)
The Mind/Gut connection by Emeran Mayer (human biology)
Highland Farming (agriculture)
World Historical Fiction
When the Stars Scattered (African refuge)
Notebooking. I want to get it going in a sustainable way so as to create a portfolio for reference year after year. Each year I try different ways. I want a separate composition book for labs.
Storyschool. The topic would be narrative writing. Our mentor author is E.B. White. Work will be housed in a simple composition book. If this goes well, each year we can pick an author and collect composition books of learning.
Read his books and keep a notebook of gems, vocabulary and start a narration fit to ability. Caroline will orally tell me all she remembers. I’ll write down her “sum it up” sentence. She can trace it.
Copywork of a passage a week from E.B.White. Out of this I’ll draw spelling, typing, diagramming, sentence combining and craft. Elements of Style by Strunk and E.B. White will be our grammar book.
Each term we will write narrative stories, personal narratives and family stories in the fall(Charlotte’s Web), an imaginative journey and folktale narrative in winter (Stuart Little), and historic and scientific narrative in Spring (Trumpet and the Swan). Each term we will also write an informational piece. (Sequence-Flow and Focus, Persuasive-Claim and Evidence, Descriptive-Compare and Contrast).
For each term, we will have an experience to add a memory association that is soaked in delight. We could visit a farm, I’d like to visit the Bird Refuge the week the 10,000 tundra swans are there. We will celebrate with author’s parties. Perhaps we watch the movie rendition of Charlotte’s Web.
Storytelling: I lean heavily into read alouds, but this year I am itching to try more storytelling. I cherish the memories of my grandfather spinning a tale of his horses and dogs. A story is a gift.
Retellings of 11 stories
A picture book each week with multiple readings. I want to teach writing craft, art, science and vocabulary peppered in.
Here is a list of really rich picture books.
Lentil by Robert McCloskey Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans A Pair of Red Clogs by Masako Matsuno The Rag Coat by Lauren Mills Who Owns the Sun? by Stacy Chbosky The Glorious Flight by Alice and Martin Provensen How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman Grandfather’s Journey by Allen Say Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende and Harry Devlin Another Celebrated Dancing Bear by Gladys Scheffrin-Falk Papa Piccolo by Carol Talley Very Last First Time by Jan Andrews The Clown of God by Tomie DePaola Katy and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton Night of the Moonjellies by Mark Shasha The Giraffe That Walked to Paris by Nancy Milton Three Names by Patricia MacLachlan Wee Gillis by Munro Leaf A New Coat for Anna by Harriet Ziefert Mrs. Katz and Tush by Patricia Polacco *They Were Strong and Good by Alice and Robert Lawson Babar To Duet or Not to Duet based on characters by DeBrunhoff Down Down the Mountain by Ellis Credle Mr. Gumpy’s Motor Car by John Burningham All Those Secrets of the World by Jane Yolen The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge by Hildegarde Swift Follow the Drinking Gourd by Jeanette Winter Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson Gramma’s Walk by Anna Grossnickle Hines
The Bee Tree by Patricia Polacco Andy and the Circus by Ellis Credle The Wild Horses of Sweetbriar by Natalie Kinsey-Warnock Paul Revere’s Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, illustrated by Ted Rand Henry the Castaway by Mark Taylor The Finest Horse in Town by Jacqueline Briggs Martin Truman’s Aunt Farm by Jama Kim Rattigan The Duchess Bakes a Cake by Virginia Kahl Andy and the Lion by James Daugherty *The Old Woman Who Named Things by Cynthia Rylant Daniel’s Duck by Clyde Robert Bulla Warm as Wool by Scott Russell Sanders The Salamander Room by Anne Mazer Climbing Kansas Mountains by George Shannon Amber on the Mountain by Tony Johnston Little Nino’s Pizzeria by Karen Barbour The Tree Lady by H. Joseph Hopkins The Pumpkin Runner by Marsha Diane Arnold Hanna’s Cold Winter by Trish Marx Albert by Donna Jo Napoli Mailing May by Michael O. Tunnell Cowboy Charlie by Jeanette Winter Grass Sandals by Dawnine Spivak
The Hickory Chair by Lisa Rowe Fraustino Arabella by Wendy Orr Higgins Bend Song and Dance by Jacqueline B. The Raft by Jim LaMarche Betsy Ross: Designer of Our Flag by Ann Weil The Gullywasher by Joyce Rossi Minette’s Feast by Susanna Reich Angelo by David Macaulay Paper Lanterns by Stefan Czernecki The Bravest of Us All by Marsha Diane Arnold The Hatmaker’s Sign retold by Candace Fleming
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