The Eagle And The Wren - Scottish Trickster Tale

This is our last trickster tale of the unit. Phew! The energy is getting really wild.

The different types of birds were chattering about which was the best flier. The Eagle overheard and joined the conversation. It was decided that the highest flier would be considered the best flier. Yes, the Eagle was the leading force behind this decision! So everyone tried to fly as high as they could. But no one could fly as high as the Eagle. When he was sure of his victory Eagle began to celebrate. And who should stir in the feathers of his back - but the wren. Being well rested, Wren was able to fly even higher than Eagle - so she won the contest.




Brother loved the story and was giggling uncontrollably when he realized what had occurred. He figured it out before I was finished reading and laughed through the rest of the story. It was really cute!

Here is his picture. His energy is CRAZY. Way up in the left, you can see the Eagle and the Wren. He has decided that they live on an island, and that the island was made by volcanos. So his entire island is filled with exploding volcanoes. Kind of like how he is feeling right now. He thinks the volcanos are beautiful and brought a volcano book down to show me after he was done his pictures.

Also, we exploded our volcano with baking powder and vinegar last night. I think that he incorporated our science experiment into this picture.

The Two Foxes - Scottish Trickster Tale

The next story was about two brother foxes who stole the fish from out of a basket on the man's back. One fox laid in the path pretending to be dead. The man picked up the "dead fox" and put him in the basket so that he could sell his pelt. Once in the basket, the fox started throwing out the fish for his younger brother to cart off. The man didn't hear any of the squeaky noises in the basket or the sounds of the fish hitting the ground. He was too excited thinking of his future with the proceeds from the sale of the fish and fox fur.



Brother included a thought bubble to show the man's dreams of his future.

I thought it was rather selfish and wasteful of the foxes to steal ALL of the fish. It felt like more fish than they could eat. But brother just thought the story was hilarious!

His little fox sure is cute. He definitely caught the energy of the fox with his flash of red with a long nose.

The Fox Outwitted - Scottish Trickster Tale

The next step of our Sages unit is to follow up with some trickster tales. Trickster tales reflect the wild and crazy energy of the eight year old - or second grader.

Our first tale was of a fox who caught a vain goose for dinner. The goose outwitted the fox, getting free again. Brother loved it. He told his dad about it at dinner.



Brother wanted to tell a story with his picture. So he broke it apart into two scenes.

John Muir Unit study

Another aspect of the Sages unit study is that we carry it through the next math block. We will do this by continuing our movement activities through the math unit.

I am not doing really great at having a circle right now. Brother has always resisted it - which makes a lot more sense now that I know about his unintegrated reflexes. So we go for a bike ride or walk in the morning, followed by his physical therapy exercises. The exercises don't take much time, but they can be straining to him because they are re-wiring his brain. It was much worse a few months ago though. And some of the exercises that he really hated have been completed.

After his PT we dance to Loch Lomond and one movement activity that is directly related to the John Muir story. I am probably going to add another dance in a week or so, depending on how this week goes. He loves the Loch Lomond song. We found a version of it on YouTube to listen to a couple times.

We have also made Cocka Leekie soup and Scottish Meat Pie. The Cocka Leekie soup was really fun. He wrote up the grocery list and we went to the store together. Also he did the math to figure out how much stock to add to the soup. It was really great to have him use math in a real life situation.

We plan on doing some more Scottish cooking, going to a Scottish dance and doing another craft.

John Muir Unit Study Ch 4

In this chapter, John discovers the Giant Sequoias. He also sees that they are being logged. Brother was a sad about this, but the fact that this happened so long ago provides some separation. In addition, Brother felt very empowered by John's actions to save the remaining trees.




Here is Brother's close up of the Giant Sequoias. He really wants to show the feeling of the size of the tree. He was really involved in the feeling.




And his summary.

John Muir Unit Study Ch 3

In chapter 3, John leaves his family and goes to University. He changed his name from Johnny to John. This really effected Brother. He was very interested in Johnny deciding that he had become a man.




This is a picture of the dome that John built his cabin by. Brother was very interested in the idea of having a little stream running through the hear of the cabin.




And the summary. Each day Brother takes more ownership of the summarizing process.

John Muir Unit Study Ch 2

In the second chapter Johnny Muir, his little brother and his father moved to America. The rest of the family follows once the farm is established. This was a hard chapter for me because Johnny had to leave his grandfather behind. I was supposed to do Tonglen Meditation on the story before sharing it, but I didn't have time before we started. So I was sad when I read about the leave taking. Fortunately, both of brother's sets of grandparents live here, so while he picked up on my upset, he wasn't particularly upset by it himself.



Brother is very interested in engineering - so he was mostly interested in the ship that Johnny and his family would have traveled on.



Here is the summary. He did a lot more of the summarizing this time around. He definitely has opinions about what should be said. We were running late today - so he only wrote one sentence. I finished off in the orange below.

John Muir Unit Study Ch 1

The Enki curriculum provides us with Sages stories. They are stories of wise people who started out a bit precocious but grew and developed. Beth suggested that we start with John Muir as he played in a castle when he was a boy and my children are both really into castles right now. It was a great suggestion. Brother could really see himself in Johnny when he was a boy and enjoyed experiencing Johnny growing into a man.




This is a picture the castle that Johnny and his brother played in when they were boys.




This is Brother's first official summary. I did most of the summarizing to provide an example. The next day, before we wrote down the summary, we edited it to be sure that everything Brother felt was important was included.

His writing as much improved. I write two sentences on the chalkboard and he has to copy it onto his paper. I also write the same two sentences down on a piece of paper which I set by him. He used to completely copy off of my paper. However, the visual therapy has really improved his tracking. He is able to copy completely off the board now, and actually seems to prefer it. Brother wrote in orange and I wrote in purple. Brother also corrects his work in purple.

Two

This week we explored the qualities of number two. We read the Western European Tale of "Two Brothers" from our Enki Fairy Tales book. There were a lot of twos in the story. The most descriptive of the twos for me was the two pairs of brothers. One pair had opposite qualities, the twins shared the same qualities. Brother picked up on the opposites with the two forests in the story. One was a long, wide forest, the other was an enchanted forest of no return containing a witch.

Here are our number pictures. He chose the twins, the two forests and of course the two guns. In our story the huntsman's have guns.

Guess the letters!

Here is my hidden letter picture.



This is our last lesson from our first block. Wow! What a milestone. We've made it through our first block! Anyway, we've done three led drawings in a row. That means he is supposed to follow me and draw essentially the same thing I am. I wanted to switch it up a bit. So, we drew side by side, but he was able to create whatever he wanted based on the story.

Wed- Thursday catch up

Well, we've been having morning lessons every day. The weather has been so nice, we've been spending at least an hour outside each morning. I've been reclaiming some of the garden from the blackberries that we inherited when we moved in. The church lot behind our garden is a haven for song birds. I love listening to them sing while I work.

Wednesday afternoon we visited at a friend's house. So far we have had a social outing every day this week. But, what I have noticed is that we have not been doing any projects. It's hard to fit everything in.

Thursday we recalled Little Red Cap and drew our pictures.



Mine. Brother says that I drew another Masha and The Bear.



Brother's. He did show the darkness of the forest, which is what I was using to portray the wolf's spirit. Brother also wanted to show both houses and the path. He's really interested in maps right now. As you can see, outlining is a bit of a struggle for us. I am not sure how to encourage him to fill in, instead.

Monday -

I added another base sense activity to our circle from the Enki Kindergarten Guide called "Snowflake" - So our circle is now:

Walk
Form Walk
Gathering Song
Gnomes
Dwarves
Winter White
Snowflakes - and a short grounding activity
Closing Song
Closing Spiral

I'm getting closer! All I need to add is a pre-recorder song, foreign language song, and a finger play.

It's hard focusing on winter right now when our weather is so unseasonably warm. Brother's contribution to circle today was "Spring is Coming." We have only had one really cold week so far, about 4 frosty mornings and no snow at all.

With my lack of enthusiasm towards the weather, I just couldn't pick t a snowy, winter poem for Baby's reading session today. I have the "My Bookhouse Collection", so we just read some nursery rhymes out of the "In The Nursery" book. This is Baby's book list for the week:

In The Nusery
A Fairy Went A-Marketing
The Gingerbread Baby (AAARGH!)
Mike Mulligan And His Steam Shovel

For Brother I am reading the Enki Fairy Tale "Little Red Cap", which went really well!

This afternoon we enjoyed a sunny day at the park with our good friends, and the kids took off their coats. After all , it is such a blustery winter here.



The snowmen are finally sewn together. This was just a wet felting project. Each part was made separately, and then sewn together. Brother had no problem with the sewing! I just started it off for him and he took control! They are supposed to be decorations, but the kids love them and play with them like toys. Hopefully they don't break! They aren't very sturdy.

Friday - First form drawing lesson!

Poor Baby had to ride in the stroller again today. His fever has broken, but his energy is still low and he has a nasty cough. He is finally eating again though! Brother and I had a fun walk though, he was running all over the place!

Our nature story was the "A Busy Sleep" story again for the third and final time. After the story we rolled around on the floor pretending to be bears again. Then we had drew our first form! I was digging around in our art closet and noticed that we have a black board on one of the easels. So, I pulled it out for Brother to try his form on. Then he drew on his paper.



This is our first form. It was my first time through the process, so I had a lot of my own learning to do. Completing the process brought up more questions for me, so I watched the Enki form drawing part of the DVD that came with our curriculum. Don't ask why I didn't watch it before we did the form. Anyway, now I know that he should not color in an up and down motion, but always start at the beginning and complete the form in one movement. Next time!

I included Baby in the process by letting him draw on the chalk board after Brother was done and then gave him paper and crayons and set him up at the table to draw. I didn't really have much of a choice, Baby was determined to be a part of the action.



Here is Brother's wet on wet painting. He thought about Masha and The Bear while painting it.

Thursday -Story recall & dentist

Today was a weird day, not that it hasn't been a strange week. We've been completing all of our activities, but not at the time of day you'd expect. Baby is still sick. He has a fever at night, is sleeping multiple times a day, including falling asleep on his Dad's lap at dinner, and is whiney. Poor Kid. Brother is under the weather, but still OK. I'm crabby from lack of sleep, but holding it together.

So we went to the dentist this morning. It's the same dentist Brother has been going to since he was three, and he is six and a half years old now, so I actually sent him back to have his teeth worked on without me! This is a big deal because it is the first time. But, I wanted him to feel like he had some time away from me and conversations that I wasn't a party too. And it is an open walled area, so there are essentially 5 chairs in one big room. Privacy is built in using counters but there are no walls. So, he was alone with his technician, but not really. That part of the visit went really well! Unfortunately, Brother has a genetic enamel deformity, so he will have many filings in the future. For now, all we can do is continue to focus on tooth care and try and have a good, healthy diet with limited refined sugar.

Meanwhile, the visit really set us back for the day, we were home at around 11:15, so we went on our walk/form walk/circle around 11:30. Baby is so sick he couldn't walk, so I put him in the stroller. Then we had snack right away and onto recall.

Unfortunately, recall went flat. I recalled the whole story. When I prompted him, he would just say nonsense words. Drat! It was so annoying. On the way over to babysit I talked to him about it in the car. Apparently he feels like we haven't spent enough time with Masha And The Bear yet. We agreed that he would work with my story during the week and I would tell the Masha and The Bear story once a week and we would do one art project around it a week. Hopefully that meets his need to be a partner with me so that we can move on. It's hard to know where he is developmentally when he spends he time talking in nonsense words!

We finished up with a led drawing of the Star Frog.



Here is Brother's. He kept jumping ahead and I had to reign him in.



Here is mine. I need to work on rocks! And it may be way too complicated for an older Kindergartner. I am cutting myself some slack because I am learning along with him.

Wednesday

Baby was sick with the mid grade temperature again last night, causing us to cancel regular plans with friends. Tonight when I put him to bed, his fever didn't seem so high, so hopefully he is starting to get better. He didn't really eat anything today, but for the past two days he has been nursing a ton! It will probably hit my milk supply tomorrow, which I am not really looking forward to!

Since Baby was sick we started the day off really late again. 10:45. I had to carry Baby for half of our walk. It's only half a mile, so it's not that much of a strain on me. Brother seems to be enjoying circle. He is still really silly, but he is much more of a participant than he was when he was younger.

I read the "Star Frog" story again today for the third and final time. Tomorrow is recall day. To prepare him, I have been doing a ton of laundry and piling it up on the couch. I keep saying, "Tomorrow is laundry day, look how full the couch is getting." I haven't specifically said that we are doing recall though. Hopefully he is more receptive!

Today for craft we wet felted snowmen. I don't actually have a snowman cookie cutter, so we used different sized muffin tins for the head and body. He really enjoyed it this time, becoming lost in the rhythm of the fingers poking the wool. He wanted to make a little top hat for the snowman, but we didn't have that shape at all, so for the first time he had to hold the wool in his fingers and shape it a little bit. Hopefully it dries overnight so that we can sew it together tomorrow.

Brother self-directed an activity with play dough and let Baby join in when he woke up from nap. And I had both boys help me saw a little bit on our second art board. Right before dinner they made cards for Daddy. I can't believe how much Art is going on around here. It's so different than a year ago!

Tuesday - Form Drawing

Baby was a little under the weather when we went to Grandma's party last night, but he was still in good spirits. Over night he came down with a fever. My Mommy Kiss Thermometer estimates 101 degrees. So, we were up really late this morning and didn't take our walk until around 11 am. Wow! That is so late. I did manage to get everything in, but we ran late.

Since Brother is complaining that things are changing too quickly, I read the "Star Frog" story again today instead of doing recall. This is really what Brother wanted and he led the way over to the Fairy Tale Telling area.

After the story, I gave him a large casserole pan with brown rice flour in it for him to use as his "sand tray". He was very curious. I told him to draw out what we had been walking in the driveway and he did with no problems. Since it was a straight line, I really didn't expect any. Then I let him play in the flour for a while. I gave Baby a pie plate with flour in it as well so that he was included.

Brother seems to be going through a lot right now. He is often out of control and is very emotional. He openly expresses that he doesn't want things to change and wants to know everything that is going to happen. It makes a lot of sense to me that he is really clinging to our daily and weekly rhythm with both hands since the insides of him seem to be changing so much. He turns 6.5 on Feb 2nd. I wonder if that is when he will be ready for First Grade.

Monday!

I can't believe it is Monday already! Today is Grandma's 70th birthday. We have been making lanterns for the party for the last 4 days. The kids are really excited. Daddy has the day off work, but he wants to keep his regular schedule. That works fine for us.

So, we had our regular morning "lessons." I switched Baby's reading list around. The new poem is:

When against earth a wooden heel,
Clicks as loud as stone on steel,
When stone turns flour instead of flakes,
And frost bakes clay as fire bakes,
When the hard bitten fields at last,
Crack like iron flawed in the cast,
When the world is wicked and cross and old,
I long to be quit of the cruel cold.

Little birds like bubbles of glass,
Fly to other Americas,
Birds as bright as sparkles of wine,
Fly in the night to the Argentine,
Birds of azure and flame birds go,
To the tropical Gulf of Mexico,
They chase the sun, they follow the heat,
It is sweet in their bones, Oh Sweet, sweet, sweet,
It's not with them that I'd love to be,
But under the roots of the balsam tree.

Just as the spiniest chestnut burr,
Is lined within with the finest fur,
So the stoney walled, snow-roofed house,
Of every squirrel, mole and mouse,
Is lined with thistle-down, seagulls feather,
Velvet mullein-leaf, heaped together,
With balsam and juniper, dry and curled,
Sweeter then anything else in this world.

Oh, what a warm and dark nest,
Where the wildest things are hidden to rest,
It's there that I'd love to lie and sleep,
Soft, soft, soft and deep, deep, deep!

By Elenor Wylis

Followed up with the picture books:
Gingerbread Baby (for the 3rd week!)
Twas the Night before Christmas (Baby's request)
Fairy Goes a Marketing
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel (Baby's request)

I've been leaving Baby with the books and with Winter by Gerda Muller, while Brother and I go to the special Fairy Tale reading spot with our candle. This week we are reading "Star Frog" a fairy tale for younger Kindergartens from our Enki Folk and Fairy Tales book. Brother is really fed by repetition, so I have changed our weekly rhythm to include three days with the same story, and then recall on the fourth.

I have also added the verse "Gnomes" to our circle to strengthen his midline crossing skills per the Enki Movement book.

Here are the gifts votive sized lanterns that we made for Grandma's birthday!



Daddy's has the smiley face on it. ;)




We also made a tiara for Grandma with glitter, feathers, googly eyes and sequins! Kids and Daddy had fun making a mess and Grandma enjoyed the tiara!

Friday

Today did our regular morning walk/form walk/circle. I read to Baby while Brother listened. Then Brother and I read the Enki Nature Tale - A Busy Sleep. Brother loved hearing it again. Afterwards we rolled around on the floor together pretending to be Bear Cubs. It was really fun for both of us. We were using an Enki Base Sense movement for this activity.

I was completely uninspired for our wet-on-wet painting today, so I just let them experiment with all three colors. Brother was really excited to make brown. Baby had to wait until Brother was done before he could have his turn. He wasn't very happy about it, but he woke up while Brother was painting, so I only had one station set up. Brother was very kind and only painted one piece of paper so that Baby could start sooner.

We were sick again with a small cough, so we had to skip our Games Day. For our craft, we put another layer of tissue paper on our lanterns for Grandma's birthday present.

Crayon Cases

Since Brother is an older Kindergartener mixed with small amount of First Grade I decided to make us the crayon cases. They really help promote the led drawing sessions.




I really noticed that after I gave him the crayon case, he became much more interested in drawing by himself. And he is doing a really good job of taking care with his crayons. He brings the case to me as soon as he is done. I did buy him new crayons this year as the old ones were all broken in their basket.



I also made one for myself as suggested in the Enki guide. It does really help with the modeling for the led drawing.



I have some extra fabric, so I am going to make a few extra. If you would like one, shoot me an email. I probably will put them on Etsy as well.

Thusday - The Wolf and The Seven Kids story

Today we had a regular homeschooling day with circle and form walk, etc.

After reading Baby's stories to the boys, Brother and I did a partially led drawing for the story "The Wolf And The Seven Kids". I felt like the main point of the story for us was that the smallest goat heard the clock calling to him and was open enough to the opportunity to hear the call of the clock and respond, thus being saved from the wolf. So, we drew pictures of the clock. Plus, it's something I could draw.



Mine



Brother's. We stand side by side when we do the drawings. Notice that his clock is on the opposite side of the page than mine!

For our craft today, Brother and I made "stained glass" snowflakes from even more of our cut out snowflakes.

And we starting making Grandma's birthday present for Grandma's 73th birthday on Monday.