A Poem From My Daughter

In between studying for a chemistry exam, planning a bridal shower and fighting a nasty poison oak outbreak, my oldest daughter wrote me this poem. Needless to say, I cried.

To My Mom

When I was a little mite

I dreamed of queens and gold and jewels

I thought of famous ladies

With their diamonds and their silks

Olive oil and baths of milk. 

My mind imagined graces,

beautiful, perfected laces.

Examining and turning
les femmes of history,
I realized with a startled visage

none, not one of these damsels, 

could hold a million candles

to the one that is you.

There is in you a grace so sure,

a love which has, which will endure.

A face so breathtakingly beautiful,

Helen of Troy would be held so dull.

This was when I was a little mite,

but now I am grown.

My hypothesis is tested and found right.

I live now in a reality with a created being,

who lives a life of solid meaning,

the fairest of fair among all the women.

by Emelie Pepito

An Ocean of Fun-Activities for Preschool and Early Elementary

                                      

I have been a bit uninspired with my children's schooling lately. resorting to just stacking up workbooks for them, instead of bringing in the creative Montessori and Charlotte Mason inspired projects that I and my children love.

However, I recently liked the Living Montessori Now page on Facebook and got some wonderful ideas  from the posts there. Because we are doing the Swimming Creatures from Apologia book for science this year with our co-op, I decided to use the ocean as a theme for our Montessori inspired activities this week.

First, I sorted through our book basket and put in there all our readers and drawing books that were related to the sea and sea creatures.

             

Next, I showed the children the Draw Write Now book six that features ocean creatures, and provided them with paper that features blank areas for drawing with lines below for writing sentences.

I also put together a basket of our assorted sea creatures with labels so they could match the words with the objects. I also put beginning sounds on the cards in cursive and print so that my pre-reader could use the activity just for initial sounds and my older child could match words with objects.

We also worked on sea life puzzles, counted the sea creatures in the basket and classified types of sea creatures. A quick search on Pinterest would yield many more activities. 

The Charlotte Mason part of our study involves a fabulous read aloud. In this case, Pagoo by Holling Clancy Holling. This is a wonderful, imaginative story which tells about the journey of a Hermit Crab from diatom to crawling crustacean. I first read this story aloud when we lived in Mexico, and at that time we had a little hermit crab which we were able to observe while we were reading. Alas, we don't live right by the ocean at this point in our lives and so keeping a hermit crab is out of the question, but we are enjoying reading the story again, this time with my younger children.

Although I could just keep handing over workbooks to my children, these types of hands on activities are so much more inspiring to them, and make learning as natural as playing.


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