Language Arts Block 1 / Week 4

This is our last week of this block of Language Arts.  We've both enjoyed this block so much!  It has such a perfect order - I love that about it :)

We started woodworking this week.  We're going to try to do woodworking once a week.  We got wood a few weeks ago at a wood shop in Yishi (five minutes away!), but Jeremy hasn't been able to do the woodworking when I had it planned (Thursdays), so we're going to try doing it on Sundays since he doesn't usually work on Sundays.  They're using the book "Carpentry for Children" by Lester Walker.  It's a fantastic book - it starts with a list of materials and tools needed and then has a series of projects to help you advance in woodworking.  The first project (started this week) is to build a woodworking table.  Yoav really enjoyed it and did pretty well with the sawing!

I'm going to branch away from Marsha Johnson's Form Drawing Guide for now because I want to move on to some more advanced forms.  I'm reading Ron Jarman's "Teaching Mathematics in Rudolf Steiner Schools" and he recommends that first graders do some mirror forms early in First Grade, so I want to at least get some mirror forms in during the first semester.  I love Mrs. M's book though for showing me how to use stories to introduce the forms.

The story I made up this week for this form (form from Ernst Schuberth's "Form Drawing for Grades 1-4") is:

Yesterday as we were taking our morning walk, I was watching the ants going toward the forest to find pieces of straw and then carrying the straw into their home.  When they were looking for the straw, they looked around for a good piece like this (draw the first 1/3 of the form), then when they found a piece they liked, they headed straight for the house (draw middle 1/3 of the form).  When they got close, to find the entrance, they walked around in a circle like this (draw rightmost 1/3 of form) until they found the house and could bring the straw in.

Yoav's form drawing

I'm very much enjoying the chalk drawings for this block.  I'm feeling much more confident in my drawing - I love that chalk can be erased and drawn over with other chalk - it's a very forgiving medium!  I think I mentioned this before, but I'm using the crayons sold at Paper, Scissors, Stone on this page on the top right called "Blackboard Chalks".  They are much more vibrant (and more pleasing to draw with) than the Prang chalk that I also got based on recommendations.

This week our story was "The Golden Goose" (Grimm's).  My friend R, a very talented artist, emailed me her chalkboard drawing to use as inspiration.  I did my best to copy her goose and then used "Coloring with Block Crayons"  by Sieglinde De Francesca for help with the tree (I still need a lot of tree-drawing practice!).  The hidden letters, which I'll reveal on Wednesday are a T in the tree and a G as the goose's little nest.  The G is more obvious than past letters I've done, but it's how R did it and I like how it looks and then the full form of the G is semi-hidden (rather than just a C, which would have been all I could have hidden simply with the goose).  Again, I'm using the form of the letters in Audrey McAllen's "Teaching Children Handwriting" - it's not standard, but this is the form she recommends for the letter G.

My chalkboard drawing for "The Golden Goose"

A few months ago, when my in-laws were visiting, we got Yoav a gold stick crayon from Omer (near my in-law's apartment).  I didn't include it with his school crayons since it's not really a recommended First Grade color :)  But, for the golden goose, I put the crayon in his crayon basket and he was so excited to see it and to be able to draw the golden goose with a gold crayon!

Yoav's crayon drawing for "The Golden Goose"