Language Arts grade 3--Creation Unit

In January, I used the Old Testament creation story for a language arts unit. D made his own Main Lesson Book out of watercolor paper.

On the cover he wrote in Hebrew "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.  (This is the most fun he's had with form drawing ever!)

For each part, we would read the account of a "day" in the book of Genesis, then D would paint. The next day, he would summarize the events and write his summary.

Day 2;  God made the firmament....

Day 1:  God divided Dark from Light.

Day 4:  God created sun, moon, and stars.

Day 3:  God separated land from water.
He made plants.

Day 6:  God created land creatures
(note spider in web) and man.

Day 5:  God created birds and sea creatures.

For this part of the unit, we were working on capitals at the beginning of sentences and periods at the end.

After finishing the book, we talked about Adam and Eve naming the animals, and brainstormed animal names (nouns) and the things they did (verbs).

Candlemas

One of our favorite holidays is Groundhog Day. Did you know that it’s about halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox? So the sun is growing stronger (hence we have the tradition of looking for our shadows). It’s also the day in the Catholic church when they bless the candles for the coming year.

So this is the day that we’ve chosen to make our own candles.

Every year we gather the wax that drips from burning candles or candles whose wicks are gone. Anything usable we sort by color. Then we melt it all and make new candles from old. Some years we dip candles, if we’re ambitious. This past year we used small milk cartons and cardboard juice cans as molds to make pillar candles. We bought our candle wicking at Paper, Scissors, Stone.

Happy Candlemas 2010! I hope you make some beautiful candles.

Watercolor

In Waldorf schools, the students paint with watercolor every week. In case you have never used watercolor (the stuff in the tins doesn’t count), it is one of the most difficult media I have tried. I took a class in college and learned some techniques which gave me a moderate amount of success. But that was 29 years ago!

So it’s good that I don’t need to remember those techniques to teach painting the Waldorf way. Now, it’s all about getting to know the colors. What is yellow’s personality? (Who knew you could paint a whole picture in yellow?)

Which colors like each other? How do the colors mix with each other to make new colors?

D uses only the primary colors. He paints stories like “Yellow and Blue met one day. When they recognized each other, they had a big hug.” These simple paintings are amazingly beautiful.

L and M are free to paint what they want on our painting days. Occasionally they choose a subject we are studying, but usually they just try out ideas. They use a variety of colors, and mix new colors too. They’ve done really well, but not without some frustration about how to control wet paint on a wet surface. We all continue to learn. :o)

I’m trying to experiment and rediscover some of those tricks I used to know about painting. But I’ve also gained a new appreciation for clear, beautiful colors. And if my paintings don’t turn out quite right, I can cut them up and use them for math manipulatives or for flash cards. [See Land of Numeria for an example!] Mostly, I’ve found that painting feels therapeutic for all of us, and we look forward to these days.