Weekly synopsis

I'm trying to organize our schooling a bit more to give our days and weeks more rhythm and to make sure we are covering all subjects. Our classroom time gives us our math, geography, culture, practical life, language and sensorial time but I've now designated days to focus on art, music, reading and gardening. Here is a quick run down on how our days this week shaped up:

Our theme this week is bees and we expanded it to insects. I prepared insect nomenclature cards that illustrated and names all the major parts of an insect and a small book that further explains all the parts. I am loving montessoriprintshop.com for these resources.

Monday: Gardening- We fertilized and watered the garden with fish emulsion. Last week the kids were much more into this task and I completed it mostly myself while the kids hunted and caught several toads and a cockroach. The cockroach went into a jar with a cotton ball and some nail polish remover for later study. Then we pulled weeds from the garden and the lawn and took that along with a few days worth of kitchen scraps to the composter. The kids love to look into the composter with disgust and turn the handle. We studied that cockroach later expanding our theme this week from bees to insects and we were able to identify its abdomen, thorax, head, eyes, antennae, fore-, mid- and hind legs. The kids were not grossed out by this thorough examination and I tried not to be either.

Tuesday: Library/Reading- Last week was our library week so this week we stayed home and read several of our library books. We are studying bees this week and the kids also picked out some books about giraffes and one giant book with huge illustrations of animals. We read a lot this day and I enjoyed the couch time.

Wednesday: Music- We stared the day listening to Boca Beth, kid-friendly music that teaches kids Spanish words. It is cute to see them picking up colors and numbers and greetings. We also listened to some Andre Segovia, Spanish classical guitar music and I was surprised that Theron said he recognized the first song and liked it. I need to expand my collection of classical for the kids to listen to. We tinkered on the piano for a few minutes, walked the line (a Montessori thing) and played our own rhythm instruments.

Thursday: Art/Craft- T. and R. found a giant wasp while I was preparing our craft, pine cone bird feeders. They freaked me out messing with that darn thing, picking it up by its wings, picking it up with sticks. I helped them identify its parts again, like the cockroach then we made and hung the feeders. Then we did watercolor paintings. T. did one of a tornado using mostly black and R. did one of a tomato and avocado. T. commented that that too looked like a tornado. Then T. did one of a wasp. I am really enjoying his artwork lately, things are actually identifiable. At lunch he asked me how sharks left their teeth on land if they live in the ocean and as I explained I could see he was totally confused. He even stated "this is too hard for me to understand". Perfect introduction to land forms even though I had planned an afternoon lesson on colors. Upstairs we went while R. napped for a nice lesson on island, lake, canal, isthmus, gulf and peninsula.

Not sure what next week holds, we are still waiting for our tadpoles so hopefully those will arrive. I am looking for a nice classification chart or charts for insects, reptiles, amphibians and all creatures in general.