Russia
How I structured this week:
Two language arts lessons came from Draw Write Now: the wolf and brown bear. We used this as a focus to learn about the habits of wolves and bears. The library has lots of great books on both. Beware using the TV when studying bears. I Tivo'd a program that I thought was going to be educational and it ended up showing people getting attacked by bears and it gave my little boy some terrible nightmares!
We also listened to a great recording of Peter and the Wolf, narrated by Sir Alec Guinness. On this day, we read about Russian classical composers and listened to several examples of the music, including Peter and the Wolf and Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite. If you save this for Christmas, a trip to the ballet would definitely be in order. We, however, just watched one on DVD.
There are a lot of great folk stories from Russia and the children enjoyed them a lot. We have a set of Russian nesting dolls that my mother in law bought in Alaska last year and they say "Made in Russia" on the bottom - for some reason commerce really fascinates my little ones.
Here is the list of books we checked out at our local library:
The Nutcracker, Hoffman
Life Cycle of a Wolf, Kalman
Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, Riordon
Russia in Pictures, Marquez
The Cat and the Cook and Other Fables of Krylov, Heins
Bears, Gilks
There's a Wolf in the Classroom!, Weide
Fox Tales, Wheeler
Another Celebrated Dancing Bear, Scheffrin-Falk
The Mitten, Brett
Best-Loved Folk Tales of the World, Cole
The Bird of Time, Yolen
Germany
Germany was a little rushed and not as successful due to family issues that were going on at the time. However, we managed to get our lessons in and added a few German themes along the way. We read a book about Beethoven and listened so some of his famous pieces. We read two fairy tales and did a Draw Write Now picture of Goldilocks and the Three Bears for a language arts lesson. We watched a great travel show on PBS about Germany. We also ate Wiener Schnitzel and potatoes for dinner one night. There is a lot you could do with Germany that we didn't do. However, I have to realize and get used to the fact that in a school, things get lost and glossed over all the time. One week of less-intense lesson planning is perfectly acceptable, especially since I'm still covering the bases with math and reading.
Here are the books we checked out for Germany:
Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Aylesworth
Hansel & Gretel, McKay
Ludwig van Beethoven: Musical Genius, January
Italy
Italy was fun but after the lack of focus with Germany, I tried to do too much. Our lessons took too long and I found them losing interest at points. We attempted to study Renaissance Art. Aside from being really excited at all the nude paintings and giggling up a storm, they weren't really interested in this. I think I did too much reading and I should have used more visuals from TV or our computer to engage them in the subject. One thing they did love was "Painting the Sistine Chapel," in which you tape a piece of paper on the bottom of a low table (we used their easel), lay down underneath it, and paint something. It's a lot harder than you think it would be and you can more easily get a sense of how difficult this was to do in real life!
Another subject we studied was Galileo. With additional planning, this could have been great. I should have taken them to an observatory but, once again, due to family circumstances, we couldn't accommodate a field trip. We also watched a program about Venice and learned about canals. We didn't do any Draw Write Now lessons for this unit. Instead, we took lessons from our English Primer and worked on grammar.
We ate several Italian meals, including an Italian-American lasagne, one of my kids' favorite dishes.
Here are the books we used from the library:
Fables of Leonardo da Vinci, Nardini
Michaelangelo Buonarotti, Raboff
Starry Messenger, Sis
Italy, Borlenghi
Michaelangelo, Venezia
The Renaissance Art Book, O'Reilly
France
After two hard weeks, France was a lot of fun. Since I have a background in French, I'm pretty comfortable teaching them simple words and phrases, as well as songs. We did include two language arts lessons from Draw Write Now: the goose and swan. We spent our first day studying the geography of France and learning a bit about their history and culture. We spent the second day on performing arts in which we watched a DVD of The Paris Opera Ballet and listened to a great CD called "French Playground." The third day we learned about Marie Curie and focused on science. We also watched a travel show that showcased several different regions of France.
The fourth and fifth days were focused on the Impressionists. We read several great books that are written to the elementary grades. Everything on the list by Le Tord and Anholt were great. After studying Impressionism, we took advantage of some gorgeous fall weather and painted "en plein aire"...aka...outside. We painted on real canvases with real paint, not the washable stuff. The kids wore smocks and we painted our beautiful trees. It was a beautiful time for us to enjoy together and the paintings themselves turned out great! They are proudly displayed in our home now.
One of the best parts of this unit was the food. We ate French food at almost every meal. Quiche, croissants, croque monseiurs, roasted chicken with vegetables provencale, salade niscoise etc... At the end of the week, we had a delicious brunch at Douceur de France in Marietta. This is hands-down my favorite restaurant in Les Etats Unis! In fact, I love them so much, here's a plug for their new Roswell location! We gorged ourselves on the most heavenly hash browns and fresh baked butter croissants. I had a goat cheese omelet that was so rich it's unbelievable. We also bought beautiful pastries afterwards. I've been to Paris and this place is the real deal. After this week, the whole family was saying, Vive la France!
My list of library books for this unit:
French Playground (sound recording)
The Paris Opera Ballet (DVD)
The Value of Learning: The Story of Marie Curie, Johnson
Charlotte in Giverny, Knight
France, Spengler
Count Your Way Through France, Haskins
Cezanne from A to Z, Sellier
Camille and the Sunflowers: A Story About Vincent Van Gogh, Anholt
Degas and the Little Dancer: A Story About Edgar Degas, Anholt
The Magical Garden of Claude Monet, Anholt
A Blue Butterfly: A Story About Claude Monet, Le Tord
A Bird Or Two: A Story About Henri Matisse, Le Tord
Our Favorite Stories, Gavin
Great Britain
Our Great Britain unit was pretty good. I had intended to ask my brother in law if he could play his bagpipes for them but it never happened. Oh, well! We listened to some CD's and that was fine. We spent a day on geography, the rise and fall of the British empire, and famous British landmarks. The rest of our week was exposure to British literature, one of my favorite topics of interest. Paring down something like Shakespeare for young children is tricky. My 1st grader liked Romeo and Juliet, but my Pre-kindergartner did not. He loved the classic Winnie the Pooh stories and we read them all. You could also do the Beatrix Potter books, but we had just read them over the summer. We all loved the book, Smudge, the Little Lost Lamb.
I enjoyed showing them the Crawford family coat of arms as well as teaching them about their ancestry from Whales, England and Scotland. Food for this unit is not nearly as wonderful as the previous two. We wanted to go out on Saturday for real Fish N Chips. There is a great pub in Sandy Springs that is kid friendly and has the old red British phone booths and really authentic atmosphere. Sadly, sickness kept us inside that day and we had to settle for Captain D's instead! Don't laugh, a friend of mine said the fish is pretty close!
Celtic Bagpipes (recording)
A Midsummer Night's Dream for Kids, Burdett
Romeo and Juliet for Kids, Burdett
Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare for Children, ?
United Kingdom in Pictures, Campbell
United Kingdom, Innes
Brave Highland Heart, Kellerhalls-Stewart
A Picture Book of Florence Nightingale, Adler
Smudge, the Little Lost Lamb, Herriot
Classic Winnie the Pooh, Milne
Knights and Castles, Osborne
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