Alright last lesson blocks to plan out :). This block has been VERY hard for me. I had never heard of Norse Myth until I started homeschooling with Waldorf. I had never heard of Thor or Odin (I went to a private school). Thank goodness I can pronounce those gods names, I am having trouble with others especially in the Kalevala. Why couldn’t the vikings have named their gods Sam or something but no we have Vainamoinen instead.
We will cover these myths over 3 blocks and I am So thankful for finding a copy of Favorite Norse Myths by Mary Pope Osborne because she has a pronunciation key in the back of her book. There are 14 stories in this book so I may have to double up on a few to stick with our 3 day rhythm.
Books I will be reading to go with this block are
Beorn The Proud by Madeleine Polland
The Land of Heroes by Ursula Synge (We will not be doing a separate block on the Kalevala but read it along with our block instead)
And after we have finished with our Norse blocks we will read The Children of Odin by Padraic Colum.
I really like the feel of Osborne’s book for memorizing stories and how each story starts with parts from the Poetic Edda (which can be found on-line )for copy work.
(Update) I forgot to list, helping me play the part of “viking” I will be using these web sites I already posted about. https://dkjsv05.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/fourth-grade-find/
I like the fact that these sites will help me with upcoming years as well.
I have decided not to read Dragon Slayer by Rosemary Sutcliff but to save it for when she is a little older. I think Beowulf is way over her head for now and think she will appreciate it much more if we wait.
There are other books I had on my “to find” list and couldn’t fit them into our budget but thought they could help someone else.
The Saga of Eric the Viking (Puffin Books) by Terry Jones
Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman
The Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer
The Story of Rolf and the Viking Bow by Allen French (This can be found on Mainlesson.com for free)
The Story of Siegfried by James Baldwin (Also on mainlesson.com)
Some other read alouds I have planned for this year are The Chronicles of Narnia By C.S. Lewis. I am SO excited to finally share this series with Miss Sky, it is one of my most favorites.
The King of the Golden River by John Ruskin
For Miss Sky’s readers:
Viking Ships at Sunrise by Mary Pope Osborne
The Unicorn’s Secret 1, 2, &3 by Kathleen Duey
We will be using LibriVox.org to round out the rest of the year with titles from George MacDonald http://librivox.org/princess-and-the-goblin-the-by-george-macdonald/
http://librivox.org/the-princess-and-curdie-by-george-macdonald/ and other great classics.
We will continue with grammar were we left off and spelling and vocabulary. This year Miss Sky will look up the words all on her own and copy the definition.
For handwork I will teach Miss Sky to cross stitch and we will wood burn a set of runes. We will also be using more natural clay to learn to sculpt this year and less beeswax. We will continue with form drawing learning more knotted forms. We will learn how to write letters and more reports on our own.I know this year teaching how to write book reports is recommended but I myself find this a waste of time I mean the whole purpose of a book report is to see if the children are really reading the book. This can be done orally when you homeschool. I rather spend my time teaching Miss Sky the skills needed to write reports.
There will also be more independent reading on Miss Sky’s part this year.
As I come up with other idea’s I will update my post but for now I do believe my planning is done. (YES)
July 27, 2010 at 1:45 pm |
Thank you, thank you! This list will be so helpful in my planning!
July 29, 2010 at 4:10 am |
Yes, thank you, I have have spent the past half hour lost in the land of Norse myths. And getting so excited about beginning the year!
When I was in 7th grade I had an English teacher who had us study the Greek mythology, I loved it. I ended up taking several other mythology classes in college, including one on Norse mythology with a teacher who just loved it so very much, the entire class was lecture, him up there telling story after story with such excitement. I still have all my notes from that class (almost 20 years ago!) and remember lots too.
Wow, your planning is done, now you get to have even more fun. I’m just getting started, but I’m fairly obsessed at the moment so it should move along quickly 🙂
July 29, 2010 at 11:09 am |
Yes , I studied Greek Myth in high school but there was never mention of Norse. After I have studied now , I find that wierd because SO much of what we know now comes from those Norse men.
How lucky to still have all your notes, I had a teacher like you describe. He was very Waldorf and I can still remember most of everything he lectured about too. 🙂