A Colonial Christmas: This week we started a mini-unit on Christmas in colonial times. I am using bits and pieces of this unit study: Celebrate Christmas in Colonial America (though it's not very well organized, nor is it overly helpful), as well as my own material.

• We read Alice Morse Earle's description of Colonial Christmases from Christmas: Its Origin, Celebration and Significance As Related In Prose and Verse by Robert Haven Schauffler.
• We also began working our way through "The History of Christmas" by Rumer Godden, from The Reader's Digest Book of Christmas.
• The kids filled out a Graphic Organizer: Christmas Then and Now from Colonial Williamsburg's website.
• We reviewed George Washington’s Christmas list for his stepchildren in 1759: “A bird on Bellows, A Cuckoo, A turnabout parrot, A Grocers Shop, An Aviary, A Prussian Dragoon, A Man Smoakg, , A Tunbridge Tea Sett, 3 Neat Tunbridge Toys, A Neat Book fash Tea Chest, A box best Household Stuff, A straw Patch box w. a Glass, A neat dress'd Wax Baby."
• We tried our hand at colonial-style Christmas decorations, using greenery, pine cones, and fresh fruit accents. However, I got frustrated with this pretty quickly, so we gave up (and now have LOTS of fresh fruit and greenery laying around!). We also learned about the significance of the pineapple in colonial times.
• We started a new read aloud, The Christmas Surprise by Ruth Nulton Moore. The book is set in the Moravian community of Bethlehem, PA during the French and Indian War (in 1755). While this is jumping ahead a bit in history, I chose the book for its Christmasy theme.
  
  Bethlehem was founded in 1457 by a small group of Moravians. They represented what is now recognized as the oldest organized Protestant denomination in the world, the Unitas Fratrum, or Unity of the Brethren, founded in 1457 by followers of John Hus, a Roman Catholic priest who had tried to reform the Catholic Church. Hus was burned at the stake for his beliefs a full 100 years before Martin Luther's Reformation. His followers called themselves Moravians because many of the original founders came from the provinces of Moravia and Bohemia in central Europe, in what is now the Czech Republic. (Source)
• Other projects included: Dried Apple Ring Garlands (we burnt them!), Dried Fruit Ornaments (um, also burnt) and Scented Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments. These largely have nothing to do with colonial times, they were just fun to make.
• I made Wassail and Moravian Christmas Cookies.
• If I'm feeling ambitious enough this weekend, we'll be making Moravian Stars (a not-so-simple paper craft) and Moravian Love Feast Buns.
• Music: Lost Music of Early America: Music of the Moravians, A Colonial Christmas by Early Music New York and Wassail! Wassail! Early American Christmas Music by the Revel Players. 

Science

We had no time for science this week, but I did hear something very cool on NPR today that I plan to try in the (near) future. Here is a video that shows you how to grow your own snow crystals and here is a video on the "secrets of snowflakes." These would be perfect to go along with the book Snowflake Bentley, which is based on the life of William Bentley (his official website is here).

Personal Notes

This past week, I became the proud owner of both a NookColor and a Kindle (Christmas presents from DH, who despairs that books have taken over our house!). On my Nook, I've read Life and Death in a Venetian Convent: The Chronicle and Necrology of Corpus Domini, 1395-1436, which was interesting, though not all I'd hoped for. Also, the 1890 classic How the Other Half Lives (Studies Among the Tenements of New York) by Jacob Riis (very good!). I am currently reading Signs of Life: 40 Catholic Customs and Their Biblical Roots by Scott Hahn.

On my Kindle, I am nearly finished with the utterly fascinating, The Arsenic Century: How Victorian Britain was Poisoned at Home, Work, and Play (the chapters on the Victorian obsession with Scheele's Green were especially interesting!). Next, I hope to start on The Library at Night.   

Cookies

• Chocolate Peppermint Bark Cookies
• Sante's Hermit Cookies
• Triple Ginger Cookies (OR, Sparkling Ginger Chip Cookies)
• Chocolate-Ginger Crinkle Cookies (OR, Chocolate-Espresso Snowcaps)
• Coconut Kisses
• Kahlúa Truffle Triangles
• Pain d'Épice Cookies
• Toffee Cookies with Dark Chocolate Glaze
• Under Her Thumb(print) Cookies
• Chocolate Caramel Thumbprints
• Chocolate Thumbprints (Martha Stewart)
• Shira's Cranberry Thumbprints
• Brandied Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Pfeffernussen
• Iced Hermits
• Rum Balls (OR, Spiced Rum Balls)
• Cranberry Noels (very good!)
• Almond-Orange Shortbread
• Butterscotch Cookies
• Double-Chocolate Snowball Cookies

Candy

• Candy Cane Marshmallows
• Peppermint Icicles (OR, Peppermint Sticks)
• Marbled Almond Roca
• Foolproof Holiday Fudge
• Irish Cream Truffle Fudge (OR, Ina Garten's Irish Cream Truffles)
• Chocolate-Orange Hazlenut Bark
• Gingerbread Caramels
• Grand Marnier Truffles
• Easy Chocolate Truffles
• Chocolate-Mint Truffle Cups (SO good!)
• Dark Chocolate Mint Rockie Road Squares
• Raspberry-Chocolate Toffee Bites
• Kentucky Bourbon Balls

This is our first weekly report in awhile because for the past two months the kids have been doing much of their work independently. I got very busy with my job, but also needed to take some time away from our more teacher-intensive work to rest, reevaluate and recharge. Happily, the kids did really well during this time, though they missed the hands-on activities and read-alouds. Now, we're back to "school as usual," or at least, doing as much as is possible during this oh-so-busy time of year. 

Religion

• We continued reading daily from Saints for Young Readers, Vol. 2.
• This week, we resumed memory work from the St. Joseph's Baltimore Catechism and are still on the first part of Lesson 2.
• The kids are also now taking religious education classes at the parish school twice a week in preparation for the sacraments of First Reconciliation (Confession) and First Eucharist (Communion).

History

• In our textbook, From Sea to Shining Sea, we read pages 99-105 about the founding of Jamestown, Captain John Smith and Pocahontas.
• The kids had fun studying a reproduction of Captain John Smith's Map of Virginia. This led to an impromptu discussion and examination of other 16th-17th century maps in The Atlas of Atlases: The Map Maker's Vision of the World.
• The kids read the first chapter of both Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland and Eating the Plates: A Pilgrim Book of Food and Manners.
• I read aloud 20 pages per day from Stories of the Pilgrims (available for free here).
• The kids read 20 pages per day from Blood on the River: Jamestown, 1607.
• We watched the following DVDs: NOVA: Pocahontas Revealed, The New World and Beyond the Movie: The New World: Nightmare in Jamestown. 
• The kids learned a little about their 11th Great Grandfather, William Dawson, who arrived at Jamestown as an indentured servant via the Discovery in 1621.
• From History Pockets: Colonial America, the kids completed a notebooking page on Pocahontas, a John Smith mini-book and a map of Jamestown mini-book.
• From Time Travelers: American Revolution, the kids completed a 3-D replica of Jamestown.   
• From Colonial America: Cooperative Learning Activities, the kids did a cut, color and paste model of a ship and created a "shopping list for the New World." After creating their shopping list, they selected a Wilderness Condition Card to compare to their list, to see if they brought everything needed.
• On Tuesday, we watched a webcast from Plimoth Plantation (which we'll be studying next week), though we mysteriously lost our live feed about halfway through. 
• We sampled a number of recipes from my new favorite cookbook, Holiday Fare: Favorite Williamsburg Recipes. One of my favorites was a creamy peanut soup (recipe here), garnished with lardoons (thin strips of Virginia ham, fried in butter) and whole berry cranberry sauce. Apparently peanut soup was quite popular in colonial times. According to this, colonists planted peanuts as fodder for pigs, and their slaves used the peanut to make peanut pie and peanut soup. This is an interesting article on colonial cuisine.
  
  Links:

• Jamestown 1607: An interactive journey
• Jamestown Interactive from The History Channel
• Jamestown Teacher Guide from The History Channel
• Jamestown Settlement - the official website
• The Jamestown Chronicles: Video Biographies
• Jamestown: Why There?
• Jamestown Timeline (.PDF)
• Jamestown Rediscovery: Artifacts found at Jamestown

• This week we set aside our Seton readers and workbooks to try something different. M began reading I, Coriander and J began reading Brendon Chase; they will be doing a report upon completion of the books. M also began reading Little Women.
• For vocabulary, the kids completed one lesson per day (M-Th) from Vocabulary 5 for Young Catholics.
• In Voyages in English, the kids started a unit on adjectives and completed one lesson per day.
• Daily copywork from the Bible and George Washington's Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour In Company and Conversation, part of the Time Travelers: Colonial Life unit.
• For composition, we studied sentence writing (primarily, ways of making sentences interesting) and the kids completed several exercises from Alhambra Denning's Methods and Material for Composition.  I also had them record examples of interesting sentences that they encountered in their reading and we discussed these.

The past couple of months have been unexpectedly busy, not affording me time for the usual fall/holiday planning and preparations. With things settling down and cooler weather forecasted for the next week (finally!), I've started searching for some new fall recipes to try. Here's what sounded good:

Sweet

• Spiced Apple Upside-Down Bundt Cake
• Sticky Spiked Double-Apple Cake with a Brown Sugar-Brandy Sauce
• Spiced Applesauce Cake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting
• Ricotta Apple Cake with Cider-Maple Glaze
• Nick Malgieri's Chocolate Hazelnut Pound Cake
• Miniature Pumpkin Spice Cakes
• Chai-Spiced Honey Bundt Cake
• Browned Butter Pumpkin Bundt Cake
• Triple Chocolate Pumpkin Pie
• Pumpkin Caramel Cheesecake Turtle Bread
• Clementine-Vanilla Bean Quick Bread
• Salted Fudge Brownies
• Dorie Greenspan's Applesauce Spice Bars
• Pumpkin Spice Scones
• Hazelnut Cookies
• Caramel-Stuffed Apple Cider Cookies
• Maple-Butter Spiced Popcorn
• Vanilla Bean Sugared Cranberries

Savory

• Maple-Roasted Turkey with Sage Butter
• Caramelized Onion and Cornbread Stuffing
• Cranberry-Pecan Stuffing
• Apple and Cheddar Scones
• Spinach, Mushroom and Bacon Cheese Fondue
• Beef Chili + Sour Cream and Cheddar Biscuits
• Cider Brined Grilled Stuffed Pork Chops
• Dorie Greenspan's Cauliflower Bacon Gratin
• Creamy Cauliflower Soup with Bacon and Gorgonzola
• Irish Pumpkin-Cider Soup
• Bacon-Cheddar Biscuits

Beverages

• Pumpkin Spice Latte 
• Hot Rum Cow
• Apple Cider, Cranberry, and Ginger Punch 
• Warm Vanilla Cider

Also, from my newest cookbook, Holiday Fare: Favorite Williamsburg Recipes: Peanut Soup with Cranberry Sauce and Lardoons, Butternut Squash and Pear Pottage, Sugar and Spice Crusted Pork Tenderloins with Red Cabbage and Pear Compote, Gingered Pumpkin Muffins, and Applesauce Buttermilk Biscuits. Yum!

Every morning, after breakfast and before we begin our school work (much of which, these days, is done independently), we enjoy our "morning basket" time. This is an idea that I borrowed from Jen at Wildflowers and Marbles and is explained in great detail here.

While the routine varies slightly each day and is quite flexible, the essentials remain the same. We do not do each thing every day, the only constants are morning prayers and catechism.

• Light a candle
• Morning prayers
• Saint of the day reading
• Catechism
• Devotional reading 
• Seasonal story and poetry: Selections can be liturgical, nature or holiday-related
• Character study and memory gem
• Picture study
• Review schedules for the day (assign independent work)
• Blow out candle

Last year all of our morning resources fit neatly into one basket (hence the term "morning basket"). This year I'm not quite so organized, but most of our reading for the week goes into the basket shown above.

While I'm reading the kids usually color a page from my stash of vintage, Catholic, Bellerophon, and Dover coloring books (I'll be adding some from Pomegrantate Press soon also). I'm a firm believer that coloring is a soothing activity at any age, though some mornings they prefer to sculpt with clay or modeling beeswax. M, in particular, is very fidgety and this seems to help her stay "present."

Overall, our morning basket time provides a nice foundation for the day and allows us to get focused in a gentle and beautiful way.

I've elaborated a bit more on the details below.


Faith:

Following our morning prayers, most days begin with a reading from Saints for Young Readers for Every Day and a picture from Saints: A Year in Faith and Art, unless it is a Marian feast day or we have a Catholic Mosaic selection to read. This is usually followed by lesson work from St. Joseph's Baltimore Catechism No. 2 and sometimes a related story from the Angel Food for Boys and Girls series by Father Brennan. There may be other devotional reading as well; for example, we're currently reading from Our Lady's Book by Lauren Ford.

Seasonal Story and Poetry:

When we first started utilizing a morning basket, I included a variety of picture books (for example, see last year's September list). Many of these books were chosen from the excellent book lists in Cay Gibson's A Picture Perfect Childhood, liturgical books from her Catholic Mosaic.

Now, I alternate picture books with selections from several of the anthologies listed below (don't be deterred by the use of "kindergarten" in two of the titles, the stories are generally suitable for all ages). These are the books that I refer to most often, though I also pull stories and poems from 19th- and early 20th-century magazines, readers, and other sources. I am currently working on compiling most of my favorite material into four seasonal volumes for ease of use.

• In the Child's World: Morning Talks and Stories by Emilie Poulsson
• Kindergarten Stories and Morning Talks by Sarah E. Wiltse (This has now been beautifully re-published and is available from Cardamom Publishers and Amazon)
• Kindergarten Gems by Agnes Taylor Ketchum and Ida M. Jorgensen (Amazon)
• Round the Year in Myth and Song by Florence Holbrook
• Nature in Verse: A Poetry Reader for Children by Mary Isabella Lovejoy

Holiday Stories:

These are the books I had printed from Google Books to have on hand for holidays. Right now I've only given thought to Thanksgiving since it's our next "major" holiday. I'll be selecting Christmas books most likely next month. A more complete list of holiday story collections can be found here.

• Good Stories for Great Holidays by Frances Jenkins Olcott
• The Days We Celebrate: Celebrations for Festivals by Robert Haven Schauffler
• Thanksgiving: An American Holiday by Robert Haven Schauffler
• The Days We Celebrate: Celebrations for Patriotic Days by Robert Haven Schauffler
• The Topaz Story Book: Stories and Legends of Autumn, Hallowe'en, and Thanksgiving by Ada M. Skinner and Eleanor Skinner

Character Study:

Character study is something I'd hoped to incorporate into our morning basket last year, though never got around to it. Happily, this year it may actually happen. I've been pulling together my own program, again thanks largely to teacher's resources from the 19th- and early 20th-century. I hope to be able to write more about this shortly.

September's theme is kindness, with a more specific focus each week. There are related weekly "Memory Gems," stories, and poems. I'll be alternating these selections with the other nature/liturgical/holiday stories and poems that we read daily. We'll spend approximately five minutes per day on our Memory Gems.

Music:

Though music is not usually a focal point of our morning basket time, I do often have something playing softly in the background. Currently we're listening to Hildegard von Bingen's Canticles of Ecstasy, next up will be Biber's Rosary Sonatas.

Picture Study:

My selections for picture study this month were all borrowed from an old education magazine and were once quite commonly used in schools. I will generally display one picture per week to study and print the 8" x 10" pictures myself using Google Images and our color printer. When I'm not able to print the picture (which can happen for a variety of reasons), we view it on my lap top. Ideally however, the picture should be on display in the classroom for the week.

A quick search for any of these pictures in Google Books will bring up very specific study questions; for more general guidance, I've created this cheat sheet. Finally, an easier option altogether would be to have a copy of Picture Study in Elementary Schools by Williams Wilson printed (I may yet do that!).

September Pictures:

• The Gleaners - Millet. Breton.
• September - Zuber.
• Harvest Time - L'Hermitte.
• Harvester's Return - Seifert.
• In the Field - Adam.
• End of Labor - Breton.

This was our first week to utilize a morning basket, a lovely idea I borrowed from Jen at Wilflowers and Marbles. I'll be writing more about this later, but this week our work included the catechism/liturgical work below, reading from Nature in Verse by Mary Isabella Lovejoy and a picture study/comparison of "The Gleaner" by Jules Breton and "The Gleaners" by Jean-François Millet.

Religion

• Each day began with a reading from Saints for Young Readers, Vol. 2, followed by lesson work from St. Joseph's Baltimore Catechism No. 2. This week, the kids were still on Lesson 1...M mastered it two weeks ago, but J is still struggling with the memorization which is not something he enjoys! Next week we will be moving on to Lesson 2.
• Nearly every morning I read a little from Our Lady's Book by Lauren Ford.
• On Wednesday, we celebrated the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary with vanilla birthday cupcakes. We read that, "The birth of Our Lady was like a dawn. When the sky starts to turn a rosy pink early in the morning, we know the sun will soon come up. In the same way, when Mary was born, she brought great happiness to the world. Her birth meant that soon Jesus, the Sun of justice, would appear." For this reason, M thought that the cupcakes we made ought to have pink frosting - "just like the rosy dawn."

Language Arts

• Handwriting: Two worksheets per day (M-Th).
• Spelling: One lesson per day (M-W) from Word Power Through Spelling, spelling pre-test Thursday and final test Friday.
• Vocabulary: One lesson per day (M-Th) from Vocabulary 5 for Young Catholics.
• Grammar: One lesson per day from Voyages in English and one lesson per day from Vital English [Composition-Grammar], Intermediate.
• Reading: Two lessons from This Is Our Heritage (6th) and These Are Our People (5th), two lessons from Reading 5/6 for Young Catholics, Comprehension Skills and one lesson each from Reading 5/6 for Young Catholics, Thinking Skills.

History

• Alfred the Great
• William the Conqueror and the Battle of Hastings
• The Bayeaux Tapestry
• Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitane
• King John and the Magna Carta
• Richard the Lionheart
• Knights

Every day there is some reading, followed by discussion and a worksheet. I've learned that having to do a worksheet encourages the kids to read more carefully.




This week we celebrated our first Friday Fine Arts "Fiesta", beginning our study of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Because Amazon took their own sweet time delivering our books (they arrived on Thursday), my planning time was minimal. Fortunately, one of the books, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera: Their Lives and Ideas, 24 Activities by Carol Sabbeth was all I really needed. It is an awesome resource, perfectly suited to our semester-long artist study. The biographical information is excellent and every single one of the activities is really good (unlike many similar activity books where half are unusable).

We read the first eleven pages, learning about the childhood of Diego Rivera and the influence of artist Jose Guadalupe Posada. We examined Diego Rivera's mural, "The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City..."


I had planned to make Sugared Fritters, but then realized these Cinnamon Sugar Tortilla Crisps were much quicker and easier! Unfortunately, they were a little too well done, but they were still pretty good.


Our art project for the day was Jose Posada-inspired printmaking. I had wanted to do it this way, but didn't get the scratchboard in time, so we had to follow the alternate instructions (using styrofoam plates) in Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera: Their Lives and Ideas, 24 Activities. The results weren't that great, probably because we used Crayola markers rather than the permanent markers suggested in the book, but everyone had fun regardless.


While working on our art project, we listened to the lively music of Los Lobos, "La Pistola y El Corazon" - the kids very much enjoyed this CD!

We did not begin our Pablo Neruda poetry study yet because I was not expecting the books I'd purchased about him to be chapter books (yikes!). Clearly I need to pay more attention next time I'm ordering resources! I'll be determining our schedule for those books this weekend.

Handwork

A STORY OF HARVEST TIME

Following these were the gleaners, the poor people of the village, and the strangers who were without homes in the land; for it was a law of that county try that all the loose grain that was upon the ground and all that was left uncut by the reapers should belong to the needy and homeless. —James Baldwin.

Read this selection over carefully.

1. What do the words, above the hills, help you to picture?
2. Tell how the sky would look before the sun had risen.
3. How would the air feel?
4. What sounds would you hear?
5. Do you think the harvesters noticed these things?
6. Describe the way in which the grain was cut.
7. Tell how the reapers kept time with one another.
8. In what way may the chanting of a song have helped them?
9. Why was the song one of thanksgiving and praise?
10. Describe the work of the young men and boys.
11. Tell who the gleaners were in this country.
12. What did they do? Tell what the law of the country gave to them.
13. What do you think about such a law?

Write five sentences telling things that you see and hear early in the morning.








Nevertheless he had a hard struggle to get along. His pictures did not sell. He was ready to print signboards even, but the market for them was not inexhaustible. At last he moved from Paris to Barbizon, where he lived and worked for the rest of his life.

At first a small peasant house with three rooms answered for his wife and three children, but as his family increased the house was lengthened, and a studio, wash-house, and chicken-yard built in the garden.

Hernán Cortes and the Aztecs

• The Ancient Aztecs (People of the Ancient World) by Liz Sonneborn
• History News: The Aztec News by Philip Steele
• Step Into: The Aztec and Maya World by Fiona McDonald
• How to Be An Aztec Warrior by Fiona McDonald
• The Sad Night: The Story of an Aztec Victory and a Spanish Loss by Sally Schofer Mathews
• Montezuma and the Fall of the Aztecs by Eric A. Kimmel
• The Lost Temple of the Aztecs: What It Was Like When the Spaniards Invaded Mexico by Shelley Tanaka
• Hernando Cortes: Spanish Invader of Mexico (In the Footsteps of Explorers) by John Paul Zronik
• Trapped in Tenochtitlan: An Aztec Adventure by Eric Burnett 
• Captain Cortes Conquers Mexico (Landmark) by William Johnson (OOP)
• Montezuma and the Conquest of Mexico by Elizabeth Eggleston Seelye (Google Books)
• Hernando Cortés, Conqueror of Mexico by Frederick Albion Ober
• Cortes, The Spanish in the Southwest by Rosa Viola Winterburn (Google Books)
• Hernando Cortes, Pioneers on Land and Sea by Charles Alexander McMurry (Google Books)
• Hernando Cortes, Discoverers and Explorers by Edward Richard Shaw (Google Books)
• DVD: In Search of History: The Aztec Empire, Conquistadors

Hernando de Soto, Francisco Pizarro, and the Inca

• The Ancient Inca (People of the Ancient World) by Patricia Calvert
• Step Into: The Inca World by Philip Steele
• The Inca: Activities and Crafts from a Mysterious Land by Arlette N. Braman
• Macchu Picchu: The Story of the Amazing Inkas and Their City in the Clouds by Elizabeth Mann
• Francisco Pizarro: Journeys Through Peru and South America (In the Footsteps of Explorers) by John Paul Zronik 
• Adventures and Conquests of Pizarro by George M. Towle (Google Books)
• Pizarro, Discoverers and Explorers by Edward Richard Shaw (Google Books)
• A Room Full of Gold (Pizarro), Colonial Children, Selections from Primary Source Accounts by Albert Hart (Google Books)
• DVD: In Search of History: Lost City of the Incas, Conquistadors

Francisco Coronado

• Coronado: Francisco Vazquez de Coronado Explores the Southwest (Exploring the World series) by Robin Doak (preview here)
• DVD: Conquest of America

Coloring Pages:

• de Soto Coloring Page
• Great Explorers Coloring Book (Bellerophon)
• Exploration of North America Coloring Book (Dover)