Nearly half the school year has passed with not a word from me here. The Colton Family Schoolhouse has been busy and to be honest in my scant free time I would rather do something more brainless than blogging. I had forgotten how draining toddlerhood is! But I’ll use a few minutes here at the last swim lesson at the Y to write about a few highlights. Anya and I started a daily free write about a month ago. We don’t worry about spelling or punctuation or mechanics, instead we just write whatever we want! It has been so fun to see Anya’s creativity. She is eager to write and eager to share. Our morning snack time, although somewhat chaotic with Olivia’s messy and noisy eating habits, has become a favorite time for all of us—we read a Bible story, work on poetry memorization, and then read Alina’s preschool book. Both girls are quick memorizers. Alina has a flair for the dramatic in her recitations. The other day, Anya said, “let’s memorize another poem, and then another,...
So far history has been a hit. We are reading Story of the World: Ancient History, volume one of a set of four world history books written for kids Anya’s age. The book itself is a light, story-driven tour of ancient history, and I also bought an activity guide which has tons of recommended extra books and crafts. We’ve made: - a model of the Nile delta in a giant pan - sugar cube pyramids - cuneiform writing in clay - Sumerian clay seals We really liked a library book called Ancient Egyptians and their Neighbors. A section on Mesopotamia talked about architecture, art, clothing, food, and work, and included some projects. Anya picked a weaving project. Mesopotamian weaving was done vertically. Anya is keeping a history notebook—about once a week she narrates to me what she remembers on a certain topic, and I write it down. It is fun to hear what she remembers and she’s interested enough to narrate long paragraphs without prompting, telling me “...