Lucy started school with a two week form drawing block and only had about 2.5 weeks after that before we left town for a wedding. I used Marsha Johnson's wonderful files at Waldorf Home Educators to put together a quick block introducting four letters. Lucy received her first "real" main lesson book for this block and was quite excited about that! I made sure when planning out her letter blocks for the year that she would hear plenty of new stories, as she kind of already "did" first grade with Jack two years ago, but I also included some old favorites. We used a three day overlapping rhythm, so story on Day 1, retelling and drawing with letter and sound intro on Day 2 and retelling and writing on Day 3.
We started with "The Water of Life", a story we hadn't done before. The letter was "M" found in the mountains. Alliterative verse used:
Mighty, majestic mountains mingle with magical mauve mist.
When Jack did this block, he practiced the letter on Day 2 and wrote a row of them in his book on Day 3. Then, months later at the end of the school year we revisted the stories and he wrote one sentence from each story in space we had left. Lucy was very disappointed though, that she wouldn't be writing the sentence immediately and declared school, "Too EASY!!!" She started the year as a full on 7 yo, plus has been writing for quite some time. She also really wants to be challanged in just about every area of her life, so I made a quick adjustment to my plans and included the sentences now. Jack would have hated this, as writing was such a struggle for him.
I used "Rose Red and Snow White" with Jack and it is a favorite of ours. The letter "B" is found in the bear. Alliterative verse:
Betty Botter bought some butter but she said, "This butter's bitter."
Lucy used some popcorn kernels take make the letter shape.
Lucy found dolls and toys and set a little scene to retell the story. My kids always think this is fun, especially when a funny prop stand in is needed. She left it set up and played with it later in the afternoon.
"Hansel and Gretel" was up next with letter "W" for witch. Alliterative verse:
Wild, wacky witches wave wonderful wands.
I had seen this in lots of people's letter/story lists and it seemed obvious, sure, W for witch. I hadn't thought through it too much though, and was stumped while doing a chalk board drawing one night. How in the world does one reflect the letter "W" in the form of a witch??? Aha!!! A crooked broomstick! Ummmm... no flying witches in this story. Crooked creepy eyebrows!!! Ummmm.... I don't think my chalking skills are quite that refined. I finally settled on drawing a strange looking hat, but it worked and Lucy found the letter right away. I forgot to take a picture of my drawing, but here's Lu's.
And of course we made some gingerbread. The recipe we used was DELICIOUS!
Oh, there's my drawing in the backgound.
We finished with "The Goose Girl at the Well". Alliterative verse:
There grey geese in a green field grazing. Grey were the geese and green was the grazing.
I had actually meant to do the plain "Goose Girl" and hadn't realized there were two stories. Oh well, this story was good, too. Letter "G" was found in the goose. This is kind of a tricky draw, and I'm glad a found a good example during Jack's first grade. I don't have a picture again. I think I was packing for road trip / camping / wedding during this story, and it was kind of a miracle I got any school done at all.
Lucy cut four cards out of watercolored paper and wrote on each one of the four letters. She took turns pulling them out of the pile, recited the verse for each letter and named as many words as she could the started with the letter.
Now we are starting Lucy's first math block, "The Quality of Numbers". I'm so excited about math with Lu this year. She loves math and John has created a really amazing story to last us the whole year. I can't wait to share it with her!
