Flexibility and Fairy Tales

When I last posted about homeschooling I had just made a few changes to our plans and we were moving forward.


I'm so glad we did.


I didn't know at that point that I was pregnant and since I've spent much of the last three months pretty sick in the mornings, school has been different. But what is homeschooling if not flexible, right?


Oh, lessons are getting done, but not necessarily with me at the helm- it's definitely a team effort lately. I've been doing what I can in the mornings (which ranges from supervising one or two things from the couch to completely finishing our lessons for the day). Thank goodness for a husband who doesn't mind giving a math lesson or supervising a 6-year-old's copywork after getting home from work.


The big change that made this all easier? Going more literature based. Our science, history and L.A. are all literature based now and even when I'm not at my best I can still sit on the couch and read a book. We do projects related to our books as the boys think of them, or even better I send them off to do their own thing and overhear them playing "Sailing on the Mayflower" or "Charlotte's Web" or "George Washington". You know they really got it when it seeps into their play.


Fairy Tales

Over the past month or so we've been working through a little unit on fairy tales. Our goal is familiarity with the tales, but we're also taking the opportunity to work on Ender's primary habit to build right now: retelling a story.


After our first time reading through the story I ask leading questions, kind of retelling in my own words and asking him to help me fill in the gaps. We read the story again a day or two later, and I retell again, but ask him to fill in even more for me than he did the first day. A day or two later I ask him, "Tell me the story of ..." and I help him fill in if he missed anything important. We have made notebook pages for a few of the tales, but that's a project he can choose to do- it's not required.


I chose versions of the tales for rich language but also based on what was available at our local library. We are fortunate to have a fantastic library system here so I try to take advantage of that whenever possible. Many thanks to Elizabeth Foss and her fantastic book lists (Primary Cycle B) for giving me a great place to start.

Cinderella by Brown

Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Brett

Little Red Riding Hood by Schart Hyman

Rapunzel by Zelinsky

Rumplestiltskin by Zelinsky

The Sleeping Beauty by Schart Hyman

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves by Jarrell

Three Billy Goats Gruff by Brown

The Three Little Pigs by Galdone

We're taking a little fairy tale break once December is really here so that we can focus on our Christmas favorites, but we'll pick up again in January to finish up with The Frog Prince, The Emperor's New Clothes, and a few others before we move on to Tall Tales in February.