This year we began homeschooling Lucy (7) and Hattie (5). We’re including this on our Giants & Pilgrims blog as all our family adventures seem to impact our art & music so much! Also, we just like sharing the stories. So we’ll be sharing posts on the themes we’ve been covering each month and calling the adventure “ABACUS”! Our hope is that these posts will help spark creative direction and inspiration for your family as well as giving us somewhere to be document and record our experiences.
READING AND LITERATURE:
Here were our reading books for the month:
We read Kate DiCamillo’s The Tale of Despereaux (one of Tim and my all time favorites), The Boxcar Children (which Harriet LOVED and has been watching the Netflix movie of over and over again), Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (the new beautifully illustrated version), and a really cool pop-up version of The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe (which also led to the Calvin & Hobbs Monster Drooling Poem based on The Raven, and the Simpson’s Halloween episode of The Raven – both SOO funny and good).
We are still loving our morning reading out-loud tea time on the front porch. Although it is starting to get chilly!!
For our History books we read these two – (we are going through Beautiful Feet History’s Early American series in order). We really enjoyed both books.
As part of our history study (and since we finished the Columbus book last month) I thought it would be fun to carve soap boats on Columbus Day. I usually set out our morning activity the night before. On this particular morning, the girls got up without waking me up (like they usually do) , and happily carved through all 8 bars of soap on their own, and this is the scene I woke up to. Soap everywhere, but no one was bleeding and they were thoroughly pleased with themselves. Pretty hilarious.
Geography/Culture: Mexico
One of the things we are doing this year is our Passport idea for Geography/World Cultures. We are “visiting” a different country every month – exploring the food, culture, dress, arts, and music through themed activities. This month, Harriet and Lucy chose Mexico as our country to visit.
I have been using the book “Give Your Child the World” as a reference for books. I think the High Plains librarians are starting to hate me because of how many books I put on hold each month. Oh Well. Sorry guys.
As recommended in Give Your Child the World, here were the Mexico themed picture books we read through from the library.
And the movie – 
Elena’s Serenade and The Legend of the Poinsettia were probably our favorites.
One of the major reasons we picked Mexico was because we wanted to do a Day of the Dead celebration. The girls fully planned, prepped, and decorated for this themselves!
Getting Lucy started on Adobe Photoshop early 🙂
Like the invitation says, we decorated with Papel Picado and marigolds, painted faces, watched Book of Life, Colored skeleton faces, ate Mexican food and authentic Mexican candies from our local Mexican grocery store, and made skull rocks. This will definitely be one for the books and I can see it becoming a yearly tradition :).
Nature Study
We have been using this ebook as a guide for our Nature Study. And it is SO beautifully done.
It has a simple activity each corresponding with the season, paired with a recommended book list, an art piece to enjoy, a poem, and art ideas.
Nature Outings:
We have designated Monday as our outdoor adventure days. It’s our day off together as a family, and we just love it. This month we visited a local cemetery where we did some grave rubbings.
Took a family bike ride on the Poudre River Trail to look at the changing leaves –
Went on a nature outing to our beloved Homestead Park to search out our favorite trees and do a little Pond Study.
(Harriet studying a sample of pond water we brought home with us)
And of course October wouldn’t be complete without an outing to a pumpkin patch!!
Along with our weekly nature outings, we finished up our Nature Pal Exchange box (and received one back in the mail from North Carolina!). It was such a fun project. I am already looking forward to the next time we do it.
Harriet’s “Leaf Lady”
The contents of the box we put together:
Music
All of the kids are really enjoying their music classes through the Union Colony Children’s Music Academy here in Greeley. It uses the musikgarten approach which I am loving more and more all the time – especially as I see how it grows and expands with the kids.
Math
We needed to switch up how we were doing math. No one was enjoying it. So this month we used the book Bedtime Math (which is so fun).
We added some more tactile/playable elements to our routine (counting bears, a shape rubber band board, an abacus, etc…)
Science
We have really enjoyed various Steve Spangler Science videos. We broke out the cornstarch one morning and recreated his cornstarch slime experiments.
We also enjoyed some Magic School Bus “Inside the Human Body” and this really cool Human Body model from Target.
Which led to drawing white skeletons on black paper of course.
Art/Handicrafts
Since we read Hansel & Gretel (candy house and witches…), we made Hansel & Gretel dolls to play with. My friend Lindsay had given me this amazing tea towel that has a beautifully illustrated pattern already printed onto it. The pattern is from Sarah Young’s etsy shop. Now that I have made them, I think we are going to need the little red riding hood one too 🙂
A cotton snow storm –
We used a fun little kit to make these Halloween luminaries.
We did some major papier mache magic with tape and cardboard to make Lucy’s “Spooky Tree” halloween costume.
We played with our freshly organized rubber stamps to give our letter writing days a boost.
Since we are reading the Tale of Despereaux, the girls sewed these very simple little felt mice from this pattern.
And of course what would October be without a night of carving all those wonderful pumpkins with hot chocolate and popcorn of course and a spooky playlist.
And, finally, I will leave you with a very spooky (and hilarious horror film by Lucy)
Happy October friends! Thanks for following along!!!
