Middle Grades: May 11 - 15

School is out, and yet I feel like we already had our "break."  I hope that everyone will have the opportunity to spend a lot of time outside and maybe even get in a couple of short trips to experience the beauty of the mountains or hear the roar of the sea and soak in the saltiness.  Whatever you do, please be safe and stay well.

To give you a foretaste of next year, here are our blocks: ( I haven't put them in order)

  • Botany

  • Ancient Civilizations - Mythology and History of Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, and Greece

  • Geography - the topography and political boundaries of the United States

  • Mathematics - continuing to understand long division and fractions 

  • We will also take some time at the beginning of the year to finish our Human and Animal block and delve into some of the Norse myths.

Priscila Benson will be our class parent again.  Many thanks to Priscila for designing my farewell poster!!!!  She will be organizing some summer get togethers for our families, using precautionary guidelines. 

I have so much heartfelt gratitude for all that you do and for the many gifts, especially the gift of being able to teach your children.

Blessings and love,

Kathee

Middle Grades: May 4 - 8

Hello Middle Grades families!

Some of the writing exercises this week were so much fun to read!  Your children are creative and crafty and I was reminded when I was reading these exercises why I love teaching them so much. 

We had our last tea time of this school year on Friday and had a good time telling jokes. It is so good to see the class laughing. 

By now you will have gotten an email from me about having a field day at home for Wednesday. I hope that everyone will be able to engage the whole family in some fun outdoor games, and I encourage you to revisit your childhood and teach some of the field day activities you loved when you were in school. I understand that you might not have the time or energy, and that’s OK. It might be fun, though....

I want to say again how grateful I am that you have all worked so diligently to keep school going. I know you are looking forward to having more time to breathe, and I hope you will all have a good summer. 

The Monday packet has a list of summer reading suggestions and practice exercises to help your child be prepared for the next school year. There are also some main lesson pages that I would like for you to make sure are finished.  At the start of the next school year, we will assemble and look through our main lesson books.  In this way, we can review this past year before moving into our next year’s lessons. 

I will not be traveling this summer. If you need me, give me a call. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that at some point soon we can all get together for a picnic!

Blessings!

Kathee

Middle Grades: April 27 - May 1

After today, we only have two more weeks of school! It seems unbelievable that we have almost finished another year. To quote a little Dickens, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. “ It is definitely a time these students will not forget. I do not want to give this as an assignment, but I think it would be a nice thing for the students to reflect on what this quarantine has been like for them and then hold onto this reflection so that they can read it sometime in the future.  

Today we begin our final block, ending the year by looking at more animals. My goal had been to talk about the animal one day, then write draft, edit, draw the picture and put both on main lesson book paper the second day.  In our current situation, we will spread each animal’s lesson out over three days. When we begin in the fall, we will have a short animal block to do our research project and hopefully visit the rescue zoo in Dahlonega. At that time, we will look at the animals we did not have time for in the Spring.

We will not assemble the Main Lesson Books until the beginning of school next year. I will continue to collect the ones we finish between now and May 15.  If you aren’t finished, you can continue to work over the summer, and allow your child  time to finish and bring them to class in August. 

I’m thinking about a virtual field day, especially since all of you have multiple children. Outdoor games and tests of skill. Most definitely involving water of some kind. What do you think?  I am interested in feedback and  suggestions. We could do a zoom session and be able to watch each competition and have a mystery judge. 

While I increased the number of assignments this week, please do each assignment at a pace that suits your circumstances. The classroom will be up and running all summer. 

Have a great week!  We are on the home stretch!

Middle Grades: April 20 - 24

Finding the right balance of assignments and minimizing screen time are two things that I have thought a lot about over the course of the last 6 weeks.  I have heard from some of you that this week your child wanted more work.  I have also heard from some of you that your child is struggling with the number of assignments.  Please know that I will continue to find that balance and adjust assignments in the next three weeks to fit your child's individual needs. 

This week's story was from Denmark.  It was a rags to riches story of a young peasant who went out into the world to find work and ended up being a prince or an emperor.  There are three more stories that I have for this block. I will go ahead and post the stories and the drawings today, and you can introduce them as you please.  The rhythm of our classwork for stories goes as follows:

  • I tell the story on day 1

  • The class retells the story orally on day 2.  We make a list of keywords, and we put them in sequence on the blackboard.  Using those words, each child begins to write a recapituation of the story in their own words.  As they finish, I edit, helping them with punctuation, spelling, capitalization, etc.

  • At this point, I introduce the drawing that will go in their main lesson book.  Most of our students prefer to practice their drawings before they actually draw it on main lesson paper.  When the drawing is finished, they copy their recap. We've been using cursive and either pen or colored pencils this year.  Some of the students do better if I draw very faint lines for them to write on.

  • During the school year, this whole process usually takes two days, using Main Lesson time and Extra Main Lesson time.  This week I stretched out the assignment, and they are currently submitting keywords to me.

  • Going forward it would be ideal if you can work with your child to find a rhythm of each story's assignments.  I will gladly edit their recaps at any point that they are finished, or, if it works best for you to do the editing, that will be fine too.  ( I am remembering my children when they entered this stage.  My attempts to help edit usually did not end in happy times!)

The final block of the year will be the 2nd block of Human and Animal.  That will begin on May 4.  

I have received positive feedback from my Monday visits, so I will continue to bring them.  This week I would like to pick up all of the main lesson work and book reports that your child has completed.  (I forgot to ask last Monday.)  At Tea Time today, the students wanted more comics, so here's what we decided to do since I don't have 5 new comics.  I will give Adrianna a new comic.  She will give me the comic she had this week.  We will continue to "pass them on" at each stop.  There is a certain amount of practice work that each child should be doing each week; however, I am not a fan of "busy work," so I will choose wisely what I am giving them to do.  Each worksheet has a purpose - to either introduce them to a new concept or to reinforce what they already know.  

Some of their skills can be developed by playing board games, especially those that require counting, reading, or forming words.  My shelf includes Scrabble, Parchesi, Rummicube, Ticket to Ride, cards - Rummy, Gin, Wisp, and there are many new board games that I'm sure some of you have on your shelves.  Another way to help with recapitulations is to encourage your child  to stage a play or puppet show about one of the stories.  And, in my opinion, the one most beneficial activity for your children right is to snuggle up and read together.  If you have run out of books, the library has a lot of downloadable books.

Have a great week.  If you haven't signed up to feed the animals yet, please do that and take your children with you so they can play in our woods.

Blessings,

Kathee

Middle Grades: April 13 - 17

This week the Middle Grades heard a story from Sweden called The Lad Who Stole the Treasure from the Giant. It is a "from rags to riches" story and a "sibling differences" story.  I found similarities between this story and Jack and the Beanstalk.  The treasures were all gold; there was a golden harp in Jack's story.  Both the young lad and Jack were from poor peasant families.  I find these similarities in stories from all over the world fascinating.

My intention was to tell two stories. I slowed the pace of the lessons when I realized that one recapitulation per week was probably a better rhythm.

I will visit you again on Monday with a new packet.  I would like for you to help your child gather their Charlotte's Web book report, the animal book report, and the Main lesson book page for last week's story and have them on Monday for me to pick up.

I continue to send you good thoughts and prayers for all that you are doing to make this time as stable and happy as possible.  Please know that if you need anything, I am available to listen and would be happy to help in any way that I can.

Blessings to you all,

Kathee

Middle Grades: March 30 - April 3

Dear Parents,

Thank you for all that you are doing to make sure your children are participating in school work while you are juggling other children, your jobs, and adjusting to being at home.  To all of you who are essential employees and are going out into the community to serve, my heartfelt gratitude.  To those who are struggling because you have been laid off, or can't do your free lance work, my heartfelt regret.  To all of you, know that I will do whatever I can to help.  Please reach out, even if you just need an adult conversation!

In the block that we just finished, I continued to develop the students' understanding of the basic elements of division and fractions.  Going forward, they will get a weekly packet of math practice assignments, however, I won't be presenting any new math concepts.  Since we will not have a block for our Spring Play, I have created a block on Scandinavian stories, which is a lead up to the Norse Myths. I have moved that block to the beginning of the next school year and we will finish the year with our second block of Human and Animal.

While we are on Spring Break next week, I will be learning some new ways to use Classroom and drawing a lot of pictures to get ready for the Scandinavian story block.  We have not yet created anything on the main lesson paper, so I think your child should have enough paper to complete the pages that are coming up.  If you start to run low on paper, please give me a heads up.

Thank you for all that you are doing - I miss your children all so much!  Take care, stay well, and know that you are loved!

~Ki Kathee

Middle Grades: March 23 - 27

Hello parents,

I hope that you are all well and taking care of yourselves,  I appreciate your participation in our online ventures!  Please feel free to reach out if you need help.

Here is a recap of what we did last week:

  • Started to wrap up Charlotte's Web book reports

  • Began reading a book about animals, fiction or non-fiction

  • Took a second dive into long division

  • Wrote and illustrated a story about an animal

If your child is still working on these assignments, that is fine.  Take things at an easy pace.

Here are the things I will be sending you this week:

  • Daily practice in long division 

  • Main lessons focusing on fractions (which could include a pie, if you are so inclined), but cut it into six pieces instead of eight.

  • A drawing lesson and a clay project

  • An invitation to a zoom tea

  • A new music lesson

Have a great week!

Middle Grades: March 16 - 20

The Middle Grades home lessons got off to a slow start;  my computer, which is a slowly petrifying dinosaur mac, just won't cooperate to create zoom or meet sessions.  My lovely children have ordered me a chromebook as a birthday gift, and it will arrive by Friday at the latest.  As soon as I get it all set up, I will want to have a party - online, of course, and see all of you live.  Watch for a "best time" signup so that we can have 100% participation.

If you have feedback about Classroom, please let me know how it is working for you and what you would like to see more/less of.  It is possible to send individual assignments, and I will be happy to do that... just give me a few days.  Also, feel free to call me if you or your child have questions or issues with any assignment.  I am making myself available from 9 - 12 every morning for communications.

My assignments are coming in slowly, but today I will send the first lesson in the new math block.  My focus will be on long division and fractions.  For the fractions portion, I would love for you to combine fractions with cooking.  Ask your child to help plan and cook a meal, and figure out how many portions of a particular food they will need to make enough for everyone in your family.  Just sayin'..... this works very well with brownies and cookies too.

Please remember to wash the tips of the recorders well and often, even if they don't leave your house.  And please don't allow sharing.  Thanks for taking care of them!

If you crochet and you would like to help out on the mats, the end result should be about 6 feet long....  that's a lot of crocheting for one person.  I had been making a row or two on each one to help them, but now I can't do that.  Anything you can do to help without taking over would be greatly appreciated.

Across the cyber web I sent good wishes.

Good wishes for your health and safety.

Good wishes for your mental health and financial stability. 

And good wishes for sunshine and laughter.

Please let me know if you need help.  I have a good ear - two of them, in fact - and will do what I can to make your burdens seem lighter.

I have had my choirs sing this song many times, and love the words.  This is not my choir.  I don't know who is singing it, but the message is powerful!  Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa3lFQbwiH8

Middle Grades: March 9 - 13

Hello Middle Grades families,

We finished up our first Human and Animal block last week with a study of hands and feet. Human hands are quite the marvel.  They can’t dig like moles, or fly like eagles, but they can build what they need to do those things. 

We finished reading Charlotte’s Web, and began our final drawings as part of the book report. 

We welcomed two new students, Miles and Zoria (nicknamed Cookie) to our class. 

And now we are shifting our attention to the future. On Wednesday, you can pick up supplies and some assignments from the school. In addition to those assignments, I will be posting audio and video files via Google Classroom. You will be receiving an invitation to join our class online sometime tomorrow. This is so new to us, and very different, but I will try to create the rhythm of our day for you so that you can guide your child through the various parts of our day in a smooth way. Sessions will be recorded so that you can access them at any time during the day, and I will be available to clarify assignments and answer questions each day during the week.

We are asking that you be patient with us as we try to continue to provide your child with excellent instruction. 

There will be some garden tasks that you may want to take on so that you can finish up your volunteer hours. I will post those as a Sign-Up Genius sometime after I go to the garden tomorrow. We ask that only one family at a time sign up for these chores. 

If you need any help at all, please feel free to reach out. Sending loving thoughts to you all!

Kathee

Middle Grades: March 2 - 6

We have had a great week!  

Thanks to BJ Benson for repairing our rolling bookcase.  It looks great.

Although there were plans to plant seeds this week, the 6+ inches of rain we had stopped that.  There were other things that were successful, though.  I shared the folk tales about Selkies from Ireland and Scotland, and then we took a long look at seals.  There are some interesting similarities between seals and human beings.  Seals are primarily trunk animals, as are mice.

The spelling test next week will be on Friday.  Students will get their words on Monday.  I will post them on the FB page.

It is SO great to see the sun.  Cross your fingers that we'll have a whole week of sunshine next week.  We all need it.

Have a great week!!

Middle Grades: February 24 - 28

We began our block on Human and Animal this week with a piece of clay.  I invite you to try this exercise with a piece of clay…

Imagine the shape of your head.  Now round the piece of clay to look like a head - not totally round, slightly oblong.  Now do the same exercise, but think of the torso, or trunk.  The shape of the torso is a lot like a crescent moon: rounded in front and straighter in the back.  And lastly, what about the limbs?  Arms and legs are shaped differently, and have different things at the ends.  Each part of the body has a primary function, and, when in alignment, each part functions well with the other parts.  It is our hands from which we give and receive. It is from this feeling level that we approach our study of the relationship of hand, trunk, and limbs, and discover animals that function primarily in one phase. 

In this week's study, we discussed animals that are mostly head.  All of these creatures live in the sea.  Octopus, cuttlefish, oysters, and clams fit into this category.  Each of them have some very interesting habits and special talents.  Ask your child to recap them for you this week.  We'll be moving on to trunk animals next week.

I had mentioned that there would be an animal report coming up, but I have decided to wait until our second block to assign this report.  I want to finish the initial introduction to each of the groups of animals before asking the children which animal they want to spend enough time with to do a report.

There is a spelling test Monday, March 2.  Please help your child study.  The words are posted on the Middle Grades FB page.

We have a rolling book case that holds various books and supplies and is transported up and down the elevator on Mondays/Fridays.  The back is coming off, and each week something new comes tumbling out.  If you have the tools and skills to repair it, I would certainly appreciate your help.  Just text me and let me know if/when you can fix it and I'll make sure it's empty before you come.  Thank you in advance.

We are almost finished with Charlotte's Web and we'll be putting together our book reports in class, probably next week.  After they are completed, I will be assigning a new book to each student, and ask for the next book report to be the same format as the one we are doing for Charlotte's Web.  More on that next week.

Have a great week!!

Spring is almost here!

Middle Grades: Feb 10 - 14

This was a good time to have a break. The students wrote two letters this week. One was a business letter. The other was a personal letter to some students in Arkansas who want to build an outdoor classroom and had some questions about our spaces. 

I loved seeing their final product. Their cursive is beautiful, and each child had a personal twist that they added to the letters. 

Looking ahead, our next block is Human and Animal. Then we will have our first block on the Norse Myths, and then the Spring Play. Each student will have a report coming up in three weeks about an animal of their choice. Details of the project and the accompanying rubric will be in the next Monday Messenger. 

We have a workday Saturday in the garden. Please come if you can. There are a lot of things to be done to improve the garden, and I hope you can come and help!

Have a great week. 

Kathee

Middle Grades: Feb 3 - 7

I look forward to seeing you this coming week for conferences. Please sign up if you haven’t already done so. 

This week we will be writing letters and poetry as we finish up our Language Arts block, and we’ll be trying to finish up Charlotte’s Web. That means we’ll be very busy, since we are having half days. Please remember that drop off is 8:20-8:40, and we need to start our morning circle and main lesson at 8:40. 

Have a great week!!!

Middle Grades: January 27-31

The reading of Charlotte’s Web is going well. It is giving me an opportunity to identify some things for each child to work on to improve their fluency and comprehension. 

The Language Arts block will end after next week. Now that they have new tools to work with, they will begin to create writing projects. Business letters, letters to friends, poetry, stories, instructions, and more are on the list. 

Don’t forget to sign up for a Parent Conference!

Have a great week.

Middle Grades: January 21 - 24

It has been a good week in the Blur Sky room. Thanks to all the parents who have sent in plastic bags. The students have been busy making “plarn” and I have begun to crochet our sampler mat. If you would like to drop in and crochet some of it, please do come by. We plan to make each mat 6 feet long, so that’s a lot of single crochets!!

This was the week of the preposition. Next week we will finish defining and exploring the other parts of speech, and begin talking about the elements of good sentences, then we’ll use our knowledge when we write a few letters and describe some everyday things that we do to the recipients of our letters. 

Almost everyone in the class answered all of the practice math correctly, and the most anyone got wrong was 3 out of 30.  The students really seem to enjoy math, and I  proud of their determination to make sure they do it right. 

Have a great week!!!

Middle Grades: January 13 - 17

The Middle Grades had a great first week back!  We dive/dove/dived deep into the parts of speech, simple sentence structure, and how nouns and verbs change in relation to singular/plural and past/present tense. 

There were some fun moments.  The students made a card game a la Go Fish! but used vowel sounds instead of numbers.  And music laughter erupted when we played this game.....  you might want to play too!

Designate a queen, a king, a prince, and a prince.  

All say: Who? What?

The Queen calls out a noun.

All say: what kind of (noun)

The Princess calls out an adjective.

All say:  What does the (adjective)(noun) do?

The King calls out a verb.

How does the  (adjective)(noun) (verb)?

The Prince calls out an adverb.

All say the whole sentence.

We have music on Monday and Tuesday this semester.  Please help your child remember to bring their instruments on those days.  We will be practicing the recorders every morning, so they should be staying at school during the week.  Students who have a ukulele or a violin should bring them on Monday and Tuesday.  Once we have gotten settled into the new semester there will be things they need to practice.

On Tuesday we will begin reading Charlotte's Web as a class.  I will be giving assignments for them to read silently as well as out loud and will be evaluating for fluency and comprehension.  When we have finished the book, we will write a book report together, since by that time we will have talked about writing good paragraphs.  After we write this one together, additional book reports will follow the same format, and they will be assigned approximately every three weeks.

When we begin the Human and Animal block, each student will be assigned the task of writing a report on an animal. More details will be coming.

Have a great week!

Spring Semester: Middle Grades

Welcome back!!!  You will see in the general announcements that we are starting a service project this semester. Please bring in your plastic bags and keep them coming. 

This semester we will begin to transition to homework, since next year we will have it regularly.   If you have a particular day that your child would be more at ease with homework, please contact me via text or email. With the introduction of homework,  students will need to have an organizer, which we will make in class. I will also post what the homework is in the MG FB page. 

There will also be a new list for ways to present book reports. I will post that sometime next week. 

Welcome to 2020!!!!

Middle Grades: December 16 - 19

Seasons Greetings, dear parents!

Thank you so much for the lovely gifts I received.  I have a tradition of not opening my presents until Christmas (roots go deep in family superstitions), so I have them all under my tree and eagerly await their being opened.

On Thursday after opening circle, I asked my students to tell me what they know now that they didn't know when school started.  I was prepared to remind them of the blocks, but I never had to open my mouth!  They listed form drawing, cursive, fractions, division, long division, adding columns of numbers, The Song of the Chattahoochee, many things that they learned on the field trip to Cumberland Island, and, of course, the stories of The Monkey King.  I am excited to know that they remember what they've done.

Coming up in January is an intense block of Language Arts.  The goals for this block are to increase each student's fluency and reading comprehension, to better understand how sentences are structured - yes, we are going to diagram sentences - and then write business letters, personal letters and notes, non-fiction, and creative writing.

During the Human and Animal Block, we are planning a field trip to a zoo in Dahlonega that rescues animals rather than going to the Atlanta Zoo.  If you have any concerns about your child going to a zoo, please let me know. During that block we will be doing a lot of sketching animals, and I want them to be one on one (but from a short distance) with as many different animals as possible.

Safe travels if you are traveling during the holidays, and have a wonderful time with family and friends.

Best,

Ki Kathee

Middle Grades: December 9 - 13

We have all been enjoying the stories of the Monkey King.  There  is a lot of adventure, a little bit of humor, and a great deal about learning life lessons from an Eastern Asian perspective.

We have also been celebrating the four weeks of advent as Rudolf Steiner developed them.  Steiner believed that as we begin to experience the increasing darkness of winter, it is a good time to celebrate the mineral world, the plant world, the animal world, and the world of human beings.

The first light of Advent is the light of stones,

The light that shines in crystals, in seashells and in bones.

The second light of Advent is the light of plants,

Plants that grow to the sky and in the breezes dance.

The third light of Advent is the light of beasts,

The light of faith that we may see in greatest and in least.

The fourth light of Advent is the light of humankind,

The light of hope of thoughts and deeds,

The light of hand, heart, and mind.

I have written a tune for the poem so that we are singing it each morning as we light a candle and place items on the table.  It is quite beautiful.  SInce we will not be at school next week, we will do two days of the light of beast and two days of the light of humankind.  Please send a picture of a family pet on Tuesday, and of your family on Wednesday.

This week as we finish up the Fall semester we are going to take some time to relax a little.  Monday we are doing nature crafts and snowflakes.  Tuesday is pajama day - students can bring a  pillow and blankie - we will take some time to hear some stories.  Wednesday we were going to bake and then take bags of goodies to an assisted living home and pass them out and sing; however, the oven was damaged over the weekend last weekend, and we can't use it until a new door facing arrives and is installed, so we may have to rethink Wednesday.  I will post updates on the Facebook page.  Thursday is backwards day.  Our schedule will be reversed, students wear their clothes backwards, we'll try writing backwards, etc.  If you can get into the groove on Thursday, it might be fun to have dinner for breakfast and breakfast for dinner.

If you have questions about this week, please feel free to text me or email me.  

Have a great week!!

Middle Grades: December 2- 6

We are well underway into learning all about the Monkey King, which is a long saga from the Chinese tradition. There are so many wonderful adventures in this folk tradition, and his search for immortality gets him into all kinds of trouble as he travels. The students have been writing their own recapitulations of the stories, and doing a wonderful job. They are learning how to draw monkeys and dragons and celestial beings.

We continue to read aloud The Chronicles of Narnia, and have daily practice in adding and subtracting fractions, adding columns of numbers, and multiplying and dividing problems.

I was so proud of my students today at the First Friday Assembly; the students all have musical gifts, and I love teaching them music.

There will be no more book reports this semester, and the formats will change in January.

We did not have a chance today to take the spelling test, so it will be given on Monday. Please help your child practice the words.

Remember to take time to breathe in December. It is so easy to get too busy.

Stay loose.