Remember when I talked about our morning basket and how I had planned out all our themes for the year? Well, today I got to reorganize and set up our fall themes for the morning basket, which are Halloween and All Saints’ Day. I thought I could give you a peep at what we will be doing starting next week, breaking it up by subject. A new theme always gives the school mornings a little breath of fresh air!
History
We are still working through our state study book, C reads about one state a day. I added the state and capitol flash cards as well as some cds that we listen to in the car full of patriotic music. We are really digging the music and love blasting it in the car!
Religion
Miss A is going to start confession prep this year so we are brushing up on our catechism. She is reading out of this book aloud to us a little each day. We are still chipping away at our Bible audiobook each morning and have finished the gospels and are into the Acts of the Apostles. I am still loving this Catholic signs and symbols book and highly recommend it. We read about symbol a day.
Art
Although we’ve read through some of this art book before, we are really taking our time with it and reading about the different art movements as they correlate to our history timeline. We recently read about the Impressionists and Post-Impressionist, so for the rest of the month we will be working on making paintings styled after some of the famous artists of those periods. First up, Édouard Manet!
Memory work
The kiddos memory capabilities will never cease to amaze me! Gotta capitalize on that, am I right? They have been memorizing poetry since they were four years old and I’m proud to say they are still going strong. I love to find poems that inspire them. A is currently working on The Flag Goes By by Henry Bennet and C is working on The Fool’s Prayer by Edward Sill. Both so epic! Of course they are usually less excited about math but there is no better substitute for learning math facts than good ol’ flash cards.
Seasonal
Now comes the good stuff! Just kidding, it’s all good stuff! Seriously though, it’s taken me awhile to curate exactly what I like to do for Halloween and All Saints’ day, I’ve tried lots of different options. It’s not easy to find things that are simple enough for the kids to do *mostly* on their own and also be something you can feel good about spending valuable school time on. I found this banner on Teachers Pay Teachers, and I am so looking forward to making it with the kids! What a learning activity! I plan on doing two Saints a day (school days), all the way up to November 1st. We will have quite the banner draped all along the walls!
We do celebrate Halloween, or All Hallows’ Eve, but are pretty mellow about it. We dress up and trick or treat and carve pumpkins but the kids usually don’t eat any of their candy (we give them the option of the Switch Witch) and we are all in bed by 9pm. I don’t hate it, haha! I think carving pumpkins is one of the best family traditions we’ve ever started, it is fantastic! We can barely wait and usually end up carving them really early in October and then they rot super fast but we don’t even care. It is so fun to see the kids become more and more skilled over the years! However, why not use those pumpkins for learning before they head to the compost? I’ve been using this flip book activity for a couple years and it is always a hit. Come to think of it, I might need to find something more tricky for next year, it might be getting boring for my smart kidlets!
Last but not least, we always make bats during this time of year. It’s quite a nostalgic craft because I first made them with C when it was just him and me all day, many moons ago. So even if it seems juvenile for a 7 and 9 year old, they really love it and it always makes me laugh to see how their personalities come out in their bats. Last year A’s had a pink hair bow and C’s had wildly different sized eyes, haha! We usually only make a few, but who knows what will happen! My children surprise me everyday.
Well, that’s it guys! I can’t wait to dig into this morning basket soon. Hopefully you have a morning ritual that inspires you as well. Happy fall y’all!