We continued our exploration of life in the Appalachians through the book When I Was Young In The Mountains by Cynthia Rylant. This time, we latched on to the idea of home life "then," as depicted in the illustrations, and "now." I wanted to go to a museum to look at "old things." But hating Manila traffic and avoiding it as much as possible, I decided to stay home. I … [Read more...]

Our “school week” starts on a Monday. Saturdays and Sundays are for crafting my lesson plans based on the “Five in a Row” manuals and/or other resources, and Mondays are for starting a new book.  It takes me two to three hours to plan the week and to gather our materials, which all go to our Learning Basket. Selecting Similarly-Themed Books Cramming Not preparing for weeks … [Read more...]

Lentil, published in 1940, is a classic picture book by multi-awarded author-illustrator Robert McCloskey. Lentil is a young boy who decides to become an expert at playing the harmonica after realizing that he can't sing, or even whistle! His harmonica-playing leads him to become the town hero when the town band fails to welcome a very important person at the train station.The … [Read more...]