Third Grade in Our Home :: Morning Basket, Term 3

First, a note: I use the term "Morning Basket" to refer to all the work we do together as a family, with the littles. Even though I call it Morning Basket for organizational purposes, it is really broken up into two parts: one done over breakfast, and one done at the end of our Naptime School block.  Our Morning Basket is still very much the same as we did it last year, so if you'd like to read more specifics about how it works for us, feel free to click over to read more.  ~~ You can read about our Morning Basket for Term 1 and Term 2 of this year.

We finished a few books this past term that we have been working on since the beginning of our school year back in July:

:: Thomas Tapper's Music Talks for Children

:: Benson's A Child's Rule of Life and An Alphabet of Saints

:: Kingsley's The Water Babies

:: MacDonald's At the Back of the North Wind

I added a couple new ones to our rotation, but I'm also leaving a couple empty slots because I'll be adding in some Lenten reading shortly.  So we'll have a slightly lighter schedule until Ash Wednesday, which is just a few weeks away.

A look at our Morning Basket plans for Term 3 of this year...

Over Breakfast

Calendar Work - in English and Italian (daily)

Poetry - a poem from our poet for the term, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (daily)

Short Reading - from one of the following:

:: the Kirbys' The World at Home (two chapers per week)

:: Opal Wheeler's Handel (a chapter per week)

:: Pilgrim's Progress (a short section per week, following the AO 72-week rotation)

Read-Aloud - with any breakfast time I have left before the babies start fussing, I read from one of our scheduled read-alouds: Crossbows and Crucifixes, The Wheel on the School, and The Little Prince

In the Afternoon

Memory Work (daily) - includes review of that day's items from our memory "notebook" as well as our current selections:

:: Hymns - "Attende Domine," "Stabat Mater," and "Bring Flowers of the Fairest"

:: Folk Song - "Highland Mary" (finishing from Term 2), "Pull for the Shore," "Golden Years are Passing By"

:: Bible - The Parable of the Good Samaritan (finishing from Term 2), Matthew 5:13-16

:: Prayers - The Divine Praises and St. Alphonsus' Night Prayer

:: Poetry - Longfellow's "The Tide Rises," "The Arrow and the Song," "Snow-Flakes," and "A Day of Sunshine"

:: Shakespeare - Much Ado About Nothing 4.1.216-221, Hamlet 1.3.76-81

:: Bird Calls - California Quail, Belted Kingfisher

We move on to a new selection once we have the previous selection memorized rather than on a regular schedule, so our plans are just that--plans.  I'll update our Memory Work index with the ones we cover.

Italian Memory Work (daily) - The older three and I cover new concepts, games, and conversation at a different time of the day, but we do our Italian memory work with the littles:

(We took a bit longer on the previous unit than I expected, so we're still working on several from last term.)

:: Rhymes - "La bella lavanderia" from Filastrocche Italiane

:: Songs - "Tu canterai, "Cosi fan," "Giro giro tondo" from Teach Me Everyday Italian

:: Series - "I do something every day"

Picture Study on Georgia O'Keeffe (once weekly) - two weeks for each piece, alternating between observation/narration and a picture sketch

:: Landscapes: Canyon with Crows, 1917

:: More Landscapes: Cliffs Beyond Abiquiu--Dry Waterfall, 1943

:: Flowers in Black and White: Black Hollycock, Blue Larkspur, 1930 and The White Trumpet Flower, 1932

:: Flowers in Color: Red Poppy, 1927

:: Bones: Summer Days, 1936

:: Abstract: Music--Pink and Blue II

Music Study on Handel (once weekly) - including attentive listening and discussion

:: Water Music (four weeks)

:: Royal Fireworks Music (four weeks)

:: The Harmonious Blacksmith (one week)

:: Zadok the Priest (one week)

:: Messiah (two weeks)