Here's our completed Alphabet Island poster and card holder. I taped clear plastic pockets to hold the letter cards in alphabetical order for easy finding. Then on the other side is where they line up to make words. It has made reading and spelling more fun and even Navin is practicing making words with different combinations and groups of our letter friends.
I've made some changes with our Soul Adventure School. We've started reading something spiritual/transcendental every morning to start the kids with some good things to think about. I'm going to find ways to tie it in with whatever else we are learning about. I'm also starting to do month long blocks alternating language arts and math to really focus on them individually. The world geography study will continue until we have been to all of the continents and then go into only one subject at a time for 2-4 weeks, hopefully adding more science and nature studies in. Art (drawing and painting) will now be part of free time and not part of school to keep it fun and freed up for imagination. I think these new changes will work better for the boys to really immerse into learning.
Devotional: This week we focused on Bhagavad Gita verse 9.18, where Krishna says "I am the goal, the sustainer, the master, the witness, the abode, the refuge, and the most dear friend". We discussed how God is our most dear friend that we can always turn to when we're scared.
Language Arts: The first few weeks of Alphabet Island will be review, so we're moving fast with it. This week we read a story about how the letters on alphabet island get together to make words, and the last letter is always at the edge of a cliff. Some of the letters are scared and have a friend stand with them or take their place. They are Clever C and his pet Kangaroo K, Lady L, Farmhand F, Sloppy S, and Zany Z. Later we will learn more about the vowels, Veggie V (who always is with Everloving E, and she is also scared so she is speechless and silent), and Jolly J, who juggles and doesn't ever go near the cliffs and asks Goofy G to take his place. Govinda did a few of the workbook pages that go with it. Next, we practiced Clever C's and Goofy G's two sounds, which we will go into more next week. I'm finding much success with writing words on the white board for him to read and taking it easy on handwriting.
Reading: I'm so happy to say that Govinda read a Level 2 Step Into Reading Book from the library called Toad On The Road. Now that he's advancing with reading, he says that he likes library books better than the McRuffy readers (I think because they seem more like 'real books'). I'm just so happy that he read a level 2 book! Woohoo!
Geography: We read more stories about Australia and focused on the platypus and echidna, which are the only two marsupial mammals that lay eggs. Australia's animals are quite amazing. We also discussed how in Sanskrit, 'astra' means 'weapon' or 'powerful bomb' and 'alia/alaya' means 'land of', so Australia means 'land of the powerful bomb', which may explain the extreme desert. We discussed the astra used in the Mahabharata that was used to try to attack a child in the womb, which Sri Krishna stopped. Maybe it went to Astralaya and that is why there are so many marsupials whose babies leave the womb very early on for the safety of the pouch. I also read that some versions of the Ramayana say that Sri Rama sent an astra into the sea, which brought up the island of Australia, which makes sense because there is so much salt and shell fossils there. One dvd we saw said that when they brought in irrigation for farming, the salt in the ground rose and the water became more salty than the ocean!
Thank you to all of our supporters and well wishers. Take care and God Bless!
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