Notebook Pages - Timeline (UPLOADED!)

I just wanted to say before I start this post, that I am AMAZED.  Touched, blown away, broken, and all kinds of emotions I haven't exactly figured out yet at the amount of love I have felt from my CC family on facebook.  Yes I say family.  That's what it has felt like to me.  I feel so connected to all of you.  Your comments and encouragement has made me feel so appreciated.  So I want to thank you all for your kind comments, for your love, for your support.  Thank you so much.

Timeline!  I have enjoyed this one best. 

 

We have used the timeline cut & paste pages as a long poster across the top of our school room by gluing them together in our first year.

Last year we used them in our notebooks.  Someone posted on facebook that they glue them together and fold them up into a file folder.   There are lots of ways you can use these cut and paste pages.

Cut and Paste timelines (you can either cut & glue, or write them in)

I have a few pages of "timeline grammar" that teaches the kids what a timeline is, with some activities.

 

All of these are now uploaded on C3.  If you see any mistakes or suggestions for new pages, please feel free to email me at theellisgirls28@gmail.com

We used these last year and my oldest LOVED them.  Timeline was her favorite.  I loved that she got to enjoy learning these events.  I can't wait for my upcoming 1st grader to use them :)

New School Year, New Notebook-Cycle 1

I have had a lot of great responses asking about notebooking, cycle 1.  I am so very very excited about this year!  And to answer the big question.  Yes, I am making a Cycle 1 notebook.

 I am doing this in little tiny spurts this year though.  A lot has changed since I made the notebook last year.  I am also holding down a part-full time job, schooling through the summer, and trying to expand our business.  My worksheet making is taking the back burner even though I wish I could make that my full time job :)

This year our Cycle 1 notebook will be grouped into 9 books.  Instead of having it broken by week, I will have it broken by subject.  It makes most sense to me.  I am not sure if I will make a broken by week file(I probably wont have time) but I have thought about it.  There will be a separate file with all memory work pages just like I had in the book last year.  I wish there was a program that could make editable pdfs, where people could delete the pages they don't want and just press print.  (Is there a program like that?)  I still haven't found a way to do that.  This is the way that works best for us.  I have finished the HISTORY sentence portion.  I am SOO excited for the choices I have for history.  There are thirteen different choices for a history page to add to your child's notebook.  You can choose whatever works best.  I have a young one who will be doing the coloring page, rainbow writing, and tracing each week, one who will do the dashed copywork cursive and cutting paste, one who will be doing the fill in the blanks and writing with drawing space each week.  This is why I have made pages to choose, rather than a notebook to print and go.  Here are the examples of pages for History Sentences for Cycle 1.  They should be up in a couple weeks after I have a few proof readers go over them :)

I have a contents page for helping with printing this time!!  :)

I will have a cover for each subject, and weekly covers in the "memory work" file

Coloring page

And this is just History!  Wait until you see what I have for Geography :)  I am excited, and really enjoying Cycle 1 before it even starts.  I have been asked a lot about my notebook being available for non c3 subscribers, and unfortunately I don't think there is a way to do it without infringing on copy right laws.  The memory work that is available in the notebook is proprietary and owned by CC so for me to offer it to those who don't pay the subscription would be against the law.  I understand that the subscription can be a high cost to those who aren't in a community, but unless I can figure out a way to not infringe on the copy rights, for now the notebook will be available on CC connect only.  I will post on the blog when I finally upload.  I will most likely be uploading one subject at a time.


One more thing!  My computer is dying.  Slowly and surely it is dying.  The hinges are broken, and the wires are shorting out, sometimes the dang thing doesn't even turn on.  I was asked a while back if there was a way for some people who enjoyed my notebook to give back and I didn't have an answer back then-but I do now.  I truly truly need a new laptop to continue on this venture so if you are willing I would be so grateful for any help I can get!  Thank you all :)

Going with the flow...

This year started off so exciting.  I LOVE new things, and this year we added our CC notebook.  Remember that?  Yeah!  It was great!  We loved the pages!  Love the pages.  However about week 9 we realized we were just leaving the notebook sitting on the shelf and grabbing pages here and there.  then of course you know what happens to stray pages.  We work on a bit of a different schedule than originally planned so the organization of the notebook didn't work anymore.

It became tedious to figure out where all the pages were, since our schedule now goes by subject. Each day we do one review game in the morning (review last 6 weeks +current week). But we have a schedule of subjects.
Monday-Timeline, Math, History
Tuesday-community day
Wed-Geo
Thurs-English, Latin
Friday-Science

(on Geo day we do map tracing for review instead of a game)

Then we do those pages on those days. Sometimes we don't get to it but then we go back to it and do it as a review. So you see why it was tedious all as one binder.

So in spirit of "going with the flow", we took apart the binder and sorted them by subject. Now we have 8 comb bound workbooks and use each one on the day we work from. It works SO much better for our family.

Some days, (Mondays especially) we don't get to all of their notebooks.  So those pages end up being left for review on days like Friday when there is extra time for work :)

Games for Review-A Few, Tried and True

So if you're like me you don't really care for competition.  I don't like it at home, I don't really go for it in the classroom.  Especially at the ages I tutor-4-7 year olds.  We have a few competitive children in our class, and a few who hate it.  So I have found a really good balance, and figured I would share them all.  I will let you know, that a good portion of these games are not my own and I most likely won't remember where they came from.

Some class favorites:

These games are great for the whole classroom to get involved and have very little competition:

Dice!  We have this awesome set of dice that the kids LOVE.  You can download them HERE.  Our kids adore them.  We haven't used the subject or week dice, I just pick a random card and the kids roll for an action.  This one was "Say it from underneath the table."

Snowballs.  This was recommended from someone who learned it from someone who learned it from someone, but it is a FANTASTIC idea.  A student answers a review question, if they get it correct-they get a piece of paper to crumble up for a snowball.  This is great, but for our "non competitors" we modified the game a bit.  We have "parents vs. kids".  If the kids say it without any help (they all try together and as long as it's said it counts) they get a piece of paper (we will usually go around in a circle or pick the best participant at the time to crumble but they have a "kids pile").  If they need a lot of help, the parents get one.  At the end it's kids against adults.  We always lose.  :)

Darts.  This is my boys' favorite.  I just drew a really quick dart board with 1,2,3 as the point values and laminated it.  I was told that some have each person have a score-and if they answer correctly they get to shoot, however we have modified it quite a bit.  We have a class score.  All the kids line up and we pick a card.  All the kids answer it, and if they do well (participating) then the person at the front gets to shoot a nerf gun.  At the end we circle our final score at the top of our board and try to beat the score next week.  If they beat it, they all get a sticker!

Choco maps.  Each kid should have their own map.  place a chocolate chip(I've used M&Ms or you could use gold fish but we have GF kids in our class) ask them to place their choco on a specific feature-if they find the feature(have parents go around and check this) then they may eat it-if not show them where it is, let them find it, then eat it.  When we play this we do half of the time in this method, then half of the time doing it the opposite.  I will show them a place on the map and have them put the choco on it.  Then I will ask for the name with raised hands.  After I call on someone I ask all to repeat loudly.  Then they can eat it.

Marble Run:  This is super fun, I stole it from Melody Stroud so read her post on it.  It is a good first week game.  The kids love it and it's not competitive at all.

Treasure Hunt:  We haven't done this one in class yet, but we've done it at home.  Hide some of the cards around the room in envelopes.  Let them answer questions then give them a gold coin.  You could make this game competitive or not.  If you wanted a competitive version, just give out coins if they answer correctly and of course the person who has the most coins is the winner.  We used treasure boxes here but totally not necessary.  And gold coins from the dollar store.

Rockets: I guess this game is "competitive" but not in the way that frustrates children who don't always remember the memory work.  So we have these game boards and a dice for each child.  When we ask a question, everyone answers, and everyone rolls.  You color in the space you roll, if you roll a space you colored already, you don't color anything.  First to color all is the "winner".

Domino Parking:  We use the parking lot game board from THIS BLOG.  The kids are broken up into 2 teams and each team gets a gameboard.  We all answer a question together, and then one team picks a domino.  They place it on the space it belongs.  Each team takes a turn after we all say memory work.  The team who fills their parking spots first wins.

Kaboom:  This game is so fun.  We use these cards, and these blocks.  We read some memory work, and everyone answers the question.  Someone draws a card, and either places a block on the pile or a kaboom tells them to knock the pile over.  You play until the kids are bored or you run out of memory work or time :)

Cake(Memory work) Walk:  We haven't actually tried this in our class yet, but my son's preschool teacher used this in her class to do review.  She used foam flowers, and wrote numbers on one side and a review question on the other.  Placed them taped down on the ground in a big circle.  She played music and had the kids walk around the board until the music stopped.  Then she picked a number out of a jar.  Then that number picked up their flower and answered the question.  I cant wait to try it, it was so fun in his class, I know mine will love it.

Notebooking!

I am a big fan of notebooking.  We haven't done a whole lot yet since my children are still young, but what we have done we LOVE.  There is something so magical about looking back on the year and having a whole done up notebook to show for it!  Right now for my kindergartener we didn't think she was ready for our CC notebook so for her, we are doing the sight word interactive notebook which she is in love with. here it is at the TPT store  If you want to try before you buy here is her freebie.

Now for my oldest, she wasn't quite ready for a real notebook, since her sentence structure isn't the greatest- so I designed a transition notebook.  Next year or maybe the year after she might be ready for a researching notebook, but as for now she is using our CC notebook, which I am so excited to use!!

 

I have everything in there from Timeline to Fine arts, if you are part of the Classical Conversations community (or even not in a community and doing it at home) this is a great resource.  Even if you only use a few pages from it, it's going to make learning memory work REALLY fun.  So let me run you through the notebook real quick.

For every week you will have a page for each subject.  We divided them by weeks in a 2 inch binder.  I have a smaller "weekly binder" so that she isn't overwhelmed by the CC notebook.  I will put each weeks work into the weekly binder and then I will switch it out at the end of the week (put the week she's done with back into the CC notebook and the work she needs to do into the weekly binder).

So in each week you have the following subjects:

• Prayers (record the things you prayed for in CC)
• Presentations (write your presentation-would be a super handy tool the day before community!)
• Timeline - every week has a cut and paste timeline sheet, the first 8 weeks are in black and white but on the connected website you can look for the first 8 weeks in color and replace the black and white ones.  Also not included in the notebooking pages but also on CC connected are for those little researchers and writers the notebooking page for timeline.
• A history work page where it is drawing and writing out the sentence.  In the back of each file is also a notebook page for the older ones with more lines and a tiny box to draw on.  I also have a few other history sentence review pages on the connected that would be great replacements or additions.
• Math page- there are older children math pages in the back of some files too.
• Latin-usually either a copy work or mini book or activity page
• Science experiment page and a science memory work page
• Geography cut and paste and a geography color/map
• English page
• and my favorite FINE ARTS!  there is a fine arts page in every week pertaining to either great artists, what your child will learn in drawing, or tin whistle, and composers.

And all of those pages you can find weekly on my username SHERIELLIS at CC connected (there is a subscription fee, $6 a month if you are a member of community or $60 if you are not.)

SHERI ELLIS AT CC CONNECTED

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Tri-fold board

This is the board I made for use in CC...  You can get the instructions HERE

OiLS

So in classical conversations, one of our art lessons is on OiLS.  Not the oil pastel kind, the drawing component kind!  This was awesome to me when I first learned about this.  You really can break down everything you draw to those 5 components.  Here is a quick cheat sheet to learning them:
click HERE to download them.

I had a cute fun little practice lesson with my kids before CC starts and it was so much fun!  I can't wait to teach a whole class of these little guys and watch them draw!

So for the first part of our 30 min segment we introduced the sheet above, the OiLS and let them practice them for about 3 minutes.  Then I did some board drawings, instructing them to follow along.  Here they are:

 

The cute little mouse I learned on a facebook page : ART FOR KIDS, The Alligator I got from an ED Emberly book.

The kids had fun Here are theirs, I really wish I would have had them use black marker, it would have looked so much better.  So in our actual class that's what we will do:

 

Then we did a final project as I instructed them in a clown fish: