Main Lesson Books

Oak Meadow, being a Waldorf-inspired curriculum, makes use of Main Lesson Books in the Third Grade curriculum (as well as in the younger grades). The Main Lesson Book (MLB) is simply an artistic and creative record of lessons we have completed. It might include drawings, copy work, stories, etc. The MLB serves as a beautiful textbook that the child creates herself. It is also a wonderful keepsake.

We are still getting used to the idea of creating these Main Lesson Books, and it gets easier with every lesson. Any Waldorf purists who happen upon this post will surely realize how woefully inadequate our MLBs are, but I'm hoping they get better over time. Don't judge me.

Here, after hearing and re-telling the story of Rapunzel, Thing 4 drew a scene to represent the story. She added the happy witch later. And yes, I realize she misspelled Rapunzel one time, but I'm torn between the Charlotte Mason idea that you never leave a word misspelled and the fact that I love looking back at my older kids' early work that has those kinds of sweet mistakes. I went with sentimental this time. Don't judge me.







Her entry about the Kush civilization:


She told me the other day, "You know, I learn so well this way. I hear a lesson, then I tell it back to you, then I write about it and then I draw a picture about it. That really helps me remember it." Success! Go ahead and judge me on this one.

Today's Science lesson about the plant food cycle:




While Thing 3's lesson plans do not call for the use of MLBs, I like them so much that I'm going to start using them with him next week.

Various and Sundry Things

I discovered over the summer that keeping a blog of our OE activities was a great idea because it's a scrapbook for me of the things we did throughout the year. One night I was feeling pretty inadequate as a homeschooling mom, so I sat down and went through the blog, post by post and realized that our year hadn't been quite as lame as I had originally thought. We did some pretty cool stuff. However, our science experiments last year? Mostly lame.

While I don't have the energy to write decent blog posts to go with the photos I've taken over the last two weeks, I decided to post them in one entry so I can look back next summer and see what we did.

This photo is a little difficult to see, but this was an impromptu science observation. (Sometimes the unplanned lessons are the best.) We were getting in the car to run a couple of errands, when Thing 4 spotted this awesome spider web that had raindrops all over it. We stood and looked at the intricate weaving and marveled at how tenacious and hard-working spiders must be.

This was the day that Thing 3 was learning how to convert from Imperial measurements to Metric. He had to count how many cups of water this bottle held and then he converted the measurement to liters. There's an app for that, but I didn't let him use it.

During a study of Hebrew culture Thing 4 drew a Star of David in her Social Studies Main Lesson Book. (I love the Main Lesson Books! More on those in another post.) See the beeswax crayons there? She loves those...so much so that I had to order a bigger set so she could have more colors. They are pricey but so worth it. See the dog watching her draw? She often brings a friend to class.

For her Main Lesson Book entry on the folk tale The Wise Thief, she decided to draw a peach seed. She wanted the drawing to be accurate, so we had to stop for a snack. Have I mentioned that I love the Main Lesson Books? I love Oak Meadow, too.

Thing 3 is studying Colonial America right now. One of the assignments he chose was making a Pocahontas puppet. The girls in the family had to teach him how to braid. If this homeschooling thing fails him, he can always get a job on a touristy island.