Today was rainy and coldish. The frogs like it — Ron says he has heard at least three of them outside his window this evening — and the garden is growing well, but this kind of weather just makes me tired. I took a nap after school and wound up missing church because I didn’t wake up in time to get there.
A fellow beekeeper called us this evening to report that he finally received a shipment of Cordovan queens. We’re buying one from him to use in one of our hives from last year. I’m pretty sure the colony has lost its queen, because the bees have been really lethargic. Hopefully the new girl will whip them back into shape.
I’m really busy winding down the current school year, but I’m also starting to think about what I want to do with the kids next year. The bulk of my lessons will revolve around games, because the kids participate better and learn faster when we play games. To that end, I’ve started asking the kids to write down their favorite board games. Monopoly is a big one.
Another kid mentioned dominoes. I think I’m going to create a set of dominoes that have words instead of numbers on them. I’ll use them to teach subject-verb agreement.
My goal is to come up with at least a half-dozen different games that we can use. Each class generally meets 12 to 13 times a month (we’re on block schedule), and I want to spend at least one day a week playing games.
Here are some of my ideas thus far: Monopoly (possibly on a giant board that allows the kids to be their own game pieces); Trivial Pursuit (English II edition); Sorry (haven’t quite sorted out the details, but I’m going to make Ron play the regular game with me this evening and see where I can fit in educational angles); Pictureka (I’m drawing my own board with images and words that correspond to the curriculum); Scrabble (with word tiles instead of letters, and the kids will have to form grammatically correct sentences); Mad Libs; Pronoun Twister; and subject-verb dominoes.
I’ll post pictures as I work these up.
Emily
Red Fork Hippie 