4Real Forums: great lessons/timeline of life

Oh, Dearest Mother, Sweetest Virgin of Altagracia, our Patroness. You are our Advocate and to you we recommend our needs. You are our Teacher and like disciples we come to learn from the example of your holy life. You are our Mother, and like children, we come to offer you all of the love of our hearts. Receive, dearest Mother, our offerings and listen attentively to our supplications. Amen.

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Nurturing the Years of Wonder
4Real Forums : Nurturing the Years of Wonder

Topic: great lessons/timeline of life

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lapazfarm
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Joined: July 21 2005
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Posted: June 06 2007 at 2:02pm \| IP Logged

I noticed Andrea is preparing lessons and materials for this. I was thinking about it but honestly it overwhelms me right now.
Anyone have tips on how/where to begin this task?
I like the album Andrea posted, although she uses the term "the force" rather than God like MTC does, but it would be easy enough to substitute words.
It seems like such a great way to kick off the year and to inspire research into many topics that I am really tempted. But my $$ is spent, so it would all have to be homemade.
I guess I could start with one lesson at a time and focus on that one lesson, perhaps have one prepared per month? Does that seem too spread out? I fear it is...
Anybody?

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Theresa
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Angel
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Posted: June 06 2007 at 3:18pm \| IP Logged

Theresa,

The Timeline of Life is on my list, too. It's my understanding that as far as the Great Lessons go, they are *supposed* to be spread out. The idea here is to whet the child's appetite for more knowledge. So the child needs time in between lessons for research and investigation. For instance, the First Great Lesson lends itself to chemistry, physics, and astronomy (not to mention the Book of Genesis) because it's talking about the creation of the universe. So you would spend some time delving into those areas before moving on to the next Great Lesson.

The Timeline of Life doesn't actually come until the second great lesson. I have the Great Lessons from MTC printed out and I thought (when I did it, two years ago) that I might record myself reading them so the kids to listen to them as stories whenever they wanted. On the other hand... we've already talked about a lot of the stuff covered by the Great Lessons, so at this point (and at that point 2 years ago) I wondered if it might be a little too simplistic for the kids. They're not supposed to give a great deal of detail because they're supposed to be introductory stories that spark interest. But in my kids the interest for much of it has already been sparked through the zillions of science, history, and archaeology books we've already read.

I do plan on making the Timeline of Life, though, because I think my kids would enjoy working with it. I'm just not going to do it in the traditional manner.

--Angela

Three Plus Two

Meredith
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Posted: June 06 2007 at 4:33pm \| IP Logged

Angela, this is going to be our approach as well. My oldest has already had quite a bit of timeline work and my next in line will probably take part in our history progression that she followed.

That being said, I believe we can certainly include the concept of The Great Lesson (thanks for the barbara link Andrea) and incorporate it according to our dc's interest and level of understanding.

Not to get "off topic" but here is an example of how a timeline is used, I actually think I'm going to buy this, or make my own modeled after this, I really like the idea of plotting the bean growth with the puzzle pieces, very cool.

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Meredith
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AndreaG
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Posted: June 07 2007 at 8:22am \| IP Logged

Theresa,
The Great Lessons are for the elementary age classes, so with a 5-year-old you have plenty of time to get it together. You could just put it on your list for a future project. Also as Angela said they are supposed to be spread out.
I have only done the first great lesson-the "God without hands" one. It had some charts and experiments, but not too much to make. However, I agree that with all the books we read, it wasn't necesary to spark interest. I do think the idea of the Great Lessons- tying all the subjects of the curriculum together through these imaginative stories- is a good one. With my 8-year-old I try to select curriculum that follow this philosophy of giving the big picture and sparking interest to follow rabbit trails. We use The Story of the World and R.E.A.L. Science this way- I consider these extensions of the Great Lessons.
I did notice some Timeline of Life stuff in the Culture files of montessorimakers (I think) and here is another link with lots of printables and lesson plans:
http://www.fossils-facts-and-finds.com/index.html

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Andrea
GrayFamilyCircus
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Donna Marie
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Posted: June 07 2007 at 10:19am \| IP Logged

Have you seen this link? I know that some minor editing will have to happen with some resources in order to keep a Catholic perspective but that is easy to do. This is from Natural Structure:

"Is it any wonder that in our country where God has
been expelled from school, that the essence of
Montessori would be corrupted? Dr. Montessori believed
good would come of her work if the ORIGINAL PRINCIPLES
remained firm. Even in her lifetime, she was concerned
about the directions in which those who misinterpreted
her work in this country were taking her method. She
responded to the possibility of corruption of her
method by retiring into study and meditation. We must
do the same in order to implement her method well."

Sometimes you will find great things with New Age markers with them. They took something good...changed it. We as Catholics try to make all things good. ...Is that called re-cycling?

Please don't let that repel you from doing good here. We all need to be aware. Not all things labeled Montessori are true to her founding Catholic principles.

If you are a member of playschool6 I know there was a discussion about it a long time ago. There are Suzanne's adaptations ...and the Original First Great Lesson by Maria Montessori in the files here...

God love you,
Donna Marie from NJ
hs momma to 7dc

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God love you!
Donna Marie from NJ
hs momma to 9dc!!
Finding Elegant Simplicity

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