"...let him follow the adventures of a traveller..."
-CM, Vol 1: Home Education, p 275
Komroff's Marco Polo is such a great read. And it's one of those that my Year 3 budding-reader can begin to read parts for himself. I am striving this year to wean Royal into more independent reading. The free reading time I allot for him on a daily basis is sure-fire training ground for becoming a more confident reader! (See the Royal's Reads tab above for his running log). He is also not complaining as much anymore about getting tired when he reads for more than 10 minutes.
Royal is able to narrate quite well whether I read to him or he reads by himself. And I find it satisfying that while he reads independently, sometimes from the other room he yells out something interesting he has just come across. (self-directed narration maybe?) Sometimes he narrates orally. Other times, he incorporates a drawing. He loves drawing.
As this selection is in the Geography coursework, we also use it for studying the route of legendary Marco Polo's travels from Italy to Cathay (ancient China). As we read through the text, I underline in pencil new places mentioned. Afterwards, or another day, we get out a blank map I have printed from the Internet, and we search for these locations. Sometimes we use a giant picture atlas book; however, more often than not we end up having to research online, as many of the place names from Marco Polo's time are old names, which now have updated titles. (i.e. Persia is Iran; Kashgar is Kashi; Peking is Beijing)
Since we have now entered into reading Polo's travels across China, I printed a map of China only. For this portion of mapping, I had him trace the outline of the country himself. He really enjoyed this and decided to go ahead and add the surrounding countries as well!
"...a sketch-map following the traveller's progress..."
-CM, Vol 1: Home Education, p 275
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| (Oh, and he was inspired to sketch a compass below to make it more official.) |
"...geography should be learned chiefly from maps..."
-CM, Vol 1: Home Education, p 278
Another inspiring post, Kristyn. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI love your book holders!! Can you share where them came from pretty please?
Oh, thanks Dawn!
DeleteWell the book holder is actually a Pampered Chef product. It is bamboo. I love it :-)
Aaahhh...now I remember you mentioning that on a previous post. Just might have to get myself one. Thanks again, Kristyn.
DeletePS - My boys have each made two birthday cards based on what we found here on your blog. I must say that they and I are loving this handicraft.
oh so glad! Those cards are super, aren't they?!?
DeleteYes, you should look into that book holder. It really is multi-functional too. We use it to prop up the iPad, display books for copywork, etc. and also for exhibiting our artist's painting for the week :-)
I loved Marco Polo as well :) You are doing a better job than I did at actually getting map work done! We just checked the world map each week. I ought to do better, I WILL do better when we do Minn this year ;)
ReplyDeleteThank you, Laura :-) ... I am really trying to work on being more diligent with these wonderful extra tools (little by little).
DeleteI love how you tied in map work. When my kids were that age, I neglected notebooking and I wish Laurie Bestvater's book had existed back then.
ReplyDelete