Update: Here are instructions from Dick Blick to make relief rubbings.
I want more art in Brit Lit. Brass Rubbings date back to the thirteenth century. I want my kids to make rubbing plates. Here and here are my inspiration projects. Here are detailed instructions from the Monumental Brass Society if you can access brass inscriptions. We will try black and gold crayons. The traditional wax is heelball wax. You might try Faber-Castell Bees Wax crayons. Anything worth doing is worth over-doing.
I want to add more art to Brit Lit. Artistic kids are much more engaged when I add art to the curriculum. Let’s make Leaf Prints and Hammered Leaf prints. One of my goals is to add art and artists to Brit Lit. During the Victorian era, William Morris was famed for his leaf prints. Let’s add some art to make Brit Lit even more fun. I’m going to let my kids chose leaf prints, rubbings, or hammered art.
Do you need a few fun ideas? Good Will online has a listing for KiWi Co Drawbot kits. There are six identical kits. You could invite cousins for an afternoon—likely a good idea. Invite a cousin who can troubleshoot. I find kits like these indecipherable. My favorite kit is Edible Chemistry or Fizz Whiz and Jammin Jelly. I buy a kit for the tiny containers. The kids love to mix potions. (Hint: add sugar.). The chemicals are sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), citric acid, sodium alginate, calcium acetate, and magic crystals or red cabbage powder. I refill the tiny containers. Here is a combo of sodium alginate and calcium lactate. It’s hard to find food grade calcium acetate. The calcium lactate works equally well. Here is the type of red cabbage extract I use to refill the little bottles. My last suggestion is to build catapults. Set up targets in the basement. Gather supplies and invite the cousins for an afternoon of fun.
This Fall, my husband is teaching Algebra II and Personal Finance. Algebra II in particular has loads of calculator exercises. I plan to have a few for Biology, too. We’ll do some calculator exercises. We lend out calculators to our students. I just bought two more TI 83 graphing calculators from Good Will online to have on hand during classes. I paid $29.97 with shipping for two TI 83 plus calculators. My target price is under $15 each including shipping for calculators which work. My target price for a TI 84 calculator is $30–which is why I only have three. Good Will online has a number of listings. Don’t forget to check the shipping and handling fees, which vary widely among Good Will stores.
Let me share a vocabulary hack. At one time, I did SAT prep. I had kids buy a shower curtain from the Dollar store and write vocabulary terms on it which were unfamiliar. This can be useful for science vocabulary. Keep a composition book with terms and definitions. Write terms on to the shower curtain, especially words which might make good candidates for the SAT or ACT. My Brit Lit is doing this, too. The image is my sample for Brit Lit.
After Mass today, a group of us sat around and talked. My friend, Christine, shared photos of her sister’s new business painting custom chairs. This gave me the idea of painting objects and writing quotes from Literature, such as Shakespeare. Can’t you see a suitcase covered in quotes? I issued a challenge to the kids taking Brit Lit with Co-op this Fall to find a free chair, side table, frame, pallet, box, etc to paint. Below are inspiration images. (The second shot is from Anthropologie.). I cannot wait to see what the kids produce.
I’m teaching Brit Lit again this Fall to the local Co-op. I stumbled across Longman Classics. (Here is an article with different series of graded Basal readers.) The Longman Classics are easy to read and divided into four stages. Here is a short explanation. If I can finally dig up more background on Longman Classics, I’ll share it here. I’m loaning copies to kids with learning differences and encouraging them to start with the Longman Classic. This way the kids will have some background. The kids are free to listen to the audio book rather than read the novels, or read along as they listen. What is important is understanding and evaluating the story or play. We use every available tool to help kids succeed.
