In our first month of Grade 1, we form a foundation for academic learning and cover ideas around personal responsibility, harnessing creativity, and placing learning at the heart of the human experience. Grade 1 is the transition between learning through play (thinking through doing) and learning through imaginative academic activities (thinking through feeling, on the way to developing analytical thinking processes).
 
The Wonder of Patterns is a funny name, but quite literally means that parents and their children will be telling stories of and with patterns and forms. What are patterns and forms? Patterns exist in everything in nature, and forms make up all the letters and numbers we use today. There is the straight line and the curved line and all the ways that these two friends interact. By exploring patterns and forms through imaginative pictures, families have a place to focus on routines and rhythms for home learning, expectations for school time in the home, such as where, when, and how. By focusing deeply on the patterns and forms, they also focus on the ‘form’ of posture, pencil grip, quality of work, and habits. 
 
Permission to slow down and enjoy the wonder…
To prepare to bring this unit, we ask parents to go out and get excited about the horizon! Have a look at what is around, notice landscape features, and the patterns and forms they create as they contrast with the sky. Imagine the line of the sun as it moves across the sky; see the shape of the wave as it meets the sand, the shape of the trees as they meet the sky, or reflect on the lake. 
 
Remember that you are in no rush. Remember that you have all that it takes to provide an enriching, holistic, warm, and loving environment for your child to grow into an innovative and creative thinker, a compassionate community member, and a passionate steward of the earth. Take a deep breath in, think about the ‘form’ you want for your home learning journey. Think about the details of the routines and habits that will support the healthy functioning of your ‘school at home.’ Think about your needs now so that you can be fully present for 1-2 hours of orchestrated joy and learning for your child(ren) for this day, and breathe out. Repeat as needed over coffee/tea, then start your morning lesson with a song/verse.

An exert from the Day 1 Daily Lesson: Ask your child to sit quietly and imagine a butterfly (any flying insect could work) resting on a branch. Describe the wings' color, the shape of the wings, the antenna, the shiny black body, etc. Tell a very short imaginative story of the butterfly’s journey to go and visit a friend – describe in detail the pattern of the flying in your telling; feel free to use your finger to show the pattern and orient it from your child’s left, horizontally, to their right. The pattern can have loops, points, or both – make it horizontal and a consistent pattern.
 
Sing your transition song or recite your verse and head outside.  Once outside, show your child any pattern you see, such as the trees’ pattern against the sky, the pattern of the edge of a leaf, the pattern of the top of the fence, the pattern of the edge of the apartment block, etc. Take turns finding and sharing patterns you notice, discuss patterns in detail, notice any similarities between patterns you find.

Return to your book-work space with the support of your transition song or verse. Turn to the first page in the book, show your child how to create a beautiful border around the outside edges of the page, about an inch thick.  Have them copy the word PATTERNS at the top of the page as a title, make sure the work is done mindfully as a set up for the quality you want to see moving forward. Under the title word, show your child how to lightly color in the sky with the side of a crayon (use golden yellow or blue), then bring in a brown tree branch from the side of the page, then build the shape of the butterfly wings and body. Your child can bring details to the wings as they wish. Finally, they can add some green to the branch around the butterfly.

Transition out of book-work with your song or verse and include an out-breath activity such as putting away materials and stretching the limbs. If your child needs more movement, take two minutes to do jumping jacks or something active, then come back to quiet for the ending story.

​This month Oliver and I are studying Geology with Daily Wonder Home Learning. This week we’ve been learning about the earth’s layers and decided to do an Earth layer diagram to scale.  We had fun (I think) figuring out the math to scale the earth down to fit on our page.  This is how we did it.
 
To calculate what each section of our drawing of the earth’s layers would be, we first needed to create a scale to figure out what 1km would be equivalent to.
 
For example, our paper size in our Learning Portfolio is 300mm (30cm) high and we knew we would need to leave about 30mm for a title.  So we wanted to draw a scaled drawing that was 270mm high.  
 
We used these measurements for each layer of the earth:
 
Inner Core: 1,250km
Outer Core: 2,200 km
Mantle: 2,900km
Continental Crust: 45km
Oceanic Crust: 10km
 
We added all these up and got 6,405km
 
Then we divided the total km by the total mm of space we had on our page: 270/6405 and got a measurement of 0.042mm
 
So our scale became:
1km : 0.042mm
 
And then to calculate each layer we took the actual km of each layer and multiplied by 0.042
 
Inner Core: 1,250 x 0.042 = 52.5mm
Outer Core: 2,200 x 0.042 = 92.4mm
Mantle: 2,900 x 0.042 = 121.8mm
Continental Crust: 45 x 0.042 = 1.89mm
Oceanic Crust: 10 x 0.042 = 0.42mm
 
And then we drew it.  We really liked this exercise, not only because it provided an amazing math lesson, but also because it put into perspective just how little of the earth we live on and how much earth is beneath our street.  

9:00am - Be the Pied Piper--play a song, sing a song... find your beautiful way to begin the morning lesson together

9:00am - 11am - Daily Wonder Morning Lesson

11 - 11:30am - Snack time/fresh air/free play

11:30am - 12:30pm - Options to rotate through on a weekly schedule and based on your home life and needs:

1. Outdoor hike, adventure
2. Painting-- free painting or guided
3. Beeswax, clay, play-dough modelling---can have them create things based on morning lesson or seasonal themes
4. Knitting
5. Music lesson/practice
6. Free drawing- crafting time--based on morning lesson or seasonal themes
7. Cooking/baking
8. House chores
9. Journal writing
10. Older students could catch up on morning lesson work

 
12:30pm - 1:30pm - Lunch time/ outdoor time

1:30pm - Options to rotate through on a weekly schedule and based on your home life and needs

1. Story time/ silent reading
2. Gardening
3. Woodwork
4. Building projects
5. House chores
6. Cook/bake

 
2:30pm - Chores/clean-up time

3pm - Free play

You got this!