At the school, in the class referred to as thematics (history/science), the older elementary children are learning about the development of early man. The younger children are learning about prehistoric animals. Blaze goes with the younger kids to thematics about three times a week, while I help out with the older kids. I don't get to go into his class to see what he is doing during that time, but Blaze told me that yesterday they colored a picture of a Woolly Mammoth, except that he called it a "mountain-that-walks", because that's what the boy in our bedtime reading had called them.
It's much easier for our lessons at home to parallel the ones at school, so our bedtime reading this week has been Boy of the Painted Cave, by Justin Denzel.
Blaze has really been enjoying the story. It is about a boy, who has a strong desire to draw, even though his clan has strict rules about who may draw and he does not qualify. Blaze has pointed out to me, during our reading, that he also likes to draw. The boy is also treated badly because he has a crippled right foot, another reason why I think Blaze relates to him ( we have just been told this week that Blaze may, again, need to wear a brace [AFO] on this right foot).
The older elementary students at school have been gradually watching the 4-part BBC series Walking With Cavemen. I wanted to see it ahead of their lessons, so I would know what to expect, so Blaze and I watched that over the weekend. YouTube has the full episodes. They cannot be embedded onto a blog,because there is an advisory for brief nudity (Australopithecus did not wear clothes), but they can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/show/walkingwithcavemen
This site has a timeline of early human development for children, as well as links to other activities:
http://earlyhumans.mrdonn.org/
We did do some reading about prehistoric man before the Christmas break, so I don't want to spend too much time on this now. I would really like to get on to early civilizations.
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