Montessori Great Lessons Summer Camp — The Second Great Lesson

Since this is our last summer of homeschooling, I decided to go out with a BIG BANG [*wink wink*] — a Great Lessons Summer Camp! I put together 9 weeks of summer fun studying the 5 Montessori Great Lessons, and we’re loving it so far. I didn’t make any of these materials myself — just curated the contents from multiple sources I’ve found — and I’m sharing the whole camp plans and where to find the resources we’re using this summer. If you want to know what we did for the First Great Lesson, check this post:

Montessori Great Lessons Summer Camp — Intro + The First Great Lesson

The Second Great Lesson is the Coming of Life. On the first day, I will tell the story of the Coming of Life using this Great Lessons Pack along with a book. The girls will use a couple of pages from the pack to record their responses to it, then they will be free to choose shelf work. On the following days, we’ll read more books, do some sorting work, and compare creation of life stories from other cultures. Since we’ve already done a lot of plant and animal studies, we’re just doing a broad overview for our summer camp. Here’s a quick outline of each day’s group lesson:

Day 1: Tell the Second Great Lesson Story, respond, Read From Lava to Life
Day 2: Study the Eras
Day 3: Sort Living vs. Nonliving
Day 4: Sort Vertebrates vs. Invertebrates
Day 5: Field Trip to a local Natural History Museum
Day 6: Read a creation story — Quiche part 2
Day 7: Write own creation of life story

After each group lesson, the girls will be free to choose work from the shelves. We keep much of our usual work out, and add a few items to go along with the Second Great Lesson: