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 & Second Great Lessons, check these posts:
The Third Great Lesson is the Coming of Humans. On the first day, I will tell the story of the Coming of Humans 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 humans stories from other cultures. Here’s a quick outline of each day’s group lesson:
- Day 1: Tell the Third Great Lesson Story, respond, read Mammals Who Morph
- Day 2: Read Miss Barbara’s Third Great Lesson on Human Evolution
- Day 3: Compare and Contrast Humans with other Mammals
- Day 4: Fundamental Needs of Humans
- Day 5: Read a creation story — Raven the Creator
- Day 6: Read a creation story — Quiche part 3
- Day 7: Read a creation story — Yahweh the creator
- Day 8: Write own creation of humans 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 Third Great Lesson:
These are the books we’ll be using with the Second Great Lesson:
- The Story of Life: A First Book About Evolution, by Catherine Barr & Steve Williams
- Amazing Evolution: The Journey of Life, by Anna Claybourne
- Mammals Who Morph: The Universe Tells Our Evolution Story, by Jennifer Morgan
- The Four Corners of the Sky, by Steve Zeitlin
- In the Beginning: Creation Stories from Around the World, by Virginia Hamilton
Stay tuned for Great Lesson #4, or follow along in real time on Instagram!
