Fall has finally arrived here in the desert of Southern California! We thought it would never come. And then, suddenly it was cold in the house when we got up in the morning. Tomorrow morning we will have our first fire of the season in the fireplace – I LOVE FALL!
We love having our Gathering around the fire in the mornings. So we may have to move our Gathering for this season! This morning we had our first hot cocoa of the season during our Gathering. What a treat!
I am currently dreaming up ways of cozy-ing (cozy-fying?) our Gathering for the cooler weather. Blankets and coffee are a must for me. What do you do to make the season a bit cozier?
This month’s Gathering is one of my favorites from the entire year of Gathering placemats! Maybe it is the Reformation details that appeal to my church-history loving heart. Maybe it is the art – which is spectacular again! Whatever it is, we are already enjoying the blessing of this precious time together.
I truly hope these November Gathering placemats bless your family as they do mine. Whilst one of my kids was excited about Halloween and dress-up opportunities on the 31st of October; another of my kids realized it was one more day until we had new Gathering placemats!
The next morning my kids got up and excited about breakfast with the Gathering. We have been slowly reading through the Reformation section of Trials and Triumph rel: no follow – so John Calvin helped us to innagurate our November reformer study.
November Gathering Extras
Spotify Playlist
The hymn for this month is the star of our Gathering playlist. I love the version I found. It is a modern take on such a beautiful and L-O-N-G hymn. The verses included on the placemats are NOT the same as the ones in the first vocal version of “Jesus Shall Reign” by Isaac Watts, but there are a LOT of verses to choose from! Once my kids know the tune, they can work through verses as they like.
The instrumental version of “Jesus Shall Reign” gives my family the opportunity to sing along with the verses printed on the placemats. It works nicely with the instrumental version of “Simple Gifts” I threw in there for the harvest feel of the placemats.
Further Hymn Study
I have mentioned before my preference of Then Sings My Soul as a resource for more information about beloved hymns. It is once again a go-to. But this month I found a small resource by the hymn-writer himself, Isaac Watts which is worthy of some of my time. It is called “Divine and Moral Songs for Children.” I found a version on Scribd (my absolute favorite book/e-book resource) but you can also get it on Amazon. It is relatively short, only 51 pages on my phone, so should be easy to digest this month.
Mozart Resources
I came across this recommendation for a book about Mozart a bit late in our study of him, but I trust it will be a wise investment to have on hand. To be real with you, my kids have not enjoyed Mozart as much as I had thought they would. But there is hope. This month’s Mozart selections had one of my daughters dancing around the kitchen like a ballerina!
One More Music Resource
On the third placemat, you will find a harvest song with motions. To hear the song and familiarize yourself with the tune, please go to the Let’s Play Music website. She has all sorts of great harvest songs and activities! This song is a great way to get moving in the morning, especially if you have little ones in the house.
Other Resources for November Gathering
The opportunities to expand the on the moon phases memory work portion of the Gathering placemats are too many to note here. But if you are looking for one simple thing more, I love this activity from Happy Tot Shelf. Better than eating Oreos at breakfast, right? Alternately, you could encourage your kids to keep a moon journal for the month. With Daylight Savings Time making “dark” come earlier, kids can do it just before bed, making observations throughout the month. Which reminds me of a wonderful book for your Scribblers.
Shakespeare’s “Two Gentlemen of Verona” is the original love triangle/quadrangle romantic comedy. For this one, we enjoyed reading the Lambs’ version of this story. I wrote this past month about our approach to teaching Shakespeare around here. It is a good read if you are considering adding Shakespeare study to your homeschool day.
The Answers!
I made you wait for those answers, didn’t I? Here are the answers to the unanswered questions from our November Gathering placemats.
- Page 2: the song is Row, Row, Row Your Boat
- Page 4: Word Fun: these words and phrases are all palindromes – words or phrases that are written/read the same forwards and backwards.
- Page 4: Geography Drill: This is the Iberian Peninsula, comprised of Spain and Portugal. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea and the Strait of Gibraltar. By the way – this Peninsula was the center of world power during the Age of Exploration and Enlightenment, as referenced by the Treaty of Tordesillas (page 2).
As I have said countless times, I truly hope these Gathering Placemats are a blessing in your home. I hope they bring some small sliver of the riches available to us to show to your little ones. And I LOVE to hear back how they are working in your home! So, let me know!
