Week 75: Everything's Built on Assumptions - Part 2 (Norms & Nobility - 10C)
June 3, 2025
In this edition:
🎉🥳 Off-Center Celebrations! 🥳🎉
🎤Podcast - The Grammar of Classical Education 🎤
📚☀️ Quick Classroom Reviews ☀️📚
💖💖 Amazing Blessings 💖💖
☕️ 🫖 Enjoying the Reali-tea ☕️ 🫖
🎉 🥳 Let’s Celebrate! 🥳 🎉
Off-Center Celebrations - 2025
June - Week 2 (June 8 - 14)
National Flag Week
The worksheet, You’re a Grand Ol’ Flag introduces students to some of the basic history and facts about the American flag. [2 worksheets – student version and key]
Help your students understand the symbolism of the flag with A Picture of America. This worksheet helps students see how the elements of the flag were carefully selected and allows them the opportunity to create a family flag by considering the elements and colors they will include. [1 worksheet]
Flag Etiquette addresses some of the key “rules” for handling and using the flag. This would be a wonderful opportunity to discuss these ideas and look for them in use / or being broken in everyday life.
It’s not very often that students would have the opportunity to fold an official American flag, but why not give them the chance to learn? On How to Fold an American Flag, the students will learn how to fold a flag, and can practice
with a printed (colored or black and white) flag. (Photos included for clarity.) [5 worksheets]
June - Week 1 (June 1 - 8)
National Garden Week
While you and your students probably have a good idea of what a garden actually is, take a moment with the worksheet, What is a Garden? Then have your students take their new found knowledge and design their own garden.[1 worksheet]
If you have a garden area near your school, co-op, or even your home, spend a little time this week sprucing it up. Break into groups and do a bit of weeding or even a bit of planting.
Spend some time looking at Good Things Said About Gardens with a collection of quotes that can be used for discussions or writing activities.
[6 worksheets]
Celebrate all of the beauty of flowers and gardens while learning about chromatogaphy in a science and craft combination with Color Chromatography. This simple and engaging activity comes complete with samples and pictures to guide you through this delightful and educational activity. [4 worksheets]
Allow your students (and even yourself) to have a little break and enjoy the Earth Laughs in Flowers coloring page. [1 worksheet]
☺️ Please jump over to Classroom Collective, where you can use the “password” you received with your subscription (on EVERY level) to access many freebies like the Off-Center Celebrations (daily in 2024 and weekly in 2025).
🎤 Podcast - The Grammar of Classical Education 🎤
After setting the stage with questions that need to be considered while embracing the classical model, last week we looked at the first eight assumptions that David Hicks made in Chapter 10 of Norms & Nobility. This week, we will finish up with his last eleven assumptions.
It was interesting - some of them really just seemed like “best practices,” which is an amazingly practical way of looking at “assumptions.” I hope as we conclude them this week, you will be both encouraged and challenged in how you bring learning to life in your classroom, co-op, or homeschool setting.
📚☀️ Quick Classroom Review ☀️📚
Circle Up!
Whether it's a quick review, an opportunity to retell a story, or just a chance to chat, an outdoor circle is a WONDERFUL break from four walls and stuffy air!
Items Needed:
Outdoor space
Preparation:
Questions - if you are doing a review
A story - if you are doing a group retelling
Students and something that they can sit on if so desired
Reviewing / Enjoying Nature: (this is the FUN part!)
Sit in a circle and get ready to review / retell / chat.
Review - anything will work, but here are some ideas:
Question Around - Ask every student a question, going around the circle.
Questions and Answers - Ask the student next to you a question; they answer, and then ask the person next to them a question.
Toss It! - (bring a ball) Ask a question - toss the ball - student who catches it answers the question - Teacher can ask the next question or student can ask a question and then toss the ball.
Retell - reviewing a story the class has been reading
Go around the circle with each person telling a sentence or two of the story.
Chat - enjoying time as a class or family
Discuss upcoming event(s)
Talk through any issues that may have come up
Brainstorm ways to do something, like apply a biblical principle or accomplish a task
Notes and Modifications:
Another option is to simply go outside and sit quietly and enjoy nature! ☺️
Homeschool Adaptations:
No adaptations necessary - get out there and enjoy!
🙏💖 Amazing Blessings 💖🙏
Join us as we begin our study of prayer, focusing specifically on the Lord’s Prayer. We’ll be looking at it as it was originally intended to be used - as a model for our prayers. Sadly it too often becomes merely something mindlesslly repeated, putting our brain in neutral while we say words without thought. Let’s seek to change that as we examine the elements of this prayer and how they can transform our prayer life in the twenty-first century.
Today we begin by looking at the context in which we find the Lord’s Prayer - as that helps us get a better picture of the whole, and will lay the framework for what prayer is supposed to (and not supposed to) look like.
☕️ 🫖 Enjoying the Real-i-TEA 🫖☕️
As you may know, my goal with Leading to Wonder is to strengthen and encourage teachers, whether in the classroom, at home, in person, or on Zoom. I want to meet you where you are and help you move toward becoming the best teacher you can be. To do this, I trust you will feel free to reach out via our Substack chats or by sending an email to Newsletter@LeadingtoWonder.com.
In the next couple of months, there will be a few live chats offered online to our Substack subscribers, and I would love to have you join us! Keep your eye out for information regarding these special times to discuss the real-i-TEA of teaching!
Let us seek to “bear one another’s burdens” and “encourage one another. . just as you are doing.” (Galatians 6:2 / I Thessalonians 5:11)1
Thank you so much for joining me at Leading to Wonder! I am honored that you have spent the time reading and possibly listening to my passion project. I do want to be as helpful as possible, so if you have any comments, suggestions, or questions, please use the button below, and I will try to address them in a timely fashion! Thank you again, and remember - “always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder!”2
English Standard Version Bible. (2001). ESV Online. https://www.esv.org
E.B. White