Welcome to the Great Depression Morning Time Session!
Click on the button above to download the entire PDF,
or download only the sections you want below.
Schedule
Recommended Books
Prayer & Scripture Memorization
For Bible reading, we will make suggestions for your morning time reading. However, if you’d prefer a more in depth schedule, we recommend checking out various plans that will help you read the Bible through.
For a one-year plan, we recommend YouVersion’s One Year Bible: https://www.bible.com/readingplans/60. You can also listen to it being read aloud on the app.
Download a two-year reading plan from the Gospel Coalition here:
https://media.thegospelcoalition.org/static-blogs/tgc/files/2010/12/TGC-Two-Year-Bible-ReadingPlan1.pdf
If you prefer to go even slower, Ambleside Online offers three, four, and five-year Bible reading
plans: https://www.amblesideonline.org/L/Lbiblesch.html
This session, we will learn Prayer for Truthfulness and focus on writing and
memorizing Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.
Artist Study
This session’s featured artist is Dorothea Lange. We’ve included six art selections for your kids and teens to use for picture study. They are:
- Migrant Mother
- Migrant Agricultural Worker’s Family
- Turpentine Worker’s Family
- Texas Tenant Farmer
- Migratory Children Living in Rambler’s Park
- Eighteen-Year-Old Mother from Oklahoma Now a California Migrant
Composer Study
Our featured composer is Jelly Roll Morton. We have included six of his pieces for your family to listen to. They are:
- Hesitation Blues
- Wolverine Blues
- Jungle Blues
- Spanish Swat
- The Crave
- The Finger Breaker
Listen to each piece below:
Hesitation Blues
Wolverine Blues
Jungle Blues
Spanish Swat
The Crave
The Finger Breaker
Hymn/Folk Song
Hymn
The hymn for this session is, “Blessed Assurance.” It was written and composed in 1873 by Fanny Crosby and Phoebe Knapp. The two women composed it together one day when Knapp was visiting Crosby. She played a melody on the piano, asking “What does this melody say to you?” to which Crosby replied, “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!”
The lyrics of this song expresses feelings of unshakable faith, trust, and assurance in God’s love and peace, speaking to our hearts with a reminder that we have been chosen for salvation: “This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long.”
Listen to the music and sing along with it below:
Blessed Assurance
Folk Song
Our folk song for this session is, “Arkansas Traveler,” an old American folk song dating back to the 1800s. Its origins and author are unknown- some credit it to Sandford C. Faulkner, who began performing a version around 1850, but many believe he may have simply performed his version of a song he had heard sung by others.
Regardless of where it came from, the tune has been well-loved by the American people for many years. Arkansas made it their official state song from 1949-1963, and in 1987, it was named a historic state song. There is even an award in Arkansas called “The Arkansas Traveler!” With it’s amusing lyrics and catchy tune, it is no wonder the legacy of Arkansas Traveler has lived on throughout the years!
Listen and sing along with it below:
The Arkansas Traveler
The Arkansas Traveler- Instrumental
Poetry
This session’s featured poet is Carl Sandburg. We’ve included six poetry selections (three from our featured poet, and three from various poets) for your kids and teens to read, listen to, memorize, and recite.
- The People, Yes
- Fog
- Hope is a Tattered Flag
- The Instinct of Hope
- To Hope
- “Hope” is the Thing With Feathers
For copywork, we have included Zaner-Bloser style handwriting sheets for primary, elementary, and cursive, as well as college ruled for older students. The poems we chose are:
- Hope is a Tattered Flag
- The Instinct of Hope
- To Hope
- “Hope” is the Thing With Feathers
Copywork
Tea Times
In this session we are giving you six recipes for our hospitality tea: Mock Apple Pie, Water Pie, Tomato Soup Spice Cake, Chocolate Wacky Cake, Bread Pudding, and a Butterless, Milkless, Eggless Cake.
We will also have a mythology tea, one storytime tea, a fable teatime, a fairy tale tea, and a music teatime:
Mythology Tea: A Wonder Book, “The Golden Touch” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Storytime Tea: A Little Princess, Chapters 8 & 9: “In the Attic” & “Melchisedec” by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Fairy Tale Tea: “Little Snow-White” by The Brothers Grimm
Fable Teatime: Aesop’s Fables, “The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse” by Aesop
Music Teatime: “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?”
Bonus: We love learning about The Great Depression from the wonderful videos on Ms. Clara’s YouTube channel. This meal is “The Poorman’s Meal.” You might enjoy trying this meal with your children, but even if you don’t choose to make this recipe, you will definitely love listening to Ms. Clara as she reminisces while she cooks.
Music Teatime: Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
Bonus- The Poorman’s Meal
Shakespeare
For our Shakespeare selection, we have chosen the Bard’s comedy, “The Merchant of Venice.” Read it from E. Nesbit’s Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare in the following pages. We also recommend reading the actual play together as a family if you can.
Your older kids and teens may enjoy watching a movie adaptation (please pre-screen these first). And if you can take in a live performance, your family will never forget it!
We are including a couple of pre-recorded options of The Merchant of Venice for you to choose from below. Please feel free to find another version that works best for your family.
- The 1996 movie (this would be my choice because I love so many of the actors).
- A 2017 production rehearsal.
The Merchant of Venice – 1996 Movie
The Merchant of Venice- 2017 Rehearsal
Nature Study
Each Friday morning, you will go through two of our nature cards. They are labeled in the upper right corner with the corresponding week. These are short, factual cards with images to help your child become familiar with objects in the natural world.
As you progress through our sessions, you may find it handy to keep your past nature cards in a binder for easy reference when your children come across a familiar object. These seeds you are planting will grow into a wonderful garden of knowledge for your children in years to come.
As you explore nature outside your home, watch and listen for newly discovered delights.
Handicraft
Times were hard during the Great Depression, but that made it all the more important to bring beauty and joy into the home. Many families had very little money, so only the basic necessities could be purchased. That didn’t stop them from using their ingenuity to decorate their homes, though. They simply used what they had on hand and made their own decor.
Decoupage was a simple and inexpensive way for people to do just that. They would take used glass bottles or jars, paper, and glue to create elegant and useful items for the home.
Gather some paper in your favorite colors and/or designs, and create something cool for your room!
Art Lesson
In this lesson, we are going to recreate “Red Hot Franks” by Leon Bibel in a collage.
Supplies needed:
- Watercolor paper (or canvas)
- Construction paper (or copy paper colored with watercolors)
- Paint pens or markers
- Paint brushes (watercolor, fine point)
- White Sharpie or gel pen
- Black marker or pen
- Scissors
History & Geography
In this session, we have included selections from Home Geography by C.C. Long for your family to read through, as well as a study on the history of the Great Depression.
If you have not done the previous lessons and wish to begin at the beginning of Home Geography, that is fine! Home Geography is geared toward elementary and early middle grade students. Geography for older students is done through their history and literature studies.
Solfa
Charlotte Mason incorporated solfa lessons twice a week for about 10 minutes each. These lessons are intended to be repeated and you can stay on any lesson for as long as you like. Here is the YouTube channel Lara and her boys enjoy and recommends for practicing solfa, Children of the Open Air:
Brush Drawing
Brush drawing builds motor and observation skills. We have included a link to videos by Bestowing the Brush below which are great for all ages to learn together:
