One month down, more to go! Some parts are going better than I planned, some not at all (we haven't even opened Story of the World this fall). I finally have all my Oak Meadow stuff - the kids' IST ordered new copies of the 2nd grade readers and books, along with a new copy of the Kindergarten Fairy Tales. Gorgeous books. I was nervous about the readers when I opened them - pages of text (albeit a larger font) with very few black-&-white illustrations, but guess what? The Elf loves them! He's reading Ben & Meg to me, just a page a day right now, then we'll aim for 2 pages a day, and so on from there.
So, let's see, what did we accomplish this week? Besides both kids having the sniffles and sore throats...
Language Arts
the Elf read several pages of the aforementioned reader to me. He worked on a couple of worksheet pages from his new anthology set: one exercise was rewriting simple sentences into longer sentences, which he surprisingly enjoyed. We read aloud from Oak Meadow's Animal Stories and the Elf drew a picture to go with a few sentences I wrote down for him, which he copied into his main lesson book.
the Fairy worked on reviewing the letters A, B & C. She colored the corresponding pages in her new Flower Fairy alphabet coloring book. We read a beautiful book by Anita Lobel, called Alison's Zinnia. She completed another 3 pages in HWOT.
Math
the Elf is continuing to work through MathSteps. We have finished unit 1, as of today, which was mainly review work regarding fact families. Good practice & review for him. The next unit is Place Value through 100. Agin, it's a lot of review, but I am trying to make sure he has a good solid base before we move onwards and upwards in math.
the Fairy has reached her target for month one, having finished lessons 1-8, front and back, in Saxon Math 1.
Social Studies
We are wrapping up our Australian studies today with Dreamtime paintings from Global Art. I have a stack of books on South Africa ready to go for Monday. So far, studying world cultures has been a HUGE hit here!
Science
The kids are working today to finish animal fact pages about Australian animals. Over the last four weeks, in addition to learning about oceans, we have learned a great deal about Australian animals, plants and terrain. I am dropping additional science studies I had originally planned, as so much science can be interwoven with our social studies instead. We did read the first chapter in RS4K Chemistry this week - Atoms - and next week we'll start Friday Nature Studies.
Other
the Elf is continuing his self-guided exploration of trains, airplanes, and cars with library books and videos. the Fairy has developed a passion for Shirley Temple movies!
And there's our week in review.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Our Nature Studies...
List of topics we plan to cover for nature studies. Many are from Oak Meadow, some of of my own design. We'll use a lot of the Let's Read & Find Out science series, and some good fiction as a supplement.
Fall Quarter
Insects - Bugs Are Insects; Supplemental: watch Microcosmos; Project: using paper cutouts or other insects, do a classification project OR collect bugs from the backyard, examine them, and then let them go
Crickets - Chirping Crickets; Supplemental: A Pocketful of Cricket, Grasshopper on the Road; Project: Cricket chirper
Caterpillars, Butterflies - From Caterpillar to Butterfly; Supplemental: Butterflies on Carmen Street, Where Butterflies Grow; Project: Butterfly Life Cycle Mobile
Bees - Honey in the Hive; Supplemental: The Queen with Bees in her Hair, The Bee Tree; Project: Beeswax candles and/or Fingerprint Painting Bees
Ants - Ant Cities; Supplemental: Two Bad Ants, The Little Red Ant & the Great Big Crumb; Project: Egg Carton Ants
Spiders - Spinning Spiders; Supplemental: The Spider and the Fly, Diary of a Spider; Project: Sticky Spider Web
Farm Animals/Seasons - Sunshine Makes the Seasons; Supplemental: Our Animal Friends at Maple Hill Farm, The Year at Maple Hill Farm Project: Wooden Farm Animals
Bats - Zipping, Zapping, Zooming Bats; Supplemental: Stellaluna, The Bat-Poet; Project: Origami Bats
Pumpkins - From Seed to Pumpkin; Supplemental: Apples and Pumpkins, Pumpkins - A Story for a Field; Project: Felt Pumpkins
Apples - How Do Apples Grow?; Supplemental: Johnny Appleseed, The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree; Project: Apple prints, apple printouts from Enchanted Learning
Leaf Changes - Why Do Leaves Change Color?; Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf; Leaf Man we ended up doing 2 weeks of leaf studies Leaf Man Craft, Pressed Leaves, Handprint Leaf Wreath (do this in autumn colors), salt dough leaf magnets
Winter Quarter
Bird Migration - How Do Birds Find Their Way?; Supplemental: Luck, The Journey: Stories of Migration; Project: Bird racers
Animal Tracks - Big Tracks, Little Tracks; Supplemental: Moose Tracks, Whose Footprint Is That?; Project: make animal track stamps using the potato stamp technique (here's a template for animal tracks), or find some tracks outside and do plaster-of-paris molds.
Animals during the Winter, Hibernation - Animals in Winter; Supplemental: Sleep Black Bear, Sleep, Don't Wake Up the Bear!; Project: (Toilet paper tube) cave with hibernating animal finger puppet
Weather - What Will the Weather Be?; Supplemental: Wild Weather Soup, On the Same Day in March; Project: Make your own "wild weather" soup (example: potatoes=hail, broth=rain, and so forth), or make a hand-illustrated book about different types of weather. Enchanted Learning has a lot of activity printouts too!
Wind - Feel the Wind; Supplemental: Willa & the Wind, Millicent & the Wind; Project: make a wind vane
Snow - Snow is Falling; Supplemental: Snow, The Snowy Day; Project: make a homemade snow globe, or ice hangings (we had fun making these, hanging them out first thing in the morning, and then watching them defrost).
Rain - Down Comes the Rain; Supplemental: Who Likes Rain?, Come On, Rain!; Project: Make a rain stick
Storms - Flash, Crash, Rumble & Roll; Supplemental: Thunder Cake, How the Cat Swallowed Thunder; Project: make Thunder Cake (recipe in book)
Water Cycle - Follow the Water; Supplemental: The Snowflake: A Water Cycle Story, A Drop of Water; Project: Craft water cycle bracelets; Recreate the water cycle in your own home, with a pan of water and a glass lid, so that kids can see the water evaporate, condense, and drop back down.
Geology - How Mountains Are Made; Supplemental: The Sun, the Wind, and the Rain, Mountain Dance; Project: make a mountain from sand; make a mountain scene similar to the one here though you don't need the fancy supplies
Rocks - Let's Go Rock Collecting; Supplemental: Everybody Needs a Rock, If You Find a Rock; Project: collect, sort and identify rocks from your local area (glue them to cardboard & label them); Collect small pebbles and fill a jar, then add water and a lid, or glue the pebbles to a picture frame.
Volcanoes - Volcanoes; Supplemental: Dear Katie, the Volcano is a Girl, Popoki's Incredible Adventures at the Volcano; Project: build a sandbox volcano!
Spring Quarter
Night/Day - What Makes Day & Night?; Supplemental: The Sound of Day, The Sound of Night; Project: Day & Night paper plate mobile
The Sun - The Sun, Our Nearest Star; Supplemental: Sun Bread ; Project: Make sun bread (see recipe in book) or make sun catchers
The Moon - The Moon Seems to Change; Supplemental: Catching the Moon; Project: Keep a moon chart for a month; make moon craters
Solar System - The Planets in Our Solar System; Supplemental: Babar Visits Another Planet; Project: Solar System coloring book or a solar system scavenger hunt
Stars - Shooting Stars; Supplemental: How the Stars Fell Into the Sky; Project: make a Magic Stars painting
More stars - The Big Dipper; Supplemental: Coyote Places the Stars; Project: Make a glitter galaxy or a Universe in a Jar
Life Cycle of a Seed - How a Seed Grows; Supplemental: The Apple Pip Princess; Project: make a seed mosaic
Trees - A Tree is a Plant; Supplemental: The Oak Inside the Acorn; Project: make a cotton ball tree
More Trees - Be a Friend to Trees; Supplemental: The Giving Tree; Project: make some leaf and bark rubbings
Bird Nests, Eggs - A Nest Full of Eggs; Supplemental: An Egg is Quiet; Project: make a paper plate bluebird nest
Baby birds, Chicks - Where Do Chicks Come From?; Supplemental: Egg to Bird; Project: make a baby chick collage or make eggshell mosaics
Frog Life Cycle - From Tadpole to Frog; Supplemental: Olly's Polliwogs; Project: make a paper bag frog puppet or try out the frog life cycle sequencing cards
Fall Quarter
Insects - Bugs Are Insects; Supplemental: watch Microcosmos; Project: using paper cutouts or other insects, do a classification project OR collect bugs from the backyard, examine them, and then let them go
Crickets - Chirping Crickets; Supplemental: A Pocketful of Cricket, Grasshopper on the Road; Project: Cricket chirper
Caterpillars, Butterflies - From Caterpillar to Butterfly; Supplemental: Butterflies on Carmen Street, Where Butterflies Grow; Project: Butterfly Life Cycle Mobile
Bees - Honey in the Hive; Supplemental: The Queen with Bees in her Hair, The Bee Tree; Project: Beeswax candles and/or Fingerprint Painting Bees
Ants - Ant Cities; Supplemental: Two Bad Ants, The Little Red Ant & the Great Big Crumb; Project: Egg Carton Ants
Spiders - Spinning Spiders; Supplemental: The Spider and the Fly, Diary of a Spider; Project: Sticky Spider Web
Farm Animals/Seasons - Sunshine Makes the Seasons; Supplemental: Our Animal Friends at Maple Hill Farm, The Year at Maple Hill Farm Project: Wooden Farm Animals
Bats - Zipping, Zapping, Zooming Bats; Supplemental: Stellaluna, The Bat-Poet; Project: Origami Bats
Pumpkins - From Seed to Pumpkin; Supplemental: Apples and Pumpkins, Pumpkins - A Story for a Field; Project: Felt Pumpkins
Apples - How Do Apples Grow?; Supplemental: Johnny Appleseed, The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree; Project: Apple prints, apple printouts from Enchanted Learning
Leaf Changes - Why Do Leaves Change Color?; Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf; Leaf Man we ended up doing 2 weeks of leaf studies Leaf Man Craft, Pressed Leaves, Handprint Leaf Wreath (do this in autumn colors), salt dough leaf magnets
Winter Quarter
Bird Migration - How Do Birds Find Their Way?; Supplemental: Luck, The Journey: Stories of Migration; Project: Bird racers
Animal Tracks - Big Tracks, Little Tracks; Supplemental: Moose Tracks, Whose Footprint Is That?; Project: make animal track stamps using the potato stamp technique (here's a template for animal tracks), or find some tracks outside and do plaster-of-paris molds.
Animals during the Winter, Hibernation - Animals in Winter; Supplemental: Sleep Black Bear, Sleep, Don't Wake Up the Bear!; Project: (Toilet paper tube) cave with hibernating animal finger puppet
Weather - What Will the Weather Be?; Supplemental: Wild Weather Soup, On the Same Day in March; Project: Make your own "wild weather" soup (example: potatoes=hail, broth=rain, and so forth), or make a hand-illustrated book about different types of weather. Enchanted Learning has a lot of activity printouts too!
Wind - Feel the Wind; Supplemental: Willa & the Wind, Millicent & the Wind; Project: make a wind vane
Snow - Snow is Falling; Supplemental: Snow, The Snowy Day; Project: make a homemade snow globe, or ice hangings (we had fun making these, hanging them out first thing in the morning, and then watching them defrost).
Rain - Down Comes the Rain; Supplemental: Who Likes Rain?, Come On, Rain!; Project: Make a rain stick
Storms - Flash, Crash, Rumble & Roll; Supplemental: Thunder Cake, How the Cat Swallowed Thunder; Project: make Thunder Cake (recipe in book)
Water Cycle - Follow the Water; Supplemental: The Snowflake: A Water Cycle Story, A Drop of Water; Project: Craft water cycle bracelets; Recreate the water cycle in your own home, with a pan of water and a glass lid, so that kids can see the water evaporate, condense, and drop back down.
Geology - How Mountains Are Made; Supplemental: The Sun, the Wind, and the Rain, Mountain Dance; Project: make a mountain from sand; make a mountain scene similar to the one here though you don't need the fancy supplies
Rocks - Let's Go Rock Collecting; Supplemental: Everybody Needs a Rock, If You Find a Rock; Project: collect, sort and identify rocks from your local area (glue them to cardboard & label them); Collect small pebbles and fill a jar, then add water and a lid, or glue the pebbles to a picture frame.
Volcanoes - Volcanoes; Supplemental: Dear Katie, the Volcano is a Girl, Popoki's Incredible Adventures at the Volcano; Project: build a sandbox volcano!
Spring Quarter
Night/Day - What Makes Day & Night?; Supplemental: The Sound of Day, The Sound of Night; Project: Day & Night paper plate mobile
The Sun - The Sun, Our Nearest Star; Supplemental: Sun Bread ; Project: Make sun bread (see recipe in book) or make sun catchers
The Moon - The Moon Seems to Change; Supplemental: Catching the Moon; Project: Keep a moon chart for a month; make moon craters
Solar System - The Planets in Our Solar System; Supplemental: Babar Visits Another Planet; Project: Solar System coloring book or a solar system scavenger hunt
Stars - Shooting Stars; Supplemental: How the Stars Fell Into the Sky; Project: make a Magic Stars painting
More stars - The Big Dipper; Supplemental: Coyote Places the Stars; Project: Make a glitter galaxy or a Universe in a Jar
Life Cycle of a Seed - How a Seed Grows; Supplemental: The Apple Pip Princess; Project: make a seed mosaic
Trees - A Tree is a Plant; Supplemental: The Oak Inside the Acorn; Project: make a cotton ball tree
More Trees - Be a Friend to Trees; Supplemental: The Giving Tree; Project: make some leaf and bark rubbings
Bird Nests, Eggs - A Nest Full of Eggs; Supplemental: An Egg is Quiet; Project: make a paper plate bluebird nest
Baby birds, Chicks - Where Do Chicks Come From?; Supplemental: Egg to Bird; Project: make a baby chick collage or make eggshell mosaics
Frog Life Cycle - From Tadpole to Frog; Supplemental: Olly's Polliwogs; Project: make a paper bag frog puppet or try out the frog life cycle sequencing cards
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Summer memories...
First day of ballet lessons
First day of art classes at charter school
Playing elves in the backyard
Love this smile! His teeth have come in since this (taken in June)
Petulant Elf Princess
Climbing rocks at the beach
My monkey girl (she climbs every rock she can, whether or not it is neccessary)
No, I didn't let her bring the seaweed home
Monday, September 22, 2008
A fresh week...
I keep thinking it's Tuesday, but no, it is Monday, and a fresh start to the week. This week, I have plans to wrap up our study of Australia. We have a rapidly diminishing pile of library books to go through, an Australian meal to cook, and an art project planned. Then, we are off to Africa for four weeks! After that, South America. So, sometime in middle of the next two months, we plan to take a field trip HERE - there we can visit the African wing, and an indoor rainforest, and much, much more. I am so glad it is opening back up soon!
Homeschooling is going pretty well these days. I constantly am adjusting, adding, subtracting, and changing things to better suit my children. I was intrigued by Nature's Way Learning's use of the Flower Fairy Alphabet book & coloring book, so I ordered them for the Fairy, who absolutely adores them. In science, we have become so interested in the flora, fauna and geology of the place we are "visiting" that the science I had planned has gone by the wayside. We have started RS4K Chemistry though, taking it in little by little, and I have been doing some of the Oak Meadow science topics with them, with plans to do more as we are always in the mood for nature-related work. We watch a fair amount of Bill Nye the Science Guy videos too. I have asked that the Elf start writing stories, maybe one a month, as a way to get him to write. I have a list of "story starters" from his IST from a year ago maybe, that I dug out to help him get going. I am researching math games as a good way to do some math without the workbooks.
We have been making weekly library trips, and the librarians are getting to know us as the family that always has the maximum number of items checked out. I let the kids pick two books and/or videos themselves each week. The Elf is all about Eyewitness books about trains and airplanes, while the Fairy loves just about any storybook, and recently, Shirley Temple movies. I put a lot of stuff on hold to minimize looking for things when we get there, and then while the kids play in the toy area and browse for books, I go through all the held items, usually checking out about three-quarters of them, as I hate getting home and finding that yes, I could have checked out those additional items if I hadn't gotten this or that uninteresting book. There was one recently, called something like Australia in Pictures, that had little sidebar pictures and a lot of small sized text - not what I was expecting or hoping for at all!
We're getting excited about fall here, our favorite season. The kids are discussing Halloween costumes, M and I have already talked about having a big Thanksgiving dinner here. We talk about the changing leaves, and are planning what the Elf calls "crunchy walks" when the leaves start falling. We have a big bowl of apples and pears on the kitchen counter. While it is still warm here (upper 70's to very low 80's), it is definately cooling and changing seasons. The air seems crisper somehow. I have finally arranged for the rototiller next weekend, and have bought seeds at work for many of the fall/winter veggies we have planned. Now, I just have to get them started and in the ground! Some will be directly planted (beets, carrots, leeks, etc.) and some I plan to plant as seedlings (broccoli for one).
I had better go start dinner (so thankful for crockpots).
Homeschooling is going pretty well these days. I constantly am adjusting, adding, subtracting, and changing things to better suit my children. I was intrigued by Nature's Way Learning's use of the Flower Fairy Alphabet book & coloring book, so I ordered them for the Fairy, who absolutely adores them. In science, we have become so interested in the flora, fauna and geology of the place we are "visiting" that the science I had planned has gone by the wayside. We have started RS4K Chemistry though, taking it in little by little, and I have been doing some of the Oak Meadow science topics with them, with plans to do more as we are always in the mood for nature-related work. We watch a fair amount of Bill Nye the Science Guy videos too. I have asked that the Elf start writing stories, maybe one a month, as a way to get him to write. I have a list of "story starters" from his IST from a year ago maybe, that I dug out to help him get going. I am researching math games as a good way to do some math without the workbooks.
We have been making weekly library trips, and the librarians are getting to know us as the family that always has the maximum number of items checked out. I let the kids pick two books and/or videos themselves each week. The Elf is all about Eyewitness books about trains and airplanes, while the Fairy loves just about any storybook, and recently, Shirley Temple movies. I put a lot of stuff on hold to minimize looking for things when we get there, and then while the kids play in the toy area and browse for books, I go through all the held items, usually checking out about three-quarters of them, as I hate getting home and finding that yes, I could have checked out those additional items if I hadn't gotten this or that uninteresting book. There was one recently, called something like Australia in Pictures, that had little sidebar pictures and a lot of small sized text - not what I was expecting or hoping for at all!
We're getting excited about fall here, our favorite season. The kids are discussing Halloween costumes, M and I have already talked about having a big Thanksgiving dinner here. We talk about the changing leaves, and are planning what the Elf calls "crunchy walks" when the leaves start falling. We have a big bowl of apples and pears on the kitchen counter. While it is still warm here (upper 70's to very low 80's), it is definately cooling and changing seasons. The air seems crisper somehow. I have finally arranged for the rototiller next weekend, and have bought seeds at work for many of the fall/winter veggies we have planned. Now, I just have to get them started and in the ground! Some will be directly planted (beets, carrots, leeks, etc.) and some I plan to plant as seedlings (broccoli for one).
I had better go start dinner (so thankful for crockpots).
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Drifting...
Yes, we're only in week 2 and already drifting away from lesson plans, schedules, and the like. Except for some phonics and math most days (in which we've already switched out some curricula), we seem to be almost unschooling. Oops!
We have been reading a lot about Australia. I had a huge number of books reserved at the library, from fiction to almost-travel guides... most of the fiction has gone over well, while the more dry books have been returned. We watched a neat video yesterday called Families From Australia, part of the Families of the World series (can't wait to see some more). We've been learning about the ocean and seashore too, but not with sit-down-and-fill-out-this-worksheet lessons. We've watched a few Bill Nye the Science Guy videos, flipped through some Eyewitness books. And we have had other learning going on as well - the Elf checked out an Eyewitness book on airplanes, and spent yesterday afternoon building one from cardboard scraps and tape - he has also filled nearly an entire sketchbook this week, with elaborate drawings of unique and futuristic cars. The Fairy has been learning nursery rhymes and, coincidentally, letter sounds. We also did a science experiment yesterday, from one of our videos - the egg in salty versus plain water experiment. The kids were delighted it worked! And then the Elf poured the super-salty water into a tray and took it in the backyard - he's going to track how many days it will take for the water to evaporate, leaving the salt behind. Since the weather has suddenly become much cooler, this may take more time than he thinks!
I say this is all unschooling, because it is at their request that we sit down and read, or watch a video. True though, I am piling up books on Australia and the Ocean all over the house, so I am influencing them! And I do require phonics and math to be done. Is there such a thing as guided unschooling?
We started our classes at the charter school yesterday - I feel that I should mention that these classes are only 90 minutes in length, more or less. The Elf is in a class of eight - first and second graders together, while the Fairy's kindergarten level class has 12 or 13 kids in it. Thankfully she knew a couple of them from the last few months of last year. I stayed with her in class, where we sang, made paper dolls (each kid made a paper doll of themselves to hang up), drew pictures, and played. At the "lunch" break, the Fairy was very glad to see a good friend of hers from last year, who is now in the 1st/2nd grade class.
The Elf is learning about art in his class, so yesterday they made color wheels. His best buddy from last year also returned to the classes, and I swear, it was like the two of them had never been apart! They made friends with a new boy too, but their two-way friendship seems very special. The Elf really enjoyed being in a class without kindergarteners this year, as it is now geared at a slightly higher level. I am a bit worried though ;) - he and his best buddy spent their entire "recess" chasing girls... Geez... Wednesday both kids will have Spanish and music (about 40 minutes for each class).
Tomorrow the Fairy starts ballet - she is very, very, very excited. She checked out a tape of Angelina Ballerina episodes from the library in preparation. She has her pretty blue leotard all laid out. She is convinced she will be a star! The Elf meanwhile is really enjoying fencing classes - this week will be his third. I am constantly amazed at how well he grasps the various postures, though I have to say that when it comes to actually engaging in "fighting", he gets nervous and completely unaggressive. The first week, he was very thrown off by warm-ups, where they essentially play dodgeball. Having never been to school, this was not something he was familiar with, so having balls thrown at him was very upsetting and he ended up sitting out that warm-up. We came home and practiced, and last week went much better - he even hit someone! Yes, I am thrilled that my son hit someone with a ball... what can I say?
Anyhow, I've got housework to do, and a couple of books to read for class, so off I go!
We have been reading a lot about Australia. I had a huge number of books reserved at the library, from fiction to almost-travel guides... most of the fiction has gone over well, while the more dry books have been returned. We watched a neat video yesterday called Families From Australia, part of the Families of the World series (can't wait to see some more). We've been learning about the ocean and seashore too, but not with sit-down-and-fill-out-this-worksheet lessons. We've watched a few Bill Nye the Science Guy videos, flipped through some Eyewitness books. And we have had other learning going on as well - the Elf checked out an Eyewitness book on airplanes, and spent yesterday afternoon building one from cardboard scraps and tape - he has also filled nearly an entire sketchbook this week, with elaborate drawings of unique and futuristic cars. The Fairy has been learning nursery rhymes and, coincidentally, letter sounds. We also did a science experiment yesterday, from one of our videos - the egg in salty versus plain water experiment. The kids were delighted it worked! And then the Elf poured the super-salty water into a tray and took it in the backyard - he's going to track how many days it will take for the water to evaporate, leaving the salt behind. Since the weather has suddenly become much cooler, this may take more time than he thinks!
I say this is all unschooling, because it is at their request that we sit down and read, or watch a video. True though, I am piling up books on Australia and the Ocean all over the house, so I am influencing them! And I do require phonics and math to be done. Is there such a thing as guided unschooling?
We started our classes at the charter school yesterday - I feel that I should mention that these classes are only 90 minutes in length, more or less. The Elf is in a class of eight - first and second graders together, while the Fairy's kindergarten level class has 12 or 13 kids in it. Thankfully she knew a couple of them from the last few months of last year. I stayed with her in class, where we sang, made paper dolls (each kid made a paper doll of themselves to hang up), drew pictures, and played. At the "lunch" break, the Fairy was very glad to see a good friend of hers from last year, who is now in the 1st/2nd grade class.
The Elf is learning about art in his class, so yesterday they made color wheels. His best buddy from last year also returned to the classes, and I swear, it was like the two of them had never been apart! They made friends with a new boy too, but their two-way friendship seems very special. The Elf really enjoyed being in a class without kindergarteners this year, as it is now geared at a slightly higher level. I am a bit worried though ;) - he and his best buddy spent their entire "recess" chasing girls... Geez... Wednesday both kids will have Spanish and music (about 40 minutes for each class).
Tomorrow the Fairy starts ballet - she is very, very, very excited. She checked out a tape of Angelina Ballerina episodes from the library in preparation. She has her pretty blue leotard all laid out. She is convinced she will be a star! The Elf meanwhile is really enjoying fencing classes - this week will be his third. I am constantly amazed at how well he grasps the various postures, though I have to say that when it comes to actually engaging in "fighting", he gets nervous and completely unaggressive. The first week, he was very thrown off by warm-ups, where they essentially play dodgeball. Having never been to school, this was not something he was familiar with, so having balls thrown at him was very upsetting and he ended up sitting out that warm-up. We came home and practiced, and last week went much better - he even hit someone! Yes, I am thrilled that my son hit someone with a ball... what can I say?
Anyhow, I've got housework to do, and a couple of books to read for class, so off I go!
Monday, September 8, 2008
Yaaay! I did it!
I managed to figure out just enough HTML to add a second sidebar. Please do let me know if you have issues with my blog, since I am not positive I did it all right!
More to come later....
More to come later....
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Our first day of our new school year...
Pics to come...
We started our 2008-09 academic year yesterday, and overall I think it went quite well. We started together, filling out the date on a calendar and marking a sun for the day's sunny weather. After that, I asked the Fairy to recite the days of the week, and the Elf recited months of the year. We read through our new poem (Sing a Song of Sixpence) and worked on memorizing the first verse. Then, the Elf did a page of copy work, in D'Nealian styling as a transition to next year's cursive, while the Fairy worked in Handwriting Without Tears.
After that, the Elf wandered off for his free time while I worked one-on-one with the Fairy in math and language arts. She did a page of Saxon Math 1, followed by listening to the Tale of Peter Rabbit. She drew a garden gate with a capitol letter "A" in her main lesson book (a blank book used in Oak Meadow), and did one side of a phonics worksheet on the letter "A".
We then switched - I set the Fairy up with Starfall, and brought the Elf into the livingroom for one-on-one lessons. He did a page of math, followed by a page of phonics (which I am starting to think we could get away with skipping this year), and then we read from "The Tale of the Jolly Robin". The Elf drew a picture of a robin in his main lesson book, complete with a tree branch to stand on and a juicy pink worm in it's beak. He wrote "Jolly Robin loved to eat angleworms." under the picture. He then completed the other side of his math page - a review on number families.
We then took a break, had a snack, and got started on our world travels. I showed them the earth (thank you Google Earth!), and where Australia is in relation to where we are. They colored a map and flag page while I read from our children's atlas and then from a book of children's stories - "Rona and the Moon", which is a tale from New Zealand about an angry woman who curses the moon and so is taken up into the sky, where you can see her when the moon is full (look for the rough outline of a woman holding two water gourds on the face of the moon).
And that was our first day! I did have a few grumbles from each child. And there was some dawdling over written work, but we got everything done that I had hoped for! Hopefully some of our library books will come in by this afternoon - I plan to stop there just in case on the way to my mom's house, where the children will spend the night, go swimming, and have a good time in general.
Today's plans include science (oceans/seashores); more math; finishing the letter "A" with the Fairy (we're going to draw a cabbage for the lowercase "a"); reading about Australia in the book Children from Australia to Zimbabwe; and a few other miscellaneous activities.
We started our 2008-09 academic year yesterday, and overall I think it went quite well. We started together, filling out the date on a calendar and marking a sun for the day's sunny weather. After that, I asked the Fairy to recite the days of the week, and the Elf recited months of the year. We read through our new poem (Sing a Song of Sixpence) and worked on memorizing the first verse. Then, the Elf did a page of copy work, in D'Nealian styling as a transition to next year's cursive, while the Fairy worked in Handwriting Without Tears.
After that, the Elf wandered off for his free time while I worked one-on-one with the Fairy in math and language arts. She did a page of Saxon Math 1, followed by listening to the Tale of Peter Rabbit. She drew a garden gate with a capitol letter "A" in her main lesson book (a blank book used in Oak Meadow), and did one side of a phonics worksheet on the letter "A".
We then switched - I set the Fairy up with Starfall, and brought the Elf into the livingroom for one-on-one lessons. He did a page of math, followed by a page of phonics (which I am starting to think we could get away with skipping this year), and then we read from "The Tale of the Jolly Robin". The Elf drew a picture of a robin in his main lesson book, complete with a tree branch to stand on and a juicy pink worm in it's beak. He wrote "Jolly Robin loved to eat angleworms." under the picture. He then completed the other side of his math page - a review on number families.
We then took a break, had a snack, and got started on our world travels. I showed them the earth (thank you Google Earth!), and where Australia is in relation to where we are. They colored a map and flag page while I read from our children's atlas and then from a book of children's stories - "Rona and the Moon", which is a tale from New Zealand about an angry woman who curses the moon and so is taken up into the sky, where you can see her when the moon is full (look for the rough outline of a woman holding two water gourds on the face of the moon).
And that was our first day! I did have a few grumbles from each child. And there was some dawdling over written work, but we got everything done that I had hoped for! Hopefully some of our library books will come in by this afternoon - I plan to stop there just in case on the way to my mom's house, where the children will spend the night, go swimming, and have a good time in general.
Today's plans include science (oceans/seashores); more math; finishing the letter "A" with the Fairy (we're going to draw a cabbage for the lowercase "a"); reading about Australia in the book Children from Australia to Zimbabwe; and a few other miscellaneous activities.