Saturday, October 11, 2008 - Week 9

Bible:

• The Lord speaks to Job
• Job is blessed after trial
• Israel in slavery
• Moses is born
• Moses flees to Midian

I have to say that Moses as a baby is one of my favorite Biblical accounts.  We know as mothers that we would do anything for our children, even let some one else take care of them.  Jochebed was blessed with not only the protection of Pharaoh's daughter but she was able to continue caring for her baby and was paid for it.  I always wonder if maybe Moses still had a relationship with his family after he went to the palace.

Memory:

• Mathew 6:24a No man can serve two masters...
• reviewed Genesis-Song of Solomon.  I have flash cards that have the name of each book of the Bible.  We set them all out as we were saying our books.  Then I mixed them up, got out the beloved stop watch and timed him putting them in order.  His first time was 3:45 on Monday.  On Friday it was 1:48.  Big improvement.  Then of course he wanted to time me.  My time was 0:47, plus I did it upside down.  LOL

Phonics/Reading:  We finished working on short vowels in our Handbook for Reading.  Then we caught up with our reading book Fun with Pets to where the long vowels started.  He, for some reason is really looking forward to doing long vowels.

Math:

• Counting by 2's, 5's and 10's
• Addition and subtraction up to and from 20.
• Borrowing in subtraction
• Making change
• Doubles
• Adding three numbers
• Word numbers

Literature:

• Pilgrim's Progress"Patience and Passion, Fire on the Wall, Valiant Man"  Cameron continues to amaze me with his narrations in Pilgrim's Progress

History Lit:

• The Little Duke - ch 4b and 5a  The story is starting to get exciting with the arrival of King Louis of France.  The Normans were defending their little Duke and it there was a lot of action going on.
• An Island Story - ch 28 and 29.  Chapter 28, "The Story of White Ship" where there is a terrible boat wreck with the Prince aboard and much life was lost.  Chapter 29, "The Story of King Stephen" where a nephew of William the Conqueror takes the throne instead of letting a woman take the throne.
• Child's History of the World - ch51 "Knights and Days of Chivalry"  A very interesting chapter where I learned the difference between a page and a squire and their relationship to being a knight. 

Geography Lit:

• Tree in the Trail - ch 15 "The Old Tree Dies" and 16 "A Kansas Twister"  The tree finally dies and a twister uproots it.

Nature Lit:

• Burgess's Animal Book - ch 17 and 18.  Pine mouse, red-backed mouse, Roufous tree mouse, rock mouse, beach mouse, silky and spiny pocket mice, grashopper mouse, harvest mouse and house mouse (Which is not native to this country.  Did you know that?)

Additional Reading:

• Five Little Peppers and How They Grew.  It is a little better since I stopped trying to read their "accents."  The family is coming down with the "squeezles" as one child put it. (AKA the measles)

Church History:

• Trial and Triumph - ch 10 "Charlemagne Protector of the Church"

Poetry by de la Mare

• The Song of Finis
• November
• The Scribe
• The Universe

Copy work:

• Memory Verse
• "Jesus! what a Friend for sinners! / Jesus! Lover of my soul; / Friends may fail me, foes assail me, / He, my Savoir, makes me whole." (Our Great Savoir)
• "Then I perceive it is not best to covet things that are now, but to wait for tings to come." (Pilgrim's Progress)
• "It is much better to see a thing than merely to be told about it, and now you have a chance to see for yourselves the differences..." (Burgess Animal Book)
• "...to do and to be certain things. / To be brave and good / To fight for the Christian religion / To protect the weak / To honor women / These were his vows." (Children's History of the World - ch 51)

Spanish: chair, table, bed, box, couch, book, pen, lamp, candy, money, coffee, food, is on, are on, are at, are in, is in, I am

Artist/Composer:

• Botticelli's A Young Man being Introduced to the Liberal Arts
• Bach's Brandenburg Concerto no 6

Hymn/Folk:  Continued working on "Our Great Savoir" and "The Star-Spangled Banner"

Nature Study: Still to be done on Sunday

Handicraft/Life skills:

• Walnut hulling - Helped to take off the hulls for walnuts.  We had to sort through to find the nuts in their shells and figure out good nuts and bad nuts.
• Lowe's kid's project

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Saturday, October 4, 2008 - Week 8

This was a short week because of our field trip and some other factors, so we only did three days of actual school  But it is easy to make up.  I had already been planning on a short week due to our field trip to Phipp's Conservatory.

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Friday, September 26, 2008 - Week 7

Bible: It was a short week with two days of review, but there was a LOT of reading.

• Joseph tests his brothers
• Joseph reveals himself to his brothers.
• Jacob moves to Egypt
• Jacob and Joseph die

Memory:

• Matthew 7:12 ...whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them... (rough verse.  Still struggling with the first three words.)
• added Psalms and Proverbs to our OT list

Phonics/Reading:  We are almost done working through the short vowels.  His fluency is getting much better.  We are both happy with his progress

Math:

• Making and copying patterns
• addition and subtract to/from 20
• number words to twenty

Literature:

• Understood Betsy "What Grade is Betsy?" in which we hear about Betsy first day at the new school.   She is confused because although she was in 3rd grade she was moved in with the 7th graders for reading but needed more help in math so was moved to 2nd grade in math.  This was a new concept for her.  "If You Don't Like Conversation in a Book Skip This Chapter!"  This title made both Cameron and me giggle.  There was a lot of conversation.  Betsy gets to tell all about her first day of school.
• Pilgrim's Progress: "Goodwill"  Christian finally makes it to the wicket gate and goes in.  He learns about some of the attacks of Satan.
• Tales from Shakespeare by Lamb "Romeo and Juliet"  We both thought it was very stupid for people to kill themselves, for any reason and especially because you're "in love."

History Lit:

• An Island Story ch 27 "The Story of William the Red"  The son of the Conquorer becomes king of Englad.  He was very mean and very wicked
• Child's History of the World ch 50 "Real Castles"  We got some books about castles out of the library to look at and study further.

Geography Lit:

• Tree in the Trail ch 11 "Jed and Buck" where two scouts in a wagon trail go in search of food and get caught in a buffalo stampeed.  We also learned about flintlock riffles.  Chapter 12 "The Race for Life"  where Jed and Buck are chased by Indians.  They race towards the butte where our favorite tree abides and then wonder why the Indians back off after they reach the "Tree of Peace"

Nature Lit:

• Burgess Animal Book ch 13 about the muskrat and brown rat.

Poetry by de la Mare:

• The Song of the Secret
• The Song of the Soldiers
• The Bees' Song
• Song of Enchantment
• Dream Song

Free Reads:

• We finished Mary Poppins by P. L. Travers.  We also watched Disney's Marry Poppins.  One of my very favorites and Cameron enjoyed it as much as I did.  But it was funny to me after reading the book how much was actually in there from the book.

Copywork:

• Memory verse
• Hear Him, ye deaf; His praise, ye dumb, Your loosened tongues employ; Ye blind, behold your Savior come; And leap, ye lame, for joy.  ~Charles Wesley
• Sometimes they built tunnels from the outside right under the ground, under the moat, and under the castle walls into the castle itself. (Child's History of the World ch 50)
• ...they are crooked and wide: but thus mayest distinguish the right from the wrong, the right only being straight and narrow. (Pilgrim's Progress)

Spanish: We went over numbers 0-20, dog, towel, cake, candle, police officer, student, doctor, bus driver, bus, mechanic, nurse, mail man, teacher, secretary, chef, scientist, and manager.

Artist/Composer:

• We viewed a portion of "The Birth of Venus" by Botticelli. 
• We are to listen to a church Cantata from Bach and as I was searching through music I found one of my favorite classic songs, "Jesu Joy of Man's Desire"

Hymn/Folk:

• We worked on a second verse for our Hymn
• Continued playing "The Drinking Gourd"

Nature:

• In depth observations of Monarch butterfly
• In depth observations of the chrysalis

Handicraft:  We painted Cameron's pinewood derby car.

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Saturday, September 20, 2008 - Week 6

I can't believe we finished week six already!  We are half-way done with our first term.

Bible:

• Jacob marries Leah and Rachel
• Sons of Jacob
• Jacob's name is changed to Israel
• Joseph's brothers sell him into slavery (Acted out)
• Jospeh at Potiphar's home
• Joseph imprisoned, Joseph made ruler (Cameron had a GREAT narration for this. He remembered everyone's dreams and what the interpretation of them)
• Made a family tree (boy it gets crazy with more than one wife)

Memory:

• John 8:29b ...for I do always those things that please him
• added Esther and Job to Old Testament list

Phonics/Reading:  We are still working well every day with blends and our reading handbook.  This week we started reading from Fun with Pets, the A Beka reader that goes along with our handbook.  He read the second story very well.  Still a little slow but with very noticable improvement.

Math:

• Addition and Subtraction up to/from 10.  Worksheets made at this great site:  WorksheetWorks.com
• Finding the difference between two numbers.  He knows how to subtract but this concept took a little bit to grasp. (Even though they are the same thing, just said a little different)
• 3-D shapes: sphere, cone, pyramid, cylinder, cube and cuboid

Literature:

• Understood Betsy "A Short Morning" in which Betsy gets her own breakfast for the very first time and learns how to make butter.  "Betsy Goes to School" in which Betsy is sent of for her first day of school, by herself.  Cameron is really enjoying this book and usually doesn't want me to stop.
• Pilgrim's Progress "Sinai and Evangelist"  Christian has turned away from heading to the cross to rid himself of his burdens.  Evangelist helps him to see that there is only one way to do this and there are no "short cuts" or "half-way" ways of doing this.  I am amazed at how much Cameron is picking up from this.  He also seems to be enjoying this book so far, even if I do stumble along reading it at times.  I hope I find my "reading groove" for this book soon. 

History Lit:

• The Little Duke sencond half of chapter 3.  Richard is crowned Duke
• An Island Story Ch 26.  William the Conqueror - Death of a King.  We learned of a few wise laws that William installed.  The most fascinating for me was his fire law.  All the fires had to be put out by 8 o'clock to help prevent fires breaking out.

"By this wise law William made the danger of fires much less. Every night at eight o'clock a bell was rung. This bell was called 'the curfew,' from the French words 'couvre feu' which means 'cover fire.' "

Geography Lit:

• Tree in the Trail chapters 9 "Trappers Cross the Plains" and 10 "Wheels Turn on the Sante Fe Trail".

Nature Lit:

• Burgess Anmial Book ch 11 about the porcupine and ch 12 about the beaver.  This is one of Cameron's favorite subjects. 

Poetry of de la Mare:

• Silver
• Nobody Know
• Wanderes
• Many a Mickle
• Will Ever?

Free Reading:

• Mary Poppins.  We should finish with this book sometime next week. 
• We finished Abraham Lincoln by Ingri D'Aulaire 
• We finished The Drinking Gourd by F. N. Monjo.  Cameron really liked both this book and Abraham Lincoln.  I thought it was neat that we happened to be reading about the Underground Railroad and about the man that signed the Emacipation Proclomation.  Great timing.

Copywork:

• Memory verse
• The glories of my God and King The triumphs of His grace. ~ Charles Wesley
• So on New Years Day in 1863 Lincoln solemnly signed a paper that made the slaves free forever.  It was called the Emancipation Proclamation. (Abraham Lincoln)
• Norman and Englishmen lived side by side, yet a wide sea of hatred kept them apart. (And Island Story)
• "You aren't any grade at all, no matter where you are in school.  You're just yourself, aren't you?  What difference does it make what grade you're in?" (Understood Betsy ch 5)

Spanish: We reveiwed words that we've gone over so far and also started working on plural of the words we have learned thus far.  My Mom, who is also using LiveMocha, showed us how to use their flashcard feature and helped Cameron learn how to say orange, naranjado.  She helped me too.  Thanks Mom.

Artist/Composer:

• We viewed Botticelli's Madona of the Magnificat.  We are still learning how to do picture studies so we both "narrate" the picture after looking at it for a few moments.  I let him go first and then tell him what I saw.  I thought this picture was interesting because it seems that the Baby Jesus' hand is on Mary's as she is writing down what I assume is the Magnificat and can be found in Luke.  An interesting picture of God's inspired words. We also talked of how the Catholics view Mary as the Queen of Heaven and Mary was being crowned in this picture.  Her clothes were rich and royal looking and if you looked closely you could see part of what looked like a throne.
• We listned to several renditions of Bach's "Chaconne" which is a very lovely and at times lively piece written for the violin.  My did their fingers fly!

Hymn/Folk:  Cameron goes around the house humming both "Oh For a Thousand Tongues to Sing" as well as "Follow the Drinking Gourd."  He must like this months selection.  LOL

Nature Study:  We are still enjoying the different stages of our Monarchs.  Right now, we have three chrysalli.  One is visibly larger than the other two and we are making predictions on if this has something to do with the sex of the butterfly.  Cameron has worked on a very nice life cycle page in his nature journal.

Handicraft:  Our church participates in a Pinewood Derby.  Each child is given a block of pine and  they are to fashion a vehicle to race.  Rod, my mother's husband helped Cameron this week with his car. Although Rod said that Cameron was more interested in sweeping up sawdust than working on his car. 

Science:  Dad ordered some steaks in the mail.  They ship it with dry ice!  So, of course, I googled what we could do with it.  We really enjoyed this and will probably do some more with it if the dry ice lasts until Monday.

• We made it "scream" by holding it in metal tonges and by pressing a metal spoon on it.
• We placed some in a coffee cup and poured water on it to make some great smoke effects.  Then we added some handsoap to this concoction and watched as it made a bubble tower.
• We placed some into a balloon and tied it off to watch the balloon inflate.  (I just thought that we should put some in a bottle and then put the balloon over the mouth of the bottle.  This may work better because I was having problems getting small enough pieces to get into the mouth of the funnel.)

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Saturday, September 13, 2008 - Week 5

Bible:

• Sodom and Gomorah
• Isaac is born
• Abraham offers Isaac
• Rebekah, a bride for Isaac
• Jacob and Esau
• Jacob deceives Isaac for the blessing
• Jacob runs away and has a dream

Memory:

• Ephesians 5:2a And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us...
• added Ezra and Nehemiah to our OT list
• Pledge to the flag
• Pledge to the Bible

Phonics/Reading: There is nothing new to report.  Things are still going along very well.  We had at least one day where he got caught in a frustration rut but only one.  We review the sound chart every day and also work on blends before we review the words that were on the last page we worked on and then we move on to the next page.  We may finish this book yet this year!

Math:

• Addition and subtraction up to 20
• Finding the missing number in addition and subtraction up to 20
• Number words: ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, one hundred
• Odd and even numbers
• 2 multiplications up to 10
• 10 multiplications up to 10
• Shapes: pentagon, hexagon and octagon

History:

• This Country of Ours Ch 1 "How the Vikings of Old Sought and Found New Lands"
• An Island Story Ch 25 "William the Conqueror - The Story of Hereward the Wake"

Geography:

• Tree in the Trail Ch 7 "The Talking-Tree" and Ch 8 "The Thunderbird Speaks"

Nature:

• Burgess Animal Book Ch 9 and 10: pika, mountain beaver, and pocket gopher

Literature:

• Pilgrim's Progress:  "Slough of Despond and Help"  and "Mr. Worldly Wiseman"
• Understood Betsy:  "Betsy Hold the Reins"
• Missionary Stories with the Millers: "Jim Elliot and the Acua Indians" 

Poetry of Walter de la Mare:

• "Five Eyes"
• "Summer Evening"
• "Earth Folk"
• "The Ruin"
• "The Trees"

"Five Eyes" was our favorite poem this week.  It is about 3 cats that are catching mice at the mill.  It talked about five eyes watching and Cameron said, "But there are three cats.  That would be 6 eyes not 5.  Maybe one is missing one?"  And that is exactly what it was.  One cat was missing an eye.  The poem made us giggle.

Free Reads we are working on:

• Mary Poppins  She is kind of mean.  Very vain and very snippy with the children.  Nothing like Julie Andrews!  But, we had a few interesting things as we were reading.  In the chapter about the Birdwoman they were talking about a bird not being like Jenny Wren.  We know who Jenny Wren is from last year and reading Burgess's Bird Book.  We both looked at each other and smiled.  Then yesterday, one of the ladies said she remembered when William the Conquorer said something. (She was supposed to be very old)  Cameron piped up, "We know him!  We just read about him this week!"  I love connections like that.  What fun!
• Abraham Lincoln  A friend of mine found a few d'Aulaire books at a library sale for me.  We were so excited because this was one of our free reads for the year.
• The Drinking Gourd by F. N. Monjo  "Follow the Drinking Gourd" is our folk song for the month and we found this book at the library that uses this song.  The drinking gourd refers to the big dipper and it was a sort of "map" or "direction" for the underground railroad. 

Copywork:

• Memory verse
• "Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing My great redeemer's praise."  by Charles Wesley
• "He went home to his wife, and said: "Mary, we are elected."  And Mary rejoiced."  (Abraham Lincoln)

Spanish: We worked with words the car, the coin, the wallet, the purse, the house, the door, the building, the truck, the flower, the tree, gold, silver, yellow, black, white, brown, red, green, orange, purple, AND blue

Nature:  We still have caterpillars and chrysallises and butterflies emerging.  This week we had a chrysallis that we weren't sure would even hatch because it was weird looking.  But it did emerge and we got the whole thing on video.  But because the chyrsallis wasn't properly formed, her one wing wasn't fully developed.  She wasn't able to fly so we euthenized her for our collection of other dead things that we have.              

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Friday, September 5, 2008 - Week 4

Bible:

• Lot is captured and Abram rescues him
• God's covenant with Abraham
• Hagar and Ishmael
• Abraham "bargains" wtih God
• Continued marking our map
• Bible drills

Memory:

• Matthew 22:39b Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
• added 1&2 Kings and 1&2 Chronicles to OT list.

Phonics/Reading:  Still progressing well.  We had a day or two where we had to resort to physical activity to break into his frustration.

Math:

• Using a number line to add and subtract up to 20
• size sequences.
• filling in missing numbers in addition and subtraction problems
• Finding different ways to get one answer.  (ex: 4+1=5, 9-4=5, 6-1=5, 2+3=5)

Literature:

• Understood Betsy chapter 1.  What a long chapter.  But so far we are really enjoying this book.  Cameron picked up on the fact that it was the adult that was making the little girl nervous and sick.

History:

• And island Story chapter 24.  Cameron is starting to get into these stories.  He really felt bad for King Harold who fought so bravely for England
• Child's History of the World chapter 49 "The End of the World" 
• The Little Duke second half of chapter 2.  The little duke's father dies.

Geography:

• Tree in the Trail chapter 5 and 6  Different groups of people use the tree for messages.  We also looked at rings on tree to show its age.

Nature:

• Burgess Animal Book chapter 6, 7 and 8. Chimpmunk, spermophile, flying squirrel, woodchuck, hoary marmot, and prairie dogs.

Poetry of de la Mare

• King David
• The Old House
• Unstooping
• All But Blind
• Nicholas Nye

Copywork:

• "The tree was changing and so was life on the Great Plains." (The tree in the Trail chapter 5)
• "He guarded it well while he lived.  Let him guard it in death."  (And Island Story chapter 24 "The Batle of Hastings")
• Memory verse

Spanish:  We found a great online program that we are both enjoying very much at LiveMocha.  Cameron is doing very well and actually making sentences in Spanish and reading Spanish words.  This week we worked with words: man, woman, boy, girl, I am, you are, tall, short fat thin, young, old, rich, poor, she, he, and not.

Artist/Composer:  It was our last week with "Magnificat."  I have a confession to make.  I forgot to do our picture study this wekk.  Oops.  Maybe we'll do it twice next week.  It does only take about 5 minutes anyway.

Hymn/Folk songs:

• "O For A Thousand Tongues" by Charles Wesley. Did you know that there is 18 verses?!  We probably only go over a few verses.
• "The Drinking Gourd"

Nature Study:

• Canfield Fair
• Caterpillars GALORE.  We have more Monarchs.  Another emerged.  We found a white caterpillar that made a cacoon this week.  And we are also watching some imperial moth caterpillars.

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Friday, August 29, 2008 - Week 3

This week was kind of short.  We were so jam packed with other things going on that there were two days that we actually didn't get to any type of formal schooling.  But we did have some great life lessons going on about service and hard work.  I like that we can be flexible.

Bible:

• God calls Abram
• Abram and Sarai visit Egypt, and lie
• Lot and Abram part ways
• We began marking a map of Abram's journey's
• Bible drills.  Cameron loves, Loves, LOVES to be timed.  He even has his own personal stop watch that he will time himelf on just about everything.  So he was really excited to time himself looking up some simple Bible passages.  I thought this will give him good practice for when they do Bible drills at church and hopefully build up his confidence.  He even timed me once and I was glad that it didn't discourage him how fast I was.  He realised with much practice, he too can be fast as lighting. 

Memory:

• Matthew 5:41 And whosoever shall compel the to go a mile, go with him twain.
• added Ruth and 1 & 2 Samuel to his OT list.  This is something else they are learning in children's church. 

Phonics/Reading:  Again, another wonderful, wonderful week of phonics.  Much of this is review but it is going much more smoothly.  He actually choses "his" reading when given a choice.   I'm so pleased with our progress.

Math:

• worked with an analog clock;  learned that half-past is the same as :30
• adding to 10; subtracting up to 10
• filling in the missing number in addition and subraction problems
• introduced word numbers for eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and twenty

Literature:

• Pilgrim's Progress: "Obstinate & Pliable"  Cameron gave a GREAT narration for this, remembering details from previous readings.  The book that we are using has so much extra resources and tools.  At the end of each chapter, it has a list of words to know.  So we read over those words first and then he was to listen for them and see if he could remember what they meant.
• We finally got our copy of Understood Betsy from the library but haven't finished with chapter 1 yet.  We will just keep reading a little bit every day until we are caught up.

History:

• The Little Duke: first half of chapter 2.  Richard, the little Duke's father dies. 

Geography:

• Tree in the Trail: chapter 4.  The idians cut up the buffalos from their hunt and prepare the meat

Nature:

• Burgess Animal Book: Chapter 4 and 5 (one of the books we are slightly behind on) --> Red squirrel,  gray squirrel, fox squirrel and Kaibab squirrel, and abert squirrel

Poetry of Walter de la Mare

• A Widow's Weeds
• The Little Green Orchard

Artist/Composer:

• Week three of "Magnificat" by Bach.  Cameron is not overly enthused with the whole song.  We both love the first peppy part though.
• Picture study was a moderate view of "Primavera" by Botticelli

Nature Study:  Monarch butterflies and milkweed. 

Copywork:

• Memory verse
• "There shall be no more crying, for he that is owner of the place will wipe all tears from our eyes" (Pilgrim's Progress)

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Saturday, August 23, 2008 - Week 2

Bible:

• Family line of Seth.  Filled out a chart showing when each was born in relation to Adam and when each died. He made the observation that Methuselah possibly died IN the flood.  I find that very interesting
• The Ark.  Figured out the dimensions of the ark
• The Great Flood
• God's Covenant, the Rainbow
• Tower of Babel

Memory:

• Ephesians 4:32b ...forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgive you.
• added Joshua and Judges to our Old Testament list

Phonics/Reading:  We are doing really, REALLY well with our new system.  We didn't have ANY tears this week!!  It was awesome.  I am so pleased with our progress.

Math:

• 1 and 2 math facts
• improved number word recognition
• Worked on some real life math adding when we were working on our chart for Bible

Artist/Composer:  Listened to Magnificat throughout the week and did our picture study on "Fortitude" again.

Nature Study: We have been learning much through hands on experience with our Monarchs. 

Literature:

• Pilgrim's Progress: Chapter 1 "Christian & Evangelist"

History:

• The Little Duke:  second half of Ch 1
• An Island Story: ch 23 Battle of Stamford Bridge
• Child's History of the World: ch 47 Two Empires, Two Empires

Geography:

• Tree in the Trail: ch 2 and 3

Nature:

• Burgess: ch 3 Swamp Hare, Arctic Hare, Prairie Hare, Antelope Jackrabbit,  and Jack Rabbit

Poetry from Walter de la Mare

• Some One
• The Little Bird
• The Cupboard
• Hide and Seek
• The Window

Copywork:

• memory verse
• first stanza of "The Cupboard" by de la Mare
• "A river of buffalo rushed downhill like a muddy-brown flood." (ch 3 Tree in the Trail by Holling)
• "It wasn't much of a house in which he was born, but it was just as good as most people had in Kentucky in 1809." (Abraham Lincoln by d'Aulaire)

Book of Centries:  We finally made some entries into our BOC.  I'm not sure we're doing it right but I'm sure we will figure it out better as we go along.

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Saturday, August 16, 2008 - Week 1

It is so great to be back into the routine of school. 

Bible: So far, I really like what we are using for Bible this year. 

• The Bible: discussed the Bible as a book (table of contents, number of books, chapters, verses.) Inspiration of the Scriptures, why it is important to study the Bible
• Creation
• Garden of Eden
• Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil / The fall of Man
• Cain and Able

Memory:

• Ephesians 4:32 a And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted...
• First 5 books of Old Testament.

Phonics/Reading:  I am trying something a little different this year.  I am going REALLY slow.  I'm kicking myself for not going slower previously.  We are using the same material that we've used for the last two years but we have gone back to the beginning and reviewing and mastering each level.  This year, I am timing us as well.  We will work on this skill for 15-20 minutes and then stop, no matter where we are.

This week, we had to take a break in the middle of the lesson because he was getting frustrated which was leading him to make even more mistakes.  So we closed the book and did jumping jacks, stretches and ended up laughing.  I think that it helped him to get a break from his mind set of frustration.

Math:  Again, we are working for mastery of skills.  It makes sense to master one skill before moving on to the next.

• August calendar (measuring the lines, making a graph, days of week, months of the year, how many days are in each month, the year, writing numbers 1-31)
• Math facts for number 1 (addition and subtraction working to increase speed and accuracy)
• Number words 1-10
• Counting by 1's to 100, 2's to 100 and 10's to 500

Artist and Composer:

• Artist is Botticelli and we viewed Fortitude.  When he was describing the picture to me he picked up on a few details that I hadn't noticed.
• Composer is J.S. Bach.  For the next few weeks we are listening to Macnificat in D Major. (I found it here at You Tube and usually we listen to it during Math and Copywork).  I am also reading for myself a biography about Bach, just to familiarize myself with his life and thus be able to pass on information to Cameron. 

Hymn and Folk Song:

• "At Calvary".  Our schedule of songs for our church services is made up a month at a time.  So I chose a hymn from the last week.  That way, we have all month to work on it and by the end of the month Cameron will know a hymn that we will be singing in church.  This worked for us really well last year.
• "Oh My Darling Clementine".  I chose this song for our first folk song (not even sure if it is a folk song LOL) because he partially knows it thanks to Hulkelberry Hound.  We ususally only spend 5-10 minutes on these every other day.

Nature Study:  Right now we have a collection of bugs that we are observing.  We have a chrysallis that will be ready in a few days and we have another Monarch eating away at our milk weed.  He also is catching various bugs to feed the toads. 

Literature

• Pilgrim's Progress Introdcution and Author's Appology
• Lamb's Shakespeare: The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Is it me or is Shakespeare fond of having the woman disguise herself as a boy?)

History:

• An Island Story, ch 22 Harold
• First half of chapter 1 of The Little Duke

Geography:

• Tree in the Trail chapter 1.  We really like Holling C. Holling books.  This is also the easiest one for him to narrate

Nature

• Burgess Animal Book chapter 1 and 2: Cottontail Rabbit,  Marsh Rabbit, Northern Hare

Poetry by Walter de la Mare

• The Horseman
• Up and Down
• Mrs. Earth
• Tired Tim
• I Can't Abear

Copywork selections from:

• Memory verse
• Tree in the Trail
• Farmer Boy (additional reading)
• Burgess

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Monday, May 19, 2008 - First Grade Review (Part 3)

Phonics:

I would say this was our most difficult subject.  The one that caused the most tears.  I know that I started this year with the hopes that Cameron would make huge, phenomenal strides towards reading independently.  We did make progress but not I had hoped.  Although, I caught him reading Go, Dog, Go by himself when he thought I wasn't listening.  That is huge!

We were using a few different things.  We worked in A Beka's A Handbook for Reading.  We reviewed short vowel sounds that we had worked on in Kindergarten.  It did go a little more smoothly than the end of Kindergarten.  We did progress to long vowels and it went better than our attempt at it in Kindergarten.

We also used a few readers from Christian Liberty Press.

Also, towards the end of the year a friend lent us A Beka readers.

We are still plugging along.  I think he just needs practice and a LOT of confidence.  Sometimes he comes to a word and just looking at it he *knows* that he won't be able to get it and doesn't even try.

I do find it highly amusing that he reads better at devotions.  I have him read part of of or all of our selected reading from the Bible.  Our King James Version Bible.  Better than his phonics book.  Go figure.

We are continuing through the summer to work with phonics.  He is spending about 15 minutes or more, three times a week, at Star Fall. Hopefully this extra practice, that is fun, will help.

Copywork:

We began the year with a few weeks of reviewing our letters.  Then we finally moved into a regular schedule of copywork.  Each week he copied his memory verse, part of the hymn of the month, and then selections from our reading that week both poetry, school readings, and free reads.

From first term:

From term 3:

I have noticed an improvement from the beginning of the year. 

Nature Study:

• We learned much about birds this year through reading Burgess's Bird Book.
• We studied some astronomy: the sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and the Moon.
• We started doing the Green Hour Challenges and will continue to do those over the summer.  They have really raised our awareness of nature study and really helped us to focus on studying nature consciously

Misc:

• PE: two seasons of soccer (16 weeks)
• Handicrafts: Pinewood Derby car, numerous projects at Lowe's,
• Service: ministry to a shut-in family (twice a month grocery shopping, doctor's visits), once a month ministry at nursing home, helped put together 20,000 John and Romans for Mozambique
• Field Trips: purple martins, dairy farm, river boat trip, observatory, science center, zoo,
• Science: various science experiments

This concludes my review of  first grade. I cannot believe that we are finished with first already.  It feels like we just got started.

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Thursday, May 15, 2008 - First Grade Review (Part 2)

We read a lot of great literature this year.

Literature:

• The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter.  I never realized there were so many of Aesop's fables.  Before reading them this year, I could think of maybe 2 or 3.  There are many, many more.
• Tales from Shakespeare by Charles Lamb
  • "Midsummer Nights Dream"
  • "The Tempest"
  • "As You Like It"
  • The Winter's Tale"
  • "King Lear"
  • "Twelfth Night"
• Selections from The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang
• Selections from Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling.  I find Kipling very humerous.  There was some very "interesting" ideas of how things came to be and it did give us a great opportunity to discuss what was a made up story and what the Bible has to say.  But each of these stories made me laugh.
• Selections from Parables from Nature by Margaret Gatty.  Good book with great morals and lfie lessons.  Some of the stories were long and I wasn't sure where some of them were going at times.  I think our favorite two stories were the ones about the caterpillar who didn't know she would turn into a butterfly and the bee who led a revolt and was very unhappy not doing the work he was created to do.

History:

• An Island Story by H.E. Marshall.  We read chapters 1-21 and it covered the beginning history of England.  It was interesting to Cameron as it was filled with many battles and conquests.
• Selected chapters from Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin
• Chapters 1-11 of Viking Tales by Jennie Hall.  Cameron's favorite stories from this was about the sea battle.
• Benjamin Franklin by Ingri D'Aulaire.  I have to say, I love D'Aulaire books.  They have wonderful illustrations and a very pleasant way of telling the story.  Cameron's favorite part of Benjamin Franklin was how he used a kite to pull him along in the water while he was swimming.
• George Washington by Ingri D'Aulaire.  Cameron's favorite part was about Washington's dealings with the Indians.
• Pocahontas by Ingri D'Aulaire.  We were supposed to read Buffalo Bill but no library in our county had this book so we read Pocahontas which was one of our free reading books.

Geography:

• Paddle to the Sea by Holling C. Holling.  We were supposed to draw this book out over many weeks but we borrowed it from the library so we finished it in about 2 weeks instead.  It was one of his favorites.  Holling is another must read/have author.  I learned my Great Lakes in school but not like this.  I can't believe that the shapes that Holling's described didn't pop out at me.  I'm looking forward very much to the three Holling's books we will be reading 2nd.

Nature:

• James Herriot's Treasury for Children by James Herriot.  We read this entire book for Kindergarten.  We borrowed it from the library and re-read some of our favorites.  Another great book.
• The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton Burgess.  I learned so much about birds this year.  Cameron knows more about more birds than I ever did.  Reading this book has really sparked our interest in birds and it amazes me the different birds that I must have been seeing my entire life but never paid attention.  We made a Bird Notebook of the birds that we decided to study this year from BBB.  The ones that we have seen this year are bolded.
  • House Wren
  • House Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow, Fox Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Chipping Sparrow, Tree Sparrow, Vesper Sparrow (We still aren't very good at telling all the Sparrows apart.  We aren't sure who we have seen.  We have heard the Chipping Sparrow numerous times though)
  • Bluebird
  • American Robin
  • Golden-wing Flicker
  • Redwinged Blackbird
  • Downey Woodpecker, Hairy Woodpecker, Red-headed Woodpecker
  • Cowbird
  • Baltimore Oriole
  • Purple Martin
  • Barn Swallow
  • Crow
  • Blue Jay
  • Ruffed Grouse
  • Rusty Blackbird
  • Cardinal
  • Catbird (We haven't seen it but we've heard it. It sounds much like a cat crying or, to me sometimes, a baby.  I woke Cameron one night by checking on him because I thought he was crying.  He was semi awake and asked what I was doing.  When I told him he sweetly and sleepily said, "It must be that silly Catbird again Mama.")
  • Towhee
  • Indigo Bunting
  • Shrike
  • Ruby-throated Humming bird
  • Chickadee
  • White-breasted Nuthatch
  • Brown Creeper
  • Junco
  • Pine Grosbeak
  • Redpoll

Poetry:

• A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson
• Now We Are Six/When We Were Very Young by A.A. Milne.  Very humerous.
• Oxford Book of Children's Verse Iona and Peter Opie (I think.  But now that I look at it, maybe not.)

Free Reading:  We did these mostly at bedtime.

• Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
• King of the Golden River by John Ruskin
• Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
• St. George and the Dragon by Margaret Hodges
• The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
• Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

We were supposed to read Peter Pan  James M. Barrie but we read it for Kindergarten and I didn't want to read it again.  Also, we never got around to The Red Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

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Monday, May 12, 2008 - First Grade Review (Part 1)

I cannot believe that first grade is behind us.  I cannot believe that we have completed our second year of homeschooling.  I cannot believe all the things that I learned this year. 

Here is the first part of an overview of our entire year.

Bible:

• Studied Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts in relative chronological order going over the life of Jesus and the early church.
• Cameron completed a notebook with pictures taken from Calvary Children's Chapel.
• Read  Buried Alive for Christ and Other Missionary Stories by V. Ben Kendrick about missionaries in Africa
• Read several chapters from Missionary Stories with the Millers
• Completed the Wordless Lapbook

Memory:

• Psalm 18:1, 19:7, 27:1, 33:6, 34:8, 100:1-5, 119:11, 89, 105, 140, 160; 145:9
• Proverbs 30:5
• Matthew 19:17
• Mark 16:15, 20
• John 3:16, 10:11, 15, 27
• Acts 14:21
• Romans 10:13
• Hebrews 13:20
• James 1:17
• I John 4:14
• Days of the week
• Months of the year
• Pledge of Alligence
• Books of the New Testament
• Address
• Phone number
• "I Went to the Store" by Jack Prelutsky

Math: My good friend bought us A Beka's Arithmetic 1

• Money: penny, dime, nickle, quarter, half dollar, dollar bill, five dollar bill, counting money
• Time: telling time to the 5 minute mark, half hour, quarter after, digital clocks, analog
• Counting: by 1's up to 1000, by 2's, 5's, 10's, 25's, backwards
• Addition: adding numbers up to 14, doubling equal up to 18, adding 3,4, and 5 numbers, adding double digets, adding triple digets, carrying
• Subtraction: subtraction facts up to 14, subtracting double digets
• Multiplication: beginning concepts for multiplication
• Reading graphs, making graphs, interpreting information
• Calendars
• Fractions: 1/2, 1/3, 1/4
• Measurements: inches, feet, yards, centimeters, cups, pints, quarts, gallons, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, ounces, pounds, temperature
• Position: ones place, ten's place, hundred's place, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th,
• 7th, 8th, etc., left, right
• Misc: >, <, =, tally marks, Roman numerals, color patterns, number patterns

Lapbooks:

• Thanksgiving
• All About Me
• Wordless Lapbook
• Whales

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Monday, May 5, 2008 - Week 34

Last week of school.  We are officially done! We were supposed to finish Friday, May 2, but that day ended up being a very, very busy day.  Instead of trying to squeeze in the last day of school, we finished on Monday.

Math:

• telling tiem with Roman numerals
• multiplication
• counting change that is mixed (not in order from biggest to smallest)
• matching Roman numerals with proper tally marks

We finished every last page in our math book.  It was a pretty exciting day to finish up with that.

Literature

History:

• From Viking Tales "King Harald Goes WEst-Over-Seas"

Nature:

• Chapter 44 Pine Grosbeak and Redpoll from Burgess's Bird Book

Poetry from Oxford Book of Children's Verse

• Before the Rain, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
• After the Rain, by Thomas Bailey
• May Day, by Sara Teasdale
• Hark, Hark! the Lark from Cymbeline, by Shakespeare

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Saturday, April 26, 2008 - Week 33

Math:

• 1/2's, 1/3's
• tally marks
• multiplication from facts on a graph
• Roman numerals. (Picked up on these VERY quickly)

Literature:

• "King Lear" from Lamb's Tales of Shakespeare

History:

• "King Harald's Wedding" from Viking Tales

Nature:

• "Cobwebs" from Parables from Nature

Poetry from Oxford Book of Children's Verse

• The Fairies, by Rose Fyleman
• Calico Pie, by Edward Lear
• Weather, anonymous
• Try Again, by William Hickson
• The Blind Men and the Elephant--A Hindu fable, by John Godfrey Saxe
  

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Saturday, April 19, 2008 - Week 32

Memory: Psalm 100:5 For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.

Math:

• beginning multiplication facts
• >, <, or =

Literature:

• "Twelfth Night: from Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare. Our library has this book on CD and we listened to it in the car.  I think we will be getting this out for next year too.  It made for nice car trips.
• "The Cat Who Walks Alone" from Just So Stories

Poetry:

• My Shadow, by Robert Louis Stevenson
• Child's Song in Spring, by Edith Nesbit
• The Rainy Day, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• Over in the Meadow, by Olive Wordsworth
• The Prayer Perfect, by James Whitcombe Riley
  

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