Aug. 27, 2009 - Week 4- completed
Yay! Two weeks straight- we got 4 days in Monday-Thursday! I think we are getting in the groove 
. This week we began studying Ancient Egypt- that has been fun. I bought a Toob of Egyptian Figures and SweetPea has loved them! I also finally broke out some clay and let her practice writing with hieroglyphics- which she has also loved. Her favorite book about Egypt has been one from the library- Ancient Egypt by Judith Crosher. She loved the "See through scenes", where you could lift the page and see inside the houses or palace. This is a great book for an overview or introduction to Ancient Egypt, or just a fun go-along book.
History has been a lot more fun for me so far with SweetPea than it was for me back in school - I hope it stays that way.
We have also been working on Spanish. I bought Hooked on Spanish and we are using it in conjunction with the Spanish lapbook from Homeschool Share. Those ladies did an AWESOME job on that one! http://www.homeschoolshare.com/spanish.php
I had forgotten that I have a Spanish lapbook from Live & Learn, too. I guess I should pull that cd out and see if I can use some of it. I really do have a list of all of my homeschool stuff, but I just haven't cross referenced everything yet.... or put it all into one file..
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Aug. 18, 2009 - Rain Forest
We are finishing up our journey through the rain forest! I think we have both learned alot. We read If I Ran The Rain Forest , The Umbrella, The Great Kapok Tree, One Small Square-Tropical Rain Forest, A Giant Tree In the Rain Forest, and several mini books. SweetPea made theme pockets (Evan Moor Theme Pockets: June), played file folder games, colored pictures, made a monkey headband, and learned several vocabulary words. It has been my favorite science unit so far. Here are a few pictures:
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Aug. 3, 2009 - 1st grade-1st Day
Woo hoo!
I am glad to have Day 1 here and gone! I am always a nervous wreck and can't leave the lesson plans alone until we actually get started- that's why Day 1 is such a relief!
It really went well. SweetPea likes the workbox system (our version of it.) I broke down and bought a spelling currculum- Zaner Bloser- as I just did not want to leave that part to Unit Studies. Spelling was in her first workbox. It begins with a phonics review, which she already has aa stong grip on, so it was very simple for her today,
Workbox #2 was History. We discussed what history is, what a timeline is, and what a timeline looks like. Then SweetPea drew three pictures of her history and we made a "timeline" of it.
Workbox #3 was Science. We will be studying habitats for awhile, so we discussed what a habitat is, what some common types of habitats are, and what a biome is. We read The Magic School Bus Hops Home, which is a book about animal habitats (a pond mostly, but did mention that any good habitat will provide certain things for its inhabitants). SweetPea drew a picture of her habitat (our house).
Worbox #4 was Language Arts- just a simple sheet from Evan Moor's Daily Language Review -1st grade. I really plan to keep this first week very light, and then see where we can add some things without oveloading her.
Workbox #5 was math. A few fun worksheets for her to practice numbers 1-50, and a dot-to-dot from 50-75. Again, math will be light until we finally get these facts memorized. We will have a "Fact A Day" that we will be using throughout the day each day, adding one each day until we have them all learned. (Today's is 2+3 which we also say is the same as 3+2, so we are kind of learning 2 per day) I also slipped in a page from Daily Word Problems, as I feel it is critical that they know who to solve word problems.
Workbox #6 was independent reading. Well, sort of. The job card simply said to read a library book to Mom or Dad. She couldn't choose which one she wanted to read, so she read 2 to Dad :).
That's it- easy peasy. Day 1, over and out!
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Jul. 20, 2009 - Science
Here is my basic outline for Science this year:
| 1st Quarter |
| Habitats: |
| General |
| Woodlands |
| Rainforest |
| Desert |
| Underground |
| Pond |
| Ocean |
| 2nd Quarter |
| The Human body: |
| Skeletal System |
| Muscular System |
| Circulatory System |
| Digestive System |
| Nervous System |
| 5 Senses |
| Matter: |
| Solid |
| Liquid |
| Gas |
| 3rd Quarter |
| Electricity |
| How Things Move/ Simple Machines |
| 4th Quarter |
| Spiders & Insects |
| Space |
| Famous Scientists |
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Jul. 18, 2009 - My New Blog
This will be my 2009-2010 hs blog! Hopefully I will keep this updated.
Our start date will be August 4th. We will school for 4 days per week until after Labor Day, and then we will pick up the 5th day. That 5th day (each week) will not be a fully scheduled day, but will be the tie-up-loose ends day, field trip day, etc.
We will continue with Math-U-See this year, until we complete Alpha. After that we will do mostly living math and will make sure we continue to drill addition & subtraction facts. I'd like to do a lot with measurement this year too. (more on that in a future post- I have a few ideas churning in my head thanks to Jimmie) For Spelling, we will be Using Zaner-Bloser Spelling Connections. I really hadn't planned to go "textbooky", but I really like this program, so we will use it- just not sure how often the book will come out. I am really big on learning dictionary skills, so some of the thing we will do will be gearing us up for that. Language Arts will be a continuation of last year- no "curruiculum" per se, just learning as we are reading about the roles the words play in sentences and stories. We will continue to do creative writing- which around here is almost a daily thing already-lol. Reading will be delight-directed probably more than 90% of the time. We will continue lapbooking and I am looking forward to the new units on HSS!! Science, well I actually have the full year plan typed up!! The outline of the year and what resources we will be using anyway. I think I will post that as a separate post too, just so I can tag it more easily. 
History and Geography I am still working on- I know we will be doing a lot with map skills, though. Art will probably be based on what HSS unit we are working on, and if we are between units, I have a great Art book we will be working through too. Basics stuff- lines, forms, etc. PE will be whatever sport she is playing at the time- soccer in the Fall and Spring, basketball in the Winter, plus gymnastics all year.
The last thing I need to get lined up is our Bible Study. I am not 100% sure what I want to do there. I have sooooo many options. If August rolls around before I have mad up my mind, we will start the year using Keys For Kids (which is not a bad option at all!)
