Posting this a little late...started writing this on Friday, and finished it up today!
Z started 1st grade - officially!
1st gr BJU LA is all coloring pages for the first week so that the teacher can do reading assessments on each of her students. So it was an Easy first week.
Reviewed: letters t, s, i. sight words: I, here. Color words: blue, purple, black, white.
She decided she needed to supplement her curriculum with REAL reading and read these books: A Wocket in my Pocket, Green Eggs & Ham, Foot Book, and a few pages of The Cat in the Hat. She also supplemented her writing by starting her first novel: The Girl and the Dragon. So far, its about a girl that sneaks out of bed and goes into a cave.
My 7yo, A, decided to write a chapter book about a princess named Sarah. It is very well written for a 7yo (in my humble opinion) and I can tell that her Rainbow Magic Fairy reading has really improved her writing. She has a big stack of Rainbow Magic Fairy books (the Pet series) ready for her bedtime reading. I'm so excited that she is exploring the world of reading and writing, for her own enjoyment!
We did other things for math & LA, but I really wanted to focus on the outside of school things that we accomplished.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Sometimes you really just don't want to teach a certain subject...
Is there a subject (or two) that you just don't. want. to. teach. ??? Any reason why? Here's mine:
Math Facts -
I love teaching math *concepts*, but the nitty-gritty drill & kill-ness of addition and subtraction (and someday soon - multiplication and division) makes me ready to sign the kids up for public school. Except that...if I sent the kids to public school, the teacher would send them home with a pack of flashcards for us to practice every night. And so, perhaps this is the one reason I don't send them to school. Anyhow. I don't. want. to. do. it.
Spelling Words -
I don't mind teaching phonics sounds, but the outside-of-the-workbook, study-for-the-test aspect of spelling lists does me in.
I'm not exactly sure why these two things create such loathe and trembling. But they do seem to have an element in common: committing stuff to memory. It seems like there is just so much to commit to memory. I dislike math facts more than spelling lists. With spelling, you can learn a list of 10-20 words and then be done with those words (ok, so maybe that's not a good thing, but it does bring me relief). Math facts, however, are always there, are slow to learn, and never really seem to be mastered.
Lately, I've been trying to pass these two aspects of math and spelling off to a computer. Computers may beep when something is wrong, but they never tear their hair out, jump up and down, and start screaming. They don't care if you get it right or wrong, and they don't care if you spend 5 mins or 120 mins on the same boring task. I like computers. And so I delegate these tasks to the kinder, gentler, more patient computer. Here are some computer games that I employ:
Math facts:
Math U See online drill
Spelling lists:
Spelling City
Reading:
Starfall (who hasn't heard of this one by now?)
Math Facts -
I love teaching math *concepts*, but the nitty-gritty drill & kill-ness of addition and subtraction (and someday soon - multiplication and division) makes me ready to sign the kids up for public school. Except that...if I sent the kids to public school, the teacher would send them home with a pack of flashcards for us to practice every night. And so, perhaps this is the one reason I don't send them to school. Anyhow. I don't. want. to. do. it.
Spelling Words -
I don't mind teaching phonics sounds, but the outside-of-the-workbook, study-for-the-test aspect of spelling lists does me in.
I'm not exactly sure why these two things create such loathe and trembling. But they do seem to have an element in common: committing stuff to memory. It seems like there is just so much to commit to memory. I dislike math facts more than spelling lists. With spelling, you can learn a list of 10-20 words and then be done with those words (ok, so maybe that's not a good thing, but it does bring me relief). Math facts, however, are always there, are slow to learn, and never really seem to be mastered.
Lately, I've been trying to pass these two aspects of math and spelling off to a computer. Computers may beep when something is wrong, but they never tear their hair out, jump up and down, and start screaming. They don't care if you get it right or wrong, and they don't care if you spend 5 mins or 120 mins on the same boring task. I like computers. And so I delegate these tasks to the kinder, gentler, more patient computer. Here are some computer games that I employ:
Math facts:
Math U See online drill
Spelling lists:
Spelling City
Reading:
Starfall (who hasn't heard of this one by now?)
Friday, August 22, 2008
Weekly Review - yay! It's back!!
I'm hoping to get back into the Weekly Review swing of things. Here's our week:
Monday: school & Mom researching new cars
Tuesday: math & private piano lessons. And we finally settled on a car.
Wednesday: school & went to go pick up the car (see post below)
Thursday: BEACH DAY with the homeschoolers
Friday: school & library day
The 7yo...
The 7yo learned Renaming with Subtraction in math (what we called "Borrowing" in my day). She learned how to solve problems like 64 - 8, and also learned how to use blocks to solve the same problem. She got 1 word wrong in spelling (frown), but was able to spell it orally the next day. She studied oi/oy and ou/ow words in spelling. She had a Skill Station Day in Reading, which focused on words spelled with "igh". She began reading a play called A Day to Remember, about the pilgrims coming to America on the Mayflower. In English, she has been learning about Nouns: she learned a fun little song about nouns, learned about making nouns plural (-s, -es, and irregular plurals like mouse-mice), and can identify Proper nouns vs. Common nouns. In piano, she is beginning to play songs that have 2 notes being played at the same time (sounds very pretty!)
On her own, the 7yo has read through 2 Rainbow Magic Fairy books at bedtime, and a Guinea Pig care book. She read these books faster than I expected, and we had to wait a week for new books to arrive at our library. This is a *good* problem to have, and something I've prayed about for awhile now:)
The 5yo...
Is learning various tactics for practicing addition math facts. She has learned how to start with the bigger number and count up. She has learned how to use a number line (but doesn't prefer it). She is practicing the Order of Addends rule (2+1 is the same thing as 1+2). She has also applied addition skills to story problems. In Explode the Code, she's learned EE and EA sounds. We're back to doing 2 pages per day instead of 4, because this wasn't working so well! I've kept her workload short.
Monday: school & Mom researching new cars
Tuesday: math & private piano lessons. And we finally settled on a car.
Wednesday: school & went to go pick up the car (see post below)
Thursday: BEACH DAY with the homeschoolers
Friday: school & library day
The 7yo...
The 7yo learned Renaming with Subtraction in math (what we called "Borrowing" in my day). She learned how to solve problems like 64 - 8, and also learned how to use blocks to solve the same problem. She got 1 word wrong in spelling (frown), but was able to spell it orally the next day. She studied oi/oy and ou/ow words in spelling. She had a Skill Station Day in Reading, which focused on words spelled with "igh". She began reading a play called A Day to Remember, about the pilgrims coming to America on the Mayflower. In English, she has been learning about Nouns: she learned a fun little song about nouns, learned about making nouns plural (-s, -es, and irregular plurals like mouse-mice), and can identify Proper nouns vs. Common nouns. In piano, she is beginning to play songs that have 2 notes being played at the same time (sounds very pretty!)
On her own, the 7yo has read through 2 Rainbow Magic Fairy books at bedtime, and a Guinea Pig care book. She read these books faster than I expected, and we had to wait a week for new books to arrive at our library. This is a *good* problem to have, and something I've prayed about for awhile now:)
The 5yo...
Is learning various tactics for practicing addition math facts. She has learned how to start with the bigger number and count up. She has learned how to use a number line (but doesn't prefer it). She is practicing the Order of Addends rule (2+1 is the same thing as 1+2). She has also applied addition skills to story problems. In Explode the Code, she's learned EE and EA sounds. We're back to doing 2 pages per day instead of 4, because this wasn't working so well! I've kept her workload short.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Co-op classes & Guinea Pig
We signed up for our co-op classes. Classes don't start for another month, and the kids keep asking 5xs per day "when is co-op going to start?"
A, the 7-turning-8yo is taking:
Movie Night (about finding Christian messages in popular movies)
Piano & Gym (30 mins each)
Choir
Clay
Creatures, Creatures II
Creatures II is a class where the kids each pick a new pet to take home. Each kid will research and journal that animal. We have chosen to adopt a Guinea Pig into our family. We will pick him out at the pet store a few days before co-op starts. Already, this lil guy (or gal) has inspired learning in our household. We've done internet research about guinea pigs, and how to care for them. We've watched YouTube videos. My 7yo made a chart to keep track of its favorite foods.
Z, the 5-turning-6yo is taking:
Fun with PreK for 2 hours
Creatures, Creatures I
History Alive
PeeWee Ecology
Her Creatures class will involve bringing home little pets to care for - things like hermit crab, fish, etc. She is super excited about this class and drills her future teacher for more details every time we see her.
A, the 7-turning-8yo is taking:
Movie Night (about finding Christian messages in popular movies)
Piano & Gym (30 mins each)
Choir
Clay
Creatures, Creatures II
Creatures II is a class where the kids each pick a new pet to take home. Each kid will research and journal that animal. We have chosen to adopt a Guinea Pig into our family. We will pick him out at the pet store a few days before co-op starts. Already, this lil guy (or gal) has inspired learning in our household. We've done internet research about guinea pigs, and how to care for them. We've watched YouTube videos. My 7yo made a chart to keep track of its favorite foods.
Z, the 5-turning-6yo is taking:
Fun with PreK for 2 hours
Creatures, Creatures I
History Alive
PeeWee Ecology
Her Creatures class will involve bringing home little pets to care for - things like hermit crab, fish, etc. She is super excited about this class and drills her future teacher for more details every time we see her.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Hot Air Balloon
A hot air balloon landed in our front yard. Here you can see the balloonists getting out, the flame going up into the balloon to keep it up, and the kids are running around to the right of it. The neighbor came over to see, also.
Here is my daughter and the neighbor boy watching the balloon get taken down and folded up.
I guess our yard was used as a balloon launch site by the previous owners. Four balloons went up. But this was the only time that we know of that a balloon actually landed here. Everytime we'd see balloons go overhead, I always hoped one would land in our yard.
Here is my daughter and the neighbor boy watching the balloon get taken down and folded up.
I guess our yard was used as a balloon launch site by the previous owners. Four balloons went up. But this was the only time that we know of that a balloon actually landed here. Everytime we'd see balloons go overhead, I always hoped one would land in our yard.
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