Weekly Report Aug. 23-28

Well, this week has been all about a slow re-entry. Slow. B started copywork and math, and that's about it as far as academics goes (aside from free reading). Tried to spend some time with S reading and writing letters. This week was more about trying to find our rhythm and routine. How do I spend time with each child and get the others to be productively occupied during that time? Tonight I thought about starting the day reading to D after breakfast and chores. B can spend that time reading the bible then moving onto some independent work. S can have independent room play. Next, I will move onto spending time with S while B plays with D. And finally, I will spend time with B while S and D play together and maybe watch an educational show. (How confusing was that?) Would that work I wonder? After that we'll break for snack and reading then move onto table time all together.

This week I got easily frustrated and upset at my own inabilities. Of course, I took it out on the kids. Next week is a new week though. I just have to remind myself to relax and to take things slowly. The most important thing for me is to spend time loving them and enjoying them. This is what they need most right now. I've got to learn to laugh and play with them. So, note to self for next week: laugh and play and dance!

S worked on building a fort with the pegs and wanted me to post a picture. So here it is.




And our sunflower finally bloomed!

Why study nature?

This is why I want my kids to do nature study. Not only to observe and be attentive to details, not only to draw and to appreciate, but to draw nearer to God, to worship Him, and to fellowship with Him.

Here's an article by Melissa that explains it well.



[edit 9/17/08]

Here's another good reason to study nature: to know and to understand those things that are near and relevant to us. This was posted by Barb.

The Museum Shelf

Here's a picture of our nature shelf. Our museum board sits on it and it houses some other "exhibits".
We actually cleared off the board the other day to make room for some more discoveries. And the entries were placed into a new museum binder.

Curriculum 2008-09 (Grade 2)

These are my plans for B's second grade:

Handwriting Continue with copywork. I created two copywork books for him this year. One is for scripture verses and another for all others (including Happy Scribe's Weather Folklore). We may start cursive in the second quarter or I might wait until his third year. I don't want to weigh him down with learning cursive when he's still getting into the habit of printing.

Spelling We'll finish ETC 2 1/2 and go on to #3. I'll use the lists after each lesson to test spelling again. And I would like to add short dictations (eg. The cat sat up), working up to a little bit longer dictations by the end of the year.

Comprehension & Composition We will continue with daily oral narrations from Aesop (maybe 50 Famous Stories after that). I will require oral narrations from literature and history read-a-louds as well as from assigned readers. We will start poetry memorization. And in the second quarter, I would like him to start short written narrations once a week. Also, the field guide pages for our animal study is my attempt to get him to notebook and to write on his own.

Grammar FLL

Reading Reading instruction - reading a book together that is above his level once in a while to help increase his reading ability, comprehension, vocabulary,...
Assigned reading (readers) - will use book lists from Sonlight and Veritas Press
Read-a-louds - I have to figure out a way we can do this.
Quiet reading

Science Sonlight Science 1 and Animal World from Winter Promise. Nature studies as well.

History American history at co-op.

The Museum

I want to encourage nature studies in our home. A while back, we read The Boxcar Children: The Surpirse Island where the Alden children set up The Alden Natural Museum. This inspired Batman to start our museum and it encourages him to discover and journal new things for it. So he will showcase his finds here. (I've taken out our name for the blog).

FIAR Co-op

I will be teaching a FIAR class at our co-op this year for Superman's class. I don't really know what I'm doing, but I'm excited to be doing something for and with Superman. I hope to log our journey through FIAR here as well.

Curriculum 2007-08 (Grade 1)

I really do want to use this blog as a log of sorts for our homeschooling journey, so I'm going to try to record things, starting with what we accomplished this past year for 1st grade.

Reading For first grade, I wanted to finish Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. But somewhere around lesson 50, things clicked for B and he took off reading. We just kept going with the lessons but he didn't need it. My goals for reading were to get him to enjoy reading, to read fluently, and to read daily. He loves books and we have quiet reading time daily. He's been introduced to the "Nate the Great" books, and "The Littles" series, "Winnie the Pooh", "The Boxcar Children" series as well as others.

Writing We finished A Reason for Handwriting and continued with copywork. He copied scripture, sentences from books, and poetry from Winnie the Pooh books.

Phonics B finished Explode the Code 2 and started 2 1/2. After each lesson, I started using the list words to give him a spelling test.

Math Singapore 1b and 2a completed.

Narration We use Aesop for narration. It took him a little bit to catch on, but once he got the hang of it, he was able to narrate the stories well.

Grammar We started, barely, First Language Lessons. We've covered only nouns so far.

Read-a-louds With a baby in the mix, I had the most difficult time with read-a-louds. How do you read when you have a baby climbing all over you and interrupting you every few seconds? The one thing I really wanted to do I wasn't able to do.

Nature Study I really wanted to make this a regular part of our week and wasn't able to until B came up with the museum idea. We still don't do it regularly but hopefully that will change this year. I think the biggest obstacle is me not getting out there with the boys.

Science We covered two or three chapters of Apologia's Astronomy book. B really likes science experiments though, so I need to make room for growth in that area this year.

We didn't cover a whole lot of extras, and I need to get him caught up in math, but he learned to read and read fluently this year. Also, we got feet our wet in narration, which I'm happy about. And he's learned to work independently. We've established our devotion times, but they're bored and antsy so I have to pray about changes to make.

As for me, I learned that little things done daily (though they seem mundane and trivial) add up to much more than having grand ideas and plans and not doing much of anything on a consistent basis. And I began to establish little routines here and there. We're not really established in our routines, habits, or chores, but the first few tracks have been laid. This is an area that I want to focus on this year with little ones. I have to remind myself sometimes that the basics is what's important at this stage.

As for the rest of first grade, B was part of a Junior Lego League Robotics group in the fall, and played junior coach t-ball in the spring. And he was part of Awana as well as coming with me to a Titus 2 bible study.