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Merry Christmas! We had a lovely time visiting family and celebrating the birth of Jesus. The week before Christmas we read the story Ordinary Baby, Extraordinary Gift, by Gloria Gaither. This book came with a cd to listen to the story and the song that goes along with it. I wanted to spend a week learning about Christmas, with the story of Jesus as the main emphasis, and I really enjoyed this story. Vocabulary opportunities abound in Mrs. Gaither's story and song, but I did not print out a vocab list this week. We discussed some of the words that the children did not understand. We started with the title words ordinary and extraordinary. Our hymn of the week was Hark the Herald Angels Sing and we continued to read from the book of Luke in addition to our advent verses each morning. In History/Geography we learned about the Pennsylvania Dutch Christmas traditions as well as Christmas traditions from Colonial Williamsburg. We also learned about Martin Luther, the theologian. ...

The past two weeks our literature books have been about Border Collies. The first week we read,   Floss, by Kim Lewis and then this past week we read Calico Dorsey, by Susan Lendroth.  Both of these stories were about loyalty, hard work, and the friendship between dogs and people. Floss is set in Scotland and in the story, Floss transitions from being a pet in town to working as a sheep dog on a farm. Vocabulary from Floss : drifting, travelled, herd, heather. For Social Studies/Geography we learned about Scotland and balancing work and play.We also had opportunity this week to learn about Soccer. In Science we learned about Border Collies and memory. In Art we practiced Drawing Border Collies using a drawing book about dogs and cats to help us, and we made our own soccer balls out of whatever we could find around the house. They didn't last long, but it was fun to challenge the children's industrious and creative side. We learned a handful...

This year I was able to read a few books. The first book I read was Divine Detours, by Roger Clement.  Divine Detours website This is my Aunt Roxanne's story written by her second husband. It was a book that challenged me spiritually and was also an emotional read, for me. The other two books I read simultaneously (mostly while sitting on the lid of the toilet during my daughter's bath time). The first: H is for Hawk, by Helen Macdonald I saw on the shelf in the gift shop at Hawk Mountain and promptly checked it from the library.  This story is another story of loss and living through grief. Helen tells her journey training a Goshawk while recovering from the death of her father. I really enjoyed Ms. Macdonald's writing. However, she included a lot of biographical information about T.H. White. I did not enjoy this portion of the book and I skimmed/skipped these paragraphs. Overall it was an interesting read. The second book was lent to me by my sister. It was last year...

We spent the last two weeks reading books about the seasons and Thanksgiving. Two weeks ago we read the story, Scarecrow Pete, by Mark Kimball Moulton. It's the story of a scarecrow who loves to read and shares his love of literature with a young farm boy. Though set in the summer, this was a nice story for our little autumn unit study. Last week we spent the week learning about the first Thanksgiving; we read the story Three Young Pilgrims, by Cheryl Harness. This story based on the life of three young passengers of the Mayflower, is so historically rich and moving. I was amazed when we got to the end of the book and read that the youngest of these three pilgrims, Mary Allerton Cushman was the last passenger of the Mayflower alive . She passed away at the age of 83 years old in 1699. A beautiful accompanying story A Li:ght Kindled, the story of Priscilla Mullins, by Tracy M. Leninger. Beautifully written, though for an older audience, this book reinforces the true story of the...

Last week we read the story Henry and Mudge: The First Book, by Cynthia Ryalnt. These Henry and Mudge, and Henry and Mudge and Annie stories are favorites of ours. It was really nice to read a story that Tristan could read aloud each day (at least a few chapters a day:). Our vocabulary words this week: Tornadoes, drooled, almost, different. For Math we learned about different measurements. The story mentions how tall Mudge grew, and how much he weighed. We talked about liquid units of measure, volume. How to measure weight and inches, centimeters, (linear measurements). We read a series of books by Marcie Aboff to help us understand these different types of measurement, If you were a quart or a liter, If you were a pound or a kilogram, If you were an inch or a centimeter, and we practiced measuring liquids. We also took our height measurements and stood on the scale to see how much less we weighed than Mudge! In Geography and Social Studies: we learned another state and capital a...

Ash, This write-up is for you. Last year I began in July making these quilted Christmas stockings for my family. They were all finished by Christmas, and I'm pretty excited about them. Each stocking contains a little of green floral fabric from a dress I performed hula in for a Christmas presentation in Hawaii, and a little of the red polka dot fabric that was Jason's stocking growing up. Each stocking has it's own design. The patterns came from various quilting magazines and books. I tried to make traditional patterns for all 5 of them.

Last week we read two books about Dragons. We had fun, and learned a lot! The first story we read: M.P. Robertson's The Egg, a bout a boy who finds a dragon egg in his mother's hen house. He raises the egg, and prepares the little dragon for life.  The second book we read: There's No Such Thing as a Dragon, by Jack Kent. This story is about being noticed. The dragon gets bigger so mother will notice it's there. Then when she admits he's real, he shrinks to a manageable size. Although dragons do not exist (that we know of...) this week provided opportunities to learn about real animals and caves. Our Vocabulary words came from The Egg: H atching, Rumble, Damsel, Distress. We also continued working in our Language arts curriculum learning about nouns. In Math we stuck to the curriculum. Tristan is really doing well with the Saxon math. We both enjoy the structured lesson time as well as the repetition provided by the math meeting. The girls really enjoy the Kath...

Two weeks ago we read the story A Chair For My Mother , Vera B. Williams. This is a story about a family who lost everything in a fire, and how they recovered from that loss with hard work and help from their community. We learned about fire safety this week. We reviewed and practiced our family escape plan. And the kids really enjoyed going outside for fire drills. Vocabulary words for this week: Pumps, Tips, Waitress, Bargain. We also memorized a poem about Pennsylvania. In Social Studies/Geography,  We learned about the mountain ranges in Pennsylvania and we mapped them on our dry erase maps. We read William Penn's Own Account of the Lenni Lenape Indians, edited by Albert Cook Myers. For art appreciation we read the story Journey on a Cloud, by Veronique Massenot and Elise Mansot, a story about Marc Chagall. We also studied textile and worked on a few homemade textile projects. For math we completed the Saxon lessons for the week and we also began to count money every day...

Last week we read the story Blaze and the Lost Quarry by C.W. Anderson. Another fun adventure with Billy and his pony Blaze. In this story Billy and Blaze find a lost quarry and come home with a little lost dog. Our vocabulary words for this week: Forgotten, Quarry, Explore, Crippled. We borrowed the drawing book, Woodland Animals, by Patricia Walsh. We used this book to draw animals all week and Tristan was disappointed when we returned it to the library. In Social Studies and Geography, we learned about explorers, Christopher Columbus and Matthew Henson. We also began reading the biography of Helen Keller and began learning how to finger spell and wrote our names in braille using dots of glue. In Science we learned about the woodland habitat and stone quarries. We also learned about canines, dogs and wolves, and we made a Venn diagram to compare pet dogs with wolves. For a field trip we paid a visit to a local horse farm that allows interaction with the horses.  We are stil...

The last two weeks we read Billy and Blaze books by C.W. Anderson. We read Blaze and the Gray Spotted Pony, and Blaze and the Lost Quarry.  The children really enjoy the Billy and Blaze stories. Veritas Press recommends these as first and second grade literature, so I chose these two titles for this semester.   Week 1: Blaze and the Gray Spotted Pony . Vocabulary: Saddle, Pony, Stable, Gentle. We also continued to learn about nouns in Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind, Level 1 by Jesse Wise.   Math lessons are always a fun part of our day. Tristan really enjoys the Tanagram shapes . He asks to play with them after daily lessons are finished.  Science class involved learning about horses.  We learned the word for horse in French and Spanish. In art we studied Carravagio's painting: The Conversion on the way to Damascus. The children also made hobby horses out of paper, yarn on the end of a hockey stick. These they galloped around the hou...

Last week we enjoyed the story Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobdokina. This is a super fun story, the book cover says it all. We also enjoyed Circus Caps for Sale , by the same author. Anastasia learned the letters I and J  this week. She is beginning to show interest in writing and putting sounds together. I am excited about her progress! Vocabulary for the story: peddler, refreshed, checked. We also reviewed position words, like up, down and behind. We hunted for those in the story. For Science we learned about trees, so in Art appreciation we enjoyed the painting, Lighthouse Hill, by Edward Hopper. What struck me about this painting is the absence of trees. Tristan and Ana worked together to make a checkers game out of recycled material. We now play at least one game of checkers a day, and it's neat to see Tristan improve each game. We learned about color and pattern. ROY G. BIV! We reviewed our colors in French and Spanish. We also studied light and Monkeys in sci...

I enjoy eating an apple, or more, a day! We have had more apples than we could eat, so I baked! Yummy vegan recipe from averiecooks.com , so good even Jason enjoyed eating them for Sunday breakfast! Loving Fall!

  Harry the Dirty Dog, by Gene Zion provided the stimulus for last weeks school work. The children enjoy this story, and we also enjoyed reading Harry and the Lady Next Door, also by Gene Zion . Anastasia worked through the letters G and H. Our memory verse for the week: Psalm 51:10. Vocabulary for Harry the Dirty Dog: Chute, Suddenly, Following and Soundly. We also began memorizing a new poem and continued to learn about Nouns in Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind level 1 by Jessie Wise. In Geography/Social Studies we learned the state capital of New Jersey, and the two letter abbreviation for New Jersey. We also talked about jobs around town and what one could be when they grow up. We are still learning about Pennsylvania history. This week we read about the flag of PA and the state symbols. The state motto: Virtue, Liberty and Independence served as Tristan's copy work for the week. Science this week involved healthy habits. Bathing, brushing teeth, playing hard...

Last week we read the story the Biggest Bear b y Lynd Ward. This fun old story won the Caldecott medal in 1953. Lynd Ward beautifully illustrated this story giving such life to his characters, (especially the bear). Though it is a story about a bear, it is not a scary story, but charming and humorous. Anastasia learned the letters E and F this week. Our vocabulary words this week were: farthest, orchard, humiliated, trial and tribulation.   I enjoy using the daily lessons in Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind by Jessie Wise, but it is quite repetitive, and I am adding a little to each day, to keep Tristan's interest. We are still learning about nouns, but we also identified prepositions found in the Biggest Bear . This story uses many "position" words. This week the Saxon math lesson on Friday involved counting, adding and subtracting apples. It was perfect! God seems to work these things out and bless our literature based schooling! In Ge...

Last week our literature book was Doug Unplugged by Dan Yaccarino. In this little story, a robot boy experiences the city after unplugging from the database and getting outside to explore. We learned about emotions/feelings, pigeons and Pennsylvania's big cities. Anastasia added the letters C and D to her repertoire. Tristan is still enjoying Saxon Math, and it is really much nicer for me to follow a structured program instead of making up lessons for each day (though this story provided some opportunity to explore big numbers, computer coding, pattern making, etc). In Science we learned about pigeons and emotions/feelings. In Social Studies and Geography we learned about Philadelphia, Harrisburg and Pittsburgh as the important cities in Pennsylvania. Then we talked about some of the smaller cities around the state. We began reading the book City by David Macaulay. I am really enjoying Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind, by Jessie Wise. In addition to...

Two weeks ago, we were treated to a vacation in Virginia beach with family! Great times with cousins, grandparents. Quality time with my little sister, doesn't get much better. Ash and I made a killer sandcastle, not sure who was watching the 5 children during the hours it took us to construct it... I think Nana had it covered... Anyway, we had a fun time. The Virginia beach aquarium is great, we loved family biking on the strip (at least I did), and who can beat Kohrs brothers ice cream? We enjoyed (safely) soaking up lots of sunshine in preparation for the soon approaching Fall. Speaking of Fall, we are back to school! Yay for first grade! We are having a blast and I'm excited to share about what we are learning. Tristan got a library card this week and now checks out books for himself! We also made Hummingbird cupcakes together. Yummy and also tied into our story! Our story for the week was Amelia Bedelia's First Library Card , by Herman Parish. Although I am very...

Continuing with our Revolutionary America theme for this summer, we took the kids down to Independence Hall in Philadelphia. What an amazing Saturday! The National Park service does such a great job with this site. The signage is clear, relevant and engaging, the rangers are knowledgeable, and this is such an amazing preserved piece of history, right in the middle of the city! The children were, of course, totally underwhelmed. Our recent time in Williamsburg spoiled them slightly. We heard all kinds of questions like, "why are there cars on the road?" etc. But even they found some things to enjoy before the day ended.  We arrived right as the visitor center opened and got early tickets to see the Hall. On our way over we viewed the excavated President's mansion and the Liberty bell center. Amazing!             (excerpt from Liberty Bell, by William Ross Wallace)       ...

We are all about Colonial Style since our visit to Williamsburg, VA. While in Williamsburg we played with Locke's Alphabet Letter cubes, So I made a set of our own out of cardstock and we have been playing at home. The kids colored British soldiers and Colonial Militiamen and we cut them out of cardstock to form two paper doll armies. We play war with those and a wad of paper for a bomb, homemade fun! Also, I experimented in making a pair of knickers out of church pants with a hole in the knee. By cutting the pants off at the rip, using the cuff of the pants for the bottom of the breeches and adding some button holes and a button, the effect is pretty convincing. Tristan is very excited about them.

Last week we enjoyed a family vacation in Williamsburg, VA with grandparents, aunts, an uncle and our littlest niece. It was a great time. We learned heaps about colonial life and our nation's history; and we enjoyed the time with family. I wish I could put all of our experiences into this post, but that's impossible. Even a summary of the week would make for a long post. I will simply say that Gwen's vocabulary expanded by a word a day at least. She now has a "horsey" named "baa-aaa" and greets us each day with "morning!". Tristan wears a tri-cornered hat wherever he goes, which makes for interesting conversation in the check-out line at the grocery! Anastasia loved doting on her baby cousin and managed to work her way deeper into each of our hearts. She is such a clever girl, and a sweetie. The children loved Charlton's Coffeehouse, especially the liquid chocolate. They enjoyed learning about the rare breeds living in Colonial Williamsbu...

I found a favorite 4th of July story, Betsy Ross by Becky White. I love how the illustrations in the story are done in fabric applique. It's beautifully done. Happy Birthday America! Anastasia really enjoyed I, Galileo by Bonnie Christensen. As soon as we finished reading it, she said, "I would like to read that again sometime!". We are enjoying our summer reading. Yesterday we were appreciating Kenneth Grahame's use of alliteration in The Wind in the Willows.   Toad was: "cold but confident, hungry but hopeful,"   The dewy woodland was, "solitary and still".   "The reserved rustic road was presently joined by a shy little brother..." (All of these can be found in chapter 10. The Future Adventures of  Toad) At Tristan's request I am reading The Jungle Book to him again. Kipling adds poems at the end of each -very long- chapter. Here is the Hunting-Song of the Seeonee Wolf Pack: As the dawn was breaking the Sambhur b...

We are in the full swing of summer! We celebrated Tristan's 6th birthday with a family baseball game/cookout. His cake featured Lightning McQueen racing around a baseball diamond. We kept decorations simple, and asked the guests to sign a T-ball in honor of Tristan's birthday. Each guest received a baseball shaped Krispy treat and a box of Cracker Jacks as a party favor. We are grateful that the weather was nice the afternoon of the party. Tristan really enjoyed coaching his grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins in a family game of ball. We have also begun summer reading . The Swiss Family Robinson by Johan Wyss proved to be a riveting story we could not put down. That's one book we can cross of our list. The kids loved it! Anastasia was a little (very) upset when the dog ate the mother monkey, but it didn't last long. The next time I began to read, she was pulled right back into the story. We are also reading about George Washingto...

As I mentioned in my last post, we enjoyed strawberry picking a few weeks back. We went to Weaver's Orchard for their story-time and picking. It was great fun! We also enjoyed one of the Farm Days at Oregon Dairy . The kids enjoyed seeing the cows and enjoyed all the fun activities and free food that was provided by the sponsors. Gwen's new favorite word is "moo".

Last week, our last week of school we put in some review and we went out to pick red raspberries and strawberries. We read Harold and His Friends: A Harold and The Purple Crayon Treasury, adapted from the television series by Valerie Garfield. Then each day of the week, after reading one of the stories, we would review. For language we reviewed all of our vocabulary words learned this spring. It is astonishing how much Tristan remembered, especially with simply a picture prompt. We also reviewed our personal pronouns, metaphor/simile, and onomatopoeia. For Math we reviewed time, dates, adding subtracting, measuring and patterning. For Science we reviewed the moon and stars. For Geography we took the story disk from all the books we read this semester and placed them where they belong on the map. We also re-read The Ultimate Interactive Atlas of the World. For Social Studies we reviewed each story and what we could learn from them. We didn't really do much for Art...

Last week we read the story All Those Secrets of the World by Jane Yolen.  This is a sweet window into how children understand and deal with life. Neat that the story is about Jane Yolen, and even my children caught onto that fact by the  second or third reading. Our vocabulary words for this week: Jimmies, Horizon, Perch, Sycamore. We discussed who is telling the story, and identified the use of personal pronouns. We also found the foreshadowing in the story. The children were excited to find it, like they discovered something special. For math we learned how to add two. Two plus any odd number gives and odd number and even plus two gives even. (If Janie was 4 when Daddy left and 6 when he returned, how long was Daddy away?)We also learned how to subtract dates, and figured out that all three of them are two years apart in age. Our geography lessons included finding the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia, and placing our story disk there. We learned about bays...

Last week we read Mr.Gumpy's Motor Car   by John Burningham. This is the follow-up story to Mr. Gumpy's Outing also by John Burningham. Both of these are funny, lively, unbelievable stories about a friendly man sharing life with creatures big and small. My kids enjoyed Mr. Gumpy's Outing better than Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car , but Five in a Row recommended the latter, so that was our story for last week. Our vocabulary words for the week: Lane, Overhead, Churned and Nearly. We noticed the British slang words used, "squash, trotter". We identified Onomatopoeia: squelched, gasped, chugged and we looked at the symbolism, when the text said "rain came down" the illustration showed car driving down hill. We compared and contrasted Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car to Little Blue Truck, by Alice Schertle, and compared the excuses given in Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car to the excuses given in the classic tale, The Little Red Hen. For Math we counted passengers in Mr. ...