A Baby Sister fo Frances
Last week in Kindergarten we read the second story in the Frances Study Guide: A Baby Sister for Frances, by Russell Hoban. This story hit home for us, because we recently added a baby to our family. Anastasia could relate to how Frances felt neglected, or overlooked. I heard her repeat the line, "Things are not very good around here anymore" several times.
We learned about what pretend means and we pretended to talk on the phone to each other. During circle time I incorporated the unit Learning about Telephones from Ruth Beechick's Language and Thinking for Young Children.
I filled the same container with different items, we shook the containers and she guessed what was inside. This was fun for her, and built her vocabulary as she described the sound each item made. I put all of the items together in one container when we were finished to be used later in a problem solving activity.
We also baked a chocolate cake this week. Great way for Ana to use her measuring skills. (It did not turn out great, but still tasted yummy.)
We read Arthur's Baby by Marc Brown as a compare and contrast story. We also enjoyed learning about rhyming words.
Anastasia counted to 100 without help and learned how to count pennies and nickels.
She drew a picture of our family, and completed the search and find puzzle printed from the study guide.
For second grade we continued in Adam and HIs Kin for history. I remembered to ask for a narration every day last week. That makes me excited. Still need to get Tristan to copy a narration once a week. Perhaps I'll remember that next week.
Tristan loves to practice his handwriting; he is using Classically Cursive. (I purchased it through Veritas press. The reason I like it is because it is a Biblical primer and the lessons lead to copying scripture.)
For geography we moved onto the map The Descendants of Noah in Map Trek, by Terri Johnson. This week we only labeled the Garden of Eden. We are still working on memorizing the states and their capitals. Tristan loves this and I am relearning these. It's great!
We enjoyed some science experiments about the earth and it's place in space this week. I got all of my ideas from the two books listed below. We spun a play-doh ball on a toothpick to learn about precession, spun a paper strip ball on the end of a pencil to see the bulge of earth at the equator, watched a square of light from a south facing window move across the room throughout the morning (building on the sundial experiment), measured temperatures at 18 inches away from a lightbulb and right against a lightbulb to show that proximity to sun affects earth's temperature and then we shone a flashlight on a baseball to show how the tilt of the earth affects seasons. All the experiments were very easy and hands-on, however, the concepts demonstrated are so abstract. I'm not sure how much the children understand as we discuss the results.
Math has been Saxon lessons. I enjoy them because they recommend lots of fun hands-on ways to add, subtract and multiply, and the book work is built-in. Tristan seems to dislike the book work at times, however, he did really well on one of the timed fact sheets this week, and that encouraged him and gave him a new boost of confidence and energy. I hope he is understanding that math is fundamental and you have to start at the bottom and build up. It seems like drudgery some days!
Language lessons continued in Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind, Jessie Wise. This week I realize that though I like to create my own homeschool, good curriculum is a wonderful crutch when necessary. (Like when sleep deprived and overtaxed.) People keep asking me if we are taking weeks off of school because of our new addition. We are not. The only way we are able to stay on track is by following the curriculum pretty closely. It doesn't make for the most exciting blog post, but that's real.
Other stories we enjoyed this week:
B is for Blueplanet, Strother
You're Aboard Spaceship Earth, Lauber
Arthur's Lost Puppy, Brown
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis
Science experiments from these two books:
Simple Earth Science Experiments with Everyday Materials, Louis V. Loeschnig
Janice VanCleave's Earth Science for Every Kid, VanCleave
We learned about what pretend means and we pretended to talk on the phone to each other. During circle time I incorporated the unit Learning about Telephones from Ruth Beechick's Language and Thinking for Young Children.
I filled the same container with different items, we shook the containers and she guessed what was inside. This was fun for her, and built her vocabulary as she described the sound each item made. I put all of the items together in one container when we were finished to be used later in a problem solving activity.
We also baked a chocolate cake this week. Great way for Ana to use her measuring skills. (It did not turn out great, but still tasted yummy.)
We read Arthur's Baby by Marc Brown as a compare and contrast story. We also enjoyed learning about rhyming words.
Anastasia counted to 100 without help and learned how to count pennies and nickels.
She drew a picture of our family, and completed the search and find puzzle printed from the study guide.
For second grade we continued in Adam and HIs Kin for history. I remembered to ask for a narration every day last week. That makes me excited. Still need to get Tristan to copy a narration once a week. Perhaps I'll remember that next week.
Tristan loves to practice his handwriting; he is using Classically Cursive. (I purchased it through Veritas press. The reason I like it is because it is a Biblical primer and the lessons lead to copying scripture.)
For geography we moved onto the map The Descendants of Noah in Map Trek, by Terri Johnson. This week we only labeled the Garden of Eden. We are still working on memorizing the states and their capitals. Tristan loves this and I am relearning these. It's great!
We enjoyed some science experiments about the earth and it's place in space this week. I got all of my ideas from the two books listed below. We spun a play-doh ball on a toothpick to learn about precession, spun a paper strip ball on the end of a pencil to see the bulge of earth at the equator, watched a square of light from a south facing window move across the room throughout the morning (building on the sundial experiment), measured temperatures at 18 inches away from a lightbulb and right against a lightbulb to show that proximity to sun affects earth's temperature and then we shone a flashlight on a baseball to show how the tilt of the earth affects seasons. All the experiments were very easy and hands-on, however, the concepts demonstrated are so abstract. I'm not sure how much the children understand as we discuss the results.
Math has been Saxon lessons. I enjoy them because they recommend lots of fun hands-on ways to add, subtract and multiply, and the book work is built-in. Tristan seems to dislike the book work at times, however, he did really well on one of the timed fact sheets this week, and that encouraged him and gave him a new boost of confidence and energy. I hope he is understanding that math is fundamental and you have to start at the bottom and build up. It seems like drudgery some days!
Language lessons continued in Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind, Jessie Wise. This week I realize that though I like to create my own homeschool, good curriculum is a wonderful crutch when necessary. (Like when sleep deprived and overtaxed.) People keep asking me if we are taking weeks off of school because of our new addition. We are not. The only way we are able to stay on track is by following the curriculum pretty closely. It doesn't make for the most exciting blog post, but that's real.
Other stories we enjoyed this week:
B is for Blueplanet, Strother
You're Aboard Spaceship Earth, Lauber
Arthur's Lost Puppy, Brown
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis
Science experiments from these two books:
Simple Earth Science Experiments with Everyday Materials, Louis V. Loeschnig
Janice VanCleave's Earth Science for Every Kid, VanCleave
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