"Ambling" Through Our Fourth Week

Wow! It's amazing how quickly these first four weeks of homeschooling have gone by! Each week we've added a bit to our *core* curriculum of the 3 R's. Week #4 brought "Art & Music Appreciation"...CM style. If you've never been to the Ambleside Online site, take a stroll on over. You'll find an amazing wealth of information on Charlotte Mason, including a free curriculum outline. While our homeschool is not 100% CM, I do find the AO Artist & Composer Studies to be an exceptional addition to our plan for several reasons:

(1) I know diddly about art, artists, art appreciation...you get the gist. After all, I am a CPA. I can do your taxes, but please don't ask me which art movements occurred during the transition from the Renaissance period to Neoclassicism. That's what Wikipedia is for.

(2) I know squat about music, composers, and the like. I did take piano for a few months in the 4th grade. I did a fine rendition of "Blueberry Hill" at my recital...but not quite Carnegie Hall material, if you know what I mean.

(3) The AO Artist & Composer Studies are completely planned out for you. And they are free. Now that's what I call a great combo. Even better than the *Souper Sandwich Combo* I had last night at Red Robin. (Which was fabulous, by the way.) All kidding aside, the thought of choosing which artists/composers, then which works by said artist/composer was just WAY too overwhelming for this left-brained gal. AO does all the work for me. There is even a newly-formed Yahoo group (AOArtPrints) where you can download the artist's works and print them at home. That is very well-suited to my typical planning-for-the-next-thing-at-midnight scenario.

So...to make a long story short...we added in our study of Leonardo da Vinci and Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov this week. For those of you who may not be familiar with Rimsky-Korsakov's name, check out this interpretation of "Flight of the Bumblebee." Makes me wish I had taken guitar lessons instead of piano.

Now on to the nuts & bolts of our week...

LANGUAGE ARTS: SWR continues to rock. We finished Section E, and after Grace wrote her "best original sentence(s)" for the week, she quickly ran to get *props* from her room to act it out! {Warning to all long-time SWR users: I allow Grace to use purple pencil to mark the words in her learning log. *gasp*}


We also completed several lessons in FLL this week. Still reviewing nouns...

READING: Grace's independent reading this week was "Frog and Toad Together." And we read the first nine chapters in our new read-aloud, "Little House in the Big Woods."

MATH: We completed Lessons 6-8 in Horizons 2. Then, in preparation for the multi-digit addition that appears in Lesson 9, we did this *fun* worksheet.


HISTORY & SCIENCE: Read Chapter 3 in SOTW1; completed narration & coloring page. Didn't quite get to making our own cuneiform, so that's on the list for this coming week. For science, we studied ants. Lots of reading here: Kingfisher First Encyclopedia of Animals, "Are You an Ant?," "Magic School Bus Gets Ants in its Pants: A Book About Ants," several Aesop's Fables dealing with ants, and "The Ant Bully" by John Nickle. Kind of partial to the last one, since my dh spent 2 years of his life working on the major motion picture. :)


CHARACTER: House rule #5--obey the first time. Favorite reads: "Godfrey Gordon Gustavus Gore" and "My Own Self."

MEMORIZATION: "Whole Duty of Children" by Robert Louis Stevenson.

And so I bring my rambling for the week to an end. In closing, I leave you with Grace's interpretation of da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" and "Self-Portrait."

Week #3 In Review

We're continuing to figure out the lay of the land in Homeschooling World. Luckily we have a compass. And snacks. Especially coffee & chocolate for the teacher. :) I'm happy to report that LOTS of things are going well. Here are highlights from this past week:

LANGUAGE ARTS: Hooray for SWR! We completed Section D this week & spent time on multi-letter phonograms covered in Lists A-D. We even had a rousing round of Phonogram BINGO, which did double duty with the soon-to-be-3yo set. I gave Emma card #1 (single letters only) and Grace card #3 (multi-letter phonograms), then took turns calling sounds to each of them. The first to cover the entire card "won." Of course, I made it so that they basically came out even. It was great to see Grace helping Emma with the few sounds that she didn't know. We also did a couple of lessons from FLL focusing on picture narration & story narration. I decided to take a break from nouns this week. I'm pretty sure Grace didn't mind.

READING: We finished our read-aloud selection, "Charlotte's Web." Man, I'd forgotten what a gut wrencher that one is. It's not like I didn't know Charlotte was going to die...it's the way she dies. Or, more specifically, the way E.B. White writes about her death. Heart-breaking...even if she is a spider. If you haven't picked up a "classic" children's book in a while, this one certainly gets our vote. In other notable news, Grace's independent reading consisted of two "Amelia Bedelia" books, "Little Bear," and a Halloween book that she picked out on our most recent library trip..."The House That Drac Built." I also have her *help* me read whenever possible. I think she's on to me, though. Tonight I asked her to "help me out" with a book, and she groaned & said, "Oh no! That means I have to read the whole thing!" Out of the mouths of babes...

MATH: Not much has changed this week. Grace still LOVES it when we play Pyramid and Go to the Dump; and she LOVES her MathShark. But she groans, moans, and drags her feet anytime I pull out a math worksheet. Despite this, we still managed to get a couple of lessons done in Horizons 2, and one in Singapore PM 1A. Slowly, but surely, she's getting the "making 10s" concept down. BTW, Math Mammoth is good "extra practice" for Singapore. We used the "Adding with 9" worksheet in Math Mammoth 2A alongside our lesson in Singapore.

HISTORY & SCIENCE: We completed Ch. 2 "Ancient Egyptians Lived on the Nile River" in SOTW1, including narrations, illustrated copywork, and some videos on Ancient Egypt from United Streaming. We shared the reading of "Archaeologists Dig for Clues." (Yes, I know this technically *goes* with last week's SOTW chapters...) In life science, we discussed habitats & food chains using Kingfisher's "First Encyclopedia of Animals" and "First Picture Atlas of Animals" as our spines. We also did a shared reading of "Magic School Bus Hops Home: A Book About Animal Habitats" and "Magic School Bus Gets Eaten: A Book About Food Chains." Gotta love the Friz.

CHARACTER: This week we focused on house rule #3--"Always tell the truth." Plenty of good reading on this subject. Our favorites were "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" and "George Washington and the Cherry Tree." Versions of both stories can be found in "The Children's Book of Virtues" by William J. Bennett.

CO-OP: Still going well. In art class, Grace started working on her paper mache bowl...using a balloon, a large yogurt container, and the lid from a small yogurt container. In musical theater, the class started learning the song & dance for "Zippity Do Da." Emma joined in from the back row. In gymnastics, Grace is learning how to do a handstand. As for Emma...she was definitely more comfortable in preschool storytime this week...she even left my side! :) Next week--across the room?!?!? You'll have to stay tuned to find out...

Grace's First Scrapbook Layout

So, last week I mentioned that we finished our dinosaur lapbook...and that Grace created her very first scrapbook layout. Those of you who know me can just imagine the excitement that I felt...tee hee. And the icing on the cake was when she said, "I can't believe it. I'm scrapbooking. And I LIKE it!"

Now, I suppose I could just post pictures of this milestone. But then what kind of a scrapbooker would I be??? I have to scrapbook it, of course!

Credits: Created using Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 and “Paris Flea Market” kit by Shabby Miss Jenn. Fonts used: Adobe Casion Pro, BlueCake and Carpenter ICG.


And here's a shot of the layout she created:


The two larger photos were taken when we went to "Walking With Dinosaurs-LIVE!" this summer. I found the smaller photo on the internet. The background papers are from the "Paris Flea Market" digital kit by Shabby Miss Jenn. I printed the papers out on my color laser printer so that Grace could use them for *traditional* scrapbooking. The hot pink cardstock is a leftover from my days as a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator. We picked up the dinosaur stickers at an office supply store (Office Max, I think). Overall, I think she did a great job! But I may be a wee bit biased. :)

Week #2 In Review

LANGUAGE ARTS: This week we started SWR by reviewing the first 26 phonograms, building the consonant/vowel page, then learning the multi-letter phonograms introduced in lists A-C. Grace already knows how to spell all of the words in these lists, so I opted to start the spelling log at list D but didn’t want to skip over the multi-letter phonograms. We’ve also gone through the first 21 lessons in FLL. Much of this is also review at this point, so we’re combining several lessons in one day.

CHARACTER: The focus was on our house rule #2 ~ “Be kind in actions and words.” We had several stories dealing with kindness, including “The Way of the Circle” by James Vollbracht, Aesop’s Fable “The Lion and the Mouse,” and a Chinese fable “Dung-Shi Copies Eyebrows.” We have also read aloud the first 10 chapters of “Charlotte’s Web” – and the girls watched the movie over the weekend. I had Grace write and illustrate several quotes from these stories as copywork during the week.

INDEPENDENT READING: Grace continued reading Nora Gaydos books, as well as several step 1 & 2 books. She also had some computer time on Starfall.

MATH: We played the Pyramid card game (one of our new favorites!) and the Go to the Dump game (from the RightStart Card Games book) many times this week. Our Horizons 2 kit arrived early Thursday morning, so we managed to squeeze in a couple of lessons from it before the end of the week.

HISTORY: We read the introduction and chapter 1 in SOTW 1, as well as some Magic School Bus books. Narrations are going as expected…heavily prompted, but at least she is listening!

SCIENCE: We finished our dinosaur notebook/scrapbook/flapbook, and Grace was SO EXCITED that she had created her very first scrapbook page…mostly by herself. Since scrapbooking is one of my passions as well, I’m just thrilled that she enjoyed it. (Now if I could get her as enthusiastic about math as I am!) I still need to take pictures, so I’ll post them later. We also re-read “The Magic School Bus: In the Time of the Dinosaurs.”

CO-OP: This was also our first week at our homeschool co-op. Grace is taking Musical Theatre, Gymnastics and Art…and enjoyed them all on the first day. Emma is in Preschool Storytime…and tolerated it as long as I was there with her. I’m looking forward to getting to know some of the other homeschool families better over the course of the year.

ART: Grace is always making an art project of some sort. This week was no different. She definitely gets her artistic side from her dad. She also completed a GeeArt lesson on the computer.

THIS WEEK’S HIGHLIGHT: This was a major birthday week at our house. Grace turned 7 last Sunday, then Matthew’s birthday was Friday. Instead of having a full-blown party, Grace opted for inviting her friend to go to the circus with us & have a sleepover. Since I don’t have any “school” pictures to scrap this week, I’ll end with one from the circus…


Credits: Created in Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0. Layered template by Katie Pertiet at Designer Digitals. Digital kit by Shabby Miss Jenn. Fonts used: SP Dinner & a Movie, Misproject, and Adobe Casion Pro.

Fun with Math

Trying to get the concept of "making tens" down pat with your kiddo? Check out this cool Pyramid card game, so graciously shared by a mom from the WTM boards. This has been a big hit in our house the past couple of days.

And...if you're like me, you know you have a complete deck of cards in the house...somewhere...but you just can't find all the 5's and you really, really, really want to play this game first thing tomorrow. Never fear! Print out a set of SumFun cards tonight.

Our First Week

I am pleased to report that we all survived (and...I dare say...even *enjoyed*) our first week homeschooling. We focused mainly on the FOUR R's this week: reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic, and rules.

READING: I started the week with the intention of having Grace choose two different books to read each day. I quickly discovered that it was better to have her repeat the same two books each day to build fluency (& confidence). This week's selections were "Mr. Putter & Tabby Walk the Dog" and "Mr. Putter & Tabby Catch the Cold" by Cynthia Rylant. These were also a big hit with Emma, who's happy to be doing "preschool homeschool"...she's been asking me when we were going to start school for a couple of months now. We also added in some Nora Gaydos books and a few selections from "Reading Literature: The Primer" by Harriette Taylor Treadwell and Margaret Free, available online at The Baldwin Project. This led to some interesting discussions, particularly when we read "The Old Woman and the Pig." You just don't see too many children's stories talking about hanging a butcher these days. But I digress...

'RITING: For copywork, we used "The Golden Rule" and the moral "Slow and steady wins the race." The latter came back to haunt me as I tried to hurry her up while she was brushing her teeth, etc. Let's just say that she could give Prissy from "Gone With the Wind" a run for her money (pardon the pun). We also started working on cursive letters a and c.

'RITHMETIC: Ahhh...just when you think you have it all planned out.... So, my original idea was to combine Singapore Math with Rod & Staff. Singapore for the mind-stretching mental math; R&S for the drill. The first day the drill was met with *some* enthusiasm; the second day the eye-rolling began. When I inquired about the source of her discontent, Grace (very politely) told me that she wanted to work on something she didn't already know. Since my main objective was to increase the speed of recall, I've decided to ditch R&S drill in favor of some math card games & MathShark. So on day 3, she's already diggin' the MathShark. :) And...since those who know me know that I can't leave well enough alone (think Sally ordering at a restaurant from "When Harry Met Sally"...yes, I'm showing my age), I've decided to now combine Singapore with Horizons. Why Horizons? I think Grace may do better with the spiral approach. I should receive my Horizons 2 order at the end of next week, so we'll focus on games till then.

RULES: We started our first day of school by going over our house rules and reading "The Golden Rule" by Ilene Cooper. Each week I plan to focus on one of the rules in our list. It always makes a bigger impression if I have books, etc. to *back-up* what I'm saying. Then it's not just a "because I said so" type thing.

OTHER: This summer we went to the "Walking With Dinosaurs-LIVE" show, so it seemed like a great time to do a unit study on dinosaurs. We spent some time this week reading more dino books, doing a dino dig, going to the "Colossal Fossils" exhibit at the Pacific Science Center, and working on our dinosaur lapbook/scrapbook. Since we are what you'd call "girly girls," our dino dig took place on the patio table on our deck in moon sand. Not exactly authentic by any means, but lots of fun nonetheless.

Well, that just about sums things up for our first week. Be sure to check out this week's most quotable quote & memorable moment on the scrapbook pages above.

Credits: Created using Photoshop Elements 5.0; Bookworm Mega Kit by Gina Cabrera; Shmootzy alpha brushes by Nancie Rowe Janitz; Swirled photo borders by Heather Ann Melzer; Torn edge by Anna Aspnes; Note paper by Katie Pertiet; Big circle brush by Jackie Eckles; Evergreen Eclectic Academy logo created by me. :)