Category Archives: Reading/Phonics

Weekly Wrap-Up–September 20-24, 2010

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I can’t believe we’re finishing up week 8 of Lulu’s first grade year!  Someone pointed out on the WTM boards that at 9 weeks, they were 1/4 of the way through the school year.  Wow.  My girls will be grown before I know it.  :-(

This week was very productive, even if I felt at times like I was herding cats.  Here’s a little peek at our week:

Bible and Devotions

We’re still reading about Elisha in our Bible story book, and on Thursday we had to read two stories–we simply couldn’t let the Shunemite woman’s son stay dead!  ;-)   We’re still working on learning verse one of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”–the lyrics are fairly complex.  Hopefully we’ve nailed it this week, though, and we’ll move on to another verse.  (I’m thinking now that we won’t learn all four verses.)  I floundered a bit with our memory work–we’ve got Psalm 24 down, but I wasn’t sure what to pick next.  We’ve memorized quite a few long passages over the past couple of years, but I really need to work on a system of review for us.  (I’m planning to implement Simply Charlotte Mason’s Scripture Memory System.)  Anyway, I think I’ve settled on 1 Corinthians 13 as our next passage, but now I’m torn about whether to have the girls work on it in NIV or KJV.  Growing up, we always used the KJV, and I never felt like I had a problem understanding it, most of the time.  We’ve adopted the NIV here at home mostly because we use it for Bible quiz at church.  However, I feel like there’s something to be gained from learning some things in KJV, so we might go that route with 1 Corinthians 13.  I appreciate the beauty of the language, and I want my girls to have that, too.

Reading

We’re still plugging along in OPGTTR. Lulu has completed through lesson 105 and Louise through lesson 36.  The highlight of the week here was the Crossing the River game from the book.  Since it was from Lulu’s lesson, I had to make one up for Louise, of course.  :-)

This week, Lulu read the following books for reading:

Math

I’m really loving RightStart Math, and so is Lulu!  Sometimes I feel like I complain about it (primarily to the longsuffering Steady Eddie) because it is very teacher intensive (as it should be in grade 1!), but I am blown away by how it introduces concepts gradually and really helps Lulu “see” how math works.  (I”ll admit, I’ve had a few revelations myself!)  This week, Lulu discovered the commutative property on her own!  Hundreds and thousands were introduced this week, and we discussed rectangles and patterning.  We squeezed Math Mammoth in a couple of days this week, too.  Louise counted to 100 again with the number chart.  It was a good week for math!

History

History is the one subject that I feel like gets short shrift each week.  We did manage one night to finally finish up with our mummified apples.  The girls were impressed enough to suggest later in the week that if one of the kittens at my parents’ house were to die, we could mummify it.  :-)   Although we didn’t do everything I had hoped to do pertaining to Egypt, we finally left it behind this week and moved on to Sumer and its unification under Sargon.  The girls really enjoy history, but I’m wondering if they’re getting as much from it as they could.  I haven’t been requiring Lulu to do any narration at all since we’re using WWE, but I think it might be time to add narrations to our history study.  In terms of projects, we also started making our seal as per the SOTW Activity Guide.  It would’ve helped if I had read the instructions on the clay container in advance and noted that air-drying clay doesn’t dry instantaneously.  ;-)   We’ll have to finish them next week.

Science

Science was all about kangaroos, koalas, and beavers this week.  The girls were really enthralled with the marsupials and their tiny babies that find their way into their mama’s pouches to continue developing.  We intended to take a field trip to observe a beaver dam, but we decided to wait for next week and the cooler temperatures the weather man has been promising.  (It’s still HOT here, folks!)  Our favorite science related book this week is Percy and Five Houses  by Else Homelund Minarik.  This fun picture book reiterates the idea that a lodge is the perfect home for a beaver.  Louise read a few nonfiction titles aloud, and I read to them from both our spine (The Kingfisher First Encyclopedia of Animals) and related nonfiction titles from the library.  We are consistently doing narration (both Lulu and Louise!) for our science notebooks.  We had a science experiment/demonstration on our schedule for this week, too, but it just didn’t happen. 

Language

WWE and FLL continue to be a good fit for us, although I have gotten a little bit smarter and omitted the FLL when it’s narration.  Both girls look forward to the story excerpts from WWE, although it does frustrate them (especially Louise!) that we can’t keep reading the stories.  This week the excerp was from The Tale of Peter Rabbit.  This is such a gentle approach to teaching language that I can’t help but love it.  We continued with All About Spelling this week, too.  I’ve moved Lulu up to step four, while I’m keeping Lulu on step two for a while.  This hands-on approach seems to work well so far. 

Other Learning and Fun

This week we’ve continued on in Pinky Pye as our read-aloud.  I’ve enjoyed this book so much, and if the reader enjoys it, it’s hard for the listeners to not enjoy it!  My main problem is keeping my eyes open if we happen to read it after lunch time, no matter how much I’m enjoying it.  ;-)   The girls have listened to more Cam Jansen stories this week during rest time, although they did branch out and listen to The Rescuers this week, too.  We went for walks three nights this week after supper, for a total of about three miles.  The girls and I even made it out to my parents’ house for a visit this week on Wednesday afternoon.  My parents have some new kittens, and the girls are hoping to bring one home once it is old enough to leave its mama.  In preparation for this, the girls (mainly Louise) have been working on a house for the kitten.  Steady Eddie brought some boxes home from Aldi this week, and the girls have had a good time decorating them and outfitting them for occupancy.  I try not to interrupt their play times when they get going on a project like this just to do school work because I feel that at their young ages, play time is every bit as important as reading, spelling, or math. 

Ready for Occupancy

It has been a productive week, but I am in dire need of a break.  I’m feeling very stressed out lately, although there’s not an obvious  reason for me to feel this way.  (I mean there’s nothing unusual going on, etc.)  I want to be one of those homeschool moms who goes the distance, so I need to be careful here.  I’m planning to make next week a light week.  We’re going to take a break from everything except maybe a little bit of math and reading aloud and “row” The Clown of God.  I envision several baking projects and some artwork here, in addition to a field trip or two and lots of read alouds.  I’m going to breathe next week and try to figure out how I can make our days a little shorter but still feel like I’m exposing my girls to everything they need this year. 

Here’s to a restful weekend!  :-)

(For more Weekly Wrap-Up posts, visit Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.)

Weekly Wrap-Up–September 13-17, 2010

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I’m flying in here on Friday afternoon to summarize our week, and to be honest, I’m not sure that I have enough brain power left to do so!  :-)   I think I’ll just hit the high points and leave you with some pictures of an awesome field trip we went on this afternoon.  How’s that?  :-)

Bible and Devotions

This week saw the prophet Elijah taken up in the whirlwind and his mantle falling on Elisha.  We also learned about the truthful prophet Micaiah who refused to give King Ahab the message he wanted to hear.  For our hymn study, we squared away the final verse of “Holy, Holy, Holy,” and began working on “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”  We’re currently still going over hymns we quickly reviewed at the very beginning of the year, so we revisited the accompanying devotional for “A Mighty Fortress.”  We discussed God’s might and power after reading the devotional “God Is Almighty” from Leading Little Ones to God, and this was the perfect one to pair with “A Mighty Fortress.”  (I love it when this happens!)  Last, Lulu has all but nailed her memorization of Psalm 24, and Louise and I can say it together with a little prompting.  ;-)   I’m now contemplating what will be our next scripture memory passage.

Reading

Both girls keep plugging away at OPGTTR.  This week marked a big transition for us in that instead of reading ”I Can Read” books and the like aloud to me as a part of her reading lesson, Lulu read chapters from Cam Jansen and the Mystery Writer Mystery by David Adler.  Last week, I asked our children’s librarian for recommendations for easy chapter books, and she highly recommended these little mysteries.  I have to say they have been a hit, although I realized a early in the week that Lulu was listening to the audiobook of this one repeatedly, too, so this helped with her fluency.  (I had checked out a couple of Cam Jansen audiobooks, thinking that they might pull her in and make her willing to attempt another chapter book on her own.  I didn’t count on her practically memorizing them!  Louise actually tipped me off when she finished word-for-word a sentence that Lulu had begun reading.  ;-)   )  I’m pretty sure she finished another Cam Jansen book on her own this week, too, although I’m not sure of the title.  This one, I believe, is one that she has never heard before. 

Math

More of the same–Math Mammoth and RightStart level B.  This week Lulu focused on the concept of tens.  Louise surprised me by using a 100 chart to count to 100! 
 

History

When I started this homeschooling gig, I never dreamed that history would be the subject I have the hardest time fitting in!  I mean, I used to teach history in public school, for pete’s sake!  think it’s because I typically wait to do it last, and by then, our day is on tenterhooks and greatly under the control of the DLM’s need for a nap (and my need for the girls to have rest time!).  This week we finished chapter four in SOTW 1 and read a couple of supplemental books about pyramids.  We didn’t do much extra, except work on a pyramid for our history pockets and color the coloring sheet from the SOTW activity guide.  I had every intention of building pyramids out of sugar cubes as per the activity guide instructions, but apparently sugar cubes aren’t in high demand around these parts.  Steady Eddie did procure for us some 1 cm wooden blocks to use instead, but we never got to it.  We did take a little historical detour from ancient Egypt to read up a bit on Christopher Columbus to prepare us for our field trip.  More on this at the end of the post!

Science


This week we studied pandas, polar bears, and chimpanzees.  We even did a little experiment to discover how polar bears keep from sliding around on the ice and snow.  I have to say that I am personally very intrigued and amazed by the polar bear.  I think this home schooling thing is as much for me as it as for my children!  Our best supplemental book this week is one that I wrote about in our first Weekly Wrap-Up post of the year–Ice Bear by Nicola Davies.  We also read Polar Bears by the very prolific Gail Gibbons.   If you’re looking for a nonfiction book about almost anything, Gail Gibbons is your gal. 

Language

We just keep plucking right along at FLL 1 and WWE 1.  I don’t think Lulu considers these work because FLL is so short and so far has been almost exclusively oral.  Both girls look forward to WWE because they love hearing the story excerpts.  This week the excerpts were from Mary Poppins, a book I read aloud to them two years ago when they were only 4 and 2.  (Mary Poppins taught me that pre-reading is important, although I don’t think I learned the lesson very well!)  Anyway, the girls often clamor for me to read more of the story after I read the WWE excerpt, so I’m fairly certain that using this particular curriculum will result in a longer TBR list for us! 

The big news in language is that we started spelling lessons this week.  We’re using All About Spelling level one.  I was torn about whether to start Lulu in level one or move her ahead to level two, but I finally decided just to begin at the beginning and quickly go through it so that we’ll get a feel for the program, if nothing else.  So far both girls have worked on the phonemes (especially all the sounds for the vowels since even Lulu hasn’t been introduced to all of them in OPGTTR yet) and segmentation.  I’m sure I’ll have more to say about this in the future.

Overall this has been an unusually tiring week.  Steady Eddie had meetings that required him to drive several hours each day, so his days began very early and ended late a couple of nights.  This meant, in turn, that I was “on duty” for longer than I’m accustomed to for a few days.  We did manage to take in one of my nephew’s football games on Monday night, and on Thursday night we walked 2.6 miles at a local trail.  Our homeschool group p.e. teacher has challenged us to walk 26 miles by mid-November, so we’re really trying to make a go of it.  As I mentioned before, the girls have listened to a couple of Cam Jansen audiobooks.  Our current read-aloud is Pinky Pye, the sequel to Ginger Pye.  The biggest thing that happened this week is that Louise moved up at our local musical academy to a real piano class!  I was honestly worried about how I would find time to practice with both girls, in addition to doing all of our other schooling, but Lulu came to my rescue.  My girls fight, like all sisters, but this picture and the sweet music they worked on together warm my heart:

Today we had our usual homeschool group meeting, and  we had a field trip with our group this afternoon.  We had the wonderful experience of going onboard replicas of both the Niña and the Pinta.  This was a terrific field trip, even though it was nearly 100 degrees and the ships offered very little shade.  (Imagine what it would’ve been like to actually sail aboard one of these little caravels!)  I’ll leave you now with some pictures from our afternoon:

The Pinta

The Nina

Have a blessed weekend!

(For more Weekly Wrap-Ups, visit Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.)

Weekly Wrap-Up::September 6-10, 2010

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This sixth week of schooling was one in which we threw our schedule out the window.  Steady Eddie was off work for Labor Day and he took a vacation day on Tuesday, so we headed to Memphis, Tennessee, to visit our favorite zoo and take in a few Egyptian sights.  Memphis is the perfect choice for our first official field trip of the year since we’re first year WTMers and we’re studying ancient history and animals.  A city with a large zoo and an Egyptian connection–perfect! 

Zoo Entrance

The front of the zoo is covered in hieroglyphics!

This obelisk is just inside the entrance of the zoo.

We drove by the Pyramid after leaving the zoo on Tuesday. It's an awesome sight!

Of course, there’s plenty at the zoo that doesn’t relate to Egypt, but it was perfect for where we are in our science studies:  animals, mammals in particular.  Here are some of my favorite pictures:

Obviously, I love giraffes! :-)   We got to hear a zookeeper chat at the giraffe habitat, and we really enjoyed that.  Steady Eddie even heard the zookeeper refer to the male giraffe (the father of most of the giraffes at the zoo) as selfish because he was trying to eat all of the leaves and branches she was attempting to hand feed the other giraffes.  (To understand why we found this humorous, watch the video clip at the bottom of last week’s Weekly Wrap-Up post.)

It was our first time to see the grizzlies since they are a part of a huge new habitat that recently opened.  There were three of them in the habitat on the day we visited and watched them feed, and the zookeeper there told us that they were a set of siblings that were orphaned as a result of their mother’s run-in with a hiker out in the Yellowstone area.  Apparently the hiker and the mama bear surprised each other, and it ended up badly for both of them.   The hiker shot the bear, but not before being critically injured by the bear.  Anyway, these cubs are right around a year old, I believe. 

 

I couldn’t resist taking pictures of these trumpeter swans, despite the fact that they were too far away for me to get a good shot with my short lens.  The reason?  We love Louis! 

Louise’s only request at the zoo this year (besides repeated requests for Dippin’ Dots, of course) was to watch the sea lion show, so watch it we did.  I was amused to learn that the larger of the sea lions (not the one pictured above) is named Andre.  Ah ha!  Another literary connection!  :-)

The girls did complete an animal observation form from the student workbook in our science curriculum.  They both picked the panda to observe.  I have mixed feelings about requiring anything at all on such a field trip, but it didn’t take too long.  :-)

We had a great trip, and of all the critters we saw, these were my favorites:


A milestone was reached on our trip, as well: Lulu finished her first independently-read chapter book!

Wednesday was spent reacclimating to normal life here at home.  The only thing we did that remotely resembled a normal school day here was finish reading Ginger Pye.

On Thursday we did business as usual.  However, it was pretty much just “do the next thing,” so I won’t make this lengthy post any lengthier by elaborating on that, other than to mention some of the books we read.  For reading this week, aside from finishing her first Magic Treehouse book,   Lulu also read Don’t Call Me Special: A First Look at Disability and The Dog That Dug for Dinosaurs.  The girls really enjoyed listening to Fifty Famous Fairy Tales via my iPod on our trip, and Steady Eddie and I enjoyed not answering the “are we there yet?” question repeatedly due to their involvement in this audiobook.  ;-)

I do like to mention any science-related books that we read and enjoy each week, and although we didn’t do any formal science lessons this week since we spent so much time at the zoo, I do want to mention this title.  I bought My Visit to the Zoo by Aliki in the zoo giftshop, and I have to give it a Highly Recommended if you’re looking for a book that discusses the importance of zoos in terms of saving species from extinction, etc.  This book is very detailed in terms of all the types of animals it covers, and each animal illustration is labeled with both common name and where in the world the animal lives.  This is an excellent animal and zoo resource that I’m glad to have added to our home library. 

Today was a special day for us because our homeschool group resumed its three-meetings-a-month schedule, and we were all glad to see our friends after the summer break.  Steady Eddie and I even got to sneak away for lunch by ourselves since my mom was keeping the DLM and this isn’t my month to be on duty for our group meetings.  What a treat!  :-)

Whew!  I’m tired, folks.  Although I do love traveling, I feel about it like Wanda Wizowski-MacPherson feels about taking her brood out to eat.  ;-) I’m hoping for a little down-time this weekend to recuperate from a busy, busy week!

For more Weekly-Wrap Up posts, visit Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Caught Reading

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Another milestone has been reached here in our homeschool:  Lulu read her first chapter book independently over the Labor Day holiday!  She took a Magic Tree House book, Mummies in the Morning, along on our mini-vacation and finished it in the van on the way to our destination (I’ll post more about our trip on Friday, I hope).   Go, Lulu!  :-)

(I’m linking this up to Wordless Wednesday at 5 Minutes for Mom.  You can see more Caught Reading posts here.)

Weekly Wrap-Up::August 30-September 3, 2010

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This week at the House of Hope might aptly be called “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” or perhaps “The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat.”  This was our fifth week of schooling, so I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later.  Actually, in terms of learning, we had a good week.  It was more the organizational/logistical side of things that went awry.  Let’s address the good stuff first, shall we?  :-)

Bible and Devotions

We continued reading about the prophet Elijah.  He went head-t0-head with the prophets of Baal this week, and then he fled from Queen Jezebel.  We read a couple of devotionals from Leading Little Ones to God and continued learning the verses to the hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy.”  We pretty much have the first three verses down pat; we’re still working on verse four.  Our memorization of Psalm 24 continued, as well; we’re up through verse seven now. 

Reading
Lulu finished section ten and began working on section eleven in OPGTTR this week.  These were her independent read-alouds:

I know she read more than this; I’m pretty sure she finished a book a day during her mandatory ten minutes of quiet reading time prior to rest time, but I didn’t keep up with the titles.  I’ve tentatively put out a copy of a Magic Tree House book, Mummies in the Morning , in hopes that Lulu’s interest in mummies and Egypt (thanks to our history studies!) would give her the incentive to delve into a chapter book on her own.  I’m not pushing it, though–just offering, gently.  I think this is something that can’t be rushed.

Louise completed two lessons in OPGTTR this week:  lessons 34 and 35 (minus the game).  She also enjoyed all of Lulu’s read-alouds!  :-)

Math

Lulu was introduced to writing equations this week in RightStart level B.  She also began keeping her math journal for RightStart, which is something I’m glad is a part of this particular curriculum.  (It’s something that I’ve always wanted to have her do, but not something I usually think of on my own.)  As I mentioned last week, we began using Math Mammoth this week, too.  We’re working in the light blue series, which is arranged topically.  Lulu worked on counting in groups of ten and naming and writing numbers.  I decided to not worry about aligning the curricula, but instead to let Lulu think about and work on the topics as they come.  I like both curricula and how they teach math conceptually (I believe this is the correct terminology), but I’m going to have to rein in my enthusiasm and limit how much I try to do in Math Mammoth, which I’m looking at as our secondary curriculum.  If not, math tends to go on and on.  :-)

History

We had something of a difficult time getting history done this week, for some reason.  I only intended for us to cover one half of chapter four in SOTW 1–the “Making Mummies” portion of “The Old Kingdom of Egypt.”  We finally got around to writing hieroglyphics from last week, but we didn’t finish making our scrolls.  (Note to self:  Buy whatever school materials we need on the weekends; if we don’t have the materials by Monday, we’re not likely to get them through the week!)  We read a couple of supplemental books and began working on our Ancient Egypt history pocket (from History Pockets: Ancient Civilizations, Grades 1-3).I wasn’t sure how the girls would like reading and studying about mummification–it’s pretty gruesome.  In true kid fashion, they liked it.  :-)   Stay tuned to find out if I actually go through with my plan to mummify a chicken! 

Science

Our animals of the week were the giraffe, the camel, and the deer, via Elemental Science Biology for the Grammar Stage.  As usual, we read several supplemental books, and Lulu read aloud a few books related to our animal studies, as well.  We completed our first “experiment” this week (not including the one we did a few weeks ago that didn’t work out).  The idea behind this experiment is to figure out the importance of a camel’s large feet.  We took a large cardboard disc and a small cardboard disc and determined which one was easier to push down into a bowl full of salt (to mimic sand). 


I like to highlight any good books we read for our science studies, and this week, the camels won out.  This book is a fiction title, but it is a fun read.  What’s the Matter, Habibi?, written and illustrated by Betsy Lewin, is the story of a camel, Habibi, who gives rides to children to make a living for her master, who loves her and calls her “my darling.”  One day, Habibi refuses to get up, and her master is unable to figure out why.  It turns out that Habibi yearns to improve her appearance, and she steals her master’s shoes to make it happen.  This one made me laugh! 

We’re really enjoying this approach to science this year!

Language

More First Language Lessons and Writing With Ease.  Lulu finished memorizing “The Caterpillar” several weeks ago, but we finally got a new memory piece in FLL:  “Work.”  We managed to complete three lessons in each of these books this week. 

This is actually where Art should go, but this is also where “the Bad,” which I alluded to above, comes in.  On Thursday, our usual art lesson day, Louise had a doctor’s appointment in the afternoon.  This necessitated that I take Louise and the DLM out to my parents’ house, about fifteen miles in the opposite direction from the doctor’s office, and then get Louise over to the doctor.  I also try to mix it up a little on Thursdays–for all intents and purposes, it’s Friday for us here at home (the girls’ homeschool group meetings will resume next Friday), so I try to add in a little bit of fun.  After all, we’re homeschoolers, and we can do that, right?  Right.  I decided to bake cookies on Thursday, in addition to trying to accomplish most of what we usually do.   Well, we did make the cookies, but it was not a good day.  I do not handle stress well ( :-) ), and I was a near-basket case all day, trying to get lots accomplished but still get out the door in time to make Louise’s appointment.  This is also where “the Ugly” comes in–as in, my attitude and dealings with my girls.  I don’t want to dwell on the bad here, especially since this is a record of our school year, but let’s just say that mama has a lot to learn about patience and letting things go.  :-(  

But like I said, we did bake cookies, and they were good.  (We used this recipe from Alton Brown.)

Chocolate works wonders, doesn’t it?  ;-)

On Friday we had to take the DLM to the photography studio to have his 3 month picture taken, and after lunch out and a few errands, we came home to have rest time.  The girls and I began working on our art lesson before we left this morning, and we finished it after we returned home and had rest-time.  I’ll post what we drew for Sketch Tuesday next week.

The girls have enjoyed listening to The Cowgirl Aunt of Harriet Bean, Caddie Woodlawn, and The Cricket in Times Square in audiobook during rest-time and in other little snatches of time this week.  We’re still reading Ginger Pye as our read-aloud.

I don’t usually mention Louise as much in our weekly report because since she’s not officially school-age yet, I often let her just play when she’s willing.  I try not to push, but as a not-much-younger sibling, she’s all about keeping up with big sister.  Louise did reach a milestone this week, though.  She finished her last toddler/little kid music class and will begin class piano lessons next week!  :-)   At Louise’s little mini-recital, Lulu tickled my mom because she brought in the book she was reading in the van on the way over so she could finish it.  Mom said that this was just like me growing up, and I suspect it was just like Steady Eddie, too.  We’re both bookworms from way back!  :-)

The DLM–well, he just keeps getting cuter and more engaging.  This week he began making those cute little growly noises down in his throat.  We’re all quite taken with him. 

Well, it was a good week, despite my failings.  :-)   I just need to work on the organizational and planning end of things–how much can we realistically do when we have afternoon appointments?  Any ideas or advice?

I don’t want to end this week down in the dumps, so I’m going to end with a clip from one of my favorite t.v. shows.  When we studied giraffes at the beginning of the week, this clip kept playing over and over and over in my mind.   Enjoy!  :-)

(I’m linking this post to the Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.)

Weekly Wrap-Up::August 23-27, 2010

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 Wow! I can’t believe we’ve completed our fourth week of school here at the House of Hope!  While I can’t say we’ve really settled into a comfortable routine (as amy in peru commented on my Day in Our Life post, “. . .babies add variety. . .not even one day the same”), I can say with full assurance that no one here is bored.  :-)   This is how the week went:

Bible and Devotions

We finally made it past King Solomon and into the murkier waters (if that’s possible!)  of life in Israel and Judah under Rehoboam and Jeroboam.  A bonus for me was that I finally managed to get these two straight in my mind!  We quickly moved past these two and into more familiar territory:  the story of Elijah the Prophet.  The girls really enjoy hearing familiar stories again, so this is good.  I had a moment of inspiration last weekend and decided that one week per hymn from Hymns for a Kid’s Heart is simply not long enough.  We doubled back this week and began learning the words to the other verses of “Holy, Holy, Holy.”  Lulu surprised me this week by showing me up in our memorization and recitation of Psalm 24–she had been reading the Psalm I had posted on our bulletin board in the school room and memorizing it on the sly!  :-)   I love that she’s (finally!) excited about hiding God’s Word in her heart, even if it is to show up mommy!  :-)   We’re working on verse five now, so we’re about half way to the end of the Psalm.

Reading

As much as I love to read, I’m actually finding the teaching of reading to be rather ho-hum.  I’m coming to view this as basic training for life–something that is a means to an end, not the end.  Lulu is at the point where she can read just about anything she picks up, but we’re still plodding along through the OPGTTR.  We’re to the point where phonics rules begin to get tricky to me–variable spellings for the long vowel sounds, etc.  She’s doing well with it, though.  These are the books that Lulu read aloud independently this week:

I’m learning that there’s a vast range of skill levels, even among books commonly marked as level two readers.  As you can tell, these books are somewhat self-selected.  What I usually do is pick up a small stack of these readers that appear to be approximately on Lulu’s level when we go to the library and allow her to choose one a day.  Sometimes she picks something out of our reading basket, but she usually chooses a library book for variety.

After last week’s epiphany regarding Louise’s reading skill level, Steady Eddie and I went out last weekend and purchased a new set of readers for Louise.  We purchased Clever Critters: Level 1: Advanced (Now I’m Reading!) by Nora Gaydos.  These readers are colorful, unlike the Bob Books, and the illustrations have a little more kid-appeal.  Louise read the following titles from this series:

  • The Hot Yak
  • The Big Cub
  • The Fox Begs

Yay for Louise!  :-)  

We ended the week on Thursday with a rousing game of Reading Bingo. 

Math

I’m finally convinced, after 2,347 hands of Go to the Dump, that Lulu knows how to partition ten by memory and understanding.  RightStart Math is a perfect fit for Lulu!   After reading this thread, though, I’m sort of antsy to add another program on alternating days.  In fact, that was our original plan this year–to use MEP and RightStart.  I chickened out, though, because I just couldn’t anticipate how our days were going to go since we were adding an infant into the mix.  Now I see that it really wouldn’t be doing more in our day–it would just be adding something to our year.  I’m thinking that I might like to try out Math Mammoth with RightStart.  I reviewed Math Mammoth last year, and I’ve read really great things about it from people who have actually used it.  Since I already own the Blue Series, I thought we’d give it a try.  Stay tuned!

History

We learned about the first writing this week in history.  We didn’t read any supplemental books or do anything outside of the Story of the World Activity Guide.  The girls are still really enjoying the maps.  We did make necklaces with Sumerian cuneiform inscriptions.  The girls really loved this!   We used Sculpey, and even after baking it for about 45 minutes, it never hardened.  I wonder if this is how it’s supposed to be, or if maybe our clay is too old or something.  Hmmm.  Any ideas?

The girls were so excited about their new accessories that they wore them to church Wednesday night.  :-)

I had planned to make scrolls with Egyptian hieroglyphics, but my sister and nephews stopped by yesterday after school.  My older nephew broke his ankle at school yesterday and had just gotten a cast put on it.  Apparently, older cousins and casts are exciting enough to make my girls forget their history art project.  They didn’t mention it the rest of the day, so we’ll probably just put it off until next week.

Science

I feel like science was rather ho-hum this week, too.  I didn’t have a good chance to hunt down all the good resources I know our library must have on zebras, hippos, and foxes, so we didn’t have as many supplemental books to read.  Still, Lulu completed narrations on all three animals and Louise did two, all based on what we read from the Kingfisher Encyclopedia and anything supplemental we read. They also categorized them as to whether they are herbivore, omnivore, or carnivore.  Lulu read a couple of animal books aloud and added them to her science reading log.  Our best supplemental read-aloud of the week was Fox by Kate Banks.  This picture book has sweet illustrations by Georg Hallensleben, but it is a story that contains a lot of factual information about the maturation of  fox kits.  The girls really liked this one. 

Language

There’s not much to note here, other than the fact that a.) Lulu can definitely recite the definition of a noun at this point and b.) she was tickled to be able to tell me more about Alice’s Adventures in  Wonderland than the short pieces I read from Writing With Ease for narration contained.  :-)

Handwriting

Lulu has ditched the workbooks in favor of her copywork, narration, and book lists.  We’ll pull them out if I see that she’s really having trouble with something (like numbers–we worked on those last week), but otherwise, we’ll call it good.  Louise is still occasionally working in her workbook, and at four years old, she still has a ways to go in motor skills to have this mastered. 

Art

Honest confession:  I look forward to our art lessons on Thursday afternoons as much as I look forward to sharing my favorite read-alouds with my girls.  :-)   We’re still in the preparation/warm up phase of Drawing with Children; we haven’t even made it to lesson one proper yet.  There’s something about doing this on Thursday afternoons that I find relaxing and inspiring, and I think the girls do, too.  I don’t know what it is–maybe because Fridays are our errand/library/homeschool group meeting days, so Thursdays are sort of like Fridays to me, so I’m already a little more relaxed.  Anyway, I love doing this!  These were our warm-up exercises from yesterday:

I also had the girls draw a zoo animal for Sketch Tuesday at Harmony Art Mom, but I’ll wait until Tuesday to post those. 

I’m really enjoying our lifestyle.  Sure, I get stressed out sometimes, but overall, I feel like I’ve been given grace to handle this better than I ever could in my own impatient, perfectionistic flesh.  (Not that I’m perfect by any means–far from it!)  I love that the girls get to spend their days with me and the DLM.  I love that they listen to excellent literature for a couple of hours every day.  (This week they finally got tired of Heidi in audio and picked up The Cricket in Times Square.  Lulu just announced last night that the cricket in the story played “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” which is one of the hymns we’ve been working on!  :-)   We are still enjoying Ginger Pye as our chapter book read aloud.)  Yesterday when we got the phone call that my nephew had broken his ankle, we were able to stop immediately and pray for him.  Then, Louise immediately made him a get well card.  I love that because we’re together, the girls get to learn how to respond to such crises.  I still have my moments of homeschool angst, but I’m really happy with where we are right now as a family.  

Thank you, Lord!

(For more Week Wrap-Up posts, head over to Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.)

Weekly Wrap-Up X 2: August 9-13 and August 16-20

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I tried and tried to find or make time to post a wrap-up post last week, but it just didn’t happen.  We had a tragic death in my family last week–my uncle was killed in a motorcycle accident.  We spent the end of last week attending his funeral and spending time with the family.  The weekend went by in a blur, and the new week was upon us almost before I knew it.  We’re schooling Monday through Thursday now until our group meetings start next month.  I have decided that if I am going to keep up these weekly wrap-up posts (and I really want to!), I’m going to have to hit the high points of the week instead of giving a play-by-play.  This is what I’ve decided to focus on:

  • anything that we produce that is interesting visually since much of our work is oral and/or rather boring visually (i.e. narration pages produced over and over; handwriting work; etc.)
  • the books we read, both together and alone (this one shouldn’t come as a surprise!)
  • any growth I see in my girls (and the DLM, too!)
  • anything unusual we do that contributes to or illustrates our learning

This Weekly Wrap-Up post will be a mish-mash of weeks and a post that I started last week and didn’t finish and my new resolve of “less is more” (which is so hard for me, as regular readers here already know ;-) ).  Anyway, the goals above are ones I aspire to, not necessarily ones I’ve attained.  :-)   Okay, on to our weeks-in-review!

 Remember the end of our first week when I said that things went sooooooooooo smoothly?  Well, the honeymoon’s over.  :-)   All things considered, we have had a good couple of weeks, but that nice little tidy schedule that worked most of the first week simply isn’t happening anymore, mostly due to a shift in the DLM’s sleeping schedule (and I use that term loosely!).    It was bound to happen, though, right?  I have a few theories on how I might better order our day that I’ll share at the end of this post, and I’m ALWAYS open to suggestions from you veteran homeschoolers out there!

First, though, the good stuff–what we accomplished!

Bible and Devotions

We continued to read in our Children’s Bible in 365 Stories, and this week it was all about Solomon and his successors.  The girls were quite fascinated by the most famous story that showcases Solomon’s God-given wisdom.  :-)   We learned about the hymns “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” and “This Is My Father’s World”.  We also continued with Leading Little Ones to God, although at this point the girls much prefer spending time with the hymns.  Much of what we’ve read so far in Leading Little Ones has been somewhat repetitive of what we’ve already done, but for now we’re continuing with it because I like how it discusses theological issues systematically.  We managed to get in a couple of days (I think–I forgot to mark it down!) of JBQ practice, too.  This past week we began memorizing Psalm 24, and in answer to my own query about a good system for keeping up with and reviewing our memory passages, I think I might give Simply Charlotte Mason’s Scripture Memory System a try.  Does anyone out there use this?  Do you like it?

Reading

Lulu finished up with the review lessons I intended for her to work on from OPGTTR this week and moved on to new material.  Right now I’m planning for Thursdays to be a free reading day on which she simply reads aloud instead of doing another phonics lesson.  (Lulu actually reads aloud to me every day, but I hope to increase the amount she reads, at least on Thursdays.)  These are the books Lulu read aloud these two weeks:

We also played a rousing game of W-I-N-G-O Set 3: Blends and Digraphs on both Thursdays.  (Those are Wingo tiles pictured above.)  Louise hasn’t officially learned about blends and digraphs yet (‘though what she hasn’t learned has yet to stop her. . . ), so she’s mostly along for the ride here. I had an epiphany this week, though, in teaching this girl to read. I am a “cover ALL the bases” kind of person, and so I had determined that it would be best to start all over in the Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading, despite the fact that Louise was well into reading CVC words last year, simply because I felt like last year I wasn’t consistent enough in my attention to her phonics lessons.  Well, on Thursday of last week, Louise surprised me by reading Rub-a-Dub from Bob Books Set 2-Advancing Beginners.  I was already beginning to feel like we were spinning our wheels by going back over all the phonemes, etc. (not to mention the fact that Louise was extremely antsy bored doing all of this!), but this absolutely confirmed it and convinced me to move ahead some twenty-five lessons in the book.  Louise also read Puppy Mudge Has a Snack aloud to us.  This is a pre-reader type of book, and it contains quite a few sight words.  This is not my preferred method of reading instruction and practice, but I thought reading a book like her big sister might boost this middle child’s confidence.  :-)   I also pulled out the magnetic letters and my old cookie sheet for Louise to practice her word-making skills.  It was a good week for reading at the House of Hope!

Math

We’re plucking right along in RightStart Math level B, and much of what we’ve done up until this week has been review.  Lulu is all about math!  She really enjoys thinking mathematically, and for this I am thankful.  I made up a Mommy Store this week so she could practice counting money, and she and Louise both got a big kick out of this.  (Louise declared it to be “hundreds of fun,” and then she amended that to be “105 cents of fun.”  ;-) )RightStart has been a great fit for her, and although I admit that I went back to it this year with a little trepidation (because of the teacher-intensive nature of it), I think this week I began to see the fruit of all those many, many hands of Go to the Dump we have played.  Lulu has pretty much mastered her math addition facts up to 10.  Yay! 

History

Story of the World volume 1 continues to be a hit around here.  Last week we learned about the earliest people and their nomadic ways and how they came to be farmers in the Fertile Crescent.  Lulu was obviously impressed by this; she announced after learning about the Fertile Crescent, “Maybe I’ll go there on my honeymoon!”  :-)   The girls got to do a little painting at the end of last week when they made their own cave paintings on crumpled up paper sacks. 

This week we’ve learned about the unification of Egypt under King Narmer and how the Nile River floods, creating a fertile delta.  The girls also heard a story from Egyptian mythology.  I had a little bit of hesitation about sharing this story with the girls, mainly because I don’t particularly like learning about mythology myself.  However, after discussing the issue with Steady Eddie (and after reading this post on Susan Wise Bauer’s education blog) we decided go ahead with it. 

Science

Here’s a confession:  I love science.  My love affair with science goes back to high school where I had two fabulous science teachers who really made it fun and interesting.  (How I came to study English and history is still something of a mystery to me.  ;-) )   Studying animal habitats with my girls last week was so much fun.  We read a lot of books, many of which were run-of-the-mill series nonfiction titles that most libraries have in abundance.  However, there are a couple that we really enjoyed on the topic which I think added a lot to our study.  The first one is an Usborne title that covers at least two of the habitats we discussed (based on our science curriculum, Biology for the Grammar Stage).  The Usborne Book of Wild Places:  Moutains, Jungles and Deserts contains lots of illustrations and snippets of information.  Although this is actually not my favorite lay-out for a book, I’ve come to appreciate this style more after discussing somewhat complex topics with my young children.

Another title that we really enjoyed last week is One Small Place in a Tree by Barbara Brenner.  We began the week by talking about forests (both deciduous and boreal, a word I had not encountered before last week), so this little story was a good introduction to the complexity of nature and how just “one small place in a tree” can be home to so many creatures.  (We read a similar title by the same author some time ago and really enjoyed it, too.)


I just have to mention one more title that relates to habitats.  The Water Hole by Graeme Base is a beautiful book that is wonderful and useful in so many different ways.  It’s the story of a water hole that is shrinking (and thus negatively affecting the animals it “serves”), so it gets across the idea of conservation, first and foremost.  However, in addition to that, this is a counting book for the numbers 1 to 10; it’s a look-and-find book, with very visually complex and interesting illustrations; and it’s a book about habitats, since each two-page spread highlights a different continent, country, or habitat.  Highly Recommended!


This week we began learning about mammals and focused primarily on lions, cheetahs, and elephants.  We read quite a few good titles to go along with this study.  By far the best title we read is Grandma Elephant’s In Charge by Martin Jenkins.  This picture book is nonfiction, but it’s written as a story, so it has great kid-appeal.  The main idea in this story is that the female elephants live together in a herd, and the most important female is the “grandma” of the herd.  Ivan Bates‘ illustrations are realistic but still playful (where appropriate).  I give this one a Highly Recommended, also!

We read all of these books in addition to our science spine, The Kingfisher First Encyclopedia of Animals .  Lulu also read an appropriate science book every day.  I wanted to mention one series of books that we’ve found particularly good, both for my reading aloud to the girls and for Lulu to read–Pebble Plus books .

The girls completed narration exercises about each of the animals we studied, and they also placed each one of these animals in the correct category–omnivore, herbivore, or carnivore.  We did a science demonstration on Wednesday, but it didn’t work out very well, so that’s all I’ll say about it.  ;-)

Language

We plugged along in Writing With Ease and First Language Lessons.  We even did our first picture study/narration in FLL!

Handwriting

As much as I want Lulu to finish her handwriting book, it’s just hard for me to make her do it when I’m requiring her to keep a book log for both the books she reads aloud for reading and for science.  Plus, she does copywork for WWE.  Will someone please tell me just to let it go?  :-)   Louise, on the other hand, did several pages in her handwriting book this week and enjoyed every minute of it. 

Art


After discovering that Barb from Harmony Art Mom and Handbook of Nature Study has divided up the lessons in Drawing with Children into a manageable form (and adapted them for nature study, too), I decided to take the plunge this week and officially call Thursday afternoons our art lesson time.  This is one study I really hope to gain something from.  This week we worked on getting accustomed to the imperfect-ness of artwork and letting that go, as well as learning how to relax and acquaint ourselves with our new markers.   I’m excited about the prospect of all of us (me included!) learning how to draw! 


During rest time, the Lulu read several books and they listened to the unabridged versions of  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Heidi in audiobook format.  We finished our last read-aloud chapter book, Betsy-Tacy and Tib, and started on Ginger Pye. 

All things considered, we’ve had a fantastic two weeks.  I think I’m enjoying it more than the girls!  That’s not to say it’s without its difficult moments, though.  My biggest challenge is, as always, how to balance it all.  The DLM threw a monkey wrench into my nice little schedule by deciding to not always take a nice, long nap in the mornings.  I know that one way to handle this is to try to keep him awake the last time he wakes up to eat (which is anywhere from 4-ish to 6-ish each morning), but most times (especially when it’s still dark outside), I’m just too sleepy.  I am working toward it, though.  If I do that, he’s awake through breakfast and then I get him back to sleep while the girls and I share our Bible story and devotion.  He then usually sleeps long enough for us to get most of our work done.  He’s quite the charmer now, though, with lots of grins and laughing out loud, so it’s hard for the girls (and me!) to focus when he’s awake.  :-)  

If you’ve read this far, thank you.  This is probably the longest post I’ve ever written, and I HOPE I can make it more manageable next week.  I’m linking this up to the Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Weekly Wrap-Up: Our First Week of School

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Well, we survived it!  :-)

I say that jokingly, but truthfully, I had anticipated much more angst and difficulty juggling the DLM’s needs and the girls’ schooling than I actually experienced.  For this, I want to give a hearty “thank you, Lord!”  (And yes, I realize that this is actually the easy time, with the DLM sleeping a good portion of the day away.  I’m trying not to think too much into the future when he’ll be an active toddler!)

I had a mild case of panic last weekend and almost decided to either a.) put school off another week due to the disorganized state of our home or b.) begin with a partial schedule this week.  I talked myself out of both of these options because a.) I doubted that the house would look much better if we did put school off for a week and b.) I had already planned out a full week of every subject, not just the basics.  Thus, on Monday morning we hit the ground running and didn’t look back.  For a detailed look at the curricula we’re using, see this post.  This is what we accomplished this week:

Bible and Devotions

We learned more about King David’s reign, particularly about the rebellion against him led by his son, Absalom.  By the end of the week, David had died and the kingdom had been turned over to Solomon.  We also learned about the hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy” and shared the first two devotions from Leading Little Ones to God.  On a couple of days, we even managed to go over quite a few Junior Bible Quiz questions.  I’m hoping to choose most of our scripture memory work from these questions and Bible verses, but I’m not quite that together yet. 

Reading

Lulu, first grade:  This was a week of review, with Lulu whizzing through lessons 82-85 in OPGTTR.  She also read aloud Henry and Mudge: The First Book, Curious George Plants a Seed, and a Bob book. 

Louise, K-4:  I opted to start all over with Louise in OPGTTR this school year because our work in it last year was somewhat sporadic.  She whizzed through lessons 1-4 and can say the vowel rhyme with little help.  :-)

Language

Lulu:  Lulu completed lessons one through three in FLL and has a good handle on the memory piece “The Caterpillar” by Christinia G. Rossetti.  This was day two’s assignment, so I decided to just go with this poem rather than come up with our own memory work this time.  It turned out to be a great week to learn this particular poem, as you’ll find out if you read to the end of this post.  :-)   Lulu also completed the first week’s work in WWE.  It was surely a fortuitous decision for us when Susan Wise Bauer chose to begin volume one with selections from Little House in the Big Woods.  Regular readers here at Hope Is the Word know how much my girls love all things Laura Ingalls Wilder, so I received no push-back at all when it came to Lulu doing copywork and narration from this story.  She was positively beside herself over it!

Louise:  Louise listened in on Lulu’s lessons and just about memorized “The Caterpillar,” too.  She also did her own narrations of the passages I read aloud. 

Math

Lulu:  We started RightStart level B, but mostly I just picked one of the review lessons (lesson 8 ) and did it over three days.  We played several hands of Go to the Dump, too. 

Louise:  She has her own abacus (a.k.a. “abagus”) now, so she’s happy.  She did a little bit of work in a preschoolish math workbook, and she joined us in a few hands of Go to the Dump.

Handwriting

Lulu:  This seems to be Lulu’s least favorite subject, so I try to not push too hard on this.  This week, so completed two pages from Handwriting without Tears My Printing Book. She also did two days’ worth of copywork from WWE, which I’m also counting as handwriting practice.  She is also keeping a book log of the books she reads, so on some days, this is all the handwriting I’ll require. 

Louise:  Louise started work in Handwriting without Tears Letters and Numbers, and she was very excited to complete eight pages this week!

Science

Both girls: This is the subject I enjoyed the most this week.  Using The Kingfisher First Encyclopedia of Animals as our spine as per our science curriculum, Biology for the Grammar Student, we learned about animals’ habitats, migration, camouflage, herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, conservation, etc.  We read quite a few great books to go along with this study.  In fact, I can’t resist sharing a couple of the titles, they were so good!  ;-)   The first is The Peregrine’s Journey:  A Story of Migration by Madeleine Dunphy.  This book relates the migration of a peregrine falcon from Alaska to Argentina.  It’s an exciting story that brings the realities of nature to life.  In other words, it’s not for the highly sensitive child ;-) , but it’s good reading, nevertheless.  (My girls did get a little teary over the falcon killing and eating a dove, but this drama quickly turned into drama over the fact that Louise’s favorite cat at her grandparents’ had run away to a neighbors’ house.  There’s enough drama to go around here at the House of Hope, that’s for sure!)  What I like most about this book is that it does a great job of illustrating the concept of migration in an interesting way.  The other fabulous book we read is Ice Bear:  In the Steps of the Polar Bear by Nicola Davies.  I actually picked this one up at the library just because I knew we’d talk about the polar bear as an animal that is camouflaged, but this book turned out to match our study perfectly.  We learned so much about the polar bear and its adaptations to its white, snowy world!  Gary Blythe’s illustrations are gorgeous, too.   I would recommend this book just for the pleasure of reading it, whether there’s a specific study going on or not!  Susan E. Goodman’s Claws, Coats, And Camouflage is another book that we read that fit perfectly with our study.  In addition to these read-alouds, Lulu read aloud the following books to supplement our study: Animals on the Move, Find the Insect , and Find the Polar Animal.  This is going to be a great year for science!  :-)

History

Both:  We read the first chapter volume one of Story of the World and we listened to the history portion of this first chapter on CD.  Steady Eddie even prepared an archaeology activity for us to do, but alas, a thunderstorm blew up just as we were getting ready to go outside to do it, so we had to put it off until next week.  We also read the fabulous bookArchaeologists Dig for Clues and learned a lot about archaelogists and digs, etc.  (Random fact:  I used to want to be an archaeologist.  Once, in upper elementary school, a class I was a part of got to participate in a mock archaelogical dig similar to the one Steady Eddie put together for the girls, only on a larger scale.)

Today we took the day off and went swimming!  After all, it’s still 100 degrees here in the sultry South! 


The girls also managed to listen to a couple Alexander McCall Smith audiobooks during rest time (Max & Maddy and the Chocolate Money Mystery and The Five Lost Aunts of Harriet Bean).  After lunch we’ve been reading Betsy-Tacy and Tib and loving it. Thursday afternoon, the girls painted new canvases for our school room, but I haven’t taken a picture of them yet. 

The most exciting thing this week, though, wasn’t even in my lesson plan book.  Sometime last week, Steady Eddie brought home some caterpillars left over from a training he did for work.  We already had purchased a Butterfly Bungalow to use in a few weeks as a part of our science studies, so Steady Eddie put the caterpillars in it when he brought them home.  Within a few days, they had spun their chrysalises.  Well, lo and behold, as we were working on our lessons in the school room on Wednesday, those beautiful Painted Ladies began coming out of their chrysalises!  I cannot adequately convey how excited we all were!  :-)   It was certainly a beautiful moment for me and the girls!

We had a fantastic week, and once I’ve typed it all out, I realize just how much we accomplished.  I am so thankful to be able to teach my girls at home and be with them as I watch them unfurl their wings and begin to fly!

For more Weekly Wrap-Up posts, visit Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

First Grade and K-4: The Curricula

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I’ve been meaning to get this post up forever, but since we started school this past Monday, I’ve been too busy actually using the curricula to write about it this week.  :-)   I hope that starting tomorrow, I can write up a School Week in Review sort of post, so I’m putting this out there so that tomorrow’s post won’t require a lot of explanation. 

Steady Eddie and I got away a couple of weeks ago to plan out the year.  Normally we would’ve chosen to actually go away–maybe to a nearby town with a Panera Bread restaurant so we could eat yummy food and have wireless internet access.  :-) (Doing this sort of task at home is completely out of the question.  At home, all I see is dust and laundry.)  However, since we would be bringing along the DLM, we opted to just go over to the church that hosts and sponsors our homeschool group so we could use the copier and spread all the goodies out on the table.  No one was at the church, so there would be no one to bother if the DLM decided to get fussy.  While we worked, the DLM was unusually good.  (We’ve since concluded that the little charmer has finally found his sense of humor.)  Thankfuly, he spent a good deal of his time doing this:

We had actually made all of the curricular decisions before this workday.   I just wanted to point out the fact that prior to this workday, I was feeling panicky about this year.  After the workday, my panic was a little more manageable.  I still had an infant who likes to cry a good bit when he’s awake (but he’s getting better–see above) and still doesn’t know that night time is for sleeping; a four year old who wants desperately to be as old and as capable as her sister, but isn’t there yet; and a six year old who loves learning but definitely has her own idea about the way this all should work.  At the end of that day, I had our first week planned (in my new homeschool planner!) and a new lease on what our year might look like.  Mostly, I was excited about what we would be learning and discovering together!

Before getting into the curricula that we’re using, I need to give a little bit of background about my middle child.  Yes, Louise.  As I mentioned above, she really wants to do everything that Lulu does, but she’s just not quite there yet.  Since she has a late fall birthday, I have been torn about whether to go ahead and “do” kindergarten with her this year, even though she won’t officially be old enough until next school year.  What I’ve decided is this:  I am going to do my best to teach this girl to read this year because she wants it so badly, but I’m not calling her a kindergartener until next year.  I mean, so far as I can tell, there’s really no advantage to graduating high school a year early.  However, how can I not teach a child who is determined to spell things out for herself?  She gave me this note which she composed during rest time one day last week.   She wrote,  ”You are my mom.  I love you because you [are] pretty.”   She did this unaided, and so I think she’s ready to tackle the finer points of phonics, don’t you?

Bible and Devotion

I mentioned earlier this year that we were working our way through The Children’s Bible in 365 Stories, and we’re continuing with this daily in the new school year.  I’m even noticing that this little children’s Bible is helping me in my own quest to read the Bible through–I am already familiar with some of the more obscure Old Testament stories that I haven’t read in a while because I just read them to my girls.
  In addition to this, we are using volume one of Hymns for a Kid’s Heart by Bobbie Wolgemuth and Joni Eareckson Tada.  Although I grew up singing hymns and “convention songs” in church, at our church now we mainly sing contemporary praise and worship songs.  However, I don’t want my girls to be ignorant of the great songs of the church, so I hope we can work our way through this series.  I love that it comes with a CD of the hymns so we don’t have to hunt for them.  Each hymn has a little story about the composer and then a devotion based on the hymn, so we spread this out over two days.  On the days we don’t read about a hymn, I share a devotion from Leading Little Ones to God by Marian M. Schoolland.   

Reading

The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading is what we started with a couple of years ago, and it has been very effective so far for Lulu, so we’re continuing on with it for first grade.  Lulu is picking up around lesson 80.  I’ve actually worked through a good bit of it with Louise, too, but it was rather hit and miss last year.  We’re starting all over at the beginning for her K-4 year.  Lulu will also read aloud to me one book (or a chapter in a longer book) per day and for ten minutes silently at the beginning of rest time.  Louise will read aloud to me as she is able.

Language

I hope this isn’t overkill, but Lulu will be working through both volume one of First Language Lessons  and volume one of Writing with Ease this year for first grade.  Louise will listen in and participate when she wants to.  :-)


Math

We’re sticking with RightStart Math again for first grade, and this year Lulu will be in level B.  I commission Steady Eddie with the task of choosing a math curriculum each year, and he likes this one.  I like it, too, but it is very teacher intensive–I really need to prepare these lessons in advance.  (I’m guessing that most math is at this age, though.)  Louise has a kindergarten math workbook that she can work in if she chooses to, and she will join us in playing the many math games that RightStart is known for. 

Science

After much deliberation and studying of the forums over at The Well-Trained Mind, we decided on Elemental Science.  We are working through Biology for the Grammar Stage for first grade, and Louise is along for the ride. 

History

This is the subject we went back and forth about this most, I think.  I had actually purchased volume one of Story of the World and its activity guide back sometime last year, but I began to panic about it when I was contemplating homeschooling and caring for an infant.  Steady Eddie really wanted me to choose something that I wouldn’t have to plan, and we seriously considered going with Sonlight.  In the end, though, I realized that simply doing history The Well-Trained Mind way would be simple enough, and I resisted buying anything else.  Of course, we’re adding plenty of picture books, etc., which I have gleaned from various threads on the forums. Again, Louise will be accompanying Lulu in her history studies.

In addition to all of this, we’ll continue our read-alouds.  I’ll also try to sneak in an art activity or two when I can.  Both girls will be taking class piano lessons as of September, as well.  The only thing we don’t have a plan for is physical activity/education (beyond our homeschool group meetings three Fridays each month beginning in September), but I’m counting on this horrid heatwave that has swept the South to end some time so we can get outdoors again.  (No one should have to be out when the heat index is 108 degrees!)  We’ve talked about putting the girls in Upward soccer again, but we might sit this season out and try basketball in the winter.  We’ll see.

It’s going to be a good year!

 

Kids’ Picks & Miscellany

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Hold onto your hats, folks–this is going to be a jumbled up, miscellaneous, here-and-there post. :-)   (What, you say?  What’s unusual about that?  I hear you.)

It will start out and end up as a Kids’ Picks post, though. :-)
Regular readers here at Hope Is the Word might remember that a few months ago, Carrie sent me a delightful package in anticipation of the DLM’s arrival.  (Speaking of the DLM, he’s currently sleeping in my arms while I type this one-handed.  Typos are forgiven in such circumstances, right?)  Included in this package was a book I fondly remember from my chilhood:  The Five Chinese Brothers.  As Carrie points out in her own review, this book has landed on the bad books list for some people.  (Who knew?)  That didn’t keep me from loving it, or my girls from loving it!  This is a book that has migrated from the school room to the coffee table, and this past week the girls have requested that it be read aloud several times.  Lulu has even taken to reading it aloud to Louise herself this week!  :-)   We’ve even itroduced it it to the newest member of our household:

The popularity of this book around the House of Hope might also explain the girls’ sudden and amazing acquisition of fluency in the Chinese language.  I’ve heard them speak it on a number of occasions–at least that’s what they said.  I’m not even familiar enough with it to recognize it.  Oh, and Louise can write Chinese!  In one of the many books she has authored (“writing books” is her favorite quiet rest time activity), she informed me that some of the writing was cursive, and some if it, indeed, was Chinese.  This said so off the cuff, so nonchalantly.  Hmmm. 

All of this talk of China and Chinese reminds me that I never shared the lovely little package I recieved from Jimmie in China (who’s currently in the U.S., actually) after entering her Chinese New Year contest.    I went to the post office in late March and found this package in my box:

Seeing stamps from any place outside the U.S. always gives me a thrill.  It reminds me of my childhood and teenage years when I had lots of penpals.

Of course, the contents of the package were the real prize:

When I think back over the school year, we did read quite a few books that pertain to China in one way or another (which you can read about here and here), so maybe all of it did rub off on Louise–maybe she really is bilingual now!  ;-)


I promised at the beginning of this post that I would eventually get back around to a Kids’ Pick, and here we are.  I’ve mentioned several times in the past how thrilled I am at Lulu’s progress in reading.  I’ve also mentioned recently that one of her favorite series (and Lulu’s, too) is the Mr. Putter and Tabby series by Cynthia Rylant.  Well, this weekend she took it to a whole new level.  She and Louise both often choose books as their “go along” entertainment when we take a trip (short or long) in the van.  Her book of choice on this day at the end of last week was Mr. Putter and Tabby Catch the Cold, and she read it silently to herself.  Well, silently might be a bit of a stretch–she read it aloud by whispering it to herself.  But that is progress, and we’ll take it!  I even have photographic proof! 

I love that my girls have favorites and very decided preferences in their reading materials.  I love that they’ve been exposed to enough to know what they prefer.  :-)   This makes me very happy.

To read about other kids’ preferences, visit today’s Kids’ Pick post at 5 Minutes for Books!