Quarter Update-Spring 2008

Reading-worked out way to lesson 35 with 100 EZ lessons before switching gears. We are back to using LLATL blue doing 4 lessons per week just finished Part 2 lesson 6. All the little pieces that drive me nuts fulfill something in Sam so we will continue using this.

MUS- currently on lesson 27. Will finish Primer then start Alpha this summer. MUS is a winner all the way around.

Handwriting-Finished HWT Kindergarten.

Speech- Almost done! We are weaning off Speech Therapy and are currently only attending 1x per month. Speech Therapy is our blankie and we aren't quite ready to give it up. I need a few more months of security.

Sam has really been enjoying our new books especially Burgess' Seashore book. SOTW co-op has been a hit except when we meet at the park......he loses interest quickly when he sees his younger friends running around and playing!

Art with Big Sis' just didn't happen but we have an Art Class during the time our history co-op meets so my desire to add some art/drawing will be met with this activity.

During the summer quarter we will continue to transition to Year 1 but not extend the length of our school day. Our daily schedule will flip/flop and we'll start adding our Year 1 books to our reading rotation.

Mondays schedule - schoolwork in the mornings so we can attend our co-op in the afternoon.

T/TH Mornings will be pool time in the morning with schooltime in the afternoon.

Friday mornings we will do our nature study in the morning with schooltime in the afternoon.

Our Year 1 booklist

Daily we'll work on

-LA- LLATL blue lesson with a copywork selections chosen from HWT or LLATL

-MUS lesson

-Speech work/Memory work 1 poem this quarter

-Daily reading with narrations

-review Spanish

-listen to composer during playtime

Weekly

Monday

-SOTW/ Art Co-op.

Tuesday

-Handicraft activity

Thursday

-Artist Study

-Introduce new Spanish phrase or words

Friday

-Nature study

I have made our summer schedule and for 9 weeks of school and I used only 2 sheets of paper. I have one page that includes all of our daily activities to check off using Donna Youngs Quarter Planner. The second sheet I created with AO Year 1 reading schedule that I tweaked to allow for our substitutions and to make sure we have only 1 reading selection per day. I kept our daily activities separate so I could re-copy that sheet for each quarter if we don't have any major changes during the year.

Time for a few weeks break-Should start the summer schedule June 16.

Green Hour #14

Pressing Flowers- Green Hour #14

The flower of the week was our Hibiscus. We reviewed the anther and filiment and our new flower part is the stigma which is quite prominant on a Hibiscus. Our plant had flowers in all stages from buds to faded blooms. We also took a good look at our Huisache-Daisy and were able to see them in all stages as well.
Sam watched the video from Green Hour #14 , helped me gather supplies and gathered our Huisache-Daisy and Hibiscus. He was upset that there weren't more variety in our backyard! Charlotte brought us a few Dandelions to press as well. Sam is thinking about what to do with these flowers after they are pressed - his suggestions was to make bookmarks.....we'll see how they turn out.

This was the simplest flower press to make! He could do it all by himself!

Our 2008 Graduate

Green Hour #13

We wanted to take a closer look at our Stargazer Lily but there were no blooms. Sam found perhaps the saddest looking trumpet lily in a much neglected part of our yard- I had quite forgotten that it existed.

We laminated the front and back of one card with the parts of the flower from Barb- Harmony Art Mom's Green Hour Challenge #13. The second card has our Stargazer Lily on one side and our Trumpet Lily on the other.

I wanted to ID the anther and filament since they so prominent on these specimens. Sam wanted to ID all the parts so that is what we did. I think Sam is going to have an easy time remembering our terms for this week-our lily's anther was LOADED with pollen and he was covered with it by the time he was done examining it.

We walked around the yard taking photos of our flowers for the upcoming week and we came across these bugs. I'm not sure what they are but we'll keep an eye on them to see if we can figure it out.

Green Hour #12

New Nature study focus-Green Hour Challenge #12

Sam has had his eye on this particular kit for a while so when I mention that we were going to plant some seeds there was no doubt which seeds we were going to plant! I purchased the fly trap terranium and we kneeded the peat moss and then Sam added the water to make the mixture.

He created a "river" with rocks and added a mini snake for good measure. Now we finally get down to business and plant the tiniest seeds you can imagine. The next step is to........place terratium in the refrigerator and leave for 8 WEEKS before continuing the planting procedure. This is know as stratification. AHHHH.....I know I did this with the older kids but I don't remember this particular step! Check back with us sometime in August.....we'll have some Venus Fly Traps to show ya'll.

Rocket boys

Dear hubby, John, did mention that he was doing science experiments with the kids .....I just didn't realize that it involved explosives.

Way to go, Big Sis' !

Evaluation of Sam's Kindergarten Year

We still have 2 more weeks before we take a short break from school but it is a good time to sit back and evaluate before making plans for Sam's year 1.


I use What Your Child Needs to Know When by Robin Sampson to evaluate the kid's progress. I don't use it to plan the year but use it as a benchmark that I review quarterly to make sure we are making progress. Sam accomplished all of the K level requirements by March and has done about 1/4 of the 1st grade as of today.


At Sam's 5th birthday.....

-he only knew the names of a few of the letters and even fewer of the letter sounds. He can now read simple 1st grade level books.

-He could count to 10 but did not recognize numbers. He can now count to 100+,understands place value, can do addition to sum of 10, and skip count by 2s, 5s, and 10s. He has started to answer the addition problems and then check his answer with blocks.


-He could write his name in block letters. He can now write all the letter in upper and lower case and has started doing some simple copywork.

Beyond the basics, Sam enjoyed many good books and through them he explored geography, science , history and literature in a fun , easy manner. He also did a very thorough study of the human body on his own initiative. Dad and Sam have enjoyed doing science experiments together when I'm at work including but not necessarily limited to magnets, rockets, and a few that I don't recall since I didn't get to participate.

I have learned that CM is a good fit for my younger children-I now have a solid framework to work with when planning this upcoming year. I have also learned that using manipulatives is very important for Sam and I need to be willing to work with that need during his learning to read phrase.


Looking forward to working with a 6 year old boy soon!

Our Year 1 booklist

Language Arts
Handwriting without Tears -Printing practice
Copywork Book 1 by Memoria Press
Our CM reading program + 100 Easy Lessons
All About Spelling Book 1

How I'm putting this all together....

-Oral narration from various subjects.
-Daily reading instruction
-Daily copywork from HWT/ Copywork Book 1/ or other subjects only 1 per day.
-Memory work from Copywork Book 1 + poetry

Mathmatics -Math-U-See Alpha

Foreign Language -Phrase-A-Day Spanish

Bible- Every Day with God

Poetry
A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson
Now We Are Six/When We Were Very Young by A.A. Milne

History
Story of the World-Vol. 2....reading to correspond with a local history co-op
Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin
Viking Tales by Jennie Hall

American History Biography
Benjamin Franklin by Ingri D'Aulaire
George Washington by Ingri D'Aulaire
Buffalo Bill by Ingri D'Aulaire
Pocahontas by Ingri D'Aulaire

Geography
Paddle to the Sea by Holling C. Holling

Natural History/Science
Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock
James Herriot's Treasury for Children by James Herriot
The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton Burgess
The Burgess Seashore Book for Children By Thornton Burgess

Literature
The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter
Tales for Shakespeare by Charles Lamb
The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang
Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
Among the .....People by by Clara Dillingham Pierson

Bedtime Reading
Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
King of the Golden River by John Ruskin
Peter Pan by James M. Barrie
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
St. George and the Dragon by Margaret Hodges
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
Fairy Books by Andrew Lang

Also Weekly

Art Appreciation - one artist per quarter

Music appreciation-one composer per quarter

Handicrafts - to be determined by interest

Nature Study- follow Outdoor Hour challenges.