Weekly Report - First Week of Second Year!

September 6-10, 2010

It's funny, this year that I've been impeded by a dozen factors, including, but not limited to:

- nausea in my pregnancy

- severe indigestion for a week

- new puppy

- son's birthday party

- disorganized, messy house

my week has been has been the best ever so far! I have just worked consistently maybe an hour here or there, but didn't get done on as many things as I've hoped for. And voila! We're off to a wonderful start. Son is enthusiastic about his year, and it shows. He is doing a great job printing his letters and focusing on his work. I'm so thrilled, and crossing my fingers he will keep this up.

So much to do, so little time. I still have to update my materials on this page, let you know about my schedule, and post photos of last year's recap. I really want to do this, I swear :)

This week we have done:

ENGLISH (new lesson)

We're using Primary Language Lessons by Emma Serl and the Teacher's Guide. So far we've done Lesson 1, Picture Study on squirrels, and Lesson 2, copywork of a passage. Turns out the passage was too long, and I'm having Son finish it next week. It's okay. He took 45 minutes to write a collection of sentences! However, they are very neat. He did his best.

SPELLING (new lesson)

Using Spectrum Spelling Grade 2, we finished Lesson 1. However, I am not impressed so far. I'm giving it a month, and if I still don't think it suits us, I will go back to Natural Speller. The word lists are more challenging, but I was worried I wasn't going to follow through with setting up my own lessons. We'll see how it goes.

MATH

We're finishing Math Mammoth 1A. Son is reviewing concepts in first grade he wasn't fluent with. This week we covered Fact Families and More and Fewer. He's getting them much better now. I like how MM talks directly to him. The computer games are fun, too, although this week we just did the worksheets.

POETRY

We read two poems to do on Labor Day, one titled "Idleness and Mischief" and the other "I Meant To Do My Work Today". The rest of the week he memorized "First Fig" by Edna St. Vincent Millay. We still haven't had an official poetry recital and recorded it. We had a busy week. Tomorrow.

COPYWORK

Son worked a lot on his writing this week. I'm impressed by his neat penmanship, but I know he needs to improve his speed. He picked his own copywork from the Labor Day choices for the week, and "First Fig" he copied as well. He also copied his last name.

SINGING (new lesson)

On Friday I showed him the notes on the piano and how we sing high and low with the low and high Cs. Then we sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star together and worked on tone.

HISTORY

We started Story of the World: The Middle Ages! We are both excited. Son can't wait to learn about knights, castles and dragons. Week 1 was reviewing the fall of Rome and its consequences. We all enjoyed the book Rome Antics by David Macaulay.

ART

Husband taught the first lesson from Drawing With Children, which was more of an assessment and shape recognition exercise. Both kids participated, and did well. I got invited to participate in next week's exercise as well -- oh goody!

PICTURE STUDY

We studied and discussed the painting "Work" by Ford Madox Brown. Son was indignant at the inequality in classes in society.

SPANISH

We focused on conjugations. We did Yo soy, Tu eres, El es. I presented the lesson, Son practiced saying them, we practiced using them, he played Muzzy on the computer to practice them again, and he filled out a Muzzy worksheet. We'll keep using those throughout the year.

NATURAL SCIENCE

Time and The Earth's Turning was fun for both of us. We traced our shadows at 2:15, then at 5:25 and Son noted the difference and explained why. We also watched The Happy Scientist clips to expand on the lesson and Son explained what he learned orally and wrote in his notebook.

PENMANSHIP

Son is doing excellent in shaping his letters. The first exercise in Book C was just an assessment. Special time needs to be devoted to d, y, g and the top length of letters such as h and k.

What didn't we complete? Composer Study and Geography, as we started on Labor Day and instead of following our regular schedule, we did a special unit on this holiday generously donated by Sheila Carroll of Living Books Curriculum. I subscribe to her newsletters, which are always thoughtful, and her mini units fantastic. They include copywork, picture study, poems, some history and readings. She puts a lot of work into it, and gives it away. Thank you, Sheila! We had a great time doing the Labor Day helper, and we learned all about Mr. Goodyear's vulcanization of rubber.