Weekly Report (September 13-17)

This week has been good too! I feel like after two years and now going into our third year, we have arrived. We feel a lot more comfortable now with our routine, and the resources we use match both teacher and student.

ENGLISH

We did Lessons 2-4, and Son learned why and when we use "is" and "are". He also memorized the first part of a longer poem in PLL. This could take a while, as there are two relatively long stanzas.

PHONICS

We reviewed Lesson 2-4 orally. We're using Tanglewood Phonics, which two years ago gave him a good foundation for how to read, and now is helping him to spell.

READING

He read 9 chapters of Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl this week! The chapters are very short, he says, only two pages for a few of them. He enjoys this book. Maybe I could convince him to read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory either this year or the next. He saw a clip from the movie (the one with the big kid being sucked into the chocolate tube), and he was traumatized, ha.

LITERATURE

Chapters 6 through 10 this week. Son looks forward to my reading aloud to him every day. I'm so glad I waited until this year to read Pinocchio to him. He is mature enough to see the consequences of Pinocchio's actions, and not to be fazed by some violence and death (e.g. reality of life).

HISTORY

SOTW Ch. 2, The Early Days of Britain. Son greatly enjoyed this chapter, and narrated Craith's encounter with the giant with amazing detail - almost one and a half pages long! We read the the Usborne History Encyclopedia's section on the Celts, and he narrated the story of Beowulf as well. I really like the book Favorite Medieval Tales by Mary Pope Osborne, which has an age-appropriate retelling of Beowulf.

MATH

More of fewer and how many more. Math Mammoth offers good explanations.

NATURAL SCIENCE

The focus this week was on mixtures, and coming to the conclusion that the air around us is a mixture of three gases: oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide. We watched a video on the candle burning experiment and how it extinguishes with the release of carbon dioxide from baking soda and vinegar. On The Happy Scientist's video we watched online, putting a glass over the burning candle also extinguishes the flame eventually. We also discussed chemical reactions, and how burning is a chemical reaction. This is all Lesson A-7 in BFSU.

SPELLING

We do Spelling three times a week, and the first day Son passed the quiz of the word list in Spectrum Spelling's (Grade 2) Lesson 1. We were going to do Spelling the CM (Charlotte Mason) way, but it either was not getting done, or it was too time-consuming for me. Then I realized that Spelling the CM way was mainly through dictation, which didn't start formally until third grade, or as we like to call it, Third Year. I opted to do Spectrum Spelling, which is much easier and less time-consuming for me, and leave dictation until next year (start a bit in PLL, but not as a Spelling lesson perse. Still trying to decide about that.)

THEOLOGY

Using 365 Bible Stories, we focused on The Ten Commandments, especially: Do not steal, do not commit adultery, do not covet, do not kill, do not tell lies about other people.

GEOGRAPHY

Son read Maps and Mapping Chapter 1, and did the activity.

HEALTH & SAFETY

We discussed how to be safe in the garden, e.g. to never try to put any parts of plants in your mouth before asking your parents.

PICTURE STUDY

We are still reading from Getting To Know The World's Greatest Artists, Giotto. We haven't gotten to the actual life and works of Giotto yet, but the history and environment of his time. Son loves it, as it incidentally relates to our former and current history studies.

ART

Using Drawing With Children, and me as participant, Husband taught us the five elements of drawing as I practiced my elements.

POETRY

Son memorized Second Fig by Edna St. Vincent Millay, and recited it to us on Saturday. It's a two line poem, but he recited it very well, and using enunciation. No stuttering.

COPYWORK

Son copied a prayer he's learning for Religious Education as well as the poem Second Fig.

SINGING

We practiced "Happy Birthday" several times as we were going to a birthday party that Friday night.

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.

Finally Made a Decision about Math

After a few near sleepless nights, discussions with dh, reading, research and much deliberating on my part, I decided to buy Math Mammoth (MM). I got the Light Blue Series, the complete curriculum. I'm having ds review 1st grade math from now throughout the Summer. My goal is to be ready for 2A by October. By ready I mean, well-versed in the basics of addition and subtraction 1-20 and comfortable.

We got the download instead of the CD, as I could easily burn the whole program, 1A-6A, on a CD. The 20% discount on Kagi doesn't expire until June 1st. With this discount, I received a complete math curriculum from 1-6th grade for just a bit over $87! That's a steal, especially considering I can print out as many sheets as I like, and thus can use it for ds, myself and eventually dd.

Here are the benefits of this program:

- It's been described as like Singapore, but with better, simpler explanations

- MM is in worktext format, meaning the text and the workbook are in one book. No switching books back and forth

- Text is written directly to the student

- Really inexpensive at $109 for the complete download for worktexts 1A-6A

- Program includes resources such as game ideas, Internet math websites, create your own worksheets, answer keys, cumulative reviews, tests, and SoftPak for Windows, a math and sample language arts software (haven't tried it yet, I have a Mac at the moment)

- Answers the whys as well as the hows of math

- Combines conceptual math with games and drill for a three-pronged approach

-Different options to buy: download or CD, or print

- Downloads can print in color, and print is exclusively black and white to keep costs down

- The author, Maria Miller, is a Finnish born Mathematics teacher and combines Finnish and Asian math. Finland and Asia are ahead of the USA on all test scores in math (and incidentally, science, too).

- She answers questions promptly and courteously

Can you tell that I'm happy with my decision? I'm so excited about this program. I find no need for MEP as of now. Although it's free, the format is a bit confusing to ds, and as it's not colorful and has no explanations, it doesn't engage him. I have it as a back-up if or when I need more drills. However, with the worksheet generator MM provides, I may not even need that. That said, I'm using MM with Miquon. I like Miquon's discovery approach too much to drop it. I feel it enhances rather than burdens.

For the first time ds is excited about math, and actually said he likes math now! Wow! He really appreciates the explanations. He's a good reader, so Maria can talk to him. I'm right next to him, of course, and explain further.

My project on the side: As soon as I downloaded MM, I looked through it and determined I'm going to review and do the worksheets from 3A-6A to stay ahead and give myself a good foundation for algebra. I bought Foerster's Algebra. I won't get to it until a year or two from now, but at least I'll have a good grounding in my arithmetic first. I'm good at mental calculations, especially in addition and multiplication, but even I am learning some new tricks from working on MM. It's actually fun, something I hadn't thought I would hear myself say when it came to math.

I'm also reading Liping Ma's interesting book, Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics. So far I'm only on page 12, as I'm reading it carefully and try to understand everything well so I can be a good math teacher for my children.

All that said, I'm still intrigued by Japanese Math, although I have no room for it right now. I like the colorful graphics, but I don't know if I would like glossy paper. The mental math is comparable to MM anyway.. If I feel I need it down the road, I will sample it. However, I need more hand holding than Japanese Math can provide me at this time.