MFW 1st grade: Week 1

Boo finished her first week of 1st grade! I wrote a little about our first day of school in the last post. Now I wanted to write about Boo's new curriculum and her first week.We started My Father's World: Learning God's Story.This was a pretty light week for her because the first couple weeks are mostly review. We're working on getting use to our new workboxes and reviewing everything we learned in K. My favorite quote from week one..."This year we will be learning history. History is all the things that have already happened in the past." "Like wars?" "yes exactly!" "oh and like when Abraham Lincoln discovered the faces on that mountain (referring to Mount Rushmore)"  Hmmmm...I think we have a lot to cover yet! HA!

We talked about scrolls this week in history. We learned that before there were books old writings like the bible were written on scrolls. We started a large scroll project that will have all the letters of the alphabet written on it by the time it's finished. She's done a lot of practice writing her letters this week. For an art project she also made a mini scroll. We used popcicle sticks, white construction paper and brown watercolors.

For science we started reading "Things Outdoors." Our lesson was called "Close to the ground." We looked at what types of things that live close to the ground and what we can discover about soil, plants, bugs, if we look a  little closer.


Boo also started her own read-aloud time with mom. Our curriculum is the one that suggests to read aloud to your child daily. I have to admit though that I started feeling guilty. Boo and Baby Bear have always joined  us for story times and we often all 4 read a bedtime story together too. However, I realized that Boo and I have never really got to have that one-on-one reading time without her sisters like Sis did when she was little. Somehow it seemed a little unfair and I don't know if the benefits of daily reading to your child are as effective if it's in a group setting. When you have an only child it's so much easier to find alone time to spend with that child. When you have 3 or more that gets much more difficult and you end up doing more things as a group. So something new that we are doing is Boo and I sneak off while Sis is doing independent work and we read a picture book just the 2 of us. I started going through our at home library and we found a huge pile of book that Boo has never even heard (books that Sis and I read all the time when she was little!)..another confirmation that Boo needs her own story time with mom.

For Bible Boo has her own devotional book this year. Each page is a full color story that teaches a lesson and a Bible verse to go with it. This is the first year that the girls have done Bible time separately. We still have family devotions and worship after dinner with Daddy so I'm not too worried about splitting them up at school time. I do miss doing our Bible story and discussion together though. I'm thinking we will go back to that at some point. So far though Boo has liked this book.

To say math has been frustrating this first week is an understatement. As part of our math we will still be doing calendar, weather, and a 100 chart daily. We have decided to stick with MathUsee this year. It seems though that summer has caused her to forget what a number is! We're slowly trying to recover the information she forgot before we move forward with anything new. I'm praying that somehow math gets easier for her soon.

Overall I think we're off to a good start. Later in the year Boo will be reading stories on her own and making a special bible notebook. Looking forward to posting about the rest of the school year.