MFW 1st grade: Week 14

I'm so excited that at least for now we're back to full speed with Boo's work. She has been doing so much better and I haven't had to slow down at all the past 2 weeks. We finally finished our creation study in her Bible reader. She was able to read all the pages (some slower than others.) Day 6 in the reader was extremely long and she did start to get a little frustrated trying to read it all, but we made it through. This is the final result of her notebook picture that she has been adding to each day.

We also started learning vowel pairs this week. We learned a little song that Sis sang when she was in 1st. It really helps them with reading words with vowel pairs. "The first one does the talking, the second keeps on walking," We pretended to be vowels walking holding hands the first one said their name and the other kept quiet. I typed up the words to our song and we hung it up so that we can learn them.

 It looks like the reading really picks up next week, so I'm a little nervous! We'll see how it goes and take it one day at a time. We may have to slow down again, but that's ok.

In math we finished our building numbers up to 10 for our adding with Lego's we've been doing.

In art Boo learned to draw a monkey. We're over half way through our Usborne "I can draw Animals," book now. I've been filing all of Boos animal drawings in her 1st grade portfolio. They'll be fun for her to look through when she's older. We will probably stop using this book soon though now that she will be using her notebook for art and drawing.

Unit 19: Preparing

The only thing worse than trying to teach sick kids, is a sick Momma trying to teach kids! This week Boo's feeling fine again, because she decided to give her nasty cold to me! I hate teaching school when I'm sick, but I also hate skipping school when the kids are feeling ok. So I suffered (and coughed) through it. A lot of days Sis was able to do most of her work independently with just a little help from me.

History: Sis is still learning about the life of Christ in history. This week we also learned about his death and resurrection. Every day we curl up on the couch and read a chapter from our Grandpa's Box book for our history story and Sis reads aloud to me from Little Miriam of Galilee (which we finished this week!)



Sis' project was really simple this week. She had to make a clock showing the events of the day Jesus was crucified leading up to his death on the cross. We just used white construction paper to make our clock and then attached a "pie piece" cover with a brad.

At the end of the week we had a movie day and watched the Gospel of John. Sis got to watch a lot of the stories of the life of Jesus that we have learned the past 2 weeks. This is one of my favorite Bible movies, because it's a word for word reading of the book of John nothing added, but the acting really brings it to life.

Math: Sis is doing long division in math. I really don't like the way MathUsee teaches it! I love MUS as a whole, but sometimes the methods seem harder to me. I was rebellious and decided to just teach her the way I was taught in school, hopefully it doesn't mess up her entire math future! Hey it's worked for me all these years though, I don't see why we have to change and complicate it by adding unnecessary steps! I understand the purpose is to help them see "why"they're doing what they're doing when they divide. It seems to just make it more confusing to me though. If it aint broke don't fix it! Here's is an example of what a MUS long division problem with checking is suppose to look like! I prefer just to write "107" on top for the answer and multiply normally to check.

Science: In science we finished up the respiratory system. Next week we start learning about blood.

Just for fun we all did a project together this week. We made our own beads and bracelets from air dry clay using Crayola Beadola bead maker. They had a blast with this. They had to form the beads out of clay, make designs on them using the molds, then paint them and string them.  











  Here's a short Video of how it worked!

MFW 1st grade: Week 13

The good thing about this week is that we made it through a whole unit without having to split it into two! That means Boo is getting better with her reading. This week was fairly easy for her! The bad thing about this week is that she caught a nasty cold. We skipped art and anything extra. She had pretty short school days (less than an hour) just doing her reading and math. So there aren't many pictures for this week.

For her reading Boo continued to read a page about creation each day in her Bible reader. Then she added land, plants,sun, moon, stars, fish and birds to the picture she's making in her notebook. We also learned that the letter Y makes the long /e/ at the end of some words like baby or pony.

 

We have a long list of sight words that we practice each day now too with flash cards. I also caught Boo trying to read some books on her own free time this week. She did a pretty good job identifying some of the words. It makes me happy that she's showing a real interest in reading. I hope that as she learns she will end up loving books as much as Sis does.

Boo finished her weather chart this week. So far all she's had to do with it is circle a picture of "sunny, cloudy, raining or snowing." Now that it's finished I think there will be a project with it coming up next week.

For math we are still using the Lego bricks for addition this week. I think it's helping her a lot.

Unit 18: Preparing

Sis finally made it to the week we've been waiting for, the week we learn about the life of Jesus in our history studies. The Roman empire is still controlling much of the world when God sends his son to be born in the little town of Bethlehem.  The Jews are waiting for the Messiah, who they think will come and deliver them from the Romans. They didn't realize that he was actually coming to deliver them from sin, so many did not believe when he came. We enjoyed our lessons this unit. We got to use our Grandpa's box book again this week for our history stories. We read about the birth of Christ, many miracles he did, and finally his death on the cross. Next week we will read about the resurrection.

We're also still reading The Fountain of Life and Little Miriam of Galilee. Since we have so many books going right now for history we decided to take a break from our regular reading curriculum for a couple weeks.

We added Caesar Augustus and the birth of Christ to our timeline. We're doing an accordion book timeline this year made out of index cards folded in half. We're only half way through the school year and it's already so long! I'm glad we decided to make the book though instead of taking up tons of wall space.

Sis' research assignment was to find out more about the "Jesus Star," that the wise men followed. We used this website from Answers in Genesis for our research The Christmas Star.


Her project was to make a star. She cut out a large star and decorated it by drawing shapes inside. Then the shapes were painted using different shades of blue by mixing white and blue paints.

The best part of our week was a field trip at the start of the week. We went to the Henry Ford Museum near Detroit.  The Henry Ford museum is the perfect history field trip. There's so much neat history here and it made a really fun day together. Admission to the The Henry Ford Museum can be costly, but the best part is that this trip was totally Free! One day each year admission and parking is totally free for everyone! We spent most of the day there. It's a pretty big museum if you're going to stop and read about the exhibits, plus they have an old diner to eat at, a hotdog stand, and a cafe right on site for lunch break (I recommend the bacon, mac&cheese grilled cheese at the cafe' soooo yummy!)

 
Have you ever gone on a special field trip to show your kids something really cool hoping they're going to gain buckets of new knowledge and an unforgettable educational experience, only to find them running from each display wondering where the gift shop is? You say "Look kids! This is a real space rocket that landed on the moon." They glance at it for 30 seconds, say "cool," and before you can turn around they're headed for the building block table. Or, you get to Chapter 8 in your science book and say "We're learning about jellyfish! Remember when you saw a real life jelly fish at the aquarium?" They stare at you for a second, "No." It happens all the time. I know that they are gaining knowledge from the field trips and life experiences that we provide for them, but sometimes I wish we could slow down on field trips and REALLY learn something new that will stick. I knew that if we just showed up at the museum they would have little interest in many of the coolest displays, because they don't really understand what they are looking at. They would have a fun day, but not really learn much. I really tried to prepare the girls for this trip before hand this time, so that they would be excited about the displays that we would see. I found that telling them about the displays ahead of time and talking about what we would be seeing, was much more effective than trying to explain to them what they were looking at while at the museum. We read books about Rosa Parks and Abe Lincoln too the week before we went.

Our favorite exhibit there was the Rosa Parks bus. We waited in line to board the bus then they tell the story of Rosa to each bus load. By chance, we ended up being the ones in the exact seat where Rosa sat!! Sis was so excited. Also we saw a bunch of the presidential cars including the one JFK was assassinated in, the theater chair Lincoln was killed in, a cot George Washington slept on
during the American Revolution, the first Ford, famous race cars, an old train, tons of airplanes, historical inventions and furniture, and lots more. Plus we got to see live performances of old music, hear the MLK "I Have a Dream," speech, and have a paper airplane race. It was so much fun. The only question I have is why have we lived in this state our whole lives and never gone before? I'm glad we finally did.

MFW 1st grade: Week 12 (2nd half)

This is the 2nd week of unit 12 since we have been splitting up some of the units into two weeks.

This week we started a whole new approach to math. We ditched MathUsee for now anyway. We went all the way back to week 7 in the teacher manual and began there with addition activities. For now the plan is to work through the manual until we finish even if that means taking it into summer. I'm thinking that by moving half speed with her reading we will catch up in math though if we do it everyday. MFW takes a much more relaxed approach than the curriculum we've been using. The MathUsee expected them to memorize all math facts and master it before moving forward. It's been too hard for Boo. MFW uses hands on activities for math and a big colorful workbook with pictures and stickers. Their approach is to familiarize them with the concepts not mastery. Since we're starting mid-year I don't have all the manipulative or Unifix blocks. Instead we did the first lesson using Lego bricks and it worked great. Our first lesson was to find the addition facts for the #3 (3+0=3, 2+1=3, etc.) by using 2 different colors of blocks to build as many combinations that make 3 as she could. Then we had to make a chart of all the 3 facts we found. On day 2 we did all the 4's etc. Here's what our # 3 looked like.

We finished the reading for unit 12, which was the 2nd day of Creation. Boo added sky (clouds) and water to the picture in her Bible Notebook (the little black hearts in the sky are clouds.haha)  Boo did so much better with her reading this week though! It took her only a few seconds to sound out each word on the page and she remembered her sight words! I wanted to shout for joy since we've had so many hard days lately. We also learned that the letter y at the end of a word sometimes makes the /Ii/ like in the words "my and try."



Looking back at Day 1 from the beginning of unit 12 we talked about how the world was without any form. For a project we made lemon and lime JELLO. I let Boo do all of the work. We saw how the JELLO was liquid (formless) and then how it took shape as it hardened in the fridge. Then we ate it with Coolwhip!

Boo really liked this page from her Bible devotional this week. It was about how humpback whales sing songs. Boo loves to sing. It says that God loves it when his children sing songs to him. We sang some of Boo favorite songs after we read the page and answered the questions.

Unit 17: Preparing

Winter has not been nice to us this week. We've been doing our best to stay warm and cozy indoors (well except for Baby Bear who refuses to wear pants or socks no matter how cold it is.) Most of the public schools around us have been having snow days, because of the bad roads. No snow days for us! One thing about homeshooling is that the snow storms don't effect our school days at all. That may sound sad for the kids, but really not at all. The thing that stinks about public school snow days is that the reason there's usually no school is it's dangerously cold out, strong winds, or ice. It's nice to be able to take our own "snow days," on the nicer warmer winter days when there are not advisories. That way we can take a nice day off and build a snowman while everyone else is in school.  Another benefit is not having to wait in the cold for a bus in the winter or even having to get bundled up on freezing mornings to go out at all. I love it! 

Bible: I don't write about our Bible curriculum much, but we are still working our way through Apologia's Who is God book. Right now we are learning all about the trinity. I really recommend this book. It's been a great help in answering Sis questions and helping her better understand God. She answers questions and records Bible verses in the journal that comes with the book. I want to go through this whole series with her. I'm really excited about next year's book which is "Who am I?" A whole year about learning who you are in Christ! What a great topic for any 10 year old to study, especially with all the pressures and insecurities that come with the pre-teen years! 
  
History: This week we started learning about the rise of the Roman Empire. Our daily history lessons are still coming from "Child's History of the World." We continued to read "Fountain of Life," a story about the New Testament days in the time of Jesus. We learned about gladiators, Roman roads, aqueducts, amphitheaters, taxes, etc. We also learned about Hannibal, Julius Caesar (whom our month of July is named after) Cleopatra, Augustus Caesar (where we get 'August.') Now that The Roman Empire has risen and the Romans are on the scene, guess what that means? Next week we get to read about Jesus! It will finally be time to add the birth of Christ to our timeline.

Sis learned about the denarius (Roman money.) Her history project was to make some Roman coins using a recipe for homemade clay. I tried to get store bought air-dry clay instead but wasn't able to. So, we ended up using the clay recipe in our book, which called for bread, glue, and black paint! I thought that was weird, but we tried it anyway. It was the biggest fail of the school year. It just turned into sticky bread mush. Sis ran out of room gagging because it looked and smelled so nasty! So we made up our own coins by covering cardboard circles with aluminum foil and then using a toothpick to engrave pictures of the emperors on them. Much better!

A new book that Sis started reading is "Little Miriam of Galilee." This is a book about a young Jewish girl and her family who are threatened with losing their home in Galilee if they can not pay a dishonest tax collector, when the Romans raise their taxes. God provided them with a miracle, but not at all what they had expected. I really like all of the book choices from heart of Dakota so far, there hasn't been one story that we haven't enjoyed. I think the best part of this curriculum is all of the great literature we get to read. Learning though stories is so much more interesting than just reading a text book.

Science: We're still learning about the respiratory system in Anatomy. This week we learned about the trachea, lungs, and diaphragm. W also looked at what causes colds, asthma, and smoking. There weren't any experiments so sorry no pictures. 

For some reason this has seemed like an extremely long week. I guess because of the cold. Hopefully next week won't seem so bad, since we get to take a school field trip. I will blog all about that when we get back.    

 

Unit 16: Preparing

Happy New Year!! It's that time of year again. Time to reflect on what we've accomplished so far this school year and reevaluate the remainder of our year. New Years is a good time to make changes if there's something that hasn't been working in your school, and it's just a good time to start out fresh after a long holiday break. I've been working on making some changes in our school and in my life in general. One of those is to "unplug" more. To spend more of my time on things that matter and less time on things that don't.

The girls were more than ready to start back to school. Breaks are fun, but can sometimes become too much of a good thing. You can only lay around and eat junk food for so long before it's not fun anymore. After two long weeks we were ready to get back to a schedule.

History: Sis is still learning Chronologically through history. We made it to 356 B.C. and started out the new year learning about Alexander the Great. At the beginning of the week we learned about Socrates and how the Golden Age of Greece ended. Sis wrote a one page narration about the Punic war and we ended our week with the Rise of Rome.

Her history project was to make a picture of a Greek vase called an "amphora." These Greek vases told stories and showed pictures of Greek life. They were black shiny pieces of pottery with brown pictures on them. Many of these ancient Greek vases have been found and are preserved in museums. Sis used brown crayon and watercolors to create an amphora that pictured Alexander the Great taming the black horse Bucephalus.

We started reading a new book this week called "Fountain of Life." This is a long book and is scheduled to be read over the next six weeks. So, even though we haven't made it to the life of Jesus yet in our history studies, we will be there before we finish this book. This is the story of a Jewish boy named Eli who lived during the time of Jesus. The more he heard of what Jesus was doing, the more he was in awe even though his family did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah. Eli longed to meet Jesus, but it never happened. It wasn't until after the cross and the tomb that Eli discovered that Jesus could be found by anyone open to receive him.




Science: We started off the new year with a new unit in science, learning about the respiratory system. We did a lot of breathing exercises and activities as we learn about how our lungs, nasal cavity, and trachea all work together. We did a project where we stretched rubber bands over a plastic container and listened to the different sounds. This represented our vocal cords. thicker cords make a deeper voice than thinner ones.We learned how our bodies use nose hairs and mucus to filter the air we breath. Our experiment for this one was pretty much a fail. We were suppose to put honey on a piece of cardboard and water on another and set it outside for a couple days. The honey represented mucus and was suppose to have dust, dirt, and particles from the air stuck to it representing how mucus helps catch the dust in our nasal passage. Well it's winter. We set our cardboard on the porch and it blew away and stuck to the snow. Oh well we got the point.



Reading: Sis finished up reading Wind in the Willows for her Fantasy book study.We will be moving on to studying biographies next week. Aside from that we have spent tons of time reading together this week. After we finish our assigned school work each day, I've started reading a couple chapters  from one of our "Childhood of famous Americans," books to prepare them all for an upcoming field trip that we're excited about later this month. Also Dad started reading a book to them each night before bed. This is their most anticipated time of the day, even Baby Bear sits quiet and listens. I know a lot of people dislike Rush Limbaugh, but his children's history books "Rush Revere" are excellent. They're about a school teacher named Rush Revere and his talking horse Liberty, who (magic school bus like) take adventures through history using a time portal to teach his class. The horse is hilarious! I think there are 3 books in this series and they teach history from a conservative view point. They are funny, educational, and the kids are loving it. I even find them acting out the stories during their playtime or talking about it the next day. "Rush, Rush, Rushing to History!" is a new saying around here. 

MFW 1st grade: Back to school

Getting back in the swing of things after the New Year didn't come easy for Boo. It seems that no part of school is coming easy for Boo lately though. She is trying really hard, but school is hard for her. We're still moving at half speed with 1st grade, taking two weeks to finish one. This week we did the first half of week 12.

Even though it's been difficult for her, Boo was still really proud to have finally reached this week where she begins her Bible reader and notebook. She's been waiting all year and learning all these phonics sounds. Now it's time to start reading her own book. We used flash cards to practice all of the words on the first page for a couple days before attempting to read it. By the end of the week we made it to the second page and she's doing much better at reading the words than at the start of the week.

The way this will work for the remainder of the year is this: I will read her a short bible story, she tells it back to me, reads a shortened version in her Bible reader, then writes a sentence about the story and draws a picture in her keepsake notebook. The notebook was my favorite part of 1st grade with Sis. We still go back to read it and look at her drawings sometimes. It ends up being such a sweet keepsake at the end of the year. Boo was so excited to begin hers. This week the sentence was done for us, but we colored half the page black to represent the light and darkness. Over the next few weeks we will add to this same picture as we read through the creation story.

 We will also continue to work on phonics and learn new sounds weekly. This week we worked on the /oo/ sound and learned the difference between the sounds in "spoon" and "book." Boo had to write a bunch of /oo/ words, cut them out, and then place them in the correct envelope.

 

 Math is another area where Boo has been having a really hard time. After much frustration I've decided to switch from MathUSee to the MFW suggested workbook "The Complete Book of Math." We will be trying the activities scheduled in the MFW manual to see if it's easier for her. I'm learning quickly that what's perfect for one child may be all wrong for the next. MUS was wonderful for Sis, but it's not been a good fit for Boo this year. We will be starting our new book next week. We've also put a hold on science for now, because reading and math take us so long right now.

For art Boo and Baby Bear learned how to draw fish. I'm surprised that Baby Bear will actually sit and even attempt to follow the drawing instructions. She not too bad for a just turned 3 year old.

Another fun extra thing we did this week was make our own homemade scented markers! This was messy, but a lot of fun. We took turns choosing the colors and fragrances, mixed up the solutions and used our little marker machine to put them all together. The girls had fun coloring pictures afterward with the markers they made themselves!