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.