MFW 1st grade: Week 3

Here is a quick recap of what Boo learned in 1st grade this past week...
She finally finished her review of the alphabet.  We also completed out alphabet scroll that we have been working on the past couple weeks.

I feel like it's starting to get real now! Review is over...on to the new! We started learning some new phonics, one of which was long vowel sounds. I've been really nervous that this will confuse her. She seemed to do ok with it. We also started reading complete simple sentences in our workbook (something we began last year.)

In science we're still learning about plants. This week we learned about flowers. We learned about the parts of a flower and how pollination works.

We also reviewed the months of the year and talked about seasons. Boo made a Four Season's Book.

Finally we took our first field trip of the school year this week. We went to a local bakery to learn how pretzels are made. We got to go into the kitchen where the goodies are prepared. Then they told a short story about the first pretzel. I was surprised that it was all about God! They each got a clump of dough and learned the steps to making the perfect pretzel...The only down side was it took 40 mins for all our pretzels to bake! They were yummy though and the girls learned something new. I liked this field trip because they actually got to learn how to do something and make it with their own hands.We've taken a lot of field trips to museums and zoos, often the kids have fun but at the end of the day you wonder if they actually learned anything new from it. This year I'm hoping to find more hands on experiences for them like this one for our field trips. Boo's best friend happens to be doing MFW 1st grade also! I don't know if that qualifies as enough students to start a "Synergy Group", however it works out great for curriculum related field trips (if I can find any) because they are learning about the same things.

 

MFW 1st grade: Week 2

Well school is now in full swing over here! Boo is starting to get the hang of how all this new 1st grade stuff is going to work. Her first subject every morning is reading/phonics while Sis does her math and spelling. So far reading has all been review. She is still reading CVC words and practicing sounds. We've only learned short vowel sounds up to this point so our words are limited. We're one lesson away from finishing our handwriting review of all our upper and lowercase letters. She's been working really hard at it though.

Boo is still really struggling in math, but I keep saying that she's only 5 and she will get there. We spent this week reviewing our numbers and practicing writing them. We also did a lot of practice with place value and reading larger numbers. I've decided we're just gonna take it slow and move at her pace. When she's ready we'll move to addition. I think that pushing her ahead will only cause frustration and cause her to hate math. Another reason I love homeschooling...In a classroom she would probably be left behind as the class moves on to the next level. Here I can help her at her own pace until she's got it, with no pressure or grades. There were a few tears shed and a few "I'm no good at this!" I just tell her school is not a competition. As long as she's trying her best that's good enough. The Lord will help her to remember and understand her math as long as she keeps trying and doesn't give up.

We started using "Science with Plants," for science. We will go back and forth between 3 different science books over the course of the school year. This weeks lesson was about soil and leaf litter.

Boo's science project was to collect a pile of leaf litter and examine with a magnifying glass to see what she could find in her pile...sorry no pictures.

She also had to gather a scoop of soil from the backyard into a glass jar. Add water to the jar and watch it over the next few days to see if the different particles in the soil separate. the heavier parts of the soil like sand and rocks sink to the bottom and the lighter ones like pieces of rotted plants float to the top.

One of our projects this week was for history was to make a Jewish calendar. Ok so I went back and forth as to whether we should do this. One because Boo is still learning our regular calendar and I didn't want to confuse her with extra info. Two because Sis did this same project in 1st grade and I don't remember her actually learning anything from it. I was all set to toss it and then another MFW mother pointed out that the little chart was still cute for teaching the months and seasons...I ageed sooooo...we ended up keeping it but totally skipping all things Jewish.lol...We colored the seasons and then we colored in the month we are in. We talked about which months fall in which seasons and we hung it up to color in each month.

Unit 2: Preparing

We had a lot going on this week, so some of our days were more stressful than usual and felt a bit rushed. We made it through though! This is our second week with Preparing Hearts for His Glory. Now that Sis is becoming more familiar with how this program is going to work, some of our assignments are starting to go a little smoother because I don't have to do as much explaining.

History: We took a break from our Grandpa's Box book & project, and we read The Great Ice Age and The True Story of Noah's Ark. We studied what life was probably like after the Great Flood and what might have cause the Ice Age. We also studied "cavemen." We learned that God created humans who were intelligent and made in His image.The people who lived in those days were not primitive evolved animals, as many believe. The True Story of Noah's Ark is a beautifully illustrated story by Answers in Genesis (Creation Museum) that comes with an audio CD. It's packed with information and paints a vivid picture of what life was like in Noah's day. I am so happy to add this to our library.

Sis is learning how to use the computer and reference books to do research this year. Her assignment was to research flood legends around the world. We discovered that just about every culture has a flood story in it's history that has been passed down for generations. Some are very different from Noah's story. However its very likely these legends began as the result of a real event that happened in history and were changed as they were told throughout the years. We read the true account of the Flood in the book of Genesis!

We started our timeline. We decided to make an accordion type timeline this year so that we can fold it up and store it away. We added the first 2 entries and we will add to it all year as we travel through history.

   

Sis also used her Draw& Write through History book to learn how to draw people, an ark, and a giraffe. Then she did her copy work about them.

Art: Last week I totally forgot to post a picture of Sis' shield of faith for her Unit 1 weekly art/history project! Opps! A week late but here it is...









This week we learned about warm and cool colors by making a collage on day 1. Boo joined us for art this week. Then we painted a background for our painting. Sis chose cool colors and Boo chose warm. Then we practiced mixing colors by painting a rainbow onto our dried background using only the 3 primary colors (Red, Blue, and Yellow.) ok we cheated a little...after trying to make purple 3 times we finally gave up and just used purple paint!  I think the finished products turned out pretty good!

 Language:
Sis's vocabulary words this week were: Sulfur, barge, and ancient. She added those to her journal. She got 100 percent on her first spelling test of the year. We also reviewed parts of speech, did a poem study, and going back to our history story she did her first written narration about the Ice Age.

Reading:

We're still reading Little Women as our first book in our Historical Fiction study. This week we looked at "setting" and descriptive words that paint a pictures in our minds.



Science: Sis was so excited to begin science this week (one of her favorite subjects.) The entire year we will be studying the human body using "Apologia Human Anatomy and Physiology." This curriculum is packed full of experiments and activities as well as a science journal for her to record what she's learned.We were not disappointed with the first week of lessons. We started out the year by looking at what different groups of people once believed about the human body. We looked at Ancient Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, and Europeans. When learning about how the Egyptians mummified bodies, we did an experiment using the same basic chemicals to mummify a piece of fruit so that it will not rot. We used 8 apple slices each in a cup with a different combination of chemicals to see which best preserved our apple slices. Here's Sis with the beginning of her "apple mummies."

We also talked about microscopes and lenses ( some of the instruments scientists use to learn about cells and anatomy.) We experimented enlarging words with a drop of water and piece of plastic. Sis was amazed that the water drop acted like a magnifying glass blowing the words in our text book  2x their size.

Math: Sis started her first lesson on division. She did pretty well with it.

Bible:
We started memorizing 2 Samuel 22:32. We're studying how to build our lives on the Rock. God is a great architect who has laid out an awesome plan for our lives. However just like a foolish builder who chooses to ignore the blueprint laid out for him and build the house his own way, many people ignore God's instructions and choose to live their lives their own way. Their 'houses' are falling apart and a mess because they will not listen to God. We looked at 7 ways we can build our lives on God and follow his blueprint for our life.

The one thing I want to change this school year is field trips. Especially with both girl's curriculum being 4 days a week, I want to use as many of those extra school days for field trips, educational experiences for them, extracurricular classes, and spending more time socializing with other homeschoolers. I already have a whole list of ideas for field trips this year. We're hoping to be able to take our first group field trip of the year next week.

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.

HOD: Preparing Week 1

It's that time of year again! Time to get back on schedule and dive into all of our new materials. We just finished up our first week back to school. We decided to embark on a new adventure with Sis and chose "Heart Of Dakota: Preparing Hearts For His Glory" for her core curriculum this year. So far I am very happy with our choice. Boo began "My Father's World 1st grade: Learning God's Story." (I will be blogging about her first week in a separate post. I decided it will be easier for those following only one grade level curriculum if I post each separate.
 Today I wanted to write about Sis's first week of 4th grade and I will write about Boo's 1st week in a separate post under the MFW 1st grade"tab.

Our first week started out kind of slow. I am still recovering from a surgery. I like to start out slowly anyway to get us back in the swing of things. Our first day was really light. I introduced the girls to their new books and workboxes. We also had our annual school supply hunt again. I decided to change that up this year though. I know they like picking out their own folders and pencils so instead of hiding our usual school supplies. I hid 10 $1 bills in the back yard. Each girl got $5. I made a list of things we needed yet and after our lessons we headed to the Dollar tree for each girl to pick out her own new supplies. We did a little bit of reviewing, had a short lesson, and spent the rest of the day at the County Fair.

HISTORY:  This year's history is an overview of all of history, beginning at creation and moving chronologically focusing on key events till present time. Most of our books are real "living books" and we will be learning about history through stories that bring it to life rather than traditional text books.

The first of those books is called Grandpa's Box.We read the first chapter
together on day 1. This is part of Sis's history curriculum. I have to say I LOVE this book so far. We will be reading through it over the next month or so. It's basically a story about a grandpa who has a yellow box full of little wooden figures that he's carved. He uses each wooden figure illustrate part of a story that he's telling to his grandchildren about a great war we are all part of. It's the great spiritual battle all Christians are fighting that began long ago in the garden of Eden. We made our own "Grandpa's Box" and as we read each chapter we draw grandpa's little figures. We're going to laminate them and store them in our box. This has been one of our favorite parts of week one.



Sis is also using Draw and Write Through History this year. She is a natural artist and drawing is sort of her thing, so she's liking this part of the curriculum. On certain days she has to write a paragraph on a history subject and then follow step by step instructions on how to draw the pictures. This week she learned to draw a plant, a tree, and a dinosaur and wrote about the very beginning of world history.

Another thing I like so far is the weekly history project. Each week Sis is assigned a special project that relates to her history lesson. She will work on it a little (about 10-15 mins) each day. This weeks project was to research a "coat of arms" and design your own coat of arms and shield.


MATH: For math this year we are continuing with MathUsee. Sis does really well with this curriculum so I see no need to try other things. She began Delta which focuses mainly on division this year.

BIBLE:  

I am so excited about the Bible curriculum we choose this year. We are using Apologia's Worldview :What We Believe Curriculum. This year we will be going through book 1of 3 which is "Who is God?". Sis is at a place in life where she has a lot of questions and a lot of "how can I know for sures?" She was needing something deeper than just bible stories.We have been trying our best to help her and answer all of those questions. Then I came across this! The first words out of Sis mouth after our first lesson "Wow mom this book is gonna be perfect for me! It's about a lot of the stuff I've been asking about!" Some topics dealt with are : Where am I building my life? How can I know what is true? What is God like? Why isn't the world perfect? Why did God create me? Already one week into this curriculum she and I have had so many great and important discussions. The text also comes with a journal of activities, worksheets, and pages for recording prayers and praise reports.

LANGUAGE: 
We decided to stick with the same materials that we used last year for English. We will be using First Language Lessons For the Well Trained Mind Level 4. After I bought the books and realized the whole year is diagramming sentences I was sorry I chose to stick with it. However, Sis's response was "YES! I love diagramming sentences!"..hmmm I will never understand that one but I guess if she's happy, I'm happy. For spelling Sis is using 5th grade Rod and Staff. There is also a lot of LA in the HOD manual including a weekly poetry study, vocabulary words, and handwriting. 
This is Sis's Vocabulary Journal she has to choose 3 out of 5 words from our history text to look up in her dictionary. Then write definition, a sample sentence, and a picture for each word. I let her pick out a new sparkly blue notebook for her journal so that was exciting to her. However, our first vocabulary assignment took her 1 hour! I'm praying it's just because it's new. 



READING:

I decided to use HOD's reading/literature program this year "Drawn Into The Heart of Reading" (DITHOR). Sis LOVES to read and even in the summer she spends most of her day reading books. I send her outside to play, look out and shes reading a book on the trampoline or swing. This is the first year though that we are trying an actual literature program. Sis will study one specific genera of  literature at a time. Reading 1-2 books in that category. I let her pick the order that we will do them. She chose Historical Fiction first. I knew she would because our book choice for that is "Little Women," which is set during the civil war. This might be odd for a 9 year old but mine has been obsessively in love with Little Women for about a year. It is her most favorite cartoon. She knows all the names and about each of the March sisters. She will sit for hours watching episodes over and over again (she had 80 episodes DVRed!!!)  and tell me all about it! I'm not complaining though I would rather that be her favorite show than most of the options available these days! However, she has never read the classic book! So she was jumping up and down excited when I told her I bought her Little Women as one of her literature choices this year. She will either read aloud to me or read silently on her own. Then she has a workbook with daily assignments where she will answer questions about her book and learn about the genera. Before each new genera there is a "kickoff day." For our historical fiction kickoff Sis chose a character and time period in history, made up a story and acted out a little historical fiction play for me. She chose to be a pilgrim heading to America for the first time. Boo wanted to join in and so she pretended to be on the boat too with a suitcase full of cheese and a toothbrush! Weird kids. 

Our first week was very tiring! We're all still trying to get out of summer mode. I think it was a successful week overall. Next week we will be adding science to our list and I can't wait to write about that one. It looks like it's going to be a lot of fun this year!

Workboxes!!!!!!

Well it's been 2 years that I've been playing with the idea of workboxes. I've watched numerous Youtube videos, heard other mom's talk about theirs, and even tried a simpler version with folders, but I finally decided this was the year. I'm finally going to implement a workbox system in our homeschool. A lot is changing with Boo starting 1st grade. K was only about an hour a day, but now she will be having longer school days. Our schooling has been transitioning from 1 student and a tag along, to two students (but one with really light work), to two full time students doing separate curriculum! This is completely outside of my experience and a little overwhelming! What will I do when I have 3 in school! yikes! I'm praying that we can find some sort of system that works for us and that things will begin to flow more smoothly a few weeks into the school year. Workboxes sounded like a great idea for keeping everyone on track and all of our work organized. In other areas of my life I am very unorganized so I know that if I don't put in a real effort our school days could quickly turn into a frazzled disaster!

For those of you unfamiliar with workboxes. This is a whole system that was created by Sue Patrick that uses boxes or drawers to organize your homeschool materials, helps kids stay on task and become more independent. The idea was originally designed to help children with autism or ADHD stay focused, and better visualize their day. However, so many homeschoolers loved the idea that it became apparent that this a great system for all homeschoolers!

Sue's system is a bit more complex than ours. Hers consists of 12 boxes for each child, a schedule strip for each days work, centers set up for them to work at, a box for finished work, lots of removable labels, posters, charts. Everyone does workboxes a little differently though and uses whatever is best for their family.If you want to learn more about the original workbox system you can purchase her book or here is a link her site with a short video...Sue Patrick's Workbox System

I decided to keep ours simple..Here's what ours look like so far. As we get experience using them I'm sure we will change some things as we find out what works and what doesn't.

I've heard pros and cons for the different types of boxes. Most people use the rolling carts with removable trays, some even use shoe boxes and shelves. I like the colorful rolling carts, but have heard some complain about them not being very sturdy. I also don't like the idea of my kids being able to roll their carts around. I decided to go with more sturdy plastic Sterilite drawers that I found at Walmart. These are sold in sets of 3 12x12 drawers for around $12 and they are stackable so you can buy as many as you need and snap them together to build a tower. The only down side so far to these is that the drawers are a little bit harder to take in and out than the trays are.

Sis has 9 boxes (3 sets of 3) and Boo has 6 boxes.  Since I decided to keep ours as simple as possible,  we're not using the task cards, schedule strips, having the removable labels on our boxes, or a separate place for finished work. I decided it would be easiest to put more permanent labels on their drawers rather than being able to switch the subjects/drawers around. I taped simple handwritten labels to the insides of the drawers so that they show through the front. Sis's Spelling drawer will stay her spelling drawer all year and she'll know exactly where that drawer is located.

While we do have a small school room for our supplies and books. We don't actually do much "schooling" in there. School more often just happens where ever we are, dining room table, living room floor, couch, bed, backyard, etc...and we like it better that way. (off subject and a moment to rant..but) A few years back I loved the idea of having a school room in our home. It helps at times to have a quiet room for Sis especially when there are little ones running around and we need somewhere to keep all of our stuff.  However, I made up my mind a while back that I didn't want school to feel separate from the rest of our lives and if I wanted my kids to sit in a classroom all day I would send them to school! Ok back on track...Anyway,I decided to keep our workboxes in the dining room where we will have easy access and be able to see them all day.

This year for 4th grade Sis will be using Heart Of Dakota: Preparing Hearts for His Glory. I will label each of her drawers according to the subjects scheduled in her manual that we will be using..her drawers are: History (which will also include the Independent History section), Bible, Spelling, LA, Storytime, Weekly Activity&Project, Science, Math, and DIHOR (which is her literature/reading.)

Boo will be using MFW 1st grade:Learning God's Story. Her boxes will be labeled according to her curriculum: History, Reading/LA(this includes her bible), Handwriting, math, Science, and Read-aloud.

Once we find an order that works well for our subjects then I'll try to put our boxes in that order. I'm thinking Bible first and then try to schedule Boo's harder subjects while Sis is doing independent work. Basically this is how it will work. I will put the boxes in the order I expect them completed that way there's no need to number them, so they don't need to be told what we are doing next. When it's time to begin a new subject they will each go get their next box for the day and take it to where ever they are working (Sis likes to do a lot of her independent work in her room. Boo is usually in the living room floor or at the table) Their box will contain all the materials they will need to complete the subject even a sharpened pencil in each drawer. I will help each child with completing their box as instruction is needed.

We will probably take a small break in between each box for a snack or outside time, etc. When both kids have completed all their boxes for the day we're done!

I made red laminated circles with velcro sticky backs for the front of each box. All the boxes will start out with a red dot each morning. When the girls finish a box they will put their finished work inside the box on top and they will also remove the red dot from that box and place it inside the box. Now the box is marked "done." Then they will return their box to it's place in the cart. This way if we do decide to skip around boxes they will easily be able to tell which boxes are complete. They will also be able at glance to see how many boxes they have left to complete for the day. When all the red dots are gone, they know they're done! If there is a subject/box that we will not be using that day I will just leave the red dot off of that box that morning.

That's pretty much it! Pretty simple, yet I think it will help our days run more smoothly. 

My Favorite Reason We Homeschool

There are many reasons we chose to homeschool. As I've said before the number one reason we made our decision is because it's what we personally felt the Lord speaking was best for our family and that is enough. There are so many other reasons that we made this choice though. I could write a book about all stories of crazy things I hear that goes on in schools these days. Or, I could talk about what's being taught in schools, curriculum with an agenda, common core, freedom to teach God's word, benefits of a one on one education, sex ed, statistics, test scores, socialization, bad influences, peer pressure, bullying, the list goes on and on. The list of pro's for our family was much longer than the cons, But there is definitely a favorite reason why I wanted to homeschool. Today I want to talk about that one small reason, which to me is a very BIG one.

Have any of you mom's ever had one of those days... you find an old picture of your baby and suddenly your heart melts? The memories of her first step, first birthday, holding her on your lap, and cuddling her in bed seem just like yesterday. You ask yourself "where did my baby go?" It happened so fast! My oldest is 9.  For the most part she doesn't like cuddles or being babied anymore. She enjoys being the big sister and wants to be independent most of the time. I'm very proud of the young lady she is becoming, but when I look at the old photo albums a sad reality hits me. That part of her life is now over. Only in memories can I ever go back to those days when she was that little girl. They are gone now forever. How could 9 whole years have passed that quickly? Then a sad thought turns to a frightening one! I realize that in that same short amount of time my now 9 year old will be a woman. Her whole childhood will be gone. When you first have a child people always say things to you like, "they grow up so fast!" or "don't blink...she'll be in college." You kind of chuckle and say "yeah I know," but you don't really know or understand just how fast those years are really going to fly by, or how quickly your child is going to change. One day you're holding a newborn, the next moment she's become a toddler. You hardly notice when she switched from toddler to preschooler and suddenly she's 9!

 I have no regrets keeping my daughter home with me these past 9 years. It's the reality of how little time I have left with her that keeps me going. Just looking at the averages for my state, children attend public schools about 7 hours a day for 180 days of the year. That's 35 hours per week that the average child spends away from their home and parents every week! 35 hours! Then not to mention much of the little time they do get to spend at home with mom and dad through the week is spent doing homework! In their entire school life that equals 15,120 hours spent at school. In just 9 more short years my daughter will be an 18 year old, possibly getting ready to leave for college. Then she will be gone. She'll have the rest of her life to spend out in the world away from me, learning, meeting new people, making new friends, working, starting a family, fulfilling God's plan.  I don't want to get to graduation day and realize that her childhood is over and fifteen thousand hours of that childhood was spent away from me.The little time I have left with her is precious! I want to cherish every moment. I want her to get to spend her childhood here with her family. Call me selfish, but I want her to spend those precious 35 hours a week with us, not away with "friends" who probably wouldn't be her long term future friends anyway or a teacher to answer her questions. I want her to spend those 35 hours a week reading books with me, asking me questions, playing, bonding with her siblings, taking family walks, cooking together, enjoying being a kid, enjoying life. So many of us when we think back to our childhood the first thing we remember is our school life, because we spent so much of it there. We think of the friends we hung out with, our teachers, etc. When she is an adult I don't want most of her memories to be of what happened at school, I want them to be of us together. I'm not at all saying that every school moment is a happy one, we definitely have melt downs, fits, sibling fights, and just plain hard school days, but even on the rough days we get through it together. We learn from it, and it makes us closer as a family.

I know that the majority of my readers are fellow home school moms. I've heard many of you express concern about your choice. For some of you homeschooling is very hard and you face all kinds of challenges. Some days you want to give up. Some of you feel inadequate to teach. Some of you face opposition from friends and family. Others just wonder if they've made the best choice for their child. I hope this post encourages you to keep going. No matter what challenges you face, I promise you when it's all said and done, you will not regret having spent these years investing in your child. You will not want to take back one moment (the good and the bad) of their childhood that was spent together.