Week Six - 30 days down, 150 to go!

We are pretty much in a groove now with school. We have rough days (Monday was one, I am glad Aidan did not know it was a holiday or it would have been worse!) We went swimming after school on Monday and ate dinner with Mema and Papa.

We did add two new things to our schedule this week: Classical Conversations Foundations and The LIGHT co-op classes. We are doing CC at home. Aidan took to the history time line very quickly! He did so well with all of the memory work, I don't think we will be able to have some fun with it this year.

Aidan's apple artwork from class.

Lilly's artwork - God creates light.

Co-op was great!! I was able to spend some time in fellowship with other moms! It was nice to spend some time with adults. I look forward to getting to know these women over the next 10 weeks. The kids LOVED their classes!! Aidan's class read "Johnny Appleseed" and did some crafts. He made new best friends in PE. Lilly colored and played. They did a lesson on creation; but she could not...or would not (I don't know which it is with her sometimes!) tell me about it.

A few of the books I am using to prepare for my class!

I started teaching a 10 week class on Shakespeare! I think this is going to be great. We learned some basics of Iambic Pentameter, reading and interpreting Shakespeare, and they were given an assignment - to memorize a sonnet. Next week we will start with either MacBeth or The Merchant of Venice. I love Shakespeare and I have not looked at his works much in the last 5 years. It looks like I need to brush up my Shakespeare (bonus points if you know what show that references)! I prepared this short reference sheet on iambic pentameter to help the class learn to read it aloud (the bulk of the class will be spent reading the two plays as a group).

The Oklahoma Science Museum

Today we went on our first field trip of the year! We had some fun at the Oklahoma Science Museum (formally known as the Omniplex). Aidan and Lilly loved it! We watched a live science presentation on Physics....there were explosions and a vortex cannon! Most of the exhibits have been around since I was in elementary school, it brought back memories of my many field trips to the Omniplex. We ended the day at the Planetarium. I loved seeing all of the constellations -  but I think the kids were too tired. Here are some pictures from our adventure.

 

This was moments before she lit a match and made the bubbles explode in Jonathan's hand! It was loud and cool! We were a little surprised by the loud explosion, it was not what we expected!

Sounding the train whistle!

He loved all the planes in the aviation section!

Lilly loves to pose for the camera.

A bunch of hams!

Again....she poses!

By the aircraft carrier model.

Pendulum swings.

That girl!! What can you do!

Segway track! This was so cool!

This is basically a giant computer operated etch-a-sketch. He watched it create an awesome design!

Creating wind tunnel experiments!

We had a lot of fun today! Aidan passed out early tonight, he wore himself out :)

The Incredible Edible Cell!

Currently, we are studying a chapter on cells in Biology. I wanted a fun way to go over the parts of the cell. Today during our "school time" we learned about the parts and their jobs; then we made a cell for desert! YUMMY!! We had some fun!

Coloring the Cytoplasm!

Adding some Ribosomes!

 We made the cell wall out of black icing; the cytoplasm out of icing with orange sprinkles; the nucleus is black icing, purple sprinkles, and a chocolate chip; the yellow icing stripes are the golgi bodies; the marshmallows are mitochondria; and finally - Red Hots for the ribosomes! Aidan, Lilly, and their cousin Ezra had fun decorating and learning what all the parts were called!

 

 

 

Enjoying the yummy cell!

At the Lake

Today we went to watch the 3rd Annual Cardboard Regatta at Lake Arcadia. The kids were tired from our late night, but they had fun! We stopped at my parents house for a nap, and then some swimming and dinner. Here are some pictures from our morning at the lake.

In the last few pictures, the kiddos are sitting on the cardboard boat. They have a race between all the boats followed by a demolition derby, the point is to sink everyone else! The Crocness Monster never sank! It was hot, but it was great!

Our "Not Back to School Day" Celebration

If Aidan were attending public school, he would have started Kindergarten today. We, however, started First Grade 3 weeks ago. He has some friends that started school today and will have more friends start school next week. The first day of school is a BIG deal. I wanted our "not back to school day" to be a big deal for Aidan, too. So we went BOWLING! Aidan has wanted to go "real" bowling (we play on Wii sports) for a while. He was so excited. Here are a few pictures of our family bowling trip today. (I forgot my camera, so all the pictures are from my phone, they may be a little fuzzy.)

Aidan tried the bowling track and did not like it, he decided to bowl like Mommy and Daddy instead. He did a great job!

Lilly, however, did very well with the track! With a little help, she had a pretty good score.

I think this is a tradition we might keep every year. It was fun to take a break from school on the day everyone else went back. We had the bowling alley to ourselves. I don't know that we will bowl every year; but we have a fun family day.

Week 1 of First Grade and PreSchool!

This week was great! We completed everything that was planned! Tomorrow we celebrate with swimming and a sleepover!

Aidan worked through the Introduction and Chapter 1 of The Story of the World Vol 1: Ancient Times. He loved it! Everyday he wanted to do more. We started his lapbook and plan to do an archeological dig in our backyard this weekend. He flew through his math and English Grammar. After our first day we switched to Rod and Staff English 2. We are much happier now! In science we started learning about taxonomy.

Lilly has mastered the letter A! She LOVES to "do school." We spend time each day on our letter and the sound it makes. We practiced the number 1 and drawing squares. Her favorite part was reciting "Hey Diddle Diddle." This is one of her favorite nursery rhymes!


I worked on getting the last of our supplies together - I laminated all of our history timeline cards today! When I came home, Jonathan and the kids had washed the windows!! I have a beautiful view of our garden now...although there is not much growing right now. It was a wonderful surprise.

Back to School - First Grade and PreSchool!

Last year we decided to homeschool Aidan for a number of reasons:

• He was ready for kindergarten; but he could not begin kindergarten because he missed the birthday cut off by a couple of weeks.
• He wanted to homeschool.
• It works really well with our crazy schedule! 
• And – it means I get that much more time with my favorite little boy.

We did not use a structured curriculum for Kindergarten. I used Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons and What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know. I purchased a few math and phonics books from various stores and everything else came from the library. We worked every day; we covered math, reading, spelling, science, geography, and history. I kept telling myself that if I failed at homeschooling, there was no loss, he could just start Kindergarten in public school this year and he would not be behind.

I gave him the CATe test in April (the first grade test because when I looked at what was covered, we had done everything on that test!) He scored in Stanine 7, 8, and 9 on everything except computation (he scored in Stanine 5). That put him average with a first grade student for computation, and above average on math concepts and reading comprehension. Seeing his progress and how easy it was to accomplish so much with Aidan convinced me that I really  CAN do this.

After much thought, research, and some placement testing this is what will be doing this year!

Singapore Math 2A & 2B with the Intensive Practice and Challenging Word Problems

The Story of the World Volume 1: Ancient Times by Susan Wise Bauer

Real Science 4 Kids, Biology Pre-Level 1

Shurley English Level 1 (although after looking it over and trying it today, we may switch to Rod and Staff Grade 2.)

Spelling Plus and Dictation by Susan Anthony

Classical Conversations Foundations, Cycle 1 (at home)

What Your First Grader Should Know by E.D. Hirsch, Jr (for Literature, Geography and a little extra history reading)

We started everything except Classical Conversations today, we will start that in September. History and Science are on alternating days so we did history today and we will do science tomorrow!

Now for my Lilly! She wanted to start school with her Bubby, so I am using the Letter of the Week Curriculum by Brightly Beaming Resources. This week we learn the letter A, the number 1, we study squares, the theme is cow, and the vocabulary word is calf. 

We colored a printout of the letter A, practiced writing it on the board, and said its sound. We looked at pictures of a cow and calves, and we practiced the number 1.

Over all a successful first day! It was a little rough getting Aidan going, but we finished what was on our lesson plan (and then some). Now we are lounging in the house, avoiding the heat!