Plans for First Grade

First Grade is when school seems to be more regulated and less "anything goes."  Planning for first grade was actually harder the second time around, at least at the beginning.  The biggest challenge was not comparing Merry and Charry.  I have all the lesson plans and workbooks that I used with Charry so at first I thought I would simply redo them with a different student.  That won't work.  My kids are too different.  They learn differently and because their birthdays are in different seasons they start the year at different levels.

So I stopped looking at what Charry did in First grade and started looking at what Merry did last year.  I'm not sure why I didn't start there to begin with.  I guess sometimes it is easy to over look the obvious.

Much of next year will be building on last year.

Math- Life of Fred, She goes through the books a bit slower that her sister, which is good since they need to last longer (4 years instead of 2 with the elementary books.)  She is loving them.
- Workbooks, right now she needs the daily practice.  Instead of spending more on a big "everything" workbook (like I've done in the past) this year we will try to use dollar tree resources more.
- Math Wrap-ups, doing the "same thing" as her big sister is a huge motivator for Merry, so having similar schooling works well.

 Science- Apologia, "Exploring Creation with Zoology" This will be a family subject, we will be working on it together.  The curriculum has two different levels of Journals, Merry will be using the Junior version.  Because the journals require a bit of writing this will be a stretch for Merry, who hasn't had to write much.

English-All about Spelling, Merry is working on level 1 and will continue it.
-Online Grammar, I will be printing workbook pages from the same site that I found for her sister.
-Reading will be done out loud.  One goal I have with Merry is to listen to her read out loud everyday.

Social Studies-Knuffle Bunny travels across the USA.  Instead of joining her sister for this subject, her sister will be joining her.  The world traveling bunny was such a success last year that he will keep traveling, and writing to Trixie.  Merry won't be required to memorize capitals but since her sister will be working on them I'm sure Merry will pick up some of them.

Languages- Minimus, Starting out in Latin.  We will be working on this as a family, that way we have someone to practice the new language with.  As a teacher I will have to work to make sure Merry isn't overwhelmed by a too fast pace and Charry isn't bored by a too slow pace.

I am actually very surprised at myself and the number of subjects I have my girls working on together.  I started out homeschool plans wanting them to have their own work and their own subjects.  I knew Girls in Junior high who where below grade level because they did so much with their younger siblings and I didn't want this for my kids.  But I'm finding that Merry wants to be like her sister so much and Charry would rather I had time to do things with her.  Working on them together will mean I get to work with both girls at the same time and hopefully will be able to tailor lessons so they both learn.  I guess I'll find out in September.

Forward, to next year

There is nothing like writing a blog post to help me get organized.  So I will be a bit self indulging and take a look at my plans for next fall.

Charry will be a forth grader, but a young forth.  I need to start expecting more writing and more independent thinking.  She is at the age when self motivation goes a lot farther than dangling a carrot.  So for her I want:

Math- Life of Fred.  I love the series.  It made me laugh, it uses big words, it covers more topics than just addition and multiplication, it encourages kids to enjoy learning as a whole.  The best part, she loves it too.  She likes the story, she likes the characters, she get to work at her own pace, she knows I'm learning new things also.

Other Math- Wrap-ups, they are easier to bring places than flash cards, using a timer it is easy to see which factors she is struggling with.  The down side, she doesn't love them.

This year I am taking a risk and not doing a workbook along with Life of Fred, instead I will try to do a once a week worksheet to make sure she has her math facts down.

Science- I just finished reading through the text book for next year.  We are going to try Apologia's "Exploring Creation With Zoology".  I'm labeling this a "writing intensive" course.  Much of the book work involves reading a chapter then rewriting the important information in your own words.  The curriculum will be a stretch for me.  The good points:
-Easy to use lesson plans.
-Made to do only twice a week.
-Creation Centered, points out the wonders of creation that couldn't have just happened.
-We can use it for both girls so Merry will be using it also.

The not good points (not bad just hard for me):
-The book is written first person, it grates on me.  I like my text books to read like an encyclopedia, this one doesn't.
- Many activities and experiment involve exploring you backyard, we live in an apartment so these will be tough for us.

English- Since Science will have a lot of writing we will not be doing a lot of that in English.  We will be working though an online grammar workbook.  We will also be doing book reports, although I haven't figured out how those will work yet.  And of course we will have spelling.

We are still working on All About Spelling level 3.  That should take us about half the school year to complete.

Languages- Charry will continue to review Hebrew, much of the reviewing will be done with "The Learnables" which is a computer program.

We will also be tackling Latin.  I'm hoping to try "Minimus, starting out in Latin" ( the link is to a website to use with the book, to but try amazon) but I haven't gotten a teacher guide for it yet.  That is next on my list.

Geography-  Next year we will take an imaginary trip across the USA.  Along the way we will focus on learning capitals and landmarks as well as general location.  To aid us I have been looking at geography websites and state worksheets.  This is another subject Merry will being doing with Charry.

I think that will be everything, except extra curriculars like Dance, AWANA, Bible Quizzing and maybe piano or a sport.  Wish us luck :)

One more school year done!

Now that our year is done it is time to start planning for next year.  I have to admit I love lesson planning and curriculum exploring.

For the most part I will be keeping with what I have from this year, with one major exception: Science.

Next year for science we will try a Christian curriculum, Apologia.  When I first decided to homeschool, 5 years ago, I was against using "Christian" text books.  I didn't want my kids to be ignorant about what was being taught to other kid and I never wanted them to think of the Bible like a text book.  Besides I went to public school and never had my head filled with scientific sounding fables so why should I worry about text books, especially when I will be the one teaching.  My change of heart isn't from concerns about secular teachings but from concerns about the church.

I am a firm 7 days of creation believer and it surprised me how few fellow Christians hold that view.  So many think it is unimportant or that science has already disproved it.  Young earth science is being dismissed as "religious" and people who still believe are being called, "uneducated."  I want my daughters to have a firm foundation for their faith. So I started to look for a curriculum that would show the science behind creation from a young earth perspective.

So next year we will be trying out Zoology 1.  There are two things I really like about this curriculum.  The first is that my daughters can work on it together.  The second is that it is more exploratory than fact memorizing.  My favorite science lessons this year were the ones we did together and started by just asking questions.

Knuffle Bunny World Travels

A long time ago before Merry could even speak we saw a Between the Lions show featuring Mo William's book "Knuffle Bunny."

It was so cute we started calling Merry's bunny Knuffle bunny.  Years later we found the actual Knuffle bunny book, and quickly bought it.  Then came "Knuffle Bunny, Too" and finally "Knuffle Bunny Free".  After reading the third book I got an idea.  It started as a small idea and grew into a curriculum.

You see in the third book our heroine Trixie imagines her Knuffle Bunny visiting all the children around the world.  And at the end of the book she gets a letter from Knuffle Bunny, her first pin pal.  Now what better way to introduce a child to the concepts of how big the world is, how differently people live in different places, and how people are all just people, than writing letters to an imaginary girl about the pretend trip  her imaginary bunny is going on.

To start our journey I happened upon a Knuffle Bunny Event Kit.  It's from the Go Mo Grown-up page
there are other cool printable on that page too.  We went through most of the activities on day one but used the Knuffle Bunny from the name tags on our letters.

 We started with where we live and then worked our way out.  First Merry would draw a picture then she would dictate the letter, I would write then she would trace.  And finally she would add Knuffle Bunny to the picture.

We looked at major landmarks along the way.  Our most common way to travel was google image search. Merry would look through the images and pick one she liked to draw.

Here is our board about half way through.  The large Knuffle Bunny is from the same free printable as the smaller Knuffle Bunnies we used on the letters.  By the end of the year Knuffle Bunny has been to 6 of the 7 continents, and we have had fun.  I'm also excited to say this idea will keep going next year when Knuffle Bunny will travel across the USA visiting each of the fifty states.

This was my first totally my own idea curriculum.  I like to mix and match and make things work with my kids but I hadn't taken my own idea and ran with it before.  So I was a bit nervous to blog about it, silly, right.

Paper towel tube dolls

So it took me a bit to finally blog about this activity, which we did for "May the fourth be with you." I had gotten rid of all our toilet paper rolls so had to use the paper towel rolls I had been saving to make kaleidoscopes, this was easier anyways.  First we watched the lego star wars DVD, a family favorite.  Then the kids each picked a character to make.

 All I did was give them a bin of leftover craft supplies from previous activities.

My oldest (8) spent a lot of time on the details, especially the buns.

 They turned out awesome, if I do say so myself.

My younger (6) was more of a big picture girl.

I was very impressed that she drew the bun on the foam shapes.

My nephews (4 and 5) had fun, they really liked the straw sabers.  

 I loved how different they each made their dolls.  I think we make more of these.

Engineering Expo

My husband is weeks away from Graduating with a Bachelors in Civil Engineering.  I am very excited.  He decided to go back to school after our first child was born, now eight very long years later he is finally finishing.  Just thinking about it makes me do a happy dance.

OSU has an Engineering Expo every year so seniors can show off their hard work and the school can show perspective donors how great it is.  Jon's team was one of the teams presenting from his class.  Safe to say I was more excited than he ad the rest of the team were.   

Engineering Expos are basically school science fairs where you don't understand most of what your looking at.  We had fun walking around and making college kids try to explain there projects to grade schoolers.

The gal in the above picture did a great job getting and keeping my daughters attention, she was very animated and proud of her project.

They tried out a dance mat.

 Saw a Hedgehog.

And we got to see all kinds of ROV (remote operated vehicles)

Merry thought it was pretty cool to meet a beaver (of course, she assured me, it wasn't a real beaver, just a person in a beaver costume.  A real beaver that size would be scary.)

 Our favorite booth (besides their daddy's of course) was a tesla coil.  It's a speaker that makes sound using electricity. 

 So after a full day of engineering marvels were my kids impressed, well kinda.  Merry wants to build a robot.  Charry still wants to be a cup cake decorator, but she did have fun.

Here is another shot of us with the beaver.  Random nice thing about the day, we had multiple people offer to take pictures of us so I could be in the shots too.  

the long good bye

This week was a different sort of week for us.  We did a bit of homeschooling on the go but mostly we just waited.  We were there just in case.  And available if there was a need.  Deep down I wasn't sure if it would be worse to not be there when something happened or to be there when nothing was happening.

You see my sister was living next door to my parents until just a few weeks ago.  She was the one with the "if anything happens" instructions.  But her husband and she recently bought a house.  They have been very busy getting it set up not just for their own family but also for our parents.  So the house next door has been empty.

On the Saturday before Easter my dad had a rough day, After 2 years dealing with cancer and all the different side affects he no longer seemed like he would always be around.  I didn't know what to do or how to feel but I didn't want my mom to have to deal with anything by herself.

So my little family loaded up sleeping bags, camp food, and board games to stay next door to Grandma, just in case.  They played mouse trap for the first time.  We stayed up late watching a movie.  And we prayed.  Prayed for eternal healing and for peace.

This morning I was glad I was over there, that I could slip on shoes and run across the yard so mom wouldn't have to be alone.  "He's gone," is what my mom told me on the phone and that is how we see it. He is no longer here, he has gone to be with Jesus.

I wish I could think of something profound to say about how much he will be missed (which is a lot,) or at least something funny (he would appreciate that) but instead I just keep thinking how glad I am to know Jesus and how happy I will be to see my dad again someday.