Back to school! Joshua was so excited that the first day after every breath he kept saying things like, "I love math!" etc. That was really fun. The kids are still excited and they love school and they want school, but there has been a lot of whining as well. I'll get to that later.
First of all, I've moved Joshua over to Saxon Math from Singapore Math (and bumped him up to 3rd grade math) because I didn't feel like Singapore had enough drill and practice. Saxon definitely does. But I now understand why some people really don't like Saxon Math. There is a lot of parent preparation and involvement. Home school parents don't mind preparation and involvement, but Saxon Math is REALLY a lot of preparation and involvement. Math takes us at least 40 minutes (on a good day) and up to an hour. This is what I had been told to expect so I'm not totally shocked. But it is a lot more work. Still, I like it so far.
Joshua has the same spelling books, but he's on the 3rd grade book. This is actually my fault because last year I just had him fly through the lessons so we got done with 2 books in one year. This year I am having him drag the 3 page lesson out to 5 days, using day one and five to "study" (read, spell, close your eyes and spell, cover and write, check your work) the 15 list words for that lesson. The lessons revolve around certain phonetic concepts. For instance, today was the hard and soft "c" and "g" sounds.
Writing and Grammar alternate, as long as there is some element of copywork or writing in his grammar lesson. He has the same writing books, Zaner-Bloser, but instead of the regular second grade book I got him the 2 grade c book which introduced cursive in the middle of the year. I thought that would be good for him.
Grammar is also a new book. I personally think the lessons are easier, but what I like about them so much is that they include memorization, copywork, and they are based on classical education. In fact, this new series was written by Jessie Wise Bauer, the woman who wrote the book I am using to base our home school on (not copy, just base. I'm not wonderwoman!) So I am liking it so far. Joshua is working on memorizing a poem called "The Goops" and he is having a lot of fun, plus we've gone over nouns (proper and common), pronouns, capitalized I, and action verbs. Wednesday we'll move onto state of being verbs. You know, grammar things.
And for reading, I just have Joshua read one book a day so far. This last week I let him pick out whatever he wanted from the library. But I'm not totally impressed with his choices. They aren't bad, but I'm going to shift him over to chapter books.
And for Abby, well, she just has a math page to work on in the morning. It's kindergarten, so there really isn't too much to do. We're reviewing numbers. We'll focus on one number for the first two days of the week, and then we work on number recognition and reproduction (I give her a page with 6 different numerals on it and she has to put as many little plastic bears on that numeral). We'll go through 20 and also start adding in addition and subtraction, which she knows how to do already, at least up through 5, but I figure we'll just go as far as we get. Another goal is to count to 100.
Abby also has handwriting. Her handwriting is already very good. Except for a few letters which still look good but she writes them "incorrectly" (like starting on the baseline and moving up to the headline and then crossing the "T" instead of starting at the headline and going down, just stuff like that). She has the 1st grade Zaner Bloser book, because like I said, her handwriting is already really good. In fact, in church yesterday she started copying the hymnal... What Was Witnessed in the Heavens... serifs and all. It was cute.
Abby is also reading. We are using the "Teach your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons." We started after she turned five back in February but we took a break during the summer. Now we are back in force, one lesson a day, five days a week. She is on lesson 75 and although she really whines and complains, she is a great reader. Still slow, but I think that is normal. After she's done with the book we'll start getting books from the library, first focusing on a phoneme and then the lowest level of easy readers. I'm excited for that because I think she will like that a lot better.
Ok, and that is our morning routine. Well, first the kids get up, do all their chores, practice piano, eat breakfast and then do morning school. That's our routine. And I forgot, we start school with a prayer and a scripture story (in German). Below is a photo of the kid's chore lists. It's in German and super small so don't feel bad if you can't read it. Just know they've got stuff to do.
The afternoon has all the fun stuff. Mondays, sometimes Wednesdays, and Fridays are history and German. For History last week we reviewed the Romans, we reviewed the Celts, and we introduced the start of Christianity into England with Saint Augustine of Canterbury. On Wednesday we made bread like the monks in the monasteries did and ate a dinner of pea soup, apples, and homemade bread. Our book said these were the kind of things the monks ate, just simple meals, things from their gardens. They didn't use butter on their bread except for special days and holidays, so my kids didn't either. Also, during the meal the Abbott would read the bible while the monks ate in complete silence. This was my favorite part of the reenactment. silence. Even today Lukas asked if they could pretend to be monks while they ate their mac n cheese. yes. The answer is always yes.
Friday we learned about illumination and book copying. There were a couple of interesting books from the library so in one we just looked at the photos of actual monk copywork and got some ideas. Then we wrote our own names and illuminated the letters, well, as best as a 7 and 5 year old can.
In our German study (sorry, this blog is forever long) we are focusing on verbs for the next month or so. Six verbs a week. Pick the words, write and decorate the verbs, make sentences out of the verbs, and practice. Next month or so we'll work on nouns that we don't know with the same sort of pattern. And then we'll work on the cases and start using our verbs and nouns to make sentences with the correct cases and grammar as far as that goes. It's pretty basic. Also, I've got a few children's semi-chapter books in German and we read a chapter a lesson. Our words last week were burst, squish, squeeze, stick (as it to be stuck), patch or repair, and deceive or cheat,
Below are our new cubbies. They are actually very old cubbies and a work in progress. I'll post a picture of the finished project. And by then we may be actually using them for something... useful.
For science we are covering earth science and astronomy this year. I have a fantastic book (I used their online try-before-you-buy stuff a lot at the end of last year) that is systematic, kid friendly, very hands on, and very fun and educational. The book starts with weather. On Tuesday we did a lab that had to do with temperature, inside, outside, in the shade, ice water, and room temperature water, and then charted those. Then on Thursday, our other science day so far, we made a rain gauge and read a few library books on rain, why it rains and how and so forth. Plus a cute book for fun. I am teaching kindergarten too after all. The kids were to predict the rain fall for the next week and every morning we go out and check our gauge and record the actual rain fall. We've actually had major heavy thunder and lightning storms the last two weeks so even though we're in Utah, we've had enough rain to measure. That's pretty nice!
Lastly, we are learning how to draw. This process is very slow. So far we've worked on the elements of shape - line, angled line, curved line, dot, and circle. On the first day we practiced these elements with our new black pens and on our new special art paper. Then I had them draw a picture by following my directions, but I only gave them instructions like, draw an angled line like this, and then showed them house. We ended up with a house near a tree on a flowering hill under a partly cloudy sky. On Thursday we practice the equivelant of copywork. First we observe and study the original picture (so far these are extremely basic) we look at the elements of shape and the relationship between all the lines, how close or far away, do they touch each other? where and where not? etc. then the kids get two times to practice recreating the original picture. I also had them color their pictures in afterwards and just experiment with different color combinations. Our drawing lessons are going to be like this for a while, with very little variation, except the complexity of our copywork will increase. I might only post pictures of the very best work.
There are a couple of things I did not anticipate for this year. One, Lukas wants to be involved in all of our afternoon school. So even though he doesn't have the motor skills to draw much besides a line and a circle, he wants his own sketch pad. Also, even though he can't write or read at all, he wants copies of all of the science pages as well. I'm going to have to make him a science journal too!
Another surprise is how much the kids are whining. Should I really have been so surprise though? They are taking something like 8 subjects, if you count their piano lessons, which Abby will be starting in a few weeks. So I'm implementing a few things I didn't do last year. First, Wednesdays, unless it is a short week, will most always be half days. Only morning work. And then we will go on some sort of field trip in the afternoon. This is kind of sad because we are missing out on all the fun history stuff, but we'll make it work. It is for everyone's sanity, and in the end, maybe we will be able to move away from that. Also, after a long subject, like math, I am giving Joshua the option of taking a 5 minute recess, time to get up, go outside, and just do whatever he wants, before coming back to the grammar, spelling, writing stuff. Abby's stuff doesn't take very long so she hasn't shown much fatigue (except for during reading. Somehow every body part hurts, she's cold, hungry, and thirsty for those 20 minutes). It makes our morning longer, but the idea is it will make our morning learning time more effective. The kids still have a long break after the morning routine is done and then there is lunch and then a break until I've got Kaleb to bed and am ready for the afternoon. So essentially they are getting and hour and a half in the middle of the day. But the concept of more little breaks was introduced and I think it is worth trying.
Goodness. school is complicated. But there it is. We'll adjust as we go like we did last year. But so far I am happy with how things are going. This week is a short week because we are going to Swiss Days on Friday (we call it a field trip but there is nothing educational planned) and then the week after is also short due to Labor day so although our first week was maybe sort of a shock to their little systems, hopefully these next weeks will help ease the blow and get them better prepared for the new rhythm.
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| This is actually our schedule for the current week - notice the free day on Friday! Stuff specific to Abby is just in red. Our subjects are math, spelling, writing, grammar, reading, history, German, science, and art! Music is just their piano lessons, plus Lukas gets to go to music class again this year. |
Joshua has the same spelling books, but he's on the 3rd grade book. This is actually my fault because last year I just had him fly through the lessons so we got done with 2 books in one year. This year I am having him drag the 3 page lesson out to 5 days, using day one and five to "study" (read, spell, close your eyes and spell, cover and write, check your work) the 15 list words for that lesson. The lessons revolve around certain phonetic concepts. For instance, today was the hard and soft "c" and "g" sounds.
Writing and Grammar alternate, as long as there is some element of copywork or writing in his grammar lesson. He has the same writing books, Zaner-Bloser, but instead of the regular second grade book I got him the 2 grade c book which introduced cursive in the middle of the year. I thought that would be good for him.
Grammar is also a new book. I personally think the lessons are easier, but what I like about them so much is that they include memorization, copywork, and they are based on classical education. In fact, this new series was written by Jessie Wise Bauer, the woman who wrote the book I am using to base our home school on (not copy, just base. I'm not wonderwoman!) So I am liking it so far. Joshua is working on memorizing a poem called "The Goops" and he is having a lot of fun, plus we've gone over nouns (proper and common), pronouns, capitalized I, and action verbs. Wednesday we'll move onto state of being verbs. You know, grammar things.
And for reading, I just have Joshua read one book a day so far. This last week I let him pick out whatever he wanted from the library. But I'm not totally impressed with his choices. They aren't bad, but I'm going to shift him over to chapter books.
And for Abby, well, she just has a math page to work on in the morning. It's kindergarten, so there really isn't too much to do. We're reviewing numbers. We'll focus on one number for the first two days of the week, and then we work on number recognition and reproduction (I give her a page with 6 different numerals on it and she has to put as many little plastic bears on that numeral). We'll go through 20 and also start adding in addition and subtraction, which she knows how to do already, at least up through 5, but I figure we'll just go as far as we get. Another goal is to count to 100.
Abby also has handwriting. Her handwriting is already very good. Except for a few letters which still look good but she writes them "incorrectly" (like starting on the baseline and moving up to the headline and then crossing the "T" instead of starting at the headline and going down, just stuff like that). She has the 1st grade Zaner Bloser book, because like I said, her handwriting is already really good. In fact, in church yesterday she started copying the hymnal... What Was Witnessed in the Heavens... serifs and all. It was cute.
Abby is also reading. We are using the "Teach your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons." We started after she turned five back in February but we took a break during the summer. Now we are back in force, one lesson a day, five days a week. She is on lesson 75 and although she really whines and complains, she is a great reader. Still slow, but I think that is normal. After she's done with the book we'll start getting books from the library, first focusing on a phoneme and then the lowest level of easy readers. I'm excited for that because I think she will like that a lot better.
Ok, and that is our morning routine. Well, first the kids get up, do all their chores, practice piano, eat breakfast and then do morning school. That's our routine. And I forgot, we start school with a prayer and a scripture story (in German). Below is a photo of the kid's chore lists. It's in German and super small so don't feel bad if you can't read it. Just know they've got stuff to do.
The afternoon has all the fun stuff. Mondays, sometimes Wednesdays, and Fridays are history and German. For History last week we reviewed the Romans, we reviewed the Celts, and we introduced the start of Christianity into England with Saint Augustine of Canterbury. On Wednesday we made bread like the monks in the monasteries did and ate a dinner of pea soup, apples, and homemade bread. Our book said these were the kind of things the monks ate, just simple meals, things from their gardens. They didn't use butter on their bread except for special days and holidays, so my kids didn't either. Also, during the meal the Abbott would read the bible while the monks ate in complete silence. This was my favorite part of the reenactment. silence. Even today Lukas asked if they could pretend to be monks while they ate their mac n cheese. yes. The answer is always yes.
Friday we learned about illumination and book copying. There were a couple of interesting books from the library so in one we just looked at the photos of actual monk copywork and got some ideas. Then we wrote our own names and illuminated the letters, well, as best as a 7 and 5 year old can.
In our German study (sorry, this blog is forever long) we are focusing on verbs for the next month or so. Six verbs a week. Pick the words, write and decorate the verbs, make sentences out of the verbs, and practice. Next month or so we'll work on nouns that we don't know with the same sort of pattern. And then we'll work on the cases and start using our verbs and nouns to make sentences with the correct cases and grammar as far as that goes. It's pretty basic. Also, I've got a few children's semi-chapter books in German and we read a chapter a lesson. Our words last week were burst, squish, squeeze, stick (as it to be stuck), patch or repair, and deceive or cheat,
For science we are covering earth science and astronomy this year. I have a fantastic book (I used their online try-before-you-buy stuff a lot at the end of last year) that is systematic, kid friendly, very hands on, and very fun and educational. The book starts with weather. On Tuesday we did a lab that had to do with temperature, inside, outside, in the shade, ice water, and room temperature water, and then charted those. Then on Thursday, our other science day so far, we made a rain gauge and read a few library books on rain, why it rains and how and so forth. Plus a cute book for fun. I am teaching kindergarten too after all. The kids were to predict the rain fall for the next week and every morning we go out and check our gauge and record the actual rain fall. We've actually had major heavy thunder and lightning storms the last two weeks so even though we're in Utah, we've had enough rain to measure. That's pretty nice!
Lastly, we are learning how to draw. This process is very slow. So far we've worked on the elements of shape - line, angled line, curved line, dot, and circle. On the first day we practiced these elements with our new black pens and on our new special art paper. Then I had them draw a picture by following my directions, but I only gave them instructions like, draw an angled line like this, and then showed them house. We ended up with a house near a tree on a flowering hill under a partly cloudy sky. On Thursday we practice the equivelant of copywork. First we observe and study the original picture (so far these are extremely basic) we look at the elements of shape and the relationship between all the lines, how close or far away, do they touch each other? where and where not? etc. then the kids get two times to practice recreating the original picture. I also had them color their pictures in afterwards and just experiment with different color combinations. Our drawing lessons are going to be like this for a while, with very little variation, except the complexity of our copywork will increase. I might only post pictures of the very best work.
There are a couple of things I did not anticipate for this year. One, Lukas wants to be involved in all of our afternoon school. So even though he doesn't have the motor skills to draw much besides a line and a circle, he wants his own sketch pad. Also, even though he can't write or read at all, he wants copies of all of the science pages as well. I'm going to have to make him a science journal too!
Another surprise is how much the kids are whining. Should I really have been so surprise though? They are taking something like 8 subjects, if you count their piano lessons, which Abby will be starting in a few weeks. So I'm implementing a few things I didn't do last year. First, Wednesdays, unless it is a short week, will most always be half days. Only morning work. And then we will go on some sort of field trip in the afternoon. This is kind of sad because we are missing out on all the fun history stuff, but we'll make it work. It is for everyone's sanity, and in the end, maybe we will be able to move away from that. Also, after a long subject, like math, I am giving Joshua the option of taking a 5 minute recess, time to get up, go outside, and just do whatever he wants, before coming back to the grammar, spelling, writing stuff. Abby's stuff doesn't take very long so she hasn't shown much fatigue (except for during reading. Somehow every body part hurts, she's cold, hungry, and thirsty for those 20 minutes). It makes our morning longer, but the idea is it will make our morning learning time more effective. The kids still have a long break after the morning routine is done and then there is lunch and then a break until I've got Kaleb to bed and am ready for the afternoon. So essentially they are getting and hour and a half in the middle of the day. But the concept of more little breaks was introduced and I think it is worth trying.
Goodness. school is complicated. But there it is. We'll adjust as we go like we did last year. But so far I am happy with how things are going. This week is a short week because we are going to Swiss Days on Friday (we call it a field trip but there is nothing educational planned) and then the week after is also short due to Labor day so although our first week was maybe sort of a shock to their little systems, hopefully these next weeks will help ease the blow and get them better prepared for the new rhythm.
thank you for all of the little details, it's all fascinating to me & i love seeing which topics you are doing and how! it sounds fantastic! :)
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