Skip to main content

Calvert Week in Review

This was our second week of 1st grade.  We read several poems this week, but our favorites were “White Sheep” and “Secret” from the Lesson Manuel.

White Sheepby Christina G. Rossetti

White sheep, white sheep
On a blue hill,
When the wind stops
You all stand still.

When the wind blows
You walk away slow
White sheep, white sheep,
Where do you go?


Miss M was quite enchanted by the idea that there could be a meaning other than just what the words say.  Her eyes  lit up and she exclaimed, “That was hard!”


In math she worked on patterns including ABC patterning which she hasn’t formally encountered before. She did well, though if a pattern stopped before completing the set (e.g. ABB ABB AB), it usually threw her off when extending the pattern which I chalked up to lack of attention to detail, rather than lack of understanding of patterns.

She very much enjoyed the Change of Pace exercise: tossing a paper cup and tallying how many times it landed on it’s bottom, side, or top. I appreciated the connection to science since it had us run the experiment twice just like the children do in the science pages we’ve been reading!  Actually, I find Calvert does a marvelous job at connecting ideas across disciplines!  We had Venn diagrams in both math and reading this week and the Scientific Method showed up in both our science and technology lessons.

Speaking of science, the floating pasta experiment was a total flop!  Our pasta sank to the bottom and stayed there.  Twice.  Maybe the generic brand club soda I bought wasn’t powerful enough (though it seemed quite fizzy to me).  Miss M didn’t know what to expect and enjoyed the process anyway.  I think the food coloring alone was enough to delight her!  Though we weren’t instructed to, we recorded the question, prediction, and results in her science journal.

Our missing social studies book is supposed to arrive today, so we’ll catch up over the course of the next week.



I debated with myself over whether or not to attempt to correct Miss M’s pencil hold. She was resting the pencil on her ring finger and using the first two fingers and thumb to grip the pencil.  I finally decided to try to get her to hold it “correctly.”  To my surprise, she’s been quite willing to attempt the change, although a few times she’s complained that it feels funny or is harder.  Her writing is much sloppier this way, but I’m sure once she gets used to it, that’ll change. I was more concerned with fatigue and writers cramp later on when she needs to write page upon page at a time.  She’s quite proud of herself for learning the “proper” way to do it and eagerly showed off for Daddy when he came home!  She’s also proud of herself for using lowercase letters more, and I’m glad there is some number writing practice in the math lessons because that’s something she needs a good review in. Many of her numbers are typically written backwards.

Miss M loves doing work on the computer. She enjoys the daily Math Checkpoints and her Computer Skills and Applications lessons!  Although she was able to operate a computer better than her lolo before she could even read, at this point I can say with certainty that she knows more about computers than several of her grandparents (who use them nonetheless).

We read about Noah, the Flood, and God’s Promise this week and did some rainbow art.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Fall SWAP progress

I finally have some progress to report on my Ottobre SWAP.  There are actually six garments finished, but I only have pictures of four of them so far. You can see that the brown Maya blouse is lacking buttons. I didn't have anything suitable in my stash, so I'll "have" to go find some at JoAnn's.  I'm thinking something to match the medium pink in the trim, but we'll see. I almost never buy buttons...I usually always make do with what I have on hand. The cream Maya blouse is made of a vintage pillowcase I picked up at Goodwill a while back ($0.50).  It carries that oh-so-fresh smell that I love on my pillows and is super soft. I have a bit left that I'm going to hoard until just the right project comes up. I'm delighted with how dressy the little skirt came out! It's made of chocolate brown stretch velvet.  Miss M thought it was great fun to pet it like a kitten. Modeled by the lovely Miss M...and just before naptime (what was I thi...

Cocoa Krispie Sod House: a model you can eat

Ahh! I just realized I haven't blogged our Adventures in U.S. History since Week 26!!  What happened?!  We've just been plugging away contentedly at our work and are nearing the end of our school year.  So, while I go get myself sorted and whip up the rest of our weekly reviews for you, I thought you might like to see our latest project. A Cocoa Krispie Sod House Ingredients: 6 tablespoons butter 6 cups miniature marshmallows 9 cups cocoa krispies 3/4 cup fancy shredded coconut ("fancy" looks more like grass, but any shredded coconut will work) green food coloring extra butter or cooking spray Also needed: large sauce pan (or large microwave safe bowl) wooden spoon jelly roll pan or cookie sheet waxed paper small glass bowl fork knife clean scrap of cardboard popsicle sticks kitchen shears Directions: Melt butter in a large sauce pan over low heat. Don't let the butter brown!  When melted, add in the marshmallows and s...

12-gore denim skirt

The other evening I drafted a pattern for a 12-gore skirt following the instructions found here .  The next day I cut gores from worn out pairs of jeans!  Now I have a gorgeous denim gored skirt. I used 1 1/2-inch wide elastic in the waist and designed it to sit on my hips rather than my true waist.  I’m so short waisted that if I wore bottoms at my actual waist…well, it wouldn’t be pretty!  I plan to reuse some of the original belt loops so I can wear a belt with it…let’s just say that a toddler and an elastic-waist skirt are a recipe for disaster! You can see a few places where I removed pockets before cutting my gores – adds character, don’t you think?  And a skirt without a pocket is simply ill-conceived, so I reused a pocket from one of Hubby’s pairs of jeans.  Now I can carry my cell phone when I run errands!