We are nearly halfway through our Adventures in U.S. History! This week we took a couple days off from learning about states to learn about Daniel Boone. I wanted to make little coon skin caps for the kids (I remember doing that when I was a homeschool student way-back-when), but I didn't have either the time or materials on hand.
We added another name of Jesus to our bulletin board: Immanuel, which means God With Us. We had lots of fun learning the lyrics to O Come, O Come, Emmanuel and a long discussion about why Emmanuel is sometimes spelled with an I and sometimes with an E.
The one thing I've added to our curriculum that's different than the recommendations from My Father's World is the CLE 2nd grade Bible program. It is a walk through of the Old Testament (I intend to follow up with the New Testament in 3rd grade). Since Adventures itself is already an adequate workload, we only do CLE Bible on Mondays and Thursdays. We are enjoying it very much!
We've also been enjoying our read aloud book, Farmer Boy! It's funny because as I read it to my kids, I hear my own mama's voice in my mind reading it to us when we were kids. It was my least favorite of the Little House books as a kid because I loved Laura so much and I could hardly bear for her to not be in the stories. But there are scenes from the book that have always stayed with me: the horror of the teacher going to face the big boys from Hard Scrabble Hill; the secret Almanzo and his siblings kept from their parents when he threw the blacking brush against the parlor wall; and the hurry, hurry as they splashed water on each frosted hill of corn before the sun came up and killed them. It's a good thing I usually read aloud at lunchtime because the descriptions of food are enough to drive anyone to the pantry! The kids always ask me to read just one more chapter!
Things aren't always sunshine and daisies around here, particularly when it comes to "boring" things like handwriting practice! Miss M loves it when she writes neatly, but she doesn't like the tedium of actually practicing. Sometimes I get dirty looks. But usually she eventually buckles down and gets the job done. I only have her do about a page a week and even at that rate, I've seen quite an improvement since the beginning of the year!
Thanks to Pinterest, I discovered a really catchy States & Capitals song that we listened to several times this week. Warning: if you listen to it, it will get stuck in your head!
Our week was pretty tame. Lots of our typical routine and nothing too extra-ordinary. Just the way I like it! Summertime has definitely arrived in our parts, so it's lovely to stay in the nice cool house during the day doing our lessons and reading lots of books. Miss M has discovered Junie B. Jones after a stop at the thrift store. They are horrible drivel, but she likes them and they're getting her reading, so I don't stop her. I read plenty of junk books (Baby Sitters Club, anyone?) when I was young and still developed a taste for good literature, so I'm not too concerned!
Our adventures from previous weeks:
We added another name of Jesus to our bulletin board: Immanuel, which means God With Us. We had lots of fun learning the lyrics to O Come, O Come, Emmanuel and a long discussion about why Emmanuel is sometimes spelled with an I and sometimes with an E.
The one thing I've added to our curriculum that's different than the recommendations from My Father's World is the CLE 2nd grade Bible program. It is a walk through of the Old Testament (I intend to follow up with the New Testament in 3rd grade). Since Adventures itself is already an adequate workload, we only do CLE Bible on Mondays and Thursdays. We are enjoying it very much!
We've also been enjoying our read aloud book, Farmer Boy! It's funny because as I read it to my kids, I hear my own mama's voice in my mind reading it to us when we were kids. It was my least favorite of the Little House books as a kid because I loved Laura so much and I could hardly bear for her to not be in the stories. But there are scenes from the book that have always stayed with me: the horror of the teacher going to face the big boys from Hard Scrabble Hill; the secret Almanzo and his siblings kept from their parents when he threw the blacking brush against the parlor wall; and the hurry, hurry as they splashed water on each frosted hill of corn before the sun came up and killed them. It's a good thing I usually read aloud at lunchtime because the descriptions of food are enough to drive anyone to the pantry! The kids always ask me to read just one more chapter!
Things aren't always sunshine and daisies around here, particularly when it comes to "boring" things like handwriting practice! Miss M loves it when she writes neatly, but she doesn't like the tedium of actually practicing. Sometimes I get dirty looks. But usually she eventually buckles down and gets the job done. I only have her do about a page a week and even at that rate, I've seen quite an improvement since the beginning of the year!
Thanks to Pinterest, I discovered a really catchy States & Capitals song that we listened to several times this week. Warning: if you listen to it, it will get stuck in your head!
Our week was pretty tame. Lots of our typical routine and nothing too extra-ordinary. Just the way I like it! Summertime has definitely arrived in our parts, so it's lovely to stay in the nice cool house during the day doing our lessons and reading lots of books. Miss M has discovered Junie B. Jones after a stop at the thrift store. They are horrible drivel, but she likes them and they're getting her reading, so I don't stop her. I read plenty of junk books (Baby Sitters Club, anyone?) when I was young and still developed a taste for good literature, so I'm not too concerned!
Our adventures from previous weeks:
What cursive program/curriculum are you using?
ReplyDeleteTara, we used a book called Cursive Connections. I bought it from My Father's World, but it's also available here: https://www.rainbowresource.com/proddtl.php?id=037610&subject=9&category=2046
DeleteWe had no complaints!