CHRISTEPHI

A new year is nearly upon us!  And with the new year there will be some changes at our house in the way that we are homeschooling.  Up to now, Miss M has been steadily working through Calvert's First Grade.  She started in August 2011 when she was only four and will be finishing up the math in January and the rest in February 2013.  We took some long breaks in there, but now that she's a smart-as-a-whip 6-year-old, much of the material is too easy for her.  The child is a naturally excellent reader and speller.  I love, love, love Calvert and have fond memories of it from when I myself was a homeschool student, but I'm not convinced that it is the right curriculum for our family or for Miss M's learning style.  So the first change for us will be to drop Calvert and take up My Father's World for 2nd grade.  Or...a 2nd/3rd grade combo to be exact so we'll be working at an appropriate level for Miss M. I really like the idea of a curriculum th...

It was a short week since Monday was Labor Day. We took the day off from school since Daddy was home from work.  Then Tuesday felt like Monday and Wednesday felt like Tuesday and by the time Friday rolled around I was all jumbled up!  Miss M on the other hand keeps careful track of the day of the week and the current date. Right now her reason for doing so is the new “hero” on Super Why! that will be premiering on Monday.  She always finds something to count down to! We finally received our social studies book today!!  We have managed without it, but I’m glad it came. Miss M very much enjoyed measuring this week, using both nonstandard and standard methods.  She now knows that her school desk is 4 combs wide, or 22 inches.  And she loved being able to take paperclips out of my canister; she’s not typically allowed to touch them!  This week’s Math also focused on counting and writing numbers 1-10.  She is doing so well with holding her pencil...

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 Sheep by 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 bott...

This was our first week of First Grade!  We mostly covered review material in math and language arts: object position; grouping, sorting, and classifying objects; short a words; identifying and writing lowercase and capital letters. Miss M is far beyond all this, but a little easy review for getting into the routine of school is fine with me! It builds her confidence and so far has kept her interest despite it’s being too easy for her. In science, we learned to observe, compare, and classify using our five senses.  We also discussed how scientists use the scientific method to learn about the world.  Miss M is fixated on the magnifying glass that came with the curriculum and wanted to use “magnifying glass!” as her answer to every question.  The book Your Five Senses by Melvin and Gilda Berger was a big hit with Miss M – not included with the Calvert curriculum. Our social studies lessons didn’t quite happen because I realized during Lesson 2 that I was miss...

We started Calvert PreK about a year and a half ago when Miss M was 3.25 years old.  We enjoyed it very much, but Miss M outgrew it faster than we used it!  She is now a little over four and a half and is quite the little reader.  I’m constantly amazed at the complex words she reads.  (Like “generation” and “Oklahoma.”)  And she tells me, “I just sounded it in my head, Mom, and now I can read it!” If we were going to put her in public school, then she wouldn’t be eligible for kindergarten until Fall 2012, shortly before her 6th birthday.  Thankfully, we’re not putting her in school and we’re skipping kindergarten altogether! Some time this past spring Calvert had a sale on curriculum, so we went ahead and purchased 1st grade at a discount!  I looked through it when it arrived and decided Miss M wasn’t quite ready for it, but would certainly be ready by the end of the summer.  Now that I’m looking over it again, I see that the first half or...