What we've Learned...26 June 2012

Okay, trying a quicker and easier way to check in with our school progress here. =)  Each week on our "Project Day", I will have the kids list out several of their accomplishments or things that interested them most in their previous week of school. =) Obviously this isn't everything we have done or worked on this week, but they are the things that made the biggest impression on them. =)  So, voila, the first edition....

What did you learn or do this week for school that was new or interesting for you?

Michelle, Age 6-1/2
1. Writing full sentences from dictation into my Spelling Book. (We finished Level 1 and started Level 2 of All About Spelling.)
2. Copying 2 whole sentences at a time of my version of the "Monkey and the Cat" into my copybook.  (She tells it to me orally, I write it down, and then she has been slowly copying it into her copybook.)
3. Doing Math Copywork.  (We are working on the +8 family.)
4. Reading and Acting out the first part of "Les Trois Petits Cochons"  (French version of "The Three Little Pigs")

Michelle's Illustration to go with her version of "The Monkey and the Cat"

Here is Michelle's narration (retelling in her own words) of the Aesop Fable "The Monkey and the Cat":

There was once a cat and a monkey who were great friends and always getting into mischief.  They were pets in the same house.  Once they were sitting by the fire and they saw some chesnuts cooking on the hearth.  The cat half-burned her paws trying to get them.  Each time the chestnut got into the monkey's reach, he gobbled it up. The cat was angry because she had no chestnuts.  The master scampered away and the cat and the monkey went away and stayed in two different houses.

James, Age 4
1. Letter E.  My favorite letter activitiy is cut and paste.

James showing off his wall of all the alphabet cut-and-pastes we have done so far. =)

Our Off-Week Update

So...last week was our "off week" from school.   I'm thinking that I really, really like this 4 weeks on - 1 week off thing.

We had time to do a few fun things....
- Michelle and Papa have been observing the moon each night, so we watched a couple YouTube videos about the phases of the moon. (See the moon challenge at The Handbook of Nature Study.)
- I am not usually an artsy-mama AT ALL...but this week we did do a Monet-inspired art project.  Which was (considering it involved paint) not really all that messy.  Even Elizabeth got to play around with some watercolors while the big kids did their painting which she thought was just grand.  You can't leave this little one out of ANYTHING the big kids are doing.  They had a great time and have asked when they can paint again.  And given how totally NOT STRESSFUL this was for me...I just might let them have at it again soon. (But don't worry, I don't have any intention to turn into a crafty-mama anytime soon.)
- We FINALLY made it to the library so we were able to check out some French books - good practice for all of us, I hope.  The kids actually got cards in their own name since the kids cards are free (adult cards aren't - and we can't read in French above the children's level anyhow.)   They (James in particular) are totally enamored by the fact that they have real cards WITH THEIR NAMES ON THEM.  Ah, the little things.

I took some time to evaluate how our school year is going so far.  Overall, I'm really happy with how things are going and the materials we are using, and the progress Michelle is making.    During this week off, Michelle asked me "when we were going to read about Ponce de Leon again", which told me that she is making a good connection with the history stories we are reading.

A couple of things I'd like to change or improve in the next 4 weeks:
- We've been really consistent with doing nature observations - more so than any other time in our homeschooling experience - but not so much with reading nature stories.  I want to make sure we do this at least once a week.  I'm thinking we will start into the spring-related stories from Outdoor Secrets.
- I want to be more consistent recording Michelle's narrations, aiming for at least once a week.
- Michelle understands math concepts well but needs more practice to cement her fact memorization.  So, we are going to add in a daily math drill - combination of addition facts copywork, addition facts drill sheets, and games.  I'm thinking this will be something she can do independently as part of her "chores" to keep our math instruction block from getting too long.

- I also want to kick our French study up a notch.  I am scheduling in time for the kids to work with The Learnables software that we bought, and we may also try out these videos which have been suggested a couple of times over on the SCM Forum.  As noted above, we also now have access to French books and media at the library, so I also hope to add in at least 1 short French story to our normal read-aloud time each day.

Now that we've pretty well settled into a good school groove, I will try to do a post soon about what our daily school schedule looks like...that is when my school schedule allows. =)

Two Weeks in Review: 24 February 2012

Well...the way our life is going, I think doing a summary post every week is a little more than I have time to keep up with, so I think this is just going to naturally morph into an every two weeks kind of thing.   C'est la vie.   Oh, and sorry I don't have more pictures for you this week.  Everytime I think to take any I can't find the camera because Dan keeps taking it with him to school. =( But, without any further ado, here is what we have been doing in our homeschool these past 2 weeks:

Bible
- Scripture Memory: We are tacking Psalm 139.  Yes, it's long.  But, you'd be amazed how well these kids memorize.  I have often turned to Psalm 139 for comfort in trying times, so I thought that committing it to memory was a good idea.

- Hymns: Currently, How Great Thou Art

- Family Bible Reading: In the morning, we are reading the short, illustrated Bible stories contained in the ESV Seek and Find Bible (which we got for Michelle on her birthday when she turned 6. A lovely first "real" Bible.) and adding each character to our history timeline. In the evening, we continue to read a short passage out of the book of Mark each night, often buddy reading with Michelle.

Circle Time
- Poetry: Nursery Friends from France (English translations of French Nursery Rhymes with lovely illustrations and little cultural notes sprinkled here and there.)
- God's World News: Early Edition
- Calendar Time in French

Table Time (The Basics)
- Cursive: Through letter J, with several review and practice lessons in between.

- All About Spelling Level 1: Completed Step 13 - segmenting words with 4 sounds.  This was tricky for Michelle, but she has made steady improvement as we've worked through it.  Really helpful for her reading too - initial blends can still trip her up from time to time and this has definetely helped her to slow down and take apart all the sounds.

If you aren't familiar with All About Spelling, it is a phonics based spelling program that uses letter tiles before dictation and a mastery approach, as opposed to the 'study these words and take a test on them' workbook approach.  We've been pleased with it so far.

- Math: We continue to work through basic addition facts - through pairs that make 8.-Copywork: We continue to do print copywork 2-3 times each week.

History, Geography, and Culture
- History: I am so, so pleased with how our History studies are going.  Michelle seems to have really connected with the stories we are reading and even a week or 2 later can give me a sentence or 2 that she remembers about the characters we have read about.  Over these past two weeks we have read about: William Penn, Benjamin Franklin, Balboa, Drake, and Ponce de Leon.

- Geography and Culture: Our stories about the explorers have leant themselves well to sneaking some geography in too - we've enjoyed taking our timeline figures and sliding them over the map as we read about their travels.   We also enjoyed reading and narrating chapters 3 and 4 of Collette in France and looking up places we read about online to see more pictures.  Did you know that there really is a bridge in Avignon? (as in the folk song "Sur le pont d'Avignon")

Science and Nature
Our Nature study for the first week was on twigs and branches in winter.   Last year in the US, we attempted to do a seasonal tree study - we stuck with it pretty well through the winter and spring, but once we hit the road and were moving so much through the summer and fall, it sort of petered out.  However, Michelle apparently took something away from this, because she was the one who noticed that the tree outside our window is covered with little red buds:

And wouldn't you know, the next challenge in our More Nature Study in Winter book was on twigs!  We weren't able to actually collect any twigs (didn't find any on the ground, and we live in an urban area so didn't think it would be a good idea to snap any twigs off a 'public' tree).  But we did go take a closer look at the trees outside and observed all we could about the buds to sketch in our nature journals.  Now we can be watching for those buds to open up as spring approaches.  Maybe this year's seasonal tree study will happen without much effort on my part? 

Our second week's nature study was on wool and sheep.  We had no real sheep to observe, but did take the time to examine some wool socks and describe how the look and feel, look at the fibers under a hand lens, and watched the YouTube videos linked here.  The kids were fascinated.

Art and Music
Composer Study: Debussy
Artist Study: Monet.   This week we took at a closer look at some of Monet's paintings using Google Art Project.  We also explored this neat interactive website shared by another one of the moms over on the SCM Forum.  This sparked a lot more interest in our picture study to say the least!  Both kids were begging to look at more.

What the Littles Did
Okay, so I need to brag on James (3.5 - turning 4 in June) for just a minute.  One of his frequently chosen read-alouds is Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka Bake a Cake.  At the end of the story, they sing Happy Birthday to mother (for whom they have baked the cake).  It looks like this:

Anyhow, James has totally picked up on the fact that all of the words in that happy birthday section are the same, and thus must be the part where it says "happy birthday".  Yeah, I know he's not actually reading yet, I just thought it was interesting to notice the degree of print awareness that he's developed already...with pretty much no direct effort on my part.  I just read to him. A lot.  But that's it.  (Hopefully that might be encouraging to those of you who don't have time or energy or printer ink enough to do dozens of cute alphabet printables with your preschoolers.  Nothin' against cute alphabet printables....just not my thing!)

We also like to attend an (English speaking) playgroup for preschoolers hosted by one of our missionary colleagues when we are able to.  They read some stories, do some action rhymes and songs, and have some playtime.  Fun!

Family Reading
- Picture Books Highlights: Eloise Wilkin Stories (aka "Babies" - Elizabeth's name for this sweet book - many of the stories are about babies or children with baby siblings), Angus and the Ducks, Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka Bake a Cake, and Blueberries for Sal.  Michelle has gotten to be such a proficient reader that she often volunteers to read to James and Elizabeth!

- Michelle's Reading: Michelle reads daily from Busy Times, usually with Papa.  We have also returned to the Little House series and have started reading Little Town on the Prairie.  (We read through most of the others last year, and took some time off to read some of the new books we got at Christmas time.)

- Bedtime Read-Aloud: Sadly, we have finished all of Thomas the Tank Engine.  This was truly a family favorite!  Our new bedtime book is Mary Poppins.  The movie is one of the kids' favorites, we are enjoying comparing the similarities and differences.

Some Goals and Plans for the Coming Week
This coming week is our "off" week (as in 4 weeks on, 1 week off), which I admit I am looking forward to.  We will still do Bible, lots of read-alouds, a nature walk, and hopefully a library trip...but not in a particularly scheduled or structured way.  I also hope to take time to evaluate how this 4 week session has gone and make some plans for our next 4 week session.

For more details about the specific curriculum resources we are using, please visit the Goals and Curriculum link at the top of the sidebar.

Two Weeks in Review: 11 February 2012

We have actually completed 2 full weeks of school since we arrived here in France, but last weekend I wasn't organized enough yet to get a post up about it...so you get two weeks at once.   We are doing a 4-weeks-on-1-week-off schedule this year, so we are already half way through our first "mini-term".   Now that we've got something of a daily rhythm going, I'll try to get a post up about our daily schedule sometime soon.   But in the meantime....here's what we've been up to:

Bible
-Scripture Memory: Working on Joshua 1:8-9.  It seemed very timely and appropriate for our family right now!  We also continue to review previously learned verses, using a very slightly modified version of Simply Charlotte Mason's Scripture Memory System.

- Hymns: So far this year we have learned all of the verses of Blessed Assurance, and are now working on all of the verses of Holy, Holy, Holy.  We've known the first verse of it for awhile, and for some reason this seems to be a favorite of toddlers.  Both James and Elizabeth started trying to sing it before they could really even talk much!

- Bible Reading: In the morning, we are reading the short, illustrated Bible stories contained in the ESV Seek and Find Bible (which we got for Michelle on her birthday when she turned 6.  A lovely first "real" Bible.) and adding each character to our history timeline.   In the evening, we continue to read a short passage out of the book of Mark each night, often buddy reading with Michelle.

Circle Time
- Poetry: Nursery Friends from France (English translations of French Nursery Rhymes with lovely illustrations and little cultural notes sprinkled here and there.)
- God's World News: Early Edition
- Calendar Time in French

Table Time (The Basics)
- Cursive: Michelle continues to excel in Cursive.  We are up to letter I now.

- All About Spelling Level 1: We are part way through Step 12, which is halfway through the book.  Michelle flew right through the first half, but we are now getting to some more challenging material (spelling words with blends and constant teams), which was a little frustrating to her this week - she is used to sailing right through these.  I think it will reinforce her reading to work on carefully taking apart all the sounds she hears in each word...even if it takes a little more effort!

- Math: We continue to work through basic addition facts - we're about done with pairs that make 7, and ready to move on to pairs that make 8.

-Copywork: We aren't doing print copy everyday right now because of the cursive instruction, but do aim to do it a couple times each week (and will until we can switch over to doing cursive copywork).  We alternate between passages of my choice, passages of her choice, and copying a sentence that I have taken down from her oral narration (this often in our France book or nature journals.)   She loves being able to make an accompanying illustration in our new copywork notebook!

History, Geography and Culture
- History: We got our timeline set up last week (more on that in another post) and are now starting to read from some of our Heritage History selections.  This week we read and narrated about John Winthrop, Marquette, Christopher Columbus, and the legend of the proud king.  When applicable, we add figures to our timeline.

- Geography and Culture: For our France study, we are reading and enjoying the book Collette in France.  We read a chapter each week and add an illustration to our book about France.  We also look up on a map about any locations we read about, and this past week after reading about Paris we also looked up pictures online of the various Parisian landmarks.  We've also added various other things to our France book, such as a postcard we purchased of our city with a narration about some of Michelle's first impressions of living here.  (Her favorite thing about living here so far?  Going to the bakery to get bread!)

Science and Nature Study
Last week, we had a snowstorm so had an impromptu nature study on snow.  We read and enjoyed a picture book about snow crystals called The Story of Snow.  (James has repeatedly asked for it ever since.)  We also took a winter walk and used a notebooking sheet from here to record our observations about winter weather in France for our France book.

This week, I decided that we should do a study on pigeons since they are about the only wildlife we've seen here (I think in part because we are in an urban location and in part because it is so stinkin' cold!).  But go figure, the day we took our nature walk, we saw NONE.   All the way to the store and back and not a single pigeon!  Go figure.  Undeterred however, we explored some of the helpful links from here, printed and colored a coloring page, and pasted it into our journals.   So, all was not lost.  We've noticed them several other times as we've been out and about this week, so all's well that ends well.

Bottom line: I am enjoying nature study more than I ever have before, and finding it easier to be consistent.   This is a very good thing, given that at one point I despaired if we could ever get into it, as much as I loved the idea.

Art and Music
Composer Study: Debussy
Artist Study: Monet.   Over the past two weeks we've read through the book about Monet from the Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artist's series.  Honestly, I struggle with doing art appreciation and it's not Michelle's favorite either.  But, we're trying.

What the Littles Did
We've done school in the afternoon several times because of my school schedule and actually really like this because it means that the little ones are napping. =)   But when they aren't napping, they are right there with us....

Family Reading
- Picture Book Highlights: Eloise Wilkin stories and various books from the Frances and Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka series.  I am amazed that Elizabeth sits so still and quiet for the longer picture books.  She loves her "stowies".

- Michelle's Reading: We started into the first of the Pathway 2nd grade readers, Busy Times.  The stories are quite a bit longer than in the first grade reader, so we are splitting them over two days for now.  She is often reading with Papa when I am at school, but I've been pleased with the narrations she has given me later.  We are also reading an American Girls book set in 1853 New Orleans called Meet Marie Grace together.

- Bedtime Read-Aloud: The Thomas the Tank Engine Collection

Some Goals and Plans for the Coming Week
We've got our French calendar vocabulary more or less mastered, so it's time to kick our French study up a notch.   I plan to do a monthly theme to learn phrases and vocabulary around, so I hope to add that in to our calendar time this coming week.  I am also hoping we will have time to go visit our local (French) library this week and see what kind of resources we can find there to enhance our French language study.

For more details about the specific curriculum resources we are using, please visit the Goals and Curriculum link at the top of the sidebar.

Week in Review: 6 January 2012

After about 2 weeks off over the holidays, we got back to "school" this week - albeit a very light week.  With Dan doing training at the hangar this week and so many other things needing to get done in preparation for our move in a couple of weeks, we only did a few essential subjects that took around 30 minutes or so each morning (not counting the Bible and reading time that is part of our normal daily routine regardless of whether or not school is in session).    Here's what we did:

Bible
- Scripture Memory: We are continuing to work through the section of The Catechism for Young Children about The Lord's Prayer (Questions 105-121) - memorizing the questions, answers, and a go-along Bible Verse for each, in addition to reviewing verses learned in the past. 
- Hymns: We are reviewing and adding the second verses to many of the hymns we learned last year.
- Bible Reading: We are reading from the book of Mark.

Opening "Circle Time"  (Read more about the concept of Circle Time here.)
Daily Readings:
 - Poetry: The Llama that Has No Pajama
 - Arnold Lobel's Fables (so Michelle can gain practice in the art of narration: telling back what she has read or had read aloud to her.)
 - God's World News: Early Edition

Calendar Time:  We started using doing our calendar time in French!  So, we are learning important vocabulary such as the days of the week, months of the year, seasons, weather words, and counting.  As we gain profiency in these, we will add in a vocabulary "theme" for the month to learn more words and phrases.  We are singing a little song to the tune of Mary had a Little Lamb to learn the days of the week which is now stuck in everyone's head.  I suppose this is a good thing (it was the point, right?) but starting to get a little bit annoying.  What did I start?!

Michelle adding the day's weather to the weather chart.

Table Time
This week we focused on just two subjects: Math (reviewing sums to 5 and starting sums to 6) and Cursive.   Michelle LOVES doing cursive and is doing amazingly well.

Projects
We started working on the "My Year in France" scrapbook we will continue throughout this coming year by coloring and pasting in a French flag.  

What the Littles Did
Top picks this week were playdough, coloring, and stickers!

Family Reading
- Picture Book Highlights: Obadiah the Bold by Brinton Turkle, a couple Anatole books by Eve Titus, Eloise Wilkin Stories
- Michelle's Reading: Michelle is reading aloud to me from More Days Go By, the third (and final) first-grade level Pathway reader.  We are on track to finish before we leave for France!  She is doing really well with these and is now reading full "chapters" (4-5 pages) in one sitting.
- Bedtime read-aloud: The Thomas the Tank Engine Collection.  This was James' Christmas present, but the whole family (including Papa!!) is enjoying it.

Some Goals and Plans for the Coming Week
- This week I'd like to add a couple more foundational pages to our France scrapbook as well as the framework events to our history timeline [if I have enough time to get it organized this weekend].
- I think we will also add spelling back into our Table Time.
- Michelle has requested that we do a nature walk sometime soon.

For more details about the specific curriculum resources we are using, please visit the Goals and Curriculum link at the top of the sidebar.

Hope you had a good week too!