Annika's 2nd Birthday!
I decided not to plan much school-type stuff on Thursdays. Harry will do math and copywork, but that's all that's on the schedule. Instead, it's our "day out." It's the only day that we don't have preschool or later speech appointments. So we go play.
Although, after saying that, today we are home. It's just too hot right now for me to have any desire to do anything. I know that we could head to the beach, but even the beach is too warm. Also with Annika's birthday tomorrow, I wanted to get some stuff done around the house--make her cake, clean, make some banners, clean. Stuff like that.
Today we did tomorrow's learning work. We read some of This Country of Ours, looked at pictures of the earth, inside and out, talked about the atmosphere, played a math game, and did some copywork. All-in-all, it took about an hour, maybe an hour and a half. First grade at home is wonderful.
I have to say though, that part of why it's working so well is that I'm organized and I'm using a curriculum that I believe in. There are parts that I've changed--we are doing more organized science and I've cut out a book that doesn't work for us for religious reasons, but more or less we are following it. And it's wonderful. Harry is asking interesting questions, making connections between things, and in general learning a lot. I'm learning to be a little hands-off and let him make the connections and be responsible for his own learning.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Monday, August 27, 2007
We're Back!
I am continually amazed at how much Harry is getting from Story of the World. I know I wrote about the change in my last post, but I kind of wondered if he was just interested because he knew some of the story already. Today we read a little about Hammurabi and his law code, which I know none of my kids have any prior knowledge of. It was amazing. Harry was really into the story. Even though some of it was dry, he was still interested in it.
The best part is that he's asking questions--good questions about why and who. I asked him if he thought the examples of the laws were fair and he thought for a minute, said no, and then told me why. It was interesting to see his mind work. He's still so little and in his mind it is fair to pretty much do what you want, even if no one else thinks it it. I truly expect that to change in the next few months--the egocentrism that is. Hopefully not the thinking about things part.
We spent about an hour doing our academic-type stuff. He did some math; how come subtraction makes way more sense to him than addition? Then we read SOTW and did some of the sheets for this chapter. I really wanted to get some copywork/grammar done, but that will have to wait until later. We had a snack at 10 and read a bit about Henri Matisse, our painter of the month. Then we did a painting project of our own. I'll take pictures of the paintings later when they dry.
Now the kids are playing Monopoly together while Annika does her King Kong impression and walks over the board with her hands behind her back! I have to get a crown put on this afternoon, so we are picking up our babysitter after lunch.
The best part is that he's asking questions--good questions about why and who. I asked him if he thought the examples of the laws were fair and he thought for a minute, said no, and then told me why. It was interesting to see his mind work. He's still so little and in his mind it is fair to pretty much do what you want, even if no one else thinks it it. I truly expect that to change in the next few months--the egocentrism that is. Hopefully not the thinking about things part.
We spent about an hour doing our academic-type stuff. He did some math; how come subtraction makes way more sense to him than addition? Then we read SOTW and did some of the sheets for this chapter. I really wanted to get some copywork/grammar done, but that will have to wait until later. We had a snack at 10 and read a bit about Henri Matisse, our painter of the month. Then we did a painting project of our own. I'll take pictures of the paintings later when they dry.
Now the kids are playing Monopoly together while Annika does her King Kong impression and walks over the board with her hands behind her back! I have to get a crown put on this afternoon, so we are picking up our babysitter after lunch.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
In the Beginning...
We've gotten our books, I've begun to plan, and in my enthusiasm, couldn't ignore that copy of Story of the World just sitting on the table. We did some from it last year, but it seemed like drudgery. I ordered it again this year because I wanted it to work so badly and I'm pretty sure that it was only drudgery because I made it like that. I planned and planned and thought about how wonderful it would be to do the projects in the activity book, and then when they didn't go exactly like I thought they should, I got discouraged.
Wow, look at all of those "I"s in that sentence. See it was me, not the boys.
Anyway. I pulled it out and decided to start roughly where we left off last year (Ch. 6 if you're keeping score), and proceeded to tell the boys the story of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. It went amazingly well! Probably partly because Harry has heard of all of these prophets before. He has some prior knowledge to hang the new information on. Whatever the reason though, both boys were really into the stories.
It did seem wierd to me to tell a Bible story out of a history text and have that be a lesson (and not in the way of "let this be a lesson to you, boys"). But I got over it when they both could discuss what I had read. As the culminating part of this lesson, I cut out robe shapes and the boys glued colors to them, making Joseph's Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoats!
Wow, look at all of those "I"s in that sentence. See it was me, not the boys.
Anyway. I pulled it out and decided to start roughly where we left off last year (Ch. 6 if you're keeping score), and proceeded to tell the boys the story of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. It went amazingly well! Probably partly because Harry has heard of all of these prophets before. He has some prior knowledge to hang the new information on. Whatever the reason though, both boys were really into the stories.
It did seem wierd to me to tell a Bible story out of a history text and have that be a lesson (and not in the way of "let this be a lesson to you, boys"). But I got over it when they both could discuss what I had read. As the culminating part of this lesson, I cut out robe shapes and the boys glued colors to them, making Joseph's Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoats!
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