I was debating whether or not to start school this week. I am missing a couple crucial items for history, but I had all the rest of our stuff. I had a preliminary schedule and I had most of my lesson plans done. So when Racer asked this morning if we were going to start school, I took a deep breath and said . . ."Yes."
We started off by discussing what a good teacher does and what her responsibilities are. Then I asked the kids what a good student looks like and what a good student does. They came up with some pretty good answers. We decided that a teacher should be patient and prepared. She should choose to be cheerful instead of grumpy and show respect and love to her students. A good student is also cheerful and is obedient. A good student does their best without whining or complaining. They listen and follow directions and wait their turn when they need help. I thought those were pretty good answers.
Then we talked about what strategies they could use if they are stuck on a problem or exercise that they can't figure out and Mommy is busy. We came up with:
After reviewing all the books, materials, workbooks and videos we are planning on using this year, we plunged right in. First up was religion. As I said, we are studying LDS church history this year using resources from Discover the Scriptures. We watched the video about before the church was organized and Racer and Chicklette wrote a few sentences and drew a picture of what they remembered and thought was important.
After religion, we moved on to math. Racer and Chicklette both had to think hard to remember their math facts, but Chicklette ended up getting 12 happy faces on the Race the Teacher portion of Xtramath. They did well on their Singapore workbooks as well, but both of them have some interesting spelling we need to work on.
Racer moved to the piano next and it sounds like he is finally getting the hang of his circus song. We will check tomorrow to see if he has got it down. I noticed that we need to still spend time learning the note names and where they are. Sometimes I think he plays more by interval than actual note. In his lesson tomorrow we will do some note-spelling games.
Next we did science. We read out of the Usborne Science Encyclopedia about States of Matter. We talked about how matter changed state from solid to liquid to gas and then they wrote down what they remembered. I also introduced the concepts of mass, density, and volume but we will need more practice before those are cemented into their brains.
After our chaotic lunch we put Sunshine and the Bubbers to bed. We pulled out our Writing with Ease books and our grammar books. I traded off working with Racer and Chicklette. In Racer's Writing with Ease, we practiced pulling main details out of the fable of how beans got their black seams while Chicklette did a handwriting page. Then Racer and I talked about the parts of a book. Most of those parts were things he was already familiar with so we skimmed them quickly, but we did spend a little time on copyright information. After Racer finished his Writing with Ease and First Language Lessons, Chicklette was ready to start hers. I introduced the concept of a common noun to her and we practiced saying the definition. In Writing with Ease, she did her copywork.
After working on the English language we switched over to our Latin that we are beginning this year. We watched the lesson from Prima Latina and practiced saying the new Latin words and their definitions. I then did a piano lesson with Chicklette. I was planning to do it tomorrow, but she begged to start today so we started. Strike while the iron is hot, right?
That pretty much rounds out our day. We will continue trying our schedule out for the next two weeks to see if it will fit in everything we need to do. Tomorrow we should start earlier and we will get to see if the library has the history books I need for our first unit.
We started off by discussing what a good teacher does and what her responsibilities are. Then I asked the kids what a good student looks like and what a good student does. They came up with some pretty good answers. We decided that a teacher should be patient and prepared. She should choose to be cheerful instead of grumpy and show respect and love to her students. A good student is also cheerful and is obedient. A good student does their best without whining or complaining. They listen and follow directions and wait their turn when they need help. I thought those were pretty good answers.
Then we talked about what strategies they could use if they are stuck on a problem or exercise that they can't figure out and Mommy is busy. We came up with:
- Skip that problem and come back to it.
- Put a clothespin on Mommy so she knows you need help and she can come to you when she's done. (I got this idea from another site a couple years ago and I can't remember who it was.)
- Do flashcards from math, Latin, or the states.
- Do addition or multiplication wrap-ups.
- Make sure Xtramath is done.
- Do a different subject that you can do independently like handwriting, color your geography page, or finish other work that might be homework.
After reviewing all the books, materials, workbooks and videos we are planning on using this year, we plunged right in. First up was religion. As I said, we are studying LDS church history this year using resources from Discover the Scriptures. We watched the video about before the church was organized and Racer and Chicklette wrote a few sentences and drew a picture of what they remembered and thought was important.
After religion, we moved on to math. Racer and Chicklette both had to think hard to remember their math facts, but Chicklette ended up getting 12 happy faces on the Race the Teacher portion of Xtramath. They did well on their Singapore workbooks as well, but both of them have some interesting spelling we need to work on.
Racer moved to the piano next and it sounds like he is finally getting the hang of his circus song. We will check tomorrow to see if he has got it down. I noticed that we need to still spend time learning the note names and where they are. Sometimes I think he plays more by interval than actual note. In his lesson tomorrow we will do some note-spelling games.
Next we did science. We read out of the Usborne Science Encyclopedia about States of Matter. We talked about how matter changed state from solid to liquid to gas and then they wrote down what they remembered. I also introduced the concepts of mass, density, and volume but we will need more practice before those are cemented into their brains.
After our chaotic lunch we put Sunshine and the Bubbers to bed. We pulled out our Writing with Ease books and our grammar books. I traded off working with Racer and Chicklette. In Racer's Writing with Ease, we practiced pulling main details out of the fable of how beans got their black seams while Chicklette did a handwriting page. Then Racer and I talked about the parts of a book. Most of those parts were things he was already familiar with so we skimmed them quickly, but we did spend a little time on copyright information. After Racer finished his Writing with Ease and First Language Lessons, Chicklette was ready to start hers. I introduced the concept of a common noun to her and we practiced saying the definition. In Writing with Ease, she did her copywork.
After working on the English language we switched over to our Latin that we are beginning this year. We watched the lesson from Prima Latina and practiced saying the new Latin words and their definitions. I then did a piano lesson with Chicklette. I was planning to do it tomorrow, but she begged to start today so we started. Strike while the iron is hot, right?
That pretty much rounds out our day. We will continue trying our schedule out for the next two weeks to see if it will fit in everything we need to do. Tomorrow we should start earlier and we will get to see if the library has the history books I need for our first unit.
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