Kung Fu Tourney

"Rupert" competed in his 2nd martial arts tournament yesterday. He did a great job! We are so proud of him for getting up there and performing for the judges. It is such a great experience for him. He competed in empty hand forms, weapons forms, and sparring in which he took 4th place. He has only been sparring in class for about 4 months, and it is amazing to see his improvement as he gets more practice.

Several kids from his Kung Fu school competed in this tournament and it was so great to see them cheering each other on. His school, as a whole, did amazingly well and took home several trophies and medals. I have to say, after watching these kids for several months, I am impressed with who they are not only as martial artists, but as people. These are some of the nicest kids I have met and I am happy that "Rupert" has friends of all ages with such great character. They have accepted him with open arms and have been both friends and role models to him. We are very blessed to have met these kids and their families.

1st Grade: Week 6 Highlights

Phonics!!! (notice the exclamation points): Rupert informed me that he did not like phonics because it was too EASY. Well, then, let's just move right along at record speed! We zipped through digraphs on Monday and then for the rest of the week we read sections from McGuffey's Eclectic Primer. At first he didn't seem too interested, but then my phone rang. As I was on the phone I faintly heard him jabbering to himself. When I turned around, I realized that he was not just jabbering, he was READING the book to himself! He was not getting frustrated like he does when I supervise, he was just happily reading. I think his reading confidence is building because I am catching him reading little things here and there and EVERYWHERE!! Yay!

Science: We did a project to see how the fur on the bottom of polar bears' feet helps them to keep from sliding on the ice.

History: Past project updates: We have flooded our model of the Nile River three times now and it is looking great! I wish our back yard looked this good!

Here's the photo update on our Chicken Pharaoh.

This week we also built a pyramid out of sugar cubes:

Math: We used the drill section on www.mathusee.com . It's a quick and easy way to practice what we've been learning.

Kung Fu: We've been doing lots of practice for the tournament, which is this Saturday. He will do an empty hand form, a weapons form and sparring. It should be a fun time!

1st Grade: Week 5 Highlights

Phonics: This week we played a racing game with phonics. I had the book open to the lesson we were working on so that we both could see it, and we raced to see if I could write it on the white board before he could read it out of the book. It was so good for me to see that he actually CAN read fast, he just usually chooses not to, and that is something we are working on in all aspects of life.

Grammar: Rupert has memorized the first poem in his grammar book, "The Butterfly". This week he started memorizing the second poem, "Work". He's really quite good at memorization.

Math: We worked more on adding 9 this week, and did a little review of all the adding we've learned so far this year.

History: The time has finally come! This week we started the project I've been waiting for for over a year, Mummifying a Chicken! We decided to use a Cornish game hen for this 6-week project. Rupert was a little disappointed that we weren't wrapping our mummy yet, and I had to remind him that mummification is a long process. There are so many great resources on mummies that we're going to stay with this topic for another week.

Here are the things we used: Baking Soda, Salt, Baking powder, All Spice, and a Cornish game hen.

And here is our chicken pharaoh sealed up in his salt mixture:

Science: I've decided to modify our science curriculum and study one (maybe two) animal(s) per week instead of three. I think we'll have a lot more fun with it if we take our time instead of feeling rushed through basic information on each animal. I'm looking forward to viewing nature videos together and witnessing animal behavior in their natural habitat.

Spelling: This week Rupert was stumped by "is" and "his". He wanted to spell them with a z instead of an s. Understandable.

Kung Fu: With just one week until the tournament, Rupert is practicing the forms that he will be performing there. For the most part, he seems to be taking direction better now, and his forms are looking pretty good! I think I've also found the secret to great sparring. He spars very lightly with the kids in his class, because he is worried about hurting them. They are all geared up and he's really not going to hurt them, it's just a mental block he has to get over. Last week I offered him ice cream if he fights "fast and hard like a wild animal". That did the trick! The next time he sparred, he was a different kid! It'll be interesting to see if this transfers to tournament.

Field Trip: This week we joined the homeschool co-op on a field trip to the cucumber farm to learn how to cold pack pickles. It was a fun activity and they will be ready for us to eat in one month. We can't wait to try them!!

Home Economics

A friend of mine is using this Future Christian Homemakers curriculum for home economics this year, and I just want to throw it on my blog for future reference. It wouldn't kill Rupert to learn some of this stuff, and I would sure appreciate the help around the house! Thanks for the link, JoAnn!

1st Grade: Week 4 Highlights

Math: This week we learned about adding 9. We mostly did worksheets that went over this skill since that is what Rupert likes to do. He's starting to understand the concept and uses the "one less and add ten" trick fairly well. We'll probably continue with this through next week to be sure that he has it down before moving on.

History: We learned about the first writing this week. Ancient Egyptians and Sumerians used hieroglyphs and cuneiform and wrote on stone, clay tablets, and later, papyrus paper made from the reeds along the Nile River. We made our own clay tablet and wrote a cuneiform message on it.

We also wrote a message in hieroglyphs on a scroll.

Later, we will set both items outside and learn which one is best for keeping records over time.

Do you remember our model of the Nile River from last week? Well, our "crop" of grass on the banks of our river is doing quite well. Here's what it looks like this week:

Science: This week we studied zebras, hippos and foxes. We also did the classic "Runaway Pepper" experiment on breaking water's surface tension. Afterwards, Rupert decided to make a "sauce" and he combined water, ground nutmeg, pepper, and salt. He told me it needed to be baked at 350 for 30 minutes, which I did. It didn't smell bad when it was done, but when Rupert tasted it, he was not impressed. It was quickly spit out into the sink. But it was fun to experiment in the kitchen anyway. :-)

Fly Free, Butterflies!!

Our butterflies came out over the weekend! Three of the five were perfect, and without defect, but two of them had sort of crumpled wings. I can only guess that the cat incident had something to do with this. We turned them loose and watched (most of) them fly away this afternoon. It took a while for them to find their way out of the butterfly pavilion, and Rupert felt that they needed coaching. It was funny to watch him showing the butterflies how to fly. :-)

Here's one of the butterflies sitting next to an empty chrysalis:

Here's a link to a site with more info on Painted Lady butterflies.

Stargazing Guide

I found this site a while back and thought I'd share it here. It tells you what to look for each night and where in the night sky to find it. Very informative and not too overwhelming for a beginning stargazer like me.

1st Grade: Week 3 Highlights

Another great week in the first grade! The lines of communication are open, and we've made a couple adjustments. I am so happy to have that freedom! One day this week we even grabbed a couple of books and did some of our school work at Starbucks. I love that we have that flexibility. Here's what we've been up to:

Bible: We didn't have any homework from his Sunday School class this week since the kids are moving up to their new classes on Sunday, so we decided to just have fun reading stories from his children's Bible. One night this week, I went upstairs and heard him talking in his room. I couldn't make out what he was saying, but his voice was very alive and animated. I was sure he was talking to his cousin. I went in to check on him and didn't see anyone, so I asked who he was talking to. He told me he was praying. :-)

Writing and Grammar: These subjects aren't the most exciting, but Rupert is learning. There's a lot of repetition so he's really going to know the definition of a noun, what you do to a proper noun, and how to punctuate the end of a sentence.

Phonics: We've invented a couple of games that help keep Rupert's interest when we are doing phonics. Instead of reading straight out of the phonics lesson book (which tends to overwhelm him because there are SO many words to read), I write his sentences one by one on the white board. Then I start slowly erasing the sentence letter by letter, and he has to read it before I get to it with the eraser. It's amazing how much of a difference this makes in the speed of his reading.

Another game we invented is where I write a sentence on the white board and I tell him it is SO HARD. "You'll never get THIS!", I say. He reads it, and I act like I'm so amazed I don't know what to do. We played this over and over again for about 40 minutes yesterday before I said, "Ok, we're done with phonics!", and he was disappointed that we had to stop. :-)

Math: This is another subject where we have made adjustments. We'd been working with the Math-U-See manipulative blocks quite a bit. Rupert said to me, "All we do for math is play with blocks. I don't like that! I thought we would be doing math problems!" So, as requested, the next day he got to do a printout of addition problems. Ahhhh, that's what he'd been waiting for!

History: We learned about the annual flooding of the Nile River and how the early farmers there used it to their advantage. We also made a model of the Nile which we will "flood" weekly in hopes of growing a nice, lush crop of grass on the banks.

Science: We studied lions and cheetahs and did a project to show how a cat's eye works to reflect light in the dark. We also studied elephants this week.

ASL: We learned all the signs on the Signing Time video we got at the library. The signs we learned were relating to family, fun and feelings. There were about 40 signs in all, so Rupert knows somewhere around 60-70 signs altogether now.

Spelling and Reading: We had another easy spelling week. Rupert got all this words correct on the first try, so we took the rest of the week off for spelling. We've been reading Homer Price by Robert McCloskey this week, and Rupert has been enjoying that. We've also been listening to audio recordings of the Ramona books by Beverly Cleary while we're driving in the truck. So far, we've heard Beezus and Ramona, Ramona the Pest, Ramona the Brave, and Ramona and her Father. We have really been enjoying these stories!

Into the Butterfly Pavilion

All the caterpillars are now Chrysalides, no thanks to Kiki, the family cat. She apparently thought their container was a toy and knocked it onto the floor...TWICE. Do you see how 3 of them have been knocked down and are not hanging from the top of the container? I think most of the butterflies-to-be will make it, but there's one that I'm not sure will survive the horrors of the feline. Either way, we should know by sometime this weekend.

And here they are in the butterfly pavilion where they will emerge as butterflies: