1st Grade: Week 36 Highlights

This was the last week of our full school schedule.  "Rupert" is so excited to be mostly done with the first grade, and is already asking when second grade will start.  We still have to finish our science and history studies, which will probably take about a month more.  After that, we'll celebrate with a little 1st grade open house party with the grandparents where we will have "Rupert's" projects and samples of his work on display.  Should be fun!  I'm also planning to put together a photo book of our 1st grade year, so he will have a book of memories and pictures of all his projects.  That way we won't have to keep the actual projects forever.  :-)


Phonics:  This boy has really taken off with reading!  This week he actually ditched his weekly monitoring of the garbage man in favor of READING!  I could. not. believe it!  He then declared himself the reading master!  When I sit down to read to him, he asks me if he can read to me first.  I've caught him reading along with me during our read aloud time.  And he is looking forward to taking a book to Grandma and Grandpa's house so he can read to them.  I'm not sure how this happened, but I hope it continues!

We officially love Beverly Cleary!  We have been enjoying the Ramona books for about a year now (we're on our 2nd time through them), and we were recently turned on to reading another book by Beverly Cleary, Socks (thanks to Writing With Ease, which we use for writing and copy work).  We finished reading that tonight, and are looking forward to starting The Mouse and the Motorcycle.  

Writing:  We finished up our writing curriculum this week, much to "Rupert's" delight.  I think copy work is his least favorite thing to do, but as I told him, not everything that is good for you is fun...so DEAL.  :-)

History:  This week we talked about ancient China and the Qin Empire.  "Rupert" also tried his hand at Chinese calligraphy.

Science:  We talked a little more about skin and learned about fingerprints.  We studied our own fingerprints to see which of the three main patterns each of our fingers had.