1st Grade: Week 28 Highlights

Bible: We've really been enjoying the daily devotions at kids4truth.com They have been such a blessing for us. Check them out! "Rupert" has also been reading his children's Bible for phonics this week.

Grammar: We were introduced to three more sentence types this week- the command, the question and the exclamation. "Rupert" practiced writing a sample of each of the four types of sentences.

Science: This week we talked about our sense of touch. We also did a fun little activity where I put miscellaneous items into a paper bag, and "Rupert" had to put his hand in the bag, and determine what was in there by using his sense of touch. We also talked about how sensitive our fingers are to touch, and did the activity again, but this time wearing a mitten on his hand.

Some of the things in our touch bag:

History: We read about the Greeks (Sparta and Athens) coming together to fight off the Persians, the origin of the Marathon run, and finally, the Peloponnesian war. We also played a Peloponnesian war board game that was in our Story of the World Vol.1 Activity Book.

Math: We reviewed our skip counting songs and double and triple digit addition with carrying. After doing a great job on that, "Rupert" asked for a challenge: a 10-digit problem! My little math master did his challenge problem perfectly! We called it our "monster problem", so when he was done solving it, he drew in a monster face around it. :-)

Kung fu: "Rupert" learned more of his double stick form this week. I finished learning it, and I'm here to say, it is tough! Keeping track of what your body is doing is tricky enough sometimes, then adding a stick in each hand and trying to make those do what you want them to...I don't know how any kid would be coordinated enough to get it down. But they do...and he is.

Social Opportunities: We took it easy this week and just had kung fu class, a baking/crafting playdate for St. Patrick's Day, and PE class.

Our St. Patrick's Day craft will grow parsley "hair"

Our cupcakes had rainbow colors inside!

1st Grade: Week 27 Highlights

Grammar: We began learning about sentences this week, and were introduced to statement (declarative) sentences.

Math: "Rupert" has skip counting by 2-6 down, so this week we started on skip counting by 7. I cannot express how happy I am with the skip counting songs we are using. It's right up "Rupert's" alley as he is mostly an auditory learner and has a great memory for music.

History: We read a little more about the Greek gods and the fall of Troy. "Rupert" really liked the story of the Trojan horse and had fun acting it out.

Science: We read about the sense of smell, watched a Bill Nye video about smell, and did a taste test without using smell to see how important smell is in our ability to taste foods.

Social Opportunities: Overnight with Grandma and Grandpa, play practice, Kung fu, peanut butter bear playdate, PE class and art day.

1st Grade: Week 26 Highlights

Math: I made a little math memory game for us to play this week. The object is to find two cards that make 10 when added together. This went over really well, and we played several times on two different days.

History: We read about the differences in values and way of life between Sparta and Athens this week. We also made a "wax tablet" to write on like the schoolboys in Athens had.

Social: This week we had the usual play practice, kung fu, playdate with his buddy, Seth, homeschool PE and art day. We also had a special Caterpillar Cupcake Playdate with a couple of homeschool buddies. We had lots of fun things going this week!

Spelling: This week's words were a bit tricky with double "l"s and silent "l"s as in the words talk, walk and chalk. I thought for sure we'd be spending two weeks with this list, but "Rupert" did fine with them.

Grammar: This week we talked about writing dates, and I showed him how to write some of the special dates we know.

1st Grade: Week 22 Highlights

This was "Rupert's" second week of play practice and he's still loving it! The kids started learning some choreography this week, and got their CDs to take home and listen to for practice. "Rupert" loves playing his CD whenever he can, playing in his room, jumping on his bed, folding his laundry, bedtime...anytime is a good time for his play music! :-)

We also finished listening to "Beezus and Ramona" by Beverly Cleary this week. We have already listened to the whole Ramona series, but we loved it so much that we decided to start all over again. We love Ramona!!

Phonics: The easy readers are still working out wonderfully! "Rupert" is actually excited to pick one out of the stack to read, and sometimes he insists on reading two! I definitely think this is the way to go for us!

Spelling: We started the 2nd grade spelling program this week.

Art: We had art day with our homeschool group this week and did another watercolor lesson. We also did a watercolor lesson with Grandma this week.

"Rupert's" Journey of Discovery watercolor painting:

Mine:

"Rupert's" Garden watercolor painting:

Mine:

Cooking: "Rupert's" recipe pick of the week was Oreo milkshakes, and, of course, they were GOOD!

History: This week we read about life in early Crete. We had fun learning about the bull-jumpers, and "Rupert" made a set of bull horns and we each got to practice jumping a "bull" (each other), too.

We also read about Theseus and the Minotaur, a story that we really enjoyed. We acted that one out too! :-)

Science: This was our last week of animal study. We read about spiders, crabs, and insects. Next week we move on to our human body study (my favorite!) and I am so excited!!!

We also did a couple of the science experiments that "Rupert" got for Christmas. Thanks, Grandpa and Grandma!!

Erupting Volcano:

ASL: When we popped in the new Signing Time video for this week, we realized that of all the signs on this video, only 4 of them were new to us! Lots of freebies/review signs for us, but that's okay. I think "Rupert" was excited about the fact that he already knew most of them.

Kung fu: Professor is beginning to get us all ready for promotion. Promotion isn't until June, but he wants to be sure everyone knows their stuff. I still haven't decided whether I'll go up for promotion or not. I generally don't like to be publicly recognized like that, and really, I just want to learn. I am not concerned about what color belt I hold. It has just never been important to me. But DH is pressuring me to do it. I don't know...

Social Opportunities: Besides kung fu and play practice, this week we had a playdate with "Rupert's" buddy since birth. They played together for hours and didn't fight once! They had a great time, and we're planning to do it again in two weeks. We also joined in on a once a week homeschool PE class this week. "Rupert" enjoyed running around playing all kinds of tag with the other kids. Add art day, an overnight with the grandparents, and a skating party, and we're maxed out on social engagements for the week!

Oh! One last thing! We made this little Groundhog Day craft this week too! He pops up out of his hole to look for his shadow. :-)

1st Grade: Week 21 Highlights

Bible: We are really enjoying the Kids 4 Truth devotions online.

Sunday was "Rupert's" first play practice with the children's drama team at our church. They will be performing the musical, J-Force to the Rescue. He will have practice once a week for about 3 months, then there will be one intensive practice week where they will have practice 4 days, and finally, they will have several performances for the children in our church (6 different services, I believe), and a couple of outreach performances for other churches. It's a big commitment, but I think he will get a lot out of it.

Phonics: This week we took a break from The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading (OPG). With the success we had in reading Green Eggs and Ham last week, I decided to pick up some easy readers at the library, and give them a try. It was wonderful! "Rupert" gets overwhelmed with his OPG phonics lessons. It is a plain book with no pictures. When he sees only words and a lot of them, he gets overwhelmed with how much work there is to do. It doesn't matter if the words are easy or hard, all he sees is a lot of work! The pictures in the easy readers are a bit distracting at first, but after he spends a minute enjoying the pictures, he seems more focused and ready to read. This week he was reading words that I didn't know he could! And he was actually enjoying it! Needless to say, we're sticking with the early readers for a while (though I will probably throw some sight word study in there too).

Spelling: We finished up 1st grade spelling this week. Next week we will move to 2nd grade spelling which will have more difficult words and more of them. I have every intention of taking it slow and not letting "Rupert" get too crazy with it (like doing 4 spelling lists at a time, as he did a couple of times with the 1st grade set).

Writing: We took a break from our regular writing curriculum this week to write thank you notes for Christmas gifts. I still have to get those in the mail!

Grammar: We learned that the word "I" is always capitalized, and "Rupert" made up a story about waking up as a bunny. I wrote it down on paper as he told it/acted out the action verbs, then he went back through the written story and circled all the occurrences of the word "I" (with a capital letter). He enjoyed this creative activity.

Math: "Rupert" is still going strong with his math workbook, and averages about 4 pages a day. Since most of the concepts are familiar to him, I let him choose any page in the whole book to do, but I've already warned him that next year we will be working through the book from beginning to end. This week he worked on fractions, time, addition and subtraction.

History: We read about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world.

Science: We read about worms and Octopi, and watched videos of worm dissections and an octopus taking down a shark! Very cool!

Cookbook Pick of the Week: Cream cheese and jam stuffed French toast. It was fun to make and pretty yummy too!

Social Activity: This week we participated in a homeschool group show and tell. "Rupert" had really been looking forward to it, and had a good time showing off his stuffed bunny, Flopsy.

Of course, we had kung fu class and storytime at the library as social opportunities as well.

Owl Moon

This week we are reading Owl Moon by Jane Yolen. Our go-along activity for yesterday was to make a food chain. After reading more about owls, I had G tell me what owls eat (and surprisingly, yes, some do eat rabbits!), then what rabbits eat, and we made our own mini food chain.

Afterward, G wanted to draw a picture of an owl:

Homeschool Group

We had a "Not-Back-to-School" potluck at the park today with our homeschool group. This was our 3rd meeting with them and they are such a great group! I think we're going to have lots of fun times with them! As we discussed homeschooling, parenting, and just LIFE, I realized that I had found what I was looking for: homeschool families we can relate to.

Homeschool Meetup Group

We've been to 2 homeschool meetups, and I'm really liking it. There are some really fun ladies there and lots of kids, several being right around G's age. Last week we went roller skating and had a lot of fun! G loved it! I am so pleased with his social growth just since we've been checking out homeschool playgroups. He used to be such a leg-hugger, but now he's running (or skating/tripping) up to people and saying hello and asking their names. It's so great to see him growing like this.

This was G's 3rd time skating, I think. The last time being about a year ago. At first he wanted to hold on to me, but when he figured out that I would not be towing him around the rink all day, he quickly let me go and declared, "I don't need you." His improvement was amazing! He started out slipping and tripping all over the place, falling every couple of steps, but by the end he was doing SO much better. It was fun to see his improvement over such a short time.

The Hub

The Hub is a homeschool playgroup that G-man and I checked out on Wednesday. We both really liked it there. All of the kids were older than G, ranging in age from 5 to 12. G met the 5-year-old little boy (another only child, by the way) and they were fast friends. They hung out together all day. It was so nice to see G so eager to join in the fun. There wasn't even any leg-hugging invovled. :-) He also enjoyed the company of a 9-year-old girl and a 12-year-old girl. I feel so good about giving him this opportunity to make friends with children of all ages (under supervision), whom he will be able to relate to as we start our official homeschool journey. I think he had a bit of an "aha!" moment when he asked the mother of the 9-year-old girl if her daughter would be there the next time we got together. She told him that yes, she would be there, and G asked, "Does she have to go to school?", and the mother answered, "No, she is homeschooled". This seems like a really great group.

There is one other group that we are going to check out...we very well may end up with too many social engagements to fit into our schedule. :-)

Homeschool Groups

So, I just signed up for 2 local homeschool meetup groups. I'm nervous about going and meeting new people, but I know it will be good for me and G. I have to do what is best for him, and meeting new friends who will be growing up homeschooling like him will be great for him. It'll be good for me to have local friends who homeschool too. What a concept!