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.

1st Grade: Week 34 Highlights

"Rupert's" play went very well!  He had 6 performances over the weekend and really loved it.  He's already talking about the next play which will start rehearsals in the summer.  He got some great experience with singing, dancing, and even did a little solo part.  He made lots of new friends, and we are both looking forward to working with everyone again this summer.

Phonics:  "Rupert" is still loving the Little Bear books.  I've actually caught him sneaking in some reading after bedtime.  LOVE that!

History:  We talked about ancient India this week and painted "Rupert's" nails like the ancient Indian men did.  This was actually done as a sign of manliness and strength, and to attract women.

We also tried an Indian dish this week, curried rice.  "Rupert" loved it!

Science:  This week we learned about blood.  We did a little project to show how much blood a baby, a child and an adult generally have.

 

"Rupert" made the signs himself, and I love how you can tell the adult is an adult because he is saying, "Go clean your room!"  LOL!

"Rupert" is on a crocheting rampage!  Ever since my friend's daughter taught him how to do the chain stitch, he has been chaining away like a madman.  He even took his chain to kung fu one day this week so he could work on it during break.  :-)

Speaking of kung fu, this week we sent our junior instructor off to the Air Force.  There was a nice good-bye party with all the students in the school on Tuesday.  Good-bye and good luck, Zach.  We are proud of you, and we will miss you!

1st Grade: Week 33 Highlights

Phonics:  This week "Rupert" read through the book Little Bear and LOVED it!  I am so excited that he is reading books with more words on the page AND he's enjoying it!  Thank you so much for letting us borrow this book, Morgan!

Spelling:  We worked on "Rupert's" trouble words list this week.  There are only a couple words from the entire year that he still needs some practice on; head and said.  He's starting to get them.

Math:  "Rupert" finished his math workbook this week and is looking forward to a trip to the ice cream shop!

Science:  We talked about circulation and watched the Bill Nye video on the subject.  Science will continue a little longer than the rest of our subjects for this year because we're really taking our time and enjoying it.  Once we finish up the human body study, we'll do plants (which I guess we are already doing a bit of since we are planting our garden).

History:  This is another subject that will go longer than the rest.  This week we read about the Punic wars and Hannibal and his elephants.  I think once we are done with this coming busy weekend, we'll make elephant ears to go along with this chapter.  I don't want to feed "Rupert" a bunch of sugar right now and risk him being sick for his play.  I'll add pictures of our elephant ears once we make them.  :-)

Social:  Today we say good-bye to our children's librarian of 3 years.  She is starting a new chapter and a new adventure in Australia.  We will miss her terribly, and we wish her the best!  Good-bye, Sandy!!

This week was an intensive practice week for the play "Rupert" is in.  They practiced every day this week and they will perform this Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  This has been a great experience for both of us, and it has been so great for me to see it all come together.

1st Grade: Week 25 Highlights

Hey, maybe it's about time I get last week's post up. And while I'm at it, maybe I should think about doing this week's as well. Holy moly, I'm late! Alright, here are the highlights from LAST week..

Phonics: "Rupert" read through "Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?" and a couple of smaller books this week. We also worked on a new sight word list.

Math: We did lots of skip counting this week. We like to use songs to learn to skip count, and we found some fun ones here. "Rupert" is currently able to skip count by 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. We also did some work in his workbook. He is over halfway done with his workbook, and is getting excited to go out for ice cream when it is finished.

History: This week we read about Cyrus the Great who conquered many nations for Persia. We also played the "Conquer Mesopotamia" board game that was in our Story of the World Volume 1 activity book. I kicked "Rupert's" butt both times we played (ok, I barely won on the luck of the roll). It was fun, though, and a nice way to review the history we have covered thus far.

I'm putting together memory cards that have pictures of major events and people on one side and information about those events and people on the other side. They are wonderful tools, so I will be putting them into a lapbook for future reference. I found the cards on this homeschool yahoo group.

ASL: This week we learned signs having to do with seasons and weather.

Art: We did Chinese dragon watercolor paintings with our homeschool group this week. I was worried because of my lack of art skills, but they actually came out pretty cool...and most importantly, we had fun doing them!

Kung Fu: "Rupert" lost his 4th tooth at kung fu class this week. He was playing with the other kids during break time and accidentally got kicked in the face...not hard, just enough to pop his super loose tooth out! What a fun story he'll have for this one!

1st Grade: Week 23 Highlights

Craft: We made valentines this week for "Rupert's friends. This craft was based on an idea we saw in Clubhouse Jr. magazine.

Phonics: I think we're having a reading growth spurt. "Rupert" is able to read a lot more than before, and this gives him the confidence to try sounding out new, harder words. It's a great cycle to be on! As we were in line at the post office this week, he grabbed a pamphlet and started reading what he could as we waited. The word "international" still trips him up, but he's got "shipping" down pat! LOL!

Grammar: "Rupert" began learning another poem this week. This will make 5 in all.

Science: This week marks the beginning of our human body study. We started by learning about bones. I am teaching "Rupert" the names of some of the major bones, about 20 in all. I am planning to do either a big lapbook for our human body study, or a collection of smaller ones. I'm not sure yet which.

This week we did a few projects to go along with our study: We made a model of a backbone complete with discs in between the bones and a spinal cord running up the center.

Here, "Rupert" is showing how the many bones work together to allow us to bend.

Our discussion went into how the nerves work and "Rupert" modified his model to show that the nerves in the arms and legs (the threads coming off the backbone model) are connected to the spinal cord, which is connected to the brain (the green spool on the right). It was amazing to listen to him explain to me how the nervous system works. He picked up on the concept very quickly.

We also learned that bones are made up of minerals. When the minerals are removed, the bone is no longer hard, but becomes rubbery. The calcium in this chicken bone was removed by soaking it in vinegar for a few days.

We did a measurement project to show that we "shrink" during the day and actually are shorter at night than we are in the morning because of the pressure that is on our bodies when we are in an upright position. It was pretty funny because we had measured "Rupert" in the morning, then came back to measure again at night and he was so excited to see how much he had grown over the course of the day. He was very surprised to find that he was actually about 1/2 inch shorter than he had been in the morning.

History: This week we've been reading about the early Greeks. "Rupert" made this Mycenaean shield and we have plans in the works for making a Mycenaean helmet as well.

Kung Fu: We are learning our 4th stick form. It uses two sticks and takes a lot more concentration to learn than the single stick forms we have previously learned. "Rupert's" focus is getting better, although he does still have a day here and there where he is totally spacey.

Social Opportunities: Besides all the real world social experience of being out and about, talking to all kinds of people of different ages and backgrounds, asking questions, and just generally experiencing the community around us, we had 2 playdates this week, art day, kung fu, story time, and play practice.

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.

1st Grade: Week 20 Highlights

Holy Moly, I'm late in posting this! I have not had the time to upload the photos I took from week 20 until now. I blame it on my broken-toed, computer hogging husband! Most late posts are nobody's fault but my own, but this week was different...really.

Phonics: "Rupert" read Green Eggs and Ham all by himself for the first time this week! I think I'll get more easy readers from the library for him to try.

History: This week we read about the Assyrian Empire and Ashurbanipal, who collected writings for the first library which was in Nineveh. We also used Legos to construct an Assyrian siege tower. We made a wall so that "Rupert" could see how a siege tower was used. In our model, the Assyrians are taking over a city of frogs. :-)

Science: We are growing more crystals from a crystal kit "Rupert" got for Christmas. Thanks, Aunt Michelle!!

We also got an impromptu mini lesson on constellations this week from a man who trains at our kung fu school. He pointed Orion out to us and told "Rupert" that Ursa Major and Ursa Minor (the big and little dippers) are also know as big bear and little bear.

Spelling: This week we did the last two first grade spelling lists. "Rupert" got them all right! We'll take a week to review all the words he missed through the first grade lists, then we'll start on 2nd grade spelling.

"Rupert" cooked pancakes for breakfast one morning, and of course, he got creative with it. :-)

1st Grade: Week 16 Highlights

Spelling: "Rupert" took on two spelling lists this week and got every word right on the first try. It's funny how he can do that but then it doesn't transfer over to his writing (the fun writing that he does on his own). For example, he was wrapping Christmas presents for his grandparents and wrote "To grandpo Mik" instead of grandpa Mike. I'm sure it will all fall into place in time.

Phonics: I made a few sets of sight word flashcards and we put some of them to use this week. It has been a nice little break from the usual. I used the Dolch sight word list that I found here.

Math: More math worksheets this week. We also played with the abacus on "Rupert's" request. Today we went to the childrens book store and got a workbook that I think he will like.

History: We talked about the new kingdom of Egypt and a couple of memorable pharaohs, Hatshepsut and Tutankhamen. We'll continue with this chapter next week since I got a few videos on King Tut at the library that should be fun and interesting.

Science: This week we talked about reptiles. We read about iguanas and rattle snakes. Again, "Rupert" felt compelled to make a costume and taped a piece of green tissue paper to his chin so he could be an iguana with a dewlap. He is a funny guy! He also enjoyed making this lizard mosaic with beans.

Art: We did another water color lesson. We are really having fun with this. I think the big lesson for "Rupert" to learn is to relax and not be concerned with perfection. He sometimes gets frustrated that his art doesn't look the same as that of the lady on the video. He wants to copy her work EXACTLY. I keep reminding him that the great thing about art is that everyone's comes out differently, and we can appreciate the differences. Here's "Rupert's" painting:

And here's the one I did:

1st Grade: Week 12 Highlights

Hey, look at me! I'm actually on time with this post! Wooohooo! We had a great week this week.

Math: This week we worked on adding triple digits, and "Rupert" did wonderfully with that, so I introduced carrying. He wasn't terribly excited about carrying, and fought it at first. But toward the end, he claimed that it was "easy". We'll see if he remembers it next week. I'm planning on slowing down and just letting it all sink in for a while.

I also introduced rounding to the nearest 10 (which he didn't really understand the point of), and greater than and less than (which he LOVED, especially after I told him that the "alligator" wants to eat the biggest number and I let him draw teeth in the "alligator's mouth"). "Rupert" also enjoyed singing the skip counting by 3s song to the tune of Jingle Bells. It was just another reminder to me that I need to find more musical learning opportunities for him. If something is put to music, he's got it down in no time!

Phonics: We learned about the soft C sound this week.

ASL: Reviewed last week's farm signs, and learned some daily routine signs.

History: We talked about the Indus Valley in India and the people who lived there. Our history project was to make a Mohenjo-Daro dwelling using clay bricks. We also completed our Chicken mummy project.

Cutting the bricks:

Constructing the Mohenjo-Daro dwelling

The finished project

Chicken Pharaoh project:

Rubbing in the spices and oil:

Wrapping the hands and feet first:

Half wrapped:

Our finished Mummy!

Science: We started on the bird section in our animal studies, and learned about parrots, eagles, and owls.

Writing: "Rupert" practiced his writing skills while writing letters to two friends this week.

Grammar: "Rupert" almost has his 4th poem memorized! Now to practice public speaking. He seems to use baby talk for some reason when he is reciting his poems. It's very strange because we have never used baby talk with him, nor he with us. I think it's part of this new feeling of embarrassment he is experiencing. I've noticed that when he gets embarrassed, he clams up, becomes less active and more quiet.

We unexpectedly had some home-ec time this week when "Rupert" cooked French toast for breakfast two days this week. He loves to cook, and I, for one, am so excited about that! :-)

1st Grade: Week 10 Highlights

I'm a little late, so I'll go ahead and post last week's highlights even though I don't have the picture to go with it yet.

Phonics & Writing: "Rupert" got a letter from his pen pal this week, and, for the first time, he was able to read the entire thing all by himself!! It is so exciting to see him reaching these milestones and really starting to get (and like) this reading thing. We used one of our writing days to write a letter back to his friend. "Rupert" is starting to remember to use spaces between words. That is something that it is taking a while for him to get.

Math: We started learning double digit addition this week. I think we'll hang out here for a while before going on to carrying.

Science: We talked about Dolphins this week and did an experiment about condensation.

History: We talked about the Hammurabi Code. We also decided to make an Egyptian costume. "Rupert" loves costumes and this was no exception. He made the bracelets out of toilet paper tubes and paint, and I made the kilt and belt out of some old sheets, and even though I'm not much in the sewing department, it came out cute, and it was fun! Here he is walking like an Egyptian. :-)

Spelling: This week's words were common words in books, but harder to spell than the previous words we've had. He got tripped up on "are", "was", "of" and "to". Oddly enough, the first time I asked him to spell "to", he spelled it T-W-O. I never would have thought that out of all the possible options, he'd come up with the most difficult spelling of the word.

1st Grade: Week 8 Highlights

We took this week a little easier than usual because we had a lot to do to prepare for "Rupert's" birthday party. "Rupert" wanted to make his own pinata this year instead of buying one, and we managed to finish our masterpiece in time for the party on Thursday. It worked perfectly!

Science: We studied kangaroos and beavers this week. Oooh, that reminds me: we still need to watch the video on beavers that I got from the library.

ASL: We learned the ASL alphabet and reviewed counting to 10. "Rupert" even taught it to his grandma and practiced it with his cousin.

History: This is the subject we dropped this week. We'll pick it back up next week when we have more time and attention for it. We did change the "natron" salt on our chicken mummy though. Here's a peek at what he looks like this week.

Grammar: "Rupert" is currently memorizing his 3rd poem. We are also continuing to learn about nouns and proper nouns. We are moving fairly slowly through this but he enjoys it because the lessons are quick and easy.

Math: I'm trying to decide what to do for math. "Rupert" knows how to add single digits. The problem is that he gets his answers by counting. He almost always gets the correct answers, but he doesn't have his addition facts down cold. I'm not sure if I should keep him here until he learns them (and risk math boredom, which he is already showing signs of), or move on and experiment with the next concept. He loves math, and I don't want to kill that by drilling him to death. Still thinking on this one...

Kung Fu: "Rupert" learned the last half of his new form this week, and it looked so cool, I had him teach it to me. I can't wait until we can take lessons together!

Phonics: We've started working with the silent e. We've been here before, but when we started first grade, I decided to back up and start with quite a bit of review. I think this has been beneficial to him, helping him to gain more confidence in reading.

Music: We finally got a piano back in the house last weekend, thanks to a wonderful friend of mine! I wasn't the only one to be excited about this. "Rupert" loves playing with the piano, and has been really impressed with my playing. For now, I am just answering his questions and teaching little tidbits. It will be interesting to see if this excitement for the piano will last or if it is just the newness of it that he loves. It sure is fun to watch him learn and get excited about it though. :-)

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!