Week 8

Well, this week was a disaster.  We had a great start on Monday, and then Tuesday, we had big plans to start the unit on Art in BraveWrite by going to the AGO.  We headed down to my dentist for my scheduled appointment at 9:00, and then were going to go to the AGO.  Around 9:30 a.m., I had a severe attach of vertigo and could barely walk.  David had to come get us.  The vertigo improved over the course of the week, thanks to multiple Epley maneuvers and sleeping upright in the chair in the basement.

So, homeschooling amounted to math and reading, and a bit of writing.  David stayed home this week, since I can't drive, and took Rachel to school, Taekwondo, and dance classes.


Math

5 pages of MEP (Red book 1A - grade 1, pages 62 - 64, plus four pages of charts.)

  

Reading

She read 7 books on her own this week, including:
           

Magic School Bus (rain)Magic School Bus (different subject...mind blank)12 my little pony phonics books (which we counted as 2 books for the chart)  Hey, when she says she "loves" these books, I would rather her read a lot of easier books and enjoy them then learn to hate reading by attempting something harder.

We read:

        Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azakaban (a chapter a day)

Writing Practice
We were planning on a tea party on Thursday and were going to write a poem again.  I started her on Monday thinking about things like setting, who, when, etc.  She completed this sheet:

Instead of waiting to work on it again the next day, she immediately dictated this:

Bun-Bun
Bun-bun is a bunny.
She sits down at the pond.
All day long
eating bread
But when her mother comes along
she gets up to go play.

When mother goes away
she doesn't stand to play.
She sits down again
and finishes her bread.

And again when mother goes away
she is happy as can be.
And there are blossoms on the tree
and apples are awakening
from winter on the blossoms.

Physical Ed

Taekwondo classes (3) and dance classes (2).

She spent afternoons at Colwell playing.

Reflections on the week:
Vertigo sucks.

Week 7

Mighty Girl of the Week:

Math

3 pages of MEP (grade 1, pages 59-61 )  

I'm amused by how she has likes to use the not equal sign.  When asked to place the appropriate sign between the numbers, her first choice was not equal.  She beamed mischievously afterward.  I asked her to fill in ALL the possibilities.

Reading
She read 8 books on her own this week, including:

   She read:             

The Big Bad Blizzard 

Cherry Pies and Lullabies

Peguin in Love

Danny and the Dinosaur

Ratatouille - Run, Remy, Run

The Monster Parade

The Princess and the Frog

   We read:
        Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (a chapter a day)

Sight Words

Reviewed all past sight words

Spelling
no spelling this week


Writing Practice
Two sentences plus spelling words.

Geography

Stackable States and the Province App.

Art
We did leaf prints this week.  They turned out amazing!

Physical Ed

Taekwondo classes (3) and dance classes (2).

She spent afternoons at Colwell playing.

Reflections on the week:
I wasn't as organized, thematically speaking this week, but we covered all the basics, took a field trip and did a cool art project.  It was good!

Week 6 - Human Body (cont.)

This week we're extending the human body topic.  We did bones last week.  This week we're learning about organs in our body.

Mighty Girl of the Week: Elizabeth Blackwell (First American Woman Doctor),
Dr. Emily Stowe (Prominent Canadian Doctor)

Math

5 pages of MEP (Red book 1A - grade 1, pages 54-58)  

Reading  (I am horrible about remembering all the titles, so we constructed a reading challenge chart.)

She read 7 books this week by herself, including:

   She read: 

       Eight Legs Up
       Scooby Doo
       Too Many Cats

       Shampoodle

   We read:
        Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (a chapter a day)

Sight Words

Review last week's: muscles, joint, bones, parachute, tendon, candy, pencil, skeleton

Spelling
kid, clap, kit, clock, take, camp, say, said, to, too, two

Writing Practice
Three sentences plus spelling words.


Science

We constructed another outline of her (life size).  This time, she put in some of the organs.

Field Trip: Brookes Farm.  We went with a homeschooling group in Durham.  We toured the farm (a large, working one) and the owner told us about crop rotation, male vs female flowers, and the various crops they grew.  Plus, they had a lot of fun things to play on outside.  She played for a good three hours.

Geography

We worked on locating the provinces and states on an ipad app (Geo Master).

Brave Writer/The Wand (Language Arts)

We reviewed that every syllable has a vowel and watched a video on nouns.  We also reviewed periods, commas, and capitalization rules.

Thursday Tea Party and Poetry
No tea party this week. :(

Physical Ed

We've dropped gymnastics.  It was just too much of a free-for-all and not enough instruction.

Instead, she has decided to take Taekwondo.

She spent afternoons at Colwell playing.

Reflections on the week:
I am way behind on blogging the weeks.  Trying to get caught up.

Week 5 - Human Body

Wow...that was a FAST month.  

This week, Rachel wanted to explore the human body.

Mighty Girl of the Week: Elizabeth Blackwell - First American Woman Doctor

Math

5 pages of MEP (Red book 1A - grade 1, pages 46-53 )  
My math witch!  She altered the question's number line to include all the negative numbers because they would correct as well.

Reading

   She read: 

       Frog and Toad are Friends
       Annie and Snowball and the Dress-up Birthday by Cynthia Rylant

   We read:
        Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (a chapter a day)

Sight Words

muscles, joint, tendon, bones, parachute, candy, pencil

Spelling
kiss, fell, buzz, off, pass, ruff, mess


Writing Practice
Two sentences plus spelling words.


Science

We constructed a skeleton of her (life size).  Plus, we found a couple of great apps about the human body.   Additionally, we watched a National Geographic movie about the body from birth to death.  (She really liked the movie.)

We also filled different size glasses with equal amounts of water and talked about why the water levels were at different spots.

Geography

We worked on locating the provinces and states on an ipad app (Geo Master).

Brave Writer/The Wand (Language Arts)

Started the second month of The Wand.  We covered doubling letters immediately after short vowels (at the end of words).  We reviewed punctuation and added quotation marks.  We looked at how "ai" makes the short e sound.

Thursday Tea Party and Poetry
No tea party this week. :(

Physical Ed

Gymnastics and dance classes.

She spent afternoons at Colwell playing.

Reflections on the week:
It was a much slower week.  We didn't get a much done on school work, but still made progress.

Week 4: Plants and Mighty Girl Jane Colden

I'm glad the germs study is over and the baking area in our kitchen is no longer a haz-mat area with germs. :)  This week, we're on to plants.

Mighty Girl of the Week: Jane Colden - First American Female Botanist

Math

5 pages of MEP (Red book 1A - grade 1, pages 41-45 )  

She chose (as in magically appeared at my side with a coin bingo game and demanded to play) to explore coins and money.

We played 4-5 rounds of this.  She understands coins and their "worth" and surprised me by being able to combine coins to meet the prices on the bingo card.  She could do things that were less than 50 by herself.

Reading

   She read: 

       Frog and Toad are Friends
       Annie and Snowball and the Dress-up Birthday by Cynthia Rylant

   We read:
        The Frog Prince
        The Frog Prince by Rachael Fuller
        The Iron Stove

        Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (chaps 14- end)

        Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (chaps 1 - 2)

Sight Words

New this week:

usually
though
citizen
branch
jacket
botany
solid
movement
explained
formed
thought

Spelling
sad  sap  gap  bag  gag  hag  lag  tag  ban  can


Writing Practice
She did 2-3 sentences of copy practice this week and wrote out some of her spelling words.  We reviewed capital letters at the first of sentences, commas, and apostrophes.

She also wrote out part of the invitation to our neighbour to the tea party.


Science

We started learning about the classification of plants.  We only did the first breakdown between vascular and non-vascular.  We checked out the moss in the backyard and then took plants like carnations, celery and bokchoy and put them in a mixture of food dye and B vitamins.  (Certain B vitamins glow in the dark.)  We then kept an eye on the plants and at the end of the week cut them open under a black light.  Et voila!  The vasuclar system could be seen.

Art

We painted with leaves (so we could see the vasuclar structure) and made a fall tree.

Geography

We located New York on a map of North America.  We talked about continents and the three countries on the North American continent.

She coloured the state of New York.

And, we talked about parks and where people who live in big cities go to see nature.  We pulled maps of Central Park in NYC and looked at everything it contains.  Then, she designed her own park.

Brave Writer/The Wand (Language Arts)

Completed week 4 of The Wand which included making a vowel chart and a chart of consonants that combine to make the "k" sound.

We did a fourth fairytale in the fairytale unit of Brave Writer.  This week it was The Frog Prince

The Frog Prince

by

Rachel Clare Endicott-Rey

A witch cast a spell on a beautiful prince. It was a frog spell.  A princess dropped her golden ball into the well.  She met the frog prince.  She was crying because she dropped her golden ball into the well. They made a deal.  The frog jumped into the pond and got her ball back.  She ran away.  That night the frog came to her palace and ate from her bowl and slept in her bed.  Then she threw him against the wall and he changed into a prince.  And then they married.  The end.

We still need to do the illustration.



Thursday Tea Party and Poetry
Our tea party this week was fun.  We invited one of our neighbours to join us.

Rachel created a poem for the poetry part of it and read it at the tea party. (I typed it for her.)

The Bunny Cake

By Rachel Clare Endicott-Rey

Cara the bunny is soft and white.

She's having a birthday party tonight.

Her mom bakes cakes down by the lake.

          Wake the snake eats a bite of the cake.

Cara loves strawberry and grass flavoured cake.

And sometimes she likes bananas on top of her cake.

I love the fifth line. It was so creative and nothing she and I have talked about.  

Physical Ed

Gymnastics started this week.  She is in a class with a wide age spread and for the first time is encountering older boys.  So far, she finds at least one of them highly annoying and told him so.  

Music

Singing classes have been cancelled because there weren't enough kids. :(  

She spent afternoons at Colwell playing.

Reflection:  Because of a dental emergency for me, we lost a full day this week and our schedule got a bit wonky.  However, we persevered and covered most of the stuff we had planned.  

Someone asked me recently how long we spend "schooling" every day.  That's a good question and hard to answer.  I don't consider sitting on the couch, sipping hot chocolate, and reading to Rachel "schooling".  That's just life.  Yet, it is "educational".  Yeesh, I really don't like the distinctions we make between education and other stuff.  It is ALL educational.

So, I would say that we spend about 40 minutes a day on the following subjects, combined: math, writing practice, spelling, sight words.  The bulk of that is in math. MEP (the curriculum we're using for math) really does a good job of focusing on the logic and patterns in math rather than rote arithmetic.  it isn't as fast as other curriculums, but Rachel is learning to think, not just add and subtract.

We don't do every subject every day, but we spend another 15-30 minutes doing science projects, art projects, language arts (Jot-it-down) and geography.

Reading happens at various times during the day and we spend anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour+ with our noses in books.

Having said that, the times vary.  Some days Rachel is really engaged and doesn't want to stop. So, we don't.  Other days, she's not and we cover just the basics and move on.

Week 3 - Germs

This week we left behind geology and moved on to Germs (by Rachel's request)


Mighty Girl of the Week: No Mighty Girl, but we talked about Ignaz Semmelweis who saved the lives of mothers and newborns by introducing hand-washing into the maternity ward.

Math

5 pages of MEP (Red book 1A - grade 1, pages 36-40 )  

Her math skills are developing quickly.  Thursday, she balked at one exercise, but after a bit of guidance, did the whole thing.  I think she was surprised she could do it.  Friday, she flew through the sheet.

Reading
I did a quick check on her reading level this week.  She's at the end of grade 2/beginning of grade 3.

   She read: 

       Tentacles (half)

       Fancy Nancy - Apples Galore

       Maybe a Bear Ate It by Robie Harris

       Henry and Mudge: The Sleepover
       Dora: Follow Those Feet
       Earthquake!

   We read:

        Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (chaps 8 - 12)

        Magic School Bus - Germs

        Beauty and the Beast
        Giant Children Poems
        For Laughing Out Louder: More Poems to Ticke Your Funnybone

Sight Words

New this week:

reprimand
remember
orchard
branch
perspire
weather
wind
virus
bacteria
worst
bright

Review from last week:

spreading
curse

behind

know

catch

dance 

light

night

tight

about

between

around

Spelling
We are doing two words a day with a test at the end of the week. (Ok, "test" is a loose translation.  She has to write them all on Friday.)  They are done at the end of her copy-work every day.

am
an
as
at
rat
sat
cat
bad
mad
pad

Science

We grew germs.

Experiment #1: Using four pieces of bread, we used one as a control and wiped the other three on different things.  Then, we watched to see which, if any, would form mould and bacteria colonies faster.

Experiment #2: Using four glasses, we filled each with a bit of chicken broth and sugar.  One was used as control and then we added inhibitors to each of the others to see how well they controlled growth.

Experiment #3: Which rots faster?  A clementine with skin or without.

Results: without

Experiment #4: We made growth medium using chicken broth, gelatin, and sugar.  Rachel swabbed about eight areas and we monitored the bacteria and mould growth.

The results are in: other than the cat litter box, which took first place in the "grow your own bacteria contest", runner-up was ...."Rachel's Licked Hand".  

Experiment #5: How far does stuff go when we sneeze?  She took a squirt bottle and squirted a glass door from different distances.  She was surprised how much ended up on the door even when she was several feet away.

We watched a Bill Nye video on germs and we watched an animated video on germs.

Art

Art was window art this week.  We found this great paint at DeSerres and created these sort-of-gels that can be peeled and placed on windows.

Brave Writer/The Wand (Language Arts)

Completed week 3 of The Wand.  We made a variety of words using the bananagram tiles using the -ick ending.  We went through the whole alphabet finding rhyming words.  The Wand is proving a bit easy for her, so we are using it as a starting point for exploring words.

We did a third fairytale in the fairytale unit of Brave Writer.  This week it was Beauty and the Beast.

Beauty

Beauty and the Beast

by

Rachel Clare Endicott-Rey

Beauty lives with her father, two sisters and three brothers.  They are poor.  

Her father goes out to look at the boats and a storm comes.  And he rides back, but on his way back he sees a beautiful castle.  He picks a rose and the beast appears.

The Beast says, “You must bring one of our daughters.  If you do not, you shall not see your daughters again.”  So he rides home.  He picks up Beauty and they ride back to the Beast’s palace.

She spends a little bit of time with the Beast. Then, they marry. The end.

Thursday Tea Parties and Poetry
She has now proclaimed Thursday lunch to be our "tea party and poems" time. So be it. :)  I hauled out the china, made herbal tea with honey, PB & J sandwiches, cheese and mayo sandwiches, and mixed raw veggies.  We read lots of children's poems.  She has decided that next week we have to write a poem of our own to read.

Physical Ed

Dance classes started back up this week.  On Thursday night she did an hour of tap/jazz which she LOVED and an hour of ballet.  Her comment was that her ballet teacher this year is much more firm than last year. Same teacher...older class.  I think Rachel will like it if she will give it a chance.  It does teach discipline.

Music

Singing classes start again this week.

She spent afternoons at Colwell.

Reflection: It was a good week.  Things went smoothly.  I still would like to find more games to use.  She has picked the next four weeks' topics: Plants, Human Body, and Earth/Space. (As in, where did the Earth come from?)  Then, she wants a whole week on just volcanoes.  We are strong on science topics, but I want to also start working in some mighty girls from other areas.  

Week 2 - Mighty Girl: Mary Leakey

We continued our study of rocks and fossils this week.


Mighty Girl of the Week: Mary Leakey, Archaeologist from GB

Math

   4 pages of MEP (Red book 1A - grade 1, pages 32-35 )

We created a number line going from -20 to + 20 in the driveway.  She counted by 2s and 3s from random starting points.  She also seems to now get negative numbers.  She also now associates changing directions on the number line when adding or subtracting.

She demonstrated her math skills to her father on Friday.  He was helping her with her math page and the problem required her to fill in a number greater than 1. She chose 100.  It then wanted a number less than 100. She chose 0.  She then had to name a number less than 0. She smirked at her dad and said, "-100".

Reading

   She read: 

       Me on a Map by Joan Sweeney

       Callum’s Incredible Construction Kit

       Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus

       Marley and the Earth Day Celebration
       Good Luck, Martha

   We read:

        Harry Potter and the Philospher’s Stone

        Mary Anning: Fossil Hunter

        Rapunzel (original by brothers Grimm)
        Tentacles  
        A Very Unusual Dog by Dorothy Harris

At the library

Sight Words
This is a challenge.  She can read all the Dolch words on sight.  So, I started improvising.  The first list I put together was a 30 second exercise in her reading.  I put together a second list which slowed her down slightly.  She had to sound out three of them.

spreading

curse

behind

know

catch

dance 

light

night

tight

about

between

around

Spelling
We started on spelling.   In February of this year, her teacher had them start spelling six words a week.  We reviewed her last set this week.

one

two

three

four

five

six

Science

We set up a chart on the fridge to record the temperature every morning.  We did comparisons from day to day.  Was yesterday warmer or colder?

Colwell teacher, Mrs. Scriven, lent us her rock and mineral resources.  She had two full boxes of fossils and minerals.  I was blown away!  We went through the items, marvelling at the amethyst and the fossils.  She played with different kinds of sand from around the world.  Here are some of the samples we looked at.

We watched a Nature video on volcanoes and the Reading Rainbow: Hill of Fire video.

We talked about three groups of rocks and the rock cycle.

Art/Geography

We explored drawing things by breaking them down into simpler shapes.  I put a piece of acetate on top of the photo of the clock tower.  She traced the various shapes.  Then, I asked her to draw it on a piece of paper.  It took almost no time and she got it.

We stopped by the Pickering farmer's market and came upon a stand selling British food.  So, to support our geography learning, we had Cornish Pasties, steak and potato pies and shortbread for dinner one night.

She located Toronto and then Great Britain on a world map.

Brave Writer/The Wand (Language Arts)

Completed week 2 of The Wand.  We covered the -ed, -ing,  and -s  suffixes

We did a second fairytalke in the fairytale unit of Brave Writer.  This week it was Cinderella.

"Once upon a time there was a girl named Cinderella.  Cinderella lived with her evil step-sisters and her evil step-mom.  She sat under the hazel tree and said, “White bird, white bird throw down to me silver and gold.” And the bird would toss down a silver dress and shoes almost like glass. And she went to the ball three times in a row and each time she wore a dress that was more beautiful than the first dress.  The step mom didn’t want her to go to the ball.

In the third time her slipper came off.  The prince picked up the slipper and he said, “Whoever this slipper fits, I will marry her.”

And then he went to every house and made every girl try it on including Cinderella and the step-sisters.  The princess went to Cinderella’s house and tried it on one of the step-sisters. She had to cut off a little bit of her toe to get it on.  And then the princess rode away with her.  As they passed the hazelnut tree, the bird said, “Peep and turn, Peep and turn, there’s blood in the shoe. The true bride waits for you.”  He rode back and then he tried it on the other step-sister.  She had to cut a little bit of her heel off.  They rode away.  As they passed by the hazelnut tree, the bird said, “Peep and turn, Peep and turn, there’s blood in the shoe. The true bride waits for you.”

He rode back.  He tried it on Cinderella’s foot and it fitted and he rode away with her.  As they passed by the hazelnut tree, the bird says, “Peep and turn, peep and turn, the true bride rides with you.”

They married. The End."

Physical Ed

Swimming lesson this week.

In the coming week, dance lessons start again and then next week gymnastics kicks in again as well.  That should help burn off some of this energy.

She spent afternoons at Colwell, playing and took Friday off with her Dad while I was presenting at a conference.

Reflection: It was a good week.  There wasn't enough games and fun videos and experiments.  This week needs more hands on stuff.  

Our first official week of SK homeschooling.

So, after much deliberation with teachers and experts, we decided to do homeschooling with Rachel for this year of SK.  She'll attend the afternoon program for the play/social time, but all the morning will be with us doing schooling stuff. :)

Our first week was amazing.  We started with a unit on fossils.  So, we went camping to a provincial park that had an abundance of fossils.

We got the following accomplished.

Mighty Girl of the Week: Mary Anning, Fossil hunter from GB

Math

   3 pages of MEP (Red book 1A - grade 1 )

Reading

   She read: 

       Me on a Map by Joan Sweeney

       Callum’s Incredible Construction Kit

       Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus

       Marley and the Earth Day Celebration

   We read:

        Harry Potter and the Philospher’s Stone

        Mary Anning: Fossil Hunter

        Rapunzel (original by brothers Grimm)

Science

     Programs at Pres’quile Nature Center

        Invasive Species

        Baby Birds

      1 hour walk on the board walk through the marsh.

      Fossil hunting on the Beach

      She learned to read a thermometer and recorded temps in both C and F.  We talked about different units and measured things like the picnic table with different length items. 

      She compared temps day to day and constructed comparisons.  Was today hotter than yesterday?

     She practiced reading a compass (and finding hidden lollypops on the campsite).  I gave instructions such as “Go ten steps East”.

Oh, and she excavated a Mammouth.

Art/Geography

       Painted an Inn sign (in the British Inn tradition) for the camp site.

       Found Toronto and GB on a globe

Brave Writer/The Wand (Language Arts)

       Completed week 1 of The Wand: phoneme, grapheme, Hop on Pop, reviewed that names start with uppercase letters.  She did a page of copy work and then wrote the letters for the sounds I made.  We reviewed which letters are vowels. and made up rhyming words using bananarama tiles based on “op”.

Started the Fairytale unit in Brave Writer.  I read Rapunzel (and she had seen the movie).  We compared the two versions and noted the differences.  She drew a picture of Rapunzel and retold the story in her own words.

"When the man went down to get the herb the second time, he met the enchantress. He made a deal with the enchantress.  When the baby was born the enchantress stole her. When she was twelve, the enchantress locked her in a tower.  She would say, "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let go your long hair." She runs away and puts Rapunzel in the desert. And then she had a girl and a boy.  Then the prince found her.  He led her back to his castle.  The end."

In addition, we camped, made new friends, she had her first crush, played on both a rock beach and a sandy beach, and went to the cottage for the weekend.  We sat on the beach before going to bed and looked at the starry sky over Lake Ontario.

I dashed up to Bancroft to investigate rocks and exploration opportunities.  I brought back some sodalite (polished and unpolished) and a new pick, and little leather gloves for Rachel.

She also spent Thursday, all day, at Colwell since I had to work that day.  All in all, our first week was fantastic.  I'm surprised by how much time we had to play and explore outside of the hour or so we did on basics every day.