Week 6 (just a little late)

Time is flying by here with the Heathens! With our theater troup starting back up, we have been very very busy here.

During Week 6 we hosted a playgroup in our home. It has been great having some of the younger children in our homeschooling group come over and just play. Fifi has made some wonderful new friends around her age! (finally) We also hosted a Tween Movie Night, which brought tweens all the way from Painsville to watch the Harry Potter movies! I think my friend Willow was more excited about these then the tweens lol. Lola is excited that these events have such a great turn out. Lastly, Nacho taught an art class to the group. Five families can and learned how to draw cartoon characters step by step. I love the idea of student led classes because they not only allow the teens in our group a chance to teach, but it gives the moms in the group a chance to sit and chat. We also went to our theater troup's read though. Our schedules are getting busier but we love it!

In week 6 Coco worked with:
Spelling- we wrote the words 3 times each, wrote sentences, wrote a newspaper article using at least 8 words and did a word search I made on www.theteacherscorner.net.
Language Arts- we worked with determiners. We worked with her Language Arts text book, her Scholastic Success workbook and her Comprehensive Curriculum workbook.
Math- we started working with Rounding and Estimating numbers. We used worksheets from www.abcteach.com, our Comprehensive Curriculum workbook and worksheets I made.
Science- we worked with measurements in Science. We used our Comprehensive Curriculum workbook and our Physical Science text book.
Social Studies- we are learning about Vikings as explorers. Being that we are Normandic Wiccans, we have tons and tons of information about Vikings. We also used print outs from www.enchantedlearning.com.
Journaling- we are working on writing longer journal entries. I am correcting them at the end of the day so she is now able to see the spelling and grammar errors. We are covering topics like - "What would you do if you had $100?", "What is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you?", and "If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?"
We also made Personality Spirals, these are a spiral of construction paper cut with cut outs from different magazine of pictures of things that they think represents them. We then hung them up in our classroom. I will post pictures of them tomorrow.

In week 6 Fifi worked with:
Spelling- we learned the color words. We did color by numbers, wrote each word twice, and completed workbook pages from our Comprehensive Curriculum . We also played a game where we put a bunch of crayons in a bag and she had to pull a crayon and then put the right color on a poster board with the words spelt out on it.
Language Arts- we worked with complete sentences and what they are comprised of. We worked in our Scholastic Success workbooks, our Comprehensive Curriculum workbooks and with pages printed from www.instructorweb.com
Phonics, we are still working in our Hooked On Phonics workbook for Grade 1. We learned more rhyming words and to sound out the difference between Bs and Vs at the beginning of the words.
Math- we are working on counting by 2s. We used our Scholastic Success workbook and played games (hop scotch and made up cheerleading cheers)
Science- we started learning about giraffes. We read stories about them and worked with the printout pages from www.enchantedlearning.com We also made hardened paper beads that look like giraffes and made necklaces. I got one for my birthday!
Social Studies- we are still working with maps with our Scholastic Success Map for Grade 1 workbook. We made a map of the park using a key and worked more with directionals. We also talked about the Wiccan directional color associations. She is now coloring North green, South red, West blue and East yellow on every page lol.

Lola is still doing very very well with OHVA. She loves the workload and the teachers. We are doing alot of work with the Italian Renaissance both in art and history. She is reading A Wrinkle in Time by M Engle. I bought her the audio copy so we could listen to it during the day on the computer and she read the hard copy at night. OHVA doesn't really have a study guide or any quizzes, so I printed her one from www.coreknowledge.com This gives her a chance to work with vocabulary words from the book, do character summaries and state her opinions about the storylines.

Nacho is really doing well with his new curriculum. While I do have to sit at his desk with him the entire 4 hours, the work I'm getting from him is the best work Ive seen in three years of homeschooling.

In Math he is working with Number Lines. We are still using his Algebra 1 math book from K-12. His weekly average is 94%
In Science he is still working with power and energy. We are still using Holts Physical Science and printables from www.teachervision.fen.com His weekly average is 100%
In Health he is working on Personalities. We are still using his Health book from Prentice Hall. His weekly average is 83% (We still have an issue with writing out his answers in complete sentences and loses points off his grades for those errors)
In Social Studies he is learning about Religious Intolerance in Europe. He did a worksheet from www.teachervision.fen.com and wrote a paragraph about a specific incident. His weekly average is 81%
In Language Arts he is working on types of sentences. He is still using his Language Arts book from K-12. His weekly average is 98%
In Spanish he worked with a new vocabulary list and congregating standard ar, er, and ir verbs. His weekly average is 95%
He also attended an anime class at the Stark Main Library and was placed on the make up committee with the Stark County Little Theater Troup.

Worm Terrarium

If you have a wholesale store
like Costco, BJ's or Sam's club they usually sell pretzels in a large plastic barrell. Empty the pretzels out of the container (save them to give to the kids as snacks). Drill about 4-6 small holes into the bottom of the container and 4-6 holes at the top of the container. Simply fill the bottom 1/4 of the container with shredded newspaper; then add about 1/4 of granulated sand; next
add a mixture of soil, wet leaves/lettuce to the container. You can either buy earthworms at a bait shop or dig them out of a compost pile. You will want to make sure that the container is draining properly so you may wish to purchase a plastic tray the kind you put under planting pots. This will allow the water to drain out of the container. You have to make sure that the container stays moist for the worms to survive. eventually, the worms will break down the leaves and lettuce and you will have your very own composting bin and fresh soil! You may need to add more leaves/lettuce (which was donated by the cafeteria) as the worms eat. You can add just about any kind of vegetable except for citrus fruits. The kids that I worked with loved to watch the worms travel around the bin. They even got to see the baby worms that had been produced in our bin. I did a mini-lesson on worms to go along with the composting bin. Each student got their very own worm to investigate and then place into the bin. At the end of the unit, we carefully emptied the container into the school's garden. I hope this intrigues! Good luck!

Really Getting into a Grove

We have had such a great week so far! Day 3 of our new school year and the girls are still so excited about their new lessons and projects. I am sneaking off the blog this as they are doing an impromptu art project. (I will post the project and the pictures when they are done)

Lola is moving right along with OHVA. We have run into a few stumbling blocks. Her French isn't listed on her daily schedule. We ended up noticing yesterday that she hasn't even done any of it, only to log on today to find the program isnt working right. We then took our own Primsluers French CDs and listened to a few lessons all together. I plan to wait until her online school actually starts before I ask any questions. I could just be because she started their program so early.
I am however, so very proud of how well she is doing in math. Those summer time math drills really are paying off!
Coco seems to be working harder and faster this year compared to last. I hate to admit shes having a better start without Mimi here. We are both enjoying her Daily Drills book (Daily Learning Drills by Brighter Child) and I am getting much less resistance to writing sentences than ever before.
In the last two days we have done:
DD pages 50 and 233
Spelling- correcting sentences and a word scramble (made at www.theteacherscorner.net
Language Arts- textbook pages 18 and 19 and CC page 294 (types of sentences)
Explorers- we marked the journeys of Daniel Boone on our US map and worked on some vocabulary words using a grid worksheet I found on www.teacherspayteachers.com
(settlers, wilderness, pioneer, frontier, exploits, treaty)
Math- SS pages 7 and 8. We are still working on comparing numbers and place values
Science- We started working on our weekly worksheets I made from the textbook. I will be using the same text book and worksheets with another student starting next week so Coco will actually be a week ahead of him.
French- we have been working with the vocabulary worksheets I made and we have also been listening to the Primsluers CDs with Lola.
Reading- we are still reading Stuart Little but its not really holding her interest. I have found some great character worksheets on www.teacherspayteachers.com and those seem to hold more of her attention.

Fifi more interested in school this year as well. She is still transitioning from K to 1st grade but is grasping 90% of the work she is being giving.
Our main issue with Fifi is that she is worried about not having any friends. She has playmates from the neighborhood, but no other homeschooling friends in her grade or her age. We are working on setting up some new playdates and 8 more families joined our homeschooling group in the past week!
I will post tomorrow what she has been working on this week.

As a side note, I have found many many audio and ebooks both educational and reading for enjoyment. Lola is trying to read The Hobbit with the audio book reading along with her. (Its not working well lol) Nacho is reading Animal Farm by George Orwell as an ebook and it seems to be working better for him than it was as a paperback.... If are looking for anything specific let me know.

Dani

Fifi's 1st Grade Curriculum- Science

It took me a few weeks (okay more then a month) to realize I had never made a Science curriculum for Fifi. I was so convinced I was done LOL. I have everything printed out, binders created, supplies bought... And then the realization came crashing down around me.

So, after questioning my little girl about what she would like to learn... I gave her a choice of animals, natures (trees and flowers), or Earth (a mini version of Earth Science). She chose animals, so here is what I put together today. (Hehe, I did put together an entire curriculum and all 38 lesson plans together today... and Im braggin')

Monday- introduce the animal and read the bio provided by the worksheet from http://www.enchantedlearning.com/ The worksheets will be put in her Science binder. I did also find Continental Animal booklets on the site, that encourage her to write a sentence about each animal found on a specific continent.
Tuesday- talk about the habitat the animal comes from, what it eats, how it breeds, where in the world we would be able to find it... We will also come up with 5 vocabulary words about that animal.
Wednesday- we will draw a picture of where the animal lives noting its main foods and surroundings. This will also be placed in her binder.
Thursday- we will write the 5 vocabulary words and define them on paper. I made vocab worksheets that are printable with 5 blank spaces for the words and 5 lines for the definitions. This way they can be put in her Science binder.
Fridays- we will do a coloring page about the animal and read a story about each animal from the library. I have a rough list of the stories and not all are non fiction.

1) Lions
2) Zebras
3) Ostriches
4) Rhinoceros
5) African Elephants and Asian Elephants
6) Giraffes
7) Chimpanzees
8) Cheetahs
9) Gorillas (and finish the Africa booklet from EL which I am counting as a test grade)
10) Parrots
11) Penguins (both African and South American)
12) Llamas and Alpacas
13) Camels
14) Beavers and Capybaras
15) Pandas
16) Snow leopards
17) Tigers
18) Yaks
19) Storks
20) Sun bears
21) Monkeys (specifically Asian monkeys ending the Asian booklet as a test)
22) Crocodiles and Alligators
23) Flamingos
24) Frogs and Toads
25) Owls
26) Kangaroos
27) Armadillos
28) Buffalo and Bison
29) Chinchillas
30) Squirrels, Chipmunks, and Picas
31) Pigs, Hogs, and Javelinas
32) Rabbits and Hares
33) Manatees
34) Sea Lions
35) Caribou
36) Horses
37) Bears (finishing the North American booklet graded as a test)
38) Finishing the Australian booklet as a test grade