First Grade, Bible, Set Three

• We started reading Little Pilgrim's Progress. K. is enjoying it, but she wishes the chapters were longer. One day she said, "Is that all? I want to know what happens to Little Christian."
• "We serve one another, humbly thinking of the needs of others first" is #6 from Our 24 Ways. We were able to talk about what that looks like in some real life situations this week.
• This week we read Genesis 15 - 21. K. colors some coloring pages that go along with the stories we are reading and sometimes I wonder how much of the story she absorbs. Friday evening K. wanted us to eat dinner under the sheet "tent" in her room. She asked me if I wanted to be Abraham, Sarah, or Lot. I chose Sarah. When Papa got home K. told him he was Lot and handed him two Raggedy Ann dolls. She said, "Here, Lot had two daughters." My husband and I gave each other an "uh oh" look, but that was as far as she went with that story.
• We learned some ways to be a good listener so we can be a good friend (Being a Good Friend).
• This week Life Lessons was talking about purity (keeping your body pure). I thought K. would ask what that meant, so I had what I wanted to tell her written out. On Wednesday I read Mrs. Rosey-Posey and the Chocolate Cherry Treat (by Robin Jones Gunn) and we talked about keeping your life pure. Below is what I shared with K. about purity.
• Besides reading the verses that went with Catechisms #12 and #13, we looked the words infinite, eternal, and unchangable up in the dictionary.

When a man and woman marry, their bodies are special gifts they give to each other. You know that Papa like to hug, kiss, and hold me. I like to hold, kiss, and hug him. And we like to hold hands. Saving your hugs kisses, and special touches for your husband keeps your body pure.

There is also purity of life. It is being set apart for God's use, staying away from sin, living a life that brings joy to God. Another area of purity is our thoughts. If we think about sinning, are our thoughts pure? 

Right now it is Papa's and my responsibility to help you keep your body pure and to teach you what is right and best. But one day you will be grown, and it will be up to you to keep your "kiss" for your husband. 

While you are young Papa and I help you learn to keep your life set apart and pure for Jesus. One day you will make your own choices about how to live.
I am helping you to memorize scripture to help you keep your thoughts pure. When you think about God and His Word, there isn't room in your mind for sinful thoughts.

First Grade, Writing, Set Three

• K. started a Shape Book (Games for Writing pg 160) this week. She chose the shape of a fish.

• We started making a Board Game (Games for Writing pg 174). We got the board done. Next week we will start on the playing cards. It is a game about the rain forest (which we are learning about in science).

• Now we have started writing the game cards for our rain forest game. I pulled out the books we have already read, and we looked through them for ideas. Then we had to figure out how to word them. Some we made a question, others were statements with a "True or False" choice. Then we determined how many spaces that card was worth.

• We are continuing to make more cards each week for our board game.

First Grade, Spelling, Set Three

We are continuing with our spelling lessons from the textbook, so there is really nothing to write. See how boring textbooks are. (Smile!!)

First Grade, Grammar, Set Three

• Antonyms and Synonyms -- I wrote 40 words on cards, trying not to have any that would be synonyms or antonyms of each other. We are working on going through and writing an antonym (this week) and synonym (next week) for each word. We are going to make it into a matching game. We did not get through all 40 words this week, as it is more important to enjoy the process than complete project.
• Another Game: I made a spinner with 6 divisions: "Synonym & Antonym 3 spaces" (2 of these), Synonym 1 space, Synonym 2 spaces, Antonym 1 space, Antonym 2 spaces (see photo at bottom). We used the playing board I made for the review game (see below) and the 40 word cards. Player 1 takes a word card and spins. Then gives a synonym and/or antonym (depending on what the spin landed on) and moves that number of spaces. Then it is Player 2's turn, etc.
• Here are the 40 words I came up with: happy, rapid, go, silent, dim, slim, keep, peace, far, easy, hungry, all, big, afraid, enemy, take, over, warm, weak, fix, wet, often, stand, curvy, same, exciting, true, gentle, smile, bent, many, nice, sleep, idle, raise, old, light, open, clean, and tired
• Stop and God, Yes and No: What is an Antonym? by Brian P. Cleary
• Pitch and Throw, Grasp and Know: What is a Synonym? by Brian P. Cleary
• Onomatopoeia -- It Figures by Marvin Terban has a chapter about onomatopoeia. After reading it we played a game, sort of like charades, but along with acting something out, we made the sounds things made. Then the other person had to tell what you were doing. Examples: popping corn, driving a car, etc. I am also making a point to show onomatopoetic words to K. as we run across them in our books.
• Another Activity: I got out my envelope of pictures. We mixed them all up, turned them upside down, and spread them out. Then we took turns picking one picture and making the sound that went with it. For example, if it was a picture of a dog, you might say, "arf-arf", but if it was a picture of a screwdriver, you might say, "click, rrrrrrrrrrritt", or however you think it sounds when you are turning a screw.
• If You Were Onomatopoeia by Trisha Speed Shaskan
• Similes -- It Figures also has a chapter on similes. I read part of it to K., then we played the Silly-Simile Game from The Magic Pencil pg 67.
• We played the Silly-Simile Game, then I let K. pick her favorite Silly Simile. I wrote it at the top of a blank paper, then she drew a picture to illustrate it. The simile was: Mrs. Smith stirred like fireworks on the Fourth of July. The picture showed that her stirring had splattered batter all over the kitchen.
• Muddy as a Duck Puddle and Other American Similes by Laurie Lawlor
• Skin Like Milk, Hair of Silk: What Are Similes and Metaphors? by Brian P. Cleary
• Muddy as a Duck Puddle and Other American Similes by Laurie Lawlor
• Stubborn as a Mule and Other Silly Similes by Nancy Loewen
• Describing Words -- I used Quirky to introduce describing words, then we thought of some for ten nouns I had written down.
• Another activity: I pulled out the book, Over in the Meadow, and we (mostly K., I made suggestions when she couldn't think of something) added or replaced the adjective describing each mother animal. For instance, instead of "Over in the meadow in the sand, in the sun, lived an old mother turtle . . ." we replaced "old" with "bumpy". I used small sticky-notes on each page for the new adjective.
• We added describing words to the book, The House that Jack Built. So we had a big house, sweet malt, hungry mouse, sneaky cat, friendly dog, dancy cow, tired maiden, kind man, lively priest, noisy cock, busy farmer, happy horse, little hound, and tootley horn.
• Quirky, Jerky, Extra Perky: More about Adjectives by Brian P. Cleary
• Hairy, Scary, Ordinary: What is an Adjective? by Brian P. Cleary
• Many Luscious Lollipops by Ruth Heller -- okay book, but not as fun as "Quirky"
• Comparative and Superlative -- I wrote out a work sheet with sentences, some compared two things, some three or more. K. needed to decide if the word should have the "er" or "est" ending.
• The Big, Bigger, Biggest Book by SAMi -- I read this book to K. first, pointing out that when two things are compared, we use "er" and when three or more things are compared we use "est"
• Review Game -- it is time to start reviewing what we have learned, so I made a board game. The cards have review questions from last year and this year. I will add cards to this game each week. If you are going to make a review game, don't just have questions like "What is an antonym?" Instead put "Give an antonym for the word __________". The person whose turn it is reads the card, and the other players fill in the blank. Write on the card how many spaces the person gets to move, depending on how difficult the card is.

Spinner for Synonym/Antonym Game:

First Grade, Reading, Set Three

We played these games to enhance our learning:

• Linking Words (Games for Reading pg 102) -- we played this for about ten minutes during lunch one day. We were allowed to use the dictionary if we couldn't think of a word. I couldn't think of words that started with the 'n' sound, so K. kept giving me words that ended with 'n'! This was a really fun game, and I'm sure it is one that we will find ourselves playing in the car.
• Pick a Blend (Games for Reading pg 126) -- we enjoyed this game and found ourselves laughing over the funny sounding words. The only problem was that one of the word endings on K.'s card didn't have a blend that made it into a word, so I declared that we both won.
• Chain Game (Games for Reading pg 130) -- start with any word (we used rain) and try to make a chain of words all the way down a page of lined paper by just changing one letter on each line. You can add or remove a letter, also. (rain can become train, flame can become fame). There were times I gave suggestions, but many times K. ignored by suggestions and came up with her own. The only difficulty we had was that she kept wanting to change AND add a letter, which is against the rules.
• Mystery Words (Games for Reading pg 131) -- we started with three letter words, but that was too easy for K., so after a couple rounds, we went to four letter words. I hadn't ever thought about all the words that can be made from the letters "D, O, N, E": on, no, one, nod, node, and done, which finished our game.

• Story Words (Games for Reading pg 142) is a good choice to play in the car. The three words can com from things you see.

First Grade, Math, Set Three

Games, activities, books, and web sites that enhanced our learning:

• Three Pots (Games for Math pg 152) -- we used manipulatives to show our numbers, then added K.'s number and my number together for an introduction to adding 2- and 3-digit numbers and re-naming 10 ones as 1 ten.

• Color Order -- I made up this game to practice "first, next, last, before, after, between".
• We each had a set of 10 Unifix Cubes (1 of each color).
• We were situated so we couldn't see the other person's work, but could talk to each other.
• First, I gave instructions as to which color was "first", etc. until all ten cubes were lined up.
• Next we checked to see if our sticks of cubes matched.
• Then it was K.'s turn to give instructions.

• Number Read -- on our way to the park we read 3-digit numbers off license plates
• Bunch of Beans (Games for Math pg 134) -- I used this to practice the 10 more/10 less concept
• Fraction Fun by David A. Adler -- I had planned to cover this book in two days, but we ended up taking three. It has three main activities that help give a good understanding of fractions. Pizza Math (shown below) helps with understanding that the larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction, but the larger the numerator, the larger the section.

• Fabulous Fractions: Games and Activities That Make Math Easy and Fun by Lynette Long -- this is a book I plan to buy before K. hits third grade. Most of it is for third grade and beyond, but I found 3 activities we could do now.
• Sandwich Quarters
• Fraction Stars

• Super Brain Stretchers pg 14 -- we used Jolly Rancher Gummies

• We read Estimation by Penny Dowdy (My Path to Math series), the next day I put some dry noodles in one jar and some cereal in another jar. Then we used the "chunking" method to estimate how many were in each jar.

• For practice with Symmetry, I made papers with shapes on them. K. had to match the papers up that would show symmetry. I taped them together, then she colored them so that the colors were symmetrical also.

• K. is getting bored with doing Triangles every day, so I tried to come up with some different ways to use them.
• One day I laid them in a circle on the floor. They were overlapping to cover one number. She sat in the middle of the circle and pointed to each card and said the "missing number".
• Another day I drew a triangle on a sheet of paper and cut another paper into squares. I wrote numbers on the squares: two each of 0 through 6, one each of 7 through 12. Then I would put two numbers on the triangle and she would add the missing number. Then it was her turn to put two numbers on and mine to supply the missing one.

• The Triangle Mat came in handy another day, too. One of us would make a subtraction problem. I wrote the problem on a sheet of paper, then showed how to turn it into an addition problem with a missing addend. Then we used shells and turned it into a word problem and solved it.
• For practice adding two digit addends, we each used Unifix cubes (ones) and ten sticks (tens) and made a number, then we put our numbers on the addition mat and I wrote the problem on a sheet of paper. Then we added the ones (renamed ten ones as one ten, if we had that many) and wrote that on the paper, then added the tens (renamed ten tens as one hundred, if there were that many) and wrote that on the paper.

Our numbers on the mat

Renamed ten ones as one ten

Counted up the tens

Completed written problem



First Grade, History, Set Three

In addition to Child's History of the World, we used:

After reading chapter 48:

• Medieval Society by Kay Eastwood -- we took two days to look through this book, mostly reading the bold print and picture captions.
• The Medieval Knights by Louise Park and Timothy Love -- we used this book to look at what knights wore
• The Knight at Dawn by Mary Pope Osborne -- I thought I'd give the Magic Tree House series another try. I've requested the nonfiction study guide for this book. Maybe it will make the book more educational.

After reading chapter 49:

• Vikings by Allison Lassieur -- I found some coloring pages of viking boats and such on the intenet and printed them off for K. to color while I read. This book is simple and quick to read, but gives good information.
• Leif Eriksson by Shannon Knudsen -- this is an "On My Own Biography", so uses simple text and full page illustrations
• Technology in the Time of The Vikings by Peter Hicks -- this is another book that we used mostly for looking at pictures, however it has a handful of crafts for children to make.
• This week we made Viking Biscuits pg 11. They turned out okay -- my husband actually liked them -- but while making them, I had the feeling that the person who wrote the recipe didn't make them because the dough didn't act anything like what the recipe said it should be like. This is what ours ended up looking like.

• We made a Viking Longboat out of poster board.

• We sewed a Viking Woman's Cap. (K. really likes this, and has decided to use it for a night cap, wearing it to bed.)

After reading chapter 50:

• Come to the Castle by Linda Ashman -- this book has great illustrations and tells about the jobs of different people who lived in a castle in thirteenth-century England
• The Story of a Castle by John S. Goodall -- this is a picture book traces the life of a typical English castle from the 1170s, when it was built, to the 1970s, when it is opened to the public
• Castle, Abbey, and Town: How People Live in the Middle Ages by Irma Simonton Black -- this book has informative text, but also stories. I read a few paragraphs from the introduction and then the stories to K.
• Knights & Castles: 50 Hands-on Activities to Experience the Middle Ages by Avery Hart -- we made the Rose Petal Bread. I used my own bread recipe and we just painted the tops of the loaves. I made yellow, blue, and green. I divided one egg white into three bowls and added 2 drops of food coloring to each bowl. I would suggest trying red instead of blue because after baking you can't really tell a difference between the green and the blue.

My loaf

K.'s loaf

After baking

First Grade, Science, Set Three

Here is the list of resources we used for learning about the Rain Forest:

• About The Rain Forest by Heather Johanasen and Sindy McKay -- this is from the "We Both Read" series. The page on the left had a picture and text for me to read, the page on the right had a picture and text for K. to read. Each day K. picked one animal we read about to add to her notebook (okay, a couple days she added two animals because she couldn't decide between them).
• Rain Forest by Ting Morris -- this book has things to make, activities, and facts.
• We planted a pineapple top (we have tried this before and it has never worked, but there were more instructions, so I'm hopeful.)
• A jaguar disguise is in process
• Rain, Rain, Rain Forest by Brenda Guiberson -- we took two days to read this book. It has a lot of onomatopoeia in it. It is written as a story, but gives a lot of good information. The full page illustrations are cut-paper collage but are very realistic.
• At Home in the Rain Forest by Diane Willow -- this book also has great illustrations. Three-fourths of each 2-page spread is illustration. On the other fourth, there is text and three to six small pictures of things to find in the large illustration.
• Rain Forest by Fiona Macdonald -- this book has experiments, music, facts, crafts, games, etc.
• Nature's Green Umbrella by Gail Gibbons -- by the time we got to this book, most of the text was review, so we mostly looked at the pictures, which really helped with our mural.
• Exploring Environments: At Home in the Rainforest -- this is a video, just 15 minutes long, with a woman walking through a rainforest showing animals and plants
• While looking for a Rain Forest Food Chain, I found the website Animals of a Tropical Rainforest where you can put animals in a picture of a rain forest and print it out. There is also a link to an activity and a link to create a tropical rain forest web (which doesn't work with my browser)
• Really Wild Animals: Totally Tropical Rain Forest by National Geographic -- (this is a dvd) K. really enjoyed watching this movie and it showed a lot of animals and gave good information

Rain Forest Mural

• First we painted the tree trunks and branches of the four levels of the forest: forest floor, understory, canopy, and emergents. Those are rain clouds across the top of the mural.

• Then we added by leaves (we used sponges).

• Now we have added some animals, doing our best to put them in the correct layer of the forest. Some books had conflicting information (one had the sloth in the understory and another put it in the canopy) so just do your best! I got the animals by searching "coloring pages rain forest animals" on the internet. Then I shrunk them to an appropriate size. We used the pictures and illustrations in our books to color them correctly.

Here are some fun books we read about the Rain Forest:

• The Parrot Tico Tango by Anna White
• Way Up High in a Tall Green Tree by Jan Peck
• The Frog with the Big Mouth retold by Teresa Bateman
• Lake of the Big Snake by Isaac Olaleye
• The Umbrella by Jan Brett

This week we learned about the Boreal Forest:

• A Walk in the Boreal Forest by Rebecca L. Johnson -- there is so much information in the short book, take a few days to read through it. We made a list on one side of a paper of animals that are herbivores, and a list on the other side of predators (carnivores)
• One Small Place in a Tree by Barbara Brenner -- this book takes you through the life of a hole in a tree. The illustrations are beautiful and there isn't too much text

Here are a couple books about other forests:

• Temperate Forest Mammals by Elaine Landau
• A Forest's Live: From Meadow to Mature Woodland by Cathy and Robert Mania -- we read some of this book, but mostly we looked at the pictures

First Grade, Fine Arts, Set Three

Now we are learning about Ludwig van Beethoven. Here is a list of the resources:

• Beethoven Lives Upstairs by Barbara Nichol -- this is available as a book, audio book, or movie. I chose the audio book and we have enjoyed listening to it in the car.
• Hey, Ludwig! Ric Louchard -- this is a cd of "classical piano solos for playful times". It features music by various composers.
• Ludwig van Beethoven: Musical Pioneer by Carol Greene -- this is a Rookie Biography with lots of good pictures and illustrations

Here are resources about Joseph Haydn:

• The Boy Who Loved Music by David Lasker -- this story is based on an actual incident

Evaluation of Set Two

• Bible -- everything is checked off, but more importantly, K. is learning her verses, we are praying, and learning about living in such a way that we are a joy to God.
• Writing -- K. continues to show bit of improvement with her drawings. I am making her fix capitalization errors in her handwriting exercises since we have learned some capitalization rules.
• Spelling -- there have been few words in the lessons that K. hasn't already known how to spell. She seems to enjoy the challenge of leaning to spell the two additional words, and has learned each very well.
• Grammar -- K. can fix the capitalization mistakes on worksheets, but forgets about them when she is writing, so we are working on that. She really understands the "commas in a series", and will show me examples she finds when she is reading.
• Reading -- we have assigned Mondays as "Silent Reading Day". This helps me to know that she understands what she is reading, since we don't talk about the story as she reads it, but I ask her a lot of questions when she is done.
• Math -- K. has gotten very good on the addition facts up to 6 + 6. She enjoys doing the triangles, and can do them quite quickly, but every once in a while her mind wanders. I'll wait a bit and if she doesn't give the answer I just say her name to bring her back.
• History -- K. enjoys listening to me read. She also likes to act out some of the stories. Every so often when we are talking she will say something that lets me know she really is paying attention. Sometimes she will play while I read, and sometimes she will sit by me. She has even caught a mistake I made: I said "places" instead of "palaces".
• Science -- K. really enjoyed learning about the ocean. The Magic School Bus books were a great way to learn more. We did so much reading that in the last couple weeks we didn't do much in her notebook, but we did get 10 animals and the food chain done.
• Fine Arts -- K. enjoyed listening to Mozart's music. I didn't try to read so many books about the composer this time. Just one biography and one story book. I was glad to find a cd that she enjoyed listening to.

Book Study, Set Two

The Science Fair has been postponed for two weeks, so we didn't complete our entire display this week. K. really wants to help, and I want her to do as much of the project as possible, but the first couple days we were butting heads quite a bit. Then we talked and I organized better and we worked together. I decided that it would be best if I did the writing, but I'm having K. cut out around the writing. Then we glue that paper on construction paper and she cuts that out. We are using decorative scissors because I figured it would look fine whether she cut straight or not. She also picked out the stick-on letters for the verse (I helped just enough so she didn't get bored and frustrated and want to quit) and let her stick them on the construction paper.

For the center section, I want to find pictures she can color.