OLD HOMESCHOOLERS NEVER DIE . . . THEY JUST WRITE CURRICULUM


"Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew,
like showers on new grass,
like abundant rain on tender plants."

Deuteronomy 32:2

Courses of Study

To view the Course of Study for each grade level, you can click on the "Course of Study" label
or "Search This Blog" for the specific grade level you wish to see.
To date, I have courses of study completed for kindergarten through fourth grades.

Newsletter Articles

In 2013 the Lord started me producing a newsletter for the homeschool group we are a part of. Every other month I write an article on a topic the Lord has put on my heart. I've decided to add these articles to this blog. I hope you will find encouragement through some of my ramblings. You can click on the label "Newsletter" to find the articles.

Saturday, March 10

First Grade, Bible, Set Two

  • We did Way #1 from Our 24 Family Ways. The concept "wholehearted" was a topic of good discussion.
  • In reading Genesis 8 - 14, I did not skip the genealogies. I think it is important that K. know that ALL of God's Word is valuable.
  • We started reading God and a Boy Named Joe this week. K. wishes the chapters were longer.
  • Here K. is practicing Luke 2:1 - 2.
  • We read chapter 3 from Being A Good Friend four times this week and talked about how she and her friends at park day don't always want to play the same thing, but that doesn't mean they don't like each other. God gave them different "likes" and that is good because if everyone was the same the world would be rather boring.
  • One of the "Creative Focus" activities from Life Lessons was to make a pocket in the shape of a heart (we used red construction paper). K. wrote the verse "When I am afraid, I will trust in God" on the front. Then we wrote some things she is afraid of on pieces of paper and put them in the heart.
  • We finished God and a Boy Named Joe. It is such a good book!

First Grade, Writing, Set Two

  • K. is really enjoying Draw Write Now. During our week off she was asking me what animals she got to draw next. Then when she was flipping through the book her comment was, "Oh, there's lots!"
  • Her rabbit this week, actually looked like a rabbit, so there is certainly progress!
  • I also like that it is something we can do together and it gives practice on following step by step instructions.
  • Our activities were Obstacle Course (Games for Writing pg 9) -- we each found 3 different ways to get to the park; and Mixed Up and Missing (Games for Writing pg 107) -- after doing five of the simple sentences listed, we mixed up the words from all five sentences and made other sentences, such as: My brother took the loud firefly on a long walk.
  • Say it With Pictures (Games for Writing pg 23) -- I let K. cut pictures out of old Ranger Rick magazines, then we wrote a word that described the picture or animal (fuzzy, hungry, scary, etc.) on another piece of paper, cut it out, and glued it on the collage.
  • Strange Sentences (Games for Writing pg 113) -- we made three sentences and I let K. pick two of the sentences to illustrate.
  • She is So . . . Loud (Games for Writing) -- we had "her" so loud the roof blew off the house, the stars covered their ears, and the ice on Pluto melted!
  • For Traveling Words (Games for Writing pg 102) I had K. find a favorite sentence in the book Runny Babbit.
  • Over the past weeks I had been collecting words K. didn't spell correctly for the game Which is Right? (Games for Writing pg 95).
  • This week we were reading about sharks, so we decided to skip around in Draw Write Now and do the "shark lesson".
  • After I showed K. three examples of Acrostic Poems (Games for Writing pg 69) that I had written, she wanted to write hers by herself. The acrostic word she used was SPRING.

First Grade, Spelling, Set Two

  • I am starting to add two words K. uses, but misspells, to her spelling word list from BJU each for lesson.
  • I am surprised that K. is excited about learning to spell these "extra" words. This lesson the words are elephant and drawn.

First Grade, Grammar, Set Two

  • We are working on Capitalization Rules. I found a concise list of rules or standards on-line. I do not plan to cover all the rules this year. So far we have covered:
    • First word in a sentence
    • Pronoun I (but we call it "the word I" since she had no idea what a pronoun is)
  • It is really easy to find free printable worksheets on-line for learning Punctuation and Capitalization.
  • Since a field trip was on one of the days we were working on capitalization, on the drive home we looked for capitalized words -- we found that street names, city names, business names, restaurant names, church names, hospital names have capital letters.
    • At times we had to really search because a lot of signs have ALL THE LETTERS CAPITALIZED.
  • I introduced "naming words" (nouns) this week. The first day we wrote down the names of five people, 5 places, and 5 things. I was surprised that for the people, she didn't just write names, but things like: fireman, postman, etc.
  • The second day we worked on naming words, we were at the aquarium. I had written the alphabet on a sheet of paper and we tried to find something there for each letter. We got all of them except for I, Q, X, Y, and Z.
  • We started learning where to put commas. (March 24, 2012 and Sally said, "Wow!")
  • Another day we learned that commas separate words in a series. I introduced this by pulling out our picture cards and adding some "comma cards" and an ", and" card. We then used the picture cards to make a sentence with a series, and inserted the commas.
The parrot ate a banana, pear, and fish.
The workman had a band aid, bolts, a nut, workers, and a toolbox.
  • I had planned on having K. play a syllables game on Learning Games for Kids this week, but we lost our internet connection (long story), so instead I got out the children's dictionary (to find words) and wrote the words on pieces of paper. Then K. cut the words up between the syllables.

  • This week we we reviewed Captialization, Punctuation, Syllables, and Naming Words.

First Grade, Reading, Set Two

  • We played Set the Table (Games for Reading pg 39). I have to remember to keep my "designs" simple so as not to frustrate K.
  • Mazes (Games for Reading pg 26) are quick and fun, and can be done anywhere -- even in the car. You can find printable mazes on-line. Here is a link to one site, Krazy Dad.
  • On the way home from the aquarium, we played Find It (Games for Reading pg 35) -- we played the alphabet version.
  • Talk a Drawing (Games for Reading pg 80) is always interesting. We did it twice, once I gave instructions and once K. did.
  • I enjoy playing Letter Contest (Games for Reading pg 48). It is really interesting how many times a letter is or isn't used in a paragraph.

First Grade, Math, Set Two

Games, activities, books, and web sites that enhanced our learning:
  • What is Symmetry? by Mindel and Harry Sitomer -- we started this book in Set One, and finished it this week. I skipped the information on point symmetry, but we had fun playing in front of the mirrors in her room, learning about plane symmetry. K. enjoyed the activities in the first part of the book, so we did a few of them again.
  • Fun with Patterns by Peter Patilla -- this book has you finding certain patterns in pictures
  • Take a Guess: A Look at Estimation -- this is a good book for introducing this subject
  • Here are a couple games for learning to tell time: Time Clock and What Time is It?
  • This week we had a field trip, so to incorporate our math time into it, I had scheduled "Identify Numbers to 999" on that day. This is something you can do while driving. Most license plates have a series of three numbers and you can take turns reading them aloud. You can make it a bit more challenging by having the rule that whatever number one ends with, the next has to start with. For example: if K. says three hundred thirty-two, then I need to find a number that starts with 2, like two hundred seventy-eight, and she would need to find a number that begins with an eight, and so on.
    • Remember that there is no "and" in these numbers. You only put an "and" in where there is a decimal point.
  • We started counting by 2's this week. We practiced by counting paper clips, colored pencils (she has 71), and counting the pages in books she has read -- for her reading incentive chart.
  • For practice with "First, Next, Last, Before, After, Between", I pulled out the pictures from the story The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck. K. put the pictures in order as I helped her tell the story, with ". . . happened first" and lots of "next" and finally "last". However, there were some pictures that didn't get used because I had left some things out of the story, so we had to go back and decide what these pictures went before or after or between.
    • You can pick up books at the thrift shop to cut up and use for this type of work.
  • We did Number Stories (Games for Math) on the way to the aquarium.
  • Here are a couple good books about fractions:
    • Fractions by Penny Dowdy (from the My Path to Math series)
    • If You Were a Fraction by Trisha Speed Shaskan
  • We used our Unifix Cubes to learn "10 More/10 Less". K. caught on real well. I stressed that since we were adding or subtracting 10, the only number that changed was the number in the tens column.
  • We have been doing Triangles (addition only) almost every day during this set. K. has gotten really fast on giving the answers.
  • We played a really close game of Group 10 (Games for Math pg 155), which was also a lesson in being a good sport.
  • This week we played games to practice our addition facts: Number Ladder (Games for Math pg 71), Fast Track (Games for Math pg 72), Math Checkers (Games for Math pg 79), and Double It (Games for Math pg 77).

First Grade, History, Set Two

In addition to Child's History of the World (chapters 46 and 47) we used:
  • We are reading stories from The Arabian Nights. Below is a list of the books I am using.
    • I started by reading the chapter "Scheherazade or The Story of These Stories" from Teneggren's.
    • Next we are reading Genies. This book has three stories, and puts them in interesting, easily understood language, but it is not a picture book. The stories are divided up into short chapters, so there are good places to stop when it is time for history to be over.
    • We finished Genies, and now we are reading The Arabian Nights.
      • Teneggren's Golden Tales from the Arabian Nights by Gustaf Tenggren
      • Genies, Meanies, and Magic Rings retold by Stephen Mitchell
      • The Arabian Nights by Wafa' Tarnowska
      • Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp retold by Andrew Lang
      • Tales from the Arabian Nights adapted by Elisabeth Gille
  • After reading chapter 47 in Child's History, we looked through these books:
    • Education by Alex Woolf -- we looked at the pictures and read a few sentences here and there that I thought would be interesting to her
    • Charlemagne and the Early Middle Ages by Miriam Greenblatt -- we mostly just looked at the pictures and read the captions, but this will assuredly be a book we will use when we revisit this era when K. is older
    • The World in the Time of Charlemagne by Fiona Macdonald -- here, again, the text of this book is over K.'s head, but the pictures are good
  • This week we combined History and Fine Arts and read Moonlight on the Magic Flute by Mary Pope Osborne. This is from the Magic Tree House series. K. really liked the story, but I was disappointed. Although it did teach a bit about that era -- clothing, palaces, queen -- it didn't really teach anything about Mozart, except he traveled with his father and sister and played the clavichord very well.
Sometimes I wonder how much K. pays attention when I read. If you wonder the same thing, here's a funny story that should encourage you.
Last weekend my sister was over to visit. She had something K. wanted to play with. My sister asked, "What are the magic words?" K. looked at her quizzically (we don't use that term) and said, "Open sesame?
If you aren't laughing, you need to read Ali Babba and the Forty Thieves.

First Grade, Science, Set Two

Here is the list of resources we used for learning about Oceans and Seas:
  • See the Ocean by Estelle Condra -- a picture book about a family that spends their summers at the beach
  • Big Blue Ocean by Bill Nye -- we are using this book for an experiment each week
    • Make a tsunami in your bathtub pg 41
Just a bit of water in the bathtub, a lid on a string (arrow points to it) and some bottle caps. Drag the lid from the deepest water up the the "shore". Your tsunami will wash the "houses" out to sea.
    • How much of the earth's surface is covered with water pg 7
The book tells you how many inches of 1-inch wide tape to put on the ball to simulate the amount of water. Then I let K. color the tape blue.
    • See gases in water pg 11
    • Make your own thermohaline current pg 31
    • See how the sun affects the ocean pg 39
  • Kingfisher Young Knowledge Oceans and Seas by Nicola Davies -- at first this book was not interesting to K. because I was trying to read all the information (because it is interesting to me). So then I backed off and just read the largest print and we looked at the pictures. This book has a page that shows a food chain, kelp forests, and coral reefs.
  • The Usborne Internet-linked First Encyclopedia of Seas & Oceans by Ben Denne -- so far we have used this book for learning about:
    • Food chains. Usborne directed us to the American Museum of Natural History website where there is a game to play, discovering what eats what. There are a bunch of other things that look like fun, too.
  • Giant Kelp by Nan Criqui -- I discovered this website while looking for a map that would show where kelp forests are. (We marked them on a map.) We skimmed most of the information, but did the experiment to see what is in the kelp's bladders to make the kelp stand up instead of lying on the ocean floor.
Three containers, one with air, one with water, one with sand. Put them in water and see which floats best.
  • The Great Undersea Search by Kate Needham -- find the hidden things, about 100 on every double page
  • The Fishy Field Trip by Martin Schwabacher (a "The Magic School Bus Chapter Book") -- we have been reading this book all week. It is very interesting and we are learning all sorts of interesting things about coral reefs and all the animals that live there. We added quite a bit of information to her notebook while reading this.
  • This week we read The Great Shark Escape by Jennifer Johnston (another "Magic School Bus Chapter Book") -- another good read, but if you only have time for one Magic School Bus book, Fishy Field Trip would be my choice.
  • See Through the Sea by Millicent Selsam
  • Parrotfish and Sunken Ships by Jim Arnosky -- explores a tropical reef
  • The Great Undersea Search by Kate Needham -- this is a picture search book by Usborne
  • Reefs by Sally M. Walker
We didn't make a mural, but K. drew this picture on the chalkboard in her room.

If you can, take a trip to an aquarium. This past summer we had been to Cabrillo Marine Aquarium over the summer, but got there too late to do the touch tank, so had promised K. we would go again. I took her this week. Because we had been learning about "all this stuff", it was much more interesting to her and we would stand and talk about what we were seeing. If there are no aquariums near you, borrow videos from the library about the ocean.

First Grade, Fine Arts, Set Two

We are starting this set of weeks with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Here are the resources I'm using:
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Musical Genius by Carol Greene -- this is A Rookie Biography; I really like all the pictures and the simple text
  • Mozart Tonight by Julie Downing -- this is a picture book; Mozart tells about his life as he waits for his opera Don Giovanni to start.
  • Musical Soup: Mozart for Toddlers -- this is a cd. When it first started playing, K. said, "I like Mozart better than Bach."
  • Mozart's Magic Fantasy -- another cd. This is a journey through "The Magic Flute". K. really liked this and has listened to it two or three times. Actually, I was going to return it to the library, but she asked to keep it longer.

Sunday, March 4

Evaluation of Set One

It is hard to believe that we are one-seventh of the way through first grade! The weeks went really smoothly and I'm satisfied with the progress we made.
  • Bible -- we completed everything on our schedule and K. has earned her 50¢ for memorizing Psalm 1
  • Writing -- we completed our lessons in Draw Write Now, but didn't get the Draw What You See done; the schedule didn't allow for 2 games/activities in weeks three and five because we don't have Writing on Wednesdays; comparing K.'s first and third drawings, I see some improvement
  • Spelling -- K. has known how to spell all the words so far; it is interesting to me that she really likes the dictation sentence, and will ask for more than one
  • Grammar -- I believe K. has a good grasp of prefixes, suffixes, and compound words; she enjoys playing the syllable games on Learning Games for Kids; she easily picks out action words from a list
  • Reading -- K. is reading smoothly and her comprehension is good; last year she really needed a book mark to stay on one line, but this year she isn't using a book mark and is doing fine; she enjoys discovering new words, their meaning, and adding them to our list
  • Math -- K. understands addition and subtraction; we found a game on-line that really helped with her understanding of fractions; I discovered math books at the library -- not text books, but interesting books that cover one subject, like symmetry, fractions, patterns, and estimating
    • We normally get into church early and play an "I Spy" game of things in the sanctuary. This morning I turned it into a shapes game: rectangle solid (piano), cylinder (drums), sphere (lights), rectangle (screen), etc.
  • History -- in history we are mostly reading books; she really enjoyed the stories of pirates; Pangur Ban by Stolz wasn't interesting to her, but I finished reading it myself; she was intrigued by the fancy first letter of each chapter, so we were able to talk about the illustrating that the monks did
  • Science -- we really had a lot of fun learning about the Arctic and Antarctic; we didn't do anything with natural disasters or make a mural, but I am very satisfied with what we covered and how much she has retained
    • We play a "Guessing" game at odd times (in the car, doing her hair, at the table, etc.). To play, one person give three clues (sand, waves, bathing suit) and the other person tries to guess what the first person is thinking about (beach). I have started throwing in rounds that have to do with science (and history). Here is an example: Arctic, ice floes, seals = polar bears
  • Fine Arts -- we read several books about J. S. Bach and listened to a cd of his music several times

Book Study, Set One

This week was supposed to be a book study of And to Think that I Saw it on Mulberry Street. However, in six weeks our support group is having a science fair, and knowing how busy life can get, I thought we ought to get started right away. The theme of the fair is "Men of Science/Men of God". We are to learn about a scientist who was a Christian, and how their Christian belief helped them invent or discover what they are known for.

We have chosen Wilbur and Orville Wright. Our display will be divided in 3 sections. First, how God prepared them (their childhood). Second, the process they went through to fly. Third, how flight has impacted the spread of Christianity.

So far, we have read Let's Fly, Wilbur and Orville! by Peter and Connie Roop. Now we are reading They Gave Us Wings: The Wright Brothers by Charles Ludwig, from The Sowers series. We have also watched the video Wilbur & Orville: Dreams of Flying.

Our next "Book Study" week is right before the science fair, so that week we will put our display together.