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.

Monday, October 22

First Grade, Bible, Set Seven

  • We are continuing to memorize 1 Corinthians 13.
  • In 24 Ways we are on #2, Reading the Bible and Praying everyday with an open heart. We have discussed what an "open heart" means, and I am able to pull examples from our memory verses, so that makes it more meaningful.
  • We finished reading Genesis.
  • We completed the Friendship book and are working on making a board game from what we learned.
  • In lesson seven of Life Lessons from P & K,  we were learning about godly wisdom. The book suggested making a paper crown, but K. has so many crowns that I knew it wouldn't be special. I looked online for crown crafts and came up with this one. The beads are supposed to be on safety pins, and then hung from a larger safety pin to make a pin to wear, but I decided to just use things I had on hand, so we came up with this craft.

 
We put the beads on floral wire, and wrapped
the extra wire around a popsicle stick.
I used another piece of wire to make a hanger.

 
I had wooden alphabet letters (just about every letter
except W, so we turned an extra M upside down)
and K. painted them and we glued them on a tongue
depressor, and then glued the stick with
"WISDOM" onto  the popsicle stick.
  • We finished reading Joel this week and played some games to review 1 Corinthians 13.

First Grade, Writing, Set Seven

Because we are doing a lot of writing in Grammar during this set, I have planned activities that don't require much writing. All are from Games for Writing.
  • How Many Words page 127 -- this continues to be a favorite game for us
  • Alphabet Code page 98 -- we played this at the doctor's office
  • Words By Design page 101 -- we are using the last part of the Alphabet Book I made for her in set five. I picked the word "Compass" to go along with our history.
  • Traveling Words page 102 -- the sentence was "Deserts are dry places that get very little rain". I drew a desert scene with a cactus and a rock for K. to write on.
  • Dotted Alphabet page 105 -- we used the word "chuck walla"
  • Mixed Up and Missing page 107 -- We did about six sentences, then we took parts from those sentences and made some crazy sentences. I let K. pick one to illustrate.
  • Strange Sentences page 113 -- The sentence we ended up with was "My aunt fell in a crack in his cave yesterday." K. illustrated it.
  • Race of Words page 44 -- K. won by a landslide!
  • Story Map page 17 -- we added a butcher shop and doughnut store to our park story map
  • Catch My Silly page 13 -- I took a couple stories and made changes. Then I let K. pick a story and see if I could catch her "sillies".
  • Mazes -- I printed mazes from MazestoPrint.com

First Grade, Spelling, Set Seven

  • I added the words 'desert' and 'dessert' to the spelling list this week, since we are learning about the desert.
  • I decided to add more words that are similar, like 'wonder' and 'wander'.
  • 'Hawk' and 'squawk' were a couple words she had trouble spelling.
  • We completed the spelling book this week!

First Grade, Grammar, Set Seven

We are using games to review the four Parts of Speech we learned this year. I found these ideas on the internet, and then made changes to fit our situation.
  • I made paper bags with labels "Verb", "Noun", "Adjective", and "Preposition". On the back side of each label I wrote the definition and glued them on so they could be lifted and the definitions read, if need be. Then I wrote 88 words on pieces of card stock. We took turns sorting the words into their correct bag.
  • The next week we took a word from each bag and used them to make a sentence. We each did five sentences.
During this set we are learning about the Writing Process. Since November is National Novel Writing Month, I downloaded the elementary school workbook (it is FREE to download) from the Young Writer's Program and we are working through it.
  • We started by putting her inner editor away
  • Deciding on some novels she really likes and why she likes them
  • Now we are getting to know the characters in her story
  • Next we work on the plot of the story.
    • The workbook uses the plot roller coaster. K. seemed a bit lost while we were working on the plot, so I drew the roller coaster on a piece of scrap paper and we used it to write out the plot of a book we had just finished reading. Then she seemed to understand the concept and we were able to finish the plot of her story with much better participation and input from her.
  • Then she drew a map of where her story takes place.
  • After K. wrote her novel, I typed one chapter each day and then we edited it (there were four chapters).
  • She only wanted to draw a picture for the cover. I scanned it in and put it on the cover.
  • I saved it as a pdf and printed it in the "booklet" format. We will print enough copies for her to give to her aunts for Christmas presents.
I like this novel workbook so much that I am planning on ending each school year using it. It will be fun to see how K.'s novels change from year to year.

First Grade, Reading, Set Seven

We are finishing off the BJU reading book. Now we are reading Story Train, published by The L.W. Singer Company, Inc. in 1960.

From Reading Corner we are learning about Details:
  • We talked about Who, What, Why, When, and How in a variety of stories this week.
  • I read K. a story, leaving out details to show that details are important.
  • Details are important in recipes, games, etc.
  • We each made a lantern, following the instructions given.
  • We talked about some details being more important than others.
    • If this story took place in the city instead of the forest would it be the same?
    • If it was a mouse instead of a beaver would it change the story?
    • If the girl had a blue dress instead of a red dress would it matter?
  • We wrote a telegram for a story we read. Telegrams must be short, so you have to eliminate everything except the main idea.
  • Another day we decided on the main idea and the important details of a story. Then we made a mobile, writing these things on card stock cutouts of the animals in the story.
  • I copied a descriptive paragraph; each day we took a few sentences and crossed out everything that was descriptive.
  • I read The Peterkins' Thanksgiving and then we wrote the Who, What, Why, When, and How inside large W's and an H.
  • We each took a basic sentence and added description to it. The sentence "The boy ran." could turn into "The tall, freckled boy in blue pants and red shirt ran around the block, over the bridge, and under the tree to meet his father." We made it a contest to see who could add the most words. We did this a few days, and on the last day K. beat me.
  • Details are important in word problems. I had about six problems. Some had extra information, some didn't have enough information, and some had just what was needed to solve the problem.
From Games for Reading:
  • Matches and Opposites, pg 144
  • Dictionary Reading, pg 146 -- K. loves to look through our BJU Student Dictionary. It always takes us a while to look up words in the dictionary because K. wants to keep stopping to find out about the things that are pictured.
  • See It - Name It, pg 138 -- K. picked the bathroom and we set out goal at fifty words.
  • Go-Togethers, pg 140 -- we played this game twice and used "Thanksgiving" and "Winter" for our subjects. It would be a great game for in the car.

First Grade, Math, Set Seven

Games, activities, books, and web sites that enhanced our learning:
  • We are continuing to practice the Triangles every day.
  • We reviewed the 10 More / 10 Less and 100 More / 100 Less concepts using the spinner we had made before and Uno cards. K. took three Uno cards and made a number (345), then she flicked the spinner and which ever instruction it landed on, I had to write the new number (if it landed on "10 More" I would write 355). Then it was my turn to take three cards, etc. We worked our way through the whole pile of cards.

  • I had printed a worksheet of three-digit addition problems. K. worked two problems each day, then on Friday we pulled out the Place Value mat and worked the last four problems using manipulatives before solving them on the paper.
  • We took turns handing each other a handful of coins. Then the person wold count them and write the amount.
  • We worked on Subtraction: 2 digit, money, missing addend, word problems.
    • For missing addend we used these manipulatives. We used pinto beans for the known addend and the sum, then it was easy to figure the missing addend, 'x'.
  • I printed some rectangles on a paper, then told a story of why someone need to know how much fence they needed. I drew pictures on the rectangles as I told the story. Then K. used a ruler and measured the rectangle and got the Perimeter.
  • I made a fun worksheet for estimating capacity. I used clip art and put pictures of things (large mug) and then put options for her to choose as to the capacity (2 cups or 2 gallons).
  • We played Fractions games on Johnny's Math Page.

First Grade, History, Set Seven

Resources we used along with Child's History:
  • Life as a Knight by Rachael Hanel -- okay, I found one more really interesting book about knights. This is an interactive history adventure, so you get to make choices which affect what happens to the knight. There are three stories in the book, one about a French knight in 1096, one about an English Knight in 1346, and one about a German knight in 1525. All three stories are based on actual events. We had fun with this book.
  • Compass and Gunpowder:
    • Fantastic Inventions and Inventors by Zhu Kang -- this book is written in comic book style and we quite interesting.
  • Bubonic Plague
    • The Black Death by Jim Ollhoff -- the information is presented in a way that children can understand
    • Bubonic Plague by Jim Whiting is another book written for children
  • Joan of Arc
    • Joan of Arc by Shana Corey -- I picked up about four books about Joan of Arc that were written for children. They all had good points, but I liked this one best. It is a Step into Reading step 4 book. It has the pronunciations of the French words, which is very helpful.
  • Johann Gutenberg -- these three books have a lot of the same information, but they also have different information, so I decided to read all three.
    • Gutenberg by Leonard Everett Fisher
    • Johann Gutenberg and the Amazing Printing Press by Bruce Koscielniak
    • Breaking into Print by Stephen Krensky
  • Constantinople
    • Istanbul, Once Constantinople by Sue Donovan -- we read pages 7 through 19. It had nice illustrations and easy-to-understand text.

First Grade, Science, Set Seven

Here are the resources I recommend for learning about Deserts:
  • Deserts by Darlene R. Stille -- this book is written for young children, with lots of photos and easy-to-understand text
  • Deserts by Norman S. Barrett --  so far we have only used this book for the illustrations on pages 8 and 9. It has a nice map showing the deserts of the world, a diagram explaining what causes an oasis, what a rain shadow is, and the difference between a plateau, mesa, and butte.
  • A Walk in the Desert by Rebecca L. Johnson -- this book only deals with the deserts of North America, but in small chunks it is enjoyable for young children.
  • Discover Deserts by Jennifer Vogelgesang -- there is large print to skim over the subject, and small print for more detail
  • America's Deserts: Guide to Plants and Animals by Marianne D. Wallace -- we used this book to find our ten plants and, since I didn't have a book on food chains, we used it for that. Making up a possible food chain from each page.
About Specific Animals:
  • Amazing Snakes! by Sarah L. Thomson -- this is An I Can Read Book level 2
  • Armadillo Trail by Stephen R. Swinburne -- a picture book that teaches, too
  • Desert Birds by Alice Flanagan -- there is not a lot of specific information about birds, just a lot of general information, but you can find some that interest you and look them up on-line.
  • Meet the Meerkat by Darrin Lunde -- another picture book that teaches
  • Ostrich by Wallace Litwin -- the pictures are black and white, but it is written for children and teaches about the ostrich without getting bogged down in details
  • Desert Mammals by Elaine Landau -- tells about camels, kangaroo rats, pallid bats, antelope jack rabbits, and addaxes
Literature or Picture Books:
  • Deserts by Cathryn Sill -- illustrations of deserts from around the world. One or two lines of text accompany each illustration.
  • This is the Oasis by Miriam Moss -- good illustrations with about one sentence per page
  • Desert Voices by Byrd Baylor -- a book of poems about desert animals
  • Hassan: Boy of the Desert by Dominique Darbois -- tells about a family's stop at an oasis
  • Desert Trip by Barbara Steiner -- story of a mom and child hiking in the desert

First Grade, Fine Arts, Set Seven

Well, when I said we were going to work through the piano books at our own pace, I wasn't kidding! We have gotten to page 16 in the first book, but K. is leaning the concepts, and enjoying the time on the piano.

Saturday, October 13

Evaluation of Set Six

  • Bible -- we are enjoying reading Joel. I really think K. is learning to be a better friend. I can observe that she is putting the lessons into practice watching and listening to her conversations with playmates during park days. She still asks when she can see her kiss.
  • Writing -- we did get the "Laura Ingalls Board Game" finished and we have played it once. It was fun. K. enjoys writing stories, so a few times during this set of weeks my plans were preempted because she wanted to continue writing a story. I don't think that is a bad thing.
  • Spelling -- K. is doing really well with her spelling, dictionary skills, etc. I need to do better with keeping track of miscellaneous words that K. misspells in her writing so I can add them to her regular spelling words.
  • Grammar -- capital letters are frustrating me. K. knows the rules, but doesn't practice them. She will write a whole story without any capitals, or she'll put them in the middle of words, or random words will be capitalized. I am quite sure this is happening because she is concentrating more on what she is writing than "the rules" because if I ask her to "check your capitals" she will go back and make the corrections. So right now, I'm trying not to make a huge issue of capital letters because I'd rather her enjoy writing and make mistakes than do everything correct and hate writing.
  • Reading -- K. has learned the concept of "main idea" well. We were talking about something the other day and she said, "Oh, like the main idea." Yes, it is.
  • Math -- K. is doing so much better with "the triangles" (fact families). Reducing the number to 11 a day, and having the timer set for 2 minutes, with the reward of a sticker did the trick. Now she is trying to get through each day's triangles before the timer changes from "2" to "1".
  • History -- this set of weeks went well because I planned out which pages to cover each day in the books I wanted to read to her. I need that level of accountability. Some days we read more because it was interesting.
  • Science -- I planned which pages of what books to read each day, so that went really well. K. enjoys doing food chains.