Weeks 2-6 in Review!

It has been busy around here the past month! Since my plan to give a re-cap of each school week has failed for the last 5 weeks, you will just get the nutshell version that you probably wanted anyway! It is hard to believe that we have begun our 7th week of school. It has truly flown by and I can only imagine that in a whirlwind, our school days will be over. But, for now, I will cherish every moment of it (most of the time, anyway).

I had a momentary flash of *brilliancy* (don't worry...that doesn't happen very often!) during the 2nd week that helped me formulate a plan for the year. Since I have only purchased the first volume of Five in a Row and wanted to wait to see how it works out before investing in the other 3 volumes, I had to find a way to fill the rest of the year with unit studies. Volume one includes lessons for 19 weeks of the year, which leaves 26 weeks to do units on each letter of the alphabet!! We're doing 4 days a week and when you do the math, you get a perfect number of 180 school days (what the state of FL requires). All right, so you may not be as excited as I am, but I tell you, the idea came to me at midnight one night and I had to jump out of bed and write it down! So, I've done some looking around (using this blog for inspiration) and there are so many free unit studies out there that it will be easy for me to find units that correspond to each letter. And, I will be able to use the wonderful ideas at ABC, I Believe for the ABC weeks as well!

Oh, and one more revelation I had was that we were doing WAY too much each day. I have scaled things back a bit and I think we've found our niche.

Ok, now the good stuff. Keep in mind that along with the things listed here, we are doing daily Bible, math, and reading lessons.

WEEK 2 - FIAR book:



* We did a lot with bees this week, as part of our ABC, I Believe lesson. I found a great link where you can find clips of classical music. We listened to part of "The Flight of the Bumblebee".
* In science, we learned about clouds and made Rainy Sky Jello.

WEEK 3 - The Letter "B"
(We will go back and do "A" later)
* More bees!!!
* We started making some nice progress in reading.

WEEK 4 - FIAR book:



* Ella's favorite part of this week was this game, which reviewed the facts from the story.
* We studied Mark Shasha's illustrations in the book, then painted our own version of an ocean scene.
* Ella made a paper plate jellyfish.
* We learned the difference between moon jellyfish and the "moonjellies" from the book (actually comb jellies).

WEEK 5 - The Letter "C"
* "C" stands for "coins", "cents", "calendar", "cows" and "Costa Rica".
* We read lots of books about cows and made purple cows (yum!) for snack one day.

WEEK 6 - FIAR book:



* We learned a bit about architecture, based on Tomie de Paola's illustrations. Ella is still pointing out arches that she sees on buildings.
* We learned how rainbows are formed. We were able to make our own rainbow by allowing light to flow through a jar full of water.
* Despite my fear of clowns, we made a cute paper plate clown!

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Whew! I think I will go now and save some words for my next post! ;)

Week 1 in Review!

I'm happy to report that we survived our first week of homeschool! I was (and still am) completely wiped out. Friday was our most difficult day, but I think it was mostly just fatigue taking it's toll. We've both had to adjust to this new routine. I may have to reinstitute afternoon naps or put Ella to bed earlier so that she won't be so worn out by the end of the week. There will be definite tweaking going on, as we strive to find what schedule works best for us. But, for now, I will give you what I know you've all been waiting for...our week in review! ;)



As I said in my last post, our first book to "row" was The Story about Ping. The story is just full of lessons to be learned, my favorite being that it's always better to face the consequences of our actions, rather than run from them. I'm not sure the best way to share our week with you, but I figure pictures and links are what you really want the most! Here's a slideshow of our first week:

Some of highlights from our week were:

Watching this cute video: Addem & the Ants (we studied ants as part of our Bible curriculm - ABC, I Believe)

The snacks we made each day - ants on a log, ants in the sand, fruit salad eaten with chopsticks, and panda cupcakes (we saved the best for last and have enjoyed those all weekend!).

The crafts (of course!), which included the boat you saw in the pictures, a duck made from paper plates and another made from a paper bag (if I think about it tomorrow, I'll add these pics to my slide show).

Learning the numbers 1-20 in Chinese, via Circle Time Kids (a wonderful resource!)

Learning to recite the Bible memory verse for this week and write the first part of it. The verse was "Go to the ant, O sluggard. Observe her ways and be wise." Prov. 6:6. I was never more proud of Ella than when I found out that she had recited it perfectly for my parents on Friday without my being there to prompt her. YAY! One of my memory verse strategies is making it into a short song and just singing it at random times throughout the week. Ella is definitely an auditory learner and I will be finding other ways to incorporate music, especially when learning "facts" like this. We're giving her an mp3 player for her birthday, which will mainly be used for this purpose. I plan to record each Bible verse "song", then record her recitation of the verse and put them on the mp3 player for her to review.

There is so much more I could share, but it is late and I do need sleep after this crazy week. Now that the Olympics are over (LOVED THEM!), I can *try* to go to bed at a decent hour. We have some dear friends coming to visit next weekend, so we will have school in the mornings and CHORES in the afternoons in order to prepare for their stay! Please pray that God will give me rest, even on those nights that are not very "restful". :)