Weekly Report 9/5 - 9/9

School went well this week! Praise the Lord!

Bible - We covered the first 5 days of Creation in BJU Bible Truths. Squeak also has been painting in a "Creation Book" that I made. I took pages from our large sketch book, folded them in half and hole punched them. I used some string to tie it all together and labeled each day and what God created. Squeak paints out each day as to what she thinks it all looks like! Very cute!

Math -  Math is exactly why I don't lesson plan. What I thought was going to take about a week, took less than 2 minutes. I explained what addition with re-grouping was and set up a problem and Squeak completed it rather effortlessly. We went through it again the next night (just to be sure) and she was already saying she knew what to do and was bored!

Next week, we go back into Singapore Math. I just received my backorder textbook for 2a. I regret not continuing 2a last spring because the material looks really easy. I decided to just work in the textbook and not use the workbook unless it's needed. Squeak informed me that I burned her out with workbook work in SM 1b because it was too much repetition. I just get worried about retention so I have her complete pages in the workbook. For 2a, we'll just sip through the textbook and stop and use the workbook if needed. I won't be "OCD" about completing workbook pages with this book.

Science -  We are reading a book about Marie Curie and her radium discovery. Not doing much with it, just reading through it.

Phonics - Squeak is continuing with BJU English and using JumpStart and had been reading a loud to me. We are working towards our Applebee's Bookworm goal and will begin Pizza Hut BOOK IT! when the materials arrive.

Handwriting - Squeak has been working more with writing and I've been using a generic workbook for letter practice right now.

Art - Squeak has been doing A LOT of painting. I also just ordered and received the summer curriculum from Carol's Affordable Curriculum. I bought it for two students - Squeak and Packy. It's pretty much 36 fairly easy crafts to complete, 3 per week. Originally I had just Packy in mind for this but I knew Squeak would want to join in. We start next week and the theme is "dairy" so they are making cow puppets, coloring a cow page and maze then working on a sheet with stickers.

Packy is gluing

Squeak is reading

Brag Alert!

I decided to introduction Squeak to addition re-grouping last night. Well, she picked up on it effortlessly and looked at me like "duh"....this was after I literally talked for less than 2 minutes and asked her what she thought we should do to complete the problem. I was really impressed! What a blessing she is!! Praise Jesus!

(She has done this before with multiplication and division and many other concepts...effortlessly...I can't begin to comprehend how she does what she does...)

First Week of School!

Our first week of school was very relaxed. We worked a lot on Bible, arts/crafts and read alouds. We also worked a bit on math, science and phonics. I haven't re-started history yet and will begin reading Pocohantas and The Strangers after we complete the Magic School Bus chapter book we are reading.

Our Singapore Math books haven't arrived yet (they were on backorder) so we've been using the Math Connects workbook from the summer. We completed our study of the Scientific Method in Noeo Chemistry and will begin Week 8 by looking at Marie Curie.

Squeak is enjoying BJU Bible Truths 1. It begins with Creation and we working our way through that.

Our schedule is Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday = school days. We didn't work on any school Friday night because my niece spent the night! They girls had a lot of fun together.

This coming week, we'll start to buckle down a little more. I also decided to work our subjects in smaller time chunks. No more 45-50 minute math marathons in one sitting! LOL! I love the "accomplished" feeling that goes with it but it just drains me!

Here are a few pictures from the week:

Packy is working on her word puzzles

Squeak is using the Math Connects book as a "filler" while we wait for SM

Packy is working on a gluing activity

Squeak coloring in BJU Bible Truths

Our Schedule

In effort to keep me from burning out with my aggressive learner, I have decided to make our school year a little more structured in regards to the days in which we school. We will have school on Mondays and Tuesdays then Wednesday off (nice mid-week break) then school again on Thursdays and Fridays. No school on the weekends either. This will give us a 4 day week of school. I think that is completely appropriate for a 5 year old.

On the non-school days, we still will have snack/story time (read alouds) and whatever crafts the girls feel like doing. Just no lessons!

Summer School ends tomorrow!

Packy looking through R&S Bible Story book:

Squeak working on a project:

Our 1st Grade Curriculum Line up!

I decided to officially post what we plan on using for 1st grade, which begins August 29th. I do have miscellaneous resources that I plan to pull out if need be but this is the listing of our main curricula (and I've predicted which subjects we will continue on to the next level):

Bible - BJU Bible 1 then Bible 2

Math - Singapore Primary Math 2/Horizons Math 2 (book 2) and 3 (Book 1) - supplements "for fun" - Life of Fred Apples and Key to Measurement

Science - Noeo Chemistry 1/My Pals are Here activity books - supplements "for fun" - Basher Books, Magic School Bus books, The Complete Book of Science workbook. After Noeo, I think I'm going to go back to Sonlight Science D.

LA - BJU English 1 then 2, BJU Spelling 1 then 2, lots of read alouds

History - Sonlight Core 3 (we will be using this for a few years, working slowly through it)

We are also going to begin more work on handwriting but aren't using anything formal. I have some "1st grade" lined paper from Walmart. And of course, we'll have crafts and art projects, listen to music and do all sorts of other things. I'm hoping to start Squeak up with flute lessons too.

Gearing up for 1st grade!

August 29th is the beginning of our 1st Grade year! Lately we've just been doing BJU Bible (wrapping up K5), the Solar System book (working on a project to put on our science wall) and read alouds/crafts.

I have just about all of our materials for 1st grade minus a couple of math items. I'm waiting for our Singapore textbook and workbook (back ordered) and Life of Fred Apples (should be here any day).

One thing I decided to change this year was giving Squeak a "break" from curriculum every now and then. I ordered extra resources for math and science to do for fun instead of our regular curriculum.

I will update the curriculum list soon!