Day 9

Labeled states on US map, drew a cat and a porcupine from "Cartooning for Kids", wb page on phases of the moon, greater than/less than, vowels, read about civilization in the Indus valley, identified continents/oceans/poles and equator on the globe, watched Beakman on teeth, submarines and digestion.

Day 10 


Two digit addition, planets, numbers to works, read about Hinduism and drew a picture of Shiva.  Used money to pay for a watch, told time several times.

Day 11


Did wb page on phonics, practiced cursive, counted by 2s, 5s and 10s, fractions, LEARNED TO SWIM ABOVE WATER AND UNDER!!!, Beakman on Ben Franklin, synonyms, observed fireflies in jar.

Day 12


Synonyms, "what is a character", nouns, complete sentences, drew a mouse from "How to Cartoon", made a book on bioluminescence.

Day 13

Sight words about construction, learned about the Eiffel Tower and found it on Google Earth, learned musical notes, months of the year, did aboriginal art painting, did a math assessment - she is in the 82nd percentile for 2nd grade, and a reading assessment - she is reading at a 4th grade level, practiced cursive, synonyms, reading a map, reading charts, making a chart, science page on exercise.

Day 7

Measured the crawfish, watched documentary "Before the Dinosaurs", played outside, did wb page on place value, wb page on reading a map

Day 8

Saw the movie "African Cats" and wrote about favorite part, wb page on long _o_ words, wb page on translating words to numbers to the thousands, read about photosynthesis and answered questions about it, identified PA, NY and OH on a US map, did worksheet on "African Cats".

Day 6


Read about sentences: subjects, predicates and punctuation.  did worksheet on subjects and nouns.  Read "Anansi and the Talking Melon" and answered questions about it.  2 workbook pages on counting money.  Looked up crawfish behavior on internet and realized one is a girl and she's laying eggs!  Swam in neighbor's pool.

Day 4

Read "Romeo and Juliet" from Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare for Children and discussed similarities with "Gnomeo and Juliet".  Discussed life of William Shakespeare.  Did worksheets on: critical thinking, alphabetizing, human body, and self.  Observed crawfish, isopods, and tarantula.  Read book on Ancient Egypt. Played outside.

 

Day 5

Watched "The Beauty of Ugly" Nature episode on PBS. Played a game identifying nouns, adjectives, articles and verbs.  Discussed personal finance, saving her allowance and giving to charity.  Read the tall tale "Davy Crocket" from Tall Tales.  Looked up species of minnows in our fish tank - bluntnoses.  Did worksheets on: common nouns and proper nouns, place value to 1000.  Read the Inuit tale "How Day and Night Came to Be" and answered questions.  Played outside in sprinkler.  Read alone - comic books.

Day 2


Read book about the moon.  Observed and cared for crawfish and learned how to identify males and females.  Solo reading: "A Cat Adrift".  Watched online video about seals and their diet.  Read about Thai geography, religion and language.  Read Thai folktale "Ta-In and Ta-Na".  Read chapter 1 in Queen Elizabeth biography

Day 3


Did worksheet on articles (a, an and the).  Discussed urban vs. suburban vs rural.  Read chapter 2 of Queen Elizabeth biography.  Went swimming and played outdoors.  Worked on number sense by estimating.  Discussed what "emotions" are.  Went over family fire plan.

Flora is in 2nd Grade!

Despite doing a wretched job of keeping track of her learning on here, she sailed through 1st with flying colors.

This is our last year of not needing to officially keep an educational log, but this year I am really going to try my hardest to do it.  Wish me luck!

DAY 1


Compound words, place value, the 7 continents, drew pictures of cats, the frog's life cycle, observed crawfish and minnows in our tank, worked on animated Lego movie with friends, observed and misted isopods in tank, cardinal and ordinal numbers, observed feeding habits of our tarantula, read about Thailand; geography, religion and language, counted money and paid for our items at the store.  Played outdoors.

practice cursive while listening to chapter 1 of "The Burgess Bird Book for Children" on librivox, looked at pictures of wrens online, read 2 chapters in her "Bad Kitty's Birthday" book, caught isopods and a millipede, made up chapter 1 of her story "Good Queen Isopod and Her Adventures", did a R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey lab on isopods, made a model of the volcano from the island of Thera...

...all before noon!  I am exhausted!

Educational Objectives for Flora D, 2nd Grade

Language Arts

• Daily exposure to poetry, folk tales, fairy tales, tall tales, myths and stories from various cultures
• Learn the use of antonyms and synonyms, contractions, and abbreviations
• Continue to learn and master phonics skills
• Continue to learn and master sight words
• Learn to write sentences using correct punctuation and capitalization
• Understand sentence structure, nouns and verbs
• Read Easy Reader Level 2 and 3 books on her own, daily
• Compose letters and stories
• Keep a journal
• Observe the use of reference materials
• Use library on a regular basis 

Arithmetic

• Learn and understand basic fractions; 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and 4/4
• Continue to master telling time in 5 minute intervals
• Continue to work toward mastery of addition and subtraction, including carrying and borrowing
• Understanding money, identifying coins and dollars
• Place value to 1000
• Measuring in inches and feet
• Strengthening mental math skills
• Logic
• Continue to master use of calendar
• Introduction to multiplication
• One step problem solving

History and Geography

• Learn about the Middle Ages from the Fall of Rome to the Renaissance with associated map work
• Making and studying maps of our neighborhood, town, city, county, state, region, country and world
• American History including but not limited to: the Constitution, the War of 1812, Western Expansion, The Civil War, Immigration, and Civil Rights
• Learn about various notable Americans

Science

• Earth science, geology
• Space
• Native plants of Northwestern Pennsylvania
• Native animals of Northwestern Pennsylvania, including birdwatching
• Basics of nutrition
• Prominent names in Science

Civics

• Read and discuss current events as are appropriate
• Study holidays and festivals

Physical Education

• Daily active play, both structured and unstructured
• Swimming

Music

• Exposure to various styles of music
• Singing in groups and alone
• Exposure to US folk songs
• Learn to identify various music instruments by sight and sound
• Read biographiesj of various notable composers
• Beginning piano lessons
• Learn about pitch and scale

Art

• Continued use of various media for creative visual expression
• Observe and discuss various works of art from books and visits to museums
• Learn about various artists and their works

Safety

• Fire safety
• Kitchen safety
• Bicycle safety

March 2
Brain Quest consonant clusters
Read aloud: "Purple Pickle Juice"
Read about Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors in Story of the World
Read an overview of the human body in R.E.A.L Science Odyssey

March 3

Read "As You Like It" from Beautful Stories from Shakespeare for Children
SOTW mapwork on the route the Israelites took
Which Way USA? Texas
 Math Mammoth subtraction
Brain Quest plural nouns

March 4

Math Mammoth - adding double digit numbers
Read aloud 'Fox All Week"
Art - drew animals from a 'learn to draw' book
Read about cells in "My First Human Body Encyclopedia"
Which Way USA? Texas
"The Little Man in the Map": AR, LA, OK, TX

I've been sick with an ear infection so studies have been a little lighter than usual.

February 2011 (23 days)

History:  Read biographies of Cleopatra, King Tut, Nefertiti.  Added them to a timeline
Learned about cuneiform, hieroglyphs, Mesopotamia, mummies, pyramids
Made a model of a pyramid.
Learned about Sargon and Akkadia.
Discussed military dictatorship
Watched video online about mummification
Learned about Abraham and the Jewish people

Science:  Discussed living vs. non-living
Animal cells vs. plant cells
Made bubble gum
Watched video on animal intelligence
Studied and egg with a magnifying glass and identified the chalaza, yolk, white, blastocyst and holes in the shell
Watched video on wild parrots in the U.S.
Nature study included: wren, robin, grackle, pinecones

Geography:  Identifying Egypt and Sumer, the Tigris and Euphrates, the ancient city of Kish, on a map.
Worked on "Which Way USA?" Texas
Started memorizing the Midwest states with "The Little Man in the Map"

Math:  review of January's concepts
Telling time on the hour and half hour
Properties of shapes; triangles, rectangles, squares and quadrilaterals, including vertices
Measuring in inches and centimeters.
Counting with pennies and nickels.
Subtraction

Reading and Language Arts:  Continued to work on reading proficiency by reading aloud and being read to daily. (See book list.)
Nouns; including common and proper.  Capital letters on proper nouns.  Consonant blends and clusters, digraphs, spelling short vowel words.  Handwriting practice from "Handwriting Without Tears".

Latin:  Learned the words for; mother, father, sister, brother, girl, boy, man, woman, chair, table, pencil, book.

Art: Recognizing and copying lines. Painting with acrylics and water colors; drawing with crayons, pencils and oil pastels.  Made a paper version of the Rosetta stone, made a Sumerian seal from clay.  Learned about warm and cool colors in Monet's "Tulips in Holland" and drew with warm and cool colors.  Made masks and swords from construction paper.

March 1

Math Mammoth pg 69-70 subtraction
BrainQuest consonant clusters
worked on memorizing the Midwest states
Story of the World chapter 6 "The Jewish People"
Shakespeare for children "The Tempest"

Feb. 28

Watched "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill"
Brain Quest workbook - digraphs and consonant clusters
BQ workbook - spelling words with short vowels
Read "Marley and the Runaway Pumpkin" aloud
Math Mammoth sheet on subtraction
looked at a dog food crumb and a feather under the microscope
Read 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' from "Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare for Children".

Saturday Feb 26 and Sunday Feb 27:

took a nature walk, collected pinecones and brought them home to look more closely at them
watched a video on mummification
used her new microscope and looked at a fruit fly, a bee's leg and a dragonfly wing
did a puzzle on ocean creatures, identified each creature
made a mask and sword out of construction paper
read the first chapter of The Burgess Bird Book for Children
looked up the wren, listened to it's call online
read The Golden Sandal, A Cinderella Story from the Middle East
went bowling
went swimming

Today Flora sat in her fort in the living room and wrote 6 questions she'd ask an alien if she met one.  They are:

1. Who is your friend is it in (an) alien?

2. What dose (does) your pets eat?

3. Where dose your pets eat?

4. Why dose alien cats eat that?

5. When it's bedtime what dose your cats do?

6. How dose a cat stay up so late?

Her cat obsession is now documented!

What we've done 2/25:

-counted in pennies and nickels
-read about warm and cool colors, looked at Tulips in Holland by Monet and A Study in Black and Grey by Whistler; drew a picture of a cat in warm colors and another in cool
- Read from 50 Famous Stories Retold  "King Alfred and the Cakes"
- did a workbook page on capitalizing proper nouns
- did a workbook page on consonant blends
- read about and then colored a picture of a wren
- read chapt 1 in The Burgess Bird Book for Children
-made a Sumerian seal from air drying clay
- did 4 puzzles from Which Way USA? Texas

all before 10am!  Flora woke up at 6am today and was rarin' to go.

What we did on Feb 23, 2011:

Spelling Pathways Lesson 22
First Language Lessons Lesson 5
Read the last chapter of Kingsley's "Perseus"
Practiced measuring in inches
Studied an egg and observed and named the holes in the shell, the shell, the white, chalaza, blastocyst, yolk
Starfall phonics
Watched a Nova show on venom

Feb 24, 2011

Proper nouns, Capital letters
Latin - learned the words for pencil, chair, table and book
Read from "Japanese Fairy Tales"
Practiced measuring in inches
Reviewed telling time
Labeled a map; Tigris, Euphrates, Mesopotamia, Akkadia, Kish
Colored a picture of Sargon
Watched our tarantula spin a web and drew a picture
Played Wildcraft
Played Chess
Read "The Little Man in the Map" and learned to identify the midwest states

Wow, have I been making things more complicated than they need to be!

I visited a homeschooling friend yesterday and saw their logs from last year.  They were so nice, and so much less involved than what I've been doing.

I woke up today and did a log for January.  Here's what it says:

January 2011  (25 days)

Math: Did pages 1-45 in Math Mammoth 1B.  Topics included: place value, counting in groups of 10, naming and writing numbers, rounding to the nearest 10, greater than or less than, skip counting, even or odd numbers.

Science and Nature Study: Studied the following birds;  mourning dove, pileated woodpecker, crow, ruby throated hummingbird, blue jay, barn owl, common grackle, rock dove.
Grew samples of bacteria in a petri dish.
Watched National Geographic The Great Panda.

History: Read Story of the World chapters 1-4.  Topics included: What is Archeology?  What is History?, The First Nomads, The First Egyptians.  Made a model of the Nile River.  Studied King Narmer and the unification of upper and lower Egypt.  Continued to work on our notebook timeline.  Read Who was Queen Elizabeth?. 

Geography:   Mapwork including: identified the Fertile Crescent and the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, identifying Egypt, the Nile, and Africa.  Coloring pages on the above areas.

Art:  Did cave paintings.  Coloring pages on Egypt.  Coloring pages on the Fertile Crescent.  Drew pictures of native birds.  Drew and played with clay independently.

Reading:  Continued to work on reading proficiency by reading various books (see booklist) both aloud and independently.  Read to daily.

Latin:  Learned Latin for the following words; hello, goodbye, students, teacher, what is your name, my name is, how are you, I am, well, terrible, and great.

Music: Daily exposure to various styles of music.  Visited The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Phys Ed.: Played outside, jumped on mini trampoline, and played fitness games on the Wii.

How's it look?

Ancient Egyptian Lapbook

We made an Ancient Egyptian lapbook.  The topics include a map of Egypt, Flora's name in hieroglyphs, the tombs, making a mummy, making papyrus and the gods and goddesses.

I can't seem to post pictures here, or I would.  I am sure I will figure it out someday. :)  In the meantime, you can see them at our flickr account.

Lapbooking

I asked Flora if she would like to move onto the next chapter, or if she'd rather learn more about ancient Egypt.  She was very clear she wants to keep learning about Egypt. I have a couple more activities planned.

First we are going to mummify an apple.  SOTW has the directions on mummifying a whole chicken, but that seems like overkill to me.  I had originally planned to do the chicken, but... I think an apple will do just fine.

We are also doing an Egypt themed lapbook.  Flora loves lapbooks, and she still looks through the one we did when she was 5 on the 5 senses.

Lastly, we plan to make Ancient Egyptian Fig Cakes.

We have other fun things planned for this weekend - tomorrow we are going tubing!

In history, eventually we will have to move onto Sumer.  I am looking for lapbooking ideas for that now.

Yesterday we finished Aliki's Gods and Goddess of Olympus so today we started Charles Kingsley's The Heroes (or Greek Fairytales for my Children).  It is a beautiful book that we found at a junk shop for a quarter, and we are both completely enjoying it.  Today we read about Perseus and his mother, Danae, and how they were thrown into the ocean by Danae's father.  They survived thanks to the kindness of Halcyon, a bird that keeps the ocean calm.  Flora drew a picture of Perseus and Danae floating in the ocean and Halcyon flying overhead.

We are still enjoying Math Mammoth very much, and thanks to it's simple and straight forward teaching Flora can now tell time.  It's very exciting for her (and I).  We learned about the minute hand today and she got it in a snap.

Another program we are enjoying is First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind.  It's a simple, scripted program of memorization, copywork, worksheets and narration.  Today she learned about common nouns.

Flora's first science lab was today; learning the characteristics of living things and discerning what is alive and what is not out of a rock, plant, person and bicycle.  We are using R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey; Life Science and it has an incredible "try before you buy" offer that completely sold me on this science book.

Finally, she has been learning to play chess with her father and she really enjoys it.  I am hoping she will learn to play well enough to join the homeschooling chess club in the next month.  She pretty much has all the moves memorized.

Our Classical Education Schedule

Spelling:  10-15 minutes daily of Modern Curriculum Press' Spelling Workout

Grammar: 15-20 minutes daily of "First Language Lessons For The Well Trained Mind"

Reading: 30-60 minutes daily of reading myths and stories from ancient times, followed by her narrating a few sentences and illustrating them

Writing: 10-15 minutes of "Handwriting Without Tears"

Math: 30-60 minutes of working in "Math Mammoth 1B"

History and Geography: 1hr/ 3 days a week from "Story of the World"
Day 1: Read the text and she narrates and illustrates what we've read
Day 2: Map work and the coloring page, any additional books on the topic
Day 3: Activity

Biography:  20 minutes daily, from various sources
Read a short biography of a notable person from ancient times, narrate it back to me and illustrate. Then add that name to our timeline.

Science:  60-90 minutes/2 days a week from "R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey Life Sciences"

Nature Study: 20 minutes daily, various sources.
Read about a bird, tree or plant from our area, do a narration and illustrate.  If it's a tree or a plant find an example and paste a leaf in the nature notebook.

Latin:  20 minutes/2x weekly from "Song School Latin"

We've been following this for a few weeks now and it's been working out well.  It took us a long time to tweak things but I think we finally found what worked for us.

A few things have changed.   One was science.  I didn't like just doing an animal a week, it felt like twaddle.  Now we've switched to a science curriculum that she really enjoys.

She is still doing Mango Languages Japanese now and then.

Well, it's the end of our first week of "The Well Trained Mind" and I would call it a success.  Flora asks to homeschool everyday, and I feel she learned a lot this week.

For example, she thoroughly exhausted the Panda topic.  Ask her anything.  :)

The animal for next week will be the rabbit, since she has bunny fever and we will likely be adopting a rabbit soon.

Tomorrow Song School Latin should arrive!

I was at the homeschooling store (actually a teacher store) and I asked if they have any Latin resources.  The woman working there looked at me with a flat look and said, "Why, is she going to be a priest?".  Then she went on to tell me that Latin is only for readers and since she's too young to read (she's 7! and she reads!) there's no point.  I said, "I will buy it online, thanks."

There was another person working there, an adorable nerdy guy, and he was a lot of help.  We bought an abacus, tangrams, unifix cubes and a number line.  He said, "Let me guess, 1st grade Math?"  :)

Flora and I have been doing Mango Languages on our library's website.  It is so much fun!  After 3 lessons this is what Flora has memorized:

samui - cold
atsui - hot
ii - fine
desu - is
ne'e - isn't it?
kashiki - view
Konnichiwa - Good Afternoon
Konbanwa - Good Evening
 Ahayoo Gozaimasu - Good Morning
tenki - weather

She can easily assemble sentences like, "Ii tenki desu, ne'e?" - It's fine weather, isn't it?

It's really fun and exciting to hear how fast she is picking this up.

Today we:

- learned about nouns
- read about barn owls and she narrated, "He is like a ghost.  He eats small animals.  Mamas lay 5-8 eggs." (I love that, it's like a poem.)  She drew a picture of a barn owl.
-  did a spelling page
- read "Matilda Who Told Lies, and was Burned To Death" by Hilaire Belloc and she copied the line, "Matilda, and the house, were burned."  (She loved it, it was ghastly and right up her alley.)
- watched "Pandas In The Wild", a Smithsonian documentary
- read another chapter of "Who Was Queen Elizabeth?" and she narrated, "Every Summer Elizabeth traveled to the country because London was smelly, stinky and not good.  She traveled with 400 wagons and 2500 horses. Whitehall Castle was where she lived.  It was leaky and wet and had no windows. Many servants helped Elizabeth.  Elizabeth had no toilet."
-read "It Was Disgusting And We Ate It" and "Early Humans"
-skipped Math again, until this evening when my husband can help with it.  :)

Last night, while I was out with my friends, Flora and her father took 4 bacteria samples and swabbed them into petri dishes.  She decided to take them from her toes, her mouth, the light switch, and the cat's paw.

Homeschooling today, minus Math and History, took 1 hour.  I expect with those two subjects it will take 2 hours.

Today I read to her about Blue Jays and she narrated back to me and drew a picture.  This is what she narrated, "Blue Jays live in our evergreen tree.   They eat nuts, berries, bugs and seeds. They say, 'Jay Jay'."

She did a page in Spelling on words that begin and end with M.

We learned about nouns in Grammar.

She copied the line, "When the earth is turned in Spring the worms are fat as anything." from the poem "The Worms" by Ralph Bergengren. This was for Poetry and Writing.

For science we read about pandas and she narrated to me, "Red pandas look like raccoons, cats and foxes.  Pandas eat only bamboo.  Mama pandas have only one or two babies at a time.  Their bamboo is being cut down."

We read chapter 3 of the biography, "Who Was Queen Elizabeth?" and she narrated, "Mary put her sister Elizabeth in jail.  Elizabeth thought she was die in jail.  Mary wanted only a Catholic ruler to follow her and she burned non-Catholics to death.   Elizabeth was only 19 in jail.   Mary died when Elizabeth was 25 and Elizabeth became queen.  The tower of London was a prison but it once held a zoo too.  Now jewels are kept there."

We will watch a documentary on pandas shortly, and do more "fun" reading as well as some drawing together.  She will do Math tonight with her father. :D

Hard to believe I ignored this blog for 6 months.


We are doing our own version of classical education at home.  Our schedule looks like this:

 Mon and Wed:

Spelling, Grammar, Writing, Spelling, Math, History (Story of the World), Art

 Tues and Thurs:

 Spelling, Grammar, Writing, Spelling. Math, Science

Fridays:

Outings, experiments, Story of the World activities, crafts, documentaries

We are also learning Japanese with Mango languages (so fun!) and reading our library books every week.  Once a week, usually Sunday, we go to the library and get one of each: a history book, a science book, a biography, a how to book, an art or music book, a book of poetry and a story book.  She can also get whatever else she would like to get, that is the minimum.

To be precise we are currently doing the following this week:

Science - we learn about one animal a week from The Kingfisher Animal Encyclopedia, in depth.  This week we are doing Pandas and we have 2 documentaries on pandas and several books.   Also, we draw one bird a week from our bird book.  I am concentrating on birds we see locally.

History - we have just started "Story of the World".  This week we will read about early man and we have some additional books. 
 
Spelling/Grammar - we have a workbook for each

Reading - I read to her at least an hour a day and she narrates back what I've read.

Poetry - I read a poem to her daily and she copies a portion of it for her handwriting exercise

Math - We are working through a workbook.

Biography - I am reading a biography of Elizabeth I to her daily.

Art - We have a library book on art we will read this week

Crafts - She wanted to work on a "how to draw" book this week.

I will post in more detail each day, I hope. :)

I am hoping to order Sing School Latin this week, as I really want to start teaching Latin.  However we are enjoying Japanese so much and I am not sure if it will muddy the water to learn two languages at the same time.