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.