ivey league academy: first grade!

Caleb decided to go ahead and start first grade this week!  Which is ironic since around here, this week was spring break for all of the public school students.  :)

Here's our curriculum choices for this year:

Reading:  Hooked on Phonics, 2nd grade level

Spelling and Vocabulary:  Horizons Spelling and Vocabulary 1, Word-a-Day Grade 1 by Evan-Moor

Handwriting:  Handwriting Without Tears, 1st grade level (already in progress from kindergarten)

 Math: Horizons Math 1

Bible: Growing With Jesus devotional plus additional Bible stories

Science:  Magic School Bus Curriculum (found here) plus additional activities and experiments

Social Studies:  Our 50 States

Read-Aloud:  I read a chapter book to Caleb...we strive for a chapter a day.  Our current read is Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes.

This week:

Caleb did great even with the obvious differences in this years' courseload.  While I wanted to get him used to learning for longer periods of time, I also didn't want to burn him out!  I also tried to work in different kinds of activities to keep him engaged.

Reading: Caleb read through all 8 1st grade HOP books throughout the course of the week.  We mostly did this because he didn't read very much during the few weeks we took off, plus we were adding in different subjects so I didn't want to spring more difficult words on him too!  We also played sight words games like Snakes and Ladders (found here) and a sight word snail game (The Measured Mom).

Spelling and Vocabulary:  Caleb wasn't sure about this at first, but he quickly caught on.  The spelling workbook has built-in pre-tests at the start of every week to see what the student already knows, but we skipped that part (it seemed unnecessary since I thought it would stress him out to start with a "test" and we were going to work with all of the spelling words during the week anyway).  We completed different activities with a set of words each day, such as choosing the correct word to fill in a blank or using some of the words to write a sentence, then on Friday he took a test.  He did very well considering it was his first!  It was encouraging to see that the mistakes he did make were slight, and that he is still aware of letter sounds.

For a word-a-day vocabulary lessons, he learned a new word for four days in a row, which we would put on our word wall.  He knew three out of the four words for this week, but obviously they will get more challenging!  This week his words were "crunch," "gentle," "odor," and "dash."

On Friday, we did a review where I read him the questions and the choices and he'd fill in the right answer.  He also made a sentence using the word "odor."  I helped him with the long word at the end plus sounding out the little words before that, but the rest was all him!

Math:  I was glad to see that Caleb's first grade math curriculum had a built-in review with the first week or two of lessons.  Since we used the same curriculum for kindergarten, he found this first week to be pretty easy and straightforward.

Bible:  We read a devotional a day, and worked in stories about Elijah, Peter, and David to illustrate the lesson.

Read-Aloud:  We read four chapters of Ginger Pye.  We didn't get to it our first day but worked it in the other days.  Caleb likes the story even though the chapters are longer than he's used to listening to!

Science:  I used the free printable Magic School Bus curriculum for its schedule and the way it already has the episodes divided into teachable units.  For now we're skipping their unit on dinosaurs.  I fully intend to teach Caleb both the creationist and evolutionist approaches so he is able to understand and defend what he believes in, but at this age it seems easier to skip the dinosaur stuff for now.  We'll pick it up in a year or two.
The first unit we're doing is space.  This first week was about the solar system and planets.  We watched the episode "The Magic School Bus Gets Lost in Space" even though some of the information about Pluto is outdated (mainly, they still call it a planet and say we don't really know what the surface looks like because it's so far away).  I like the series, though, because it keeps Caleb's attention, and at the end of each one they go through what stuff was made up for the show and what's real (for instance, they admit that there's no way even a flying school bus could make it to all of the planets in one day).  We did look up present-day photos and facts about each planet on the internet to get more up-to-date information. We did a few activities after that, including an orbit model, a planet order worksheet, and an "If I discovered a planet" activity.  We also read a couple of space books we had in our homeschool library.

Social Studies: We started with Massachusetts this week.  We're using the book Our 50 States mostly as a guide of which states to do when, as well as a jumping-off point to find activities and books about each state.

Caleb colored a Massachusetts coloring page and constructed a Mayflower ship out of construction paper.  We checked out a couple of books at the library, plus used a Johnny Appleseed book from our homeschool library (turns out he was born in Massachusetts!).

Caleb also completed a Johnny Appleseed activity:

And finally, as a treat at the end of our week, we made Massachusett's official state dessert:  Boston Cream Pie!

All in all it was a successful week!  It helped give me an idea of what a typical school day will look like, as well as how to plan it.

Links:
Orbit Printable (More Time 2 Teach)
Planet Order Printable (not pictured) (Education.com)
If I Discovered a Planet Printable (Deceptively Educational)
State Map Coloring Pages (USA Printables)
Mayflower Ship Activity (Paging Supermom)
Johnny Appleseed Printable (Teachers Pay Teachers)
Boston Cream Pie Recipe (The Girl Who Ate Everything)

ivey league kindergarten: week in review

Reading:  We reviewed with yet another new Snakes & Ladders board, then Caleb successfully read the next story in his Hooked on Phonics book.

He also read another Hooked on Phonics book!

 He also learned words ending in -sk and -ft.

Math:  We continued in his Horizons kindergarten workbook; they threw more word problems at him but Caleb was able to deduce if he was supposed to add or subtract!  He also worked on putting groups of numbers in the correct order.  On Friday, we did a fun sorting and graphing activity with candy hearts.  There are lots of printable activities like this available online for free, but I went with the Sweet Tart hearts instead of the traditional conversation hearts because, well, they taste better!  Because of the swap, I had to make my own worksheet, but it was pretty easy.

Handwriting:  Caleb reviewed all capital letters and numbers this week in Handwriting Without Tears, and then continued on with lowercase c, o, s, v, and w.

You might notice his cute little mug of hot chocolate...and a rice bag around his neck!  This was on Tuesday, when there were flurries outside, so I let him take an emergency recess to play outside in the snow with his little brother.  They had fun but got pretty cold!

Bible:  We did more hands-on activities with our devotionals this week.  We talked about being a peacemaker (and how to be a good friend), not being jealous, thinking about Jesus, being satisfied with what we have (and what we're grateful for), and how to be a doer of the word (making good choices).

Read-Aloud:  We finished Winnie-the-Pooh and started The House at Pooh Corner the next day.  For his book report, Caleb chose to draw Piglet hiding in Kanga's pouch, which ended up being a rather uncomfortable ride!

Science:  We haven't done anything science-related in awhile, so I printed out a simple experiment where you hypothesize if a candy heart sinks or floats in water.  We both thought it would float, but I guess the Sweet Tart ones are heavier that they seem!

Links:
"Good Friend" Writing Prompt (The Weekly Hive)
Gratitude Scavenger Hunt (Let's Get Together)
I Can Listen to Stories printable (Kinder Craze)
Candy Heart Observations (Teachers Pay Teachers)

ivey league kindergarten: week in review

Reading:  We started out the week with a new "snakes & ladders" game board to review the words we learned last week.  Then we learned words that end in -nt, -nk, -st, and -sp.  I made up sentences to help Caleb see the words in context.  One day in particular, he requested sentences about Winnie-the-Pooh, so I did my best to oblige (while helping him with words like "hefflalump" and "rabbit").

Math:  We continued through his workbook and worked on subtracting and adding with a number line, place value, counting money, and identifying three-dimensional shapes.  We've also been doing more word problems.

Handwriting:  Caleb finished the kindergarten level of Handwriting Without Tears on Monday!

We continued on with the first grade workbook the next day.  I saw that it was mostly reviewing what he had already learned, only the boxes and lines they use as visual prompts are smaller and sometimes not even there.  I felt comfortable with Caleb moving on, and plan to supplement journal writing and other fun activities once he is officially in first grade.

Bible:   We weren't consistent with our devotional this week; I need to start planning better!  One day we learned how it's okay to feel angry, but we should be slow to get angry.  Caleb and I talked it through, and we agreed that he usually doesn't act out his anger.  I told him that was great, since yelling and slamming doors and hitting people isn't what God wants us to do.  But He also doesn't want us to stuff our anger down inside and let it make us feel even worse, which I think is what Caleb really does (he takes after his mom!).  Caleb then drew a picture of what he thinks he looks like when he's angry...he included an angry Micah too.  Notice he made their faces look pretty sad, so I think he relates more to the quiet kind of anger that may come across as being sad.  And I'm not sure why he gave Micah blue hair.  Maybe that's why Micah's angry?  :)

Read-Aloud:  We continued reading Winnie-the-Pooh.  We're almost done and we might read The House at Pooh Corner next!

Groundhog Day:  On Tuesday, we did some extra activities for Groundhog Day.  I found a couple of free printables online; first Caleb did a simple "color by addition" activity.  This was good math practice since he's still learning how to do simple sums in his head.

Then we filled in a prediction sheet.  I had Caleb write out some of it (while dictating the spelling for the words he wanted to write), then he told me what he wanted me to write down for the good and bad things for each season.

I also let Caleb watch the Wild Kratts episode featuring groundhogs on Netflix once we were done.  :)

Links:
Groundhog Math Activity (Teachers Pay Teachers)
Groundhog Prediction Activity (Teachers Pay Teachers)

ivey league kindergarten: weeks in review!

Here's what we did over the last couple of weeks...

We took MLK Day off since that's a typical school holiday, plus Daddy was home that day too!

Reading:  This week I printed out another "snakes & ladders" game board with some of the words we had learned during the previous week.  We played with this board a few times during the week since Caleb seems to learn well with games.

In our Hooked on Phonics workbook, we continued to work on -ng words.  I also found a few readers at the library that used similar words.

During the second week, we moved on in the workbook to -amp, -imp, and -ump words, as well as words ending in -nd.  Caleb earned a total of 3 stars on his reading chart for reading the accompanying stories and books!

Math:  We continued on in his math workbook, which introduced more skip-counting as well as subtracting without a number line.

Handwriting Without Tears:  During these two weeks, Caleb finished all of the lowercase letters.  The workbook also had more word and sentence copywork, and introduced the basics of punctuation.

The workbook ends with number practice.  Caleb already learned how to write his numbers via our math curriculum, but we decided to work on it some more since he still has some difficulty with 8's in particular (he still writes an 8 as two circles on top of each other, rather than the standard "start with an S" method).  My one complaint with HWT....we were not fans of how they taught a few of the numbers, mainly 2's and 6's.  Caleb actually did worse with the 2's when he tried to copy them using the HWT method, so I finally told him to ignore it and write 2 as he was used to doing.  I also helped him when we got to 6, which almost looked like a lowercase "b"....I gave him a different starting point in the box, told him to write as though he was writing a zero, and then loop it in the center. 

Caleb was frustrated when we got to 8, but I had him practice on his Doodle Pro first.  By his third or fourth 8 he did much better!  We purposely did handwriting before math that day, so he was able to move on to math and practice his 8's in his math workbook as he solved addition and subtraction problems.

Bible:  We continued doing our Growing With Jesus devotional most days.

Read-Aloud:  We finished Stuart Little.  I don't think either of us were big fans of this book.  There are some funny parts, but it's slow-moving at times and the end is uncertain.  Caleb wanted more closure!  We started A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh after that.  I had found that and The House at Pooh Corner at Goodwill awhile back; both boys liked the movie so Caleb was interested to see what the book was like.  Tigger isn't in this first one, but so far it's been enjoyable.

Caleb has around 30 math lessons left, and only a few pages left in his handwriting workbook.  We'll probably do extra handwriting practice until he officially starts first grade in a couple of months (though I have the first grade HWT workbook as well), only because there are times when he forgets how to form a letter correctly and I want to make sure he has it down before we get into spelling and other curriculum later on.