...or third trimester.... or whatever.
It was a mess. Chinese New Year vacation and a passport-run (+vacation) for our family to Hong Kong. Then we learned the kids' brilliant Chinese teacher didn't yet feel ready to return to teaching from maternity leave (her baby was 3 months. I totally get this! But we didn't expect it and we were unprepared.) By the Lord's grace, we had a sweet teacher step in for about 6 weeks of Chinese and Math with our big two (John and Vivi were finishing well at their local Chinese Christian preschool.) And by the end of March we were mad with moving.... our hose in total disarray, good-byes every day with dear friends. All of April was driving across China, hoteling while we house-hunted, and then more moving/dodging repairs/cleaning/unpacking.
So by the beginning of May I think we did a bit of homeschooling again... But right now, honestly, I can't think of what it was! Language arts in their Scott Foresman workbooks, copy work on Bible verses, math worksheets printed off the web (their normal math is to go through a Chinese textbook so I just kept running with the next lessons in a format I could explain to them!). We barely touched science, except for reading aloud nature stories (easy science exposure from the Christian Liberty Nature Readers.)
I know that I skipped doing any more history. We started the year doing ancient history with Tapestry of Grace and I LOVE ToG. But for a dozen other reasons (Grandma and Grandpa's visit at Thanksgiving time would be a great time to study America and then we learned we would be moving to join up for school with a cool Canadian family, so this was our chance to grab for America lessons!), we switched to a unit of American history. The Best Read Aloud for American history that we enjoyed- 40 Acres and A Mule. 5 star. For the third trimester of Isaiah's 2nd grade year and Marian's 1st grade year... yea, no history at all. I think they're still breathing though...
We memorized Ephesians 6:10-18, the Armor of God. And we really need to revisit Kevin Hartnett's unbeatable poem Honored be Thy Wondrous Word to keep those two passages parallel in our hearts and minds. Lord may your Word be sharp in our souls, bearing fruit for your glory in and out of our lives!
Our kids have been busy bees this summer (since those last few months were so scattery) and they've both finished and gone beyond their math textbooks for grade level and they've been working on more Hanzi and pinyin still for Chinese. It's super cool to see how excited and motivated our kids are to study the other language around us here. Their pumped and ready to aim for being trilingual kiddos. Isaiah's set his goal for Christmas, to be able to converse freely with all his local friends :)
This write-up doesn't encourage me so much... so maybe I'll just end it quick. I'm really looking forward to our next semester though! It is not going to be at all what we imagined... but it's going to be good. I trust the Lord for that...
Showing posts with label 2nd grade. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2nd grade. Show all posts
Friday, August 8, 2014
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Unit One Celebration
Oi! I had high hopes of a beautiful post here with pictures and details of the yummy brunch we had a few weekends ago to celebrate Isaiah and Marian's first unit of 2nd and 1st grade homeschool this year. That dream post isn't happening....
Just for my own record-keeping, here's a quick list of what they learned... some of which showed up at the "museum" on the dining room table or in a sweet performance for Grandma and Grandpa and two "uncles" that our kids also love.
Psalm 135- Isaiah and Marian recite it beautifully together. A perfect passage to memorize to remember the Lord's sovereignty over Egypt, all the idols of human hands...
My Shadow- recited by Marian, Ships Sail on the Ocean- recited by Isaiah
Landform map- we made it out of salt dough in August I think.... it's pretty crumbly now!
Science art book- we studied creation, land (continents) and water (oceans and irrigation and canals), our bodies- major organs, five senses, and we began studying the animal world with insects....
Tirzah book report. My Help, song from Michael Card.... like the song of hope that Tirzah ends the book with.
Seder Dinner poster, 10 commandments and Ark of the Covenant
Ziggurat and pyramid clay models
Sumerian Cylinder Seal (out of a toilet paper roll)
Ancient peoples of the world book- pages for Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Egyptians, Sumerians, Harrapan, Ancient Chinese, Ancient Americans (3 groups- Mound Builder, Inuits, and Maya)
History timeline, Veritas Press and Classical Conversation cards, creation through ancient Americas, except Greece which we will do in our third trimester
I read several books aloud to them (including their main book report book, Tirzah- a spectacular book!- but now I don't even remember all of them.... Brave Keepers, Little Pear, Caddie Woodlawn, Five Children and It, A Door in the Wall, and I think there were more... (The kids fell in love earlier this year with Dahl's James and the Giant Peach and especially Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Matt also reads to the kids in the evening... finished all the Chronicles of Narnia earlier this fall and now they're into the second book in Andrew Peterson's The Wingfeather Saga.
Isaiah and Marian each also read to me every (or near every) day... Isaiah: Boxcar Children 1-2, Bears on Hemlock Mountain, Eat my Dust: Henry Ford's First Race, and several more...
Marian: Progressive Phonics #8-11 plus several short readers at home. (I do love Progressive Phonics for the short, focused, humorous lessons.... and it's free! 5 stars!)
They didn't report on or share their math b/c their textbooks are all in Chinese and I can't help them present it very well! But I love the Chinese materials they've been studying. Both our kids run with math lessons quite quickly and easily.... such a grace. They both love doing "number games" as we call them, problems in their heads. I'm writing this a few weeks into our second unit, when we are using Math Mammoth in English, and they are both flying fast through the lessons one year ahead of their grade level.
May the Lord be praised in their continued growth, their character development and their love for learning..... all by His help and for His glory.
Just for my own record-keeping, here's a quick list of what they learned... some of which showed up at the "museum" on the dining room table or in a sweet performance for Grandma and Grandpa and two "uncles" that our kids also love.
Psalm 135- Isaiah and Marian recite it beautifully together. A perfect passage to memorize to remember the Lord's sovereignty over Egypt, all the idols of human hands...
My Shadow- recited by Marian, Ships Sail on the Ocean- recited by Isaiah
Landform map- we made it out of salt dough in August I think.... it's pretty crumbly now!
Science art book- we studied creation, land (continents) and water (oceans and irrigation and canals), our bodies- major organs, five senses, and we began studying the animal world with insects....
Tirzah book report. My Help, song from Michael Card.... like the song of hope that Tirzah ends the book with.
Seder Dinner poster, 10 commandments and Ark of the Covenant
Ziggurat and pyramid clay models
Sumerian Cylinder Seal (out of a toilet paper roll)
Ancient peoples of the world book- pages for Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Egyptians, Sumerians, Harrapan, Ancient Chinese, Ancient Americans (3 groups- Mound Builder, Inuits, and Maya)
History timeline, Veritas Press and Classical Conversation cards, creation through ancient Americas, except Greece which we will do in our third trimester
I read several books aloud to them (including their main book report book, Tirzah- a spectacular book!- but now I don't even remember all of them.... Brave Keepers, Little Pear, Caddie Woodlawn, Five Children and It, A Door in the Wall, and I think there were more... (The kids fell in love earlier this year with Dahl's James and the Giant Peach and especially Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Matt also reads to the kids in the evening... finished all the Chronicles of Narnia earlier this fall and now they're into the second book in Andrew Peterson's The Wingfeather Saga.
Isaiah and Marian each also read to me every (or near every) day... Isaiah: Boxcar Children 1-2, Bears on Hemlock Mountain, Eat my Dust: Henry Ford's First Race, and several more...
Marian: Progressive Phonics #8-11 plus several short readers at home. (I do love Progressive Phonics for the short, focused, humorous lessons.... and it's free! 5 stars!)
They didn't report on or share their math b/c their textbooks are all in Chinese and I can't help them present it very well! But I love the Chinese materials they've been studying. Both our kids run with math lessons quite quickly and easily.... such a grace. They both love doing "number games" as we call them, problems in their heads. I'm writing this a few weeks into our second unit, when we are using Math Mammoth in English, and they are both flying fast through the lessons one year ahead of their grade level.
May the Lord be praised in their continued growth, their character development and their love for learning..... all by His help and for His glory.
Saturday, November 2, 2013
Mid-Year Adjustment
Our favorite Chinese teacher, who comes and teaches our kids Chinese and Math 4 days a week, has just left on maternity leave. We look forward to news of her baby and to having her back in Feb/ March! For now, I'm excited for this natural breaking point to adjust our homeschool plan too. (Man! I find myself adjusting my plans pretty often..... I am hoping that I can settle on a thicker pattern for us, that leaves less wiggle room, soon!)
So we took a stab at Tapestry of Grace and I love it. I love the information, the heart, the resources they suggest for me to gather. I look forward to using it with all of our kids when we've got upper grammar and lower grammar students together.
But for now, while our oldest two are in 2nd and 1st grade, I'm adjusting a bit again! So far for ToG I had skipped about 85-90% of the info they present and I just don't need to have that much stuff before me yet! Mostly I'm just finding ways to simply what I've already been doing for my sake.... I think you will tell from our Unit 1 Celebration post (coming soon) that the kids have loved their first trimester (we did ToG Year one + the first three weeks of Unit 2 and called it our first trimester.)
For Bible: The BEST help here: the Fighter Verse app on ipad. We may work on Luke 2 for the Christmas season and we can enter it there and the kids can do typing games to remember the verses....
History/Geography, for our "Maternity Trimester" we will be going through Simply Charlotte Masons' Stories of America and reading some great read alouds and making a timeline of American history as well as studying some geography of North America. I imagine that in the last trimester we will go back to the ancient world, using Story of the World... and all the supplemental reads I already bought from the Tapestry recommended list. We try to tie lots of Reading Aloud usually to our history topic.... but occasionally our read aloud is pure fiction. Regardless, I aim for at least 2 hours a day of reading aloud/ reading together.
For Language Arts, again: keep it simple. Copywork from Emma Serl's Primary Language Lessons and from Guesthollow.com and walkingbytheway.com and R L Stevenson's poems and the Bible, of course! Here's the golden (free and fantastic!) find.... Scott Foresman's Language Arts workbooks for our grammar slot. (just replace the number in the link at the top with your grade K- 6). I love how these workbooks very clearly aim to help kids write well. Yes, please! We will also do one day a week of writing a letter, and one day of a journal prompt.
For Math: Math Mammoth.... so good for us, downloadable and excellent and inexpensive. May supplement with Khan Academy if I find he's got lower level stuff?
For Science: We've been having a good time doing our own overview of our world.... I wrote up a list of topics (Our Creator God, Creation, Land and Water, then... our Bodies- overview of organs and systems... next we're onto the classifications of living animals and then solar system). The internet worksheets and a few readers we've been graciously given are abundant enough.... but I also just purchased 106 Days of Creation Studies from Simply Charlotte Mason as another help.
~Honor~ All of us need a time for this! Time to focus and discuss Honor, Character, Manners, Habits... How loving Christ transforms our lives.... Having time for this with my kids is one of the greatest reasons I want to homeschool.
Extra! I'm scheduling it in this time.... Friday mornings before lunch might be knitting, potholder weaving, baking, hopefully wood whittling, or even just ipad app time.... we have some great apps but we often go a week or so without playing at all! Once a week is completely appropriate... especially considering how excellent, helpful these are!
Our kids will hopefully get Chinese story time with some neighbors at least once or twice a week while their teacher is gone. And they attend a local art class Thurs pm which is a major highlight of their weeks. Tuesday afternoons is also "sports class" with several friends.... and Daddy is a helper. Super Stud Dad! They also have a fantastic teacher for piano who comes to our home once a week (and practice daily too). May all of their learning and all of our lives together be sweet and full for your purposes and your glory, God!
So we took a stab at Tapestry of Grace and I love it. I love the information, the heart, the resources they suggest for me to gather. I look forward to using it with all of our kids when we've got upper grammar and lower grammar students together.
But for now, while our oldest two are in 2nd and 1st grade, I'm adjusting a bit again! So far for ToG I had skipped about 85-90% of the info they present and I just don't need to have that much stuff before me yet! Mostly I'm just finding ways to simply what I've already been doing for my sake.... I think you will tell from our Unit 1 Celebration post (coming soon) that the kids have loved their first trimester (we did ToG Year one + the first three weeks of Unit 2 and called it our first trimester.)
For Bible: The BEST help here: the Fighter Verse app on ipad. We may work on Luke 2 for the Christmas season and we can enter it there and the kids can do typing games to remember the verses....
History/Geography, for our "Maternity Trimester" we will be going through Simply Charlotte Masons' Stories of America and reading some great read alouds and making a timeline of American history as well as studying some geography of North America. I imagine that in the last trimester we will go back to the ancient world, using Story of the World... and all the supplemental reads I already bought from the Tapestry recommended list. We try to tie lots of Reading Aloud usually to our history topic.... but occasionally our read aloud is pure fiction. Regardless, I aim for at least 2 hours a day of reading aloud/ reading together.
For Language Arts, again: keep it simple. Copywork from Emma Serl's Primary Language Lessons and from Guesthollow.com and walkingbytheway.com and R L Stevenson's poems and the Bible, of course! Here's the golden (free and fantastic!) find.... Scott Foresman's Language Arts workbooks for our grammar slot. (just replace the number in the link at the top with your grade K- 6). I love how these workbooks very clearly aim to help kids write well. Yes, please! We will also do one day a week of writing a letter, and one day of a journal prompt.
For Math: Math Mammoth.... so good for us, downloadable and excellent and inexpensive. May supplement with Khan Academy if I find he's got lower level stuff?
For Science: We've been having a good time doing our own overview of our world.... I wrote up a list of topics (Our Creator God, Creation, Land and Water, then... our Bodies- overview of organs and systems... next we're onto the classifications of living animals and then solar system). The internet worksheets and a few readers we've been graciously given are abundant enough.... but I also just purchased 106 Days of Creation Studies from Simply Charlotte Mason as another help.
~Honor~ All of us need a time for this! Time to focus and discuss Honor, Character, Manners, Habits... How loving Christ transforms our lives.... Having time for this with my kids is one of the greatest reasons I want to homeschool.
Extra! I'm scheduling it in this time.... Friday mornings before lunch might be knitting, potholder weaving, baking, hopefully wood whittling, or even just ipad app time.... we have some great apps but we often go a week or so without playing at all! Once a week is completely appropriate... especially considering how excellent, helpful these are!
Our kids will hopefully get Chinese story time with some neighbors at least once or twice a week while their teacher is gone. And they attend a local art class Thurs pm which is a major highlight of their weeks. Tuesday afternoons is also "sports class" with several friends.... and Daddy is a helper. Super Stud Dad! They also have a fantastic teacher for piano who comes to our home once a week (and practice daily too). May all of their learning and all of our lives together be sweet and full for your purposes and your glory, God!
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