Chalk Talk: Week One

This past week was a grand adventure in our household. Both M & T stated homeschool! It was everything I hoped for and wanted it to be - and then more. I could not be happier with the way this week unfolded. For the most part, I am following The Well-Trained Mind way of homeschooling. Meaning we will follow the trivim of learning, and right now both M & T are in the grammar stage (the beginning stage) so we are getting in on the ground floor.

I have grand ideas that I will update this blog at least weekly with an overview of our week (what we studied, things we found interesting, and projects we completed or field trips we went on) so that we'll have a nice way to look back on our year in school. However, I know that I'm more than likely to fall behind on that considering that the only time I realistically have to blog update now is at night after the kids have gone to bed or on the weekends. We'll see how it goes.

Our first week at TySon Academy (cute play on name words, non?) went something like this:

M and I start our morning together, sometimes T's is sleeping, sometimes not, but he's been very good this week about playing quietly next to us so that M & I can get our work done. The first thing we do each morning is M's reading aloud to me - we spend about 20-30 each morning (depending on book length) reading from a book of her choosing. After that we head down to the school room and finish out language arts (spelling, phonics, handwriting and writing are done every day; reading comprehension and copywork are done T/Th; and grammar is done M/W/F. In addition to two days of her choosing (this week was W/F) of creative writing.) Then it's on to geography and then I head up to start making lunches while she completes math. After lunch T and I work on reading and math and then he completes his writing page while I get set up for history and science. (M has free time while T and I are working, this week she has more often than not chosen to spend her time doing an art project.) After T is done both kids have an outdoors break (usually about an hour, except for Thursday when we went to the park and just took complete advantage of the beautiful day and spent 3 hours there.) Then it's back inside and on to the couch where we do our read-alouds - this week it's Charlotte's Web, readings from Children Just Like Me, and three days of stories/folktales/legends from around the world and two days of poetry. After reads-alouds we move onto world history - this week was just an introduction to our year so we learned what history/archaeology is and what a historians/archaeologists job is. We made history pockets to go along with our what we were learning and we started our lapbook and will will add to it each week over the course of the year. After ancient history is time for science - this year we are studying biology. This week was an introduction into our 20 week animal study. So we had an overview of habitat, migration, defense & camouflage, food & conservation, communication, reproduction, baby animals and evolution/evolve/adapt. (We had a test at the end of the week and I'm happy to report both M & T got a 100%.) After science it's American history - this week we learned about Native Americans, specifically the Iroquois tribe. Friday's are our state study day, and this week we learned all about Delaware. After that the kids are released for the day and I clean-up and get ready for the following day.

Here is a list of the curriculum that we are using for the year:
M:
Reading - Step-Into-Reading readers (right now she is reading a book a day from level 3)
Spelling - All About Spelling 1 (starting at the beginning and quickly working our way through it so that she gets all the phonograms she missed in public school, and so I can identify what phonograms are these ones that give her trouble/are harder for her to hear)
Phonics - Explode the Code (right now she is in book 3, the placement test put her in book 4, but I felt she could get something out of book 3 which focuses on the /sh/ sound which causes her so much trouble as she can't hear it. She is working through it much quicker than I thought she would, as she always wants to do more pages than I have scheduled (it's her favorite part of the day - go figure!) so we'll probably be moving into book 4 after next week.)
Writing - Winning with Writing 3
Handwriting - Handwriting Without Tears Cursive 3 (another favorite of my girls')
Grammar - First Language Lessons 3
Reading Comprehension - Scholastic Reading Practice 3
Copywork - Garden of Verses
Creative Writing - I came up with various story prompts, or elements to include in a story, printed them out and put the slips into a jar labeled "story starters" and I also printed out slips with various different types of poems/creative writings that I want her to learn about this year and put those in another jar and labeled "creative writing/poetry". Each week she picks out a slip from each jar and then completes that task. (This week she picked a story started on Wednesday to write about and did a sequence short story on Friday.)
Geography - Evan Moor Geography 3
Math - Teaching Textbooks 3 (math is her favorite subject, and one in which she naturally excels at, so the beginning lessons of this curriculum are well below her ability level, so we are working quickly though these to get "caught up" with new learning. I expect that we will be in level/grade 4 by the end of the summer/beginning of fall.
Lapbook - I asked M to pick a topic of her choosing that she wanted to learn more about - Madison of course chose sharks. So two days this week we learned all about sharks and other underwater predators. She LOVES doing her shark lapbook and would do it everyday if she could. However, it is A LOT of work for me. I easily spent more time working on the lapbook with her than I did on any other subject. I bought a pre-made lapbook that already had the templates for the elements, plus the readings and a schedule included. However, the readings haven't all matched up with the projects that we are supposed to do. Neither do the review questions, so we have had to read other books, and look a lot of stuff up on the internet. I don't mine taking the extra time to do these things, but it just means that we will be moving through this unit much slower than I anticipated.

T:
Reading - Hooked on Phonics K (T has been using this program since the end of October. On Monday he completed part 1 and so we spent the rest of the week doing review and having him read beginning readers to me. Next week we'll start on part 2.)
Math - Horizons K
Writing - Every day he has to write his full name, a sentence of copywork usually from our history or science learning, but sometimes of his choosing and then a series of numbers.
(In the late summer/early fall when he starts his actual kindergarten year I will add in Explode the Code and Handwriting Without Tears. Right now I'm am just really focusing on getting him to read.)

Both:
Read-Alouds - Charlotte's Web (we'll finish in about 3 weeks), Children of the World, Around the World in 80 Tales, and Favorite Poems of Childhood
World History - Story of the World 1 (Ancients - the fall of Rome)
Science - Elemental Science - Grammar Biology
American History - Elemental History

Phew. Now that that's out of the way, I will be able to just do a quick recap of what each kid learned/did each week. Something like this:

M:
Reading - How to Help the Earth by the Lorax, The Berenstain Bears and the Tic Tac Toe Mystery, Show Me the Honey, The Berenstain Bears and the Mystery of the Missing Water
Phonics - Lessons 1-5 Word Order
Handwriting - Beginning Cursive, next week we move into learning the first cursive letter
Grammar - Nouns
Reading Comprehension - Understanding the Reading Process (story about Alexander Graham Bell) and Finding the Main Idea and Details (story about the Milky Way)
Copywork - Part 1 & 2 of the poem Bed in Summer
Creative Writing - Story Starters: "Imagine you opened your own restaurant. Tell the name of your restaurant. Explain what the restaurant looks like, who works there, and what you serve." Creative Writing: Story Sequence - Short Story, Super Boy
Geography - Week 1:What is a Globe?
Math - Lessons 1-6
Lapbook - Predators of the Deep, How Smaller Sea Creatures Protect Themselves

T:
Reading - Review of Short Vowel Sounds Learned, reading of Bob Books 1-2, Animal Antics Book 1, and Tim and Sam
Math - Lessons 1-5
Writing - Name, Numbers, and Copywork about Habitats, Wampum Beads, plus sentences of his choosing

Both:
Read-Alouds - Charlotte's Web: Chapters 1-6; Children Just Like Me: Children of the World, The Americas, Oscar from Bolivia, Carlitos from Argentina, Celina from Brazil; Around the World in 80 Tales: The More the Merrier (from The United States ), The White Bear (from Canada), The Three Spells (from the Sioux of the Dakota Plains), Favorite Poems of Childhood: The Land of Nod, Hurt No Living Thing, and The Cat of Cats
World History - Read-alouds/Picture Books: Archaeologists Dig for Clues, Archaeologist's Tools, Buried Treasures; Usborne Book of World History: pg. 2-3; Kingfisher History Encyclopedia: pg. viii-ix; Story of the World 1: Introduction pg. 1-6; Story of the World Activity Guide: Review & Narration pg. 1; History Pockets: What is History?; Lapbook: Introduction
Science - Kingfisher Encyclopedia of Animals: pg. 1-17: Habitat, Migration, Defense, Camouflage, Food, Conservation, Communication, Reproduction, Baby Animals, Evolution; Science Around the World, pg. 65: Camouflage Experiment; Food Chart: Introduction; Week 1 Test; Vocabulary: Herbivore, Carnivore, Omnivore; Read-Alouds: Land Habitats & Life Science Animals
American History - Readings about the Native Americans and the Iroquois; Smart About the Fifty States: Delaware; Coloring Page on Native Americans; Narration & Copywork from read-aloud/readings; Notebook page on Delaware; Read-alouds: Rainbow Crow; our activity got pushed back to Saturday afternoon (Wampum beads - post to follow this one)

Welp, there you go. That was our week. Onward and upward.