Friday, August 8, 2008
2008 Back to School Party!
Today we took the kids to the Butler Aquatic Center for their back to school party. They had a lot of fun and asked if we could have a back to school party every year. :) Even Dad got to come along! Again, no pictures. Im becoming really bad at taking pictures. Later this evening we will finish our back to school hand print pages. Yay!
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Week One
This week was the official start of our 2008/2009 JOY Academy school year. I'm having computer issues so I've been using my laptop mainly. Perhaps I will take and download some pictures later. :) We started out really slow this week focusing on routine more than quantity of school work. Our first subjects were: Phonics, Math, Reading, Bible, and Language. Here is what we did.
Natalie grade 2
Math: Using Horizons 2 we accomplished 1 lesson per day. She learned a ton and actually had a smile on her face! Today we did two lessons because some how I wrote my lesson plans wrong and I didn't want to have to rewrite. :)
Phonics: Explode the Code #4. We accomplished one lesson and did quite well. I'm still up in the air about weather or not she "needs" ETC the rest of this year or not. She is pretty well versed in Phonics and reads well. So I'm gonna test Spelling Work Out B on her and see if it covers phonetic rules enough to skip doing ETC 5,6,7,8
Reading: We did read orally two lessons from her McGuffey's Primer but we only accomplished one day of independent reading and three days of my reading aloud. This week she will read for 30 min sessions and complete a little book report form I made for her (when she finishes a title). I'm having a hard time deciding what will be on her reading list because she reads so well, but she is "afraid" of chapter books. So we are sticking to 3 and 4 readers for now.
Bible: We only accomplished two days of independent bible reading. Although we did start her very own prayer journal. I'm hoping that next week we can improve upon the consistency with her prayer journal. during VBS last week Natalie expressed an interest in growing in her faith. She said "I feel the love of God growing in me, my faith is getting bigger. I wish it would grow all the time." :)
Language: We did two lessons (as scheduled) from Primary Language Lessons. She seemed to enjoy it, though she wasn't fond of the copy work. She did have a lot of fun with dictation. I noticed that we have some spelling issues like the word "ladder", "hollow", "squirrel", "tennis", "rabbit" and so on. But I think these are pretty tough words for a 2nd grader whose never written before. Last year for narration I did all the writing. I think we need to work on spelling.. And probably need our phonics to reinforce the rules. I didn't teach her to read phonetically.
Logan Kindergarten
Math: Logan is using Horizons K this year and will complete one lesson per day. He did really well this week. Some areas that needed instruction we're ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd), days of the week and clock reading. But he caught on quick and learned that writing isn't as hard for him this year as it was last. Great! He had a rough time with small motor skills last year.
Phonics: My plan for phonics this year is for Logan to complete ETC 1,2,3,4. A little more of an accelerated pace from Natalie in years past. She only did ETC 1-2-3 from K to 1st grade. I thought they were graded then. Oops. :) For Logan he will do a lesson a week. ETC has been great for Logan. Really improved his reading ability. He can read pretty well, he just doesn't know it yet.
Reading: This week we only did 2 lessons from Logan's McGuffey's Primer. He did rather well. He didn't want to begin his lesson because he thought it would be hard. But once he realized that he knew the rules to read the "hard" words he was fine. I really love how McGuffey's uses the markings on the letters to teach short a, hard s, hard c and so on. Pretty simple for me to teach him. Next week we are adding other readers and short books for him to read. My goal is 15 min per day. Hopefully by the end of the year he can read independently from short word books.
Bible: Logan also started a prayer journal. He is using a sketch book and drawing prayers to God during our quiet time. His picture was of a rocket ship this week. He said and I wrote it down for him "Thank you God for rocket ships and monster trucks. They are so easy to draw." Cute.
Handwriting: I almost forgot. :) Each completed 1 lesson from A Reason for Handwriting.
We are leaving on Monday to Colorado for 2 weeks. We're all pretty excited about it. I plan to take along our studies and do them on the road. Surely there will be time in the car. :) After we come home my Sonlight box should be in and I will take a day to lesson plan that. Then we will add Sonlight (history and geography) and Astronomy. I'm so excited about Astronomy. I even have a solar system to hang in the school room and a neat little thing that lights up the ceiling like stars!! So hopefully week 2 and 3 will be done on the road. Then week 4 we'll add Astronomy. And week 5 we'll add Sonlight. :)
I'm also debating on weather to include Logan in Natalie's studies or hold him back (unless he wants to) and start the same course with him when he's in 2nd grade--2 years. That way I'm not stressing over two students but one. :)
Natalie grade 2
Math: Using Horizons 2 we accomplished 1 lesson per day. She learned a ton and actually had a smile on her face! Today we did two lessons because some how I wrote my lesson plans wrong and I didn't want to have to rewrite. :)
Phonics: Explode the Code #4. We accomplished one lesson and did quite well. I'm still up in the air about weather or not she "needs" ETC the rest of this year or not. She is pretty well versed in Phonics and reads well. So I'm gonna test Spelling Work Out B on her and see if it covers phonetic rules enough to skip doing ETC 5,6,7,8
Reading: We did read orally two lessons from her McGuffey's Primer but we only accomplished one day of independent reading and three days of my reading aloud. This week she will read for 30 min sessions and complete a little book report form I made for her (when she finishes a title). I'm having a hard time deciding what will be on her reading list because she reads so well, but she is "afraid" of chapter books. So we are sticking to 3 and 4 readers for now.
Bible: We only accomplished two days of independent bible reading. Although we did start her very own prayer journal. I'm hoping that next week we can improve upon the consistency with her prayer journal. during VBS last week Natalie expressed an interest in growing in her faith. She said "I feel the love of God growing in me, my faith is getting bigger. I wish it would grow all the time." :)
Language: We did two lessons (as scheduled) from Primary Language Lessons. She seemed to enjoy it, though she wasn't fond of the copy work. She did have a lot of fun with dictation. I noticed that we have some spelling issues like the word "ladder", "hollow", "squirrel", "tennis", "rabbit" and so on. But I think these are pretty tough words for a 2nd grader whose never written before. Last year for narration I did all the writing. I think we need to work on spelling.. And probably need our phonics to reinforce the rules. I didn't teach her to read phonetically.
Logan Kindergarten
Math: Logan is using Horizons K this year and will complete one lesson per day. He did really well this week. Some areas that needed instruction we're ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd), days of the week and clock reading. But he caught on quick and learned that writing isn't as hard for him this year as it was last. Great! He had a rough time with small motor skills last year.
Phonics: My plan for phonics this year is for Logan to complete ETC 1,2,3,4. A little more of an accelerated pace from Natalie in years past. She only did ETC 1-2-3 from K to 1st grade. I thought they were graded then. Oops. :) For Logan he will do a lesson a week. ETC has been great for Logan. Really improved his reading ability. He can read pretty well, he just doesn't know it yet.
Reading: This week we only did 2 lessons from Logan's McGuffey's Primer. He did rather well. He didn't want to begin his lesson because he thought it would be hard. But once he realized that he knew the rules to read the "hard" words he was fine. I really love how McGuffey's uses the markings on the letters to teach short a, hard s, hard c and so on. Pretty simple for me to teach him. Next week we are adding other readers and short books for him to read. My goal is 15 min per day. Hopefully by the end of the year he can read independently from short word books.
Bible: Logan also started a prayer journal. He is using a sketch book and drawing prayers to God during our quiet time. His picture was of a rocket ship this week. He said and I wrote it down for him "Thank you God for rocket ships and monster trucks. They are so easy to draw." Cute.
Handwriting: I almost forgot. :) Each completed 1 lesson from A Reason for Handwriting.
We are leaving on Monday to Colorado for 2 weeks. We're all pretty excited about it. I plan to take along our studies and do them on the road. Surely there will be time in the car. :) After we come home my Sonlight box should be in and I will take a day to lesson plan that. Then we will add Sonlight (history and geography) and Astronomy. I'm so excited about Astronomy. I even have a solar system to hang in the school room and a neat little thing that lights up the ceiling like stars!! So hopefully week 2 and 3 will be done on the road. Then week 4 we'll add Astronomy. And week 5 we'll add Sonlight. :)
I'm also debating on weather to include Logan in Natalie's studies or hold him back (unless he wants to) and start the same course with him when he's in 2nd grade--2 years. That way I'm not stressing over two students but one. :)
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