Daily updates continued

Today we had a royally awful morning, with behavior that was so bad it was amazing. So we didn't get any school done. By the time that Sweet Pea was ready I had a raging headache and I just wanted to sit with a hot cup of tea- so I did.
We did our school work in the afternoon.
We started with Spelling Workout- lesson three complete! Then Singapore Earlybird 2A- lesson 13 complete! Lesson 13 focused on the introduction of the written numbers and how they correlate to numerals.
After that we did Writing with Ease- which is now done for the week. I love the illustrations on the workbook pages for Writing with Ease- kudos to whoever put them in. Our assignment today was a short narration from a passage from, "Little House in the Big Woods". Sweet Pea's choice of sentences inadvertently perfectly complemented the picture!
I'm throwing this in, out of order. This is Sweet Pea's illustration to go with the poem, "The Caterpillar" by Christina Rossetti, from First Language Lessons.
I'm also posting the first part of my weekly schedule sheet now that it's filled out. It goes across the top to include Friday and Saturday, but there's nothing interesting there yet. Over on the far left is where I keep track of the weeks dates. For each day I then enter in what we actually accomplish vs. what I had planned on my planning sheets. I have another page that I've worked out all the acronyms, since the boxes are tiny. For example, under Thursday I have: SW- Spelling Workout, S2A- Sinagpore 2A (lesson 13), WWE- Writing with Ease (lesson 1), SOTW- Story of the World (intro), and the Ordinary Parent's Guide (lesson 93). I really enjoy keeping track like this- being able to know exactly what we did on a given day has been very useful.

Daily updates continued

Today, we did Spelling Workout, Earlybird (Singapore) 2A, lesson 12, WWE, and the introduction of Story of the World.
Sweet Pea didn't finish her spelling work in a reasonable time period, so I assigned it as homework. She's currently at the table finishing that up.
Otherwise, she was very happy to begin doing the Singapore math again. It was number lines, forward and backwards. WWE today was narration practice.
For SOTW we did the activity- making a family "history" album. So far we have called both my parents for history and we may call some other family members for theirs. Sweet Pea asked all the questions, I wrote the answers.
This evening (like every evening) we'll do phonics and catechism.

First day of school!

For the year.
We opened with First Language Lessons. I think we're going to end up using this pretty closely as written. Sweet Pea liked it, it was short- curriculum win!
Next we had math. Today it Miquon. We worked through building number stairs and we've begun filling out a 0-99 number chart. Once it's complete I'm going to laminate it and put it up on the wall.
After that we did Writing with Ease (WWE). I had Sweet Pea write both model sentences and we did a mini- diagramming on them. Fun!
We'll do phonics this evening, then catechism as normal. It was a wonderful first day!

Pictures of all our materials!

I got this dry erase board to put on the wall right where we school to answer the ever present question of, "What's next?" I'm hoping it serves as a good visual reminder of how much is left.
And when to expect certain rotating subjects. I have a much more detailed on in my master binder, but this should be good for Sweet Pea.


Latin- Prima Latina.


Language Arts- at the top is the always present binder. Underneath is Writing with Ease 1 with the workbook, First Language Lessons (or the butterfly book as Sweet Pea calls it), Spelling Workout, Mad Libs Jr., and a cursive copybook.


Math- on the left is the Singapore stuff- challenging word problems 1 (I don't know if we're starting this quite yet!), and 2A and 2B. Then the Miquon for the year- the Orange book we've already begun, and the red book. All the assorted mama helps, too. And our beloved Patternables book.


History! We are doing Story of the World, Vol. 1. We have some of the suggested coloring books, the Activity Guide, the test booklet, the book itself, and in the binder I have schedules and places to put the completed work. We'll flesh this out with a lot of material from the library.

Below are our "elective"- home ec. (Sweet Pea's specifically requested to start this), catechism materials, Artistic Pursuits, and character building.

Sweet Pea helped haul it all out and group it together- and she's really excited. What I'm less then thrilled about is returning everything to a state of order- the chaos from locating all the bits and pieces that I had stored in various areas has caught up with me!

Little bird's plans

I keep meaning to get this down and I haven't. No time like the present, right?
We'll be starting with the Letter of the Week Preparatory Curriculum. I haven't tried this before, or any of the Letter of the Week stuff, but it looks good and I've heard a lot of good about it.
So that's the plan. It's mostly to try to keep her happy and connected while Sweet Pea is doing her work.
I've also decided that this Monday will be our start date. I had planned to wait until the day after Labor Day like all the schools here, but that's feeling late and Sweet Pea is ready. She's been longingly looking at her new books and wanting to start, so that's the sign I needed.

Fairy rings in my yard

Ignore the patchy grass. :) What causes these?

Homeschooling is...

pulling your five year old out of bed at midnight to show her the incredibly clear view of the Milky Way. And impromptu lessons about constellations and stars.
Love it.

Legends of Logging

In Park Rapids, Mn.




Yes, those were carved with chainsaws.

Handwriting practice- and a good lesson. :) I can't get over how much it's improved!

update? What update?

We're still here, still chugging along. I liked phonics a lot more when all the rules were regular, but that's ok.
Less then a month from the official start date. I still haven't ordered art supplies!
I'm so antsy to start, but know that it's better not to rush things. I'll feel better after we finish just a tad more phonics so Sweet Pea will be set for all the subjects this fall.
I am glad that I decided to do 1st grade- looking at it now Kindergarten stuff would be really behind where she's ready.