Nature on TV

Microcosmos is on Netflix instant. It focuses in on the tinier inhabitants of our world, mostly insects.

My girls really liked it! It's amazing how rich and diverse insect life can be.

Well Trained Mind vs. the Latin Centered Curriculum

I'd like to compare and contrast the two, and then look at what I'm planning for next year. I'm planning 2nd grade and K4, for the record.

Also- a quick google search for Latin Centered Curriculum 2nd grade didn't really turn up any blogs with a detailed listing! I'm actually pretty surprised. All you LCC bloggers need to put more out there, OK?

2nd grade:

Well Trained Mind subject areas
Language- Spelling, cursive, reading/notebooking, grammar, memory work, fun reading
Writing- writing and dictation
Mathematics
History- medieval-early Renaissance
Science- earth science and astronomy
Religion- world religions and family faith
Art
Music

Latin Centered Curriculum Subject areas
English Studies- Phonics as needed, reading, copywork, recitation
Latin
Classical Studies- Norse myths
Christian Studies
Modern Studies- geography and biographies
Arithmetic
Nature Study/Science

Looking at it I see about 14 subject areas for the WTM plan and 10 for the LCC. That's really not as big of a difference as I thought it would be since the LCC is so often referred to as pared down.

Neither one includes foreign language (well, outside Latin) at this age, and that's something that we are already doing and won't be dropping that.

My 2nd grade plan falls somewhere in the middle of the two.

So far I have a rough line up ready.

Language Arts/English Studies- Writing Tales 1, Rod and Staff Spelling 3

Reading- Books tied to the history and science rotation

Mathematics- Saxon Math 2

History- Romans, Reformers, and Revolutionaries, Usborne Internet Linked Encyclopedia

Science- Earth/space science

Latin- Prima Latina

French- Le Francais Facile

Religion- New Testament and Catechism

Art- Artistic Pursuits

Music- piano lessons

I plan to do dictation and memory work from History and Religion. My time goal is about 2-3 hours a day, doing History and Science both twice a week and the rest of the subjects daily.

Kindergarten 4:

Well Trained Mind line up:

Reading
Writing
Mathematics

Latin Centered Curriculum subjects (It should be noted that there is no K4 line up, this is the general Kindy suggestions):

Latin Centered Curriculum Subject areas
English Studies- Intensive phonics,nursery rhymes, copywork, recitation
Latin
Classical Studies- Aesop's fables
Christian Studies
Modern Studies- geography and biographies
Nature Study/Science

Our actual plan:

Phonics- Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading, Hooked on Phonics
Writing: Cursive First, copywork as desired
Math- Saxon K
Latin- Prima Latina
French- Le Francais Facile

We'll also read through Aesop and she'll listen to as much science and history as she wants.

There's been quite a bit of waffling on my part on some of these, and there may be tweaking of some choices still to come, but I'm rather pleased at how it looks so far.

Sweet Pea's first report

I'll post a huge group of pictures and list of what we've done this week tomorrow- I think that's probably better then little sound bites everyday.
Today I will show you how my lesson tracking is going and Sweet Pea's first report (rough draft).

It reads, "Bats
Bats can live in trees. Bats grow to be 1.5 meters long. Bats eat insects, and fruits, and even some bats eat blood. Sometimes people kill bats. bats have babies one at a time. I like bats because I like everything about them."


Tomorrow we'll revise and improve it and I'll have her write it in her best handwriting for her animal notebook.

This is her picture of bats to accompany it.


I've been asked a few times what we are doing for Bible this quarter, so I'm including my (very) messy chart for every day. It uses the Child's Garden of Bible Stories book and workbook, the Early Reader's Bible, a regular Bible, the Arch books series, Ergermeier's Bible Stories and paper to write on/ paper to draw on. Both children do this together.


I also have these 4 weeks written down in a lesson planner. This is what was actually accomplished, not what was planned. I feel really good about what we've gotten done!

Science

What is everyone doing for science next year? How important is science in the elementary years? Is nature study like Charlotte Mason advocated enough? What about experiments vs. book work?

Thoughts??

Planting

We've been talking about plants and seeds in science, and the perfect way to really learn about that at the ages of my children (or any age, in my opinion) is by planting seeds. Today we planted tomatoes, cucumbers, and snap peas. Since our weather is still cold, we did it inside on my kitchen floor. Both girls had a lot of fun digging around in the dirt, comparing seed sizes, and then planting and watering.


I'll have Sweet Pea draw pictures of her plants' progress once there is something to show.

Daily Report

As much fun as last week was, I'm glad to be back home and back to the regularly scheduled program.

Grammar- we combined two lessons today. We are still a few weeks behind where I thought we'd be by this point in the semester, but some of that is that we came in slightly behind in our phonics program, so we have been taking it easy. It's going really well, and I hope that we are almost done with family nouns.

Cursive- we are on the second go through of Cursive First, and almost finished again. Sweet Pea's handwriting has greatly improved from the first round, and it's not even comparable to how it was before we started the program. It does leave me with a dilemma, though. What do I do when we finish it this time? Do I repeat the program again, look for something else, or just correct mistakes as they occur in her writing in other programs? I'm not sure.

Writing- I'm glad I stuck with Writing with Ease. I wish I could buy it with the examples written in cursive, but it's otherwise a great fit.


Math- We did more from the Earlybird books today. They've recently introduced subtraction and Sweet Pea seems to get it easily. It helps that there's pictures and the numbers are under 10, but I gave her some on paper and she did them without pictures, as well. Yay, Sweet Pea!


Science- we started a book based natural world study, since my idealistic Charlotte Mason outdoor nature studies doesn't mesh well with the reality of living in northern Minnesota. So we're using Rod and Staff's second grade Patterns in Nature book. So far (we've done one lesson) it looks good. It's gentle, has coloring, and general facts about the seasons, plants and animals. Not for a secular family- it's not even adaptable.


Also today we made fun snacks- eggs baked into the middle of a piece of bread, in a star shape. We also made homemade play dough and the kids spent over an hour mashing and creating with it. A big plus with dough like that this time of the year- all the oil is great for their skin. :)

Science

Today we talked about Tigers. We read the entry from Sweet Pea's Kingfisher First Animal Encyclopedia and then we read about extinction and animal social behavior from her Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia.
Later I plan to have her either draw a picture of a tiger or color one, depending on what she wants to do.
We also completed the long u sound in the Ordinary Parent's Guide, so now we move onto more vowel combinations. I'm still a little surprised at how many there are- and how instinctive they are as a mature reader. I have a lot more respect for what a complicated process reading is!

A sad note

Mr. Bug, our lethocerus americanus, has passed away. He's eaten his last fish.
On the positive, we'll now send him on for a 4H project. And I'm contemplating what the next science pet should be. I'm leaning towards a translucent hybrid frog kit like this one. I'm not really interested in ant farms, and we don't want an actual pet at this time.

On another note, I still find myself waffling about math. Currently, we're using a combination of Miquon and Singapore Earlybird 2A. I also have Earlybird 2B. I've liked the Earlybird and I'm very impressed with Miquon, but I somehow feel that this all isn't concrete and drill oriented enough. Also, Sweet Pea is speeding through the Singapore. When she finished the books that we have I'd like to stick with the Miquon and maybe try something else. Maybe. Maybe?
I'm looking at A beka and Saxon. Saxon seems like it'd be too slow moving and I've read complaints that it leaves kids behind level. A beka gets really good reviews for the early years, but what would we move to after that?
For whatever reason, the choice of math curricula haunts me more then any other subject. I know it's slighty silly (or incredibly) but I really feel like no matter what I use I'll wish we've used something else.

Nature Study

Today we spent a lot of time outside, playing and weeding the garden. It's still not hot out and we can't put all our plants out- it still frosts at night. But we do have some early shoots up. I overturned some of the paving blocks to get at weeds and we found a while world. A whole ant world, that it. They had hundreds of tiny white, wiggly eggs nestled into a divit and when the block was removed ants began pouring up to move the eggs to safety.
Fortunately for them, we came in peace. Sweet Pea and Little Bird were each enthralled- they lay on their bellies in the dirt watching the ants work quickly and efficiently.
I originally thought that Charlotte Mason style outdoor time would drive me nuts, but both kids love it. Sweet Pea is really getting interested in laying in the grass, face pressed close to the ground, to watch what all the insects are doing. Little Bird is much more into running around and chasing bunnies and seeing birds.
We can't do this all year long- it's so cold here for so long. But we'll enjoy the time outside that we have.
Speaking of natural wonders, Mr. Bug is still alive and hunting. I cleaned out his tank and we need to buy him more fish. I need to get a new picture of him- he's grown! He's also getting fiestier as the weather gets warmer.

These are the slate exercises from McGuffey's. It's a nice change from Cursuve First now that Sweet Pea has done almost all of it. :) Go Sweet Pea!

It's a princess with a castle.

OK, I'm not sure exactly what it is, but Sweet Pea thinks that Miquon is the most incredible thing ever. She really enjoys it. If that isn't a great review for a math curriculum, I don't know what is. :)

Also, having now read and reread the new Well Trained Mind, I'm at a crossroads for next year. Incredibly, I'm leaning towards continuing what we've been doing this summer and then starting first grade, not Kindergarten, this fall. I'm a little apprehensive, but the more I read and look around at standards and curriculum and what Sweet Pea is doing and what she WANTS to do, it seems like the best option.

In the book she lists these as the goals for:

Kindergarten:

Reading: basic phonics 10 mins at beginning of year, move to 30 by end she is doing advanced phonics, practice easy readers we're doing this currently

writing: practice printing work up to 10 mins a day she prints really well and we're currently doing cursive copy short sentences from model- check

Math: count from 1-100, write 1-100, skip count by 2s, 5s and 10s I'm pretty sure she will be doing all this by fall but if not her math curriculum isn't tied to anything else

And First Grade:

Language: spelling 5-15 mins per day, grammar 15-20 mins per day and 30 mins per day making notebook pages (like illustrated short book reports), 30 mins fun reading and penmanship as needed writing: 5-20 mins a day write short letters to family or copy sentences Math: 30 to 40 mins a day of a program history: story of the world and activities/ 3 hours a week

Science: animals, human body, and plants for 2 60 minute blocks

Religion: world religions and lutheran blah blah blah

Music: begin piano

I'm not decided by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm really looking into it.

Magic Schoolbus

We're on a major Ms. Frizzle kick. Sweet Pea can't get enough of the books. Fortunately we got quite a few of them as a birthday gift from her grandparents, so we always have them on hand.
I think it's the perfect amount of science in each- with good jumping off points for more study if we are interested.

Wild Rice fields, miquon, and the bug saga continues

For Miquon I'm really, really glad we picked cuisenaire rods with the line marked. Really glad.

Mr. Bug in his fatal embrace with a poor goldfish.

OK, this is what a road through a wild rice field looks like. See how narrow? See how close to the water? We were driving through to see the swans as they migrate back up north. We missed most of them though. Poor timing!

And in places I was worried that the road would give out. This isn't dirt, it's sand.

Finally, some swans!

And a better view of more rice fields. They're all perfectly measured and cut into rectangles- it's really neat.

Mr. Bug's first meal

That white thing in between Mr. Bug's front arms? That's a goldfish. He ate it!

Mr. Bug's new home

He has some nice pink sand and some stones. Tonight some friends are delivering a small fish for him to eat- he's beginning to charge anything that comes near the tank. I think he's hungry.

We also did some pattern blocks and a lot of nature walking today, but Mr. Bug's new house has been the highlight.

A new bug friend and other nature study

This is our new prize specimen. He's a Lethocerus americanus and he's roughly 3 inches long. It's currently under hot debate what his fate will be- will we feed him and keep him? Will we let him die and send him in to 4H? We'll see!

It's hard to see, but that green sign says, "Mississippi River" and the picture to the right is the Mighty Mississippi. This is just north of the headwaters and south of where we live. It's still amazing to me how small the river starts and how large and powerful it becomes.

River marshes like this will be teaming with wild rice- if it ever heats up.

Also- one of my dear friends requested the Sweet and Sour recipe, so here it is:

Mix 1/2 cup of brown sugar and 1 TB of cornstarch in a sauce pan. Add juice from drained can of crushed pineapple combined with enough water that it equals 1/2 total. Set aside pineapple. Stir in with 1/3 cup white vinegar and 1 TB of soy sauce.

Heat to boiling over medium heat stirring constantly. Stir in pineapple and sliced green pepper.

Enjoy!

Math and science

We baked chocolate chip banana bread. Sweet Pea is getting good at measuring and mixing. And the results are delicious.

While the bread cooked we spent time playing with Miquon this morning. Sweet Pea and Little Bird love Miquon- it's more akin to playing then a math curriculum for them right now.