First Day of First Grade

Today was our first day of school - first day of first grade! And believe it or not, it was great!

Our curriculum is Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory,which is Christ-centered and follows the Charlotte Mason philosophy of learning.

Only one problem...Samuel wants to read ahead of me. This is the same boy who 2 months ago informed me that he knew how to read but didn't like to. However, as soon as he figured out that he could read signs on the road, my Bible and other words all around, his attitude changed.
I am now happy about this new problem.

Looking forward to day #2.

Kindergarten Graduation

kindergarten graduation 039, originally uploaded by Malie.

This is what we have been up to!

Six home-school families got together and planned a Kindergarten graduation. We do not use the same curriculum, but we all thought it would be good to celebrate our home-schools and God together.

It was a very nice ceremony/reception and Samuel is feeling proud to be a graduate. I believe it also helped that a few weeks ago Kisha graduated with her Masters Degree and Jasmin with her Bacherlors degree. He saw both of these "grown ups" (who are like his big sisters) march and excited to graduate, so it was a good thing to do.

Graduation came at Unit 24 in our curriculum, Little Hands for His Glory from HOD, which is a 34 unit program for ages 5 to 7, and covers Kindergarten and 1st grade. So even if we had not finished the book, we were already doing 1st grade work, and after 3 days off, we are back to work. We will have school until we leave to Costa Rica and will enjoy a vacation there. Little Hands will be completed in August.

Click on the picture to see more pictures and videos of the graduation on Flickr.com.

Congratulations Samuel!

History: The Age of Exploration

This week we had a great time studying history.

On Monday we learned about the first people who lived in the USA and were called Indians by the explorers. We made a tabletop setting for the Plains Indians which included teepees, a river with fish, a boat with a fisherman and a lady by the fire (waiting to cook the fish!).

On Tuesday, we read about Christopher Columbus wanting to go East by going West. And his 3 boats where named (according to Samuel), La Nina, La Pinta & La Santa Biblia!
On Wednesday we read about Balboa viewing the Pacific Ocean from the top of a mountain in Panama and later a canal was built at that place and a town named after him. We created a landform with clay, put water around it and made a path for our giant ant to go through without having to go around (could not find a small boat...).
On Thursday we set up an archeological dig site to find where Juan Ponce De Leon hid a cross and a helmet close to a spring of water. But I FORGOT to take pictures...

On Friday we read about Pizarro who was greedy and put the king of Peru in Jail. The king offered to fill a room with gold in exchange for his freedom. Here is Samuel's rendition of the room full of gold. Pizarro did not release the king.
We are having a great time and learning a lot with this curriculum (www.heartofdakota.com)!

What did we do last week?

Math! Samuel has begun to work on addition.Now that we brought this "abandoned piano" (from my mom's house...) into our home, Samuel is practicing at least 10 times a day. He has not started formal piano lessons yet, just an introduction to piano, but he is proud of his 2-note songs.

He also sang with some of his friends from "Little Lights for Jesus" at the Nursing Home.
Today it seems we are both congested with hopes to stay in bed all day. School in bed sounds really good!

Week in Review

We started our week mixing primary colors, making secondary ones and talking about Heaven. We have now officially finished reading Bible stories from Genesis to Revelation. Now we continue with Bible study and learning how christianity spread all over the world.

Samuel learned about St. Valentine who was a christian martyr. We made a pretty valentine to remember him by.
In math we are at the beginning of addition. Samuel is putting chocolates on the number line and adding them up. Of course, he had to taste 5 of them!
This week is "Week of Prayer" for homeschool families. We joined them in the woods and learned about obedient animals, all kinds of exotic birds and made a craft with peanut butter, bird seed and a pine cone to hang on the trees for the birds. It has been a blessed week.

Week in Review

At the beginning of library time we played an art memory game with friends and learned to pronounce "Fra Angelico", "Da Vinci", Botticelli", "Raphael" and the names of other Renaissance artists. During "Espanol" we worked on the letter U in print and cursive and reviewed other vowel sounds.

During (HOD)Bible study we read about Peter's vision of the sheet full of animals. Here you see Samuel's sheet with animals. The big blue ball on the left is a colorful ladybug. Just in case you were wondering...We also read about Saul's encounter with Jesus. What do you think Samuel liked the best about the felts? Well, of course, the city. He kept moving it around.

Just when it was time to go to the Studio, Samuel dropped his container of beads. He picked them up, and then tripped over the container. I began picking some up so we would not be late and then he accidentally kicked the container AGAIN!!!!!!! Ok, after that I just had the get the camera out.When it was time for math this week, we learned about halves and quarters. This is Samuel's activity to show 1 quarter.

During reading he was not as attentive as you can see below. He always thinks there is something more interesting under the table...

A mini-vacation would be nice!

Reading Made Easy

Samuel is now on lesson 46 of Reading Made Easy by Valerie Bendt. After reading he did his copywork quite beautifully, the best in many days!
Below you can observe how well he traced the seal and wrote his own sentence. I never thought I would have been able to teach him to read. RME is really a good fit for us!

The Great Commission

Samuel is a preacher! Today we learned about the Great Commission (Unit 17, day 3 LHFHG)to preach to all the world and we pretended that Max the monkey had never heard about Jesus. He needed to tell about him including his death and resurrection. Samuel loved it and did not want to stop.

What a great way to study the Bible!

Sharing Memory verse and Poem

Today is Friday. The day Samuel shares his memory verse and even his rhyme/poem for the week IN SPANISH! Click on both videos.

Only on Week 16

I have been complaining to myself about how late in the year we found this curriculum, but this week it worked out OK. While the secular world is colored with bunnies and eggs, many in the Christian world are focusing on Jesus' death and resurrection. Our lesson this week was titled "Jesus Dies and Lives Again" coincidentally making what is happening in our immediate world relevant to school.

We have never really "celebrated" Easter in our church or home, but are planning our first Passover celebration in April. You can bet I will be posting about that!

School this week has been bilingual as requested by Samuel. He now thinks it is cool to speak spanish. So we learned our memory verse in Spanish (Matthew 6:9), our scripture song was in spanish and so was math and science.

In math he has been counting and reading numbers up to 20, and making groups of tens and ones. In Fine Motor Skills we have moved up to 1st grade, in literature we began reading The Adventures of Grandfather Frog by T.W. Burgess. In phonics he is progressing really well, making up sentences and reading 5 & 6 line stories. And last but not least, phonics in spanish which has gone quite well. He remembers what I taught him last year, so we are building upon that. OK, enough reporting.

Doesn't our school room look great? You should have seen it 2 hours before this photo was taken!

Matematicas

IMG_2325, originally uploaded by McPryce.

This is Samuel's favorite way to do math.
Count the cereal (the one that Mommy never lets him have for breakfast), find the word number, eat.
I would probably have been better at math if I could of had a snack after solving each problem!

The Science of Music

Today we talked about the angels that filled the sky with singing announcing the birth of Jesus. We learned about vibrations in our throat as we sing and how when we fill glasses with varying amounts of water the glasses will produce different tones because of different space allowed for vibrations.

Hmmm... click and listen to what Samuel really enjoyed about Escuelita today.

Sharing

"Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God..." Phillipians 2:14-15

What a perfect verse to learn this week...for both of us. You will understand if you read the post below!

Our Curriculum

After MANY months of trying to come up with my own Christ-centered curriculum appropriate for Kindergarten and to fit our homeschool, I found Heart of Dakota. Little Hearts for His Glory is exactly what we needed with just the right amount of structure and flexibility. It takes one hour and thirty minutes for us to complete the lessons for the day and a little longer when we add nature walks and handicrafts. On Fridays we are supposed to share the memory verse of the week and it was chore for Samuel until we started posting it on this blog. He still insists that his favorite part of school is recess and snack time, but then we really don't have recess or snack. And you have to take into consideration that he loves to contradict everything I say. I truly believe that singing the scripture song and sharing the memory verse are his favorites because we do it online for the whole family (click on any of the SHARING titles to the left).
Last Friday we did not have school but did enjoy a nature walk at a beach in Malibu. We are in California on a family vacation visiting my sister. It was very cold and very beautiful and a great way to incorporate "Escuelita" into our vacation. That is what homeschool is all about!
Please click below and enjoy this encounter at the beach.

Sharing

Today is Friday. Memory Verse Sharing Day. Please note that Samuel choreographed this episode of the blog and wanted to have Escuelita in pajamas.
"When I am afraid I will trust in you..." Psalm 56:3

The Classsroom

This is were we cuddle 5 days a week for Escuelita. I had just organized the books in the book shelf and decided to take a picture. Now I have proof that it was once organized and tidy. You can be sure that it does not look like this today.

Sharing

Friday is "Share your memory verse day" and since Samuel really enjoys the blog I had no problems prompting him to share. Usually it is like pulling teeth...but now he has all these ideas for the blog!

"My help comes from the Lord, the maker of Heaven and Earth." Psalm 121:2 He came up with the song all by himself...

School Song

This was Samuel's idea for the blog today. He wanted Grandma to see him on the video!



(Sung to the tune of La Cucaracha)
Mi Escuelita,
mi escuelita,
yo la quiero con amor.
Estoy seguro
es mi futuro,
yo aprendo mi leccion!
(Hap Palmer)

Are we having Escuelita today?

This is Samuel's first question every morning. Not on weekends, just weekdays. This is not a question filled with expectancy and joy, but with a a whiny, whiny voice. Not that he does not want to learn, but he would rather build, build, build his skyscrapers.

But today was different. He decided that Wuff (stuffed dog), Flecos, Pillow and Christmas Hermie needed to go to school. Christmas Hermie drove the green car which transported each student to their building (a box) created right in front (blocking the way) of the master bedroom. When they were all in session Samuel informed me that he was now ready for Escuelita and that even though his friends were also studying Bible, handwriting, math, experiments, reading, storytime, spanish and music, it only took them an hour instead of the hour and a half that it takes us!

Well, it's the weekend. Let's enjoy!