What are we learning?

Science class - what is a cell? Well, it's jello and beans and a grape, of course!

The different names for Jesus - The Light of the World (made a candle), The Bread of Life (made a bread basket), the Rock (painted a rock with the verse), The Lamb of God (made a lamb out of cotton balls), I am the Vine (eat grapes), The Living Water...

Still learning a little about each state - we have read about Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other pioneers. By the end of the year we'll have a book with a page for each state.

Spelling -  words like cleaning, coat, cared, swing, sorry, place, nice...he's telling me these are way too easy, but we at least need to finish out the book!

English - lessons like addressing an envelope, completing the sentence to answer "why", capitalization, punctuation, dictation. Handwriting / cursive will start again soon...took a little 'frustration' break for a few months because I realized he wasn't quite ready for that.

Math - double digit addition in his head. We are teaching to do math in your head, by picturing the abacus beads. Also parallel / perpendicular lines, lines of symmetry, and some beginning subtraction. I LOVE our math program, it is all hands on, tactical learning. No long worksheets, or boring memorization. We play lots of math games as well - they really reinforce what we have been learning.

Art - drawing lessons / painting / clay work

Spanish - body parts, colors, alphabet, furniture, animals. Chris is fluent, so that helps! We found a great website with Spanish games also.  He is now correcting my pronunciation, and boy does he have it down!

And of course Reading (out loud to eachother, and quietly). We don't even consider that a subject anymore, since he is reading chapter books on his own, and comprehending them. He is completely addicted to reading - in the grocery cart, in the car, before bed, in the morning, whenever he is bored...even to the cat!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!! Here’s a little known fact about ol’ St. Patty that you may not know…
He was born in Britain around the A.D. 390 to an aristocratic Christian family with a townhouse, a country villa, and plenty of slaves. At 16, Patrick’s world turned. He was kidnapped and sent overseas to tend sheep as a slave in the chilly, mountainous countryside of Ireland for seven years. According to folklore, Patrick had a dream that showed him how to escape! He found passage on a pirate ship back to Britain, where he was reunited with his family.

His dreams then told him to go back to Ireland, which he did and that is where he got ordained as a priest and spent the rest of his life banishing snakes from Ireland and trying to convert the Irish to Christianity. He brought Bibles and helped set up churches in Ireland.

**Our project today was to learn the history of St. Patrick's day and create a lapbook**
And it couldn't be complete with how to catch a Leprechaun :) And did you know St. Patrick used the 3-leaf clover to teach about the trinity of God?

School Store

The school store is open for business! I bought a bunch of goodies on sale, and put 'price' tags on them. Every time Avery finishes a subject without whining or arguing, and he tries his best - he gets a token. He can buy a pencil for 8 tokens, or a two headed dragon for 56 tokens!

Today we learned how to address envelopes. Where does the stamp go? Where does our address go? How many lines do you write on? What kind of punctuation do you use?

Wood shop

It's Pinewood Derby time again! This year Avery wanted a Donkey Kong car.
Daddy taught him how to carve the wood, and use the woodburner to make designs. Mommy helped him paint the car, and he finished it off with monkey stickers.

We didn't win, because we didn't think about putting weights on it. Oh well...there's always next year. At least he had fun!

The 50 States Tour!

Every day we introduce a new state, in the order of when they joined the US. We find it on the map, read about that state, and make a page showing the state and the flower and bird to go with it. At the end we'll have our own book. Avery says "We have fun in school, don't we!".

This year: American History

The theme this year is American history. We went way back to the Vikings in 1000, then Columbus in 1492, then the Spanish settlers, English, Dutch...and learning about the different Native Americans who were here first. We've made a wigwam, teepee, canoe, and feather hat and read the book "Squanto" which Avery absolutely loved for some reason. We keep running into Squanto in different stories about the first Thanksgiving, and it's fun that he recognizes him.

We are learning different patriotic songs and what they mean. God Bless America and America so far.

2nd Grade has started!

We are into our second week of 2nd Grade with Avery. He is supposed to be starting 1st grade if he was in public school.
With 2nd grade, there are more subjects to cover. Here is our weekly list of subjects:
1. Bible
2. Spelling
3. English
4. Handwriting
5. American History
6. Science
7. Math
8. Spanish
9. Reading...incentivized with Book-It pizza!
10. PE (at YMCA twice a week)
11. Swimming (at YMCA once a week)
12. Soccer (at YMCA twice a week)
13. Bible Quiz team (at church once a week)
14. Royal Rangers (like boy scouts, once a week)

Chris is now helping with 50% of the teaching, and is doing very well at it. We are thoroughly enjoying all the family time together, and really love the 'blur' between school and everyday life. Almost everything we do is a teaching moment, and Avery's mind is always open to learning wherever we are. Lovin it!!!!