BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS

My first set of books have arrived for the next school year. I am not sure who is more excited me or him. It is so much fun getting new school supplies! Little Bit was so happy to see the new Apologia Zoology and Astronomy books. I had originally told him that he could pick which one he wanted to study and my 6 year old made a valid argument for doing both. He wanted both books and asked why couldn't we study both since they were different subjects. I couldn't argue with that logic.



I also received two of the Horrible Science books. I am shopping around for the Horrible Histories set of books. He loved the Science books, he sat down and read for a hour and half plus he took the books to bed with him! Any book that will encourage so much reading, I like. They are funny, informative, books with comics, little experiments and fun facts.



Here is the list of what has arrived so far. I have a few more books to order next month and we will be ready to start 2nd grade.

Apologia Zoology Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day
Apologia Zoology Journal
Apologia Astronomy
Apologia Astronomy Journal
Horizons Penmanship Workbook 1
Singapore Intensive Practice for 2A
Singapore Extra Practice 2 (this looks diffcult and will be done after 2B)
Apologia Who is God
Words are Wonderful Vocabulary Workbook 1
Words are Wonderful Vocabulary Workbook 2

Misc. Books
Kingfisher Questions and Answers about Birds (1.99 on clearance)
Dictionary of Archeology (On clearance for .99 and he likes Indiana Jones)
Flying and Floating Science Facts (.99 on clearance)
Paul Revere's Ride (1.99 on clearance)
Horrible Science Ugly Bugs
Horrible Science Shocking Electricity

Other than the Horrible Science books, which came from Amazon.com, all the other books came from ChristianBook.com. I love the clearance section on christianbook, they have the best deals.

Photo Rails Project

I did a little project today for the hallway that leads to the office/schoolroom. I made clip art rails for photos, drawings, copy work, etc. You know all the cool things you want to hang up or display. It was a super simple project and cost under $5.00 to make. I used a 1x2x96 piece of wood, a package of clothes pins, white paint, and some scrapbook paper with my cricut. The wood was about $3.00 and the pkg. of clothes pins were $1.00 at the dollar store. I already had white paint and plenty of scrapbook supplies. I got the idea and directions from
http://www.knock-offwood.com/2010/01/plans-clip-art-rails.html

Love the knock off wood blog, there are so many good ideas, I have tons of projects on my to do list.

DONE with 1st Grade!

We are officially done with the 1st grade. We have finished our planned
curriculum for this year. There was reading, math, science, handwriting, experiments, activities, bug club, TaeKwonDo, and questions, lots of questions.

This was a fun year and I felt a more comfortable homeschooling this year. I have already started getting ready for 2nd grade. I wanted to list a few things I felt we did right and some things I want to change for next year.


Things We Did Right

1. I was more laid back about scheduling class time. After lunch worked great for him.

2. Breaking up the day by having some play time between school time.

3. Letting Dad so science experiments with LittleBit on the weekends. Having Dad help with schoolwork is good for everyone.

4. Slowing down to take our time on interesting topics such as the Olympics, mummies and pirates.

5. Reading, Reading, and more Reading


Things I Want to Work On

1. School back in the school room! Somehow we started doing school in the living room instead of the wonderful school room we converted my office to. He does great working in the main room of the house but it is driving me crazy! I want to at least get back into the school room for our "official" work time.

2. Just a little independent work time. He wants me to be there and helping with every single thing. While I don't mind, I would like to see just a little independent work, maybe one worksheet by himself.

3. More hands on work. He does so well learning through visual and hands on learning. I want to make sure we incorporate as much of it as we can.

4. More googling and research! He comes up with so many interesting questions while we are reading or studying a topic, I want to spend more time looking up what something looks like, what causes that to happen etc. It leads to so much learning and interest in new things.

5. Be willing to stop our forward progress to study a subject in depth. We did this some this year and it was great. It is easy to get caught up in, we need to get this far in the book or we need to finish this workbook by a certain date. Being able to study something in depth is one of the big advantages to homeschooling.



We will offically start 2nd grade in mid-July but we will still be learning. We are doing Apologia Botnay this summer along with a little math, handwriting and of course reading.

LEGO Math

Today we practiced counting with Lego's. How many Lego pieces do you need to get to 100 Lego dots? We were able to practice counting by 2's, 4's addition and subtraction all while playing with Lego's.

This was a great way to practice counting by 2's and 4's. I also showed him how to multiply the rows to find the number of dots per piece, since we have been doing a little multiplication in Singapore math. He was able to practice subtraction, the goal was to have exactly 100 dots and when he had to many dots, he had to subtract and then find a Lego with the correct number of dots.

Magic School Bus A Journey of the Human Body Science kit

Today was a rainy, stormy, miserable day, the perfect day for science experiments. Today we got out our Magic School Bus A Journey of the Human Body kit. It was a lot of fun. You do need 2L bottles, we made do with a juice bottle and a water bottle. There is huge poster of the human body with facts to read and stickers in put the body together with.
Little Bit check his lung function.



Learned how a diaphragm works, made a stethoscope, and how muscles make your body. Plus he had hours of fun blowing up the balloons and letting the air out of them.