First Day of 2nd Grade!

How did that happen, I can not believe we started 2nd grade today.  They grow up so fast.

We had a great start to the new official school year. Yesterday, LittleBit and Dad built a tin can robot and this morning we got up and finished school before lunch.  This year, Leo the Lion had to come to school to.  He has been very attached to Leo of late and they do everything together. 

 

 

 

Today we started Horizons Penmanship Grade 1.  Handwriting has been a difficult subject for us, as I have talked about before. He does not like practicing handwriting and he is not where I would like him to be.  We had been using Handwriting with Tears, this program did not work for us. Last year, I dropped it and we just went to practice pages with me working closely with him.  He did make good improvements toward the end of the year. 

I like the concept of Horizons Penmanship, with the rocket based activates, and the practice Bible verses.  I know a Great Grandma who will like to receive the Bible verse pages in the mail.  He seemed to really like the rocket ship based practice pages, so I am hoping handwriting will not be such a struggle this year. 

 

We began Words are Wonderful an Interactive Approach to Vocabulary.  This is an test book to help increase and strengthen vocabulary.  We did Lesson 1 today, find the word or group of words with the same meaning.  The words for Lesson 1 are:

1. colony

2. stubby

3. webbed

4. migrate

5. burrow

6. cycle

7. waddle

8. unusual

9. migratory

10. burrow(different meaning)

I was surprised how many he knew without any assistance and once I showed him how to substitute the other choices as a replacement for the underlined word, he sailed right through with virtually no help from me. 

I purchased this book at ChristianBook.com

We explored the 2 science books we will be using this year.  Apologia’s Zoology and Astronomy.  I need to get a few supplies for the experiments listed, we will begin reading later this week. 

We also continued working in Singapore 2A, which we started a few weeks ago.  Also, we did a review from First Language Lessons and Story of the World Volume 1. 

One of the new things we are doing this year, is reading a chapter book by himself and journaling about each chapter.  He has always read a book at the end of school each day and I let him pick which book.  He usually picks anything from beginners book to reading some in the encyclopedia books he has.  This year at the end of school time, he will at least 1 chapter in a book and then comment on the chapter on a journal page.  We have always practiced narration and will continue to do so, but this adds another level and  helps prepare him for writing reports, etc. 

 

That is about it for Day 1 for second grade.  You can see all the curriculum we are using on the right side of the blog.