Your best spelling

We started a new writing curriculum in January. The first lessons focus on "getting started": what is a sentence? what does a sentence need? She will tell you the four things: (1) capital letter, (2) spaces between words, (3) ending punctuation, (4) subject and predicate.

We'll spend a few weeks on how to add details to sentences and how to construct paragraphs. Later this spring we'll spend quite a few weeks on narrative writing. (I don't think we'll get to the rest of the types of writing until next year.)

But a key concept early on was "use your best spelling." Obviously Anya doesn't know how to spell most words, and that has definitely slowed down her attempts at writing in the past. But, she seemed to find this lesson very freeing and a confidence booster. Slowly sound out the word and make your best guess. Just go for it!

I thought I'd share a few of my favorites.

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And, that's a wrap!

We finished Anya's first grade school year about three weeks ago, with a little popsicle celebration on the porch. We paged through a little book I've kept throughout the year of various projects; skimmed through some math workbook pages; looked at the first short story reader she started with back in September. It was fun to be reminded of where she started, and how much she's learned this year. I’ll share some photos. Math: where we started Math: where we finished up Handwriting/writing: where we started Handwriting/writing: where we finished up (Paragraph mapping) (Rough draft paragraph) (Final draft paragraph) Reading: where we started (This was review from kindergarten since we switched programs) Reading: where we finished Beyond all of these skills, and much more important, I am so pleased and proud about the girl she's becoming. Our family experienced a lot of change this year, as we welcomed and adjusted to anothe...

Homeschool reflections

School has been in session for a full month now, and it has flown by! I have started a blog post about it several times and never finished. There seems to be too much to say, as there is a lot going on here for the second-grader and preschooler. And for me! The summer was a time of learning and processing for me, and now I get to experiment with what I absorbed from multiple books on homeschooling. I read: - Family Matters by David Guterson - The 4-Hour School Day by Durenda Wilson - Homeschool Bravel y by Jamie Erickson - parts of The Well-Trained Mind and Writing with Ease by Susan Wise Bauer - I’m starting Teach Your Own by John Holt The biggest takeaways? One of the biggest benefits of a homeschool education is that it is, in fact, not school at all. This is a terrible paraphrase of a really good quote in one of the books I read. I think it synthesizes what I learned about how a lot of what I think of as "school" or "educ...

Calendar time

We start out each school day with calendar time. It signals the shift in our morning--school has started, and it's time to focus. It's also good practice for Alina. This is the only "school" activity that she has to participate in... after calendar time, she runs off to play. We follow the same pattern every day. First we practice some slow, deep breathing, and the girls and I take turns with coming up with fun ways to do this. Some favorites are "curtain breathing" (made by Alina; you start with your hands over your face, and take a deep breath in while moving your hands out and away), the yoga move "cat/cow," and full body breathing (lie on the floor, and take in a deep breath while lifting up your legs and arms into the air). I don't participate in that last one right now, being 35+ weeks pregnant! Next we look at their calendars and figure out what date and day of the week it is. We have a "days of the week" song that we someti...

The Colton Family Schoolhouse

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