Fall term report

Our first term of the fall is wrapping up, and we’ll be taking a week off. I haven’t posted a picture of our weekly topics due to technical difficulties of uploading photos… so I thought I’d give an update now. 

Math: 

Anya: Recent units have been on multiplication (1, 2, 5, and 10 facts) and reviewing mental addition and subtraction. The lessons are very visual, using base-10 blocks and games, and take time. I had considered trying to switch to a math program that was less teacher-intensive, especially since Alina is starting kindergarten math and will need my time as well. However, while pondering that, I happened to listen to several podcasts about the importance of making math tactile and visual in the early years, to establish a solid numbers sense (rather than rote memorization of facts), and how that takes an investment of time, but is worth it. So I was encouraged to continue in this program (Math with Confidence). 

Alina: We finished the unit on numbers 1-10, and now are working on pairs that make 10. In contrast with third grade math lessons, these are super short and light! 

Spelling: 

I am noticing that Anya’s love of reading is making her more aware of spelling—she is building a good visual memory of words, and can quickly tell if she’s spelled something wrong. “That doesn’t look right!” We have been working on the jobs of silent E and “pickle” syllables for a while. She’s spelling sentences like, “Jill makes quilts with a sharp needle” and “The bride held a simple white flower.” We do a mix of simple hands-on instruction with magnetic spelling tiles, cut-paper activities, and sentence writing practice. 

Reading 

Alina is reading really well. I am so happy with the All About Reading curriculum, for a second time. It seems well suited for her age: she loves to read with the Reading Monster (a green and pink paper monster who talks, and eats words) and do the little hands-on paper activities, and mark her completed lessons with star stickers. Just 10 minutes of practice a few times a week has translated to a lot of progress for her, and she’s excited about it! 

She is working out "b" and "d" and came up with a method that helps her: consulting the decorative alphabet letters and pictures that are on our loft wall. If she sees a "b" or "d" in her reading, she carefully looks up there to figure out which sound to say. It's building her visual memory, and it's her own problem-solving solution that she is proud of! 

Grammar 

Anya started something called Fix-It Grammar. The workbook is actually a story, told sentence by sentence, but every sentence has a series of mistakes (and a checklist of what type of mistakes they are). Every week there’s a new little lesson to read, and then the week’s sentences (one per day) provide the practice. The final step is to rewrite the sentence correctly. I wanted something that she could do relatively independently, and I like that it combines grammar sense and copywork in one little lesson. The story is Town Mouse and Country Mouse. 

Science 

This year we are trying Elemental Science: Biology (Anya's choice). So far we have all enjoyed it. We started off with learning about bacteria and protists, then spent some time on fungi. The weekly flow is a mix of library book reading (which we do at our morning reading and snack time), a demonstration or activity, and writing about what we've learned. The demonstration for the fungi unit was to make mushroom spore prints. We gathered mushrooms from the yard, then put them gill-side-down on a piece of paper, sprinkled water on top, and left in a dark area for 24 hours. Voila, the mushrooms released their spores onto the paper, in beautiful ribbed patterns! 

Anya told me, "I am seeing so many mushrooms now!" I said something about how there are more in the yard because of the season. She said, "No, I never stopped to look at mushrooms before because I didn't think they were interesting, but now I know they're really interesting so I like to look at them!"

Science success :-) 

History 

We have started in on Story of the World Vol. 2, reading about the fall of the Roman Empire and the Celtic people. The girls enjoyed making Celtic dragon brooches based on the pattern of one found at an archeological site. We laminated the paper and hot glued it to light cardboard and a safety pin. We also made Roman columns out of sugar cookie dough! That was a fun one, and they enjoyed decorating their columns and bringing some for Anya's piano teacher. 

Writing 

This is not a "separate" subject for us but integrated with everything else. I am still giving her copywork, which helps develop handwriting, spelling, and grammar skills. Some of this has been from the dictionary! A friend gave us a really nice kid's dictionary with lots of pictures. I have picked some vocab from our catechism and science for her to find in the dictionary and copy onto an index card for a "word board" in the dining room. 

She will be writing regularly for science and history. And we are keeping up with our free writes, which are a favorite time! She likes to save free writing for last during our afternoon session (like a dessert to look forward to) and just finished a story about Penny the chicken hiking Sauk Mountain. 

Art and Music 

These alternate weeks. We are studying some of Vermeer's paintings, and the girls made chalk paint to mimic the process, during his time, of crushing semiprecious stones to make paint. We also made primary color play dough and mixed it to find secondary colors. We'll be revisiting songs about the elements of art by "Scratch Garden"--they are on YouTube and have little animated videos to go along with the songs. 

For music, we are learning about Bach and the organ. One day this week at lunch, we watched an organ concert that had taken place at a cathedral in Berlin. It was so cool. We have also been reading about the organ--it is such an impressive and complicated instrument and a good one for "wow" factor! 

Scripture and Catechism 

We are using book called A Child's Story Bible. It feels like kind of a middle step between a picture book bible and the Bible itself. Now getting into the story of Abraham. We memorized Ephesians 4:32-5:2. We are using a wonderful little album called Questions and Answers to learn the catechism--it puts the questions to song along with some supporting scripture. So far we have done "Who is God?" and "Who made God?" and "Will God ever die?" and "Where is God?" 

Poetry 

We read William Carlos William's poem about plums in the icebox, just for fun and some laughs. Then we memorized Autumn Fires by Robert Louis Stevenson. Anya's recitation of it won Tim's heart over to having a fire in the wood stove on the first day of fall! Now we are working on Little Things by Julia Fletcher Carney. 

Wonder Tales 

So far our favorite wonder tale has been The Boy Who Went to the North Wind. After reading it, we acted it out in the yard! June played the part of (reluctant) goat. We all took turns with the human roles. It was fun to act and be dramatic and laugh about it. Actually, Anya remembered the story from her own kindergarten year with much fondness because we acted it out together back then as well. 

This week we read The Ugly Duckling and practiced narrating the story back to each other. 

So, lots of learning happening here, and our routine makes it feel manageable and fruitful. It will be nice to take a break for a week, and return refreshed. I don't necessarily feel like we need a break yet, but I am glad to take one before we really do!