First Week of First Grade!

Oh my!!!  I can not believe that my oldest is already in 1st grade!  Where has the time (and diapers) gone?  Although many days seem slow, the years are going by fast...way to fast if you ask me.

I have the great pleasure to educate my children at home.  We have considered ourselves as a homeschooling family for many years, but as of Tuesday, we are completely official.  Nicole did not have to register with our state for Kindergarten because she turned six past the February deadline, so last year, we homeschooled, but did not have to report to the state.  This year is a whole new ball game.  She is now officially a homeschooler!!  Woohoo!!!!

We started getting back on the schooling schedule a few weeks ago by adding in our new Spelling Curriculum.  A few friends have suggested Spell to Write and Read and after a lot of reading and prayer, we decided to work on this new curriculum (well new to us).  It has a huge learning curve for me because I don't think I was really taught how to spell (that shows up in my posts often, however I try to just blame that on typos;)  I have learned so much about our English language in the past few months through this curriculum.  So, we started officially working through our spelling lists 3 weeks ago.

The following week we added in Math.  We are a little more than half way through Saxon Math 1.  I hope to finish it by November and move on to Saxon Math 2.

This week we officially began 1st grade with great excitement! We added geography into our mix and really got to know our world. 

Next week we start Classical Conversations again which will mean we will be full force with our schooling until Thanksgiving. 

Without further ado....our first week of first grade!

We had to start off the week with an idea from pinterest.  Nicole told me what she wants to be when she grows up. 

When I grow up I want to be 1) a Police Officer and 2) a Dentist

And Hannah of course wanted in on the action :)

When I grow up I want to be a Tap Dancer

Because we don't have an American flag (yet) Nicole decided to draw one for us to look at as we say the Pledge of Allegiance. I don't know if this is proper flag policy, but I thought it was sweet (Hannah added the pole at the bottom:)

After working with our shower curtain map of the World and labeling and singing the continents and oceans song, we became more familiar with the contents by filling them in with play doh.  I really wanted the girls to know and recognize the shape of each continent and their proximity to each other.

Nicole also worked on her math using linking cubes with our manipulative's kit.

The next day we learned how to read a map...any map, by using a campground map. They learned how to use a Compass Rose and answered several questions about the campground.  I really like this activity.  I used it when I taught GeoDrawing Camp earlier this summer.

While Nicole was doing her campground map, Nate and Hannah were entertained playing with baking soda and vinegar.  Another pinterest idea, we filled a tray (box) with baking soda (after lining with wax paper) and the kids dropped colored vinegar onto the soda.  They played for 45 minutes making small volcanoes!  Nate even discovered if he put the baking soda on the tip of the dropper, then put the dropper int he vinegar it gave a different fizzing effect.  He really liked that!

Thursday Nicole took her spelling words and put them in a chart with the single letter phonograms.  For example, the word "into" was written under /i/,/n/, /t/, and /o/ because those are the phonograms use in the word.  Where as the word "her" was only written under /h/.

Our final project for the week was a salt dough map of the world.  We started by free hand drawing the continents on a piece of cardboard (from a pizza box lid;).  Check out Nicole's drawing!!!  She totally free handed this by looking at our world map.  I think she did an amazing job!

Then we made the dough (maybe the "funnest" part).

This was what Nate was doing as we worked, haha

And we used the dough to fill in our map. 

Nicole's map

After baking our maps at 200 degree for about 2 hours, it was dried enough to paint.  So, we painted the maps.  Nicole did every inch of her map herself.  I was so proud of her. 

Hannah got a lot of help from mommy ;)

After our first week of first grade, I think Nicole is ready for CC to start on Monday.  She has a firm grasp of the continents and oceans and is beginning to learn and understand the Great Circles (equator, Tropics lines, etc).  Hannah at least knows the names of continents, however she's not labeling them right, haha.

OH.....one more VERY Important thing.  If  you look closely at the pictures, you will notice a change in Nicole from her 1st day to her 4th day....she finally lost her "other" top middle tooth.  She has now lost 6 teeth and can only eat Jell-o because she doesn't have enough teeth to chew (just kidding!)  She was Very Excited it came out and I'm happy she won't have food smeared across her cheek anymore from trying to tear food with her molars and not bother her front loose teeth :)

We had a terrific week of 1st grade!  What a blessing to spend time with my kids and teach them!

Other cool books we read this week (we are reading a chapter or two a week out of each)

The Pilgrim's Progress from Abeka - we read this at 'rest time'.  This is an Abeka book I got at a consignment shop for 50cents...it's wonderful!
African Adventures - a cool book we just  bought with stories of missionaries and indigenous believers in Africa and how they deal with living there (you know...with the Lions and such;)
How a Spider Changed a Man's Life - stories that Charles Spurgeon told that have a great impact.  This is a wonderful book I highly suggest for short snippets of wisdom for children using stories and relating them back to scripture.  SO GOOD!