Friday Reflections - Week 1

Well, week one is officially behind us! We had a great week, and I am BEYOND thrilled with all of our curriculum. I think the 'well-trained mind' way of doing things is wonderful, concise, organized, and casual, while at the same time, is extremely content-rich!
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Here is a look back at our first week of the year


Here is our happy first-grader on the first morning of school!

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He was VERY happy to see the new school room. He had been SO patient as Justin and I poured everything we had into that room to get it ready for the new school year!

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Morgan quickly made herself busy, checking out the goodies in her nook :o)

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And of course, my 15 month old baby stayed on the rug and quietly amused herself while Hunter and I did lessons. (yeah, I totally snorted pop out of my nose when I read that sentence too....)

I swear - she looked like this the WHOLE time!! (Ocean front property in Arizona, anyone???)

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When I was planning out the school year, I had a little bit of difficulty deciding how I would organize some of Hunter's work this year. One thing I am really, really happy with kind of sprung up out of nowhere, but I think it's going to work great.

For writing, we are using Writing With Ease. It is easy to forget that writing should involve much more than handwriting worksheets. This program encompasses the physical act of writing, but also includes reading comprehension, narration, mechanics, and formation of thought.

I decided that we would organize Hunter's writing in a composition notebook (which I covered in camo duck tape to up the 'coolness' factor!) Each page will have the entire week's worth of lessons on it. This way, we can flip through the book and see Hunter's progress as the year goes by.

While reading 'The Well Trained Mind', it was brought to my attention that just because Hunter is physically capable of writing, that doesn't mean I should force him to write out every little thing he thinks. Hunter has written very little this week, but each day he has formed thoughts into words, which I have put down on the page for him to read. At this stage, most kids' ability to form sentences in their brains far outpaces their ability to physically write those sentences down. By incorporating narration into almost every subject, Hunter is generating complex thoughts and sentences, but not getting burnt out while recording them. This concept makes so much sense to me, and it's validity was confirmed 100% as we got through an entire week without so much as a *peep* of complaint from Hunter.

Here is what his writing notebook looks like:

In Writing With Ease, each week focuses on a different work of literature. Week one takes its assignments from 'Little House in the Big Woods'.

Day 1: copy work sentence, discuss title and author

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Day 2: read a passage from 'Little House', discuss comprehension questions, complete narration exercise

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Day 3: copy work sentence

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Day 4: read a second passage from 'Little House', discuss comprehension questions, complete narration exercise

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Science was also fun this week, as Hunter learned about NASA, Copernicus, Galileo, and definitions of words like astronomy, astronomer, and gravitational pull! He also created his own mnemonic device to remember the names of the planets. The sentence he came up with was:

My Very Enthusiastic Muppet Jumped Sideways Up Nine Pinetrees

(and yes, we discussed the Pluto controversy!)

Here you see one of the notebook pages, once again utilizing narration!

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I copy Hunter's worksheets in the hope that the originals can be used for Morgan in the future. Our copier/printer is acting up, so I had to do as the Marines do and 'Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome' - so hand copied worksheets it was!

We are continuing from where we left off at the end of last school year, Alpha, lesson 15

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So there is our week in review! On deck for next week: Pinocchio (for writing), nomads, full moon, and a cave painting!