1st Grader's Changes/Mid-week Review

 I normally do not curriculum hop and change my plans frequently - at least not this frequently.  But, I am really trying to find something that works for the 1st grader.  I'm dealing with vision issues, a fear of reading (from the vision issues) and his neediness and wanting me to do "school" with him constantly.

I spent this week taking The Well-Trained Mind for a test drive.  Here's my thoughts.

Language Arts

• It's just way too much Language Arts for a 6 year-old.  
• He does not like First Language Lessons.  He looked at me like I was absolutely crazy when I tried to go through the first couple of lessons.
• He does not like All About Reading (long story if you've read the other posts on my blog, but he thinks the readers will give him a headache, because that's what happened before we got his glasses - sigh)
• The perfect combination for him right now seems to be:
• Explode the Code
• A beginning reader book (like Moo Dog) that he can try to read to me and we sound out the words together
• Copywork/Handwriting

History: Ancients

• I got some great kids books about Ancient Egypt from the library.  We started to read one of them.  It was mostly about the Egyptian gods.  He FREAKED out.  His questions were like this:
• Are these monsters??
• Are they real?
• Did this really happen??
• Why would they talk to these monsters???
• Why are you saying they're gods??  They're not God!
• As you can imagine, we could not finish the book and I am basically sitting here with my head in my hands.  I do not know what to do.  

Flying Creatures of the 5th Day (Apologia)

• He actually likes this - a lot.  

Literature

• I added real literature to his day - not just picture books (we read those at bedtime anyway).  I'm reading Winnie the Pooh and he loves it.  He's been sitting on the floor making pretend pizzas while I read.  I was surprised he liked this so much.  We read a big chunk of the book in just one week.  

Music

• I picked up Beethoven's Wig from the library - very cool!
• He is so excited to learn how to play the piano.

Art

• He loves art.

So, the hits:

•  Real children's literature
• Actually reading a book to me- instead of a reading curriculum
• Science
• Music & Art

I actually learned a lot about what he likes this week.  Could he be more of a Charlotte Mason guy?? 

Homeschool Day 9/8

 1st Grader

• Winnie the Pooh
• Moo Dog (he read this to me)
• First Language Lessons 1
• Explode the Code
• Apologia's Land Animals of the Fifth Day
• Wednesday night church

9th and 11th Graders

• Animal Farm
• Algebra 1 (9th) and Stewardship (11th)
• Bible reading
• German
• Komm Mit 1 (9th)
• "Des Teufels russiger Bruder"
• Chemistry (Masterbooks)
• Chapter 7: Chemical Reactions
• I taught the lesson
• We did the lab
• We watched a video showing the reaction via chemical equations
• Happy Atoms
• Coding/Programming
• 9th grader worked with MIT's Scratch
• 11th grader downloaded Idle onto the Raspberry Pi and did one of the graphics projects from the Python project book
• They spent a GOOD hour and a half just on coding today
• Shakespearean Theater (11th grader - outsourced class)
• Wednesday night church

Homeschool Day 9/7

 1st Grader

• Gymnastics Class
• Winnie the Pooh (read-aloud)
• Moo Dog (reader)
• Phonogram Bingo
• Explode the Code
• Beginner's Bible
• Math
• Math War Game from www.educationunboxed.com

9th and 11th Graders

• Animal Farm
• Algebra 1 (9th) and Stewardship (11th)
• Bible reading
• World Geography
• Countries of the World Geography puzzle
• Red Scarf Girl (China)
• Trail Guide to World Geography (Africa)
• Mapping the World with Art
• Teaching gymnastics

Homeschool Day 9/6

 1st Grader (our first day giving The Well-Trained Mind a trial run)

• Winnie the Pooh (read-aloud)
• Moo Dog (reader)
• Copywork - he copied a couple of words from Moo Dog
• First Language Lessons 1
• Apologia's Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day (Bats)
• The Great Animal Search
• Bat - connect the dots coloring page

9th and 11th Graders

• Animal Farm
• Algebra 1 (9th) and Stewardship/Personal Finance (11th)
• English
• Strunk & White's Elements of Style (went over clauses and commas/semi-colons)
• Written narration of Diary of a Young Girl 
• Went over outlining when writing
• Bible
• Bible reading
• Gladys Aylward (read-aloud)
• St. Thomas the Apostle
• biography
• discussion using Rose's Bible Charts and Graphs, also The 12 Outlaws
• German
• 9th grader - Komm Mit 1
• 11th grader - "Des Teufels russiger Bruder"
• Khan Academy's SAT Prep (11th grader)

Changes to 1st Grade

I'm giving The Well-trained Mind a trial run week with the 1st grader.  Throughout the day, he's crying and interrupting the high schoolers' school time.  He's begging to do the high schoolers' chemistry and physics labs.  A couple of days ago, he was climbing all over the kitchen island while the girls were trying to do their Chromatography lab.  Yesterday, he cried because the 9th grader was working with Python and well, he wanted to program with Python, too.  *rolling my eyes*

I am basically tripling his school, which I've never had to do with a kid before.  He seems to need more structure and more challenge.

This is a great thing about homeschooling - you can try new things and adjust their workload to meet the needs of your child.

I've put together a curriculum based off The Well-Trained Mind 1st grade/Grammar Stage.  It was the most structured method of homeschooling that I could think of.  

3 Daily Subjects

• Language
• Read-aloud and a Reader
• All About Spelling
• First Language Lessons 1
• Writing
• Copywork (1-2x per week)
• Writing letters to grandma (1x per week)
• Math
• Continuing Wild Math 1

Subjects 2-3x a Week

• History 
• Ancient History
• Library books, projects, etc
• Science
• Land Animals of the 6th Day
• Wild Animals Coloring Book
• The Great Animal Search
• Bible
• Keep doing what we're doing

Fridays

• Art - outsourced at an enrichment center
• Music
• Starting piano
• Beethoven's Wig series
• German
• I'm looking around

I'll update at the end of next week and see how these changes went - if he liked them or disliked them.

Homeschool Day 9/2

 1st Grader

• Read some CVC words using wooden letter blocks
• Wooden lawn dice - we threw the dice and added the numbers
• Beginner's Bible
• We read DK Children's Encyclopedia: Volcanos
• He built a volcano from clay, poured red-colored vinegar in the volcano and added baking soda to make it "erupt"

9th and 11th Graders

• Algebra 1 (9th) and Stewardship/Pers Fin (11th)
• Bible reading
• Physics (we spent hours on physics today)
• Mythbusters: Penny Drop Mini-Myth
• Mythbusters: Bus Chaos from the Speed movie
• Discussions
• Center of gravity
• Maximum acceleration of a falling object
• LAB: Whirlybird Speed
• Made a helicopter from paper
• Dropped from about 3 m
• Calculated average speed after 3 trials
• Made alterations to each helicopter
• Retested the new helicopters/calculated average speed
• Found that adding weight increased the speed the helicopters fell

Homeschool Day 9/1

 1st Grader

• Reading
• We went over the alphabet again and each letter sound.  He practiced writing each letter with his finger on the Whiteboard app on his iPad
• Math
• We played "What's in the box?" http://www.educationunboxed.com/whats-in-the-box-part-one/
• Rolled dice, listed numbers from smallest to largest
• Summer's Lab Science
• Lab workbook about mountains
• Started the Volcano section
• Looked at igneous rocks from our rock kit

9th and 11th Graders

• Algebra 1 (9th) and Stewardship/Personal Finance (11th)
• Bible reading
• Animal Farm (read-aloud)
• Chemistry
• Lesson 6: Atomic Theory - I taught this lesson on the dry erase board and answered questions
• Chromatography Lab
• Coding
• Boy, they really went nuts with this one.  One of them tried out a project from a Python project book from the library.  One of them spent hours writing code for a game on MIT's Scratch.  She even watched some videos on how to program Sprite movements she was unsure of.
• Red Scarf Girl (world geography)
• We listened to the audiobook for about an hour
• Discussed Communism, China, the Communist Revolution in China, how the communists tried to erase traditional culture in China, etc.  
• Shakespearean Theater class (outsourced - 11th grader)