October 29, 2012

Today is a normal old Monday for us and this is what we have done so far:

History:  We have been studying ancient history during our 1st grade year (yes, me too!:).  At the end of last week, we had just read about the death of Julius Caesar.  Today we were reading about his adopted son (his nephew) Octavian Caesar, renamed to Augustus Caesar.  The curriculum we are using (Story of the World - SOTW) comes with a coloring page and the boys always enjoy coloring their page while I read the chapter.  After we read, they each take turns narrating what we read and I write it down for them.  (In 2nd grade they will start writing part of it themselves.)  After I write their narration, they usually read it back.  Then they do some map work.  SOTW comes with the maps and has instructions of what they are to do.  I read the instructions, such as: Use yellow to shade in the area that was Rome when Augustus Caesar ruled.  What sea was within the Roman empire during this time?  Use blue to shade in the sea.  Circle the country where Cleopatra ruled., etc.  After they did their map work, we were finished with history for the day.  If the chapter is a longer one or of greater importance, or if we just want to dive deeper into that subject because it was very interesting, we will read library books on the topic(s) on Wednesday and will do additional narrations.  Otherwise, we move on to the next chapter.  There are 42 chapters in our book that we will complete in 36 weeks of school.

Writing:  Next we did writing (Writing With Ease).  This changes from day to day.  The boys really enjoy history and science so they normally choose to do those first (history on Mon/Wed and science on Tues/Thurs).  What comes next changes from day to day, depending on our mood.  Today for writing the boys did some copy work.  They copied the first stanza from the poem, "The Sandpiper".  They were learning that the first letter in each line of a poem is capitalized and they were also learning about the punctuation in the piece.  Tomorrow I will read the entire poem to them.  They will then answer comprehension questions, narrate and copy their narration.  They are doing all of their writing and copy work in cursive these days.

Read-to-self:  The boys each pick a library book to read.  Sometimes this is Assigned Reading and they will read something related to our history study.  Today they picked something for fun reading from the library books that I have picked out for them.  We read for 40 minutes.

Bible Study:  Next we did our Bible study, using Bible Study Guide for All Ages, which the boys really like.  We review what we have been studying, then we cover new material.  Today was about important people in the genealogy of Jesus.  We have also been studying about King Nebuchadnezzar and his dream and about Daniel.  Then we do some timeline and map work about what we are studying.

Spelling:  After Bible study, we did some spelling work today, using All About Spelling.  We are working on when to use 'k' and when to use 'ck' at the end of a word.  I reminded them of the rule we are working on and then I dictated 6 or 7 spelling words and 6 phrases with two words in each phrase.  They write them on small white boards.  The first time a word is missed, I mark it in my book with N, B or both.  I dictate those words again in the next lesson.  If the same person  misses the same word a second time, I have them write the word correctly 5 times, or something like that and I give them the same word again in the next lesson.  They have never missed a word again after this.  In our lesson tomorrow, we will cover any missed words they are working on and then I will dictate 6 more phrases.  Once they spell all of the phrases correctly, we are ready to move on to the next chapter.

Now it is after spelling and we are taking our break and getting ready to eat lunch.  After lunch, we still have to do math (we are doing two lessons a day for now from Christian Light Education math), read aloud (we are reading The Secret Garden) and English (First Language Lessons).  And we also have to go to Nick's piano lesson, return books to the library and get more, return a dvd to the rental store and I really need to take Dancer to the vet because something is wrong with the skin on his chin.

Then we will come back home, Ben will practice his violin and the boys will probably want to play their on-line games (15 minutes each).  We will eat dinner and they will also probably want to watch a movie (30 minutes).

It is beautiful here today.  The boys have been playing outside a lot these days and are doing so today during our break.  I must go fix lunch and get back to work:).

October 2, 2012

I ran across this picture of mom recently and thought it was good of her.  This is definitely how I picture her in my mind, although she was thinner and a bit older when she passed away.

And here are some recent pics of the boys:

Actually, these are fairly old.  I really must upload pics from the camera.  It has been a long time.