Homeschool Progress Report: July/August 2020

We do some kind of schooling all year round, so we did continue many of our subjects straight through the summer. In a normal year, this may have included some field trips, but with the pandemic, we stuck mostly to read-alouds, workbooks, and computer programs.

Math

M. (6 years, 9 months) practiced her mental math skills using Mental Math Kids Can't Resist, and she continued with the Intensive Practice book for Singapore Primary Mathematics 2B (for review), while also starting Primary Mathematics 3B. To save paper and to make it possible to re-use the workbook in the future, we scanned the whole thing and she has been using a stylus and the Kami app on her Chromebook to write her answers on the pages. I then use the stylus to mark wrong answers, and she corrects them right there on the page.

On Khan Academy, M. has reached the fourth grade level. These past two months, she focused on adding, subtracting, and multiplying fractions and mixed numbers, multiples and factors, basic geometry, decimals, graphing, and line plots.

We also printed a set of multiplication flashcards to replace Xtra Math, as M. was no longer doing the work and was instead waiting for the program to give her the answer to each question. We have been slow in getting started using these, but they will be a daily part of her routine this fall.

C. (age 4 years, 11 months) also has a set of flashcards for addition and subtraction facts which I bought for her at Dollar Tree, and she also spent her summer doing most of her math on Khan Academy. She is at the 2nd grade level, which covers topics such as analyzing shapes, measuring length, line plots, bar graphs, and picture graphs, time on a number line, counting money, adding four 2-digit numbers, and adding on a number line.

For fun, both M. and C. also spent time using geoboards and pattern blocks.

History

In the first half of the summer, M. was still finishing up her first year of history. We covered Christianity using several books: National Geographic Kids Who's Who in the Bible, National Geographic Kids The World of the Bible, The Parables of Jesus by Tomie dePaola, The Miracles of Jesus by Tomie dePaola, St. Paul The Apostle: The Story of the Apostle to the Gentiles by Mary Fabyan Windeatt, and The Holy Bible Adapted for Young Catholic Readers edited by Elsa Jane Werner and Charles Hartman and illustrated by Feodor Rojankovsky and the Provensens. The National Geographic books are great except that neither of them contains an image of the crucifixion. (Was this decision made to protect children from seeing violence? That seems preposterous and likely at the same time.) The St. Paul book was also excellent for illustrating what life was like during the early days of the church, but it was too long for a read-aloud. I intentionally did not use In Bible Days by Gertrude Hartman because it felt oddly antagonistic toward Christians. 

M. and C. also watched The Witnesses Trilogy (God With Us; The Messengers; and To Every Nation) on Formed.org, which they loved. I would definitely recommend all three films.

After Christianity, we covered the Fall of Rome in A Picturesque Tale of Progress, stopping just before the reign of Emperor Justinian, which is where we will pick up this week when we begin the new year.

For the month of August, we decided to do a "quickie" unit on U.S. History, using all the books we've collected on various topics and time periods. Here is our reading list: 

• Meet the North American Indians by Elizabeth Payne
• Little Runner of the Longhouse by Betty Baker
• The Men Who Found America by Frederick Winthrop Hutchinson
• The Columbus Story by Alice Dalgliesh
• On the Mayflower by Kate Waters
• Sarah Morton's Day by Kate Waters
• Samuel Eaton's Day by Kate Waters
• Giving Thanks by Kate Waters
• Pocahontas by Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire
• The Legend of New Amsterdam by Peter Spier
• The Boston Tea Party by Russell Freedman
• Mary Geddy's Day by Kate Waters
• George vs. George by Rosalyn Schanzer
• Six Silver Spoons by Janette Sebring Lowrey
• And Then What Happened Paul Revere? by Jean Fritz
• Paul Revere's Ride illustrated by Paul Galdone
• Sam the Minuteman by Nathaniel Benchley
• George the Drummer Boy by Nathaniel Benchley
• Shh! We're Writing the Constitution by Jean Fritz
• The Adventures of Lewis and Clark by Ormonde de Kaye, Jr.
• Locomotive by Brian Floca
• Who Let Muddy Boots into the White House? A Story of Andrew Jackson by Robert Quackenbush
• Quit Pulling My Leg: A Story of Davy Crockett by Robert Quackenbush
• Stagecoach Sal by Deborah Hopkinson
• The First Book of the California Gold Rush by Walter Havighurst
• Quick, Annie, Give Me a Catchy Line!: A Story of Samuel F.B. Morse by Robert Quackenbush
• The Drinking Gourd: A Story of the Underground Railroad by F.N. Monjo
• Meet Abraham Lincoln by Barbara Cary
• Meet Robert E. Lee by George Swift Trow
• The Silent Witness by Robin Friedman
• Mark Twain? What Kind of Name is That? by Robert Quackenbush
• Who's That Girl with the Gun?: A Story of Annie Oakley by Robert Quackenbush
• Along Came The Model T!: How Henry Ford Put The World On Wheels by Robert Quackenbush
• Coming to America by Betsy Maestro
• Klara's New World by Jeanette Winter
• Peppe the Lamplighter by Elisa Bartone
• First Flight: The Story of Tom Tate and the Wright Brothers by George Shea
• The One Bad Thing about Father by F.N. Monjo
• Don't You Dare Shoot That Bear: A Story of Theodore Roosevelt by Robert Quackenbush
• A History of the United States for Young People by Arensa Sondergaard
• Empire State Building by Elizabeth Mann
• Letting Swift River Go by Barbara Cooney
• Meet John F. Kennedy by Nancy Bean White
• Moonshot by Brian Floca
• American Adventures: The Battles
• American Adventures: Westward Journeys
• American Adventures: Voices for Freedom
• American Adventures: Troubled Times

Additionally, I showed M. and C. multiple episodes of Reading Rainbow featuring historical fiction picture books ("Ox-Cart Man," "Watch the Stars Come Out," "Meanwhile Back at the Ranch," "Kate Shelley and the Midnight Express," "Follow the Drinking Gourd," "Ruth Law Thrills a Nation," and "My America: A Poetry Atlas of the United States") and several other videos available from the public library through Just For Kids Access Video, including a few by Weston Woods ("Where Do You Think You're Going, Christopher Columbus?" by Jean Fritz, "Martin's Big Words" by Doreen Rappaport, "Just a Few Words, Mr. Lincoln" by Jean Fritz, and "The Pilgrims of Plimoth" by Marcia Sewall, and one from Sunburst Visual Media featuring colonial American reenactors ("Plymouth Plantation.") They finally finished watching Liberty's Kids, too.

This looks like a lot, but it was really just a quick read-aloud session each day, followed by a video, and no other formal work. They did play a lot with their historical figures from their various Safari Ltd. Toobs, but that was of their own volition and not part of school per se.

Science

We didn't do a lot of formal science during the summer months. There was lots of impromptu studying of insects, flowers, trees, birds, etc., but no sit-down lessons. We did watch some episodes of Wild Kratts and some videos from Sci Show Kids.

Reading and Writing

For M., the big books of the summer were Tik Tok of Oz by L. Frank Baum, The Legend of Pocahontas by Virginia Watson, and Redwall by Brian Jacques (which she is still reading.) She also wrote a letter to a bookseller friend my husband and I met on Goodreads who has kindly sent us several books.

C. read mostly Carolyn Haywood and books in the Dan Frontier series.

Health

Hygiene is still the main focus here: brushing teeth, washing hands, brushing hair, etc. All three of our big girls also talk about "the germs" that prevent them from going anywhere , and they have experienced having to go out wearing a mask a few times. They also play a game I can't stand called "The Covid is Strengthening," where they just run around shouting that into pretend phones.

Music

In July, we finished listening to all the episodes of Classics for Kids. For the rest of the summer, we sang for fun, sometimes hymns and sometimes folk songs. Both M. and C. practiced their piano and recorder lessons daily.

Catechism

We had our twins baptized the first week in August, so there was lots of talk about that, and we watched the Brother Francis baptism episode on Formed.org to prepare. We also watched Mass online every Sunday and introduced the Morning Offering prayer into the girls' morning routine.

Art

Aside from projects the girls came up with themselves and birthday cards for my sister, Grandma (my mother) provided most of the art for the summer during her visit the first week in August. She had them make lighthouses from plastic cups, jellyfish from paper plates, and butterflies and unicorns using chalk pastels. She also left us with a lot of the supplies she used to use at her summer camp, including a ton of markers.

Physical Education

Summertime PE is usually just going out the playground by our house as much as possible, but the HOA closed it for the entire summer, so instead the girls rode bicycles, ran laps on the deck, galloped hobby horses to the mailbox, and on a couple of occasions met friends at a county park to run around.

Stay tuned...

For us, the new school year starts on Tuesday. I'm going to start the year trying to post an update like this weekly, on Saturdays, and see how that goes for a bit. 

Homeschool Progress Report: May/June 2020

Though we pretty much school all year round, taking breaks here and there as suits our family, we have been in a sort of winding down phase for the past couple of months as we get closer and closer to completing the first year of our history studies. History is the only subject where we stick to a specific timeline, and ending one year of study and starting the next is basically how we will mark the change from one school year to the next. All other subjects we take at whatever pace suits the learner, which is why M., age 6, is currently doing fourth grade math but can't yet tie her shoes and C, age 4, is working on addition facts but still needs to be reminded not to speak using baby talk. 

In any case, here is what we worked on in May and June. 

Math

M. (6 years, 7 months) has continued on with her usual math materials. On Khan Academy, she is now at the fourth grade level and working on adding fractions. In Xtra Math, she's memorizing multiplication and division facts. We started reading three chapters from the Life of Fred series each week (rather than just one) and finished both Edgewood and Farming. M. also completed the second part of Singapore Primary Mathematics 3A, and she is working on finishing the Intensive Practice book for 2B as a review of previous work. Before starting 3B, she is taking a break to strengthen her mental math skills with Mental Math Kids Can't Resist. 

C. (4 years, 9 months) is in second grade on Khan Academy. She is also practicing adding tens and ones using flashcards and the soroban. We are planning to start Life of Fred with her this summer to solidify her addition facts, as she tends to freeze up when they appear in her other work. The Fred series also really makes math seem fun, which is an idea she could afford to have reinforced. 

History

In history, M. has finally made it to Rome, and she is really enjoying it. We started out learning about the Roman Republic and took some time to read Hannibal by Joel Newsome. The writing was a little dense for first grade, but she likes a lot of detail so we just went with it. We also read Julius Caesar and the Roman Republic by Miriam Greenblatt, which provided not just information about Caesar, but also about daily living in the Republic. 

After this, we took a quick detour to Imperial China and studied the Qin and Han dynasties. We read National Geographic Investigates Ancient China and learned about the Terra Cotta warriors, which M. drew in detail to accompany a narration. We also read The Great Wall of China by Leonard Everett Fisher, which explained how and why the wall was built. We watched some video tours of the Great Wall on YouTube as well.   

After China, we picked up with the Romans again just as Augustus Caesar came to power. We read some selections from A Picturesque Tale of Progress: Conquests II, which helped familiarize M. with the names of the emperors. I then helped her organize them into a timeline and memorize a fact or two about the reign of each. After that, we spent some time on Pompeii. M. read The Buried City of Pompeii: What it was Like When Vesuvius Exploded by Shelley Tanaka independently and also talked to my mother-in-law, who has been there. Together we also read National Geographic Investigates Ancient Rome and watched some YouTube video tours of the ruins at Pompeii.  

Once we had all the names and dates sorted out, we finished out this section of our Roman studies with more general information using books like Science in Ancient Rome by Jacqueline Harris, One Day in Ancient Rome by G.B. Kirtland (this one is excellent), The Romans in the Days of the Empire by Shane Harris (also excellent), and the Art of Ancient Rome by Shirley Glubok. We threw in a historical fiction read-aloud too: Detectives in Togas by Henry Winterfeld. Grandma also sent a Toob of Roman figures and a Sticker History book about the Ancient Romans which made it possible for M. to act out much of what she learned each day 

At this point, we have two main topics left in first grade: Christianity and the Fall of Rome. We expect to finish no later than mid-August. 

Science 

In science, which I'm still combining for both M. and C., we took a long leisurely look at birds. We read most of the bird-themed picture books we own and then spent a couple of weeks reading about each species covered in Superlative Birds by Leslie Bulion.  We noticed birds on walks and used an app from Cornell to try to identify birds we heard by their calls. M. wrote a couple of bird reports and C. drew some scientifically inaccurate but very cute pictures of owls, cardinals, and blue jays. We also did a craft project where all three of my big girls made nests for fake cardinals I bought at Dollar Tree.

We also started reading a few questions each day from The Big Book of Tell Me Why, which covers all kinds of topics the girls ask about as well as many others they haven't thought of but find interesting. 

Memory Work

M. spent most of the spring memorizing "The Destruction of Sennacherib" by Lord Byron, which she performs beautifully. At the end of June, she just started working on her next poem, "If" by Rose Fyleman. Since we haven't been in the car much thanks to the pandemic, we haven't quizzed her as much on things like bodies of water, the countries of Europe, or the planets, but we will get back to it. 

C. memorized "The Reason for the Pelican" and reviewed the four directions and the planets. 

E. really wants to have a poem to learn too, so she has been assigned "Wee Willie Winkie."

Reading And Writing

It's really hard to keep up with M.'s pleasure reading since she often reads at times when I have to be doing things with the other kids, but she's kept up the pace pretty well. I know she read Tik-Tok of Oz, which she loved, and at the end of June, she was working her way through The Enchanted Castle. Almost all of her assigned writing took the form of narrations, but I also find a fair amount of handwritten notes and signs around the house that show me she is also writing creatively sometimes for fun. 

C. also reads voraciously. She read the Penny books by Kevin Henkes, along with dozens of other easy readers from our shelves. She's also still really into Carolyn Haywood, and she has recently read Betsy and Mr. Kilpatrick and Eddie the Dog Holder. For fun, she also likes to pick up a Sophie Mouse book and read it in one sitting. She's much more willing to write her name on things than she was, and she's starting to ask how to spell things so she can label her drawings and write notes to her sisters. 

E., age 2 years, 8 months, is starting to show a lot of pre-reading behavior, like making up her own stories based on illustrations and memorizing large chunks of text. I've started singing the alphabet song with her to pave the way for reading skills a bit down the road. 

Health

We haven't done much of any serious health work, but explaining why we're all wearing masks when we go to stores and other places has been a health lesson of sorts. The twins' ever-developing abilities also serve as great talking points about human development. 

Music

Recorder and piano practice continue for both M. and C. We also listened to Classics for Kids episodes about Edvard Grieg, Dmitri Kabalevsky, Zoltán Kodály, Modest Mussorgsky, Georges Bizet, Giacomo Puccini, Gioachino Rossini, and William Grant Still. In June, we learned the hymn "All Ye Who Seek a Comfort Sure." Both M. and C. also musictheory.net to practice naming notes correctly. 

Catechism

Though Masses are available now, we haven't quite figured out how to handle going yet, so our catechism lessons have consisted mostly of watching Mass on the computer. We did attend a baptism for my and my husband's goddaughter which prompted lots of great discussion, and we  also frequently sing the hymns for the day on Aleteia.org. As June ended, I also wrote up some big prayer cards to hang by the dining room table so the girls can easily remember how to say the Morning Offering and Angelus. M. is also working on  memorizing the lesson in her Catechism about the theological virtues and gifts of the Holy Spirit. 

Art

M. had an art lesson with me and my husband about the color wheel, which included some pages from Just Look by Robert Cumming, the art text we have been reading for a couple of months, and some YouTube videos. My husband also hung a string across the dining room wall so now artwork can be displayed. The only major art project we did was to make a father's day card, but I did most of the work. Over the summer, I hope to allow the girls more freedom with art supplies. 

Physical Education

With no playground and no pool (they're allowed to be open, but are not open), our P.E. opportunities are more limited than they were last year. We did have one opportunity to run around at a park and we try to take walks and let the girls run on the deck as much as possible, but it's probably not enough. 

Homeschool Progress Report: March/April 2020

Looking back at the homeschool report I posted just two months ago, I feel as though I must have written it during a different lifetime. A few short weeks ago, I hadn't yet delivered my twins, and we were completely ignorant of how the coronavirus was about to impact our freedom to go about our normal activities. Now we're not just homeschooling, but ordered by law to stay home, and since they came home from staying with friends while I had the babies (a boy and a girl, both doing well!), my kids haven't really seen anyone outside of our immediate family. Though our day-to-day routine hasn't changed that much - and honestly is more or less what it would have been with newborn twins even without the coronavirus - things don't feel normal, and as a result, our school life hasn't been fully normal either. We are also coping with the disappointment of a canceled visit from Grandma and the fact that there was no public Mass on Easter, two things which further contribute to our unsettled feelings.

Still, though we took a bit of time off in March, we have still been accomplishing schoolwork, and though our homeschool review this year has already taken place, I want to have a record of what we did for our own purposes. Since we have slowed down some, this post will focus on both March and April. 

First Grade with M., age 6

Math

Much of M.'s recent math work has been on the computer, using Khan Academy, where she is working at the 4th grade level, and Xtra math, where she has finally finished subtraction and has now moved on to division. We're also still doing "Fred Fridays" with Life of Fred (we're in Edgewood now) and most days, I try to assign a few pages of Singapore Math. She's working on 3A right now and has just moved into the workbook for 3A part two. This is mostly review since she has already learned her times tables, but working with division and remainders is new and she seems to be enjoying it even if she is sometimes making careless mistakes. 

History

Right before I went to the hospital to have the twins, M. finished a quick couple of weeks on Ancient China. We read The Ancient Chinese by Virginia Schomp and Science in Ancient China by George W. Beshore, and M. did narrations about the ancient Chinese belief in five elements and using moxa and acupuncture to treat illness. After the twins came home, we did a week or so on the Ancient Celts using The Ancient Celts by Patricia Calvert. M. did  narrations about Celtic kings and Celtic marriage.

After the Celts, we studied the Maya using The Ancient Maya by Barbara Beck. This book was perfectly suited to our purposes and much more enjoyable than the Celts book. M. did narrations about Mayan clothing, Mayan art, the eras of Mayan civilization, and the Mayan counting system. She also played this Maya math game from the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, experimented with Maya pottery methods using play dough, and did some online tours of Mayan sites (such as Chichen Itza) using Google Arts & Culture.

As April comes to an end, we are reading Alexander the Great from the Landmark series, and she has just finished Our Little Macedonian Cousin of Long Ago by Julia Darrow Cowles, which involves Alexander's childhood. M. especially liked learning about Alexander's approach to untying the Gordian knot, and she wrote and illustrated a narration about it.

Science

For most of March, science mostly consisted of M. taking her microscope out on her deck to look at whatever struck her fancy. In April, we shifted gears and M. and C. started doing a unit on life cycles together. We have so far read about the life cycles of beans, frogs, and mosquitoes, and M. has drawn diagrams of each. We briefly tried planting beans in bags, but over-watered them so nothing actually grew. I do plan to have us try again.

Health

We avoided mentioning the coronavirus to the girls at all for a couple of weeks, but when it became clear we'd be stuck at home for weeks on end, we did end up telling them that there is a new germ around and we all need to be careful not to spread it. M. wanted to know what the name of the germ was (Covid, we told her) and there has been some discussion about washing hands to prevent sickness from spreading. Aside from that, welcoming new babies into the family has been our main health lesson. 

Reading and Writing 

M.'s recent reads have included Pippi on Board and Pippi in the South Seas by Astrid Lindgren, More All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor, Dr. Dolittle in the Moon by Hugh Lofting, and several titles in the Dani series by Rose Lagercrantz. As read-alouds she also heard The Doll People Set Sail by Ann M. Martin and Laura Godwin, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. Aside from narrations, her writing has mostly been self-directed, in the form of lists of things she'd like to do each day, signs directing her sisters to join her for various clubs and activities, and other assorted random notes. 

Memory Work

M. is nearly finished memorizing "The Blind Men and the Elephant." 

Music

M. has continued to practice recorder and piano, and we have continued listening to Classics for Kids. We recently covered the sets of episodes on women composers, Frédéric Chopin, Antonio Vivaldi, Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, and Antonin Dvorak.  We also watched some of this string duo performance by members of the Marine Band, which features neat arrangements of Gershwin and Joplin pieces we previously studied. 

Art

For art appreciation, we read Linnea in Monet's Garden to satisfy M.'s interest in his artwork. Afterward, she streamed the film adaptation through the public library. We also finally finished reading Looking at Pictures by Joy Richardson, though I think we will spend some more time with the paintings it covers before we move on to something else. M. also created a beautiful picture of Jesus's empty tomb following this video from Art for Kids Hub. 

Physical Education

Since our local playgrounds are also closed right now, phys. ed. mostly consists of running around on the deck when the weather is warm. God willing, outdoor activities will resume soon and we'll be able to get back to the park (or maybe even the pool in a few weeks?)

Catechism 

We finished the readings to accompany these Jesus tree ornaments  and glued the ornaments to a cross made from brown paper. We also streamed the pre-1955 Good Friday liturgy online and watched the Easter Vigil from the National Shrine. Each Sunday, we've been trying to "attend" Mass at a different church. We also made sure to tune in for the Pope's Urbi et Orbi blessing. M. has also demonstrated sufficient knowledge of the content in lessons 1 through 8 of her St. Joseph Catechism that we have finally started Lesson 9.

Handwriting 

M. is still practicing her cursive using exercises my husband makes for her, some of which are quotations from famous people and others of which are sentences relating to her day-to-day life.

Typing 

M. continues to use Typing.com. We discovered a section of the site where the typing exercises follow a "choose your own adventure" format. She types a page of a story and then gets to choose what happens next, which really motivates her to want to type. 

Pre-K with C., age 4 

Reading 

C. finished all the lessons in The Ordinary Parents' Guide to Teaching Reading and not long after, she started reading chapter books. She has now read several titles from Carolyn Haywood's Betsy series as well as all three books in the My Father's Dragon series, and her current read is Eddie and the Fire Engine by Carolyn Haywood. She also continues to read through our collection of easy readers, including books by Arnold Lobel, Crosby Bonsall, and Millicent Selsam.   She and M. also like to read aloud to their grandmothers over Skype and have been performing selections from the You Read To Me, I'll Read to You series by Maryann Hoberman.

Math

C. started Singapore 1A at about the halfway point and has now finished the book. Next, we're going to take a break from Singapore and focus on strengthening her mental math skills using the soroban. C. is also working on first grade math on Khan Academy.

Memory Work

C. made a video of her recitation of "A Spike of Green." We will assign her a new poem soon. 

Homeschool Progress Report: February 2020

Since we're expecting the twins any day now, and our homeschool umbrella was ready to start doing reviews, we spent the last bit of February compiling our oldest daughter's work and preparing for our very first review. It took place this first week of March, and we were in full compliance. Though we won't need to go through that process again until next spring, I will continue to post here year-round, as we plan to continue school as normal even during the "off season" and it was helpful to have my notes on hand when we were filling in our review form.

First Grade with M., age 6

Math

We started Singapore 3A as February started, and it was much smoother sailing than the start of 2B. I noted right away that the textbook and workbook look more mature, which I think helps M. take the work seriously. I also think each exercise is a little bit lengthier than those appearing in the first two levels, which allows for more practice of each new skill. M. also really loves the fact that many of the exercises involve codes, crossword grids, and coloring activities. It's just more engaging for her to do math when it feels like a game. 

M. has been struggling to focus during Xtra Math, and she even got caught typing in the wrong answer so that the program would give her the correct one. Now when she drills her math facts, my husband stays with her and makes sure she stays on task. I notice improvement in the ease with which she is able to recite certain times tables, so it does seem to be working. My take is that she's just getting tired of the same format all the time.

We have also dug into Life of Fred: Edgewood, which has so far involved many of M.'s favorite topics from the previous book, especially functions. She's also working nightly on Khan Academy, on which my husband is introducing her to angles and triangles. She is likely to completely all the third grade work on the site in the next few weeks.

History

At long last, we finished our slog through Ancient Greece! This is the first civilization we covered this year that I didn't feel we covered as coherently or as thoroughly as we could have. We did spend a lot of time on it, but a lot of that time was spent using trial and error to figure out how best to implement the materials we have. My second daughter is not as history-minded as M., so I will definitely need to work on planning better for this segment of the year when it's her turn the year after next.

In February, as we closed out the unit, we read about Socrates in Wise Guy by M.D. Usher and completed this notebooking page comparing and contrasting his beliefs with those of Plato and Aristotle. We also finished Men of Athens, which M. claimed to love, despite half of the material definitely going way over her head. Independently, she read The First Marathon: The Legend of Pheidippides by Susan Reynolds, and she wrote a lengthy narration explaining what happened to Pheidippides.

Next, we jumped right in to Ancient India, reading three books one right after the other: Ancient India by Virginia Schomp (an excellent overview which really got M. interested in the caste system), National Geographic Investigates Ancient India (which was not as strong as the other volumes we've read from this series), and Science in Ancient India by Melissa Stewart (which was not as exciting to M. as other Science of the Past titles because the Ancient Indians didn't get as much wrong as some of the other cultures, and she prefers to laugh at old-fashioned superstition.) M. also wrote a narration about the Arabic numerals and created a chart explaining the different levels of the caste system.

Science

We continued studying plants and experimenting with the microscope. M. read From Seed to Plant by Gail Gibbons and created some diagrams of flowers and seeds. She also researched orchids and a few other flowering plants and filled out plant report sheets with my help. With the babies coming, I've been moving through science intentionally slowly because after things settle, I want to start involving four-year-old C. in our science lessons as well and I don't want to get too far ahead before we include her.

Reading & Writing 

For most of February, our read-aloud at lunchtime was Far Out the Long Canal by Meindert de Jong, and all three girls (yes, even two-year-old E.!) absolutely loved it and are still talking about it. Toward the end of the month, we started The All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor, mostly because we currently have all girls and I don't that will still be true in a couple of weeks. M. loved this book and seemed to identify most strongly with Sarah, who represents the author's childhood experiences. 

Independently, M. read a ton of picture books just for fun, but her actual "assigned" books were several titles in the Oz series. She absolutely loves them and can read one in an evening if given the chance.

One of my goals for our homeschool in the future is to have time every day for creative writing, so I decided to introduce the idea in February. She took to it right away and wrote a rather lengthy story about the "Woo Woo girls." We asked her to rename the family because we felt weird about "Woo Woo" and she ended up calling them the Roughtoddly (pronounced ro-toddly) family instead. I don't think we're quite ready to make this kind of writing a daily thing, but I do want to work up to that. 

Memory Work

M. finished memorizing "Velvet Shoes" and recorded a video. 

Music

In addition to the usual recorder and piano practice, M. also listened to Classics for Kids episodes about George Gershwin and Scott Joplin. Gershwin was an especially big hit, and there have been repeated requests to hear Rhapsody in Blue again. There were also a variety of impromptu dance parties this month during which M. and her sister C. acted out some interesting pantomimes. 

Art 

We continued our slow read through Looking at Pictures, reading about such topics as color, perspective, and layering of paint. M. really loves the level of detail given by the text, and she also enjoyed it when I let her watch an episode of Bob Ross so she could hear the names of some of the pigments we discussed.

M. also continues to draw constantly. Her recent interest is in drawing her sisters' favorite book characters and letting the younger girls color them in.

Physical Education

Most of the days that I had doctor's appointments in February, my husband took the girls to the park so M. got in lots of free play for P.E. I also made sure she did her exercise video at least once a week. 

Catechism

I have started quizzing M. from the St. Joseph Catechism's first 10 lessons by having her choose a number at random and then asking her the corresponding question. We also celebrated Mardi Gras with paper masks and pancakes and got a strong start to Lent by beginning a daily routine of Bible readings, chanting the Divine Praises (in English), coloring ornaments for a "Jesus Tree" that we have not yet assembled, and counting to 40 before starting to eat each meal (as suggested by Kendra at Catholic All Year). We're also singing Stabat Mater Dolorosa, the hymn for this month from Traditional Catholic Living and Ave Regina Caelorum, the Marian Antiphon for this time of year. 

Handwriting

I'm hoping M. will soon be able to write her narrations in cursive because her cursive writing is much nicer and easier to read than her print. She has really made great progress this winter.

Pre-K with C., age 4 

Reading

C. is a huge reader now, and she is reading and re-reading our collection of I Can Read books at quite a fast rate. The highlights of February were the Oliver and Amanda pig series and the Hattie Rabbit books by Dick Gackenbach. She also likes to read picture books aloud to herself or to her younger sister, and most of the time, she is willing to read a few word lists from The Ordinary Parents' Guide to Teaching Reading as well. She takes such in joy in reading, and it has been so much fun to see her come into her own as an independent reader. 

Math

C. is still working with Khan Academy, and she is starting to show more independence. She has mastered kindergarten and has moved on to addition and subtraction. We also started giving her exercises to do in the Singapore 1A workbook and I have never seen a child so happy to be a student. We're also having her practice using the soroban using drills from visual-soroban.org and Learning Mathematics with the Abacus Year 1 Activity Book. 

Memory Work

C. memorized and performed "White Fields" on video and is now learning "A Spike of Green" by Barbara Baker. 

Homeschool Progress Report: January 2020

After the holiday excitement of December, we returned to our normal school schedule right after the first of the year, and we tied up quite a few things we'd been working on since September and even got ahead on a few subjects in anticipation of the twins arriving in 5 to 8 weeks from now. Read on for a closer look at our progress.

First Grade with M., age 6

Math
This month, we zipped through the final chapters of Singapore Primary Mathematics 2B, covering Capacity, Graphs, Geometry, and Area. As the month ended, M. was just finishing up Review 7 and Review 8 in the workbook. She will begin Singapore 3A this week.

In addition to her main math curriculum, M. is also continuing to work on memorizing addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts with the aid of Xtra Math, and she is still memorizing the perfect squares. To accompany her studies of geometry and area, my husband also got her started playing Cube Nets. (Though her accuracy isn't quite 100%, she is quicker than either of her parents at determining whether a net can be folded into a cube or not.) We also finally finished Life of Fred: Dogs and moved on to Life of Fred: Edgewood.

In the evenings, M. also likes to do some more challenging work on Khan Academy with my husband, who is introducing her to negative numbers and types of triangles.

History
We are still plowing through Ancient Greece. We read the Jane Werner Watson version of The Odyssey,  followed by The Parthenon by Elizabeth Mann, Science in Ancient Greece by Kathlyn Gay, and Men of Athens by Olivia Coolidge, and M. read The Spartan Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins and Lysis Goes to the Play by Caroline Dale Snedeker on her own. We also took a car trip one day and listened to the audiobook of D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths. Though all of these were great books, and she enjoyed them at the time, it's been difficult for her to keep track of all the unfamiliar Greek names. She is grasping the big picture, as evidenced by a nice narration she did about Athens and Sparta and some questions she was able to answer about the enmity between Athens and Persia, but I'm still not quite satisfied so we're going to read some picture books and do a few more activities before we move on.

Science
We finally finished reading The Human Body: What It Is and How It Works, and I decided to switch gears to a topic that would allow M. to make good use of the microscope she got for her birthday: plants. We are reading about plants from The Golden Treasury of Natural History by Bertha Morris Parker, and supplementing with information from websites and the DK Nature Encyclopedia as needed. Each day that we read, we also choose an interesting plant and she does a quick report on it using this worksheet from Enchanted Learning. (Our umbrella group has a subscription, which has been nice for accessing printables like this rather than having to make my own.) One day a week, we concentrate on using the microscope to look at plant material M. has collected outdoors, either on trips to the playground with my husband while I'm at the OB or around the outside of our house. She draws what she sees under the microscope on worksheets taken from Magnificent Microworld Adventures by Mike Wood.

In January, she also worked on some Snap Circuits projects.

Health

I've been meaning to touch on the topic of calling 911 in an emergency with M. for a while, and we finally sat down and did it in the last week of January. We read the KidsHealth article, How to Use 911  and watched a video explaining what happens when someone calls 911. Then I created my own handwritten version of this worksheet so she could identify when it is and is not appropriate to call for help. We finished the lesson with a narration about calling 911, which she illustrated with a drawing of a house on fire.

Reading
Our  lunchtime read-alouds during the month of January were Amahl and the Night Visitors by Frances Frost and Roger Duvoisin and The Happy Hollisters at Snowflake Camp by Jerry West. Additionally, M. read a variety of books suggested to her by me and my husband including three titles in the Dorrie series by Patricia Coombs and Alice: Some Incidents in the Life of a Little Girl of the Twenty-First Century, Recorded by Her Father on the Eve of Her First Day in School (all found on Open Library), Prairie School by Lois Lenski, which I purchased for Kindle last year and allowed her to read in the Kindle app on her Chromebook, The Glass Slipper by Eleanor Farjeon, The Happy Orpheline, A Brother for the Orphelines, and A Pet for the Orphelines, all by Natalie Savage Carlson, Freddy and Mr. Camphor by Walter R. Brooks, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Out of her studies of Ancient Greece in history and geometry in math, as well as our focus on Latin in our Catechism lessons, M. has also developed an interest in learning Greek and Latin prefixes and their meanings, so we're using Extra Practice for Struggling Readers: Word Study, published by Scholastic, to do some work with those. (The book is geared toward struggling students in grades 3 to 6, which makes it perfect for an advanced kid in first grade.)

Memory Work
M. has nearly memorized her next poem, "Velvet Shoes" by Elinor Wylie.

Music
In January, we began each day with an episode of the Classics for Kids podcast, working our way through the week-long collections about composers Schubert, Prokofiev, Britten, and Mendelssohn. M. also practiced her piano and recorder daily. As part of our study on Prokofiev, we also listened to Peter and the Wolf and watched the Disney adaptation with David Bowie's narration.

Art
For art appreciation, we are now setting aside one day a week to read from Looking at Pictures by Joy Richardson, which highlights works of art held in the collection of the National Gallery in London. In terms of creating art, M. was largely self-directed in January, though my husband worked with her some on cross hatching and creating textures. She also followed an instructional video on Art for Kids Hub to draw a snowy church with bell.

Physical Education
M. continues to enjoy the Ten Thousand method workouts for kids on YouTube, so I try to have her do one of those 2-3 times a week. Because the weather has been so unseasonably warm, she has also had a trip to the playground pretty much every time I've had a doctor's appointment, and she is often able to get out and just run on the deck for a bit while her sisters nap. 

Catechism
After months of listening to the St. Joseph Catechism on my homemade recording, we have gone back to using the book. I ask M. one new question a day, and then backtrack through all the questions in the current lesson. It seems to be working. We also concentrated on learning to chant Ave Maria and "Mortem Tuam" which we frequently hear at the Novus Ordo Mass we attend that uses Latin Mass parts. Our hymn for the month from Traditional Catholic Living was Holy God We Praise Thy Name.

Handwriting
M. has been using a program to learn the Palmer method of writing cursive for months. Just recently, she has begun to copy something other than individual letters or words, so I'll most likely be including copy work in these posts from now on. I really like the way her cursive is coming along. She will definitely have better handwriting than I do!


Pre-K with C., Age 4

Reading
C has grown into a full-fledged reader in just a few short weeks. She has started working her way through our collection of easy reader books, and there is no stopping her. She's already read dozens of books, including Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss, Piggle by Crosby Bonsall, More Spaghetti I Say by Rita Golden Gelman, Tales of Oliver Pig by Jean van Leeuwen, Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik, Snow by Roy McKie, Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman and Last One Home is a Green Pig by Edith Thacher Hurd. She loves stories that rhyme, and funny stories, and stories about siblings, and pretty much any book she can manage to read on her own. We continue to work our way through The Ordinary Parents' Guide to Teaching Reading, doing 1-3 lessons a day as her attention span permits. I also found a book on Open Library, Mary-Mary Stories by Joan G. Robinson, which I thought would be perfect for her, so I've been reading that aloud just to C., and she seems to enjoy having a special book just for her.

Math
C. had fun playing Swim to Ten a few times this month, and she also started concentrating more on handing the beads of the soroban using the correct finger movements. We practiced some basic addition and subtraction on the soroban, and continued to drill the number bonds that add up to five ("little friends") and ten ("big friends"). My husband also got her set up doing the Early Math mission on Khan Academy, and after just a few days, she was already 80% of the way through the kindergarten material, much of which involves counting and simple addition.

Memory Work
C.'s current poem is "White Fields" by James Stephens. She's also still working on being able to recite all the countries of Europe.

Scissors Practice
As I did with M. when she was four, I have given C. a book to practice cutting with scissors. With M., I used a book published by Kumon; this time, we have the Preschool Cutting and Pasting Highlights Learn on the Go Practice Pad. She loves it, and she seems to have a natural aptitude for the scissors so she doesn't typically need much help from me.

Homeschool Progress Report: December 2019

December was a bit less productive than the previous three months school-wise because we did take some days off around Christmas and we were not in our regular routine for much of the month. Still, we are mostly on track for where I thought we'd be heading into 2020, and we have time to check a few things more off of our list before the twins arrive in March.

First Grade with M., age 6

Math

We are getting close to finishing Singapore 2B. We finished learning about money and making change and moved on to the section about time. M. had some difficulty sorting out hours from minutes, but with an adult on hand to talk her through it, she does fine. We will continue to review this section even as we move through the rest of the workbook.

M. also continued to practice addition and subtraction and multiplication on Xtra Math, and she started memorizing the perfect squares, which she typically recites in the car on the way to church. We're still reading Life of Fred: Dogs on Fridays, but I think we'll finish it by the end of January.

History

We had such a great time studying the Hebrews, but figuring out how to tackle Ancient Greece has been harder. We did a week on the Phoenicians, which was mostly just about the alphabet, and then an additional week on Crete and Mycenae, to kind of set the stage, but it seems like every book we own handles Greece in a different way, and in a different order. There just isn't the logical progression there was with moving through the Old Testament, and it's made it difficult to know where to start.

In any case, to cover Crete, we read They Lived Like This in Ancient Crete and some excerpts from the Picturesque Tale of Progress, including the story of Theseus and the Minotaur. We also read what little there was about Crete and Mycenae in Builders of the Old World by Gertrude Hartman, and the relevant sections in The Lost Worlds and Epic of Man. As we started studying Greece, we read about the Olympics also from Builders of the Old World and then started reading aloud Jane Werner Watson's children's edition of The Iliad and The Odyssey. As the year ended, we had just finished the Iliad portion.

Additionally, we took a field trip in December to the Natural History museum in D.C. to have M. look at the mummies. She was fascinated by them (and called the child mummy "cute") and she went from glass case to glass case pointing out all the things she remembered learning about Ancient Egypt. I also took her to see the Hope Diamond but she could not have been less impressed.

Science (and Health) 

As the new year began, we were still reading The Human Body: What It Is and How It Works, but we have since finished.  In December, we covered vitamins and the foods in which each one can be found (which doubled as a health lesson), the circulatory system, including blood typing and how blood clots, and lymph. M. watched the relevant videos to these topics from Kids Health. At the start of the month, all we had left were the endocrine and reproductive systems and a brief section on fever and fighting germs. 

Additionally, M. used her microscope to look at the wing and leg of a housefly, both of which were slides included in a set she received for Christmas. This was a precursor our next unit of study, plants, where we will use the microscope to get a closer look at some flowers, ferns, etc.

Reading

M. heard a variety of read-alouds during the weeks leading up to Christmas: The Family Under the Bridge by Natalie Savage Carlson, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson, Starlight in Tourrone by Suzanne Butler, The Story of Holly and Ivy by Rumer Godden, and The Good Shepherd by Gunnar Gunnarsson. Independently, she read The Dutch Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins, The Cave Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins, When Molly Was Six by Eliza Orne White, A Certain Small Shepherd by Rebecca Caudill, and Now We Are Six by A.A. Milne. She also made a video book report on The Dutch Twins.

Memory Work

M. finally perfected and recorded her video recitation of "The Pirate Don Durk of Dowdee." I have to say it was worth the wait, because she did a great job. She also finished memorizing all the countries of Europe, and she is now concentrating on multiplication tables, Latin prayers, and bodies of water.

Music

Because of Christmas, this was a heavily musical month. We sang "O Come O Come Emmanuel" and "O Come All Ye Faithful" in English and Latin almost every single day. We also learned to chant the Ave Maria, and reviewed Alma Redemptoris Mater, which we learned last Advent.

On Classics for Kids, we listened to episodes about Tchaikovsky and Ralph Vaughan Williams, and then we focused on listening to The Nutcracker before Christmas and Amahl and the Night Visitors immediately after. We also had a few sing-alongs of Christmas carols from Take Joy! by Tasha Tudor.

Additionally, M. continued to practice recorder and piano for 15 minutes each morning.

Art

In December, M. made some Christmas-themed drawings following step-by-step video instructions from Catholic Icing. My husband also challenged her to draw as many different facial features as she could and to combine them in different ways. Gel pens also became the art supplies of choice, along with Christmas-themed coloring books and foam Christmas stickers.

We took a field trip to the National Gallery of Art as well, where we compared different artists' versions of the Madonna and Child, visited an exhibit of paintings made using oil pastels, looked at a statue of David, and studied a pair of stained glass windows depicting The Annunciation.

Physical Education

As it has been unseasonably warm here, and I have had a bunch of OB appointments, M. has been to the playground a bunch of times recently where she has done a lot of informal exercise (running, climbing, swinging, etc.) We also fell somewhat out of the habit, but she did do her Ten Thousand Method exercise video a few times.

Catechism

Our religion lessons were all centered on the seasons of Advent and Christmas. From December 1st through Christmas Eve, we watched the daily Brother Francis Advent videos on Formed.org and added ornaments to our Jesse tree. We also said the Christmas Anticipation prayer 15 times per day, and practiced reciting Ave Maria and then learned to sing the chant. As is our tradition, we also went to the Living Nativity at the Shrine of St. Anthony.


Pre-K with C., age 4

Reading

C.'s reading really took off in December, as she finished the last few books in our Hooked on Phonics set and recorded her video readings of them. To help get her ready for some more substantial books, we spent some time going over a set of sight word flash cards (illustrated by Alain Gree), and she worked through a bunch of lessons on words containing long vowel sounds and silent E.

Math

As her big sister did before her, C. is learning to use the soroban to help her understand place value and to lay the foundation for strong mental math skills. We used number flash cards (again, illustrated by Alain Gree) as prompts for putting numbers on the soroban, and I also put numbers onto the soroban for her to identify. In December, she started working on learning the "little friends" (number bonds adding up to five) and "big friends" (number bonds adding up to ten), which she will need to know to do addition and subtraction on the soroban.

Memory Work 

Because she is typically with us when M. recites the various items she has memorized, C. has picked up a lot of them just through exposure, so now we are working on fine-tuning some of those, including the planets, the four directions, the continents, and the countries of Europe. She also memorized and recited a poem, "Signs of Christmas," which she performed for her grandmothers via Skype on Christmas Day.

Homeschool Progress Report: November 2019

First Grade

Our third official month of homeschooling is in the books! It went by so fast, but it was also very productive.

Math

This month, M. made more progress in Singapore Primary Mathematics 2B focusing on money, including adding and subtracting dollars and cents and making change. In addition, she continued to drill addition and subtraction facts on XtraMath, and she practiced the multiplication tables in both Xtra Math and by filling out blank tables. She also did some review of solving three-digit addition and subtraction problems using the soroban. We continue to read Life of Fred every Friday (we're currently still in book four, Dogs.)

History 

This was a very history-heavy month for M, as we finished Mesopotamia and then spent three weeks studying the Old Testament. Our Mesopotamian studies concluded with a narration on the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the information for which came largely from National Geographic Investigates: Ancient Iraq: Archaeology Unlocks the Secrets of Iraq's Past by Beth Gruber. (M. and I both loved the fact that this book highlighted the work of archaeologists in this part of the world and the challenges they encounter.) We also spent a day or two on the Assyrians.

As we moved on to the Hebrews, we started using our new MapTrek book and CD to place our studies in the appropriate geographic context. M. labeled important cities and bodies of water on the maps "Called Out of Ur" and "The Promised Land" and briefly looked at several others. Our main text for reading about the Hebrews was In Bible Days by Gertrude Hartman, and we also supplemented with Heroes of the Bible by Olive Beaupre Miller. (I had planned to use Miller's Picturesque Tale of Progress but found the Heroes book more engaging and better suited to M's interest in the details of things like battles and the succession of judges.) As I read aloud each day, M. colored pictures related to the day's readings, some of which came from an old Bible Stories to Color coloring book I found among my old papers and others of which I found online.

Independently, Miss Muffet read sections from National Geographic Kids Who's Who in the Bible and The World of the Bible, along with the picture books Moses, Ruth, and Joseph by Maud and Miska Petersham and Sarah Laughs and Benjamin and the Silver Goblet by Jacqueline Jules. She also watched the animated film Joseph: Beloved Son Rejected Slave, which is available on Formed.org.

Science

Our main focus for science this month was reading heavily in The Human Body: What It Is and How It Works. We covered the nervous system, five senses and digestive system, supplementing with videos and activities from Kids Health. In addition to a narration about the five senses, M. also filled out the "Taste Tracker," "The Eye," "The Brain," and "The Digestive System" worksheets, and she watched a collection of food science videos from SciShow Kids.

At the tail-end of the month, M. had a birthday, and she received a microscope, which led to revisiting Greg's Microscope by Millicent Selsam and Arnold Lobel and reading The Microscope by Maxine Kumin (and Arnold Lobel, again) for the first time.

Reading

M.'s assigned independent reading this month included: The Voyages of Dr. Dolittle by Hugh Lofting, Here Comes the Bus by Carolyn Haywood, My America: Our Strange New Land: Elizabeth's Jamestown Colony Diary by Patricia Hermes, and Freddy and the Ignormus by Walter R. Brooks. She was not quite done with the Freddy book at the end of the month, but finished it 2 days later.

Memory Work

M. is still perfecting "The Pirate Don Durk of Dowdee." I hope she's going to finish it in time to memorize a new poem for Christmas. She also finished memorizing all the countries of Europe, and now she is working on learning more rivers and bodies of water. She also memorized the first five books of the Bible and started to learn the Hail Mary in Latin.

Music

Using the Classics for Kids podcast, we covered Beethoven, Haydn, Johann Strauss, Jr. and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Our hymn for the month was Conditor Alme Siderum, and we also practiced singing Over the River and Through the Woods in anticipation of Thanksgiving. M. continued daily practice of recorder and piano and her musical notes review.

Art

We didn't do many formal art lessons in November, but M. created illustrations for each of her narrations and drew many portraits of family members. She also made a foam turkey and cornucopia using kits from Dollar Tree.

Physical Education

M. visited the playground several times in November, mostly during my OB appointments. She also exercised along with the videos from the Ten Thousand method.

Catechism

We're still listening to my homemade audio recording of lessons 1-10 in the St. Joseph catechism. In this particular month, our music and history lessons were also heavily related to religion. We also took two field trips: one to The Visit of All Saints at the National Shrine of St. John Paul II, where M. "met" a variety of Catholic saints and learned about their lives, and another to the Shrine of St. Anthony for the Advent Family Festival.

Pre-K

Reading

C.'s reading really took off this month. In The Ordinary Parents' Guide to Teaching Reading, she worked on consonant blends at the beginnings and endings of words, including SH, TH, CH, and NG. She also enjoyed reading titles from the Rime to Read series which we borrowed from the public library, and she finally tackled Ann's Hat, a book that was way too difficult for her just a few weeks ago. She also worked on mastering a reader called The Tin Man.

Memory Work

C. learned to recite "The Pilgrims Came" by Annette Wynn and finished memorizing the planets.

Math

C. has begun learning to use the soroban to create single and double digit numbers and to do simple addition and subtraction.

Music

C. continued piano lessons and started practicing "Merrily We Roll Along."

Homeschool Progress Report: October 2019

First Grade

In our second month of homeschooling, we started to iron out our daily schedule a bit more, moving various subjects and activities around throughout the day to the time slot that suits them best. We also took a week off in the middle of the month to go visit my family in New York. Here's what we covered in October.

Math

M. continued making her way through Singapore Primary Mathematics 2B, with multiplication and division by 4s, 5s, and 10s. She has been working on the times table on and off for a while, so some of this was review and we didn't need to dwell a lot on it. At this point, we are mostly just solidifying her knowledge of multiplication facts with drill. In October, M. also continued drilling subtraction facts on Xtra Math and nearly completed the program. Additionally, we read one chapter each week from Life of Fred: Dogs, and M. read the Mummy Math: An Adventure in Geometry by Cindy Neuschwander on her own.

History

We were still focusing on Ancient Egypt at the start of October, and we read a number of picture books to cover various topics, including: Pharaoh's Boat by David L. Weitzman, Hatshepsut,  His Majesty, Herself by Catherine M. Andronik, The Shipwrecked Sailor: An Egyptian Tale with Hieroglyphs by Tamara Bower  and Senefer: A Young Genius in Old Egypt by by Beatrice Lumpkin. On her own, M. also attempted to follow some of the instructions in Ralph Masiello's Ancient Egypt Drawing Book. We also read the chapter about Egypt in A Little History of the World and M. watched a number of supplemental videos, including some walking tours of Egyptian ruins from Prowalk Tours on YouTube, David Macaulay's Pyramid and the Reading Rainbow episode about Mummies Made in Egypt (which we also read in book format).   My mom also snagged a magazine about mummies from a retiring teacher friend that M. enjoyed looking at independently.

We concluded our study of Ancient Egypt by acting out an Egyptian burial ceremony using instructions found in Ancient Egyptians and Their Neighbors: An Activity Guide by Marian Broida. M. decorated a shoebox sarcophagus using hieroglyphics and some real Egyptian art as models, and we wrapped up a doll and buried her inside. We enlisted C. (age 4) and E. (age 2)  to carry bowls of pretend food for the mummy to eat in the afterlife, and all three girls processed through the living room to some music I found on YouTube.

After our trip, we came home and got started on three weeks about Ancient Mesopotamia. Since every book we have on this topic handles it differently, and organizes itself differently, we read bits and pieces from a whole bunch of different resources. Our main texts this time were The Golden Book of Lost Worlds and Builders of the Old World by Gertrude Hartman, but we also supplemented with information about Hammurabi from A Picturesque Tale of Progress. To get a better sense of the history of this area of the world from an archaeologist's point of view, we also started reading National Geographic Investigates Ancient Iraq: Archaeology Unlocks the Secrets of Iraq's Past by Beth Gruber. Supplemental materials included picture books (The City of Rainbows: A Tale from Ancient Sumer by Karen Foster, Lugalbanda: The Boy Who Got Caught Up in a War: An Epic Tale From Ancient Iraq by Kathy Henderson, and the Gilgamesh trilogy by Ludmila Zeman) and videos from a YouTube channel called History Time and this cuneiform activity from the Penn Museum. Just as the month ended, we also finished Science in Ancient Mesopotamia by Carol Moss.

Science

In Science, we started the month talking about teeth (which was timely since M. had a loose tooth that fell out shortly thereafter). We read about teeth in The Human Body: What It Is and How it Works and watched a few videos on YouTube about going to the dentist and about what it's like to be an orthodontist. We also watched the Weston Woods adaptation of Open Wide: Tooth School Inside. Teeth was also our health topic for the month, but I expect to revisit it again when M. goes for her dental check-up in November.

After teeth, we learned about joints using The Human Body: What It Is and How It Works and videos from Kids Health and Operation Ouch. (Operation Ouch is a UK-based YouTube channel focused on treating injuries, preventing illnesses, and exploring cool facts about the human body. Some of it is too much for M., but the joints video was interesting to her.) She also enjoyed following up our studies with some independent reading in DK's Human Body Encyclopedia, which really does a nice job of summarizing what we learn from other sources.

Outside of our human body theme, M. also watched the video of David Macaulay's Bridges after she became interested in learning how bridges are suspended, and she revisited Walking with Monsters, a documentary about prehistoric reptiles. We also took a field trip to an apple orchard and pumpkin patch on our New York trip.

Reading

Collectively, my husband and I read aloud seven different books in October. I read Wedding Flowers by Cynthia Rylant, King Oberon's Forest by Hilda van Stockum, What the Witch Left by Ruth Chew, and started No Flying in the House by Betty Brock. He read Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt by Elizabeth Payne, Arabian Nights: Three Tales by Deborah Nourse Lattimore, and the beginning of The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. On our trip to New York, we listened to the audiobooks of On the Banks of Plum Creek and By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

On her own, Miss Muffet read Uncle Wiggily and his Friends by Howard R. Garis, Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Daughter of America by Jeanne Marie Grunwell, Stella Batts: Superstar and Stella Batts: Scaredy Cat by Courtney Sheinmel, a short story in My Bookhouse ("The Secret Door" by Susan Coolidge) and Something Queer at the Haunted School, among other picture books. Mid-month, she started The Voyages of Dr. Dolittle, and she's still working on it.

We also started reading poetry aloud at the breakfast table some days to afford more opportunities for recognizing similes. Leading up to Halloween, we read Monster Soup and Other Spooky Poems by Dilys Evans and Ghosts and Goosebumps by Bobbi Katz, both found on Open Library.

Memory Work

We are still putting the finishing touches on M.'s recitation of "The Pirate Don Durk of Dowdee." She has also been working on reciting the planets, bodies of water, rivers, and countries of Europe, and I've started drilling these after breakfast in addition to my husband quizzing her whenever we're in the car.

Music

M. practiced her instruments most days of the month that we were home, and she continued to work on identifying notes using MusicTheory.net. We also learned a new hymn, "Dear Angel Ever At My Side" and learned about the music of Charles Ives, as well as classical music appropriate for Halloween from the Classics for Kids podcast. Additionally, M. watched the Marine Band's live-streamed performance of Beethoven's variations on The Magic Flute, which she became interested in after listening to the Mozart episodes of Classics for Kids. For Halloween, we also learned to sing Five Little Pumpkins Sitting on a Gate.

Art

In October, we finished The Story of Paintings: A History of Art for Children, and did a few how to draw lessons in Ralph Masiello's Ancient Egypt Drawing Book and on Catholic Icing's YouTube channel. M. also did her own experiments with creating different textures using crayons.

Physical Education

M. was still able to sneak in a few bike rides in October since it was still so warm out. She also went to the playground and climbed ropes and ladders with friends and continued using the kids' videos from the Ten Thousand Method on YouTube at least twice a week.

Catechism

In addition to listening to my homemade audio recording of the first ten lessons of the St. Joseph Catechism, this month we celebrated the feast of the Guardian Angels and the feast day of John Paul II. We also discussed the Catholic connection to Halloween. M. has also started reading the Bible aloud to her two-year-old sister in the evenings, and she often recognizes the stories she has read in the readings at Mass.

Pre-K

C. became a bit more resistant to school during October, so she didn't do quite as much as she did in September. Still she is making good progress.

Counting

C. has started to practice identifying the numbers up to 50 using flashcards, which she puts in order on the floor. She has also begun learning the numbers that add up to 5 and 10 using marbles as manipulatives.

Reading

C. mastered a few more Hooked on Phonics readers in October, but she has now hit a wall where she needs more direct instruction before she can read any harder books. We did lots of practice with stories from The Ordinary Parents' Guide to Teaching Reading focused on words with various short vowel sounds, and next we're moving on to consonant blends. I believe she could do one lesson per day,  but she usually doesn't tolerate more than a few sentences at a time, so it's very slow-going.

Memory Work

C. memorized "Elizabeth Cried" by Eleanor Farjeon during October.   She's finding it easier to memorize longer poems these days. She's also started memorizing the planets.

Art

C. has been working on coloring nicely instead of just scribbling on every page of every coloring book. On Halloween, she also made a variety of festive sticker scenes about witches, owls, and ghosts.

Music

C. started piano lessons with my husband. Her current exercise is "Two Black Keys." She also joined M. for Classics for Kids and liturgical singing throughout the month.

Homeschool Progress Report: September 2019

First Grade

Our first official year of homeschooling started in the first week of September. I have one official student this year: M., who will turn 6 in November. She is technically in kindergarten, but she did a lot of kindergarten-level work as a preschooler, so we are calling this year first grade, and some of her work is at a higher level even than that. Here's what we covered in each of our subjects during September.

Math

For Math, we are using the Singapore curriculum. We started this year with Primary Mathematics 2B. (She completed 1A and 1B as well as 2A over the past two years. We took about a year to finish 2A.) So far, M's focus has been on reviewing place value and learning strategies for solving addition and subtraction problems mentally. Additionally, she drills math facts using XtraMath once a day, and occasionally my husband has her work on Khan Academy. We also read one chapter from Life of Fred each week on "Fred Fridays." In September, we finished Life of Fred: Cats and started Life of Fred: Dogs.

History

We've begun our first cycle through world history with a quick review of prehistory (which was our focus last year) followed by a three-week exploration of Ancient Egypt. We are using A Child's History of the World and A Little History of the World as our spines and supplementing with lots of other books including The Golden Book of Lost Worlds, Mummies Made in Egypt, The Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt, The Great Pyramid, and Pepi and the Secret Names. M. has done narrations about Menes (also known as Narmer, the first king of Egypt), mummies, and pyramids, and she also decoded a message in hieroglyphics and wrote her own message in hieroglyphics for her father to decode.

Science

I decided to start the year by studying the human body. Our main text is the Deluxe Golden Book, The Human Body: What it is and How it Works, and we're also using materials from KidsHealth's "How the Body Works" curriculum, which includes free articles, videos, and printable worksheets. In September, we covered skin and the skeletal system. M. drew a diagram of the skin and labeled diagrams of both the skin and the skeleton. (Our main science curriculum is Building Foundations for Scientific Understanding, but as it provides only a framework and not specific lesson plans, I'm pretty loose about dipping in and out of it.)

Health

Our health topic for this month was germs and hygiene. I provided M. with some worksheets explaining how germs can make us sick and demonstrating proper hand washing. One of our handouts came from KidsHealth's K-2 unit on Hygiene (found on this page) and we had a couple of others from Purell's Clean Gene lesson plans: this finger puppet activity and this "Germ Search" worksheet. We also practiced washing hands well and connected our study of germs with our study of the skin. 

Reading 

M. read or listened to just about 70 books in September. She reads a lot of her own free-choice books at all levels throughout the day, but we also "assign" her certain books that are at or just above her reading level so that she will continue to be challenged. Her assignments in September were:

• The Bears on Hemlock Mountain by Alice Dalgliesh
• Emily's Runaway Imagination by Beverly Cleary
• The Story of Dr. Dolittle by Hugh Lofting 
• The Key to the Treasure by Peggy Parish
• Sokar and the Crocodile by Alice Woodbury Howard 

On her own, in addition to tons of picture books, she also read four books from the Stella Batts series by Courtney Sheinmel, which she has been reading in paperback and via Hoopla, depending on how I can find them. 

We also started learning about figurative language using a book called It Figures! by Marvin Terban and Giulio Maestro. We've only talked about similes so far, and I've been asking her to find them in the books she reads.

Memory Work

For over a month, M. has been working on learning and choreographing a recitation of "The Pirate Don Durk of Dowdee." I expect her to be ready to move on to a new poem by the end of October. My husband has also been working with her on memorizing the seven continents,  the countries of Europe, the oceans, and some U.S. rivers. We typically drill these when we're in the car. 

Music

M. practices recorder and piano (15 minutes each) every morning before breakfast. In the afternoon, she practices identifying musical notes using MusicTheory.net. We have also been listening to episodes of Classics for Kids on most weekday mornings, and we do some liturgical singing with the help of the music curriculum at Traditional Catholic Living. We're doing Year 1 this year, so the hymn for September was Concordi Laetitia. We also frequently sing the hymns from the morning and evening prayers on Aleteia.org.

Art

Since the summer, we have been working our way through The Story of Paintings: A History of Art for Children, and have almost finished the book. We have also done a lot of drawing in both history and science, and M. likes to free draw a lot on her own.

Physical Education

In September, our main focus for P.E. was learning to ride a two-wheeler, which M. mastered after just a few sessions of practice. Additionally, she does these children's exercise videos from The Ten Thousand Method on YouTube a couple of times a week, in addition to running laps on the deck (by choice), attempting to learn to jump rope, and practicing hanging and climbing on the brand-new playground equipment installed at the tot lot near our house.

Catechism

I recorded myself reading the questions and answers from the first 10 lessons of the St. Joseph Catechism months ago, and M. listens to them most days. She has mostly mastered lessons 1-7, so now we're focusing our attention on 8-10. We have also made a point of acknowledging saints' feast days that occurred in September: St. Peter Claver, Sts. Cosmas and Damian, St. Michael, and St. Jerome. We also encourage M. to follow along at Sunday Mass as much as possible. Even at the Latin Mass, I try to whisper to her about what's going on so she can follow along.

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Pre-K 

Though she technically won't be old enough for kindergarten in Maryland for 2 more years (she misses the cut-off by a month), C, who just turned 4 at the end of the month, is doing Pre-K this year, with the thought that she might start kindergarten-level work next year. She does some schoolwork most days, usually for about 30-40 minutes tops. Here's what she worked on in September.

Counting

We started out with some simple math activities in My Favorite Sticker Book: Numbers, which came from The Dollar Tree, and which C. completed in just over two weeks. These activities introduced counting up to 100, doing simple addition with illustrations, and identifying numerals. Our main focus this month was on helping her not to skip 15 when she counts to 20. Now she can mostly count to 30 on her own without missing any numbers. Occasionally, she also plays Birthday Candle Counting at ABCYa.com, and she likes to play dominoes with me.  My husband is also beginning to work with her with Cuisenaire rods, making trains and beginning to associate each rod with its appropriate number.

Reading

We started going through The Ordinary Parents' Guide to Teaching Reading several months ago and C. has mastered most of the letter sounds and has begun sounding out consonant-vowel-consonant words. She has also learned to read the word "the," which the Guide introduces as a sight word to make it possible to read some actual simple books. In September, she mastered reading a Hooked on Phonics reader called Rag, and also did some practice in another simple book called Al. She also listens to the family read-alouds we have after lunch and dinner (which will be listed in my upcoming Read-at-Home Kids Report for September) and she likes to listen to audiobooks during her morning playtime or during afternoon quiet time. For help with identifying lowercase letters, I also like to have her play Alphabet Bingo on ABCYa.com. We also occasionally do letter sound activities on the Khan Academy Kids app.

Science & Health 

For science at this age, we typically focus on nature, so C. mostly has read-alouds about animals. In September, she heard The Mother Whale from the Let's Read and Find About Science series and Here Come the Bears by Alice Goudey. She also likes to watch episodes of Wild Kratts and Zoboomafoo, and she has joined us for some of M.'s videos about the human body. She also participated in our health lessons about germs. We haven't had a change in the weather yet, but I also plan to talk with her about the changing leaves and other signs of fall when they eventually become obvious.

Music 

C. joins M. in listening to Classics for Kids and in our liturgical singing. Additionally, she will often listen to music while M. is doing school. In September, she mostly listened to Raffi, Ella Jenkins, Sousa marches, Elizabeth Mitchell, and the CDs that came with the books Sing Through the Day and Goodnight Songs. 

Memory Work

C. learned the poem "Blum" by Dorothy Aldis, and this was her best recitation to date.

Art 

C. loves to draw and color, and she makes daily use of crayons and oil pastels, coloring books and plain paper, as well as washable markers.