Week Three

This week we started using the Usborne History text. We will spend the week learning about archaeology. Yesterday, A drew a great picture of a mound with buried gold, arrowheads, and bones underneath with an archaeologist (a little girl archaeologist!) on top digging up artifacts. We also read a paragraph about tree ring dating, so John is going to take her for a walk to a large tree recently cut down and show her how to count the rings.

We finished our worm unit last week, although we are still observing the worm bin. The soil and sand is a little more mixed than it was when we started. It is unclear whether the worms prefer tomatoes, carrot tops, or beet greens. They haven’t eaten a whole lot. Regardless of the ambiguous results, the worms will be dumped into the compost pile this weekend before they start to smell.

This week we are starting butterflies and moths. We will be taking a field trip to a butterfly house next week (our week off of school).

We are working through Saxon Math 1 quickly and easily. We do 5 lessons per week, and so far it has been review for her. It’s a little frustrating actually. I really feel that it is at Kindergarden level and I hope it becomes challenging pretty soon or we are going to start skipping ahead.

Phonics is our toughest subject. A gets discouraged at the slightest mistake. We only practice in 15 minute blocks to give her eyes a break. She reads 3-letter words easily, but still mixes up m and n if they are in the same word and b and d often. She really wants to start reading and gets upset that I don’t allow her to read independently just yet. She tends to see a word and just “guess” at what it is, rather than taking the time to sound it out and I don’t want this to become a habit. (She does read the Bob books and loves them.) I don’t prevent her from trying on her own time, of course, but it’s not a part of “school” yet, either. I need to get a list of sight words (the, we, could, etc.) and start drilling. Once she gets a good chunk of those down, plus common 2-letter blends that are not phonetic (ch, sh, th, wh…) she’ll be ready for some real beginner books. Hopefully, in the next two weeks or so.

We’ve been reading lots of books aloud, mostly Bible stories. I need to spend some time reinforcing our Quaker belief that there are many paths to God and that we are accepting of many faiths. What I am trying to get out of the Bible stories are basic human values that we all cherish: forgiveness, peacefulness, and listening to the Spirit.