Mardi Gras Math

I have mixed feelings about what we accomplished academically on the first day, and I feel like it needs more/better/different work. Here are the books:

Starting the day as a group we read:
365 Penguins by Jean-Luc Fromental and Joelle Jolivet

Large format and silly story made it perfect for reading aloud to a group. A family gets one penguin a day in the mail and has to think of ways to store them, how much it costs to feed them, and how to live with them. The math is so funny that you almost don't notice it, and I object to the global warming bit at the end only because it seems heavy handed in such a lighthearted book.

Anno's Math Games by Mitsumasa Anno

This one I orginally found at MacBeth's Opinion. It teaches math concepts without numbers.

We read from page 70 on about how to compare things of different sizes. Then using a bunch of plastic balls, the kids took turns throwing them into a box and coloring in bar graphs. This was intended for the 1st grade and under crowd.

One Grain of Rice by Demi

An Indian girl cleverly tricks a selfish raja into giving his starving people rice by asking for one grain of rice and then doubling what she has already gotten each day for 30 days. Poor Raja's math skills are lacking. If only he knew that she would have (2 to the x power) - 1 grains of rice at the end of the month--where x equals the day--he would have figured out that this was a bad bargain for him. It's a happy ending; everyone has enough to eat and the raja is reformed.

With just my kids we talked through this book. The 1st and under crowd were allowed to count dimes and put them into a big bowl, each dime representing one grain of rice. The 2nd grade and older crowd used long division to find out how many rolls of dimes and loose dimes to put in the bowl. Then when our dimes are exhausted (you would need over a billion), we looked at a mostly blank chart of how many grains the Indian girl got each day. I taught the kids lattice multiplication which was simple when we were only multiplying by 2. Even the 2nd grader tried although she isn't doing multiplication yet.

Once the kids are calculus level, we could revisit the book to discuss the forumlae for how many grains of rice the clever girl gets each day and how many she gets total. For now, we just read and enjoy the sumptuous pictures.

Mathterpieces by Greg Tang This is my favorite of his books so far. This book stresses finding different groups of numbers which add up to the same final answer, ie 5+5 and 6+4 both equal 10. We used different colored legos to represent the groups so the kids could manipulate them. Then we practiced counting and saying the entire math sentence that they created. Part of what I love, though, is the tie in with famous works of art. It's so easy to rabbit trail from there.

Math Chef--This book inspired me to make a special fraction problem pancake recipe, but we didn't have time to do it the other day. Maybe next time. It's all saved in a special Mardi Gras Math file.

Archimedes and the Door of Science--I was going to use this book to add in a little history in when we talked about circles. The math in this book was so interesting that the kids and I fought to tell my husband about it.

Second Grade

Teacher's Resources:

Second grade is 4 days a week. Daily we do Religion, Spelling, Poetry, Math, state capitals, piano practice, and silent reading. Other subjects rotate across the week.

MODG 2nd Grade Syllabus --A guideline for what to do.

Real Learning --A vision of how to do it

Student Planner--Where I write my lesson plans for each week. I start to let the child do independently what she can at this age, and also she likes to see what all needs to be accomplished each day. I write these on Sunday nights, and it takes about an hour for me to do 4 kids' plans for one week.

Our second grade days usually take 2.5 hours when fit in among the other kids being schooled. This morning it took about 40 minutes of the two of us sitting together with few interruptions.

Religion

Faith and Life 2 (student text)--Follows the pink catechism closely, and she can read this aloud to me and practice looking things up in the glossary. We only read it when we start a new chapter in the pink Catechism.

Baltimore Catechism (pink)--Biblical stories, clear explanations, question and answer format with review questions at the end of each chapter. The child memorizes a chapter every week or two by repeating in the same manner of poetry. I've used this book for 2-4th so far.

Books about Saints--This year we transitioned from picture books and shorter stories about saints to longer chapter books, and we have tons of resources to draw from. We especially have enjoyed the reading list from Catholic Mosaic, the CCC videos about saints, and Glory Stories CDs from Catholic World mission before moving onto Vision books and some from Pauline Books.

Math

Math U See Beta --Addition and subtraction, money, column addition, carrying and more, using manipulative blocks when necessary. I watch the movie with the child on Monday, but don't teach it myself. IMO, the movie is clear enough. Two pages of problems a day M-W, but no more than 20-30 min at once. Th is the quiz.

Triangular Flash Cards--I just got these cards with number families on them so they aren't in the pic. We'll see. I think all of my kids need to memorize addition and multiplication facts better. I'm thinking 5 min on Friday.

Language Arts

Sequential Spelling --Learning to spell using word families. This has turned into vocab, grammar and handwriting too. Although you are just supposed to have them memorize the spelling, I teach it by explaining the rules and use colored markers on a dry erase board. Possessives and unfamiliar words like "rout" slowed us down so this took 30-40 min a day. At Lesson 40 we cycled back to the beginning and are taking about 20 min. I see improvement in spelling both in this and in other writing. I'm using this with 2nd and 4th at the same time since all of them can read at about the same level and have all finished Sound Beginnings and are all dismal spellers.

StartWrite for copywork--I'm really enjoying this program even though there are some minor glitches. I type poems, narrations, spelling lists, and many other things into this and save them into subfolders in my homeschool folder. Some children trace, others copy into a notebook. A single file can be changed into different writing styles and sizes so a spelling list can be printed in Italic cursive for my boys, "loopy" girl writing for the 2nd grader, and Italic print for the Kindergartner.

Narrations from saint books--I'm discovering that narrations are best when I ask a few leading questions. We do not write and collect them all. Maybe once a week.

Poetry--Any of the poems in the first part of Harp and Laurel Wreath are fair game. We do poetry as a family so those who are not reciting are practicing polite listening by sitting still and nicely in their seats and looking attentively at the speaker. My kids enjoy a little help with dramatic interpretation to make the recitation more fun. During Advent we switched to memorizing Christmas carols.
Geography:

Know Your States workbook--a simple workbook with basic US geography. Once a week she does 2 pages

Five minutes a day to practice memorizing states and capitals using this puzzle.

Science (1 day per week)

We read from Science with Plants or do a couple of pages from the Seasons and Living Things workbook. Also if I can find science picture books, I pull those in.

Science with Plants--an Usborne book with simple experiments. You could pump it up with other books about plants.

Seasons and Living Things--a simple workbook to teach about weather and the seasons.

Nature Journal and field guides--We did a 6 weeks nature study with friends at a local nature center which was brilliant. We studied trees, birds, frogs and celebrated a couple of feast days. I realized that I prefer field guides with photographs instead of sketches excepting Audubon's Original Watercolors for the Birds of America which is a beautiful book.

Art (one day a week)

Mommy It's a Renoir cards Steps 1- 3--recognizing the style of a specific artist, describing art, telling stories about what is in the picture, sketching pictures

Crafts--latch hook, knitting, and sewing have been popular. The syllabus does one art activity per week, so some weeks it's a craft and others are Mommy cards.

Drawing Text Book/Draw Squad--this is actually on the 4th grade syllabus, but she likes it. The Draw Squad is written by a student of the author of the Drawing Textbook. It has the same lessons with more complete direction and explanations so I'm going to buy it next year. It's in addition to the other art and takes about 20 min one day a week, but it sparks the kids to draw.

We also have enjoyed the Famous Artists movies from the library, other art picture books, and trips to the art museum.

Music:


The syllabus says recorder every day. Eeew!




She started piano last year, but I do not plan to start a child that early again. I've liked both the Bastien and the Faber and Faber books. Alan Jemison is a little challenging in a good way for her. She practices her assigned songs 3 times each or for about 1/2 hour a day. I sit down with her once a week to work through challenges. We do it a few days after the lesson.

Occasionally, a Music Masters audio biography with music is assigned. We have a growing collection, and then I have loaded certain pieces by the composers we've studied onto the Ipod in a school play list. The pieces are 4th grade also, but all the kids listen when I play it.

Good Reads:

Second grade has been a transition from picture books to chapter books. Our favorites are illustrated classics and historical books. Some of these, like the Outlaws of Ravenhurst, King of the Golden City, or The Great Brain series are good read alouds. The Great Illustrated Classics, Usborne Illustrated Classics and D'Aulairs books have been especially good.

Our Christmas Collection--a work in progress

I'm not listing all we own, just the good ones.

Religious, Advent


Good King Wenceslas by John Mason Neale illustrated by Christopher Manson Here's the alibris description:


In exquisite, hand-painted woodcuts, artist Christopher Manson skillfully renders the medieval setting and characters of this popular Christmas carol. Biographical notes on John Mason Neale and the historical King Wenceslas, along with complete music and words to the carol, are included. Full color.



Yep. And St. Wenseslas' feast is Sept. 28 and "the feast of (St.) Stephen" is Dec. 26, but we read it in Advent anyway.


The True Story of Santa Claus by Paul Prokop This is the story we use as our foundation of presenting St. Nicholas and how he relates to the American Santa Claus.


The Strange Young Man in the Desert (Archbook) Many of the good Archbooks are out of print. This is the story of John the Baptist from his time in the desert to after his death.

Night of Las Posadas by Tomie de Paola

Religious, Christmas

Christ in the Old Testament by Niko Choceli This is not your typical Christmas picture book. The art is strong rather than pretty and the text is simply a theme "Victory over Death" with one page of side by side OT and NT quotes. Good for big kids.

The Innkeeper's Daughter (Archbook) This is the one starring Awful Abigail and Meangoat

Christmas in the Manger by Nola Buck, ill by Felicia Bond I miss the pat and peek version of this book, but the rhymes are still nice.

Baby Jesus, Like My Brother by Margery Wheeler Brown This book follows some black children on a Christmas Eve field trip to buy gifts while their mom rests at home with their new baby brother. The older sister explains the Christmas story and relates it to their own family. The final picture is a Christmas scene featuring the mother, father, baby and 3 friends who have bought the baby gifts.


The Worst/Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson Got to love the Herdmans. We think this one is especially good on audio in The Best Barbara Robinson CD Audio Collection Ever. We think Elaine Stritch is perfect.

Jingle the Christmas Clown by Tomie de Paola Not my favorite of his, but the kids like it.


A Christmas Carol This version is abridged for kids.


Religious, Epiphany


The Little Drummer Boy by Ezra Jack Keats

Baboushka and the Three Kings by Ruth Robbins Love the pictures

Legend of Old Befana by Tomie de Paola I relate with Old Befana. Crazy, grumpy, always sweeping....


Winter/Secular Christmas

Christmas in the Country by Cynthia Rylant

In November by Cynthia Rylant Read it before Thanksgiving so you can appreciate that in November food smells orange.

Tony's Bread by Tomie de Paola Again, not his best, but any excuse to eat panetonne....

Harold's Trip to the North Pole by Crockett Johnson Harold is a clever artist.

The Magic School Bus to the Rescue Blizzard

Snowflake Bently by It makes you want to look at snow flake by flake.


The Father Christmas Letters by JRR Tolkien


Plum Pudding for Christmas by Virginia Kahl


Cobweb Christmas One of many that tells the story of where tinsel comes from.


Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats We have this movie too.


The Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore We have a couple of versions of this poem. I admit to being partial to versions called "A Visit from St. Nicholas" or those that include the lines "just settled our brains" and "Donder and Blitzen". These are the things I remember being features of the version my Nana read to me, and she especially pointed out that the name is "Donder" rather than "Donner."

Rosary books

The Rosary Book--When I was in dire need of help with the rosary, Elizabeth Foss had her daughter pull out this book. BEAUTIFUL! My friend Michelle bought one for herself and one for us. We only pray one decade a night, but we've already loved this book apart. Unfortunately, only the Joyful Mysteries are available now.

There is a picture and scripture passage for each prayer.

Scriptural Rosary--St Nicholas brought this for his feast day. How did he know that it was the one we used when I was a kid? As befits a saint, he miraculously provided an updated version with the luminous mysteries. This is a small book with one picture per mystery and a scripture for each Hail Mary. The scripture passages are different from those in the Rosary Book.

Kindergarten and PreK

In 2008, these are the resources I used for K and Pre-K. Pre-K is paced to the child's interest so I only teach if the child asks. Kindergaren is taught 4 days and takes about 45 min.

Teacher Help:

Mother of Divine Grace Kindergarten Syllabus--This program has a gentle start to the school years. In K I formally teach poetry, religion, language arts, math and art. I generally follow her suggestions for resources unless I have found a program I think will work better or is truer to my vision of how school should be. I love that she tells me what to teach each day and how long each subject should take. If I substitute a program or book, I still look to see how she suggests teaching that subject on a day to day basis.



Real Learning-- MODG tells me what to teach and Real Learning gives me a mental picture of how to do it. This book was a revelation to me when I read it after teaching K the first time. I think it has improved my teaching style.

Charlotte Mason Habits Handbook--loaned out This book was a brilliant read this summer since it reminded me how important good habits are. In Kindergarten there are new habits to train (like school every day not just when you want), and looking at the older kids, I see good habits paying off.


Poetry/Memory Work:

Harp and Laurel Wreath--Can't go wrong with this book which should be obvious from the fact that the cover is missing. I love the poems she chooses and that she divides them by stage. Since he has learned many of these poems by hearing older siblings, I let him choose any poem from the Grammatical Stage section.

Blank Book--After he has memorized a poem, I draw a picture, and he is colors it in since he isn't interested in drawing yet. Later in the year we may use Draw Write Now to teach him to draw, but he is really just starting to write. I google the poems and print them so that I don't have to write them out.

Religion:

Child's Bible History--This abridged Bible has comprehension questions at the end of each story and occasionally will mention some connection between the OT and NT, like manna is a pre-figuring of the Eucharist. The language can be awkward, but I've yet to find the perfect children's Bible. And this year is the year of the "tweak". ;)

ArchBooks--These are more lyrical versions of individual Bible stories so he narrates them better, but we don't have a complete Bible of them. We read the entire Child's Bible History over breakfast this summer so we are doing these for a while. Soon we will begin again more systematically and do formal narrations for his Bible book.

Blank Book--My sister-in-law just reminded me that comprehension and narration are 2 out of the 3 skills that creating a Bible book is supposed to teach. Illustrating the stories teaches drawing/writing skills. So, even though I was originally going to skip it and just do the narrations orally, we're now doing the book. However, I may put them into a 3-ring binder instead, and then add his history timeline to it in 4th grade.

Language Arts:

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons--If it ain't broke, don't fix it. This is kid #4 learning to read from this program and it really has been easy. Kid #5 is trying it too, but at a much slower pace. Still, she is sounding out simple words when I ask.

I'm using the StartWrite writing program to make worksheets instead of using the writing program in the book. It lets him trace letters several times before writing freehand, and I can save the worksheets I make for kids #5 and beyond.

Get Ready, Get Set, and Go for the Code--These workbooks teach Phonics so painlessly that I doubt I'll ever go back to our other (snooze) Phonics program (Sound Beginnings). He did all 3 books in about 3 weeks and that was with me begging him to slow down. I had guilt over bringing in workbooks which I try to avoid, but I decided that this was a judicious use of resources. The workbook presented the information and he learned from it and it freed me to teach other things that don't come from workbooks.

Once we are a little further along in 100 Easy Lessons, we'll try some easy readers. For now, we are writing a few words he knows well in index cards, and we review them a few times a week. He talks about the words on the index cards as being "his" and feels a sense of pride over them.

Math

Math U See Primer--We don't use the teacher pack with this one since I already understand the program. He would do fine with a cheaper workbook this year, but he likes having one from the same program as the older kids.

Marcy Cook Math Tile Cards--I bought these online from my 4th and 5th grade Gifted and Talented Education math teacher. I always felt like these cards were puzzles. You have to make 10 tiles numbered 0-9 fit on one card, and there is only one right answer per card. The Kindergartener has mastered those we have, but the preK still loves them.

Art:

Mommy It's a Renior (Child Sized Masterpieces)--We've been doing these for so many years we decided to branch out and use some of the higher steps this year. They love to play Go Fish or Concentration with 32 images, but sometimes we just cuddle on the couch in look the cards over one by one reviewing, the artist and title, and talking about the painting.

There are also occasional crafts suggested in the syllabus, but we save them for art and science week.

Other Subjects
Nothing else is taught formally at this age, but we have done a 6 week nature study class with friends this fall, and we are going to do one on art in the winter. Having used this same program with my older kids, I can see that they didn't miss anything by not having science or history presented formally at this age and the gentle program kept me from getting burned out.

Art Museum prep

Before our trip to the National Gallery we:

--looked at all Mommy, It's a Renoir cards of paintings in the National Gallery. Discussed Impressionism (French and a little American) and post-Impressionism
--lifted images from the NGA website to load as a slideshow on the computer
--played Art Lotto
--asked Michelle R for her scavenger hunt using Mommy, It's a Renior cards

Picture Books
--Mike Venezia books nonfiction--picture book level with some funny illustrations and lots of art images. Mike Venezia also has series about composers and presidents
--Camille and the Sunflowers (Van Gogh) (there is a series called Anholt's artists) --picture book level with an engaging story
--Jonkonnu (Winslow Homer) --picture book level with an engaging story
--Marie in Fourth Postion (Degas) --picture book level with an engaging story. One photo of sculpture on back jacket
--Chasing Vermeer (Vermeer) and others in this Blue Belliott series --haven't checked these out yet, but they sound good Age 9-12 reading level
--Jazz by Henri Matisse--He says that the words are for visual effect which is good because besides the fact that they are in French, I don't like what they have to say. Listening to Louis Armstrong while we looked at some of the pictures made both the book and Jazz make more sense.
--Gallery Ghost--we've had near fistfights over this book that I bought at the museum yesterday. It encourages the kids to look carefully at different works in the "what is different between these two pictures" style but the differences must then be traced back to their original works of art. Comes with an attached magnifier and score sheet (spares available to print from a website). I already want to buy the one about a museum in England: Art Fraud Detective.

Movies
--Mike Venezia--silly like the books, but the information is solid (if you can hear it above the sound of children's laughter) and there are tons of images that the kids recognized later. The images are shown a second time with titles and artist and location as the credits scroll around them.

Projects
--Art Packs--these are really only good for one or two children to use at a time, but they come with little books, and you can sometimes adjust the activities for larger groups. I bought a couple of these to try.
--Discovering Great Artists by Marianne Kohl--this book gives projects in different art styles. It provides recipes, level of difficulty, time to prepare, time to do craft. Better if you are doing bigger groups, but most projects are too much for my younger kids. We haven't tried this yet so I'm excited to see how it works.
--History timeline A quick way to record some of what they've learned. The boys are going to do a timeline entry on each of the different artists and art schools we've studied. I bought small stickers at Dover to put on their timeline pages.

History Timeline or Book of Centuries

My thought:

• 3 ring binder
• Using colored paper make dividers for time periods.
• Make full double page 50yr (for period we are studying Vikings to Civil War) timeline across top 1/3 of page. Put tabs to find these pages more easily? Write time period across top of page.
• Make 2/3 size pages to put between 100 yr pages. Each 2/3 page is for a discreet event and will be in order. Add images to enhance. Put number on 2/3 page and mark it on the line too.
• Use cardstock.

Homeschool in the Woods--If we are good with our timelines, I would like to buy this CD set of the images to enhance them.

Blog about different timelines. I like the index card one

Sonlight's idea of how to break down time periods:

100 years per page 5000 BC to 200 BC
50 years per page 200 BC to 1000 AD
25 years per page 1000 to 1850
10 years per page 1850 to present
8 1/2 x 11" Pb, heavy-gauge paper.