first grade homeschool :: weeks 4 through 6

She illustrated and wrote all of the parts of the seasons calendar herself, and was so proud.  I just made the circles and went over the words in sharpie.  It is now cut out and attached to a piece of cardboard with a brad so we can spin it.

 practice, practice, practice

 we have a tendency to really spread out!

 she is working hard on compiling a species list of birds that she can continue to add to and illustrate

I finally stopped procrastinating and spent approximately 2 minutes filling out an online form in order to register our homeschool with the state.  I'm not sure why it took me so long, but now it's done.  We are now officially White Oaks Schoolhouse.  There are three large white oaks in our front yard (they are big players all around the neighborhood) and I knew I wanted to go with a plant/tree name, so it seemed a natural choice.  We got a little hung up on Academy vs. School vs. Schoolhouse, and I admit in the end I just filled out the form with the one I personally most preferred.  Academy seemed a bit much, school seemed not enough, and I found schoolhouse quite charming in a simple and old-fashioned kind of way.  Plus, well...... it's a school in a house, so it seems fitting.

Our last few weeks have continued along in much the same fashion as the first few.  We are finding our groove, learning how to go with the flow, and working to create an overall balance.  And truly, I think we've just about got it.

We are continuing with our routine of meeting at the dining table not long after she rises, and we get started on a bit of schoolwork before breakfast (or while I am making breakfast) and then continue afterwards, typically for a total of 1.5-2.5 hours (though that is flexible, naturally, in the event of horseback riding lessons, walks to the library, hikes, visits with nana, etc).

Recently she has done a lot of practicing her lowercase letter formation and practicing letter blends. We are also just getting started with cursive.  She thinks it is fancy, of course, and even asked me how to 'speak in cursive', which I thought was pretty cute.  She continues to love the Explode the Code workbooks and has worked through books 1 and 1 1/2 and is now a few lessons into book 2.  We have been reading chapter books at bedtime for a couple years now, and last night we finished the second book of the Birchbark House series (oh she is loving that Omakayas!) and tonight we started The Little Prince (which I've never read before and I kept finding myself wondering if it was totally bizarre to her but she seemed really into it).

Math lately has been a lot of addition/math facts worksheets, (>, <, =), figuring out the missing addend, playing shut-the-box, and reviewing geometric solids.  We also do some counting of coins and place value work, and I remain on the fence as to whether or not I will order a math curriculum at this point.  I'm thinking maybe next year, but we'll see.  I both don't want to miss some-big-something she'll need to know and also don't want to forget that she is but 6 years old.  Balance.

Our geography/history focus has been on North America lately and will be for a while.  We've read lots about the crossing of the land bridge and about the first people of our continent.  We focused on Greenland for a week (and I learned way more about the country than I ever knew before), and are finishing up some reading on Canada before moving on to the United States (which I imagine we will stay focused on for some time) later this week.

Aside from some fun, dynamic discussions (globe in hand, pretending the table was the sun, etc.) about day/night and seasons, and some more talk about food chains and the difference between being endangered and being extinct, our science and nature study lately has been largely focused on observations and identification of butterflies, spiders, and birds. We successfully raised and released 4 monarchs, have been watching all the butterflies in the yard, and happily found that a garden spider has spun her beautiful web in a place that is easy for us to observe her, which we have been doing several times a day.  The thing I'm loving most about homeschooling is the way we can so easily and naturally move in whatever direction we are called to move in.  Our monarch raising led to other butterfly observations, which led us to spy the spider, which led to learning about the parts of a spider, and so on.  I keep being so pleasantly surprised by the way things just lead into one another so effortlessly, but I suppose I ought not to be since that is, after all, the beauty of it and perhaps the very nature of learning when it is allowed some flexibility.


Another thing we are really enjoying is memorizing seasonal verses.  We are particularly loving the ones pictured above (my favorite is the one by Robert Louis Stevenson, hers the one by F.D. Sheeman) as well as this one, which we'd memorized last fall and came back to:

Yellow the bracken,

Golden the sheaves,

Rosy the apples,

Crimson the leaves;

Mist on the hillside,

Clouds grey and white.

Autumn, good morning!

Summer, good night!

-Florence Hoatson

All in all, this is what our days are looking like.  I'd like to do some more home-ec stuff like baking and cooking and handwork, etc. and so I plan to work that in a bit more (though no doubt our cider pressing last week would have filled that category nicely- I suppose we really are doing that I'm just not looking at it as 'school' now that we have gotten so much more organized regarding lessons, etc).  I'd also like to focus a bit more on music (maybe get her signed up for lessons with some instrument of her choosing- something aside from our fiddling together on the ukuleles- which is totally fun but I know it'd be good for her to have another non-parent mentor and teacher). 

We get quite a bit of schoolwork done in not a terribly long amount of time, and then we have our late morning-early afternoon somewhat free before heading to work to do art with kids.  It's working, I love it, I am beyond grateful that we are able to make it work, and really, I am learning so much myself.  What fun.  If you are homeschooling your kids (or if you are not) I'd love to hear about the routines, rhythms, etc. that you are most enjoying with your own kiddos.  Are there resources and references that you love most and find yourself going back to more than others?  Favorite children's literature magazines?  Favorite educational games or tools?  Favorite online subscriptions/'clubs'?  Let's inspire one another and keep the support and encouragement flowing!  I would love to have an ongoing discussion, if anyone is interested.