2_girls_mommy
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Posts posted by 2_girls_mommy
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We have always made all of the posters and manipulatives in grades 1 & 2. I loved the duck pond in 1 & the boats & bees posters in 2. But grade 3's multiplication poster looks very big and difficult to make. Have you made one as listed in the book, or found a way to change it to make it more usable or smaller?? Is it difficult to make and implement?
All ideas needed with as much detail as possible! Dd and I enjoy the lessons in the books, and I like to stick with it as much as possible. And dd enjoys the little stories and themes in each book.
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I did LOTW this year w/my 4 yr old. I printed a letter coloring sheet from Sesame Street for every Monday when we started the new letter. Then on Tues. I had a coloring sheet of the letter in ASL. Sometimes she painted or glued things to decorate the sheets. We put them all together in her own binder so she had a notebook like her sis with all of her work in it. She learned her ABCs and in sign language too.
For other work, we used the Rod and Staff ABC workbooks. She did a couple pages of these a week on the other days for her paperwork. At times I gave her dot to dots and mazes from other places too.
Sometimes I gave her playdough or sewing cards and told her that was preschool work that I needed her to do. (This helped in explaining to my older dd why she couldn't do it at that time, because let's face it preschool stuff is just fun. But at times I would tell them it is time for you to do first grade work and you to do your preschool work even if it was just playing with counting bears or playdough or something.
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Did you see that LOTW has different levels? You could do the sound of the week or the K one with your 4 yr old. It does tell you what to do each week and day if you read all of the scheduling stuff. It is reading based and starts with a list of books and poetry and songs each week to find. My dd loved the book selections.
But you do have to do a lot of work gathering materials and making flashcards and printouts etc. I have only used LOTW and haven't looked too hard at sound of the week. With LOTW for things like social studies, art, Bible, and P.E. it just gives you ideas of what to teach and you have to reserve a book on the topic at the library or search online for some info.
I generally printed out the plans a week ahead of time and reserved the books for the next week at the library. I printed out any coloring sheets and poems that were online too. Then I 3 hole punched them and made my own lesson plan book. We didn't follow the plans exactly, but I got some good ideas.
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Do you do bedtime reading? I find that mine are very receptive to fiction books at that time as well as stories and poetry. My dd4 can tell you all about the characteristics of insects this week :001_smile:
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I had noticed the exact same thing in the book where it was mentioned one place and not the other. I just ordered ours a few months ago (the red one) before I bought the new WTM, with the intention of using it for memorization lists now and having it for logic stage later. I am sure we will stick to that plan, even though I have read since I ordered it that the white version was better.
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My dd4 really loved the Counting workbook from the Rod and Staff ABC workbooks. She felt like a big girl with her "math book." My older dd didn't use that one. We had a dry erase preschool math book ( I think it was called let's get ready for school) that she loved. Other than that we have used counting bears with walmart workbooks, candyland and chutes and ladders. For patterns we have used colored blocks, construction paper chains, & counting bears. Lots of games and things around the house. We did graphs w/boxes of m&ms and other candy, a weather graph, and a daily calendar time.
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We just finished Rod and Staff's 1st grade Bible and Nurture series, and we loved it. I find that it did give practical application at the first grade level in the questions in the Teacher's Manual. As a bonus there is vocab study daily and other gentle beginning grammar lessons included, mostly done orally with 2 daily workbook pages.
We did the full program: 1st grade phonics, reading (the Bible story readers), the reading workbook, and the extra worksheets. If you didn't want to use their phonics you could do the reading w/the T.M and the reading workbook and you could choose to add in the extra worksheets or not. The worksheets are good 1st grade work, but not necessarily all Bible related. We loved this program. I will do it again with my younger. My dd and I really enjoyed our time together daily with these stories and questions. Even my dd4 participated by listening to the stories and answering questions. This with SOTW and her Sunday School class really gave her a wonderful Bible study this year.
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For those of you who mentioned R&S workbooks. I read the reviews for them at another board. Many ppl liked them, but some said they were too hard for a 3 y/o. Did you find that to be the case?
They probably are. I used them starting when my dd was almost 4 to begin with. She moved very slowly through the first few, and didn't really get into them until this spring, once she was over 4 and a half. Then she really picked up the pace. She did 3 of them over the course of 9 mos, and some of the Bible coloring book. I am saving the others for her K year, coming up in the fall.
But since your child is wanting more, you may want to try and start them. Another suggestion is just trying some preschool workbooks from discount stores. My dd loved one that was a fisher price one when she was 3, and also at times used some Winnie the Pooh ones. But she didn't love the R&S to begin with. Now she does.
And you may want to look at R&S's younger series. I haven't used them, but they have a set for 3 yr olds and 4 yr olds that are for younger than the ABC workbooks.
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I love the R&S ABC workbooks too. Very open and go, some songs provided to teach (one per workbook). We also used ideas from Letter of the Week, but that is not open and go. The plans are free online, but you have to put things together yourself.
For adding music and rhymes, we just use lots of mother goose books & C.D.s and rent kids' music videos from the library. We also have the leapfrog dvd and letters for the fridge.
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My kids are the same ages as yours, although they are almost 5 and almost 7 now and we are wrapping up SOTW 1. I will do as the above posters have said. I have heard that vol. 4 is a little advanced and may not be the best thing for littles, and my youngest will be in 2nd at the time like yours would be if you go this route. I will look over it in advance at that point, and may do American History at her level with her that year and have my then 4th grader do more of SOTW 4 reading independently. We will see. But I do plan to keep them together. I will just use other sources each year at a younger level with my younger.
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Are they twaddle?? Maybe a little. But we love them here. Yes, they really teach about history, IMO. There are also non fiction research guides for each one that are good for history help too. My dd6 will write down history recomendations from them that she wants to get at the library. Reading level? We started reading them aloud to my Ker, and by the end of K she was reading them to herself.. (thank goodness, I was tired of them by that point.) Now she reads them in one day, so we just pick up one a week and then more challenging books also, so she is not just reading these.
She just finished the one about Shakespeare. She is able to pick up info and carry it over into other things. She also read some Shakespeare plays in comics form (can't remember the name of the book) and an American Girl book that talks about Shakespeare. She gets really excited when all of her books tie in together like that. So I am all for them. I also like that she is getting introduced to things that we are not to in history yet. It is like a little sample of things to come, and she will tell me, "I remember that from Magic Treehouse," when we get to it.
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We did ours like that too in our sandbox. The girls each had a paper drawing of it with the quadrants on it, to draw in where they found things. I think starting with that made history their favorite subject from the beginning.
I almost forgot their most recent masterpiece which is our model of a Roman road. They love showing it to everyone that comes in. It did turn out very nicely.
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While I'm on the topic - what projects out of the AG did people enjoy?
Oh my gosh, which didn't we enjoy? We made a ziggurat that was fun. We did the archeological dig. We did a lot of the easier ones, like make a laurel wreath crown out of construction paper and the game boards that you copy. We enjoyed a Roman lunch one day as a picnic outside. That was fun! We made a volcano and the Pharos lighthouse. We did a lot of things with clay like made Saturnalia gifts of clay animals and clay tablets of cunneiform. We made scrolls and painted our names in Hieroglyphics, and we did cave art paintings. We made the homemade greek stickers which were more like stamps. Those are some that stick out in my mind. I am so looking forward to vol. 2 coming up in the fall!
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Yes, there are definitely days when we do not do the whole lesson. Especially in math 1 where there were hardly any new concepts to my dd.
On some days I may just have dd do the workbook individually if there is nothing new that day. The next day when I do the lesson plan with her, I always skim the previous day's to see if there is something I want to go over with her from. I do this because sometimes new things are introduced in the lesson time, that weren't in the workbook.
And I always do the whole thing on speed drill days which is every even lesson.
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We will be doing vol. 2 this year also, so I haven't used it yet. I can't give specifics. I can only say what we did this past year w/vol. 1.
We did Science by following the plan in WTM which was life science. For vol. 2 it is Earth Science & Astronomy. For tie ins with SOTW, we used any suggestions from the activity book, but not exclusively. But when we had a book from SOTW suggestions that was science related we read it and did any experiements or things that came up in it, whether it corresponded to our currenct science topic or not. For example, we made a volcano during the chapter that talked about Crete and the island near it that were damaged by a major volcano. We read a little about volcanos (science) and made one out of clay and painted it (art) and exploded it. We also did some L.A. worksheets I had on volcano stories. We read science books on things that came out of Ancient Egypt and Africa and followed up on those too.
For art, we followed the plan from What Your 1st Grader Needs to Know. It actually began with cave art and Ancient Egyptian art, so it tied right in. We did selections from SOTW A.G. and any that came up as we went in WYFGNTK. It did not follow completely follow history chronologically. We covered other things like lines, colors, shapes in art and studied some more recent paintings too. They have a core knowledge website with some lesson plans for the What Your xth grader needs to know that I used for ideas sometimes. We also went to many museum exhibits to see actual ancient art. My dd6 loves to look at books after an exhibit and find things we have seen in one of her books.
For music we followed WYFGNTK too, and used a music curric to teach music theory. We checked out C.D.s when possible that related to SOTW (not really much for vol. 1, but things are looking up for next year as we move forward in history.) Currently we are into the Celts, and I did find a Celtic music C.D. So I try to tie it in however I can. This has been a good combination for us. So I am continuing next year with the Well Trained Mind Science, SOTW 2, and What Your 2nd Grader Needs to Know Art and Music (among other things...)
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Actually ours has the Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible on its shelves. You may be surprised if you have a good library system how much they have.
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The content is great :) but I opened my book (normally, not roughly) about 3 times and the binding split, so it's only a matter of time before the hard cover breaks off completely. :glare:
That really bites!! So sorry that happened. I guess hoping for 13 years is too much!! Oh well, like someone else said, there will probably be a new edition in a couple of years that I will want to buy anyway.
I am still loving the book though. How many times can I read the same section and learn something new or reassure myself that we are headed in the right direction? I don't know, but I am going for the record!
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I am finished w/most of my buying. I have all of my curric and books purchased, but I still have a list of supplies needed. I am waiting for the school supplies sales for most of it. Some things like sketch pads probably won't go on sale, but I will pick them up then too.
But yes, it is a good feeling!! Last year I was on a serious budget and was not able to buy as many books that I wanted. I had to utilize the library for reference books that would have been so much easier to have on hand. So it is a good feeling to have my encyclopedias and my own copy of TWTM along w/curric!! :lol:
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I 2nd the Wee Sings America C.D. It is only about $10 and comes with a book of the words. My dd6 learned SO many songs from this. It has about 50 songs on it. I bought her the folk songs one for her bday coming up soon, so we will be using it next year. They are just fun C.D.s
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We take lots of pics. The first day of school this past year I made signs that said, "First day of 1st Grade" and "First day of PreK," and each girl held up the sign in a pic. I am going to print the pic and put it on the sign as the first page of their scrapbooks this year.
For my ODD's first day of K, I made sure I did things that were special to her. We started the day with a Bible story and then did a craft to go with it. She loves crafts, Bible stories, dinosaurs, and playing school. So I also kept things kind of "formal" for her. After crafts we did her new math book, then we went outside for "recess." (I used lots of school names because she also was longing for the school experience then...) During recess she found out that her dad and I had buried dino fossils in the sandbox. So we played paleontologist and dug them up, looking for clues about what kind of dino it was. I forgot to mention that we had all new school supplies, including new backpack and lunchbox and thermos for her also. We made good use of those for our first "field trip" later in the week.
By making her day so special and full of things she is interested in, it was a memorable day for all of us. For my upcoming Ker this year who has grown up with homeschooling, I am not sure the day will be so exciting to her... I will have the new supplies out and take pictures and try to make a big deal out of her first day. We may go out for ice cream or lunch or something.
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Excited, but nervous too. We are on break, but technically we haven't finished SOTW 1 yet, so we are still working on that. But even just the few days of no school and outside activities we have had so far have been a huge refresher. Being able to shop during the day because we were not trying to finish schoolwork before our afternoon activities is a luxury I have not had in 10 mos. I like it :)
I am nervous about next year for a couple of reasons. Number 1 is because it will be my first legal official year teaching 2. My younger is so different from my first too. I am starting in such a different place w/her, so I don't know 100% how it is going to go. I also promised them we could join a coop next year, which cuts into my educational week. And I am going to be leading their small hs group of brownies and daisies. So I am feeling a little anxiety over everything we have going on.
On the other hand, I am excited, because I love what I have chosen for next year and I truly love homeschooling. We will adjust to our new year the same way I adjusted this year! And by May or June next year I will be hanging on to my sanity by a very thin thread the same way I was this year :)
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We just finished preK w/my almost 5 yr old. (finished meaning we are taking a summer break from most schoolwork)
She completed books A-D of the Rod and Staff ABC workbooks and we did a letter of the week using Letter of the Week dot com for ideas. She followed along w/older sis in most everything. She now recognizes her letters and numbers and can sound out CVC words and is starting BOB books. The year went well!
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This was my first copy to own. I used the library's 1999 edition in the past. I too noticed the paper was not good quality. Maybe this is why Amazon was able to offer it so cheaply.. $26 as opposed to going in to Barnes and Noble and buying the last edition for $40. I held off buying my own for the new one as it was cheaper and the newest, and then the paper really bugged me too. This book needs to last me the next 13 years.
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We just finished. We used what is in my sig.
Rod and Staff grade 3 Math question
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
Were you able to stick with the ocean theme, and read the little stories and such w/out the poster? Did it still seem to flow? My dds both enjoyed hearing about bees so much this past year w/math 2.
I guess a regular multiplication chart is really all they are doing, just introducing it one row at a time with the ocean theme. I will have to look at it some more.
Anybody else modified this?