First Grade–Week 5

We had another great week with Core A!  Samuel memorized his Bible verse for the letter E – Even a child is known by his actions, by whether his conduct is pure and right – Proverbs 20:11.  He is doing a great job saying all his verses from A to E.  I even tried to confuse him the other day and made him say them out of order and he still remembered them all.  He gets very excited each time he adds a new verse!

In history we’ve been learning about Vikings.  We had briefly talked about Vikings last year when we talked about Leif Erickson, and Samuel was excited to spend more time on them this year.  His favorite project was making a Viking ship!

We finished reading My Father’s Dragon and Samuel and I were both a little sad that it was over.  Samuel was so excited that Elmer and the Dragon finally got off the island!  I need to get to the library and get the sequels soon.

In math, Samuel’s been learning order (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc) and also learning how to draw pictures depicting addition and subtraction problems.  We had fun making a train and practicing with his stuffed animals.  I made up stories for him like “The train stopped and 3 passengers got on.  They sat in the 2nd, 4th, and 5th seats.” Then at the next stop different passengers would get off.  He had to draw pictures to show what happened and let me know how many passengers were left.

We also worked on counting with pennies and our hundred chart. 

In science we learned about rivers and how they flow to the ocean, mountains, and deserts.  Samuel especially liked looking up the highest mountain peak on each continent and marking them on the markable map.

First Grade–Week 4

I got a little behind on blogging so I’ve been playing catch up with our weeks-in-review.  Hopefully, now that I’m caught up, I can stay on top of things.

We added another Bible verse, and can now say verses for A-D.  Our D verse is Matthew 7:12 – Do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.  I’m so proud of Samuel for remembering them all!

In history, we’ve been learning about Ancient Rome all week.  We made a chariot for our craft on one of the days.

We started a new read-aloud, My Father’s Dragon, and Samuel and I are both loving it!  Evidently there are 2 sequels to this book and we will definitely be checking them out from the library when we finish this one!  Samuel begs me to read more than one chapter per day, but I’m too much of a box-checker to deviate from the schedule.

We’re trucking along in math and Samuel actually had his first test this week.  Since everything on it was review from last year, he made a 100!  He was very excited about it!

In science, we learned about fossils, earthquakes, and volcanoes.  Samuel especially enjoyed making a volcano and watching it erupt!

Science at the Zoo

I had planned on signing Samuel up for classes at our homeschool co-op, but then we found out that they have science classes at the zoo on Tuesdays also.  I gave Samuel the choice between co-op and the zoo and he chose classes at the zoo.  He had his first class this week and absolutely loved it!  They talk about a different topic for 3-4 weeks and for these first weeks the topic is chemistry.  They learned about monomers, polymers, and cross-linkers and then got to make slime and bouncy balls.  Samuel had so much fun!  He can’t wait to go back next week!

Showing off his slime

Mixing up his ingredients to make a bouncy ball

Doesn’t look like much yet…

Pretty cool!

First Grade–Week 3

Another fun week with Sonlight Core A!  I completely forgot to take pictures this week though. 

We memorized Colossians 3:20 – Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.  Samuel is doing a great job with his verses and can say all 3 of them together without any prompting!

In history, we finished reading about the Ancient Egypt, touched briefly on Ancient Greece, and then moved on to Ancient Rome.  Samuel is loving learning about all the different cultures!

We finished reading The Boxcar Children.  Samuel enjoyed it and I know our library has the rest of the series, so I may see if he wants to read anymore of them together.   We also read a few stories from the James Herriot Treasury.  I remember reading James Herriot’s books and loving them, so I enjoyed getting to revisit the stories with Samuel.  I’m glad that he seemed to like them too.

We also started Saxon Math this week.  The first few lessons are mainly just review so it’s been easy for Samuel so far, but I’m sure he’ll be challenged once it gets to new material.

We continued learning about weather in science and I wish I had remembered to take pictures because we did several experiments.  We made a tornado in a bottle and a weather vane which were both really cool.

Samuel’s an Orange Belt!

Samuel is still taking karate, and tonight he tested for his orange belt.  He worked very hard, and practiced a lot with Daddy to be sure that he had all his moves perfect.  He did very well on his test and we are both so proud of him!  Starting next week, he will be in the advanced class.