Cali's First Semester

Our first semester ran from 6/29/09 - 11/20/09. Cali was 3 during this time, having turned 4 in January. Even though she is "the baby" of the family, and is technically tagging along for a lot of subjects, she hasn't really struggled much at all in her constant attempt to keep up with big sister! Here is a detailed review, for our records and for anyone interested.

Overall, Cali is doing wonderfully! She is 3 years old completing first grade Language Arts and Science, and advanced K level Math, History, Bible and Literature. In the first 18 weeks, she completed both her Health and (initial) Math curriculum.

For Math, she finished the entire Math U See Primer (K Level) program in 4 months and began Horizons K (what is a slightly advanced K program from what I have been told) before the end of the first semester. Cali is doing extremely well in this subject. She understands the concepts of place value, addition, subtraction, missing value, skip counting, tally marks and time. She has memorized "double facts" (1+1, 2+2, 3+3, 4+4, 5+5) and skip counting by 2's, 5's, and 10's. Math was supplemented with Critical Thinking Books Can You Find Me, Kumon Cutting, and Sesame Street Activity Books on Counting. Horizons lessons 1-3 completed before the first semester and the following concepts were introduced: counting carefully, position words, writing numbers, one to one correspondence and right and left.

Horizons Health K went wonderfully and we finished in half the time due to interest. We will focus on P.E. next semester.

Language Arts is a broad subject covering many things, and we used a wide variety of sources.

We began with Sonlight LA 1st grade, mostly doing oral work, but it was not a good fit. She had extreme interest in wanting to learn how to read like her sister, but it was a matter of the right approach. While Cali loved the book with the word lists and could read them, she completely balked at the idea of reading them in the fairly long-page stories SL used.

Instead, we began a hodge podge of things that actually worked very well. Along with self created song games and activities, we would occasionally use Bob Books as readers and Starfall.com. Most of the work, however, was done with Explode the Code and Queen Homeschool's Language Lessons for Little Ones 2 (LLFLO). She began with ETC Book 1 (having established that the Primer A,B and C books were too easy) 8/18/09 and was 1/3 of the way through Book 2 by 12/15/09, doing a page or two a day. Cali also does 2-3 lessons in LLFLO's a day due to interest.

Explode the Code covers letter sounds, beginning/middle/end sound recognition, word recognition, reading 3-5 letter words, reading and matching words to pictures, spelling, blends and reading comprehension. Cali ended the semester with the test for Book 1 which involved dictation (I say a word and she would choose the correct word from a set of 3), reading sentences and choosing the word that makes sense, and reading 3 sentence paragraphs and choosing the word the paragraph described. She did perfectly and was very proud of herself!

Language Lessons for Little Ones coves Poetry Appreciation and Narration, Picture Study and Narration, Creative Expression, Copywork, Letter Sounds, and reading words and sentences. In two and a half months, Cali completed 1/3 of the book.

Handwriting began with Donna Young prewriting lessons, focusing on lines, circles, slanted lines and hills. She did wonderfully! After a month, she moved onto copywork as well, using a variety of Scripture verses, samples from SL LA1, and LLFLO. Cali has very good motor skills! She can glue and line pictures up very well, her letter formation and pencil control is great and her scissor work is decent. Handwriting, for her age, is extremely impressive.

Art, which includes any drawings she does throughout the day and various picture narrations, is growing daily! She began the semester with simple scribbles and explosions of color on paper. This evolved to writing her name and letters and now is much more focused on a particular result -- using shapes and lines to form people or objects!

Creative Writing is good for her age. She is getting more and more comfortable creating imaginary scenarios and characters. Narrations have grown considerably - she is able to tell back most of our readings pretty well and has wonderful comprehension.

Read Aloud Literature consists of daily chapter books, shorter literature stories and poetry. Comprehension and enjoyment is high for all of these.

Our Read Aloud Books and Novels this semester have included:

Hero Tales (stories of missionaries -- we really enjoy this!)

The Boxcar Children

Eric Carl's Animals Animals

The Real Mother Goose

The Apple and the Arrow (actually only read 1/2 of this book. Girls did not like at all!)

My Father's Dragon

The Hundred Dresses

Dolphin Adventure

James Herriot's Treasury for Children

Little House in the Big Woods

Pioneer Sisters chapter book

Capyboppy

The Wizard of Oz (for the most part. . . we kinda let this one fizzle out during a vacation, oops!)

too many library books to count or name

History is going pretty well. We decided against doing a timeline this year, as they are still so young, but we do read the daily selection and discuss. While there is some interest (and much more with living books and biographies when used here), this would probably be the least enjoyed subject at the moment -- but still learning and comprehending nicely. Unfortunately the bulk of Sonlight's History consists of Usborne Encyclopedias, which aren't the living books I would have picked, but we are changing this in the coming year.

** NOTE- after the first few weeks of the second semester, I noticed a big jump in interest with asking them to act out or do charades of their favorite parts of the daily history readings!!! **

Science is wonderful! Biology I is the course this year with NOEO, and so far we've covered most of the animal kingdom, weather, Bacteria and Fungi, and 2 Habitats (woods and seashore). Experiments have not gone so well, but the reading assignments have been a favorite reading, and they complete creative narrations 2-4x's a week. Cali's narrations have been full of color and while she normally only focuses on 1 thing or picture from the reading, she does a good job making the idea her own through pictures, story narrations and puppet shows. Favorite Resource here has been the Usborne Pocket Nature Encyclopedia.

** NOTE -- after finishing NOEO, ahead of schedule, I can quickly say that the Pocket Nature Encyclopedia got a big run for its money when they started reading Usborne's First Human Body Encyclopedia!! **

Bible reading is comprehended and narrated very well. While we use a variety of Bibles at different times, choosing the one that tells each story the best for their age, the Egermeier's Bible Storybook is definitely our primary text. We began using our own Devotionals around mid-semester, and are now near the end of our second book. I am very pleased with this time, spiritual insight and understanding, and growth.

Scripture Memory had been excellent. Mom did not stress this for a 6 week period in the middle, but all verses before and after are well memorized and enjoyed.

Extra Curricular is Gymnastics. This has been wonderful! We did switch places a few weeks in, but since the move, it has been a highlight of Cali's week! Floor and Balance Beam exercises are her strengths and she loves the physical activity/exercise it brings. She often practices throughout the house, throughout the week. Teacher-student ratio is very good, thus bringing in more discipline as well. The main highlight, however, is the pride she has in herself and the obvious joy she gets from each class!

Our school schedule has gone through multiple revisions, however short lessons (with a timer sometimes) helps focus and best effort. Also, for creative tendencies during "lessons," trying to stick to the Listen-Do-Then Share Creative Thought/Ideas works well. Also clearly stating expectations in school and before outings has been crucial.

The schedule used for the majority of the first semester (and was changed shortly after, ha!) consisted of Bible/Devo/Scripture with Breakfast, move to counter for Language Arts work, then either a short play time of 15 minutes or straight to the sofa for Story Time.

During Story Time Jordan reads her independent reader to all of us, then I read History, Science, Poetry and our "lighter literature" selections (we have a 12 book collection called My Book House that we are reading through). On Tuesday and Thursday, at a minimum, we would follow this time with picture science narrations. We would sometimes have another short break here or go straight to the counter for Math and Health. Our chapter book Read Aloud Literature was read after lunch. Gymnastics was every Friday from 5:45-6:45 and is now every Saturday from 11-12.

Chores - with prompting, makes bed (Very well!), gets dressed (or at least picks outfit out), picks up dirty clothes, and brushes teeth/washes face. Actively searches out for ways to help daily around the house.

Future Changes -- There were a few times when Bible was moved to lunch and it worked beautifully tying our conduct/effort in school with devotional discussions. May be good to begin the day in prayer but permanently move Bible/Devo/Scripture to later in the afternoon. There has also been great results with moving our Literature Read Alouds to lunch time.

SO, that sums up Semester One for our little Cali Bug! Up next, JoJo Nut.