First day has come to a close. Big SIGH! Everything went better than I had hoped but could use some improvements. Less interruptions would be a blessing. JJ is letting his mind wander alot during his independant work. I can tell because he wants to share every thought that comes into his head and almost all of them have nothing to do with his work. On a very positive note; the books chosen for our first Topic in American History are all terrific. They all held JJ's attention and he was able to recall the majority of everything we read today. He cut out the timeline pieces and part of the Cortes pocket while I read to him. At first I wasn't sure if it would work for him. I thought it might prove to be to distracting but he did very well. In fact, when he was done cutting and just listened, I noticed he started to get antsy, so I stopped reading and instructed him on how to glue the pieces he had just cut out. I then went back to reading the rest of the book. We had a visitor and had to stop for a few minutes but he stayed right on track. When he found out I had a movie on Ice Mummies, he insisted we watch it today. I told him only if we had spare time. We did, so we got to watch about half of it. It's a bit long and drawn out but the mummies are fascinating to see.
So here's a run-down of the subjects covered: {Not In Order}
- Spelling: (Using Spelling Wisdom) I told him how the program worked and what I expected of him. We first added up how many words there were, 5, then I asked which ones he didn't know. He told me he didn't know 1 but I told him he had to be completely sure of a word before we counted it as him "knowing" it. He changed his answer to "2". I told him how I wanted him to study the words: see it, say it, cover it, spell it and if completely sure, he could write it. We practised together for a few min. then he copied the complete phrase into his notebook.
- Grammar: (LLATL Yellow
) We just opened up the teacher book, I didn't order the student book, as I see it as an almost duplicate of the teacher with one minor difference, and started. 1A was me reading a passage to him and then he had to copy it into his notebook. He became distracted at this point, it's beautiful outside and very warm. Both of his sisters were out playing and he wanted to join them. It was almost lunch time, so I had him continue until I had lunch ready and then gave him a break. After lunch, he did great and finished in no-time. He then did 1B and wrote the spelling words into his notebook.
- Handwriting: (HWOT
) Things went great here. I even made the Magic C bunny with a paper napkin. I'm still not sure what to do with it but JJ liked playing with it. He struggled with the placement of his paper and spent all day trying to correct it. He kept curving his hand the way a left hander would do. Until today, I wasn't even aware he had a problem with how to hold his paper and hand.
- Vocabulary: (Wordly Wise 3000 bk 3
) At first I had him reading all the words and their definitions but soon realized he was struggling with reading the words. After three or four words, I started reading the definitions and then having him narrate the definition back to me using only one sentence. He had a lot of fun with this. At first he tried to give a description for the word but when I wouldn't accept that he started challenging himself to come up with only one sentence. I was so surprised. JJ hates narration and I thought I would have a battle on my hands. SURPRISE! It must have something to do with challenging him by telling him how I wasn't sure it could be done, go figure. Whatever works, right, hehe.
- American History Unit: Topic 1 Incas, Aztecs & Mayans
- Read 1 Ch Secret of the Andes
- Read 3 pages of You Wouldn't Want to Be an Inca Mummy
- Read pages 3 - 5 of Exploration and Conquest
- Read pages 9 - 19 of Incas Aztecs Mayans
(I think I'm in love with this book. I love the "Adult Notes" and JJ even enjoyed the short passages and learned two knew words; despotic and benevolent)
- Listened to Chapter 1 Track 3 of the Story of the World
- We did the review questions and JJ wrote a breif narration after listening to this.
- JJ cut out all timeline images and pasted them into his timeline book (we didn't discuss these yet)
- He cut out and glued the Cortes fast fact sheet and the pocket image from the History Pocket
book. He glued them onto colorful paper and later we will add these to his notebook. He also colored this while I was reading to him.
- He cut out the map for Cotes and Coronado from Interactive 3-D maps
. He's already excited about this project and can't wait until tomorrow to finish it.
- JJ begged for the Ice Mummies
video, so we ended up watching half of it, even though it wasn't scheduled until Thursday.
So, that sums up our homeschooling for the day. I would say that I'm looking forward to tomorrow BUT I have to have some major dental work done in the afternoon and I have no idea how to get all of school done. Wednesday is looking bad to, as I'm not sure how well I will feel. Thank goodness hubby is taking half a day off for me. I have the best husband in the world!
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ChildBlessed~~
