Homeschooling Update: October 2013

I guess I didn't explain in the last update, that when Arabelle has a certain letter lesson with her phonics, it is used to make new words, using the letters that she's previously learned.

In October, she completed her first of three phonics books in her First Start Reading lessons and started on the 2nd book!

There are several things that we do each day, after breakfast and getting dressed. We start with Bible time, prayer, and verse and catechism memorization practice. If we have some time still before Mae's nap, I'll read aloud some. This month we read Little House on the Prairie. Arabelle has enjoyed it so much!

Here's a summary of what we did in October!

The first week was from 9/30-10/4:

• This week, I added in a weekly character trait lesson, where we discuss what the character trait means and read a Bible story that goes along with it. This week's trait was attentive and we read and discussed Luke 10:38-42, where Mary was attentive to Jesus was visiting her and Martha's house. 
• We also continued on with the catechisms. 
• This week's book wasn't available at the library, so we just checked out some Fall themed books and enjoyed some Fall crafts! 

• I found several fall activities on the internet, including making a Number Hunt book. There was a page for each day and she counted the items on the sheet (acorns, leaves, etc.) and wrote the number in and colored the items.
• For science, we observed several different kinds of trees & leaves and used our senses to describe them. We observed Pecan, Oak, and Dogwood trees.
• Arabelle painted several paper leaves using her water colors and we made leaf rubbings from the leaves we collected. 

The second week was from 10/7-10/11:

• Our book of the week for this week was The Story of Ferdinand. We made silly hats, like the men in the book wore.

• The book explored the sense of smell, so we also talked about how certain things smell and how the sense of smell can also be used to warn us of danger (smoke, etc.).
• This week's character trait was compassion and we read the Bible story of the Good Samaritan. We also acted it out, which they thought was really fun! 
• This week was the final week of her phonics book 1. We reviewed her words and did some dictation review before her assessment on Friday. 
• Friday, she had her assessment, which included reading 10 words from her CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) word list and 10 words from her common word list (including sight words). She got 100% of her CVC words on the first try and missed 2 of her common words. She missed 'that' and 'than', but read them correctly when I told her to try again.
• There was also a dictation portion of her assessment with 10 CVC words and 10 common words. She did great! She forgot to capitalize the 's' in 'Sam's', but I was pleased that she remembered the apostrophe. She also missed 'that' and 'than' again on the dictation portion. For some reason she wrote 'hat' for both words. She wrote it, then looked at it and said, "I know it's not right, but just move on.". Haha! 

• We also painted and decorated some printable pumpkins and some other fall crafts. 

The third week of Oct. was from 10/14-10/18:

• This week she began the 2nd book of her First Start Reading lessons. It began with the short i sound and included -ip, -it, -im, and -in words.
• Our character trait of the week was content. We read the story of the Prodigal Son (who was NOT content) and discussed what it means to be content.
• Our Bible verse this week was Philippians 4:12 and we continued on with the New City Catechism for Kids. 
• The book of the week was Pancakes, Pancakes! by Eric Carle. The library did't have the book available, but we could watch the book being read online here. 
• In the book, the boy has to go gather all the supplies for the pancakes (harvest wheat to make flour, milk a cow, etc.), so we talked about modernization at the end of the week. 
• We also had been reading Little House on the Prairie, so it went right along with the book of the week. 
• Arabelle drew her favorite pancake, chocolate chip pancakes, and we made pancakes for breakfast on Thursday!

• We also pulled out the sequence cards and played with those some. Each set has 4 cards with pictures and you put them in order. Bo at age 3 doesn't quite grasp the concept and Arabelle has it down, so it was a good way for Arabelle to help Bo along!

The fourth week was 10/21-10/25:

• This week our Bible verse was Deuteronomy 6:5 and we also discussed being orderly. We talked about how Noah was very orderly when he was building the ark. 
• We also finished reading Little House on the Prairie this week and started On the Banks of Plum Creek!
• This month Arabelle has started some adding in math. So far, she's done 1, 2, and 3. She can quickly identify 1+2=3, etc. without counting on fingers. We've been using candy corn for counting games, of course! 
• Our book of the week was Bread and Jam for Frances. In the story, Frances doesn't want to try new foods and only wants bread and jam. Her parents keep serving her bread and jam for all meals and snacks, then she decides to try new foods. Of course, we made a loaf of bread and enjoyed bread and jam! 

• This week we continued on in the phonics book with the letter G, so we made new words like pig, fig, gas, rag, etc. We played several different games with the new words, like memory. 
• For science, we focused on the sense of taste and talked about the different flavors...salty, sweet, sour, and bitter. I put out several different foods for Arabelle to taste and she classified them into the categories.

• Arabelle had a cold and fever on Thursday, so we just played some games and read a bunch of library books, then finished up the week on Friday. 

The final week of October was from 10/28-11/1

• We used this week to review ALL of our Bible verses from the year and review our character traits. We also started doing a little devotional in the morning in addition to reading the Bible. 
• This week's letter was "L" and Arabelle read many new words! She also read a couple of short stories in her phonics book. She is reading so well!!
• The book of the week was Stellaluna, about a baby bat who gets separated from her Mama and lands in a bird's nest. She thinks she's a bird and adapts to live like them, until she finds out she is a bat and is reconnected with her Mama. We also found the short Stellaluna movie at the library and watched that, with popcorn, of course!

• We talked about the similarities and differences between birds and bats and drew a venn diagram. 
• We also talked about other nocturnal animals and checked some books out from the library on nocturnal animals.
• Thursday morning we got out for a bike ride and walk before getting school started for the day. 

• We also studies about the solar system this week and Arabelle made a book about the planets. She had a page for the sun and each planet (apparently Pluto isn't recognized as a planet anymore!!). She painted the planets, glued them on each page, and we wrote a couple of facts about the planet on the page. She loved it!
• Friday, I took Arabelle for an early lunch before getting Bo from school. She chose Ranchero's, her favorite! 

And that's a little summary of the things we did in October!