October Fun Week

I'm trying something new this year. There are so many "fun" electives that I want to study with Tessa, but we don't have time to cover them on a daily or even weekly basis. After scrutinizing our schedule, I found that if we drop science and Spanish and cut back a little on history one week a month, we will have time to study some of these electives. I have dubbed this week "fun" week.

We studied the following during October Fun Week.


Literature

• Studied Rosie's Walk by Pat Hutchins with Reading & Writing with Picture Books, Grade 1 by The Mailbox (pages 5-10).

"Rosie's Walk" is chocked full of cause and effect. After matching cause and effect cards, Tessa chose her favorite to illustrate.

Tessa demonstrated her ability to recall the route Rosie took during her walk by matching hen-shaped cards. I was not surprised to find that her memory was much better than mine.

Hands-On Language Arts

• Completed "Chips and Dip" (Punctuation, page 29), "Nifty Notebooks" (Nouns, page 50), "Caterpillar Parts" (Writing Sentences, page 28), "Spin a Vowel" (Short-Vowel Sounds, page 23) and "Flipping Flapjacks" (Rhyming, page 20) with Super Simple Independent Practice: Language Arts, Grade 1 by The Mailbox.

Tessa pulled paper potato chips from the "Chips" can, read the sentences and then placed them into the proper punctuation dip bowls.

Tessa sorted word cards into two piles...one for nouns and one for not nouns. Then, she wrote sentences, which she also illustrated, for the nouns in a notebook.

Tessa loved flipping paper flapjacks. The flapjacks had pictures and words on them that she "flipped" over to draw and write complementing rhyming words on their backs.

Logic

• Studied logic with Analogies for Beginners, Grades 1-3 and Logic Safari, Book 1 by Prufrock Press.

Tessa completed Lollipop Logic two summers ago, which she absolutely adored. I promised we would study logic again one day. After a very long wait, one day is finally here.

Atelier Art

• Completed "The Four Seasons" from Atelier Art, Level 1 - Module B, Lesson 3.

Fire Prevention Week

Fire Prevention Week happened to fall during our "fun" week, so we took a couple of days for Tessa to learn about fire safety. Visit our Fire Prevention Week - Oct. 6-12, 2013 post for details.

Summer School Winding Down

I can hardly believe summer school is already winding down. Our September vacation to Florida is just around the corner. It's difficult not to wish it to come soon, as that would mean ushering in fall too. We definitely don't want that!

Tessa finished up both Lollipop Logic, Book 1 and Evan-Moor Everyday Literacy: Science, Grade 1 this week. She is totally bummed...to the point of crying about it. Luckily, we still have 3-4 weeks of Evan-Moor Beginning Geography left. That should tide her over until we embark on many new journeys this fall. We are still plugging away at Hooked on Phonics and Singapore Math.

Lollipop Logic & Evan-Moor Beginning Geography

After finishing up our regular school year, we picked up a couple of fun electives for the summer.

The first couple of chapters of Lollipop Logic: Book 1 have been quite tame. I'm curious to see how Tessa will do with some of the more challenging material later on in the book.

I'm glad we were able to squeeze in Evan-Moor Beginning Geography this summer. Tessa has really impressed me with how well she has done with it so far. We will be using History Odyssey: Ancients, Level 1 by Pandia Press this fall. My hope is the skills she's learning now will greatly benefit her then. History Odyssey requires weekly map work.