MFW 1st Grade - Up to day 50

We've been cruising along with MFW 1st Grade. I think Pooh may be dyslexic (just like big sister Rabbit). He loves science. He loves being read to. He loves looking at the Come Look with Me books. He mostly enjoys doing math (but not always). But when it comes to reading, well lets just say it is very hard for him.

We've basically continued on as scheduled in the TM. Having the days in between learning new sounds where we read the Bible reader has been good. I use those extra days to review and reinforce sounds and play games.

Tigger just plows on in the reading. He doesn't get upset if he misses a word or anything. Sometimes he shows signs of dyslexia, but not like Pooh. It's also great to see him trying to write. It is very phonetic, often using the wrong spelling for the sound of /er/ (mostly ir), but he keeps begging me to teach him how to spell. So, I may be getting out All-About-Spelling level 1 before I intended to.

For Math the last month or so we've been working on adding to 18 using only single digit numbers. I vary which manipulatives we use to do this project. As we got to above 10, though, we've pretty much stuck to the Math-U-See blocks. I just felt it was easier for them to see how it worked.

The boys join in with RTR Bible, History, and Science. They love the science.

The hardest thing for me has been to get the library books for the science. I always forget to look ahead and get them reserved from the library. That is something I really need to work on.

I set up their timeline boards. What I did, since we already have a timeline up on the wall for Rabbit for CTG and RTR, I got those 3-fold science project boards to use. I drew 6 lines across (spaced approximately 6 inches apart). Then I put each beginning marker on a new line. Here's a picture to show you.

RTR Weeks 6 - 9

Man, have I been bad about keeping this up. We've been pretty busy. There was some sickness, so for two weeks, I was a helper at Awana while my husband recovered, so I didn't get a chance to keep this updated.

My last post was about our Roman Arch - which was done in week 6. You can see the picture from that post. I would encourage anyone to not give up on that project. We didn't sand the pudding boxes or anything. We built it several different times (like for Dad, when he got home), and it worked every time.

Another great thing you do in week 6 is study the Old Testament Prophesies of Jesus, and how he fullfilled them. I think that was a great thing to study.

Rabbit was excited in Week 7 that we're beginning to focus more on Jesus. She really doesn't like August Caesar's World all that much (to many false gods, murders and too much intrigue). This week we worked on the ear in science. The art lessons were good - drawing cubes books - getting your depth right. Rabbit thoroughly enjoys The Bronze Bow, but the boys aren't so keen on it. I'm sure they'll enjoy it when they're older, though.

We're breezing through Jesus's life pretty quickly through weeks 8 and 9. That's to keep up with our history studies. We covered the skin and the eye in science. We reading about the political changes and such going on in the Roman empire. We finished The Bronze Bow - loved the ending. The idea that you can't repay love with vengance is such a good theme in the book. It even got me to thinking about things.

Rabbit finished up her Singapore 3B book sometime during this stretch and we've begun Singapore 4A. It is a review of place value and rounding right now. She tells me it doesn't always make sense to her, but I don't know how else to explain some of those things.

Spelling has been Rabbit's hardest subject. We've really slowed down now at Level 5. Here's an example of her spelling thinking. The word is "actress." I very carefully pronounced "/ac/-/tress/." She spells it "acteress." And when it happens is when she is sounding out letter by letter, she say, "/a/, /c/, /t/, /er/, /e/, /s/, /s/." I posted on the Chatter Bee board for some help and got some ideas. One idea was to have her count syllables before she writes it to give her an idea of how many vowels or vowel teams there should be in the word. I want to try to get her to more spelling syllable by syllable than sound by sound. Sigh.

Our days run pretty long most days. That can be discouraging. But, we keep making progress.

Here's a beautiful creation she made just this last week with the Pattern Blocks. The kids just love playing free-style with them.

From School 4 Us