Last week, we read the Aesop Fable “Belling the Cat”, in which some mice were being terrorized by a cat. The littlest mouse suggests “belling” the cat so the mice would know where the cat was. Well, last night D came downstairs with batman and one of those jingle bells on a string. He then put the bell around batman’s neck and proclaimed that Superman had belled Batman so he would know when he was coming. Now that’s narration!
First, let me mention a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my new 8yo, T!
We just finished Year 1, Week 1 of Ambleside and are loving it so far. We did most of our scheduled work. Here’s what we finished this week:
Tablework
Math, Spelling, Handwriting (D), Copywork (T), Phonics (D) – Daily
Spanish – 1 day
Reading – We also managed to do an oral narration with each reading. Yea!!
The Bible – 3 days
An Island Story ch 1 The Stories of Albion and Brutus
Baldwin’s 50 Famous Tales The Sword of Damocles (Greek)
Damon and Pythias (Greek)
Parables From Nature: A Lesson of Faith
Aesop: The Wolf and the Kid
Tortoise and the Ducks
Belling the Cat
The Eagle and the Jackdaw
Just So Stories: How the Whale Got His Throat
Child’s Garden of Verses: 2 poems every day – we did this the first 2 days
Paddle to the Sea: We’re skipping this since we’ve already read it. Substitution TBA
Stuart Little: All but the last two chapters (no narrations for this one – it’s for fun)
Astronomy: 2 sections
First Language Lessons: 2 lessons
T also independently read most of a book on rockets, a comic book about the Gauls and Vikings discovering North America (Asterix) and a book on the Constitution from the library (the exact titles escape me), and various other books. A much needed library trip has refilled our shelf.
Year 0 does not have a set schedule, but we are reading the following books so far:
The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh
Beatrix Potter the Complete Tales
Books by Dr. Seuss
Just a quick post today – I’m tired.
We started Year 1 on Monday with my oldest, who will be 8 tomorrow. So far, he loves the readings. He is narrating to me as long as I ask guiding questions such as “What did Dionysius think about being king?”, and “Then what happened?” If I ask him to retell the story in his own words, I get a blank stare or the ever-popular “I don’t know”. As I may have said in an earlier post, we are doing Year 1 in 18 weeks, with the hope of starting Year 2 in the fall. I think we’ll have plenty of time to do just that.
School today was a mess. T and R both had trouble falling asleep last night, staying up well past 10. As a result, everything was late. Breakfast was at 10. At 11:30, R went down for a nap and I with him. The older boys did their chores and watched a National Geographic documentary on the Sonoran Desert, mostly to keep them occupied and quiet. School didn’t start until after lunch, and consisted soley of writing Thank You letters. D did quite well with his handwriting, but T struggled so much that I finally let him type his.
We went to our weekly park day at 2:00 and stayed until 5:45. We got home an hour later to BBQ Beef in the crockpot. D fell asleep in the van on the way home and sleeps still. Daddy is putting R to sleep and T is in bed. I managed to read 3 chapters of Stuart Little and the first chapter of Our Island Story, a child’s history of Britain.
Now it’s my turn for a quick bath and bed.
I have decided to plunge us a little more quickly into the Ambleside Online curriculum. Originally, my plan was to start with Year 0 January 1, with plans to start Year 1 in August. However, I am afraid that my oldest son, about to turn 8 this week, would be bored with the Year 0 schedule. He is quite familiar with most, if not all of the reading selections. Instead, I am going to continue Year 0 with all the boys, but especially with D, my almost 5 year old. For T, I plan to follow a speeded up 18 week (the usual schedule is 36 weeks) version of Year 1 until August. Then, we’ll reassess with the possibility of starting Year 2 in August or sometime in the fall.
I also plan to do more tag team reading with T, where we alternate reading paragraphs aloud. My hope is that he will be reading the material independently by Year 3, as he is already a very fluent reader. I will just require him to narrate after reading to make sure he read the material and not his space books or Magic Tree House books.
This is what will remain the same:
Bible I plan to start alternating the children’s bible with the King James Version
Math
Spelling
Copywork
Art Appreciation We’ll stick to the AO schedule & Terms here
Grammar First Language Lessons followed by Simply Grammar
Phonics
Spanish
Greek
I may have left something out, but you get the idea.
Happy Birthday
A very happy birthday to my youngest, R, who turned 2 yesterday.
We’ve been easing back into school the past two weeks. Last week, we ended on Thursday with Math, Spelling, Read Alouds, and Copywork. We took a long weekend and visited my grandparents, a 5 hour drive away. We returned yesterday.
We had a very full day at school today, completing Math, Spelling, Copywork, Bible reading, Spanish, Greek, a memory verse, First Language Lessons, and Science with oral narration. By the end of the day, we need to read from Pooh and look at our art piece for today.
There was lots of grumbling and complaining, but I’ll chalk that up to just being back from a mini-vacation. The good news is that Granddad and Shanana will be visiting on Saturday.
I’ve got to finish a weekly checklist for the new schedule, or I’ll go crazy trying to keep track of what we’ve done.
Today it’s only 10:40 in the AM and we’re done for the day, except for a few impromptu read alouds. We only did math today. I’m fairly bushed, as I stayed up to watch Henry VIII on PBS and then That 70′s Show. Then I had insomnia and stayed up ’til 1:30ish. A nap with R should set things right. Oh yeah, I’m probably still reeling from my weekend bout of a cold/allergies. Later today is parkday, if I make it that far…
Due to out of town guests, the start of our Spring Term has been delayed until next week, January 9.
I got my books in the mail and have already started prereading them. Also, a big Thank You to Grandmother, who graciously bought several books that we will be needing in the fall.
We will not be jumping right in, but adding the subjects back in one at a time until they are all added, in this fashion:
Day 1 Math
Day 2 Math and Spelling
Day 3 Math, Spelling, and Copywork
Day 4 Math, Spelling, Copywork and Grammar
Day 5 You get the idea…
Within two weeks, we should have a very full schedule. Ours is a year-round schedule that runs from August 1 through July 31, with breaks as needed, and a couple of longer breaks in the summer and winter. This allows us to ease back into work without shocking our systems.
