MFW 1st Grade - Week #20

BIBLE/READING:   We're still memorizing the books of the bible and at the end of this week have gone through the book of Acts.  Caleb has them memorized up to Hosea and then needs a little help getting through the rest of those prophets.  He's doing way better at it than I am!  ;o)

Memory Verse:  Even a child is known by his actions, by whether his conduct is pure and right.  Proverbs 20:11

I have to say it's quite interesting how things work out sometimes.  This bible verse was perfect for this week.  I'm not sure what is going on, but Caleb's classroom behavior has not been at its best.  I do have to remind myself that he is recovering from bronchitis, which was followed by food poisoning.  I gave him a patient teacher and then sensed he was taking advantage.  His memory verse for the week came in handy while talking to him about his actions.

Stories for this week:  10 Commandments, the Tabernacle, 12 Spies, and Jericho and Rahab....

I need to point out that one of this weeks stories was special to our family.  Caleb's name came from the bible, specifically from the book of Numbers and the story of the twelve spies.  He had a few embarrassed giggles as we talked about this during the lesson.

Caleb continues to read from his Bible Reader and write summary sentences in his Bible Notebook.  While he does write his summary sentences I don't make him illustrate every time unless he wants to.  Our focus right now is getting him to write his sentences by himself.  We talk about the story and I help him think through a couple of sentences.  Previously, I would stay by him and I would do MY notebook as he did HIS notebook.  I would allow him to copy from mine.  I decided he is leaning too heavily on my notebook; such as looking at my pictures and/or looking at my sentences.  So, I've stopped doing mine and just encourage him to work on his own.  It is rather cute to see how he spells some of the words.....our focus for this activity is NOT on spelling and punctuation, but mainly to see if he can figure out the main point of the story.

Reading Rules:  "ed" at the end of words making it past tense and k spelled "ch"  He still has plenty to do in his bluebook, otherwise known as his workbook.  He has to complete sentences using a word list and unscramble words to make complete sentences.  On the opposite days he learns new reading rules and has new words to sound out using those rules as well as reading and sometimes illustrating sentences.

MATH:  Touching on geometry, which really at this age means going over shapes.  Caleb looks at me like I'm crazy - mom, seriously?  We did this LAST year!  Ha!   I also went on-line and found some math worksheets and had him do some addition problems when the circle, square, triangle "thing" got boring.  We ended the week with Caleb's # of the day being 78 and my TM (teachers manual) reading 97!!   My TM officially has 160 lessons - so we are quite encouraged and excited to be over the half-way mark!

ART:  We looked at a photo of a beautiful painting from our Come Look With Me book and I asked Caleb a few suggested questions about it, just trying to get him to think.  It's interesting when we do these as Caleb sees things differently than I do and it's fun to try to see it from his perspective.

MUSIC:  We listened to the Peter and the Wolf soundtrack as we worked.  We do have something we are supposed to do WITH the CD, but we haven't gotten around to that activity yet.  Mr. Caleb isn't a fan of singing and while the activity doesn't involve singing, it does involve musical instruments and his eyes sorta glazed over the time or two I've tried the activity.  I attempt to stay with what is really important and needed in real life.  Is it important for Caleb to know what a clarinet sounds like?  Probably not.  Does he need to learn how to add and subtract?  Yes....priorities here...that's what's important.

SCIENCE:   This weeks science activity will be combined with next weeks activity.  Due to all the illness at our house, I chose to keep moving through the topics I felt were more important.  MFW really doesn't place a whole lot of emphasis on science in 1st grade anyway, so in order to keep our pace up around the sick days, we'll do some combining.  The activities don't take a whole lot of time and I have found that Caleb seems to enjoy them more when there's more than one to do.  He has the, "what's next?" mentality and I hate disappointing him with a, "that's it, bud."

I wish I had some pictures from this week, but the reality is we were sick and just getting school done was enough of an accomplishment each day without having the camera ready to go, too.   Honestly though, many of his daily worksheets, etc, are similar, so it is a little repetitive as far as photos go.

Continued prayers would be a blessing as Caleb struggles with what I feel has to be the middle of the school year blah's...

Walking with the King,
Pam