MFW 2nd Grade - Week #1

Whew!  Our first week of Adventures in MFW is now finished.  I have to say we had a really good week.   This year has an entirely new format to follow and we both are having to get used to that.  After a few weeks of the lazies, it's been a bit of adjustment for Caleb (and myself) to get back into the groove of school.  I'm very pleased with him and how his attitude is taking in all these changes.   And I'm pretty pleased with my own attitude as well.  Homeschooling is a big responsibility, not to be taken lightly.  So, any time I'm giving it MY best effort as well, it's a blessing all the way around.  ;o)

BIBLE:  We haven't dug INTO the bible yet.  That's coming next week when we begin our Names of Jesus poster.  But, we did talk about Caleb's name, what it means, and why we chose it.  He had to write its meaning on some handwriting paper and we also had a bible activity where he made a necklace out of beads spelling out his name.  Mommy and daddy also had to write a letter to him, explaining why he was named Caleb.  I did manage to read through the letter in its entirety, but still had watery eyes.

I also introduced him to his new Discoverer's Bible for this year and wrote on the inside front page for him.  He was rather tickled about that.

SPELLING:   Spelling lessons are a whole new thing for Caleb.  We started with a list of 12 words on Monday and worked through different lessons throughout the week using those same words.  He's never done a spelling test before and really did well for his first time.  I was so proud of him.  I had to help him with two words.  But, I am certain that now that he knows what we're going to do with those words throughout the week he will be paying more attention.  He is quite the perfectionist, so I see him improving in this area as he adjusts to the concept of remembering how to WRITE the words he knows how to read.

ENGLISH:  Caleb will begin English in a couple of weeks.  For now we are going to work on his handwriting and practicing the letters of the alphabet, writing two letters each day.  This is part of MFW's soft approach to the new school year.  We don't pile every aspect of 2nd grade on him the first day or even week.  He is going to tire of writing the ABC's again, but after writing some of the Aa's and Bb's, he was laughing sorta to himself.  You see,  I told him to write 4 of each letter for Aa and Bb and to do it in his best handwriting.  If he did a good job, he could stop at 4 each.  But, if he wrote messy, I'd make him write more.  Well, he did a great job, but he just kept writing and making small a's and I think he was teasing me because he said, "is that 4?" and there was like ten or twelve on the line.  He had a cheeky grin on his face when he was asking me.  Stinker.

HISTORY:  We reworked and prepared last year's timeline so that we could continue using it this year.  I had a packet of neon colored card stock and asked Caleb which color he wanted.  He chose all of them and said he wanted it to look like a rainbow.  I figured since the rainbow was God's promise to us to never flood the earth again, that was a super way to display his timeline.  Not exactly rainbow colors, but with neon it is definitely bright and colorful.  I think it turned out well.  Nice and neat this time.

Here are pictures of Caleb at his birth and I put one in the current year spot.  The very end is a marker for the New Heaven and Earth after God comes back to take us home.

It's accordion style and works really well.  We can fold it up or pull it out and look at it.

Here are a couple of pages from last year showing how we reworked it to use this year.

Maps:  We went over the U.S. Map and talked about our state and then looked at the World Map and talked about the countries and continents.  You can't really see in this picture, but Caleb had to labels some places on the US Map - Canada, Mexico, and the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.  

Spotlight:  Our spotlight from history this week fell on Leif Ericsson and the Vikings.  What a fun topic to discuss and learn from.  Caleb did super at narrating the story back to me.  He was certainly paying attention today.  We used our World Map and looked at Northern Europe, also discussing where the Vikings started and how they moved over to Iceland, and then discovered Greenland - - finally learning the story behind Leif Ericsson discovering Canada.  Very interesting, even for me!  And we added Leif Ericsson to our timeline.

History Notebook:  We started his history notebook and have added the Pledge of Allegiance page, maps we discussed, and summary sentences about Leif Ericsson.  He'll have plenty more going into this notebook as the year progresses.  It's going to be a wonderful keepsake for years to come.  

MATH:  Additionally, beginning with the softer approach to the new school year, MFW recommends we start with math next week.  So, this week, we played some math games to work on our addition and subtraction skills a little bit.

SCIENCE:   We talked about science, what is science and what do scientists do?   We had one experiment using two glass jars, water, eggs, and salt.  Caleb learned that things will float better in salt water than unsalted water.  The salt make the water more dense, thus allowing things to more easily float in it.  I've said it before, but this little guy loves science.

BOOK BASKET and READING:

We're back to lots of reading.  With Adventures, we'll do lots of book basket reading, which is a time that Caleb grabs a book, snuggles up on the couch and gives it a read by himself.  If he's not in the mood to read, it's okay, he can just look at the pictures.  But, it's all about learning to have a love for reading.  Caleb already has this, so I'm not concerned, other than he's used to us doing this together.  So, for now, we're still spending our reading time together.  I make sure he reads to me sometimes and then other times I read to him.

I Pledge Allegiance, Bill Martin Jr & Michael Sampson

The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash, Trinka Hakes Noble

Jimmy's Boa Bounces Back, Trinka Hakes Noble

Pip's Trip, Janet Morgan Stoeke

Fish Had a Wish, Michael Garland

Life and Times in the Viking World, Sheila Clewley

My House, Patricia Jensen

Truck Stop, Bonnie Dobkin

Green, Laura Vaccaro Seeger

Cheetah, Suzi Eszterhas

READ-A-LOUD:  Next week we'll start with some assigned reading in our American Pioneers and Patriots book.  That should be lots of fun.  Then going forward, MFW will give us assigned reading and we'll have to make sure that gets done every day.  Lots of great read-a-loud books on the shelf for this year.  Sissy also found some great classics at Target for $1 each and passed those to us - Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, Treasure Island, The Jungle Book, and The Story of Doctor Dolittle.  These are all great chapters books to enhance Caleb's reading skills.  

SPECIAL SNACK:   This week we prepared a special snack in red, white, and blue to commemorate the colors of the US Flag.  Strawberries, blueberries, and whipped cream from the can.  Yummo!

ART:  Caleb had three art lessons this week.  In a fun way, he's learning some drawing techniques.  He's never been a huge fan of art, but he seems to be enjoying these short little lessons.  We're putting all his lessons in an art binder and he already seems proud of the few things he's done.  

He wanted the words green.  He was very specific about that.  ;o)

The first lesson was very simple, but talked about drawing straight lines.  Vertically and horizontally.

Then he had to replicate some designs and patters on these pages.  Too cute!

FOREIGN LANGUAGE:  Our foreign language lessons will begin next week as long as I don't feel that Caleb is becoming overwhelmed with the new schedule and workload.  If things are moving along well, we'll start up Spanish.  Otherwise we might wait another week before we start.

MUSIC:  Our music lessons won't start until the second month of school.  In glancing ahead, I see that  we'll be listening to and learning some patriotic songs.  We have some other CD's that came with the curriculum and those will be introduced at different times throughout the year. 

SPECIAL PROJECTS:

State Postcards - we'll be working on a project this year collecting postcards from the states in the U.S.  We're mailing some out to other homeschoolers and Caleb will be receiving some in the mail.

State Quarter Collection - I thought it would be fun to collect the quarters with the states on them.  We bought the little collectors book from Hobby Lobby and we'll try to fill it up as much as we can.

This week we did listen to one track, The Pledge of Allegiance.  It was a group of children saying the Pledge.  We have our small flags on the shelf in our school area and we recite the Pledge together every morning before class.  On day two I forgot and Caleb reminded me and said, 'mom, we should do this every day.'  Saying it every day is optional, but it was rather cool that Caleb offered that up on his own and wanted to do it.

Friday's are intended for a Nature Walk, Math, and Reading.  It will be nice if we can keep up this schedule and have a light day on Friday.  It will also be nice to know that if we have to miss a day for some reason earlier in the week, we will have a lighter Friday and can catch up then.  

What a blessed week.  Excited about what next week is going to bring our way.

Educating in Christ,

Pam/Momma