The Gettysburg Address

Tonight, Alexandra and I read Lincoln's Gettysburg Address... twice. I read it to her and then she read it (with help). Since I didn't enjoy history much as a child, I'm just amazed at her love for it. And, reading "real books" and picture books, is such a better way to learn history than from a text book!

I just love homeschooling and that we can follow whatever interests she has at the moment. In fact, I'm wondering about my plan to do Story of the World next year, as I love going off on our tangents and not having a plan to follow. But, I do know, that if SOTW doesn't work for us, that we can always go back to what is working for us. And, I'm so happy to be learning and appreciating history right alongside my daughter. I would have never guessed that a 5-year-old would enjoy the Gettysburg Address!

Math with an Abacus

(photo: Alexandra learning double digit addition with carrying using her abacus. She often dresses up during school, and the robe was part of her princess outfit this day.)

We have used RightStart (www.alabacus.com) math since the beginning and I think it's a great program. It uses an abacus as a primary way to teach addition and subtraction.

I was amazed last week as I introduced double digit addition with carrying and she understood it so well! While using an abacus, they can actually see why they need to "carry." For example, when you have more than 10 "ones" beads, you physically trade them in for a "ten" bead. I think it's a great way to learn!

Cooking Dinner

We had such a fun day today! Alexandra slept in today and then we cleaned house (she helped me vacuum & mop). Then, we made sock puppets - they turned out cute! Later, we went to the library to make "clothes pin animals." She made a butterfly & I made a lizard. And, we went shopping for Nana's birthday.


When we got home, Alexandra helped me make dinner! I'm trying to cook more & we're trying out some recipes from "30 Day Gourmet." You make larger batches of food & freeze some for later. Tonight we tried "Taco Rollups." Alexandra made one batch & I made the other. We thawed some frozen bread dough & then pushed it out flat. Then, we spread shredded cheddar cheese on it followed by taco-seasoned meat. Then, we rolled it up (I had to do this part), cut it in slices, and baked it. It was fun & pretty good, too! But, very messy. :-) I'm glad she likes to cook!!!

Swim, girl, swim!

The summer swim team has come to an end. It's a happy time, and a sad time. We now get to be on more of a "summer" schedule, but we'll miss our friends and all the fun that we were having!

Alexandra did wonderful at Divisionals! On her freestyle, she cut off more than 7 seconds!!! More than an 18% improvement!!! Then, on her backstyle, she dropped almost 10 seconds!!! About a 23% improvement! Wow! It doesn't get much better than that. And, she was less than 1/2 a second from qualifying for an invitation tournament with her backstroke. What a great way to end the year! And, I can't wait for next year to see what she can do!!!

(photo - Divisionals is an indoor meet at a high school. While the girls waited for their turn to swim at Divisionals, they played card games & played with Polly Pockets.)

P.S. Several days after this post, the coach (our neighbor) brought over Alexandra's Divisional ribbon! Out of 76 girls (6 & under), she placed 15th! And, the top 15 get ribbons. So, this was her first (of many, I hope!) Divisional ribbon. She was also very happy because it was... pink!

Long Books

During this "school year", we read our first long book - The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Since then, we've read several of these longer books that take more than a week to read. I am getting my lists of books to read from 3 main sites: Sonlight, Ambleside, and a "Good Books" list from www.schoolofabraham.com) Here are the books we've read this year:

• The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis (just a wonderful book)
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (Sonlight Kindergarten)
• Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard & Florence Atwater (Sonlight 1st Grade)
• The Chocolate Touch by Catling (with our chocolate unit)
• James & the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl (when we saw the play)
• Capyboppy by Peet (Sonlight Kindergarten)
• Dolphin Adventure by Grover (Sonlight K)
• Dolphin Treasure by Grover (Sonlight K)
• Homer Price by McCloskey (Sonlight 1st grade)

And, we're currently reading:

• Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi (Good Books list - Kindergarten)
• The Velveteen Rabbit by Bianco (Year 1 Ambleside)

Going Classical

After reading The Well Trained Mind 2 weeks ago, I decided to try classical education. I've been working hard on what curriculum we will use, and I think we have it figured out. I'll be ordering it soon.
Here is the curriculum we plan on using:

• Math: RightStart Level C (we completed A & are almost done with B and I think it's a wonderful program)
• Language Arts: First Language Lessons - I still have not actually seen a copy of this, so I hope it works out. It is for 1st & 2nd grade, but I'm planning on doing it in one year. I'll see if that is possible when I get it.
• Spelling: Saxon Phonics 2 - a friend shared this curriculum with me and I was really impressed with it. Besides being a great spelling curriculum, it also introduces a lot of history.
• Latin: Prima Latina - I wasn't sure if we should start Latin this early, but we're going to give it a try!
• History: Story of the World 1 (with workbook) - I think we'll love this. It has lots of activities and lists extra books we can check out from the library.
• Piano: Music for Little Mozarts - I'll teach her this.
• Science: we might finish Apologia Botany. We will also probably do some more lapbook studies from Hands of a Child, but this will not be one of our main "cores" this year.

Don Quixote

On Saturday, after our rained-out swim meet, we went to see the ballet of Don Quixote. We had read several books about Don Quixote, but they weren't very much like the ballet. The ballet was mainly a love story between 2 other characters, and "the Don" just came in and out of the story. It was a wonderful, funny ballet. It lasted over 2 and a half hour with 2 intermissions!

Afterwards, Alexandra got to go backstage to look at the props (incredible!) and get autographs and photos. This picture if of Alexandra and Don Quixote.

Last year we had family season tickets to the symphony and this year to the ballet. We're thinking about getting tickets to the opera next year....

swim team update

On Saturday, we had our last 2-team competition. Next weekend is our last meet - divisionals!Alexandra did so well! She swam fast on her relay. And, she took almost 4.5 seconds off of her freestyle! What a great job! (photo below: Alexandra waiting her turn to swim - blue swim cap, blue swim suit - in center of photo)

We have about a 2 hour break between freestyle & backstroke, and during this time it began to rain and thunder. They can stop the meet for up to 2 hours, but after about 20-30 minutes, they cancelled the meet. It was a good call as it rained & thundered for hours. The girls had fun and were screaming, but it was all in fun. They even played out in the rain before it was thundering.

Well, our tent was pretty flooded and all of our stuff was wet. It was actually kind of funny and we were all joking about the mess. Towels and blankets were soaked and it was hard to find everything as we'd piled things up in the middle of the tent.

It worked out well for us as we had time to go home and get ready to go to a ballet, Don Quixote!

Volcanoes

On Sunday, we finished our lapbook for volcanoes. We had a lot of fun and learned quite a bit while putting it together.


One afternoon last week, we exploded our volcano. We had a kit called Exploding Volcano by Becker & Mayer. It was really helpful as we didn't have to build a volcano - we just snapped it together. And, it also came with 2 tubes to keep the vinegar & baking soda separate until you were ready to mix them. It had a 3-piece foam top that should explode of the volcano, but it only worked the first time. I think I might have mixed it stronger that first time. Another possibility is that we weren't cleaning and drying the pieces well enough between explosions.


We had lots of fun & exploded our volcano 8-9 times. We worked outside and I let Alexandra do all the pouring, so it was kind of messy, but fun! The mosquitos were really biting me, or we would have stayed out longer. By the end, we switched from red & yellow lava to blue and then green lava (as you can see in the photo).
Resources:

• Voyage to the Volcano (Magic School Bus Chapter Book) by Juduth Stamper - we love the Magic School Bus!
• Volcanoes (a Let's Read and Find-Out Science Book) by Franklyn M. Branley - I like these science books
• Volcanoes (a True Book) by Paul P. Sipiera - another good series
• Danger! Volcanoes (a See More Reader) - has some great photos
• Volcano! by Ellen J. Prager (National Geographic Society) - has a cartoon dinosaur that tells about volcanoes - some good information
• Vacation Under the Volcano (Magic Tree House) by Mary Pope Osborne - Jack & Annie visit at the time of the Pompeii Explosion
• Hill of Fire by Thomas P. Lewis - great true story about a volcano that builds up in Mexico
• Eruption! The Story of Volcanoes (DK) by Anita Ganeri
• Magic School Bus Blows Its Top (video)
• Pompeii: Lost and Found by Christensen (added Sept 2006) - we really enjoyed this book

Pollinating Flowers

After taking last week off because of art camp, we are back "in session" today. We only did school for about 1.5 hours today, which is pretty normal for us but I'd like to see us do more. We covered Bible, Math (RightStart), handwriting (Bible verse) and Botany. I had also planned to spend time reading aloud to each other and working on our newest unit, Volcanoes!

In Botany, we were studying pollination. The project was to go and take the pollen from the anther of one flower and put it on the stigma of another flower. We used our hibiscus flowers which have just started to bloom. We were amazed at how much pollen we could get from the anthers! And, the stigmas were sticky and held the pollen just as they should. Alexandra was having lots of fun and went back and forth between the only 2 flowers we could get to today.


This 2nd picture shows the pollen we placed on the stigma. We'll be keeping our eyes on both flowers to see what, if anything, happens!