We got back into the swing of school this week, after a long holiday. I decided to loosely follow a curriculum and chose "Five in a Row" by Jane Claire Lambert. The basic concept of the curriculum is reading a children's book every day for a week and do coordinating activities. The books are mostly classics with good, if not Christian, character and lessons. All the books can be found at our local library, although I may end up buying copies of certain ones the girls really like. The coordinating activities cover the subjects of social studies (which is very broad), language arts, art, math (mostly applied math), and science. For each book we start by making a map label and putting it on the world map where the story takes place. If it's a fairy tale, it goes on the outskirts of the map. The curriculum is designed to be adapted for most ages and it worked well this week. I mostly planned activities for Caley's age but they were easily adapted to interest Amelia. Each chapter in the curriculum lists way more activities than we have time to do, and many of them were for kids older than Caley.
This week's book was "The Story about Ping" by Marjorie Flack. Ping is a Peking duck who lives in China along the Yangtze River. Ping lives on a boat with about 50 other ducks, his mother and father, brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Every day Ping and his family go onto the shore to eat snails and fish, then the master calls for them at the end of the day. The ducks walk up the ramp back to the boat, but the last duck gets a spank. One day Ping isn't paying attention and doesn't hear his master's call, so he hides to avoid the spank from being last. The next morning Ping is lost with his boat no where to be found. He finds many things along the river, and nearly gets eaten for dinner by a Chinese family! At the end of the day Ping finds his boat home and swims back, but is last, so he gets a spank. But now he is safe on his boat with his family.
This book, written in 1933, is a snapshot of life in China at the time, and reflects American culture and values of the time as well (getting a spank was way less controversial). The illustrations are simple but fun for the girls to look at. This week we talked about families and counted beads for the number of ducks in Ping's family, learned a bit about China from Sesamestreet.org, colored with colored pencils and painted with water colors, and learned (experimented) what floats and what sinks. The girls had a fun time! I enjoyed how the story was memorable for them, and when I said it was time to read the duck book they both got really excited and ran for the carpet to sit down and read. We also did some painting with tempera paints and finger painting.
We also went to playgroup and learned about patience, one of the fruits of the Spirit. Caley and Amelia did puzzles which challenged their patience. They also spent time with friends while I was at an OB appointment and when we babysat another bible study's kids. Caley also did her reading book and is up to lesson #47! She is confidently reading many words, even ones I wouldn't expect her to know. Some words are a bit more difficult though, and she needs help with remembering when vowels say what sound. In the reading book the print is different depending on what sound the letter makes, for example "o" can be both "oh" and "ah." I even have a hard time remembering. But she's doing very well, especially for only being 5. She is also getting better and writing letters and drawing what she's thinking. I look forward to these skills improving!
It was fun to do a new curriculum and having a plan this week instead of flying by the seat of my pants. Technically we did school every day because we read the book and talked about it. It was fun! I'm looking forward to next week, the book is "Lentil" by Robert McCloskey.
It's nice to be back! Although it will be a short "normal" time because we are due to have this baby boy join our family in less than a month. Good thing life is school because we will be having many impromptu lessons soon about loving each other and taking care of a new baby. I'm excited to see how the girls respond to the baby. They both seem very excited to meet him!
I am hoping to post again soon with some ideas I have been thinking about, on the purpose of our homeschooling and how God has worked in my heart lately. Till then, toodles!
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