I've been waiting for this!

At last, our human body studies have started! I'm so dorky excited about this - luckily Becca's excited too so at least she's not looking at me like I've lost my last marble.

I traced both girls' outlines on some giant paper last night. Becca's looks strangely alienesque - she's eager to add some hair.




Sylvia had pigtails in and I just couldn't resist tracing them too. If you know Sylvie, you know that that child has a TON of hair! The result is too cute for words:

And here's both together:

We're starting first with the five senses, but Becca's already asking when we're going to add the liver and intestines to their bodies.

Now for a little more news... Sylvia has decided that she doesn't care for preschool anymore. Nothing terrible happened, we just think that she's over the whole idea. She's always been more of a homebody than Becca and more attached to me. I think she feels like she's gotten all she can out of preschool and she'd rather be at home with Mommy and Becca. Since I have no real reason to make her go, I now have two full-time students! Actually, Sylvia's still participating at will. I encourage her to practice a few skills, but her own pace is pretty quick.

Moving right along...

Just a small curriculum update - this is for my records as well!

Becca has completed Handwriting Without Tears' Printing Power book and is working on learning cursive ("fancy writing") with the New American Cursive font. I bought it on Startwrite and have just been printing out individual letter sheets for practice. She's learned how to form the entire alphabet and now we're working on copywork in printing and cursive.

We finished the first grade portion of First Language Lessons just before Thanksgiving and we're on to the second grade part!

We have moved quickly through All About Spelling Level 1 and will complete the last lesson after returning from our holiday break in January. Then we'll move on to Level 2.

We also completed Level 1A in her Singapore Math curriculum and will begin Unit 3 of Level 1B after our break.

Most exciting of all, we're wrapping up our animal studies in science with a little horse fun (we couldn't skip Becca's favorite animal!) and we'll be starting our study of the human body in January! The basic outline we'll be following is in her Living Learning Life Science curriculum, but I'm starting to feel that it's very "light." I have a number of books and plan to supplement heavily, especially since human body studies are a favorite of mine too. Here are some books we'll be adding:

Easy Make & Learn Projects Human Body (Scholastic) - this is going to be SO fun! It says for grades 2-4, but I think Becca will be fine with it.
DK Eye Wonder Human Body
The Kingfisher First Human Body Encyclopedia
My Body by Teacher Created Resources - basically we're going to trace an outline of the girls' bodies and then we fill them in with organs as we learn about them. Not as complex as the Make & Learn projects, but great for fun visuals.
Head to Toe Science - full of experiments, on the slightly older side. We'll pick and choose.
Magic School Bus Journey Into the Human Body science kit - At first glance, I'm kind of disappointed by this, unfortunately. I plan to use it, but I'm glad I didn't pay the full $20 for it.
Usborne Science - Science and Your Body, What Makes You Ill, What Happens to Your Food, How Do Your Senses Work - a couple of these are on backorder with Amazon. I love Usborne books.


I'm already starting to scope out curriculum choices for next year. I'm highly reluctant to go with Living Learning for earth and space science for several reasons:
1. I feel that the Life Science is very light and wouldn't recommend it for any older than K.
2. LL does not have samples of the teacher pages on their website.
3. LL has not responded to several inquiries from me about the availability of samples from their teacher pages.

Sorry, Living Learning - you're losing my business.

I have, however, been happy with Pandia Press' History Odyssey. I think it's a great way to make Story of the World even more fun and activity-filled. I plan to go with their Level 1 Middle Ages plan, which also uses Story of the World vol. 2. I will still use the SOTW Activity Guide and pick and choose our activities. I look forward to learning about the Middle Ages! Pandia Press also publishes a science curriculum called REAL Science. They only have two levels right now, so I'm going to go with their Earth & Space science curriculum for Becca's next school year. Hopefully they'll get to publishing Chemistry and Physics soon so I can continue with them if I end up liking their science as much as their history. You can check out their website at www.pandiapress.com.

We'll also go on with First Language Lessons and All About Spelling. I'm going to get the teacher text for Susan Wise Bauer's Writing With Ease and see if Becca places into level 1 or 2. And hopefully we will move along in Singapore Math as well.

All I can say is, thank goodness for income tax returns! I've discovered that they come at a great time of year for curriculum buying.

Tentative curriculum list for Becca's 2nd grade (officially 1st grade) year:

Grammar: First Language Lessons 3
Spelling: All About Spelling 3(?)
Writing: Writing With Ease 1 or 2
Science: REAL Science Earth/Space
History: History Odyssey Middle Ages Level 1/SOTW 2
Math: Singapore 2A/continued Miquon supplements
Art: Harmony Fine Arts Grade 2
Latin: ???

Abra...ham

We're on the beginnings of Israelite history now, and Becca's learning about Abraham, Moses, and Joseph. I had her cutting out some clip art for her Who's Who pages and gluing them in the proper spots. She went to glue down Abraham and said, "I thought his name was Abram." I explained again how God changed his name to AbraHAM after he "called" him, and Becca replied, "So, he eats HAM?"

Gotta love those five year olds! LOL

This unschooling thing is pretty cool too!

While we're not really unschoolers, I love all the "sneaky" little ways you can get early learning in with young kids. Grandpa's here for a visit, so I've taken full advantage of our flexibility in homeschooling to ditch official classes for a few days.

However, when you're five, even if you're an accelerated five, you can get all sorts of learning in by doing the simplest everyday tasks. While I don't think we'll be getting in any history, here's a brief overview of what Becca's already covered this morning.

Reading: Reading several fun books to Grandpa
Logic: A couple of rounds of Guess Who?
Math: A game of cards, similar to War - which number is bigger?
Spelling/Handwriting: Writing out a shopping list for our lunch

Et voila! While I don't think we'll become unschoolers any time soon, it's gratifying to see how much learning goes on under the guise of simple play and daily activities.

I can't handle this question so early in the morning!

"Mommy, are we polytheists or monotheists?"

Yeah... Becca hit me with that this morning. We've studied Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten) recently, the pharaoh who brought monotheism to Egypt whether they liked it or not. They didn't, incidentally. So Becca learned about polytheism and monotheism, or at least their definitions. She just had a little trouble figuring out where we fit in!

Sylvia is beginning to read. I can hardly contain my excitement!!! She sounded out "box" last week, so I figured it was time to break out the BOB books. She read the first book in the first set to me today. She'll proceed as she wishes - right now I'm trying to find my Hooked on Phonics Learn to Read Kindergarten software so she can play with that. Like before, this is self-initiated. I am here to facilitate her and present her with the next "step," but there's obviously no rush for Sylvie. I'm just proud of my "weetle bear."

The girls surprise me every day. Some days (like yesterday) I want to just tear my hair out, I will not lie. But other days... most days, once I've unwound, I'm so glad to be able to teach Becca at home and I'm happy to see Sylvia so interested in participating.

Isn't this the cutest picture ever??

One little bumblebee, all tired out from trick or treating...

True stories of two girls and what comes out of those mouths!

I started a fun, light Latin curriculum with Becca called Song School Latin. It just teaches simple words and phrases with songs. I figured Sylvia would enjoy hearing the songs too, so I let the girls listen together. Yesterday's lesson was on asking someone's name and saying "My name is..." and sometime in the middle of the night when I wasn't sleeping, I thought the girls would get a kick out of their animal friends talking Latin to them. So Sylvia woke up early this morning and while I had her in the bedroom hanging out, I made Meow-Meow say, "Quid est tuum praenomen? Meum praenomen est Meow-Meow!" Sylvia giggled a little bit and then said, "Unfortunately, cats don't talk."

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Becca's electronic puppy from last Christmas was starting to run down and she wasn't wagging her tail or shaking her head anymore. Becca determined that she needed new batteries, so I told Becca that Pixie needed to see a veterinarian. Becca said, "Mommy, Pixie's not a real dog!"

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I got busted today by Becca... I've had this great Braves cartoon by Mike Luckovich on the fridge for the past couple of years.

I never really gave thought to Becca actually reading it. She wanted me to get down a bowl for her to have a "party" with peanuts and popcorn, and I told her not right now. She said, "Dammit!" Whaaa??? I asked her what she said, and she repeated it. So I asked where she heard that word, because I thought we'd been doing a really good job of self-censoring around the girls. Becca marched right over to my cartoon and pointed it out... dammit! So I calmly told her that we don't say that word, that even grownups shouldn't say it, and that it was my fault for having the cartoon up.

So, into the archives it goes... Kind of funny though.