Classical Charlotte

We had a pretty mellow fourth. Daddy Doo is busy getting rid of a bunch of stuff we don’t need. It’s all going to one of 3 places – my work’s rummage sale, Goodwill, or the trash. I look forward to having a bit more space.

Doo and I completed several lessons (math, narration, bird study, reading, and a July 4th lesson.) For math, we finally broke out the abacus. She practiced showing numbers 1-5 on it. For reading she has started Pippi in the South Seas.  She rarely needed my help on words.  She read words such as “distinguished” and “tremendous.”  Doo did need help on the unfamiliar words “veranda” and “gable.”

After her rest time, we read the children’s book The Fourth of July Story.  This was a nice introduction to the birth of our country and the reasons why so many colonists wanted to be independent from Britain.

After reading the book we watched the show Liberty’s Kids, which is about 3 children experiencing the birth of our nation and its early years.  The episode we watched was when  Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and when the congress signed it on July 4.  Doo was very into the episode which was packed full of excitement.  We enjoyed it so much that I plan for us to start watching the episodes in order.

We finished off the night watching a movie with Daddy and enjoying a red, white, and blue dessert – blueberries, strawberries, and whipped cream.

In the Fall, Doo will be a Kindergartner!  Excuse me while I freak out since 5 is such a big year and I remember a lot from that age.

Right now, we are already doing several subjects that we will continue to do in the Fall.  But I will be adding a few things come September (and possibly Science come January but we will see.)

The plan for Kinder right now (and I reserve the right to change this at any time because that’s the beauty of homeschooling):

RightStart Math Level A – 2 lessons per week over 4 days.

Prehistory - One lesson per week.  Our spine will be the Usborne Encyclopedia of World History.

Handwriting – 4 times per week.  We have the StartWrite program and I may buy the Handwriting Without Tears Grade 1 workbook and teacher’s manual.  We’ll see.  Copywork will be used as well.

Reading – Doo reads all the time.  She is an excellent reader for her age and I have to admit this has been one of my favorite things about parenting – listening to my child read.  We will focus on chapter books, for her to read, at least 4 times per week.

Religion – Yes, a secular homeschooler said religion!  I was going to wait on this until first grade but Doo has been fascinated with various religions, gods, goddesses, etc…  So I decided that we would do a short lesson weekly and use the Kid’s Book of World Religions as our spine.  I have not planned it out yet but it will probably be a month per big religion and then a week or two for the smaller ones.  I know I’ll start with Buddhism because she has loved Buddha since she was 3.

Bird Study - Continue with the same, one lesson per week.

Nature Study – Continue with the same, at least one lesson per week.

Composer Study – I have not planned this out so I am not sure how long we’ll devote to each composer but this will be a weekly lesson.

Artist Study - Same as composer study.

Narration - Continue with same, 3-4 times per week.

For all lessons we are inspired by Charlotte Mason’s belief that lessons should be short.  I think, at max, we will spend 2 hours on lessons (not including enjoying a long walk/exploration during nature study, etc…) in total.

I work 4 days a week so my 3 days off will be our main lesson days but we will still have a lesson or 2 at least 2 work evenings a week.  Daddy Doo started a writing job a few weeks ago so Doo is also at a daycare center (well, it’s a preschool but very play-based which is exactly what we wanted) two days a week.  She’ll be there this next year until Mommy doesn’t have to be the insurance carrier any more.

We will also join a homeschool co-op starting in the Fall which will be one day a week.  There are children of all ages and a variety of classes.  Doo’s friend Loco will be joining as well.  I am really looking forward to that.

We have completed the first four lessons of RightStart Math Level A.  The first lesson Doo asked to do another one right away but we didn’t due to lack of planning on Mommy’s part and another lesson I had scheduled for us.  The second two we did in one fell swoop.  Doo had fun but I definitely felt her interest was waning near the end.  So we did the fourth lesson on its own and that was a good fit.  It took around 20 minutes which is perfect as a short lesson (ala Charlotte Mason.)  We also reviewed the same lesson on a different day and that really helped solidify it.

So my plan is two lessons a week but four days for the two lessons.  That way each lesson has a review lesson following it.  That should fill in our Kindergarten year nicely, along with vacation time, and we’ll be ready for RS B in first grade.

Some of what Doo has learned so far (granted, most of it she knew or was very familiar with):

*numbers 1-6

*triangles and quadrilaterals

*ordinal counting

*looking at something and visualizing how many without counting each one out (she’s improving with this)

*sorting

*showing 5 with tally sticks (lines)

*patterns

Lando, Leia, and Darth Vader waiting in line to buy movie tickets. (Ordinal counting)

My RightStart Level A math kit arrived and today we did lesson one.  It was very easy for Doo but she loved it and asked for more (I had other things planned so maybe next time I’ll carve out more math time.)  Basically, she identified three items, counted the items without actually counting them one by one, etc…  There’s no finger counting in RightStart (RS) and soon we’ll use an abacus.

Those are chocolate-smelling stickers.  Everything is more fun with chocolate, in my opinion.

Today we rowed Madeline, which is the well known story about a little girl in Paris who has appendicitis and goes to the hospital.  Doo was familiar with Madeline because we own Madeline and the Gypsies.

We did just a simple counting activity with cutouts of the girls from the story.  Doo slowly counted them out (after I reminded her to slow down) and then placed them in a pocket.  Unfortunately, the Madeline girls PDF is no longer available at the link on Homeschool Share – good thing I saved it to my computer when I saw it months ago.

After two weeks off we were ready to get back to our Five in a Row lessons.  We’re rowing Katy and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton (Doo read the cover to me and only needed help with “Virginia”).  The story is about a large plow who is needed to dig out the (fake) city of Geoppolis after a very large snowstorm.  The story shows how Katy the plow’s job is very important to help the city run efficiently.

We covered a lot under the theme of snow today (math, cooking, science).  I included some of the activities we missed from our Yule plans due to Doo’s illness.  We baked Frosty Snow Ball Cookies.  They came out very well (the dough was crumbly, which made me nervous, but the finished product was approved by all).

We read a little bit about snow and looked at some snowflakes.  While watching the two videos below, we talked about how where we live we do not see snow (except on the mountains) but that Auntie in Maine and Tia in Ohio often see snowstorms in the winter.

For seat work, Doo figured out what snowflakes were missing in this activity without any help from me.  She also completed a dot-to-dot snowman while counting each number as she went along.  We then played snowman memory and counted the pairs at the end of the game.  I showed Doo what counting by 2s looked like as well.

I was told, yet again, how much she loves homeschooling.  Me too.

Yesterday we went on a mini-field trip to Balboa Park which has a man-made lake and lots of ducks (and LOTS of coots plus some great egrets or herons – I’m not positive which).  Doo fed the ducks some bird food and we read The Story About Ping and completed a math activity.  She is doing very well with counting but still needs help transitioning from the 20s to the 30s and so on.

White Crested Ducks

Doo made lots of friends.

Yesterday we focused on counting.  Doo likes to rush when she is counting something which often ends up in a wrong number.  So we made an elephant counting book and I occasionally prompted her to slow down when counting.  When she takes her time, she does well with it.  I then asked her to start counting out loud.  She counted all the way to 100 with a little bit of help from Mommy (for the numbers 21, 30, 70, 80, 90).  She was very proud when she made it to 100!

Today was our last day for Babar: To Duet Or Not To Duet.  We finished up rowing the book with a science lesson on the ears.  Kid friendly info was read on this site then she colored a couple of ear-related pictures.  She seemed to enjoy saying “cochlea” because as she colored I heard her telling a whole story which involved saying it over and over and over again.

Now she’s enjoying Baby Ballet.  I bought this weeks ago and finally got it out today.  It’s a little ballet class that she can follow along with.  She loves her ballet class.  This week we’re going to try out a Musical Theater class just to see how she likes it.  Given that every day she puts on her own musical I kind of think it will be up her alley…

Little ballerina in her cool, new jeans.

Scientist Papa not only sent a few elephant sites to Doo the other day but also brought a couple of books to show her during his last visit (he used to be an Earth Science Teacher).  Doo enjoyed looking at the different pictures.  Papa also sent her a scanned picture from one of the books for her to color (which can be seen above with the ear pictures).

Tomorrow we will start with The Story About Ping.

Today was math.  In the beginning of Babar: TDONTD, it states that Pom (Babar’s son) had been working on a project for more than a week.  After our read, we sang both the Days of the Week and Months of the Year songs that I know from work.  The Doo has had these memorized for several months and, during the Months of the Year song, likes pointing to the person whose birthday month it is while she sings it.

She then created a September calendar on Starfall and colored her own as well (I found one I could decorate with a piano to keep with the music theme of Babar).  She did well figuring out which day said Tuesday and then finding today’s date, the 22nd, to color in.