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It's hard to believe we are already done the first part of grade one. Wow! In some areas I think we need improvement (mostly as far as time management goes and making sure we get everything we need to get done done on time) but in other ways I am pretty happy with how much we have done and how much Haye seems to be absorbing materials. I think it's easier to make ideas and lessons concrete for him teaching at home than at school because I know exactly what he loves to learn about and also exactly what he struggles with and can meet him there
My goal for the next term is to pray more.
MATH:
We are doing RightStart Math Level C this year. I was thinking we'd try and finish it by the end of the year but there are 150 lessons and that is way too much for us to handle this year I think. Because it's Level C I think we'll do as much as we can and finish the rest next year. So far we have done 5 Transition Lessons and 10 Level C Lessons. Obviously we have been taking the lessons a little slowly which I partly blame on getting into the groove of homeschooling. I am going to make more of an active effort to teach more Math lessons even though Haye met all the Math requirements for grade 1 in Kindergarten.
We just learned about Venn Diagrams and how to Bar Graph along with how to make an addition table.
We are also doing some worksheets in random Math workbooks that we have picked up. Haye is acing everything but having a bit of trouble with the even and odd numbers, so we've been working a lot over the past week on just that concept. He seems to be doing a lot better and uses his abacus quite a bit.
We have been playing lots of Math games such as Dice 10000 (which is a fairly complex adult game that Haye has mastered and can do all the addition for and knows what all the dice stand for) and Gin Rummy which he also knows all the rules for and can play mostly on his own.
He can read all of his Pokemon cards and knows how to subtract HP (for example, if he has 90HP on one card and it goes into battle with another card and takes a 35HP hit, he would know that he had 55HP left).
He is often counting or recognizing numbers and making up accurate math patterns. Haye spends a large amount of his time telling us math problems and really enjoys when we quiz him on addition and subtraction. I have actually taught him multiplication up to the 5X Table where he can do the math in his head. Math is definitely one of Haye's strongest subjects! Here are some of Haye's worksheets and a video that we made today of him doing addition.
(Haye is playing a video game in this video and is a bit distracted, but I didn't give him the answers previously. We were driving in the car a few weeks ago and he was doing addition out loud and went this far on his own! He seems to get stuck at 256+256=512 quite a bit but he is actually doing the addition in his mind so I don't want him to memorize the numbers just for the sake of knowing them at this point.)
LANGUAGE ARTS:
We have done 5 Units of Building Spelling Skills Book One in which Haye has learned how to spell 100 words. We've focuseed on Short A, Short E, Short I, Short O, and Short U and are heading into Beginning Blends. Haye is very good at Language Arts but DESPISES writing. He is definitely getting to be more legible than when we first started the year and is complaining less so that is a bonus. ;) As far as reading goes, he is reading above a Grade 1 level and can almost immediately learn new words if I point them out to him. He is encouraged to read all of his work instructions on his own and for the most part can do it.
Here are a couple examples of the types of words Haye is learning to spell.
We took a car trip to Edmonton and while Zao was sleeping and we were trying to keep Haye quiet, we were writing notes back and forth without talking just to see how much Haye could read without help.
Derek wrote "I love you." and Haye wrote "I love you too." Well. I think that's what he meant. :P
Next Derek wrote "Draw a face." and Haye handed back this picture.
I threw in the words "favourite" and "animal" and was presented with this fancy lion.
Since we had been working on part plants the week before our trip, I drew this quick drawing of a plant and handed it back to Haye to fill in the boxes. He wrote "leas" "stan" and "raos" which shows me that he does know the parts as leafs, stem, and roots, but didn't remember the exact way to spell them. I thought it was cute. :)
I was curious as to what he would write if I just sent a love note and he responded with a heart and "MOM + HAYE TOGETHER" which totally shocked me! I turned around and asked him how he knew how to spell together and he pointed to a book that said together on the front of it and said that he had copied it.
We've been having some listening problems (any parents of 6 year old boys reading this? anyone? anyone?) and have discovered that time-outs really aren't cutting it anymore as Haye is usually happy to get away from whatever he is doing and lay on his bed and read, so we've stepped it up a notch to making him write 5 lines each time he is sent to time-out. If he does a super sloppy job we generally erase it and make him do it over, much to his disapproval. (In all fairness though, it's working and he is trying harder to write neatly) Discipline and language arts in one! Ha!
"I will try harder to show respect."
"I will pay attention in school."
Haye has done 42 pages of Handwriting Without Tears (My Printing Book). Generally it is just a warm-up while I'm making Breakfast or in between subjects as a letter refresher.
Here are a couple more pages from Haye's Building Spelling Skills Book.
(I thought this was funny and very Haye...if you look closely you can see that he clearly knows which letters match up but he had to make it "fun") :P
SOCIAL STUDIES:
We never got Socials curriculum until 2 weeks ago (whoops) so we are a bit behind but the workbooks we have are fun and easy to do, therefore they bring a good break to our day with the heavier subjects.
The beginning of our Science curriculum actually fit in nicely with Social Studies as we looked at basic needs for mammals (food, air, shelter, water) and tied them both together. Bonus: it was easy to then talk about how God provides all our needs :)
This week we are working on what families are and who they are made up of, including all different types of families, not just nuclear ones. We are also looking at different roles in families and more specifically, Haye's responsibilities at home and at school. For example, we have started setting a timer (either on the stopwatch Haye DESPERATELY needed) or on the stove and Haye is responsible to sit there during school hours for the set amount of time and work. Usually the timer is set for 15 or 20 minutes and then he can get up and run around or have a break or play with Lego for a bit. If he is doing really well and not getting antsy, then I will usually give him a snack or a drink and set the timer again and continue with the lesson.
He is responsible for paying attention and listening during school (hence the scanned lines he had to write :P). Haye also realizes he is responsible for helping with laundry. He helps bring it downstairs, collects diapers in the morning for the wash, and often will help switch the laundry over or load the washing machine. He is responsible for carrying his clothes upstairs and putting them away nicely, and if he messes them up then he is required to fold them. He also is responsible for helping clear the table after meals and for feeding the dog at every meal. Haye is also responsible for monitoring the days of the calendar and the seasonal changes on a large bulletin board we have in our kitchen.
We have had many discussions with Haye about the importance of listening and obeying rules both "at school" and at home. We also are very open with the state of our world and the environment and try to be ecologically minded in our family. Haye is also responsible for most of the recycling in the house and Derek and Haye often clean up the playground of garbage while they are on it or pick up bottles while they are out to a) help save the earth and b) help Haye earn money. He always gets a portion of bottle return money for his bank and chooses what he wants to save up for. He recently spent all of his money on an MP3 player and a lot of Pokemon cards so he is broke but we will be opening up a bank account for him soon and he will start saving again for another purchase.
We have had many discussions with Haye about the importance of listening and obeying rules both "at school" and at home. We also are very open with the state of our world and the environment and try to be ecologically minded in our family. Haye is also responsible for most of the recycling in the house and Derek and Haye often clean up the playground of garbage while they are on it or pick up bottles while they are out to a) help save the earth and b) help Haye earn money. He always gets a portion of bottle return money for his bank and chooses what he wants to save up for. He recently spent all of his money on an MP3 player and a lot of Pokemon cards so he is broke but we will be opening up a bank account for him soon and he will start saving again for another purchase.
Haye has discovered Google Earth and is FASCINATED by it. He would spend hours and hours on there travelling from continent to continent although he is most content to travel within our community and check out all the things we see daily. He is very amused by the fact that at one of our old houses there is a still-shot of me and an old friend. :P I plan on getting a Map of Canada and an Intro to Geography type workbook for him this week as well, not only to meet the Grade 1 PLO but also just because he is super fascinated with the world right now.
Here's a couple worksheets Haye has done recently...I thought it was pretty funny to read that my contribution is "food" and that's all. haha. Kids! (Jacoby is Haye's sock monkey that apparently has replaced the dog as a family member and also is very helpful)
Here is a picture of Haye in a hat. :)
Rather than get the typical stick people drawings Haye loves to make, I gave him photos of our family to try and copy. I'm not sure why Derek has a broken, giant arm or why the dog looks kind of alien-ish, but I loved Haye's drawing of himself grinning while holding a sign that says (in the photo): "I'm going to be a big brother!!!" And no, his answer wasn't prompted by me.
HEALTH AND CAREER
We only recently got our Health and Career workbook (that we are breezing through and will need to get another soon) but we have been having a lot of discussions as well that cover the Learning Outcomes set by the Province. Specifically we are working with Haye on washing his hands well with soap each time he goes to the bathroom or sneezes and the importance of having clean hands in order to keep illness out of our house for as long as possible! We have talked about unsafe substances a lot with Haye and I believe he knows the difference between most safe and unsafe things around our house. I have talked with him about private part terminology (although I'm unsure he remembers it all) and about appropriate and inappropriate touching. I have also ordered a book (it isn't here yet) that clearly explains where babies come from that is aimed at children his age. We have taught him how to dial 911 and it what circumstances he would need to, and we have talked extensively about Fire Safety and made an escape plan from our house. Haye knows that he is not to come back into the house for anything or anyone if there was a fire. We have also talked a lot about what he would do if he found himself lost (for example in the mall or at the park) and he knows that he should find a Mom with kids, a family, a security guard or a shopkeeper. We are working on teaching him our phone number and he knows our first and last names.
SCIENCE
Science has been pretty fun this year, although I don't really like the curriculum we have for it. I think it is a lot of writing and not a lot of experimenting, when I originally bought it because it was so hands-on. The experiments that we have done so far have been extremely short. The idea behind the curriculum (A Reason for Science) is that you do 5 lessons a week. The first day is a story and questions, the second is a page of writing, the third is the experiment, the fourth is another big page of writing, and the fifth is a quiz of some sort. It feels like a really uneven amount of time to be spending on Science every day, so we have started just doing it over 2 or 3 days. And the experiments have honestly been lame so far. The last couple weeks we haven't even done the experiment because we were supposed to make a balloon caterpillar somehow that had sections (although it wouldn't work) and then make a paper mache cocoon for it...so each lesson built on the other and we just ended up not doing any of the "experiments". Haye is disappointed with this curriculum and so am I but I will stop complaining and trudge through it because we paid $250 for it. YES. I DID. ugh. (And no, it's unreturnable after opened. Convenient! Needless to say next year we will be doing something completely different!!!)
Anyways, the lessons have been pretty straightforward and I do believe Haye is learning a lot from the material despite our annoyance with it. We have learned all about the basic needs of animals and plants, plant structures and functions, animal "wear", and the life cycle of a moth fairly extensively over the last month (larva, pupa, and adult moth). We are a bit behind in Science so we do need to step it up a bit, but I'm going to make sure and go through all our texts and figure out exactly where we need to be and get us there as soon as possible!
Haye also got a worm farm for his birthday and has been taking good care of his worms. He has 5 or 6 currently and he is good about giving them the right amount of water and helping me pick out different foods to try and feed them. Sadly one of the worms died, but we got him out and replaced him!
We have only done Life Science so far but are heading into Earth Science quickly!
Here's a photo of Haye with his bucket of worms after we went digging at Mission Creek Park with our good friend, Beks. (Unfortunately we have to re-send our ant certificate away for our ant farm as we didn't have the correct amount of postage on it)
P.E.
I haven't kept a daily log of Haye's phsyical activity but he is definitely an active little guy. Lately Derek has been taking Haye skateboarding quite a bit both at the indoor skatepark at the boardshop his friend owns and also at the outdoor skatepark near our house. We have done a lot of geocaching, which includes a lot of walking around (usually in circles haha) and a ton of playing at the park as we have one right in our complex. We have had tons of park playdates and Haye also has done Yoga and played at the Energyplex.
And remember the stopwatch Haye needed to have? Well it turns out it is a great motivator for getting him to run (as if he needed one) as he LOVES to have races and do obstacles. Haye also enjoys riding his Big Wheel around and chasing the dog at the dog park. We plan on getting our Y membership soon and also putting Haye into Gymnastics. Haye plays a lot of soccer with the kids in our co-op and also plays a lot of street hockey with Derek and our friend David. They even have a team...the CRUSHERS! ;)
On a geocache!
We spent the day running around with fellow homeschoolers at the Corn Maze at the pumpkin patch and it was super fun. Tiring day, but lots of fun for Haye.
yoga!
FINE ARTS
As far as a fine arts curriculum goes, we don't really have one yet. We are using Draw Write Now! which is amusing to me and helps Haye practice his writing while giving him confidence in his drawing. I've been looking at a few other different curriculums but I'm unsure I want to pay $50-$100 for a book that teaches him art concepts, as I think we can easily do that ourselves. And honestly, I just came across the detailed instructions on how to teach Grade 1 Visual Arts on the Government website and feel a lot more confident and full of ideas than I have lately, so expect great masterpieces from us in the future! I'll be sure and cover all of the learning outcomes by the end of the year.
Haye is very good at mimicking patterns we present him and still really enjoys drawing complex mazes for us. We have read a few story books with Haye about art such as Ish and have watched some street art painting documentaries on netflix with him. Haye recently helped Derek and his friend Chase do photography for an art class Chase is taking at UBCO. It is very rare for a day to go by in our house where some form of art is not going on.
Haye has drawn pictures when prompted of favourite memories, such as camping or playing at the park as a family, and we made paint prints of leaves we found this fall as well.
Here is an example of an art project that kept Haye's attention for HOURS. A box + a marble + acrylic paint...voila! He used different sets of colours in these marble paintings, grouping together blues and greens or yellows and reds, and seeing what would happen if he added a lot of white or a lot of black. He also experimented a lot with adding only his favourite colours to the paper etc.
We have tons and tons and tons of these all over the kitchen and proudly displayed on the bulletin board and fridge. This is one of the first art projects Haye has actually been super involved in and interested in, as he has never really been one for arts and crafts as far as sitting down at the table and making something go.
Here are a couple pages from his Draw Write Now! course:
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Haye is also enrolled in a homeschool Lego club at the library and spends a lot of free time creating art masterpieces at home as well as there.
BIBLE
Haye has almost completely memorized The Big Picture Story Bible ( click here ) and The Jesus Storybook Bible (click here)...no joke, I can be reading them aloud and stop and he can carry on word for word sentences. It is amazing! And he didn't just memorize them, I think he actually knows what he is talking about. I knew he KNEW the stories, but I didn't know how well he did. Thanks to Auntie Andrea and our friends Kim and Jonah for buying him Bibles with CDs! He listens to them every night and has favourite stories. On top of memorizing the Bible (hahaha) Haye is active in Sunday School and a kids club at our church that we help run on Wednesday afternoons.
Here is a video that Derek took today of Haye talking about the Bible. I think it's awesome and can't wait to do more videos with him :)
Here is a video that Derek took today of Haye talking about the Bible. I think it's awesome and can't wait to do more videos with him :)
