We’re finishing up our second week of school today, and so far it’s going swimmingly. Poppy has been eager to get to work every day. Pete has been a little difficult this week; I think he’s entering a Whiney Stage of Development. He settles down and actually enjoys himself once he finally succumbs to the learning process.
Would you like to know a little more about what we’ve been doing this week? Allons-y!
Reading
Our first read-aloud of the year is “Anne of Green Gables,” because that’s what I picked up on my last mad rush through the library. I’ve tried to read it before on my own without much luck. I just have a hard time getting into the story. Pete has been paying very little attention to it. He wanders through the room while we’re reading, but that’s about it. I don’t think it’s Poppy’s favorite book ever, but she enjoys the cuddle-on-the-couch time anyway.
We’re going to be studying the Middle Ages in history this year, so after we finish “Anne” I’m going to try to choose read-aloud books that are at least tangentially connected to that. Here are a few I’m considering:
Poppy’s daily schedule this year includes 30 minutes of free reading. This week she read a lot of books from my old “Sesame Street” collection as well as a new “My Little Pony” book from Grandma.
Teaching Pete to read is one of my primary goals this year. We’re using the BOB books, and he read the first one on the first day of school with hardly any help at all.
“How’d you know all those words?” I asked him.
“Oh,” he said. “I’ve just been learning.”
I’m hoping he magically absorbs Calculus the same way in a few years. Speaking of which …
Math
Poppy is still working her way through Teaching Textbooks 3, but we’re using it more as a supplement this year than as her primary curriculum. I wanted to find something with a lot of hands-on activities for Pete, and McRuffy looked like it would be a good fit. Poppy liked the look of it, too, so I ordered the second-grade program for her.
Part of the manipulatives kit was backordered, so we didn’t have the full math experience until this week. The kids nearly knocked the UPS guy over on Tuesday when he delivered the box, though, and they’ve asked for “bonus McRuffy” every day this week. It’s been a big hit. I don’t usually love scripted curricula, but the scripting here is just a few sentences and I’ve found it to be pretty helpful.
History
We still have about four chapters of the first volume of “Story of the World” to get through before we move on to the Middle Ages. This week we read the “Rome and the Christians” chapter. Poppy decided on a secret family symbol — like the early Christians’ ichthys — and she taped it up in various locations throughout the house. (I’d show you the design, but it’s a secret symbol. So there’s that.) Then we built some catacombs in the basement and had a few secret meetings.
Art
We’ve pulled “Artistic Pursuits” out again this year, and we’re starting over from the beginning. In the first lesson the kids are supposed to draw something they’ve seen — a household vignette or something. Poppy drew Marsha T. Cat lounging on the couch. Pete’s drawing included the Earth and some kind of robot battle. Let’s hope he just wasn’t paying attention to the directions.
Misc.
Extra credit
What’s your favorite family read-aloud book?
It sounds like a good week. I never could get my kids to like Anne as a read aloud, but my now 8th grader used it for a whole unit study last year (Where the Brook and River Meet). She had ended up reading most of the series on her on before that, and she picked out her unit study. But, I don’t think I could have gotten my son (or my younger girls for that matter) to enjoy them as a read aloud.
I loved Anne of Green Gables, though I haven’t read it aloud to my kids yet, so I may find it’s a whole different matter. It’s hard to pick a favorite read aloud…perhaps Matilda by Roald Dahl? Being the voice of the Trunchbull was a whole lot of fun.