Catholic 1st Grade Homeschool: Day 15

Religion -

1. We discussed the stories we've read so far in our kids' Bible. We talked about how the Bible is a book that God inspired humans to write, and how it is filled with stories and lessons about God that have been preserved and passed on. God wants everyone to live with Him forever in Heaven, and this is good news. This good news is in the Bible, God's Word. Jesus teaches the good news in his words and his actions. Everyone can learn of the good news in the Bible.

2. We played the B-I-B-L-E song on our new music CD.

3. Little Bill colored the Bible page for his Bible ABC booklet.

4. Together we made these adorable fig newton Bibles, then ate them for a snack. While eating, we talked about how during Mass, we listen to readings from the Bible and how quotes from the Bible are parts of our responses and prayers during Mass.

Language -

1. We completed lesson 15 in How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.

2. Handwriting Without Tears practice, and practice writing full name and sight words.

3. We played with the printed color word game.

4. I printed out a new rime wheel which we used for reading/honics review, then pasted into Bill's language notebook.

Math - with calendar time

1. We did some more story problems in Little Bill's math notebook. I wrote three story problems in there and helped him to read them and figure out how to solve the problems.

2. We continued identifying ordinals (first, second, third, etc.) to the tenth position.

3. We practiced counting by 2's and 5's, as well as counting backwards from 20 now.

4. We practiced adding and subtracting with flashcards.

5. I introduced Little Bill to the penny and we practiced counting a handful of pennies by 1's.

6. I took apart the word "three" in the printed number words game, and we practiced all of the number words.

7. I gave Little Bill some oral problems to solve in his head: 1+4, 1+1, 2+3, 1+3, 3+1, 0+2, 4+1, 2+2, 0+3, 0+1, 0+5, 1+2, 2+1, 3+2, 0+4.

Science & Social Studies:

1. We read in Magic Treehouse, chapters 7 & 8.

Catholic 1st Grade Homeschool: Day 14

Religion -

1. We put the Noah mini-book that we printed out yesterday in order, retelling the story as we went, and stapled them together. Then we pasted the mini-book onto the next blank page in our religion notebook.

2. Little Bill colored the Noah page for his Bible ABC booklet.

Language -

1. We completed lesson 14 in How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. Today the lesson introduced i.

2. Handwriting Without Tears practice, and practice writing full name and sight words.

3. I introduced the sight word "as", and we wrote in Bill's language notebook with his other sight words.

4. We practiced color words with the printable game.

5. I printed out some rime wheels to play with with Little Bill. A rime is a word ending that can make lots of words by changing the beginning. For example, the rime "ill" can make Bill, dill, fill, hill, Jill, kill, mill, pill, will.

Math - with calendar time

1. Today I gave Bill his very first math test. This is the only subject I'll be testing this year. In the other subjects, I will assess how well Bill is picking up the subject matter and progressing simply by interacting with him daily. I will give him grades accordingly.

2. After the test, we made shapes and numbers on the geoboard rubber bands.

Science & Social Studies -

1. We read the next 2 chapters in Magic Treehouse, chapters 5 & 6.

Catholic 1st Grade Homeschool: Day 13

Religion -

1. We read the story of Noah and the flood in our children's Bible. I printed out a Noah's Ark mini-book here (scroll down to find it) to go with it. We discussed how God calls each of us to faith and obedience, and He rewards us for it. God called Noah to build the ark, he did, and God provided safety for him and his family. Noah could have thought it was crazy to build an ark and didn't want to waste his time without a reason. But he chose faith & obedience to God and did what God told him, whether it made sense to him or not. And thank goodness, right?

2. We played the first song on our new "25 Sunday School Songs" CD, which is about Noah & the ark.

3. Using paper plates, we made this craft, that I found at Mama Jenn's, to go along with the Noah story. Click for instructions.

Language -

1. We completed lesson 13 in How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.

2. Handwriting Without Tears practice, and practice writing full name and sight words.

3. I taught Little Bill that "ck" makes only one sound, and that it usually follows a short vowel. Again, using index cards and a black marker, I made word cards to go over and reinforce this lesson. I write the vowels in red, however, which iterates the point of this rule, as well as helps Little Bill recognize his vowels. Then we recorded the rule into Bill's language notebook, and he wrote sample words to illustrate the rule.

4. We reviewed color words using the game I printed out.

Math - with calendar time

1. We reviewed adding with our AddIt! game. I printed out the SubtractIt! version and we practiced subtracting using the game.

2. We went over ordinal (first, second, third, etc.) numbers using our set of creation days cards that we printed out last month.

3. I made a geoboard for Little Bill. You can make one as well; find the printable guide here. You'll need a 5x5 piece of wood and some small nails. Use the printable guide to see where to put the nails. You can paint the wood as well. Make sure to sand it first to eliminate rough edges and splinters. Or you can buy one from your local education store. Today we used rubber bands to make the basic shapes on our geoboard.

Science & Social Studies -

Let's Get Started: September

Calendar -

This month's calendar will be apples, both for autumn and for Adam & Eve's story. You can print the apple calendar numbers from here. For the personal calendar, you can print out the calendar from here, and order red, yellow, & green apple stickers here (for making a pattern on the calendar, as you cover days that go by).

Music -

This month we are adding the children's CD "25 Sunday School Songs"

Storybooks -

Each month we add a few storybooks that either go along with our lessons or that are just good for this age. You can look for them at the library or buy them from our shop. These storybooks are optional, however.

This month we will be using:

Science & Social Studies -

This month we will be reading 2 Magic Treehouse books as well as the guides that go with them:

The Knight at Dawn

Mummies in the Morning

Catholic 1st Grade Homeschool: Day 12

Religion -

1. We did an Adam & Eve craft. I had Little Bill paint a brown tree trunk on the next blank page in his religion notebook. Then he made fingerprint apples with red paint, and a segmented fingerprint serpent with green paint. He wrote "Adam and Eve disobeyed God" at the bottom of the page.

2. We put the mini-book in order and stapled it together, retelling the story as we went. We then talked about how when Adam & Eve sinned, they lost the gift of God's grace. God promised to send a savior to restore the gift and open Heaven. Jesus is our savior. We talked about temptation in our lives and how sin is saying no to God. We also talked about how God forgives us and about confession. The we pasted the back of the mini-book to the next blank page in the religion notebook.

3. We made an apple prayer craft that I found on Oriental Trading. You can buy this kit, or you can make it yourself, which is what I did.

Language -

1. We completed lesson 12 in How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. This lesson introduces the letter d.

2. Handwriting Without Tears practice, and practice writing full name and sight words learned so far.

3. I introduced Little Bill to color words using a printable game that I found at Confessions of a Homeschooler. It is the same as the number word game, but with color words. Again, I am leaving the words intact for now and later I will cut them into individual letters for Bill to put together.

4. We played the game, "10 Questions". So I told Bill I was thinking of something that moves, for example, and he had to ask me ten questions to try to figure out what it was. He is new to this, so I guided him in coming up with questions. This is a good thinking game though. Then it was his turn to think of something and for me to ask ten questions and try to guess what it is. This is a great game to randomly play in the car or grocery store.

Math - with calendar time

1. Using index cards with numbers written on them, we reviewed "what number comes after #?", as well as what numbers come before and after a given number. We also reviewed counting by 5's.

2. I introduced Little Bill to story problems. I wrote three stories in his math notebook and helped him to read them and figure out how to solve the problems using math. We will do these regularly now. If you make up your own, its great to use elements from the child's own life - it makes it more fun and creates more interest. Here are a few ideas to get you started. You can also search "math story problems for first graders" to get lots of resources.

3. We practiced with our "greater than" and "less than" alligators. This time I printed some stickers and made my own worksheet in Little Bill's math notebook for him to put the correct alligator stickers on.

4. Today I cut apart the number words "one" and "two" from the printable number word game and played with putting them back together correctly with Little Bill.

Science & Social Studies -

Catholic 1st Grade Homeschool: Day 11

(Week 3)

Religion -

1. We read the Adam & Eve story in our kids' Bible. We talked about original sin, the gift of grace (God in us) received at baptism, and how we must take care of God's gifts. Also God's plan of sending a savior, Jesus, to open the gates of Heaven.

2. We are starting a Bible ABC booklet. We will be adding coloring pages as things come up, which you can find here. Today we colored Adam & Eve. We also made a construction paper cover that says "My Bible ABC's". I am keeping all of these in a folder until we are done, when I will add a construction paper back as well, and staple it all together.

3. I printed out a mini-book of the Adam & Eve story, and had Little Bill use it to narrate (click if you're not familiar with the term, and scroll down to the heading "narration") the story back to me.

Language -

1. We completed lesson 11 in How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.

2. Handwriting Without Tears practice, and practice writing first and last name, and middle name if you wish.

3. I taught Bill the phonics rule: "K comes before i and e; c comes before the other three - a, o, u." I wrote this rule at the top of the next blank page in Bill's language notebook, and had him write samples of words that follow this rule.

4. We reviewed sight words in the language notebook and added "is".

Math - with calendar time

1. We reviewed counting to ever higher numbers, and identifying numbers on the hundred chart. I introduced counting by 5's using the skip-counting printout we were using for 2's.

2. We reviewed number words one through ten using the printout game. I cut apart the individual letters for the word "one" and we put them together several times.

3. We started practicing subtraction using blocks or other manipulatives.

Science & Social Studies -

Catholic 1st Grade Homeschool: Day 10

Religion -

1. To encourage gratitude, and the idea that God provides all good things and everything we need, I bought a little spiral notebook to use as a gratitude journal for Little Bill. Each day I write the date at the top of the page, then "Thank you God for . . . ", then Little Bill tells me five things that he is grateful for that he wants me to write down for him. Eventually he will write his own. This is actually really enjoyable for me, because the things he adds can be really interesting and revealing!

Language -

1. Completed lesson 10 in Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.

2. We reviewed the vowels we circled on our ABC poster. I taught Bill the two rules about vowels: when one vowel is present it usually makes its short sound. And: "When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking, with its long sound."We talked about how a long vowel says its own name. In the language notebook I wrote one rule per page, and had Bill write some sample words that follow the rule.

3. I had Little Bill draw the letters of his name down the left side of the next blank page in the language notebook, and together we made a fitting acronym for his name. (An acronym is when you make a new word for each letter of a particular word, usually words having to do with your original word.)

4. Handwriting Without Tears practice, and practice writing first and last name.

Math - with calendar time

1. We reviewed counting to higher numbers, and identifying numbers on the hundred chart.

2. We discussed and played with the concept of adding zero. Use manipulatives, such as blocks, to make this concept concrete for your child.

3. We reviewed the commutative property of addition, using Bill's math notebook. I wrote sets of problems for him to solve and pointed out that each set will have the same answer: 2+3 and 3+2 as one set, for example.

4. I introduced Bill to less than and greater than. Here is a fun way to do this: simply draw a "<" onto a blank index card, and a ">" onto the back. These are mouths. Draw teeth inside, eyes on top, and any other details you can to make these into alligator heads with their mouths open. Now take out your number cards you made. Show your child the alligator card and tell him that this alligator only likes to eat big numbers. Now play with the cards and using the "greater than" and "less than" signs!

5. We reviewed number words with the game I printed out.

Notes:

During your days, use time terms regularly so that your child can get to know what the terms mean as part of everyday life. So use the words "morning", "afternoon", "night", and "AM" & "PM" so that your child becomes familiar with these terms naturally.

Science & Social Studies -

Read chapter 5 in Magic Tree House Guide to Dinosaurs.

Catholic 1st Grade Homeschool: Day 9

Religion -

1. Review that God created everything, including us. He made us with a body and a soul, to know and love and serve Him. He wants our souls to live forever with Him in heaven. God gave us guardian angels to protect us and guide us.

2. Play the Dogma Dog song "Love the Lord".

Language -

1. Complete lesson 9 in How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. Today's lesson introduced r.

2. Handwriting Without Tears practice, and practice writing first and last name.

3. I printed out a set of alphabet dominoes from First School, and Little Bill matched the letters to the pics that start with that letter.

4. We reviewed sight words in the language notebook.

Math - with calendar time

1. Review recognizing numerals with the hundred chart.

2. I taught Little Bill the commutative property of addition. Sounds complicated, right? It simply means that regardless of which order the two numbers that you are adding together are in, the answer will be the same. So 3+2 is the same as 2+3. To do this in a really easy-to-understand way, I used a blank index card and wrote a "+" on both sides. I took a hanger and clipped two clothespins onto one side, then taped the plus sign in the middle, and clipped three clothespins onto the other side. Now you can show your child the clothespin addition problem, and when you flip the hanger around, the clothespins are in a different order but your child can see that you didn't change the amount of clothespins on the hanger!

3. Starting today, we are going to practice adding in our heads. If your child isn't ready for this, simply skip it for now and add it at a later date. For today, these are the problems that I gave Little Bill: 2+1, 3+1, 1+1, 4+1. Very simple to start. I say them slowly, and repeat as necessary.

Science & Social Studies -

Read chapter 4 of Magic Tree House Guide to Dinosaurs.

Catholic 1st Grade Homeschool: Day 8

Religion -

1. We talke about saints -  who they are, how the Church canonizes them, why we revere them, and how we are all called by God to be saints. I found some info online at Catholic.org that you can read in preparation for this talk.

2. We made a construction paper cover and back for a "My Saints Booklet" that we are making. I put Little Bill's patron saint on the cover -  it was a coloring page printed from Paper Dali. This wonderful resource has coloring pages as well as instructions for making wooden figures for lots of saints and famous historical people. We will be using it often for our saints booklet. I wrote a little about the saint under the picture of him for Little Bill's cover.

3. We made a wooden figure of Little Bill's patron saint. I found this idea at Catholic Family Vignettes. There is a wooden saint made (and shown!) for each letter of the alphabet. How great!

Language -

1. We completed lesson 8 in Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.

2. In Little Bill's journal, I had him draw a picture of his favorite thing to do, and then dictate a few sentences for me to write about the picture.

3. Handwriting Without Tears practice, and practice writing first and last name.

4. We reviewed sight words in the language notebook, and on a page after the first five that were set aside, I drew bubble letter sight words and had Bill trace the inside again and again with different colors (this is called rainbow letters).

Math - with calendar time

1. Little Bill counted and I helped him continue higher. He also counted backward from 10, and now we are working on counting backwards from 20, as well as counting by 2's to higher numbers.

2. We practiced number words using the number word game that I printed out.

3. Rather than using a pre-made workbook for math, this year Little Bill will be making his own math notebook as we go along. Today, using the first page of his math book, we drew different ways of writing an addition problem (horizontal and vertical), and practiced a few simple problems drawn for each way.

4. I took a pack of index cards, and wrote a numeral on each one. Then I mixed them up and had Little Bill put them in order from least to greatest.

Science & Social Studies - 

Read chapter 3 in the Magic Tree House Guide to Dinosaurs.

Catholic 1st Grade Homeschool: Day 7

Religion -

1. We discussed how God is our creator, He watches over all His creation, He is everywhere, and He is all good. We rediscussed how God wants us to talk to Him and be friends with Him and share our lives/selves with Him in prayer.

2. We played the Dogma Dogs song, "Love the Lord".

3. We made a prayer cube to assist Little Bill in learning what to say in prayer. I printed the prayer cube from Little Blots. (Click and scroll down to the Psalm 23 Prayer Box). Little Blots is a great place to find lots of Bible crafts. Since we are not learning Psalm 23, I thought of another way to use the prayer box. So I printed it out onto plain printer paper, cut out around it, then traced the outline onto card stock. It is easy to then draw in the lines still needed to make the sides of the cube. I cut out the picture of the little boy and the title of the cube, and pasted these into the cardstock cube. On the remaining three sides, I wrote: Thank you God for . . . , Please, Lord, help . . . , and I'm sorry God for . . . So the prayer cube reminds Little Bill to say prayers of thanks, prayers of supplication, and prayers of repentance. We used the cube to pray today, then we put it on the table by Little Bill's bed to use for nightly and morning prayers.

Language -

1. We completed lesson 7 in How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. Today's lesson introduced t.

2. We reviewed the sight words in the language notebook, and added the word "I".

3. Handwriting Without Tears practice, and practice writing the first and last name.

4. I tore our a page of an article in a magazine (you could also use a newspaper article) and, using one word at a time, had Little Bill circle all of the sight words we have done so far.

5. We alphabetized some letter cards for practice.

Math - with calendar time

1. Using an empty cup and blocks, go over the concept of zero if your child needs it. Also go over the concept of what is one more and one less than a given number. Discuss "most" and "fewest" using the blocks.

2. Review number words with the word cards we printed out.

3. Review addition using the AddIt! game we printed out.

Science & Social Studies -

Read chapter 2 in the Magic Tree House Guide to Dinosaurs.

Catholic 1st Grade Homeschool: Day 6

(Week 2)

Religion -

1. We talked about angels, particularly how we each have a guardian angel that God has given us to watch over us, protect us, and help us during times of temptation. Information on angels, including where to find them in the Bible and quotes about them from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, can be found here.

2. I printed out a black-and-white picture of a guardian angel with the prayer on it (click the link and scroll down) and Little Bill colored it in. We framed it in a simple 8x10 frame and hung it in his room. We will say this prayer regularly.

3.  We did a really cute craft - making a footprint and handprint angel with paint. Click here to see what it looks like and instructions. I bought a blank spirl-bound sketchbook to use to do our religion activities in. So Bill made the angel on the first page of his religion notebook.

Language -

1. We sat down with a picture book and I picked out different things in the pictures and we practiced recognizing ending sounds. I.E. "Look, here is a black and white cat. What sound does cat end with?"

2. We completed lesson 6 in Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. We reviewed our two sight words in the language notebook, and added the word "the".

3. Handwriting Without Tears practice, and practice writing first and last name.

4. We played the game of matching upper and lower case letters, and picked out the vowels for review.

Math - with calendar time

1. Count out loud as high as he can, count backward from 10, and skip count by 2's as high as he can.

2. Using objects from around the house, or in a picture book, make sure your child can identify basic shapes as well as how many sides & angles the different basic shapes have. Continue to work with your child on this as needed.

3. We practiced addition by using a great game that I found to print out (click on the link then scroll down to Math and click on the AddIt! Math Game).

4. Review ordinals (first, second, third) by lining up toys.

Science & Social Studies -

Hooray! We finished the fiction book of Dinosaurs Before Dark. On to the non-fiction companion and some activities to go with it! So today I introduced the non-fiction companion book to Little Bill and we looked over it and talked about it, then we read the first chapter together.

Catholic 1st Grade Homeschool: Day 5

Religion -

1. Teach/practice the Glory Be.

2. When we make the sign of the cross, explain that it reminds us of who God is (the trinity), and what Jesus did to open Heaven to us.

3. Talk about the trinity. The Dogma Dogs has a great trinity song on the CD. I drew a big shamrock onto a piece of paper and Little Bill wrote "Father God", "Son Jesus", and "Holy Spirit" on the leaves and decorated it.

4. Using a can of biscuits, we tore each biscuit into three, rolled each of the three pieces into balls, and put three balls in each cup of a muffin tin. We baked as directed. When they were done, we had them for a snack and talked about how the biscuits are made up of three different parts, but they are also one biscuit.

Language -

1. Using our new texture letters, we did an activity where I would put a random letter down, and then Little Bill would find the letter that goes before it and the letter that comes after it. We practiced their letter sounds, and also picked out all of the vowels and went over their short sounds.

2. We completed lesson 5 in Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (with short e), and read a Bob Book reader.

3. We reviewed our two sight words in the language notebook.

4. Handwriting Without Tears practice, and practice writing the first name.

5. Little Bill dictated to me for his journal entry today, which we began with, "When I grow up, I want to ...". Then he illustrated his entry.

Math - with calendar time

1. We practiced the number words again, using the number word game that I printed out. 

2. Count out loud as high as possible, by 2's, and backwards from 10. If you weave these into other times in your day - car, grocery, bedtime, bedtime, meals -  then you don't need to practice during school time. 

3. Make block towers for numbers one through ten. Introduce ordinal words by pointing out which one tower is third in the line, which one is fifth, and so on. If your child catches on, start to point to towers and ask your child to name which position it is in.

Science & Social Studies -

Read our last two chapters in Dinosaurs Before Dark!

Notes:

Though we are using chapter books as a springboard for different science topics, science is a part of everyday life! 

Take your child on walks and to parks. Collect nature items, such as acorns, seeds, pine cones, dried flowers, interesting rocks, bird feathers, etc. You could set up a little table or shelf for such items. We have a set of Audubon guides, including a guide for: birds, trees, flowers, rocks & minerals, and insects. You can find these used, and then use them for identifying things you find in nature.

Talk about the season you are in and the signs of that season that you can find in nature. Identify what season comes next and the signs to watch for. You can talk about how animals adapt to different seasons.

Go to the library and regularly check out simple storybooks about nature, seasons, life in your backyard, etc.

Catholic 1st Grade Homeschool: Day 4

Religion -


1. Today we read Just in Case You Ever Wonder, and talked about the book. Then we cut a length of string to 19 inches (Bill's birth length) and one to his current height, and put them side by side, talking about how much God has made him grow over the last 6 years.

2. The book ends by discussing Heaven. So after doing the string activity, we talked about how God sent Jesus so we could be reunited with God, how Jesus opened the gates of Heaven for us, how Earth is only our temporary home, and how Heaven is our true and permanent home with God forever.

Language -

1. We made textured letter cards for the letters of the alphabet. To make textured letters you can cut letters (using stencils or freehand) and glue them onto construction paper. {Click here for printable bubble letters - you can shrink them in your printer settings so that each letter is 1/4 page, which is easier to do activities with.} Or you can use blank index cards and write a letter with glue then sprinkle sand or glitter onto it. Or you can use index cards and make letters with puffy paint. You can use these cards to practice letter sounds, alphabetizing, and putting them together to spell words. So they will be useful throughout the year. Hint: when making these, make the vowel cards in red to set them apart.

2. We arranged the letters in alphabetical order. Guide your child if he needs help. Slowly singing the alphabet song can help with ordering the letters. If 26 letters are overwhelming, take a handful apart and have him put those in alphabetical order.

3. We completed lesson 4 in Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, and read a Bob Book reader.

4. Using the language notebook, we reviewed the sight word "am", and added the sight word "a".

4. Handwriting Without Tears practice, and practice writing the first name.

Math - with calendar time

1. Little Bill counted to 100, identified different numbers on the 100 chart, skip counted by 2's, and counted backwards from 10.

2. We matched up our numeral and number word cards one through five again.

3. Using blocks, we put down one block for one, made a tower of two for two, next to that we made a tower of three blocks, and so on through 10. (You can go through five if you need to.)

4. We used the blocks to practice adding different combinations. 

Science & Social Studies -

Hang in there! We will be more active once we have finished the fiction book. 

1. We read chapters 7 & 8 in Dinosaurs Before Dark.

Notes:

Here are a few additional ways to weave your lessons into everyday life:

- Go on a walk through your neighborhood and as you walk, take turns naming something you see and saying what letter it begins with. My oldest (who is currently 15) and I did this so often when he was young!

- When you are out shopping, point out little words you see, and sound them out together. 

- As you walk through parking lots (and stores), point to numbers and say them out loud. Sure, your child may know his numbers, but how about reading prices or big numbers such as hundreds and thousands? You can start pointing them out and talking about them now!

- When you are serving lunch or snack you can talk about fractions ("I am cutting this sandwich in half. That means two pieces that make up a whole"), and even the concept of division ("We have 10 baby carrots. If we divide them between 2 people - you and mommy - how many will we each get? Yes 5! So 10 carrots divided by 2 people is 5!") Remember that using fingers at this age is just fine!

Catholic 1st Grade Homeschool: Day 3

Religion -

1. We started with the Lord's prayer.

2. Today we went over the Hail Mary together. I found these wonderful graphic cards with the Hail Mary verses on them. Each one takes up a full page, so I set my printer to print four per page and it resized them appropriately so that it made a nice little booklet (when I cut them out and put them together). On the Dogma Dogs CD, the last song is the Hail Mary so you can use this as a resource as well.

--> Make sure you are saying the Catholic meal prayer as a family at each meal! ("Bless us, O Lord, and these, your gifts, which we are about to receive from thy bounty through Christ our Lord. Amen.")

Language -

1. We went over short vowels. You can either buy a vowel poster at an educational store or do what we did - circle the vowels on our ABC poster with a black marker so they would stand out. I am teaching Little Bill the vowels by singing "There are five vowels in the alphabet, and this is what they are: a, e, i, o, u. A, e, i, o, u. A, e, i, o, u. And these are our vowels." to the tune of "Bingo". I now initiate the singing of this song in the grocery, in the car, etc. to reinforce it.

2. We completed lesson 3 in How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. This lesson introduces short a.

2. Today we will start using the language notebook. We are going to set aside the first five pages of the notebook for copying and practicing sight words. Today's sight word is "am", so I showed the word to Bill in a storybook, told him what word it is, and had him write it in his language notebook.

3. Handwriting Without Tears practice, as well as practice writing his first name.

3. We played the game, "Memory", using the uppercase and lowercase bears (find the link to the printables in Day 1).

4. I have a journal booklet for Little Bill. It is a blank journal with the bottom half of the page lined for writing, and the top half of the page blank for illustrating. I will give him topics from time to time and have him dictate to me (or write on his own as the year progresses), and then he can illustrate. Today I gave him the book, and let him decide what to write for the first entry. He chose to dictate a few lines from the song, "The Joy of the Lord", and then he illustrated it after I wrote the lines down for him. You can buy such a journal at an education store, or you can print out pages here and staple them together to make a booklet.

Math - with calendar time

1. We practiced counting as high as Little Bill wanted to go. If your child won't go high, make it a game by saying (in a fun tone): "Hey, do you think you could count all the way up to ...? Let's try it together!" Then we practiced counting by 2's.

2. Using this great number word printable game that I found at Confessions of a Homeschooler, I introduced the number words to Little Bill and talked each number word and matched them with the picture cards. I have discovered that one very effective way to teach new things, particularly in math and language, is to model the material, then have the child repeat your modeling after you, then finally have the child do the activity alone. You can try all three steps in one lesson, but it usually works better to model many times, then repetition many times, then finally independence. This can take several lessons to go through all three effectively. That is okay!

3. We did the domino addition activity again, practicing adding.

Science & Social Studies -

We read chapters 5 and 6 in Magic Tree House Dinosaurs Before Dark.

Notes:

These homeschool sessions are fairly short. What should you do with the rest of your day? You can look for other projects to do together, do saints day activities together, and read lots of books together. You can include your child in your housework and cooking and gardening and errands. 

These early years are a great time to get involved with homeschool groups and co-ops, take community classes for kids, join a homeschool P.E. class at your local Y, etc. Believe me, I have a high schooler and a middle schooler. I have been there, and the older kids have so much work now! I cherish the memories of the early years when they had so much extra time to be involved in all kinds of outside activities. Use the time while you can!

Catholic 1st Grade Homeschool: Day 2

We celebrated a great day of schoolwork by going to the playground after!

Religion -

1. We talked about prayer some more, and discussed how God always answers prayers, but He knows what we need and what is good for us even more than we do. So He may not send exactly what you asked for, but it will end up being perfect for you.

2. To kind of illustrate this point, we read the sweet storybook, Wish Come True Cat. In it, a little girl wishes on a shooting star (which I took the liberty of explaining that it was like a prayer and she meant for God to hear it) for a perfect little kitten. What she gets is a raggedy old tom cat. She is very unhappy about it and thinks that there must have been a terrible mistake. (I can relate!) Of course she ends up learning that sometimes you don't get what you thought you wanted, but you end up realizing that what you did get is exactly what you needed.

3. We said the Lord's Prayer together, using a cute print-out I found, which has pictures to go along with the verses. I taped blank paper over the words "debt and debtors" and wrote in "trespasses" and "those who trespass against us".

--> I found this article that may interest you: 6 Reasons for Teaching Your Children the Rosary.

Language -

1. We reviewed beginning letter sounds with a great printable I found. I cannot trace where it came from, so if you know please tell me so I can give credit! It's a great, hands-on phonics game and your child can use a clothespin to clip onto the correct letter. I couldn't find our clothespin when we did it, however, so Little Bill put blocks on the correct answers:

2. We completed lesson 2 in How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. 

3. Little Bill read a reader to me. We are using a boxed set of Bob Books for our beginning readers. If your child is beginning to read, then these readers start really simply and progress with your child's ability.

3. We played the upper & lower case letter matching game.

4. Practice in Handwriting Without Tears book, and practice writing the first name.

Math - with calendar time

1. We used a free printable hundred chart to point out numbers and ask Little Bill what they are. We practiced counting to 100 and higher (until he got tired of it). 

2. We played with addition flashcards. Make it fun, try to make it into a game. Stop when your child gets  tired or bored of it!

3. We practiced counting by 2's.

Science & Social Studies -

1. We read chapters 3 and 4 in Dinosaurs Before Dark.

Notes: 

When you're reading to your child, say the title of the book, the author, and the illustrator and explain what an author and an illustrator are. 

I have a fun, colorful US map printed out and placed on the bedside table by Little Bill's bed. One thing we do right before reading our bedtime story is pick up the map and located and identify the state that we live in now as well as our home state. I keep it fun, rather than pressure-filled or revolving around a correct answer. He, as most kids if you keep it fun, very much enjoys showing off what he knows. I will add one state at a time (very slowly!), reviewing each state we've done so far every night, until Little Bill knows his 50 states, whether that's in a few months from now or a year! 

Again, weaving reviews into everyday life takes the pressure off your child, incorporates the idea that learning is everywhere, and takes the extra time out of your schooling time.

Catholic 1st Grade Homeschool: Day 1

So here is our creation calendar all set up for August. And you can see the saints days put up on the calendar as well. The creation calendar set includes a set of seven creation cards without numbers. Save this set, as we will use it for day 13. Remember that you can follow along with the current liturgical season, daily liturgy of the Word, saints days and more at Walking Through the Year With Jesus.

Religion - 

--> We will be using a standard religious script with each religion lesson this year. I have made this script to incorporate liturgy into our lessons. Go to the page to see the script (see right sidebar), and there is also a print-friendly version as well so that you can print it out to use each day.

1. We said a blessing for the new school year.

2. We read the creation story in our children's Bible, and discussed how God is our loving Father who made all good things and He loves us. Since God made all people, He wants us to love each other and be kind to each other, and also to be grateful to God for all good things. We discussed how we can talk to God in prayer and God always hears us. We can praise Him, thank Him, and bring our own and others' needs to Him in prayer.

3. We read Emma and Mommy Talk to God, which is about a child learning to trust and pray to God, as well as to pray for her enemies.

Language -

--> We are working on reading this year with the book, How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. This is a wonderful book that I have used with multiple children. It is easy, takes just a few minutes each day, and it really does work! Everything is explanatory and scripted, so just pick it up and jump in from day 1 - no prep work, no extra materials - just open it up and start teaching! The book does not go in abc order. Rather is goes in such an order that kids can start putting letters together to make words shortly into the program. Other activities we do will follow this letter order.

So today we did lesson 1, which includes the letters m and s.

1. We reviewed letter sounds with an ABC poster that I printed out:

2. We reviewed capital and lowercase letters with our frog & lillipads game. (You can print your own capital and lowercase game with bears by clicking here.) Little Bill spontaneously wanted to line up the frogs into alphabetical order, which is good practice:

3. Handwriting practice in Handwriting Without Tears. I've used this series with all of my children. I could sing its praises here, but it'd be better for you to visit the website and see why its a great program. I also had Bill practice writing his first name.

Math - 

--> Each math session starts with working in our calendar binder. See the calendar time page (see tab on right) to learn how to make and use a calendar binder each day.

1. Count to 100 (or as high as your child can go).

2. Introduce counting by 2's using a great printable from Homeschool Creations. I told Little Bill that to learn how to count by 2's, he can say a number out loud, say the next number quietly in his head, then say the next number out loud, and so on. You can lessen your schoolday load and make learning fast and easy by incorporating it into your days. For example, once I taught my other children (when they were Little Bill's age) how to skip count, we would then practice at bedtime for lights out. I would stand by the bedroom light-switch and invite the child to count by 2's to 10 or 20, for example, and then when we reached the designated number it was blast-off! and I would turn off the light.

3. Play with adding numbers. I made this domino addition worksheet (just draw blank dominoes and a blank addition problem on a plain piece of paper) and used a tin of colorful dominos I bought at our dollar store. Little Bill would close his eyes and pick a domino out of the tin. Then he colored the dots on the blank dominos on the worksheet, wrote each number, and then added and wrote the answer. Making math fun this way helps kids to learn and enjoy their schoolwork at the same time! 

--> Kids are very concrete thinkers at this age, so encourage the use of fingers or objects like blocks to count on when adding or subtracting.

Science & Social Studies-

This year we are introducing science and social studies by using the Magic Tree House book series as a springboard for explorations into different topics. The first book is called Dinosaurs Before Dark and is, you guessed it!, about dinosaurs. For most topics in The Magic Tree House series, there is a fictional story where the main characters, Jack and Annie, magically travel back to different time periods. In their adventures they learn about the time they are in. Then there is a non-fiction companion book written as a guide that Jack and Annie have seemingly jotted notes in. Its a delightful series and Little Bill loves it. 

So the plan is to spend one week reading through and enjoying the fiction book. Then spend one week reading through the non-fiction book and doing activities to go with it. Today we read the first two chapters in Dinosaurs Before Dark.