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.