Posted on September 21, 2009 - by Kay

Year 1: Week 4

(September 21-25, 2009)
Our school week will see the heavier loads on Tuesdays and Thursdays, as those are the days that ds is at Mother’s Day Out so that dd and I have less interruptions. Each activity is designed to take only 10-15 minutes at the most as this is one of the defining characteristics of a Charlotte Mason approach to education.

*Please feel free to leave your comments or questions below. I always love learning from other people!*

• Monday
• Tuesday
• Wednesday
• Thursday
• Friday

Planning Day

• Literature – Free Reading: Dear Mr. Rosenwald, by Carole Boston Weatherford.

School Day

• To Start: Pledge/Calendar/Weather
• Natural History: Record our observations of the Monarch caterpillars we’re rearing.
• Memory Work: “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” Phillipians 4:8 (NLT)
• Copywork: Start on the first sentence of our Memory Work passage.
• Bible: “The Forgiving Prince” (Joseph), The Jesus Storybook Bible, by Sally Lloyd-Jones, pgs 76-83.
• History:
  • “Alexander and Bucephelas”, from Fifty Famous Stories Retold.
  • Add this story to the timeline in our Book of Centuries.
• Phonics: Hard or Soft “G” and “C”, from Brain Quest Grade 1 Workbook, by Lisa Trumbauer, pgs 16-17.
• Math: From Brain Quest Grade 1 Workbook, by Lisa Trumbauer:
  • Counting to 100, pg 178.
  • Skip counting by 2s, pgs 179-180.
• Literature: “The Kid and the Wolf”, Aesop’s Fables (Milo Winter Edition).(Also found online here.)
• Natural History: The Old Orchard Bully – The English or House Sparrow, from The Burgess Bird Book, by Thornton Burgess.
• Poetry: “Travel”, A Child’s Garden of Verses (during Tea Time)

Library Day

• Nature Study – Free Reading: Actual Size, by Steve Jenkins (Fun book that illustrates lots of different animals in real size. One page is nothing but a giant eyeball – the eye of a giant squid! Great for learning bigger/smaller than me/Daddy/refrigerator.)

School Day

• To Start: Pledge/Calendar/Weather
• Natural History: Record our observations of the Monarch caterpillars we’re rearing.
• Memory Work: “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.”Phillipians 4:8 (NLT)
• Math: Count Me a Rhyme, by Jane Yolen
• Artist Study: Raphael Sanzio
  • “St. George and the Dragon”
  • St. George and the Dragon, by Margaret Hodges
• History:
  • “Diogenes the Wise Man”, from Fifty Famous Stories Retold.
  • Add this story to the timeline in our Book of Centuries.
• Nature Study: Explore Owen and Mzee’s website. (We read their extraordinary story last week and Kate was enthralled. We’ll probably even wind up reading the second book about them next week!)
• Natural History: Moses the Kitten, from James Herriott’s Treasure for Children: Warm and Joyful Tales.
• Phonics: “ABC Lineups” Introducing the concept of alphabetical order, from A+ Activities for First Grade, by Naomi E, Singer and Matthew J. Miller, pg 8.
  • Start by looking at a phonebook or dictionary and pointing out that words on a page all begin with the same letter. Move from one letter the next, asking your child to predict what will come next.
  • Next, print one uppercase letter on a piece of paper. Write 4 words beneath the letter, 3 that start with the letter and 1 that doesn’t. Have your child cross out the word that doesn’t belong.
  • Then write 3 words in a list, for example, ‘hop’, ‘dog’, and ‘tree’. Ask child to circle which comes first, then number in order.
  • Finally challenge your child with lists of 3 words that begin with the same letter and ask them to put them in order by the second letter.
• Literature: “Town Mouse and Country Mouse”, Aesop’s Fables (Milo Winter Edition).
• Poetry: “Singing”, A Child’s Garden of Verses (during Tea Time)

Field Trips/Nature Study

• Science – Free Reading: One Giant Leap, by Robert Burleigh. (Beautiful book that tells the story of the Apollo astronauts first landing on the moon.)