Moving up a grade

Wow it has been a while. We are just beginning our 1st grade year. We just ended our second week. So far we are doing great! We have already doing some switching around with subjects. We were going to finish Math U See Beta, however , I did not like how much she had to use her fingers so we have moved to games and MEP. The games have bee n a great hit. She is also like the MEP because to her it doesn't seem so “math” but little does she know she is gaining knowledge and confidence. She is picking up speed with some on line games. XtraMath is the one we have been using for the last two weeks and we just started one today. It is more game based so I will see if I will continue that one because I don't like the video games aspect. Daddy said “Not sure we are going to keep with it as she is having more fun with the game and not caring about the point of the game.” I rather the card games and the games I am finding from other blogs. Board games with math addition and subtraction facts as well as spill and add math have been the biggest hits. We are going to start a system that I saw on line called BUILD. Buddy, Use manipulatives, independent reading, Learning about numbers/Logic Doing Math. We will add Life of Fred as part of the Independent reading as well as books from the library. Story of the world is rocking along. She isn't wanting to turn books back to the library (which is fun because she has complained every time we start to read one then she gets in to them or the pictures) so she can reread them. Yeah! We have done two projects. We went on a dig in the garden looking for broken pots. She was so cute when she was pointing out the things that we were doing that was not how they really do them but it was ok because it was just as fun. We did a cave painting with crumbled up grocery bag over a large bucket. I left her in the school room to paint a story. She had blast painting and then giving me a long story of how she had crops then she painted a shaduf so she could water her crops and the animals she had on her farm. This is such a big hit she wants to do it again tomorrow. We did try to make a tent/shelter out of the large limb that fell out of our tree however someone was running a small fever and it was 106 degrees outside so it didnt work well. She is working on making a family history for each family member. We are going to work on that over labor day weekend when the whole family will be over. We are decorating the pages now and will do the interviewing while they are here. I am typing up the review questions and letting her answer them and I am pleasantly surprised how well she is doing. First Language Lessons. I planed to drag out the lessons nope she wont stand for that. She is doing a lesson a day. I have a feelling I will so have to start something else sooner than I planned. We are doing review in All About Spelling. She is rocking through the review cards. We have had a few stumbling points and will continue to review until she is strong in her answers. She is spelling with confidence. We are letting her pick if she wants to write out the words, spell orally, use the tiles or finger spell. She choses finger spelling most of the time because it is faster. Writing with Ease is still something she loves to do. She loves the stories however hates writing the narrations. I have her do it orally first because of her ability to retell the story is remarkable. I wish I had her memory. However when she writes her sentences she will write out the smallest fact she can remember. Normally I would not care however that is the what we are using for her handwriting at the moment. There is not enough pages I could let her do in ETC. She loves doing those pages. One day on summer break she did 18 pages for fun. She is doing My Pals Science and it so fills her need to do workbook pages. She is moving fast forward thru the Diversity book. We are working plants so I have lots books and dvd on order from the library. Plus what we have at home. I want to make this last longer that what it seems to be going to last. She loves it and wants to do it every day. We also are doing Classical Conversations at home. It is remarkable how much she can remember in such a short time. Daddy and I are having to look in the manual to check her. To her this is a huge game. Sadly for us she is winning she is totally beating us on the memory work! We will add Song School Latin in a few weeks as we just ended a summer class on Spanish I am looking for away to keep that going. She LOVED that class. We will be taking Art class with a professional art teacher once a week, a week of drama this summer ending with her playing two roles (not sure if either are speaking roles) and then begin her drama class and ballet and music class in the form of co-ops and then ballet jazz and tap at a studio. Not sure if we are going to do a girlscout type class or not. There is one Keepers of the Faith on Friday afternoons but not sure if I can fit that in. I may try. She loved the girlscouts last year but we just were having issues getting that in evening plus getting to bed at a decent time.