Welcome to week ONE of our homeschool journal where I will be sharing the highlights of our week!
Books for the week
These are most of the books that we used for this week.
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Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt
Monday
We started the week off by reading a brief intro on Beatrix Potter. I had never really learned much about her and honestly only had read a couple of her stories. Little Miss and I wanted to learn more about the author whose stories we would be reading for many weeks to come, so I ordered the book Over the Hills and Far Away: The Life of Beatrix Potter for us to read. We reviewed where England is located and I had her guess how far she thought it was from where we live. Her guess was 150 miles (way off). I googled it and wrote it down beside her answer, and she did the math on the difference.
After our short geography lesson, we dove into the much loved tale of Peter Rabbit.
I had her narrate the story back to me and narrate a version where Peter had listened to his mother. That’s when the character trait of the week got brought up.
Obedience
We had a discussion on the importance of being obedient to your parents, and she gave me some examples of being obedient and what the consequences could be for disobeying.
I decided to hang up our character trait each week above the kids little activity table, low enough for both of them to see it.
The first copy work of the new year was a success! How wonderful it is to not have copy work be a big battle Every. Single. Time. We made another compromise that she could pick out the fairies (from her Fairy book I mentioned here) each week. The first one she choose was the Snowdrop Fairy.
Our Science topic was learning about bunnies. She adores learning about animals. We were learning about all the breeds and the difference between all of them! Learning about the bunnies reminded her of one summer when she got to help care for some baby bunnies after the mother left them.
Tuesday
Today Miss 8 learned how to sew on buttons as our handicraft. She wanted to trace her designs with the cookie cutters she got for Christmas. She chose to do a unicorn and cloud design for this craft.
I got these Buttons and felt on Amazon. She loved them for the different colors and sizes for her projects. The nesting trays came from Etsy from a cute little shop WillowPineTN. RT uses them for play and they make cute little trays for crafts or activities.
For Science and Nature Studies, we learned the cycle of a plant, discussed photosynthesis, (she can pronounce it better than I can!) and went over all the different kinds of seeds there are. I had her choose how she wanted to show me the cycle of a plant, and she loved the diagram idea. Luckily, I had an extra box she could use. She picked out felt and paint and used some modeling clay. It turned out lovely and she had a lot of fun in the process of making it and explaining the process to me.
Wednesday
Today we went to co-op and Miss 8 practiced for the puppet play she and her class are in. When we got home, we completed Math, English, Copywork, and handwriting quickly.
I had her sign her words to me this week, since she knew how to spell all of them. Instead of writing down her vocab words, I had her use them in a sentence after finding them in the dictionary. I only give her two or three vocab words a day.
One of the books we read today was Up in the Garden, Down in the Dirt. Little Miss loved the illustrations in this book. We talked about what we want our garden to have this coming Summer and what kinds of tools we might need for it. She designed her own vegetable garden in her notebook. For her craft of the day, she wanted to make a diagram of the book we read.
The last book we read for today, was called Amelia’s Road. After we read it, we talked about how she thought it would end or what would happen if there were to be another book. It was a sweet little story,
Thursday
Today was a shorter day for us for school. We didn’t get to everything in A year of tales, but that’s okay. My husband and Little Miss set up her robotic crab she got as a Christmas gift. This thing is so neat, and it keeps our little guy entertained!
Instead of only using the stories from Jot It Down, she picked out some of her favorite fairy tale stories that we already owned. She chose The Twelve Dancing Princesses, which used to be one of my favorites; my mom would read it to me when I was little, and it’s one I have made sure to read to my kids. When all of school was done, I found an old movie on Youtube that my mom use to rent from the library called The Dancing Princesses Faerie Tale Theatre to watch. Youtube has a whole bunch of different fairy tale videos!
Friday
This whole week we reviewed proper and common nouns, all the different kinds of verbs, adjectives, and pronouns. We reinforced these with a few activities, like breaking the parts of a sentence onto individual note cards. This English curriculum has been a breath of fresh air for us and has made it her favorite subject, leaving geography in second!
Friday is a day for tea parties and yummy food that we make together, along with her other subjects and a field trip, if possible. The treat this week was tarts. This was our first time making them, and they turned out really good! I love that this curriculum incorporates recipes and tea time.
I didn’t have any tart pans so did have to order some from Amazon. These are the ones that I got.
I hope you enjoyed week one! I’d love to know what you and your kids are learning this week!
littlehouseof4 
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