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| Another week of first grade... |
His big brother was sick and unable to visit us when scheduled, so Robbie wrote him a get well letter.
*sighs* Copywork.. it's a daily struggle. Here is a pic I snapped of a very upset Robbie who was refusing to do his copywork. He did do it, once he calmed down. (See first collage in this post... he still wasn't happy about it.)
On a more positive note, Robbie is now choosing (freely!) to read a few times per week. I snapped this photo of him reading from a Legend of Zelda manga book he received for Christmas. (It's still strange for me to see a book printed back to front.) Great literature? No. Inspired children's book? Nope. I suppose I'll just have to continue to read those sorts of things to him. Hopefully, he'll come around one day.
Books we enjoyed (either as read-alouds or shared/independent reading):
If you read my post last week, you know that I have been struggling to have less ... well... struggles with our math lessons. RockerDad suggested that things were progressing too slowly for Robbie's abilities. I was afraid of moving too fast. I decided that my husband's fresh eyes might have noticed something that I have missed, so we switched things up a bit this week.
I didn't make Robbie write every answer (or even do every problem, if he showed proficiency and understanding), and he zoomed through our entire week's math lessons in one morning. I had to stop him.
Since I hadn't planned for our weekly math to be completed on Monday, we simply enjoyed whichever hands-on activities or math games Robbie chose on the other days. I will be condensing our plans, whenever possible to move at his pace. I'm thinking that I'll keep our math schedule very flexible, so that we can move forward when he understands and hang out a bit when he needs the practice. (Sounds a bit more like how I did math in Pre-K and K with Robbie, huh?)
Games pictured above: Corners (with our subtraction modification) and addition war. The corners cards were part of our Rightstart Math Card Games and the ten frames cards can be downloaded for free here.
Ancient Sumer was our history topic for this week (as well as for next). We read about the culture, daily life, slavery and other things. We built the Ziggurat of Ur out of Legos (yes, I helped, but the design and work was mostly Robbie's.. I really just helped with structural integrity.). He said that the temple on the top should be blue, so we made it so.
The Doctor (a mini figure he made of the 11th Doctor) and his Mario guys have had many adventures in Sumer this week.
He completed pages for his History notebook...
Books used this week:
The "wormy" lunch pictured above was an enormous hit. He had cheese worms, cucumber worms, cashew grubs and wormsketti (I used food coloring in the water as I boiled the pasta. It looked pretty disgusting, but boys love that sort of thing, don't they?) Oh, and he drank "dirt juice" (iced tea).
Books used this week:
I had planned for us to watch this video (Wild Kratts: Mystery of the Squirmy Wormy), but our internet won't be able to handle our Amazon Prime Videos for another month or so. It's no big deal here, since he's watched it before.
As I mentioned last week, Robbie learned the Greek alphabet on his own. Now, we're just working on immediate recognition and writing skills. I find it odd that he can't stand to do things he already knows when it comes to math, but he never complains about the seemingly tedious review work in his Greek book. (When I say "never complains", what I really mean is that he begs to do it first each day... and even on weekends.)
I'm so glad that I listened to him when he told me that he really wanted to learn Greek. It's the most enjoyable part of our school day. We'll still study Latin in the future, but I don't regret our last-minute curriculum change.
Snow isn't really common where we live. Even when it falls, it rarely sticks. When it sticks, it's usually about this much and it's gone by 10 AM. This tiny bit of snow stayed in our yard for a few days.
We all worked a bit on his first ever Pinewood Derby car for Cub Scouts. He's a Tiger Cub, so his adult partner(s) are expected to help. He wanted a TARDIS car, so RockerDad showed him various body profiles online and Robbie chose one. RockerDad cut it out, Robbie rough-sanded and his Daddy did the final sanding. Robbie painted it. I printed out the windows, signs and door panels and we glued them on together. It was a great project to work on as a family!
Oh, and the Derby was fun, too!
Well, that just about sums up our week. I look forward to seeing what others have been up to this week!
Linking Up At (when applicable)
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| A letter to his big brother |
*sighs* Copywork.. it's a daily struggle. Here is a pic I snapped of a very upset Robbie who was refusing to do his copywork. He did do it, once he calmed down. (See first collage in this post... he still wasn't happy about it.)
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| Copywork struggles and frustration?? Yep, we've got 'em. |
On a more positive note, Robbie is now choosing (freely!) to read a few times per week. I snapped this photo of him reading from a Legend of Zelda manga book he received for Christmas. (It's still strange for me to see a book printed back to front.) Great literature? No. Inspired children's book? Nope. I suppose I'll just have to continue to read those sorts of things to him. Hopefully, he'll come around one day.
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| Dressed as Link, with his Link plushie and reading about Link |
Books we enjoyed (either as read-alouds or shared/independent reading):
If you read my post last week, you know that I have been struggling to have less ... well... struggles with our math lessons. RockerDad suggested that things were progressing too slowly for Robbie's abilities. I was afraid of moving too fast. I decided that my husband's fresh eyes might have noticed something that I have missed, so we switched things up a bit this week.
I didn't make Robbie write every answer (or even do every problem, if he showed proficiency and understanding), and he zoomed through our entire week's math lessons in one morning. I had to stop him.
Since I hadn't planned for our weekly math to be completed on Monday, we simply enjoyed whichever hands-on activities or math games Robbie chose on the other days. I will be condensing our plans, whenever possible to move at his pace. I'm thinking that I'll keep our math schedule very flexible, so that we can move forward when he understands and hang out a bit when he needs the practice. (Sounds a bit more like how I did math in Pre-K and K with Robbie, huh?)
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| Geoboard multiplication review.. intro to area/perimeter |
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| Math card games... much happier boy! |
Games pictured above: Corners (with our subtraction modification) and addition war. The corners cards were part of our Rightstart Math Card Games and the ten frames cards can be downloaded for free here.
Ancient Sumer was our history topic for this week (as well as for next). We read about the culture, daily life, slavery and other things. We built the Ziggurat of Ur out of Legos (yes, I helped, but the design and work was mostly Robbie's.. I really just helped with structural integrity.). He said that the temple on the top should be blue, so we made it so.
The Doctor (a mini figure he made of the 11th Doctor) and his Mario guys have had many adventures in Sumer this week.
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| Ancient Sumer: Ziggurat of Ur |
He completed pages for his History notebook...
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| Ancient Sumer: Map, vocabulary and copywork |
This week, Robbie learned about worms (mostly earthworms). We didn't have much to do (and no project... we've had a worm farm before and he told me that he wasn't interested in having another), but we read a bit in books and online.
He used the new "All About..." sheets I mentioned last week, and they seem to be a MUCH better fit for our current needs.
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| Learning a bit about worms.. and eating a "wormy" lunch. |
The "wormy" lunch pictured above was an enormous hit. He had cheese worms, cucumber worms, cashew grubs and wormsketti (I used food coloring in the water as I boiled the pasta. It looked pretty disgusting, but boys love that sort of thing, don't they?) Oh, and he drank "dirt juice" (iced tea).
Books used this week:
I had planned for us to watch this video (Wild Kratts: Mystery of the Squirmy Wormy), but our internet won't be able to handle our Amazon Prime Videos for another month or so. It's no big deal here, since he's watched it before.
As I mentioned last week, Robbie learned the Greek alphabet on his own. Now, we're just working on immediate recognition and writing skills. I find it odd that he can't stand to do things he already knows when it comes to math, but he never complains about the seemingly tedious review work in his Greek book. (When I say "never complains", what I really mean is that he begs to do it first each day... and even on weekends.)
 |
| Greek Alphabet Code Cracker |
I'm so glad that I listened to him when he told me that he really wanted to learn Greek. It's the most enjoyable part of our school day. We'll still study Latin in the future, but I don't regret our last-minute curriculum change.
Snow isn't really common where we live. Even when it falls, it rarely sticks. When it sticks, it's usually about this much and it's gone by 10 AM. This tiny bit of snow stayed in our yard for a few days.
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| Yep.. it was a blizzard! |
We all worked a bit on his first ever Pinewood Derby car for Cub Scouts. He's a Tiger Cub, so his adult partner(s) are expected to help. He wanted a TARDIS car, so RockerDad showed him various body profiles online and Robbie chose one. RockerDad cut it out, Robbie rough-sanded and his Daddy did the final sanding. Robbie painted it. I printed out the windows, signs and door panels and we glued them on together. It was a great project to work on as a family!
Oh, and the Derby was fun, too!
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| Robbie's TARDIS car took 2nd place in the Tiger Den's Pinewood Derby. |
Well, that just about sums up our week. I look forward to seeing what others have been up to this week!
Linking Up At (when applicable)
Such a cool week! I love all the worm food :-)
ReplyDeleteThank you! He is still talking about the wormy meal.
DeleteYou made a TARDIS car! That may be the most awesome derby car I have ever seen.
ReplyDeleteLOL! Robbie said, "Thank you!" He all but demanded a TARDIS car.
DeleteHave you tried setting a timer for the copywork? I know sometimes my boy needs a little motivation. Then either a positive or negative repercussion if he gets it done by the time the timer goes off. Just a thought =)
ReplyDeleteI may have to try that. He's been a bit better about it, but we'll see how long it lasts. ;)
DeleteMy boys have never been fans of copywork either.
ReplyDeleteWhen we made ziggurats out of Legos I had to show the kids what I was talking about to get them thinking along the right lines, yours turned out great!
Robbie knew what he wanted. I had to suggest filling the interior with other colors for support (since he would have ran out of yellow bricks). He and I worked together (trial and error) to add the embellishments, though.
DeleteThanks for stopping by!