From Abi's lessons today:
Penmanship
Since today is a Wednesday, Abi's penmanship task was based on the Bible story she heard today in her BSF class. (Oh - How I am going to miss BSF next term! I have been attending for almost 5 years!) Each day Abi does penmanship, she traces one sentence, or roughly two lines. Very occasionally she asks to do the writing as copywork and I let her, but I am discovering she has no idea about letter sizing. She needs a lot more practice from tracework before she goes off on her own.
Abigail copied the most marvellous letter from a book the other day. Unfortunately she had already sealed it up in an envelope to be posted before I had time to photocopy it. The inspiration for that was watching Anna at work writing letters. Abigail loves writing mostly because she sees Anna love writing, I think. I only wish she would learn enthusiasm for reading the same way!
Maths
Abi's favourite part of her homeschooling lessons is the maths. We are using the Singaporean program Earlybird Mathematics and, having finished 1B, Abigail is now working through 2A. At the moment she is doing one "Lesson" (that is, roughly a week's worth of work) each day we sit down together. But we don't do homeschooling lessons every day, so it has taken three weeks to get through the first nine lessons of the book. That is still moving at three times the standard pace. Abigail is really enjoying the lessons on measurement that we are doing at the moment and keeps asking to do more, but I am learning that one "Lesson" worth of material is enough, otherwise her brain gets too crowded and she can no longer concentrate on the rest of her studies.
I made some number cards for Abigail which she lines up in order each lesson. She uses them to remind herself what each numeral looks like before she writes it, if she cannot remember. This has helped with Abi's number recognition, which is already fairly good given I only started teaching her about numerals this year. Abigail seems to get her numerals consistently the correct way around, which is encouraging to me since her elder siblings both reversed them sometimes (and still do occasionally). Abigail seems to have taken to the concept of numerals well, and perhaps better than either of her elder siblings. This is balanced by her struggle to recognise individual letters, however.
Geography
Today was the last day Abi has spent of at term of World Geography. I read her a little bit of information each day about various features of the world, and she stuck the relevant stickers in the appropriate places on the world map. Granny found this make-your-own-map atlas for us, and Abigail has enjoyed it. I am not sure how much she can remember, but at least she is now familiar with the names of the continents and oceans.
This geography study has also given me a great opportunity to talk with Abi about our (ie, Jeff's and my) upcoming holiday to the USA, and to mention some of the things we will see - or not - while we are there. Personally, I am hoping that we will miss out on seeing rattlesnakes, although their sticker sits smack in the middle of the places we intend to visit! I hope to post a basic itinerary in the near future, and I will be posting on the blog each day of our holiday (God willing!) so that our kids can keep track of where we are and what we are doing. So keep an eye out here if you are interested! We shall be leaving Perth on Easter Monday, 2010.
Wednesday 17 March 2010
Update on Abigail's homeschooling
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2 comments:
It is thrilling to see Abi maturing. How can it be that she is four and my Toby is four? Is she nearly five?
Children are so interesting. Lane was drawing all sort of things at three years old, but Toby could care less about a pencil even at 4, and I've had to work harder at giving him pre-writing activities to get him working at making lines and circles. On the other hand, Toby has been pretty proficient with scissors for about a year now.
I loved the pictures of Abi doing her math book. That program looks really great. I looked into it a few weeks ago, possibly for my daughters, but at this point I think it would be too late to switch and get the benefit. It does make me wonder if it would be a good thing for Toby to start out with, however. We have a "Singapore US version." I wonder if that is mostly to include English measurements and the like. Do they make an "Australian" version or what do you use?
I seriously doubt that you will see rattlesnakes, but I suppose it is possible that you might on a hike in a national park. When we go to the lake we see little water snakes, which give us the creeps but otherwise slither off without any harm.
She has the cutest smile! She reminds me of my Grace -- looks so eager to learn.
Can't wait to see your plans for your trip. I don't think you need to worry about rattlesnakes either. Even after growing up in Texas, I've never seen a live rattlesnake, except in a zoo.
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