We've started to make our way through
The Story of the World Vol 1: Ancient Times by Susan Wise Bauer. I didn't purchase the additional activity book, figuring I'd just come up with those extra reinforcement activities on my own.
Earlier this month, we started in the Intro chapter and after reading it, made a small sketch of a family tree showing mostly just people that A knew. (Our family's history) I'd run across what was said to be a 'montessori-inspired' timeline activity which we also did. I liked how it gave more of a hands-on view of history and the passage of time.
Today, we read more in chapter 1, colored a map of the Fertile Crescent area, and built a shaduf out of tinker toys.
Once dad got home, she explained to him what it was used for.
A is also going through
Alpha-Phonics by Blumenfeld and (an old, now public domain math book originally published in 1897)
Graded Work in Arithemetic by S W Baird.
In addition to Nature Study, we'll also work through
Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding by Bernard Nebel, for science.
L is starting week 3 of the Preparatory Curriculum at letteroftheweek.com. So far, we're averaging 2 weeks to complete 1 lesson week. I don't really do many of the recommended activities, but just post the theme, vocab word, number, color or shape, and nursery rhyme; and touch on those things as we go about our day and also pick up books from the library related to those topics. Once I sense mastery, or as-good-as-we're-going-to-get-for-now, I switch to the next week.
This week's CSA cucumber. Too bad this week's letter wasn't "J".
Baby I is growing so fast! It's hard to believe he's 5 and a half months old already. He's quickly mastering sitting unassisted and gaining some mobility by rolling around.
He gets mad when he sees us eating and don't give him any, so we've caved and let him 'taste' (but not injest!) a few fruits and veggies. Watermelon was a definite favorite and raw organic carrots make great teethers.
Last week I took advantage of Target's failed attempt at turning cloth-diapering mainstream and snagged this originally $20 Charlie Banana pocket diaper for just over $6. Cute, huh?
The girls and dad have been playing their own version of Clue quite a bit lately. In 'Their Version', the object is to figure out who stole the cookies, cards are laid out facing up so all can see, and dice aren't used to move. Each turn, the player just jumps to their desired room. Oh, and the highlight is when dad (he was an english major), comes up with and tells a story worthy of literary acclaim. Or so he'd like to think, but it definitely takes some talent to come up with a believable story about how cookies were stolen with a rope or revolver. Ha!
A couple weeks ago, we worked on getting our notebooks organized. Office Depot had a sale on a box of 12 binders for $15, so I decided I wouldn't need to wait for back-to-school sales to make that purchase. For "family" notebooks, I made a Nature Notebook and Book of Centuries. Once A gets a little older she can create her own nature and timeline notebooks, but for now, we'll let mom & dad set an example for neatness. We also created a "Field Trip" notebook to document places we go and trips we take plus keep a list of places we'd like to visit.
We made A notebooks for history, science, "words", and "numbers". Basically, a place to put her papers as they're created over the next year. And L has a notebook for all her coloring pages that she just scribbles on. I'll have to take and post a pic of the notebooks next time. :-)
