Row, Row, Row Your Books

Our primary curriculum here at Peregrin House is Five in a Row. We're using pieces of volumes 1, 2 & 3 this year. The idea is to read the selected children's book for 5 days in a row, and to use that book as the core of the lessons for the week. For example, for the past several weeks (yes, more than 5 days)we've been "rowing" Owl Moon by Jane Yolen. This means that we've been learning about the obvious things like owls and the moon, and also a few famous naturalists, how time is measured and marked, and less obvious things like similes and metaphors.

Yesterday Mane wrote some of her own similes and metaphors. "I am like a fuzzy bunny," is one that I recall in particular. Then we found, together, some pictures of Henry David Thoreau and Rachel Carson to print and place in a her school notebook.

Last week Mane watched My Side of the Mountain, a film about a young boy who loved the work of Thoreau so much that he decided he'd do something like Thoreau and go live in the woods by himself for a while.

Also last week, we learned about the phases of the moon. Mane stood in the middle of the room holding a maraca while I shined a flashlight at her (this means that the flashlight was like the sun, Mane's head was the earth, and the round part of the maraca was the moon). She slowly rotated with the maraca in front of her & saw how the light & shadow changed on the maraca while she turned in the same way that the moon goes through phases each month. It was especially enlightening to see that the moon doesn't actually change, and that it doesn't make it's own light.

This week we learned about Apollo 11 and the first people to walk on the moon. Mane's school notebook is full of moon phase pictures, astronauts, owls, and naturalists. Now we're getting ready to say goodbye to Owl Moon and start something new next week.

Next week we'll be making paper butterflies for the Symbolic Butterfly Migration and using the lessons from Journey North to learn about the migration and also some international relations between Canada, U.S., and Mexico.

That's the big plan & some catching up in a nutshell.

Today Mane took test 14 in Math. We're using Math U See, and Mane is working through the Alpha book. Alpha is the equivalent of 1st grade math, and there are a total of 30 lessons. It looks like we may finish both 1st and 2nd grade math this year, depending on the how the rest of the year shapes up. I guess we know Mane's strong point!

Today we also did lesson 50 in The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. Reading is tough for Mane, but we're working our way through it with resolve, and it seems to be coming together for her.

I have to say that a lot of the updates here will be relatively dry. I just need a place to keep track for myself of how things are going. It helps me get a handle on the big picture when I start drowning in the details.