First Grade. First Month. First Week.

What a fantastic first week of First Grade we had! And let me tell you, I was surely exhausted by the end of the week. There is so much material covered (partly my fault since I am adding Social Studies every day), but holy moly.


As much work as it is, Babe is semi-loving it. I say semi-loving because with a day off in the middle of the week, plus a field trip Thursday afternoon, it definitely took a toll. But she powered through and learned (and picked up on) so much.


"So in First Grade I'm going to be learning a lot of new stuff...?"
"Yes, a ton of new stuff. It won't be like Kindergarten where you pretty much knew it all. We will be learning how to do all new things. So that's why you need to start taking your time and going slow and making sure you understand things before you go to the next thing."
"OK, I can do that!"


So as I've said in the previous blog, I will be writing by subject, not by day. I think it'll be easier to organize and write that way, so I'm going to try it. For those who read, let me know what you think of the new set up.


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Math:
Babe has been blowing through Math like nobody's business. If you recall, she's been in First Grade Math for a few months now and this week she just finished up Chapter 6 - learning fractions and how to add and subtract fractions (half, third, fourth). I was so so so so nervous about this part because I personally can't stand this kind of Math. I hate it! haha


But of course she surprised me and picked it up like nothing. She is quite good at it, actually.


We started off the week by practicing recognizing what each fraction looked like. She figured out that half was the biggest fraction and fourth was the smallest. I showed her that even though the number on the bottom, the denominator, was bigger, the fraction was actually a smaller piece of pizza.


I cut out three equal-sized circles and then had her draw them into halves, thirds, and fourths. She did, even did the thirds one perfectly! Again, surprised.


When I knew she had a good grasp on knowing what each fraction looked like, it was time to start adding fractions. I then had her cut those circles up into their fractions. This made it tremendously easier for her to see that one third plus one third is two thirds! We used these a lot for the rest of the week.

On Friday, she completed her Chapter 6 test. Nearly halfway done with First Grade Math already! PHEW!


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Reading/Writing/Comprehension:
After being tested at the end of Kindergarten, we were told that Babe's comprehension is at nearly a third grade level, with her reading level at mid-second grade. I already know that the Houghton-Mifflin Reading Books that Calvert has provided for us are way too easy for her, however, the woman who tested Babe suggested I start having her dictate sentences I read to her.


So each day this week, I had Babe write the sentence I said. She kind of did this flawlessly, even adding an apostrophe s at the appropriate place.


"Where did you learn to do that?!"
"On PBS Kids remember? On Electric Company. They said if it's somebody's, then you add an 's because it's theirs!"


::falls over::


I don't even know where to go from there. haha


Babe read 30 books in June (!!!!!) but with this week being so crazy, she only got one down in her July reading log so far.


There was one story I had to read aloud for her to answer some questions about. The main thing she had to do was listen for the lesson the father taught his sons.


In the story, the three sons were always arguing and fighting, so the father asked each of them to break the pile of sticks in half. When each son couldn't, he then asked them to break one stick. They each broke one stick very easily.


"Ohhhh I get it. When the sticks are all together, in a pile, you can't break them because they are working together! Like the sons should work together! Cuz when they are alone, they are easy to break!"


Perfection.


I then had her try the activity, but with toothpicks. She couldn't break five toothpicks, but one snapped in half so easily!

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Science:

Science! A completely new subject for Babe (other than the small experiments we did in Kindergarten). But in First Grade, she gets an actual textbook that she already loves. Science looks like it will be intense this year, but with patience and fun, Babe will enjoy it in time. We had a rough first week, but like I said, I think it's because of the insane amount of activity.

On Monday she was introduced to Science as a subject. We read through new vocabulary, though because of her love for Sid the Science Kid (on PBS Kids), she recognized the terms observe and compare - things she had to do for her first Science activity.

We read through the designated pages, then created tables with the animals listed. She did pretty good with this, though exhaustion was starting to take over at this point.

For her first Science activity, she needed to observe three different kinds of fruit. However, there was a twist. She needed to observe them while blindfolded. So I cut up a strawberry, a kiwi, and an orange and asked her to only smell each one first. She was able to identify the strawberry and orange only. When I asked her to feel each one, she was able to identify each one correctly!

She really liked doing this, but when it came time to record her observations (in complete sentences) she had a meltdown and didn't want to answer in complete sentences. I gave her a fifteen minute cool off, and when she came back to the table, I calmly explained to her that in First Grade, her brain needs to work extra hard to explain to others what she saw and did. After a little coaxing, she completed her Science worksheet.

Friday was the next Science day, and Babe was introduced to more Science terms and I taught her how to use a ruler to measure objects. She practiced measuring some bugs that were in the book, and made a table to organize her data. I then threw in a curve ball. After she had all bugs measured, I showed her three more bugs and had her add them to her table in the correct places (she created her table with the measurements going smallest to biggest). 

She did this so smoothly, like it wasn't even a curveball. Seriously. I'm trying to make it hard here, people!

Anyway, after she added the three new bugs, she made an official table and while Babe was very good at reading the ruler to find the measurement, using the ruler as a straight edge was another story.

Since she is so particular and perfect about everything she does, she had a fit when I wouldn't help her hold the ruler as she drew a straight line. I told her that I wanted to see if she could do it first, by herself. When the ruler moved a centimeter due to the pressure of her pencil, she had a fit and grew so frustrated.

I again gave her a fifteen minute cool off. When she came back to the table, she tried again. I asked her to go slow and be patient. She finished her table with no more movement from her ruler. When she drew her last line, she looked at me with a huge smile. 

"I DID IT!"

That she did.

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Social Studies:

I think out of all the subjects, I had the most fun with Social Studies this week. I personally love US History, and love even more the little trivial bits of information that most people don't know. 

The first day was spent introducing Social Studies as a whole - explaining that there are four different themes: civics, geography, history, and economics. We went over what each one meant, and what each one had to do with.

Tuesday we reviewed the Pledge of Allegiance, and after she recited it, we went through word by word and learned what the Pledge was about, who wrote it, and why it was written. I read her "The Pledge of Allegiance" by Norman Pearl and it was the perfect, perfect book on all things Pledge. It is written from Francis Bellamy's point of view and it really helped Babe understand the meaning and time of when he wrote it.

"That means this is history! Because we are learning about the past, when The Pledge was written!"

"Yep! You are right!"

Awesome.

As a craft to go along with Bubs' "F is for Fireworks" lesson, we painted fireworks with toothpicks on Tuesday to ring in the holiday.

At the end of the week, I introduced Babe to The National Anthem. I played her an instrumental version and asked her if she's ever heard of it. She said she heard it before while watching the Olympics (the gymnastics trials). I told her that was very good because they play it a lot at the Olympics! I then read her another Normal Pearl book with the same kind of theme - written from the point of view of Francis Scott Key. Again, this really helped her understand how the words came about. 

The book had a trivia fact that the flag at Fort McHenry (the spot Key was in when he wrote his poem) was 42 feet long. After I read the book, I immediately took Babe outside and we measured out 42 feet! After measuring ten feet, I realized it was one square of the driveway. So I took the ruler away from Babe and had her figure out how many squares 40 feet would be.

"Hmm...four squares would be four sets of ten. That's 40. So four squares!"

"Yes!!! Let's go to the end of four squares. Now, how many more rulers do you need to measure out to be 42 feet?"

"Two more feet!"

Amazing.

I finished drawing out the huge rectangle, and if it was nearly 100 degrees outside, we would have actually colored the flag. But standing 42 feet from each other still had an effect and Babe really liked seeing how big the flag was.

It's hard to see, but in the last picture the flag would be the light blue chalk line. In the middle picture, the camera is set at 50mm, which is what the naked eye sees. So I'm standing at one end of the flag, and Babe is standing on the other!

"That's a huge flag!"

haha

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With that, Babe's first week of school was complete! 


Bubs and Z had an extra week off from bin work and will resume this week with more beach-themed activities.


First week done! What a ride!!!

9.4.3.

I'm going to (try) to keep this short because I have a ton of stuff to do yet for tomorrow.


But yes, today was the last day of scheduled lessons for Babe. 160 Calvert Lessons! AMAZING. We had so much fun and Babe said she can't wait to start First Grade already! The gap between the two grades has yet to be decided.


Babe started with Math and did a quick lesson on fractions, concentrating on one third. She completed her worksheets, and then we went ahead and started on completing her writing assignment - her own story!


I had her transcribe her original draft onto other paper, emphasizing the use of her "very best handwriting." She was so excited to begin.

 

While Babe worked on her story,  I worked a bit with Z and Bubs on recalling their shapes. Bubs was able to recall EVERY ONE OF THEM without hesitation, woohoo! Z still had trouble with rectangle and diamond, but with some repetition he was able to also say them all towards the end of the lesson.

I let them play with the tangrams a bit, then when Babe said she didn't want to take a break from writing, I brought out the Old King Cole bowls for Z and Bubs to start painting.

 

Babe ended up transcribing her whole story in one sitting (with minimal complaints about sweaty hands and tired fingers). 

"I think I'm going to illustrate after lunch."

"That's a good idea."

I then grabbed her bowl so she could paint hers.

"Can I have brown, pink, and black? I'm going to make a bear."

"A bear? You're going to paint a bear on the bowl?"

"You'll see."

I was very impressed with her creativity during this craft. She didn't paint an ordinary bowl, she literally turned the bowl into a bear.

I have no idea where she comes up with this stuff.

While lunch was cooking, I grabbed the US Map from the back room and had her collect all the postcards she has has received from her grandparents (they are traveling cross-country and mailing postcards at each spot). I outlined each state they have been to so far and circled the location of the postcard's origin.

I then had her put the postcards in order of when her grandparents travelled.

We then hung the postcards up on the mantle (in order) and I had her draw each state on a scrap piece of paper so she could easily see where each card came from.

"I can't wait to see where they go next!"

"Me neither!"

Before Babe spent the rest of the day illustrating her story, I handed her the book "Detective (Little Boy) Blue" by Steve Metzger. I waited all month to read this book and I wasn't disappointed! I told Babe it might be a little hard to read (it is in comic book format), but she got through it pretty easily and was wide-eyed at the mention of each Mother Goose poem's name or characters.

The plot of the story is that Miss Muffett went missing and Detective Blue is on a mission to find her. He questions a bunch of different characters from different nursery rhymes, until he gets a clue that leads him to her location! I don't even want to spoil the ending here but Babe was so amused at the ending. I'm so glad I found that book. Babe loved it!

After she read that, I read her "Kindergarten Cat" by J. Patrick Lewis. Very cute story.

Next was Babe's turn to read again, and she read "The Last Day of Kindergarten" by Nancy Loewen. She breezed through this book! Crazy!

Then I was up with "When It's the Last Day of School" by Maribeth Boelts. Another good one.

Babe saw the theme right away and previously knew it was the last day of school, but only got excited after reading these books. 

"I can't wait to go to the beach!"

ha!

She spent the next couple of hours illustrating her story and didn't even get to finish! I surprised them with a new movie that even I was excited to see, but my end of the day came before it ended, so I told Babe she needed to tell me what happened at the end.

"OK! But you have to remind me."

haha. What a grown up.

And with that, KINDERGARTEN WAS OVER! Today wasn't too thrilling because tomorrow is her real last day of Kindergarten, but today finished up the Calvert lesson plans. WOOHOO!!!

I have a four-day weekend to go through Calvert First Grade and plan out June's unit for The Littles: The Beach!

9.4.2.

Babe started the day working a bit more with fractions and recognizing one fourth of a shape. She did pretty good with that, but still wanting to say “one two-th” for one half when she sees it as one over two. Interesting way to look at things...but with repetitive practice she was back to saying “one half” in no time.

After some worksheets, I had her cut a cookie into quarters.

She did! 

The Mother Goose poem today was “Humpty Dumpty” which both girls knew. I cut apart a themed-Mother Goose Time puzzle for each of them and had them put it together before we did the Humpty Dumpty activity. I love love love Bubs' progression of completion here.

Z had a little help from Babe. 

Babe finished in no time.

When each completed their puzzles, I had them take turns putting another Humpty Dumpty together. We played the game on the floor, and Humpty started assembled. While they recited the poem, I blew on the puzzle pieces when they said the line “Humpty Dumpty had a great fall”, in which all the pieces went all over the floor. Then they took turns being the King’s (wo)man to help put him back together again.

They did this over and over. And over. And over again. Bubs loved that I called her “Miss Queen.”

After lunch, Babe finished up her story and we went over the misspelled words. It was weird, towards the end of the story, the harder words she was sounding out changed spelling, closer to the correct way. For example, she started off her story by spelling family as “famlee”, then at the end of the story, it ended up being “faimlee.” It was almost like she knew there was supposed to be an “i” in there, but no idea where. It’s actually pretty cool. And I blame her immense amount of reading for that one.

We ended the day with a little Science lesson in different ways to sort different animals. She started by sorting the animals into habitats.

Then she sorted them by types of noses. (???) And apparently, dogs and fish have the same kinds of nose, “because their noses are on top and their mouths are under their nose.”

Makes sense. Kind of. She's kind of right. Right? haha

Next was type of hair. ("This dog has really long here and all the rest of these have medium hair.")

Then number of legs.

“Wow, there’s lots of ways to sort animals!”

Yep! Amazing.

And with that, on to hump day and her last day for Kindergarten lessons!!!!

9.4.1.

Last week of Kindergarten! GAH! Babe knows it, too! Here we go!


In Math we did a little bit more fraction work. I made one of her worksheets a bit more challenging (I had her color a specified fraction of each shape) and she breezed through it.

I don't care, though. haha. I'm going as slow as possible so she retains this info as much as possible. After some worksheets, I asked her to cut a cookie in half.


She did.

 

Her Mother Goose poem of the day was "Old King Cole." After she recited it, I had her help me cut out crowns for everyone. She started by cutting a sheet of paper in half! More practice! Woohoo! :)

Then Babe, Bubs, and Z all decorated their crowns.

 

 





















When they finished, I got out a bit of the moldable air-dry clay for each of them, then handed them a ball. I showed them how to make a bowl with their clay and ball. Bubs loved this and molded her bowl over and over, flattening her bowl then making it over again with her ball. Pretty cool activity and thought of in 60 seconds or less. haha.

Since we have to wait for the bowls to dry before we decorate them, there aren't any final pictures yet!


Outside play. Lunch.


After lunch, Babe and I headed outside to conclude our Spring Experiment. To our surprise, one of the plants actually produced a (miniature) bean! Can you guess which one?


The sand cup not only produced the consistently tallest plant throughout the experiment, but also produced the bean at last minute!


After she recorded her observations, she wrote a conclusion and realized her prediction was wrong. She wasn't too thrilled about being wrong...haha.


We then breezed through Reading Comprehension, but only after writing four sentences in her story (to make up for Friday).


We then discussed more animal behavior and habitats in Science. I read her "Our Nest" by Reeve Lindbergh (which is one of the best best best bedtime books ever), and the story helped her think of more animals that live in different habitats. With that, she completed her worksheets and we were done for the day.


Moving right along! Here we come, Tuesday!