KONOS, first week

This is exciting. We've just finished our first week of KONOS. After our lesson on Tuesday, T (K4) said, "Are we going to do *real* school now?" I loved it!! :) I chose Obedience as our first Unit of study. We have some areas that need worked on. And even after 1 week, I've seen an improvement in them, AND in how I discipline them. It's amazing.

Monday: We discussed the Bible. I introduced it to them as if they had never seen it before. I explained the books, chapters and verses. I showed them the Table of Contents, where they can find the page number of whichever book they need. I had them practice finding a few verses. Then we worked on memorizing the first 5 books. Poor C had the hardest time remembering, he would say Leparticus and Deuteronomous.

Tuesday: I quizzed them on the first 5 books several times throughout the day. They had it by bedtime. We looked up reasons that God gave to obey our parents. (Pr 6:20, Eph 6:1-2, Col 3:2) We played "Mother, may I?", and read Lighthouse by Robert Munsch. We also admired pictures of lighthouses in my calendar :) When it got dark, I walked out into the field where they couldn't see me. Then I said, "Find me!" They started out slow, but then they saw me and ran. So I moved again, and then I turned on my flashlight and shined it like a Lighthouse. They ran right to me. THEN they understood the importance of a lighthouse.

Wednesday: We added the History books (Joshua - Esther) of the OT to our memorization. Since they weren't hard to pronounce, they got them right away. We made a chart of Authority Figures and who to obey. While we did that, we discussed each one. We read The Lighthouse Family by Cynthia Rylant.

Thursday: No school :( Annoying family issues.

Friday: We sorta did two days in one. We talked about Johannes Gutenberg and his invention of the printing press. We did an overview of "how the Bible came to us" with The World's Most Wonderful Book: How The Bible Came To Be. I just bought it, it's really neat. After that I read to them from MOH v1 page 307 about the Lighthouse at Alexandria. I was amazed to find a picture of it in my Bible, so I showed that to them as well. I read out of our Kingfisher's Little Encyclopedia about Light and the Sun. THEN we painted suncatchers!! :)


B finished Primary Math 1A on Friday. She was so excited to get started with 1B that I let her start :) Everything else is going well. I will be ordering HWT, probably Monday. I think what I've decided to do, is get B the 2nd grade printing book and C the 1st grade printing book.

Wordless Wednesday

Time For A Change

Things haven't been going badly. I just don't feel like I'm covering enough. So this is what we're doing...starting Monday. :)

KONOS: I purchased a used, older edition of Volume 1. I've already planned our first week. It's going to be so much fun!! We're starting with Obedience. The next few weeks our objective is to learn WHO to obey. 1. God, 2. Parents, 3. Other Authroities.

A Child's History of the World: Even though KONOS includes history, I think it's important to learn history chronologically. We will continue to read through CHOW, and then begin MOH 1.

Singapore Primary Math: This will remain the same. B will start 1B by the end of the week. C is progressing nicely through 1A.

B: We're moving along in English For The Thoughtful Child 1. I would like a tad bit more teacher instruction, but I don't want to change again just yet. After she's finished we will probably start Learning Language Arts Through Literature Yellow. Her handwriting is atrocious! (wow, no red underlining I think I spelled it right :) In a few weeks we will begin Handwriting Without Tears. She wants to learn cursive so I'm going to start her there.

C: His phonics work is going well. I think he's learning more from Explode the Code than from Ordinary Parent's Guide. We'll take a break from OPG for a while and see what happens. He's also been reading Days Go By (Pathway Reader) with B.

T: We're going through a Preschool Workbook I picked up (at Staples for 50 cents!) and also Get Ready for The Code, Book A. I love the Explode the Code Primers!!

I think I've covered it all. I can't wait to see how it all pans out!

My Mountains :)

Not So Wordless...

We took the kids to see the lights at Bristol Motor Speedway. It was so neat!!

The volcano had real flames!

We actually got to drive on the track! We drove halfway on one of the turns. Physics lesson! :)