MFW First Grade Days 98-102

This week we completed days 98-102 of MFW First Grade. I found myself with a cold again last week and gosh it was another doozy, so we'll play a little catch-up now through Easter.

We traveled to Jericho and also met the Judges and Samuel in our Bible History studies. Sugar thought the priests and trumpets who led the soldiers in capturing Jericho were pretty darn intriguing. We read from The Child's Story Bible to delve deeper into the Judges of Israel ... who were the judges and who can we compare them to today?

Sugar continues to blossom in Reading & Phonics. I'm very, very happy with MFW and its presentation and theory behind teaching reading. It has been a dream to witness her go from learning letter sounds, to letter names, to blending, to systematic phonics, to struggling reading, to fluid reading, and now her reading has inflection and the punctuation means something to her. It's so surreal to sit beside her knowing that I taught this child, my first, to read. She has an infectious love of reading as the days go by and I can see it transferring to both Sparkler and Bugsy.

I love the first Proverb we memorized and discussed ... it comes at a really good time as Bugsy is deep in the tantrum trenches. It creates many teachable moments for my girls, too, as they learn to be more patient with him and themselves as Bugsy develops into more of a little person with opinions and feelings.

Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control. Proverbs 25:28

I am so happy with Sugar's Penmanship (oops, missing an "s" in her copywork) ... we can hardly wait to begin Cursive in second grade!

In a separate post I am going to share some of our Drawing from Draw Write Now ... I'm hoping to hear from others on their thoughts on this program.

Have you seen the Come Look With Me series by Gladys Blizzard? These are FaNtAsTiC books for Picture Study. We are really loving studying a piece of art a couple times per week at lunch. Even Bugsy chimes in with what he sees. It makes my heart smile.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="218" caption="The Oddie Children by Sir William Beechey"] A Tough Story by John G Brown

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[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="216" caption="Edward VI as a Child by Hans Holbein the Younger"][/caption]

For our Music Study we are thoroughly enjoying Can You Hear It?. We are savoring one track per week. This is a beautiful, colorful, and smart book on composer and art study. It is very well executed, in my humble, not-musically-inclined opinion. I suppose that when the Senior Editor at the Met authors the book it is bound to be exquisite.

We began the year with The Story of the Orchestra for 12 weeks ... and spent half of that time listening to Peter and the Wolf, and the other half with Carnival of the Animals. MFW First Grade included a coloring book of the orchestra instruments, which has been a wonderful way to busy little hands, which naturally lends to more concentration and memory.

We are continuing to read The Doll People for Storytime. My heartfelt review, "eh." We'll finish it since we started it and I hope to instill perseverance (though, if it were me, I'd move on). The Borrowers accomplishes what *I think* was intended with the The Doll People, with more umph. It has that classic sensibility that cannot be trumped. Next up ... Mr Popper's Penguins. Soon enough.

The last two weeks of Pagoo (Nature Study) took us along as he molted and became more and more of a little hermit crab, with all the right parts, but still only the wee size of a pencil eraser. Amazingly, one of our crabs, Sam, ALSO molted. Pretty darn cool. Love it when connections are made effortlessly (though, Sam might disagree with the "effortlessly" part).

Oh, I saw that Queen has a Pagoo nature study. I just ordered it, so we'll be taking a short break until it arrives. I hope that it helps me to see Pagoo in all new ways and share those newfound curiosities with my children.

Sugar is still really responding to Singapore for Math. We will be finished with 1A in three weeks when we'll move on to 1B. I wholeheartedly believe that our months with Miquon Orange set her up for success with Singapore and I plan on doing the same with my younger children. We also tackle Calculadder daily. She has a competitive spirit and LOVES it!

There were two sweet activities scheduled with MFW this week ... a woven mat and sampling Bible times food. Looking ahead we got really eager for the activity in which we make a shepherd's bag ... so, I combined them all.

We (when I say we, I mean DADDY ... yes, he's that dreamy) did some weaving and made a potholder ... Sugar wove the material and daddy bound the edges (tough for little people). The fun part is that we are making two to weave together into a little bag, aka the shepherd's bag. We will fill it with our food finds from the market and enjoy our "desert" walk (it is going to be 50 tomorrow!) after church tomorrow.

We're heading to a local farmer's market tomorrow to find Bible Times food to sample ... dates, figs, almonds, olives, pomegranates, and goat's cheese. Then we'll visit the library and get some books with beautiful pictures of these age-old foods. I'll post pics next week when we make a shepherd's bag to carry our food while we take a little "desert" walk.

Full week ... did I say First Grade was winding down too fast? Boy was I mistaken.

Because of Him.