MFW Adventures, Week 1

Well, there is a hurricane a blowin' outside, so I figured I would chill out and blog about Tristan's first week of second grade, which was great! I kept a camera on my desk so I could take some pics whenever we were doing something, I dunno, picture-worthy. I scrapbook you see, which means I must document every second of my child's life, it's a scrapbooking rule. Second scrapbooking rule is to force all family members, friends and casual acquaintances into looking at said pictures and eventually.... completed, lovely, scrapbooks. Which brings us to this post, which will have to tide you over until I'm done my scrapbooks! :) Let's move on shall we??

This week was relatively light. The only history we learned about was Leif Ericcson and the Vikings (terrors of the sea...). We made the timeline that we will be using all year. We used black construction paper with a white line.... it's black, like Space, you know, like the Space-time continuum. Tristan colored all the pieces, I placed them where they go and he glued them down.... using his lego trucks to transport his glue stick.... cause that's how homeschoolers roll....



It's pretty big! We have to extend it out into the hallway. Every time we learn about something new, we'll place a piece on the timeline. We also listen to our "Timeline song" that we use at Classical Conversations while we do this. Then we go over THAT timeline... the one that goes from Creation to Modern America.

Right after History and Geography, we do the "Book Basket". This is just a box, or basket, that you put books in. MFW has a large list of books that correspond to what the child(ren) are learning every week. As long as the book pertains to what you are studying that week, you put it in. Then, at Book Basket time, the child can pick any book they want. They can read it, or just look at the pictures, or the parent can read it to them, whatever. Here is our book basket!



After Book Basket time, aka. "laundry time" for Mommy, we do science, if it is scheduled that day. This week, our experiment was simple. We were talking about what scientists "do". How they make hypotheses, develop theories, observe, etc. I had to take two glasses of water, and have Tristan add LOTS of salt to one. Then I told him we would put an egg in each glass. He needed to make a hypothesis about whether or not the salt water would affect the way the eggs float. Then he observed, and saw that his hypothesis was correct! (He said that the salt would lift up the egg.)









For reading, (not from the Book Basket!) Tristan read "Blueberries for Sal" which was one of my favorite first books as a kid :) We cozy up on the daybed for reading and one of our cats, Tiana, LOVES to snuggle up there with us and "listen" to us reading and talking. She even likes to scratch her chin on the corner of the book!



After reading, we do Math and then Art. Tristan is really liking Art. It's basic, short and sweet. Right now, he's still learning basics, like horizontal and vertical lines. We play classical music and work on being quiet during art. It's supposed to be calming and relaxing... I agree, it is :)





After Art, we finish off with Chinese. I'll go over that in another post because I LOVE our Chinese curriculum and want to review it :)