Halfway through 1st Grade

Woohoo! We were so close before the break, but had a few things we needed to complete before I was ready to sign off on week 18. So we got that done this week and we’re officially halfway done.

We usually have a nice start to our day with devotions and listening to the readings Hannah has for Girls Ministries. But we also work through Leading Little Ones to God and have some verse memorization to do.

In history/social studies, we still get to learn about one unreached people group a week in From Akebu to Zapotec and one missionary story from Missionary Stories with the Millers. We finished up our study of Ancient Egypt and moved into other early civilizations and the beginnings of Rome. We read Tut’s Mummy:Lost . . . And Found and had selected readings from Usborne Book of World History and Child’s History of the World. As we learned about Greece, we read selections from Greek Myths and The Greek News.

Benjamin continues to enjoy all of our Read Alouds, even some I thought he might think move a little slowly. We’ve done Henry Huggins, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, The Year of Miss Agnes and Understood Betsey. We also still have weekly readings from Favorite Poems of Childhood and Mother Goose.

Reading and language goes smoothly. He does pretty well on spelling and doesn’t mind his worksheets from Explode the Code 5 and Wordly Wise A. He has one cursive assignment a week so he doesn’t forget. During this unit he read Pompeii . . .Buried Alive! and continued in Beginner’s Bible.

In science, we are primarily still ‘touring’ the world and discovering the animal kingdom in Usborne World of Animals. We have a weekly reading from See How It’s Made and those are pretty interesting and then we have a weekly video and experiment. We’ve been in magnets but recently moved into water and boats.

Math goes mostly without a hitch. He is in Horizons 2 and usually has a day off to play Ipad games.

We definitely stay busy with extras. We have weekly piano lesson and attempt to do daily practice. Weekly Royal Rangers with an extra event about once a month. We’ve had trips to the Mayborn and play dates. And during this last unit we had the History Fair with our homeschool group. We’ve also had a lot of family time with all of our holiday travels.