First Grade Week in Review #10

After our wonderful vacation in Florida we had a very productive week here at Baby Gator University.

I am taking inspiration from Carisa @ 1+1+1=1 and trying to do "Something Special" with the boys together each day. I am not as organized as she is and I don't have a schedule, but I think this is a great idea and I pray I can continue it.

Something Special: The boys made paper bag pumpkins after I read "It's Pumpkin Time". I saw the idea here from 2 Teaching Mommies.


While everyone was a mess we also made a pumpkin patch. This is an idea I borrowed from Carisa again :) You can find it here.

One day we worked together to make Pumpkin Muffins.


They were a HIT!Math U See: Completed Lesson 15

First Language Lessons: Completed Lessons 45-47

All About Spelling: Finished Step 17. He is loving this more each week. He literally does a fist pump when he finds out it is a day he gets to do dictation, HA! I love that each time I give him a phrase to dictate, he will repeat it back to me in a sentence he has made up ;-)

Reading: For reading this week, Senior read 4 of our "book basket" books. He did a setting worksheet, a book report, and two comprehension tests.

Adventures: In history we studied: Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence, more about The Revolutionary War and The American Flag- whew!!

While studying the meaning behind "Yankee Doodle" we made Hasty Pudding. Even after a sprinkle of cinnamon and sugar, Senior was hesitant to try. It did not get rave reviews from him but at least he tried.

On the other hand, my little Gator-Tot loved it!

Here is senior coloring in the original 13 colonies.

I think our favorite activity of the week was writing with quill pens and berry ink. This was a very neat project and we both did a lot of writing ;-) I love the look of concentration in this picture.

In Bible we learned how Jesus is Living Water. To tie into that, in science we studied about water.

We did an experiment to see what material would absorb water the best. We tested: cardstock, tissue paper, Kleenex, paper towel, washcloth, and a sponge. This was a simple experiment that really helped Senior understand that porous materials absorb better.



He was so serious and in this picture you can see him counting to make sure it was a fair experiment ;-)
The next experiment we tried was to see if water could separate out the different colors within markers. Unlike Jennifer, we were only able to see separation in one color. We were able to see a little green come out of the black ink.

The next set of water experiments are all about evaporation. 1. He learned that water can't evaporate from a sealed plastic bag. 2.We are still in the process of making rainbow sugar and should hopefully see results tomorrow. 3. FYI to other Adventure families- the salt water experiment will NOT work with aluminum foil (I was out of plastic wrap) boo hoo!

In both art and music, Senior is finally starting to get more interested. In "I Can Do All Things" he has started working with markers and soon paint (oh my!). We also have started studying Tchaikovsky & the Nutcracker Suite.

We are working on our third read aloud, Sarah Whitcher's Story. I think this is our favorite so far.Jamie is hosting the Weekly Wrap Up this week so hop on over.