Tag Archives: Year 1

Kid Uno’s Year 1 Course of Study

Year 1 Wrap-up for Kid Dos

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Year 1 Wrap Up for Kid Dos

Average weekly time: Together (4 hours), Kid Dos independently (4), total 8 hours

Rate each book or activity (like, neutral, dislike).

Add a few comments.

Any changes for next child?

(My answers are italicized)

Bible/Saints

AO Bible Selections

Like. It’s about God.

Like. Short readings covering standard Bible stories.

Saints

Liked it a ton. Loved it. I don’t know; it’s just fun to listen to, and it’s about God.

Like. Short, concise, informative. Lovely illustrations. Part way through the book, I realized a lot of the words and ideas were unfamiliar, so I started introducing vocabulary before reading the story, and that helped Kid Dos’s understanding.

History/Bios

50 Famous Stories

Neutral. They were short but they were interesting.

Like. It’s kind of a weird collection of stories. Mignon? My second time through this book, and I still don’t get why that is included. And the Pocohontas version is terrible. But most are fine. I schedule all of them, in chronological order.

Viking Tales

Like. Love it! It was cool. It told a lot about different lands. It helped me find some on the globe and memorize it.

Like. This was even better the second time around. We did a lot of mapping, and I introduced vocabulary before readings.

D’aulaires’ Pocohontas

Like. Loved it! It was cool. It was about one of my favorite Disney princesses. It was about showing love, how she rescued the man. How all the animals were bigger than the people at the end. It was very interesting.

Like. It’s the standard version of her life, but all the illustrations maximize the interesting cultural aspects and minimize the rah-rah-pilgrims stuff.

D’aulaires’ Benjamin Franklin

Neutral. It was about a boy, so that was the bad part.

Neutral. Not the most engaging storytelling after the childhood part.

D’aulaires’ George Washington

Like. He had a horse.

Like. Fairly interesting.

D’aulaires’ Buffalo Bill

Neutral. It was interesting.

Neutral. Had to do some on-the-fly editing with Indian references. Some good mapping.

Timeline

Dislike. Hate it; terrible. Boring—it’s writing.

Neutral. Kind of a drag, but it’s only every three weeks, and it pays off later.

Science/Geography

One Small Square Woods

Dislike. Boring.

Neutral. Very Eastern—we don’t have those kinds of woods around here, so when we tried doing a small square on the Jordan River, it didn’t work so well. And it was winter 😉

One Small Square Seashore

Neutral. It has birds.

Like. Read right after their trip to Florida, so some of it came alive.

One Small Square Savanna

Like. Loved it. It had everything about animals—elephants, lions, zebras, buffaloes.

Like. This one is easy to follow.

One Small Square Pond

Neutral. It was kinda boring and hard to understand.

Like. Fairly interesting. Some overlap with Among the People.

Among the People

Neutral. Kinda interesting, kind boring, kinda weird.

Like. I thought the eels crawling through mud was totally out there, until I googled it and it is true! And the humor is great at times.

James Herriot

Love. It was about animals—sheep, ton of cats, cow, dogs. It was so fun and interesting, and there were veterinarians which tried to help the animals. I liked all the color and detail.

Like. Such great illustrations, and he is such a warm writer. I look forward to Kid Dos reading his adult works when she’s older (if she’s still obsessed with animals).

Paddle to the Sea

Neutral. Kinda boring.

Neutral. The first half is nicely paced and lends itself to mapping, but the last half seems rushed, and it is totally anti-climactic. Kid Dos didn’t even realize he had made it to the sea. I like Holling C. Holling, but his use of dialogue to narrate doesn’t work very well, especially for read alouds.

Nature Journal

Dislike. It’s all about drawing pictures and it’s boring.

Like. Term 1 was the best, when I scheduled topics ahead of time. The other terms were haphazard, which were ok.

Nature Connection

Dislike. Hate. The worst besides handwriting. You had to write, you had to go outside in bad weather when sometimes you wanted to stay in the house.

Neutral. I think it is worthwhile, but it is redundant now that I have more experience and more resources for nature study. I am dropping it or minimizing it for Kid Tres (trying to streamline); I may have Kid Dos do the weather section next year.

Literature

Blue Fairy

Like. Interesting, and it had Beauty and the Beast in it.

Like. I picked some different stories from Kid Uno’s Year 1.

Lamb’s Shakespeare

Neutral. Kid Uno likes it and I didn’t really like it. She always picked it to be last and I wanted Saints to be last.

Like. Especially Hamlet, since I’ve never read it before. I get some of the others mixed up since they are formulaic, but they are all good.

Aesop’s Fables

Neutral. Short but interesting, and there were animals it.

Neutral. These are classic, of course, but I don’t know why everyone says they are easy. They are so short, it’s almost ridiculous to narrate afterward, and I’ve given up on expecting the kids to understand the morals. I’m going to do the Provensen version with Kid Dos to change things up a bit.

Just So Stories

Like. Story about elephant and crocodile that pulled its trunk out.

Like. I liked this so much better the second time around! Considering getting a nicer edition than Yesterday’s Classics, since the illustrations are worthless in our copy.

A Child’s Garden of Verses

Dislike. Boring, and all about rhyming things.

Neutral. I get this and Book of Poems confused. The illustrations are the best part. I don’t care so much for Stevenson. I may swap The Llama Who Had No Pajamas or something similar for Kid Tres.

A.A. Milne

Like. Cuz bears in the squares.

Like. Actually, I love Milne. I think his cleverness totally goes over kids’ heads, but he makes childhood so poignant. Kid Dos latched on to a couple of the poems, and wanted to read them every time 🙂

Book of Poems

Dislike. I had to read some, and I don’t like reading out loud.

Neutral. A lot of sappy poems.

Math

Ray’s Primary Arithmetic

Dislike. Hate. It was terrible, it was boring, and it was math.

Like. I know Kid Dos doesn’t like it, but it is so simple, effective, and short. We finished addition and subtraction, and began multiplication.

Life of Fred

Like. It was funny, cuz it was a five year old boy who had a math class, and a long pointy nose, and…

Dislike. Actually closer to hate. Just inane, and she learns absolutely no math. The only redeeming quality is that she associates something funny with math. We got through Apples and Butterflies, I am done reading them forever; considered selling since they were spendy, but will probably hang on to them and just let the kids read them when they want to.

Miquon

Dislike. Math again.

Like. Such a good complement to Ray’s. She worked through parts of Red and Orange. Got stuck on the multiplication parts, so that’s where we’ll pick up next year.

I Love Math

Neutral. It was reading.

Like. This is really a great set. The kids all read these books just for fun sometimes.

Handwriting

Printing Workbook

Dislike. Boring.

Like. Cheap, quick, and effective. But I didn’t spend enough time instructing her letter formation; she does some letters wrong, and I need to correct her.

Rod & Staff Penmanship Grade 2

Neutral. It’s hard.

Like. Cheap, quick, effective, and pretty.

Reading

McGuffey’s Primers and First Reader

Like. It’s better than Phonics Pathways.

Like. Those hit-you-over-head morals from the 1800s are something else! They make me snicker every time. Kid Dos liked reading them because they were real stories, compared with Phonics Pathways nonsense sentences.

Phonics Pathways

Dislike. Terrible, nonsense.

Like. Kid Dos hated this (“it’s all nonsense”) but the phonics were SO important for her. And it is way better than OPGTR!

Music

Hymn

Neutral. I don’t like singing very much.

Like. I love when we have learned one, and then we sing it at church, and she is so excited because she knows this one!

Classical Kids CDs

Like. Love. SO fun and awesome because there were grown up people singing and it was fun to hear.

Like. Papageno and the magic flute will forever be associated with Kid Dos’s Year 1.

Music Lessons

Like. Love. It was fun and I’m twins with Daddy.

Like. Her piano lessons have been very worthwhile.

Memorization & Recitation

Bible

Dislike. It was hard.

Like. I like being able to choose something meaningful for her to memorize. And she has a flawless memory.

Poetry

Neutral. It was fun to memorize Five Little Chickens.

Like. Her bears in the squares and little chicks recitations were adorable. Her whole life is animal themed.

Art

Drawing Textbook

Dislike. Hard and boring.

Like. Simple and effective.

Usborne Treasury of Art

Dislike. Hate. I hate art.

Like. It’s interesting seeing Kid Dos do these projects, since she doesn’t love that type of art. This book is well done.

Drawing Videos

Like. It was Jan Brett and she drew animals.

Like. Jan Brett on YouTube.

Theatre at Children’s Theatre

Like. Love. It was so nice. I liked singing Be Our Guest. I liked my teacher. It was fun. One of the bad parts was one of the girls was hyper and she was so loud.

Like. It was rough getting Kids Uno and Dos here during the winter at naptime with a new baby. But they really enjoyed it, and I think they learned some voice and public speaking and memorization skills.

Picture Study

Escher

Dislike. Hate. Boring and it was all about telling pictures.

Like. I thought she would love this, but she didn’t really. She liked the color prints better than the black and white. Anyway, I love Escher!

Van Gogh

Dislike. Hate. Boring, terrible, it was all about studying some old pictures.

Neutral. But I don’t think this book is the best representation of his work.

Caravaggio

Dislike. It was not fun. It was a waste of time.

Like. She liked the ones with Biblical themes, but not the nudity. So we didn’t look at most of the naked ones. Most of the saints and Biblical characters tied in nicely with this year’s readings.

Handicraft

Emily’s Co-op

Like. Love. It was fun. Our teacher was someone who we know, one of the BEST teachers. We did a science project, we did some nice plays, I like how she designed it. It was NOT a waste of time.

Like. Emily was amazing to do this. Three hours every Friday morning for several weeks. The three older kids all learned some finger-knitting and Spanish, played parts in a fairy tale play, and did some nature journaling, and loved being with friends. The kids loved it.

Knitting, Weaving, Beeswax Candles, Microscope, Pet Care, Decorating Church for Easter, Clay, Cutting Apples, Making Lunch, Opening Pomegranates, Grocery Shopping, Legos, Beading, Gingerbread House, Baking Cookies, Brownies, Cake, and Pies, Felting Soap, Paper Cutting, Play Doh, Hand Sewing, Fairy House, Eco Art, Paper Fans, Building Fort, Harvesting Pine Nuts

Like. Love, love, love. It’s fun.

Like. It’s all good!

Outdoor Exploration

Perseid Meteor Shower in West Desert, Big Cottonwood Canyon, Millcreek Canyon, Peace Garden, Sheepdog Festival, Week at Cabin in Grover, Tracey Aviary, Wheeler Farm, Neighborhood Seed Walk, Jordan River, Cattails, Aerospace Museum, Stockton, Treehouse, Tulip Festival, Thanksgiving Point, Discovery Gateway, Camping in Uintas, Week in Florida

Like. Love. It was fun. I love seeing the meteor shower cuz I was with cactus.

Like. One of the best parts of homeschooling.

Sports/Physical Activity

Ballet at Missio

Like. Love. I love my teachers. They’re very nice. They care for people, especially B– when he broke his arm. They teach us, and it’s not a waste of time.

Like. It’s free, the quality is equivalent to SLC Ballet which is not free, it’s close, DH usually takes them, and their performance was very sweet. It’s a keeper.

Running

Like. It was hard but fun, and I’ve done two 5ks in my lifetime.

Like. DH times the kids running around the block, and tracks their records on a spreadsheet. And Kid Dos ran her first 5k this year—and won her age group!

Hikes, Bike Rides, Tennis, Yard Golf, Bounce House, Snow Play, Sledding, Ice Skating, Swimming

Like. Love. It was fun

Like. All great activities.

Baseball

Neutral. It’s a boy’s sport but I met a new friend.

Like. This was 4 weeks on a county rec team with Kid Tres. Low key, low commitment, her baseball skills improved, and they had fun being “baseball buddies”.

Gymnastics

Like. Love. I liked doing handstands, cartwheels, front rolls.

Like. All four older kids took several weeks of classes at the rec center. It was a good cheap way to see if they were all really interested like they said they were. I think we’ll do it again this winter.

Overall evaluation: Our family is very strong in spending time reading, crafting, sporting, socializing, and spending time outside. We have acquired Legos and more board games this year; Kid Dos has enjoyed both. She spends a lot of time with the bunnies and chickens. She is currently obsessed with horses, and A Horse Called Wonder was the first chapter book she finished. At the beginning of the year, it was a struggle to get through her reading lessons, but after many doses of Zita the Space Girl, Billy and Blaze, and some other books, it finally started clicking. She took the DORA/ADAM which were useful to me. She’s at or above grade level in everything except geometry. I need to look ahead and see if our maths eventually cover geometry [since Kid Uno also scored low in that], or if I should add something. Origami? 😉 I wanted to use more media this year but we really didn’t. Better to err on the side of too little, I guess. Next year I am putting some movies/documentaries/music right on the schedule so I remember to do them. Kid Dos does enjoy online math games, Starfall, Wild Kratts, and watching ballet and sports. I’m very happy with the changes I made to Year 1 the second time around; I’m making a couple minor tweaks to streamline it for Kid Tres next year since he will combine with Kid Dos for a few things. The distribution of work throughout the week is just right; it’s only take me three years to perfect our schedules. 🙂

How We Do…Schedules

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I like to plan…It’s so much prettier and more perfect than actually implementing the lessons 🙂 It goes in spurts–there’s no set time I spend planning. I just get in the mood and start working on the future. It’s fun to change things till they fit us just right. The Ambleside Online schedules for each grade are my framework. We school year-round, with a couple weeks off here and there (for camping, for out-of-town visits, for vacations, for new babies, for spring fever). In theory, I’d like to accomplish the bulk of our academic stuff between November and April, when the weather here is not as nice, and we spend more time indoors than outdoors. The AO schedules are based on a 36 week school year (broken into three twelve week terms), plus one week of exams at the end of each term. So I round up to 40 weeks of school, and 12 weeks off. Our state requires no reporting, so we basically have complete freedom in the scheduling department. We can also teach whatever subjects we want, when we want, which is nice! And the compulsory education ages are 6 to 18, although there are so many exemptions for 16 year olds, I kinda look at it as 6 to 16. Which means I need to plan 50 years of education…so far 😉

For grade levels, we consider the kids to be whatever they would be at the local public school. So Kid Uno (age 8) is 2nd grade, Kid Dos (age 6) is Kindergarten, and so on. But their personal new school years start on their half birthdays (or a bit later). So Kid Uno started AO Year 1 when she turned 6.5, and Kid Dos is still Year 0. I try to get to a good stopping place in their schedules before we take time off, especially if it will be several weeks off, but I can see that getting complicated as we have more kids moving up into school age. Unless there are unforeseen issues, we will always have a kid in alternating years (so next year the three older ones will be Year 3, Year 1, and Year 0).

I’m thinking about combining them when possible, but I also think one of the great advantages of homeschooling is that kids can work at a very individual level. Some things–some readings, singing, and memorizing–could be easy to do together (in Year 1 and 3).

OK, now for the actual scheduling. For Year 1, I used the AO Year 1 Schedule pretty much as is, while adding and dropping a couple things. Then I printed and stapled each term. Every day, when we completed something, I marked it off (or wrote in the box), and sometimes added notes on the bottom. Not very hi tech but it worked great for me. When I plan Year 1 for Kid Dos , I will be making a lot more changes. It seemed like the readings weren’t spread out very evenly, and next time I can adjust that. For example, the D’aulaire and Holling books need to be sped up. And I will be treating a week of camp at a working farm as part of nature study. And so on.

For Year 2, I made several more changes, and the subject categories were very different in my head from AO’s. So I used the AO Year 2 Schedule with a lot of modifications. Actually DH did most of the formatting, since his skills are far more up to date than mine. This year I had a much better idea of how long certain readings and projects would take, and the weekly flow has felt much smoother than last year.

For Year 3 (it’s only in my head so far), I think we will be departing quite a bit from AO’s schedule, and somewhat from the booklist. Mainly in science and history. I’m feeling much more confident in knowing what materials are available, what is important for our family, what our kids’ interests are…and I’ve bought lots of books I’m more excited about using than some of the AO selections. 🙂 I feel like I have a good handle on how to do Charlotte Mason without being married to the AO way. So I can use it as a starting point, and then tweak it. And after completing a couple years, it’s getting easier to just choose a book, decide how long it should take, and divide up the chapters or pages or whatever into weekly readings. Or to look beyond books, and recognize a birthday origami kit as a handicraft, or raising bunnies and chicks as nature study, or future violin lessons as part of music appreciation.

I don’t really schedule Year 0. I print the Sonlight P4/5 book list, highlight the ones I like, and cross them off as we read them. Same for the Five in a Row booklists. And once the child is age six , I aim for 3-4 days per week of reading, writing, and arithmetic, plus lots of reading aloud, time outside, music, playing with friends…just regular family life.

in a nutshell, my scheduling method is

Pick the books, projects, activities, DVDs, or whatever else I want to use for a year
Divide them into three terms
Divide into weeks
Check them off as we go along

That way, I never really feel like we are behind; if we take time off, or miss a day, we just pick up where we left off. There’s no daily schedule. I like trimesters better than semesters or quarters. Enough variety, but enough time to get into a groove.

Oh, and I use the exam questions (modified to fit us), and DH spends 2-3 days or evenings administering the exam to Kid Uno at the end of each term. He records the answers, and I eavesdrop a bit; it’s entertaining! I like having him do it–it’s a bit of a safety net in case there is some huge gap or misunderstanding or weakness somewhere that I might have missed–he can alert me to it.

These two blogs have some helpful posts on scheduling:

http://sabbathmoodhomeschool.com/preparing-a-cm-schedule/

http://wildflowersandmarbles.com/2011/07/21/a-considered-booklist/

And it’s been very helpful to me to hash things out with a good friend whose kids are in the same year, and to bounce ideas off DH and my mom when I’m changing things around.

So that’s my rather anal box-checking scheduling…sometimes I wish I could just grab random books and say “Read this”…but I really like those nice little spreadsheets with things crossed off….it feels like such an accomplishment at the end of a week! 😉

How We Do…Art

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Kid Uno has been an artist since birth. Even coloring was a social, collaberative experience for her when she was little. “Want to color with me?” Supporting her growth in art is an ongoing learning experience for me. My creative interests lean more toward tie dye, construction, and sewing with salvaged fabric. Hers are more fine art–ballet, classical music, satin and silk, paper dolls, and stacks and stacks of drawings, paintings, collages….I feel a bit out of my element, but Charlotte Mason includes picture study and handicrafts, so that gives me a bit of a framework. And one benefit of homeschooling is that you can tailor a child’s education, so I decided to beef up the art department as much as possible for Kid Uno. I have freely questioned kind uncles and aunts who have far more expertise than I in art and music. They been very helpful in giving me ideas about what supplies to purchase and how to encourage her. And I read an awesome (for me) book last year called The Art of Teaching Art to Children, which I need to review. For someone with a great art background, it’s probably not too helpful, but for me it was great because the author covered several areas about which I am clueless (clay, printmaking…) and then broke it down step by step from planning to cleaning up. I was inspired to buy a Sculpey type clay, and then it sat in the cabinet for weeks, until we had free morning when all the stars and planets aligned. All four of the older kids (including my then two-year old) spent TWO solid hours at the table making clay tea sets! And now they play with them in their treehouse.

Uno (age 8) with colored pencils

My approach to art is two-pronged: creation and appreciation. They kind of go together. If you have some skill and exposure, you can create better, and if you understand the process of creating, you are more appreciative of other people’s art. So my goals for art education are providing the kids with materials that are enjoyable to work with and don’t frustrate them, providing them with time and space to create (and being generally tolerant of the mess), providing some opportunities to see art (whether Rembrandt at the National Gallery or fancy dresses at the mall or early pioneers’ handmade tools in a tiny rural museum), and providing them with basic skills in observing, drawing, photographing, sewing, sculpting, etc.

Here’s how we do art appreciation: In Year 0, we use A Child’s Book of Art: Great Pictures – First Words. I have her (Kid Dos right now) look at a painting closely for a few minutes. Then I take away the book, and she describes what she remembers. This is so she can learn to observe closely, to remember, and to translate a visual into words. Then we talk about the painting. Some days I’ll ask questions such as: Where is the light coming from? What is the first thing you notice when you see this painting? What kind of brushstrokes did the painter use? What season is it? What shapes did the artist use? What mood is that person feeling? Do you like this painting? How is this art like that other art? What kind of paint is that? How much of the canvas did the artist fill?

Then starting in Year 1, I pick three artists per year, buy a coffee table book of his/her art, and we spend twelve weeks on a single artist. Usually once a week, sometimes twice. Same process as Year 0. I think Ambleside Online has an ongoing list of artists each year. I just picked artist who I thought Kid Uno would like, I thought I would like, or we already owned a book. So that is picture study. I’d like to do more real-life art appreciation–when we lived in DC, we sometimes went to museums, but the kids were pretty young then. And the National Gallery of Art is the worst place I know of to take babies. Now that we are back in SLC, I’m slowly finding out about museums here, and cultural displays and things, but haven’t made much effort to actually get there 😦 Maybe this year. We have been to some ballets, though, and I think some concerts. So that’s something.

Now for creating art. One priority when we moved into this house was to round up a good variety of quality supplies, keep them near the kitchen for easy clean up, and put some things low so the kids have access them without help (and other things high, so they have to ask permission for play doh and paints!). That has worked out well. I also have a half-baked plan of doing a special project with all the kids, maybe monthly (like the clay). That hasn’t been so smooth, mostly because I have to be in just the right frame of mind to spend an entire morning intentionally making a mess, and then the next three days cleaning up the remnants! But I have some things in the works–needle felting, more clay, paper mache, plaster of paris, tree branch weaving…In the meantime, they all use reams of paper (for drawing, coloring, and cutting), love play doh, frequently use watercolors, use a paint program on the computer, take photos of the floor and walls with our old camera, build things all over the house and yard…there is no shortage of handicrafts around here!

Besides that, we use Drawing Textbook daily (one drawing per day), and I assign an art project every week or every other week. For Year 1, we used The Usborne Art Treasury which I was very impressed with. For Year 2, I got the Scott Foresman Art books starting in Grade 1. They seem pretty good, though maybe a bit heavy on the cut/paste/color type projects–less variety than the Usborne book. The Drawing Textbook is surprising good, IMO. Not at all flash, but it starts out with very basic elements of drawing and slowly works up to complex, multi-dimensional drawing (of objects). It fits well with the concept of short lessons, but it builds little by little. It has been interesting to see its effect on Kid Uno’s personal drawings–her perspective and scale have developed a great deal over the last year and a half. She’s getting close to the end; I’m going to look into some figure and costume drawing next, since she constantly draws beautiful ladies in fancy clothes.

Besides that, the older two took a four week art class, and they love watching Youtube art instruction videos. They’ve both gotten some great art kits and supplies as gifts from friends and relatives. And they go through phases: paper dolls for several weeks, then a sewing project, then snowflake cutting, then weaving potholders, then whittling arrows. I’m looking forward to them getting older and more independent, since there is so much creative stuff they can do on their own! I will try to expose them to as much variety as possible, and then if they are super-interested in something (jewelry making, for instance) I will probably outsource at some point. And there’s always Youtube!

Year 1 Wrap-up for Kid Uno (her version)

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If you want to know what a Year 1 student really thinks of the Ambleside Online selections, you’re in the right place. Here are Kid Uno’s year-end summaries, in her own words (my Year 1 page has links for everything we used):

Rate each book (like, neutral, dislike).
Add a few comments.

A Child’s Garden of Verses

Dislike. It’s hard to read and not very interesting.

When We Were Young & Now We Are Six

Neutral. There are only a few poems that I like. One is the Sailor and there are a few others.

A Child’s Book of Poetry

Neutral. But I loved Christina Rossetti. I kind of didn’t like the rest.

Classical Kids CDs

Like. Mostly Song of Unicorn, Hallelujah Handel, Vivaldi, Mozart’s Magical Fantasy.

Hymns

Neutral. My favorite was Crown Him With Many Crowns.

Tales From Shakespeare

Like. It was fun and there were lots of exciting stories.

Blue Fairy Book

Like. It was fun–lots of magic fairies, beautiful girls, and stuff.

Just So Stories

Like. There were lots of animals, and my favorite was How the Elephant Got his Trunk, Leopard, Butterfly.

Aesop’s Fables

Like. I loved it because it has such fun stories.

One Small Square Cave

Like. Really fun. I liked how it told me about the caves.

One Small Square Swamp

Neutral. It wasn’t very interesting.

One Small Square Arctic Tundra

Like. It told me lots of things about the tundra.

James Herriot’s Treasury

Like. I loved it. You should know I loved it! It had lots of stories about animals and I like animal stories a lot.

Burgess Bird Book

Neutral. Told a lot about animals but just about birds. I like animals but not really birds. One bird I loved in that story was the Welcome Robin.

Among the …. People

Like. That was fun because it was about lots of animals.

Nature Connection

Neutral. It was just about nature not animals or stories.

Trial and Triumph

Neutral. It had not very fun stories; just about people and not what that said.

50 Famous Stories

Like. They’re really exciting. It tells a lot about people, and I get to read some [independently], and it tells about a few people I already know.

Our Island Story

Neutral. A few fun stories and a few not good stories.

Viking Tales

Like. I love them….King Harald the Great!

d’Aulaires Pocahontas

Neutral. I liked it but it’s not very fun. It had just Indians and I don’t like just stories about Indians because they scare me [I think this response actually arises from Kid Uno’s immersion in the Little House books…I need to find some good books where the Indians aren’t constantly portrayed as “savages”].

d’Aulaires Benjamin Franklin

Like. I loved him and Washington. Wasn’t he [Franklin] a president?

d’Aulaires Buffalo Bill

Like. You already know that I like it! He’s really exciting. The only people I don’t like in it are the raiders that try to hurt him and the Indians even though they are his friends.

d’Aulaires George Washington

Like. That he was so brave.

Paddle to the Sea

Like. I loved it–it was so exciting.

Rod&Staff Penmanship 2

Dislike. They are so hard.

Rod&Staff Penmanship 3

Dislike. It’s hard to copy the words, and it’s long.

Life of Fred

Like. I loved LoF. It helps me do it and then it has fun stories.

I Love Math books

Like. I loved them when I first did them but they aren’t interesting anymore.

Ray’s Primary Arithmetic

Dislike. It was really hard.

Miquon

Dislike. Because they are so hard and take a lot of time.

Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading

Dislike. No way, Jose. I don’t like reading out loud.

McGuffey’s Second Reader

Like. I love it. I get to learn a few things…like about sharing…and about selfishness.

John Singer Sargent

Dislike. It’s so hard to remember.

Van Gogh

Like. I got to see a few interesting and beautiful pictures.

Caravaggio

Neutral. It’s hard.

Art Treasury

Neutral. It’s kind of hard, and I did the first easy ones which were really nice but then I didn’t really like the others.

Drawing Textbook

Dislike. It’s too hard. At least the first easy ones were fun but I didn’t like the last ones which were hard.

Youtube Drawing Videos

Like. Because I got to draw a lot of things.

Nature Journal

Neutral. I have to draw things that I don’t want to do.

Mesa Art Classes

Like. Loved! Because I got to draw a whole lot of things that I liked to do. And I got to learn a few things about drawing. That you should draw it carefully and not hurry. That you can mix things together and make pretty colors. And you should draw a line like this–a horizon line.

Soccer

Like. I loved it because I got to learn a whole lot of things like kicking it with the side of your foot. But with your toe if you are kicking in in the goal. And you should shove a little bit if the person has the ball. And that I should be happy if I lose or I win, and that everyone wins. A— told me that everyone wins. Does everyone win? I got to have the ball a few times, and got to kick it to the goal. And I had a few friends. And there were a few people cheering for us. The one thing I don’t like about soccer is that I don’t like that one team said we look easy, and we’re not easy, we’re hard. And I got to run a lot, and A— talked to me a lot and helped me. And soccer was the funnest sport of my life. And I get to be with my friends.

Year 1 Wrap-Up for Kid Uno (my version)

charlottemasonmodern

Charlotte Mason education, modernized