Week 2 - Afternoon School

This curriculum is awesome!! I am still in love with it. :) We are being a bit more structured this week. Here is how it goes for every day except Wednesday, our "off" day: Circle Time, Language, Social Studies/Science (we do each 2x/week), Music, Math, and Arts/Crafts.

This week so far we have done some leaf painting (pics below), which has led us to the realization that we need a field trip! There are a whopping 2 or 3 types of leaves in our yard and neighborhood. We are going to plan a day that we drive up the mountain to where there is more variety. We'll do bark rubbings, gather some leaves, and enjoy the change in scenery.





We also did some addition work this week - we went through 1-10 and Bug told me all the ways you can add up to each number. She did great! :) We used a couple piles of Cheerios to aid in the tabulations as the numbers got higher.


We have also introduced the delightful Math Gnomes - Plus, Minus, Times, and Divide. :)

Plus filling in a blank calendar with special days and moon phases, drawing pictures of the moon, and we started playing around with the recorder.

The curriculum is fairly simple and leaves room for a lot of extras. If I were to do it full-time, this would be a great base on which to supplement. I've added in some extras for today. We are going to start learning about maps in Social Studies, and we are changing up our craft and doing something Halloween-y.

I still need to tackle finger knitting and then teach the Bug. Looking forward to that! :)

(Afternoon) School is in Session!

We officially started our 1st Grade Oak Meadow curriculum this week. Yesterday was our first day, and we spent the time learning the opening and closing verse, and talking about the seasons. This curriculum is Waldorf inspired, which I love. It's like the big sister to Little Acorn Learning. It's an actual curriculum, based on state standards and all that good stuff. But it's all earthy and rhythm-y and I'm in love. :) We are going to ease into it and start rhythms that work for us, and take our time and enjoy it.

Waldorf is big into teaching about seasons and phases of the moon... in reading the intro to this curriculum, I learned more about why. During the early years, defining time by seasons and holidays and such is much easier to grasp than learning how to tell time on a clock. (Disclaimer: I am by no means a Waldorf expert, and all my comments are based on my interpretation. :) ) I love that, and I love-love-love the daily rhythms. That's what I loved most about Little Acorn Learning, and it's part of Oak Meadow as well. And it's a HOME-school curriculum, so there are notes about which story to read at night before bed, and then talk about the next day. It's created to be used throughout the day, throughout your life. Not just during "school time". Perfect.

Can you tell I love it? :) We are going to do the 1st grade level this year in the afternoons.

Another part of Waldorf is the seasonal table. We started dressing our table for Autumn. Bug did this on her own, and it's lovely. :) As we go on more nature walks and to the pumpkin patch, and all that good "fall-y" stuff, we will add more season-appropriate items.

Here is the table, and some more decorations we put up.



Happy Fall! :)

Freebies!

Every week there are free downloads at Currclick.com. This week's looks really cute - fall-themed number matching.

Check it out here. :)

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Budding Musician?

Lulu likes to rock out. :) Her new favorite place to play - right next to the music basket.