First week in review

Our first week of school is over!

All in all, things went really well. There were no tears (mine or Asher's), and I enjoyed each day. Let's hope this feeling stays with us through spring. :)

You can click here for an idea of our 3rd grade curriculum.

First, let's talk about this year's science.

I have to admit I had been dreading it. When we first decided on The Well-Trained Mind I knew we'd be studying chemistry in 3rd grade, which is a subject I do not like at all. My plan for this year is for our chemistry experience to consist of experiments, which I figured would be fun for Asher. However, there are a good amount of terms and definitions we have to go over the first few times before we can begin experiments in order for us to understand what we're talking about later. I just knew it would be torture.

But I was wrong. Asher was totally into it. He was amazed that there are 2 million quadrillion molecules in a single drop of water. (Okay, even I will admit that is pretty amazing.) He wanted to know more.

"Is everything made of atoms? Even me? What kind of atoms?"

I was really glad we dragged all those science encyclopedias over here from Bermuda when we moved.

Another pleasant surprise was how much Asher loves learning to write in cursive. He literally says, "Yay!" when I get the workbook out. He even begged - yes, begged - to do a few extra pages each day!

Asher happily said, "Hey! Now I can write a letter to Dad in cursive! Well - at least the 'dad' part..."

I was also quite happy with our new schedule this year, which involves completing almost all of our school work in four days, leaving Fridays for history and science only. It went really well. In past years, I would divide up our history chapter (we aim for one chapter per week) into two or three days, but it always felt rushed because we'd put it off until after all the other subjects were done. Math and reading always won out over history as far as priorities and, frankly, my energy level was pretty low by the time we got through everything else.

But this week it went really well doing all of our history lesson first thing on Friday morning. After breakfast, we sat on the couch together and read the whole chapter at once. Asa even sat with us and listened to the whole thing without hardly making a peep! And after we discussed what we had read, I had a fun activity for Asher to complete.

I put some pieces of "gold" at the bottom of a bucket.

Then I filled it with 10lbs of flour.

I gave Asher some supplies...

...and put him to work trying to mine down to the gold. He had to use the paper and craft sticks to build a mine shaft to keep the flour "walls" from collapsing.

"My walls keep collapsing! This is hard!" 

My poor little miner. 

Finally found the last piece of gold.

Needless to say, we both needed showers after this history lesson.

Meanwhile, an added challenge this year is a certain 2-year old. Last year, Asa was pretty content to play in his enclosed area in the school room. This year, he's all over the place. For the most part, he behaves. If I tell him not to touch something, he won't. He asks before getting out an activity. When it's time to clean up, he does without complaint.

Still, he's two.

He's curious. He doesn't have much volume control yet. He's distracting. He's busy. He's got a short attention span.

He's everywhere.

So I've had to compile a list of all the activities I'd planned to do over the course of the week and then give them to him for as long as his attention holds - which is a few minutes, depending on the activity. Then we put it away and go on to the next activity. This continues over and over again.

Which means I need a lot of different activities on hand for him. A lot.

I have a good amount of educational toys on low shelves where Asa can reach, but I like to have at a few planned activities we can do together, too. I get most of these from this great book (which I also used with Asher when he was in preschool):

And this book:

Here are a few examples of what Asa did this week.

He played with his "school room toys." He never sees these toys unless it's school time.

He painted.

These painting sheets with the watercolors built right in are perfect for this age!

He played with alphabet and beanbag shapes.

He played with cards from a matching game.

While his big brother copies chemistry terms, Asa makes a mess plays happily.

And a new addition to the schoolroom are these three magnetic write-on boards. I have had these boards since preschool with Asher, when we were still living in Bermuda. They were the only write-on board that was small enough to fit on the wall in the tiny school space we had in our apartment. I always loved the square shape and fun colors, so we brought them with us when we moved to the States. I knew I'd find a way to use them again.

On top are displayed a picture Asa painted and this week's famous painting ("Ladies in Waiting" by Diego Velázquez) that Asher and I learned about. The middle and bottom boards are for Asa. I keep a lunchbox of magnets on the floor underneath for Asa to put up. And when I'm able to supervise him directly, I let Asa write on the boards with a dry-erase marker.

One of our structured activities took all of 10 minutes' preparation on my part. I cut an envelope to shape it like a boat, and then I cut out five fish from different colored construction paper. (I laminated my fish to make them last longer, but of course that's not necessary.)

Asa placed each fish in the boat, which required him to coordinate his little fingers to pick up the fish, open the envelope, and put them inside.

We also talked about the different colors. I asked him to put a specific color fish in the boat the second time.

Another day, when we needed to get out of the school room for a while, we made some goop in the kitchen for a fun sensory experience. First, I put a couple cups of cornstarch in a basin. Asa enjoyed the feel of that.

Next, I added a little water. The cornstarch turned to a really interesting goop that is both solid and liquid at once - it was so strange. Pick up a solid clump, and it turns to liquid in your hand! Asa, however, was a not a fan of the way the goop felt.

He was happier when I gave him a spoon to use instead of his hands.

And of course - a benefit of homeschool - we could just pick up and go outside to play when we needed to!

Then in the afternoons each day after Asa went down for his nap, Asher completed his reading. It's a lot this year: 30 minutes of assigned reading and then 45 minutes of fun reading. Personally, I would love to HAVE TO read for an hour and 15 minutes each day!

I am savoring these last few weeks before our extracurricular activities start and things get crazy. For now, we can go at a pretty relaxed pace without having to be anywhere during the day. That will change soon!