Cate's First Grade :: Exams, Term 2

Once again, I prepared a lighter load of questions for my Year 1 student, and my kindergartener joined in for a few...

(You can see previous Year 1 exams here, and the exams from the AO site (which are wonderful) are here--all years and terms available!)

History
Tell the story of Dick Whittington, Picciola, or Antonio Canova.
Illustrate one scene from the life of George Washington.
Tell me why and how The Giant's Dance was brought to Britain or about the founding of the Round Table.

not exactly how I picture George Washington in my mind's eye, but... :)

Nature Study
Describe what the county park looks like in winter.  What trees are bare?  What is in bloom?  What animals or birds do we see?
Tell me what you remember about the kingfisher or the heron from the Burgess Bird Book.  (She opted to draw a picture also.)
Tell the story of The Market Square Dog or Blossom Comes Home.
Find one thing in your nature journal from this term and tell me about it.

Religion
Tell the story of the Visitation.
What are the Seven Sacraments?
Give the definition of a Sacrament.
How can we increase contrition for our sins?

Read Alouds
Tell a favorite scene from The Sign of the Beaver.
Illustrate a favorite story from Winnie-the-Pooh.  Describe it to me.

Reading Skill
Read a paragraph from your folk tales book aloud.  Then tell me about it in your own words.

Math
Play a game of Addition Money War with Xavier.
Play a game of Corners with Mommy.
Complete this worksheet adding tens and ones.
Draw the line(s) of symmetry for the following shapes.
Show the horizontal and vertical flips of this triangle on your geoboard.  Where are the lines of symmetry?

Penmanship
Copy these sentences in your best hand.  Then read it aloud to me.\

Memory Work
Recite a selection from this term in the following categories: hymn, folk song, poetry, Bible, Shakespeare.

Geography
Label the following on this map: California, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Texas, Nevada, the Great Lakes.
Show me on our wall map the following countries: Canada, England, Mexico, the United States.

Italian
Sing "Jingle Bells" in Italian.
Say in Italian: The birds are in the tree.  The lake is cold.  I like the beach.  On Sundays, I go to Mass.
Introduce yourself completely. Include name, age, your likes and dislikes, what kind of person you are, what you look like, what you're wearing, and more.

Poetry
Recite the poem you memorized for Christmas. Illustrate it.
What was your favorite poem by AA Milne that we read this term, and why?

Literature
Tell me a fable of your choice from this term's reading, including its moral.
Tell me the story of  The Glass Slipper or Aladdin?
Draw a scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream.   Describe it to me.
Tell me the story of the Elephant's Child, First Letter, or Armadillos.

Art 
Choose a picture from My Nature Friend to copy.

Picture Study
Make a rough color sketch of one of Corot's paintings.  Describe it to me.

Piano
Play your latest recital song from memory.

Handicraft
Make a paper star.

And a Few Oral Answers

On the Founding of the Round Table
In a completely serious tone: Catherine Audiobook presents: The Founding of the Round Table.  Once there was a founding of the round table.  Arthur was very mad when he saw his people were fighting.  The side that was up on the table got the best food and the side that was down got the worst food, and so everyone had a quarrel about who could sit at the top. They were all mixed of ages, so there couldn't have a youngest and oldest age. Even some of them were the same age but very close to being twins. (I was trying not to die of laughter here.) Merlin and Arthur were upstairs, so they  didn't know about the quarrel being loud until everybody started rushing into the hall and pretending to cut off people's necks and running all over the place. Some even stood on the table. They were angry at the others for not letting them sit at the table. When Arthur heard this, he certainly rushed down the stairs and went in. Merlin went down too. Arthur didn't know what to do, so he asked Merlin and Merlin suggested they should buy a fair table, which was round and had no higher and lower so that there would be no fighting. The End.

On the Market Square Dog

There was a market square dog and there was a vet.  The vet goes to a bunch of stores.  The stores are very good and they sell stuff like cheese, bread, and those kind of things. The dog, when people tried to get him, just runs away to other shops.  And even to one that sells scones and sausages. The market square dog goes to a lot of shops until he can't find any more to go to. Then a policeman comes up. The policeman goes to his station and brings the dog there. The vet asked what was wrong and the policeman said, "Nothing." The market square dog, when he is tired, goes to his cage with the policeman. He lives in a shop for someone to buy him, but people buy all the other dogs except him. The vet comes there one day and the market square dog is not there. The vet asked the policeman, "What has been? Has somebody bought him?" and the policeman says, "No, he's in prison." "But dogs can't be in there. Dogs are not allowed to go in those sort of places." This time the policeman was joking. He wanted to play a trick on the vet. He was that sort of man--playing tricks on people. The dog was inside the house with two girls petting him because the girls were always waiting for a dog. They were very glad the dog was there and the dog now had a place to live in. The dog had a white coat with big black splotches all over.  (Wait, I forgot the part I like best--can I say it?) The vet's wife made some chocolate cake for them to go out. They were going to go to a little place to sit, but right then, a policeman comes up and says, "The dog has broken his leg and one eye is tight shut." When the vet hears this, he goes out to the car and brings him in. They put him on a sheet, and the vet's wife is his helper too--she is used to helping him. She does the eye. He stitches up the leg. She helps with the bruises.  She thinks it sounds like they will still have a day out, and they wear their fancy clothes, and she takes out her fancy hat and the necklace he has never seen before.  He takes off his jacket that she has never seen before.  (Okay, now I am going to go back to the other part.) The girls put the dog on a pillow inside a basket so he can curl up inside the basket and get warm instead of being out in the freezing cold.  But no one knows whose dog it is really, and the vet doesn't know even though he is a doctor.  The End.

Some Thoughts

Cate is dramatic and imaginative, and part of our work this year has been to reign that in just a tad and have her focus on specific details in the reading rather than supplying her own. ;)  But I love her spunky creativity and I know we will find a happy way for it to coexist with reality!

My main focus for her exams is to have fun.  That means giving her lots of variety and letting her shine with what she liked best about this term as she learns to flex her narration muscles.  She is only in Year 1, after all!  But she takes her "work" seriously and I'm happy to have her join us at the exam table.

Xavier had a lot of fun pointing out to me favorite bits in his nature journal and drew a sweet illustration of the characters of Winnie-the-Pooh, his current favorite.

Cate's First Grade :: Exams, Term 1

A look at Cate's first grade exams, based off of AmblesideOnline's Year 1:

The Questions

Natural History

What is your favorite bird we have read about so far from the Burgess Bird Book? Tell me all you can about it.

Tell me the story of Moses the Kitten or Only One Woof.

History

Tell the story of Alfred and the Cakes or the story of Cornelia's Jewels.

Tell me what you remember about Horatius at the bridge or Androcles and the lion.

In the chapters we have read of Our Island Story so far, who has been trying to conquer Britain? Was it easy for them to be conquered? 

Tell me what you remember about Bodicaea or Caractacus.

Illustrate one scene from the life of Benjamin Franklin.

Religion

Tell me about one of the saints we read about this term.

Describe what happened to Joseph in Egypt.

What must you do to make a proper confession?

What was your favorite story of First Communion Days?

Free Reading

Who was your favorite character in The Secret Garden and why?

Reading Skill

Identify the middle sound in the following words.  mug, dog, mom, dad, cat, lit, pig, pet.

Sound out these words.  Then tell me two words that rhyme with each of them.

Finish reading Small Pig to me.

Math

Play a game of Money War with Xavier.

Total the amounts for these coins.

Partition 15 using your abacus.

Play a game of Corners with Mommy.

Complete these addition problems.

What time is it?

Penmanship

Write your full name and the names of our family members in your best hand.

Memory Work

Recite Robert Louis Stevenson's "Rain" or "At the Sea-Side."
Sing "Dona Nobis Pacem" or "Veni Creator Spiritus."
Sing "Scarborough Fair" or "The Ballad of Davy Crockett."
Recite a passage from Much Ado About Nothing.

Geography

Show me where Paddle is traveling through now.  What is one interesting thing he encountered so far on his journey?

Narrate our weekly run to me.

Italian

Say the days of the week or the months of the year in Italian.

Sing a song in Italian.

Tell me three things about our yard in Italian.

Describe someone in the family, including what they are wearing and what kind of personality they have.

Poetry

Illustrate the poems you memorized by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Besides those poems, what was your favorite poem by Stevenson that we read this term?

Physical Education

Do five jumping jacks correctly. Do five push-ups correctly.

Complete our three-mile run with only two walk breaks.

Literature

What kind of stories did Aesop write? Tell me your favorite Aesop's fable, including your understanding of the moral.

What was your favorite fairy tale we have read this term? Tell me the story.

Draw a scene from Much Ado about Nothing.   

Choose one of the animals from Just So Stories that we have read about so far and tell me Kipling's version of how it came to look as it does.

Art
Complete a drawing page from your teacher.

Picture Study

Choose one of Velazquez's  paintings and describe it as well as you can.

Music Study
Who was our composer for this term?  Tell me about one of his compositions.

Piano
Play your recital piece for the family.

Handicraft
Complete this embroidery project for your sister.

The Answers 
(Just a sampling.  These were all oral narrations that I audio recorded and then transcribed for my records.)

from Aesop's Fables

One day three boys went to the pond.  In the pond there were frogs.  They picked up rocks and threw the rocks into the pond.  The frogs didn’t like it because they might die, but the boys didn’t stop.  The biggest and fattest frog poked his head out the water and said, “You are going to make us die.  Would it be better if you would stop throwing rocks into the water or if we died?”  This is the lesson: if you keep throwing rocks into the water, then we will die.  So that is not a good choice.

"Androcles and the Lion" from Fifty Famous Stories
Androcles was a man.  He found a cave, a very dark cave, and he went into that cave.  He was scared at first, but then he went in wthout being scared.  A lion came up to him, roaring, and he saw that the lion had a little needle inside its foot.  So he pulled out the needle.  A chief came to Androcles and said that Androcles would fight a lion for not listening to the chief.  So Androcles was brought one day, and crowds of people came to watch the fight.  He heard the lion roaring and he didn’t want to fight with the lion, but when the lion saw him, he was so glad that he had pulled out the needle inside his foot that he hugged him and did not do any harm to him.  The people were so glad, but they didn’t know what had happened because they were not there.  And Androcles told them the whole story about it, and how he pulled out the needle inside the lion’s foot.  Androcles did not get in trouble.  He made friends with the lion.

Velazquez's "Old Woman Frying Eggs"
She’s frying eggs with a boy, a maddish-looking boy.  There’s a log under the kettle and it looks like she boiled water and then threw stones into it to make a fire under the log.  Then she put eggs that are yellow and white.  She’s wearing a whitish ragged veil that is dirty and she’s wearing black, brown, and green clothes and some sort of scarf.  There is a big table that is next to her with cut up eggs and cut up potatoes and cut up onions.  Then there are two jars.  One of them looks like it's filled with water and the other a kind of juice or something.  The boy that is next to her is dressed in a kind of suit.  She has blue eyes and she looks very old.  The boy looks like he is in his teens, and he has brownish eyes.  The old woman--you can’t see her hair because she’s wearing the white veil.  But the boys doesn’t have anything over his hair and it is curly brown. The light is coming from the side of them and the woman is looking at the boy and the boy doesn’t seem to be paying attention. He is looking away or looking down at the table.

"Beauty and the Beast" from The Blue Fairy Book
Beauty is a good girl and her father had three boys and three girls.  She was one of those three girls.  One night a storm came up and their house fell down in fire.  So they moved to a different house.  After the storm came up, their father asked them what they wanted for a little gift.  The three brothers didn’t know, and neither did the girls know, but the two other girls besides her said, “You guys figure out what you’re going to have,” and their Daddy said, “You guys figure out for yourselves.”  And the two sisters wouldn’t even do the cleaning and Beauty did her brothers’ work in the field and she did all the house cleaning.  Their father was going to get their gift, and Beauty said she didn’t know what she wanted either. But she said after thinking for a very long time, “I want a rose.  We hadn’t seen a rose and there are none at this house.”  Their father said, “Okay, I’ll give you a rose.” And he went off traveling on the horse.  He saw a castle there and he stopped his horse at the steps of the castle.  Then he patted his horse and went off his horse. He found some roses in a big trail and he almost picked a rose,  but before, a beast came up and said, “This is my field and you are not allowed to pick anything out of here unless the person who wants it will come to me.”  So the father picked it and said “One of my daughters wants it and it’s the best daughter,” and he got the rose and said, “Beauty is her name and she shall come to you.”  When her father was home with the rose, Beauty danced up and said, “Thank you, Father” and her father gave it to her.  And the father said, “My daughter, you have to go to the beast.  It’s the beast’s garden that I picked it in and there’s no other rose next to our house.”  And so they got the horse and traveled on.  As they led up to the castle, her father stayed there for a week.  And then her father left.  He left her in the room that he went to to stay at there for a little because he wanted to know where she could stay.  So he went.  She dreamed about a prince. Then she ate and went back to bed and dreamed about her prince again.  Then she went into a fancy room that had a frame.  The frame was the prince that she dreamed of.  And the beast came to her and he said, “Do you love me?”  She didn’t answer, and the beast came all of that week and said, “Do you love me?”  Then, as she was lying and sleeping, she woke up.  She dressed and there was a man that came to her and said, “Here is a prince.  It is the beast.”  And the beast came to her and said, “I shall be married with her.” And he was married with her.  But first she saw her father, and the beast said, “I will die if you don’t come back early.”  And a lady reminded her, saying, “You must go, the beast is dying.”  So Beauty traveled on her way and hugged the beast because she did not want him to die.  And then he was married with her very happily.

A Few Thoughts

:: As you can see, Cate has a very creative personality.  She often elaborates on her narrations and I generally have to reign her in gently to focus on the details that are actually there, not necessarily the way the story plays out as she visualizes it in her head.  ;)  But she has really grown as a narrator from the beginning of the year, when I could barely get a sentence out of her because she was paralyzed with perfectionism.  (It's hard to be a beginning narrator in a home with two older siblings who narrate so expertly.)  Even though there are plenty of mis-rememberings and misunderstandings here, I'm encouraged by her progress and enthusiasm.
:: She too was very taken with the performance of Much Ado About Nothing that we attended, and her choice of drawn narration was actually based on her favorite part from the staging, not necessarily from the read-aloud version.
:: She loves Paddle to the Sea, but I have really neglected mapwork with her for that book.  She at least knew where the Great Lakes were, so I suppose that's something--ha!

Cate's First Grade

It's time to share Cate's first grade programme!  She'll be doing Year 1 of AmblesideOnline with a few substitutions.  (My plans here are posted with permission from AmblesideOnline.)

Math	RightStart Level B/C (15 minutes x 4 days/week)
Language Arts	Copywork - printing using Startwrite pages, beginning with letter strokes (daily) Reading - either reading an easy reader or doing a CM-style lesson (daily)
First Communion Basket (15 min daily)	Leading Little Ones to Mary Neumann Press' First Communion Days Little Nellie of Holy GodMother Mary Loyola's King of the Golden City Mother Mary Loyola's First Communion Fr. Halpin's Retreats for Children (First Confession and First Communion sections) Fr. Brennan's Angel Food for Boys and Girls Knecht's Child's Bible History New St. Joseph Baltimore Catechism No. 0 Amy Steedman's The Read-Aloud Book of Bible Stories
Poetry	Robert Louis Stevenson (Term 1), AA Milne (Term 2), A Child's Book of Poems (Term 3)
Literature	Lang's Blue Fairy Book, Aesop's Fables, Kipling's Just-So Stories, Lambs' Tales from Shakespeare
History	Marshall's Our Island Story, Baldwin's Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Hall's Viking Tales D'Aulaire biographies Weekly entries on binder timeline
Geography	Holling's Paddle to the Sea Mapwork - tracing Paddle's on the map, learning Western states, noting characters from history on maps of Europe and America
Natural History	The Burgess Bird Book for Children, James Herriot's Treasury for Children
Nature Study	Weekly nature study outing with friends Weekly nature journal entry Monthly object lesson and in-the-field sketching session focusing on Trees Keeping a Calendar of Firsts as a family
Alongside the Big Kids (details here)	Picture study and music study (10 min weekly) Italian (15 min daily) Handicrafts - sewing with felt, wet felting, cooking (weekly) Free Reading from the Year 4 and Year 1 lists (daily) Daily calisthenics during memory work, weekly run with Mommy Memory work (daily) Morning Basket readings (not narrated) - Steedman's Legends of Italy, Flos Sanctorum, Hillyer's Child's Geography of the World , New St. Joseph Baltimore Catechism, Opal Wheeler's book on the term composer, Hillyer's A Child's Book of Art on the term artist (daily)
Extra-curriculars	Piano lesson (once weekly) and daily practice Art lesson (once weekly) Swim lessons with Xavier Weekly homeschool park day

(And just for comparison: Gianna and Vincent's Year 1 and Cate's kindergarten.)

A few notes about Cate's schedule:

She is tagging along with Gianna and Vincent this year in many subjects, including handicrafts, Italian, memory work, Morning Basket readings, and so on.  In fact, I'm doing a slightly trimmer Year 1 with her than I planned for my older two kids since she sits in on so much of their work (like Shakespeare, for example!) and is hearing challenging readings often.  For them, I did add to the Ambleside Online schedule a tad, but it feels plenty meaty enough this go-round.

As usual, we are not doing Trial and Triumph, the suggested Bible rotation, or Parables from Nature, choosing instead to fill those slots with our own religious materials.  This is a sacramental preparation year for Cate, who hopes to make her First Confession and First Communion this spring.  So I chose to do a First Communion basket of religious reading I thought she would love as she readies herself for those events.  (Xavier is also joining us for the First Communion readings; he'll basically have a two-year preparation, which I think is an added bonus of being a younger sibling!)  I'm not scheduling these books out--just reading about ten minutes to her daily from whichever books we choose.

She's doing more extra-curricular activities than my older two were doing at her age.  But we found instructors for art and piano in our home, so I didn't mind adding Cate in to the lessons since they're already coming over to teach the older two.  She is very eager to start piano officially, and she'll do some simple drawing exercises with the art teacher while the big kids work on more complicated projects.  And I have been waiting until Xavier hit kindergarten age so the two of them could be paired for swim lessons.  So all three items on her list are family activities that will stretch for the year.

Cate and Xavier (my kindergartener) are actually doing quite a bit together this year, but I'll chat about my specific plans for him another day because I want to share a little pile of my favorite books for the Year 0.5 set. :)

Inside Our Form I Binder

My rising first grader has been eagerly awaiting a Year 1 rite of passage in this house: receiving her very own binder!  She squealed with excitement when I brought it out of the office and placed it on her school shelf in preparation for Monday's start.  (I should add: this girl is amazingly easy to please, if that's not obvious. ;))  The funny thing is that it's really nothing special!  Just a handy housing place for her written/drawn assignments and reference materials for AO's Form I work.

Care to peek inside?

Copywork.  Cate is working on letter formation and loves writing.  So I printed a mix of alphabet practice and simple sentences to start her off.  Later in the year, I'll have her work on the poems she is memorizing,  favorite bits from her school readings, and prayers.  I usually keep just a couple pages in her binder and the rest in my own folder, waiting to replenish hers when she has finished.

An alphabet card.  These are just little reference cards for my eager early writers to use in their free time.  I printed them using Startwrite, just like I did the copywork pages.

Maps for mapwork and for reference.  Last year, I printed blank maps of Europe and America for my older kids to note relevant places we encountered in our readings--beyond the scheduled mapwork we did alongside our designated geography readings.  I did the same thing for my first grader's binder this year.  So when we read that Velazquez painted in Spain, Handel was born in Germany but composed for the King of England, or Leif the Lucky landed on this coast or that, we can make a quick note on these casual maps instead of just referencing our wall map (which, although convenient, wasn't making the impact I was hoping for).

I also have our formal maps for this year printed on cardstock--Year 1 has Paddle to the Sea scheduled, so we'll be covering the Great Lakes region in a bit more depth as we chart Paddle's journey.  Next year we'll do the same with Tree in the Trail, and the year after with Marco Polo.

And we refer to these handy laminated maps all the time, so they're in there too.

Binder timeline.  I've described our binder timeline before.  Cate's is blank now but it won't be by the end of the year!  My older kids have kept the same binder timeline through all of Form I.

Bird coloring sheets. This is something I did as a supplemental project with my older two when they went through The Burgess Bird Book in Year 1, and I'm certain Cate is going to enjoy it as well.  I used the Peterson field guide coloring book to make copies of the relevant birds, and she can color them based on the field guide's key.  At the end of the year, we can add them to her nature journal.  This is not a required element of studying Burgess' book, and for some kids it would be overkill.  For my kids, who happen to love coloring and nature, it's a fun addition.  (One might do the same thing for The Burgess Animal Book in Year 2, but we didn't.)

Memory work.  Each child has in her binder a copy of the selections we're working on: a hymn, a folk song, a poem, a passage from Shakespeare, and a passage from the Bible.

Once she learns this memory work, I remove all but her poem, which she illustrates and then gives to me to add to our family poetry folder.  We have four years worth of poetry in there from two children so far, and there will be more added as the years go on.  It's a lovely pile of drawings and poems even at this early stage!

Math drill sheets.  We use RightStart math in the early years, and starting in Level B, they provide math drill pages for regular use.  I put these in page protectors and they do one a day with a wet-erase marker.  Later on, I'll often print extra practice on specific topics from Math Aids and tuck them in the pocket for daily use.

Drawing drill sheets.  These free printables from Donna Young's site are another of those wonderful extras for kids that love to draw.  I schedule these for five minutes a couple times a week.  They coordinate with the exercises in Mona Brooks' Drawing with Children, which I have used on and off with my kids for the past few years. (Note: Unfortunately, these drill pages are by paid subscription only.  I haven't been able to find anything similar to substitute with, but you could technically draw your own quite easily if you are so inclined.)

And not shown, but -- Paper for drawn narrations.  I pop some blank paper in the back pocket for easy access.  My 1st grader's are just blank pages, but in second and third grade, I printed a variety of lined papers with a blank space at top, bottom, or side for sentence-long written narrations or copywork accompanied by a drawing.

Not all our Form I Keeping is held here; we keep nature journals separately in a hardcover spiral bound notebook, do math on looseleaf sheets or in math workbooks, house our family Calendar of Firsts in a shared binder, etc.  But this binder makes it easy for her to keep her personal work together and organized.  I can also assign "binder work" first thing in the morning, and that includes copywork, map drill (when she's a bit older), drawing drill, memory work, and more--and all she needs to bring to the table for that learning block is this binder and her pencil box.

This binder stays pretty much as-is (with year-specific additions and refreshing) through Form I (Years 1-3), but I'm pulling together my Year 4 students' binders now and I'll have to chat about those once they're up and running--added responsibility, more written assignments, and a couple on-going projects means theirs are a bit fuller.

Nature Journals - Starting Fresh, Looking Back

We're starting a new school year here today (AO Year 2 - more on that another day!), so I have new nature journals ready for my two oldest.  Before putting away their old ones, I thought I would do a little update on what they have been documenting lately.  

Our nature study group has still been meeting casually through the summer, though it has been a bit sporadic with vacations, illness, and all the usual summer goings-on.  That doesn't mean we haven't been fitting in lots of nature study as a family, though!  Lately, a lot of that time has been spent in our own yard and in local parks, and my kids and I have been faithfully working on our journals and Calendar of Firsts.  Here's a peek at the last few entries in my children's nature journals:

My daughter has really been working on drawing our local birds, trying to get the shape of the body, angle of the head, and coloring just right.

And here is her listing of our current backyard flowers:

Similarly, my son decided one afternoon to catalog all the bugs he found in a day and try to identify them.

An ongoing collection of acorn drawings my daughter added to all fall/winter:

As you can see, a lot of their work lately has been in the form of almanac pages of sorts.  They are entirely their own idea and creation, and I think the impulse is fascinating.  I do it too, but with words, usually making sure I have an exhaustive list of every species I've noticed on a given outing.  But they more often do it with pictures, which is the kind of project that overwhelms me but doesn't intimidate them at all.

And just to show how much progress they have made this past year, I put a few of their entries from the beginning and end of their year-long journals side by side.  And the subject is one of their very favorites--mallard ducks!

By my daughter:

Last year (left) and last month (right)

And by my son:

Last year (left) and last month (right)

Of course, More important than drawing progress is progress in their knowledge and their powers of observation.  But it's fun to see their drawing skills develop as well!

It is such a wonder to me as a parent to watch my children grow and learn with so little hands-on work from me.  I provide the time outdoors, the free time in, the quality books, the sense of order and wonder, the materials--and their minds and bodies do the rest.  And now we're all looking forward to empty notebooks full of possibilities for this new year!

Preparation for First Holy Communion

 

My two oldest children (along with Angela's oldest) will be receiving their First Holy Communion this coming Sunday (Mother's Day!), and it has been a very special time preparing with them for this occasion.  We're in a small traditional parish with about a dozen children receiving FHC this year; Father has met with the children once a month for the past few months, but the rest of the preparation has been done by the parents at home.  In so doing, I have tried to keep in mind Miss Mason's thoughts in mind:

"We are probably quite incapable of measuring the religious receptivity of children. Nevertheless, their fitness to apprehend the deep things of God is a fact with which we are called to 'deal prudently,' and to deal reverently." (Volume 1, page 248)

I have much more I would like to say about this--it's such an inspiring concept, and it means so much in practice.  It, along with Charlotte Mason's other principles, has shaped the way I approach our religious education.  But for now, I just want to share what we have been using for our sacramental preparation this year:

Catechism.  For the first two terms of the school year, we worked through the 12 lessons in St. Joseph's First Communion Catechism, spending two weeks on each. During the first week, we would read the whole text of the chapter through and discuss.  During the second week, we worked on memorizing the questions and answers.  I am very much in favor of memorization when it comes to religious instruction--as an adult convert to Catholicism, I see the great gift the Church has given us in these simple but beautiful catechism answers and her rich stock of prayers!  So memorize we do.  The children listen and repeat until they know them by heart, just as we do with our poetry and songs.  We review these once every couple weeks to make sure they're retained.

Great Books.  We were able to cover several wonderful books over this past year:

:: Alongside the catechism, we read one accompanying chapter per week from the Angel Food series by Fr. Brennan.  I then put the volumes on the children's free reading shelf and they devoured the rest of the stories in short order.  I had some misgivings about the stories at first--they seemed a bit heavy-handed with their moral instruction, and I have to admit that I don't consider them completely CM-friendly.  But I wouldn't consider them twaddle either--the stories are sweet and clever, the examples useful, and the voice engaging.  These were written as "talks" by a priest to children, and I think taken as little sermons, they're much more palatable.  And goodness, my children do love them.

:: For our third term of the school year, I used the first two sections from Children's Retreats by Fr. Halpin, which includes seven lessons on First Confession and seven on First Communion.  These are also written as talks by a priest to children preparing for these sacraments, but they have a more mature tone, use more difficult language, and tackle more complicated topics than do the Angel Food books.  What is the difference between attrition and contrition?  How do you avoid making a bad Communion?  What role did Judas play in salvation history?  How can I receive God Himself in Communion when I am so unworthy of it?  All the theological topics you ever wanted to cover with your child before he receives these sacraments are in this book.  And at the end, there are short stories on these topics as well.  A wonderful resource all around.

:: I completely forgot about Mother Mary Loyola's The King of the Golden City until a friend of mine mentioned it a couple weeks ago and asked if I wanted to borrow her copy.  This is such a lovely, lovely book.  The children read it over the last week on their own because I really wanted to give them a chance to finish it before their big day, and I knew we wouldn't have time if I were to do it as a read-aloud.  I wish we had been able to go through it more  slowly together.  But it made a strong impression on them nonetheless--they have chatted about it to me and to each other quite a lot.  My daughter was particularly taken with the pictures in the version we read as well.

:: Mother Loyola's First Communion.  This is one of those fantastic resources that I had bookmarked ages ago and hidden away in a folder on my computer from long ago...and completely forgot about until yesterday evening!  (You can get it for free here.)  Such a shame, because I would love to have worked it into our first grade religion readings.  If I had our sacramental prep to do over again (and I will, at least four more times! ;)), I will definitely be adding this book to our reading list.  It is thorough and the tone is just right--it opens with a letter to the child:

"This, dear children, is a book put into your hands in the hope that it may help you to prepare yourselves for First Communion.  Yes, prepare yourselves; for this great work, the greatest of your lives, must be done by yourselves.  No one can do it for you.  Others may help you, but the real work of preparing your hearts for Jesus must be your own doing."

Isn't that just wonderful?  I haven't yet read the whole thing, but so far, I adore this book, so much so that we'll be using it as a follow-up to their FHC--I think it will make wonderful Year 2 reading for us!  In fact, the last section, titled "Thanks Be To God For His Unspeakable Gift," is meant to be used with children who have already received.

An Overview of the Bible. We went through the New Testament last year and the Old Testament this year, in addition to the Gospel readings each week.  This will be an ongoing part of the children's education, obviously, but I wanted to be sure we had hit the main stories of the whole Bible in these early years before First Communion.  Last year we used A Child's Life of Christ, and this year we used Knecht's Child's Bible History.

Study of the Mass.  My goal is to do some learning about the Mass each year.  This year, we read through Maria Montessori's The Mass Explained to Children, and I think it was a great way to prepare for First Communion, particularly for those that attend the Traditional Mass like we do.  Her style is thorough and reverent, and she deals with the order of the Mass in a methodical yet engaging way. And despite going to the TLM exclusively for the past five years, I learned a lot in this book "for children" as well!

Prayer.  In a variety of ways:

:: The children and I have been praying a novena for all the those in their First Communion class.  (There are two sweet novena options here and here.  Both are a bit too simple for what I was looking for, but they're working well combined and with my own adjustments.)  

:: The memory work we have chosen for this past year has included prayers and hymns with an emphasis on these first sacraments: the Act of Contrition, Tantum Ergo, O Salutaris Hostia, the Anima Christi, and more.

:: And throughout this time, I have been saying some prayers of my own from a wonderful book, The Christian Mother: the Education of Her Children and Her Prayer by Fr. Cramer (which you can read for free here!):

Prayer to be said for a Child when preparing for its First Confession

Most holy and merciful God! I recommend to Thee my child, which is now preparing for its first confession. It is from Thee that true sorrow cometh; without Thy grace no one can be truly sorry for his sins or obtain Thy pardon. Send an abundance of Thy grace into the heart of my child, in order that it may overcome the levity of youth and prepare with earnestness, be truly sorry for its sins, confess them sincerely, and obtain pardon in the holy sacrament of penance. Grant that my child may, with the assistance of the father practice of a truly Christian life. Amen. 

O holy angels, accompany my child and help him to make a good confession. Amen. 

Prayer to be said for the Child when preparing for First Communion

Divine Saviour, the time is drawing near when my child will enjoy for the first time the incomparable grace of receiving Thee in holy communion. Immeasurable is Thy fruit of the holy sacrifice of the Mass. The Christian mother should, therefore, assist at holy Mass with the intention of obtaining for her children the grace to make a good confession. She should especially ask for them the grace of true contrition. love for my child; therefore Thou wilt come to take up Thy abode in its soul, to unite it intimately and wholly to Thee, to enrich it with Thy most precious graces and lead it to the enjoyment of the greatest happiness. O Jesus, who can measure Thy goodness and condescension! Be Thou praised for all eternity! Oh, that my child may understand the greatness of the favor and the happiness Thou art preparing for it! Enlighten it and lead it to a knowledge of Thee; assist it to prepare well and receive worthily this great sacrament. Visit Thy servant who is preparing my child, that through Thy grace his instructions may have the salutary effect of making my child understand the Christian truths, and his words and direction lead it to the practice of a truly Christian life. O Jesus, grant that my child may use this time of preparation in such a profitable manner that it may approach the holy table with the proper dispositions, and receive Thee, my divine Lord, worthily into its soul. Amen.

Aren't those lovely?  And now my daughter is praying to her dear St. Therese that we will all get over the cold we have before Sunday rolls around!

God willing, we'll all be healthy and there on Sunday morning to rejoice together over these new communicants--please keep them in your prayers as well!

Looking Back on Year 1, and Looking Forward to Summer

Our family was on vacation at the beach for the past week, and I have so many places from our trip that I want to share here!  A teaser...

Yep, it was pretty fantastic! :)

But first, I wanted to talk a bit about our previous year and the year to come now that we're well into our "summer" break here at our house.

Summer break for us doesn't mean we're totally "off"--like Angela, we'll be continuing a light schedule year round, particularly for skill-based work:

:: Math - We'll be doing math 3x a week, which will have us finishing up RightStart Level C just before our new school year starts in July or so.  I'm also motivated to add more of the games into our days--particularly on the weekends, when my kids can play with my husband.

:: Memory work - Still doing this 4x a week over breakfast, using our memory "notebook."

:: Foreign language - Working on this casually through songs and games.

:: Reading - Both read-alouds and independent reading daily, obviously!  Poetry and religious reading a few times a week as well.

:: Nature Study - Nature walk and journal entry at least weekly, just like during the school year.

Other than that, there will be lots and lots of free play and park days--the more time the kids spend outdoors, the better, I say!  The children also have their own projects they want to do: my daughter wants to make some simple doll clothes out of felt and is currently copying all the illustrations from the Therese stories in the Catholic Treasure Box series to make into her own little book.  My son is occupied outdoors catching and caring for ladybugs and dictating questions for me to email in to My Nature Friend magazine. :)  And we are almost finished up with The King of the Golden City in anticipation for their First Holy Communion this weekend.  Busy!

That said, I'm hoping to use this "summer" break as a chance to think through some of the subjects I'm hoping or needing to tweak for this coming year.  The exams gave me a good idea of where to start--

:: Italian.  They were very timid and unsure about their Italian answers on this past exam.  Their comprehension has definitely improved but their speaking skills haven't yet.  As I think I said last term, more casual conversational work is in order!  I found Kids Stuff Italian (strange name, but it's a fantastic resource!) at our local library, so I'll be spending some study time refreshing my memory so that I can talk with them about a larger variety of topics.  And some games are definitely on my list as well--I have some plans for Italian games based on our Italian songbooks (which we are still loving, by the way!), and I will post them here once I have a chance to write them up.  I'm also going to use our summer break as an opportunity to preview some Italian curricula for next year--maybe something a bit more formal, now that they're a bit older.  (If anyone has a non-video, primarily aural/oral Italian program to recommend, please do share!  I'm looking at this one or this one right now, as well as some other audio options.)  I'm also going to pick up the other songbook in our current series, which should be a perfect fit for our winter term next year.

:: Penmanship.  They did make good progress this year, and this isn't something I'm concerned about overall, since I think their writing is pretty average for their age.  But I would like to just mix things up a bit with their copywork--it's feeling a little stale.  One difficulty I have is that my two students have very different issues they're working through: my daughter is a super-perfectionist and melts down when her examples aren't absolutely perfect.  She would erase and redo all day if I let her!  But I can see her frustration build up and I usually stop her after a very short time of practice (5 minutes maybe)...and then she gets upset because she didn't finish as much as she wanted to.  My son, on the other hand, has a nice balance of attention to detail and realistic expectations, and his letters look fine (as do my daughter's), but I have to watch over his shoulder the whole time, correcting some of his bad habits in formation.  I'm not sure how these bad habits started, since I have been vigilant about his copywork since his kindergarten days.  But the instinct to start several letters in the wrong spot is still there and don't seem to be going away.  I think we need to mix it some more "fun" kinds of writing, just as a break from the process--writing in sand, large-scale with sidewalk chalk, on dry-erase boards or with different colored pens...summer seems like a good time to try something new.

I also want to use our time off to build some new habits and work on some new skills:

:: Teatime.  This is a habit that has fallen by the wayside over the last term.  I hope to resurrect it at least weekly this summer (iced tea, naturally!) and cover some religious reading and poetry, which we're casually continuing through our break and need a "home" in our summer-school schedule.

:: A Day Out-of-Doors.  There will be many days out-of-doors this summer, but here I'm referring to a Charlotte Mason-inspired day outside a la her recommendations in Volume 1.  Foreign language practice, mental picture painting, dry brushing in our journals...I want to make a small amount of our outdoor time more intentional for my older two children, and I'm hoping that trying more of these activities during our down time will help make them a habit that will continue into next year.

:: Chore lists.  Our chores have gone smoothly this year, but we'll take a bit of extra time this summer training in new chores.  First will come the 4-year-old, who is ready to take on some of the big kids' responsibilities.  Then I'll be training the older two in a few new tasks.  By fall, I hope to have this place running like a well-oiled machine! ;)

:: Visual memory.  Now that my children are reading so well and starting to write quite a bit on their own (nothing formal--just notes to each other, letters, lists, and whatnot), I'm noticing that my son isn't a born speller.  This doesn't surprise me at all because though he did learn to read very easily and early, he has always had trouble with visualization, which is so key to a Charlotte Mason education.  I hope to stretch those mental muscles, building up his visualization skills with some simple games and activities.

:: Art!  Summer is our time to hit all the messy, best-for-outdoors art projects: finger-painting, sidewalk chalk, chalk pastels, watercolors...I'm going to have my art-loving 6yo daughter help me plan it out.  I also have some drawing exercises lined up, which slipped off our schedule when the baby arrived in the fall--both my children have been begging to continue them for months.

:: Nature study.  I plan to touch base with our nature study group to see what goals we all have for the summer and this coming year.  As for our family, we had a wonderful time at the beach this past week, and we have some special day trips with Daddy planned to a few new local sites.  And lots of time for nature journaling, I hope!  

And for Mommy: besides arranging Italian games, visualization exercises, and chores, I'm hoping to...

:: Finish up Volume 1 and keep up with the 20 Principles Study going on over at the AO forums

:: Arrange music lessons for fall

:: Choose books and lessons for the subjects I plan on my own (Italian, religion, geography, and art)

:: Prepare our materials for art study, music study, music, and memory work

Okay, so that doesn't sound super restful, does it?  ;)  But school planning is a bit of a hobby for me--hardly a chore at all.  So I'm giddy with the extra time I have to read and plan, even if it is all "schoolwork"! :)

Enough about me: what will be keeping you busy this summer?

First Grade in Our Home: Free Reading

I have mentioned my challenge before: I find it difficult to keep my children stocked with quality reading for advanced, voracious readers with innocent souls.  How to provide them with plenty of challenging free reading without compromising on literary quality or introducing situations or behaviors I don't consider age-appropriate?  I know you mothers with early readers can relate!  And if you're like me, you're looking for reading suggestions for your lively little book-lovers. ;)  I posted a list of their kindergarten reading, and here is a list of my children's free reading for first grade.  

These are books I put on their shelf for their afternoon reading time in particular, not the scads of picture books and old favorites they picked up throughout the day on their own. ;)  We did a few from this list as audiobooks (Little House in the Big Woods, Farmer Boy, Peter Pan, Pinocchio) and a few as read-alouds (Mary Poppins, The Moffats series), and the rest were independent reading.  These were not narrated.  And be warned: a few of these show up on AO free reading lists for years ahead.  I do reserve most of the AO-selected books for when they're scheduled on the school rotation, but I do sometimes dip into the free reading options.  And one last disclaimer: the books I have listed here are all innocent enough for our family, and I consider myself pretty discerning--but please, do pre-read as needed to ensure they're okay for your children as well!

And now for the list...

From the AO list:

King of the Golden River

Little House in the Big Woods

Farmer Boy

Peter Pan

Pinocchio

Mary Poppins

Pocahontas

Others:

The Mouse and the Motorcycle

Runaway Ralph

Stuart Little

The Trumpet of the Swan

The Children on Troublemaker Street

Old Mother West Wind

Venezia's books on composers and artists for this year

My Nature Friend monthly magazine

The Railway Children

Schoolhouse in the Woods series (four books in the series)

d'Aulaires' Nils

Thimbleberry Stories

d'Aulaires' Abraham Lincoln

Maminka's Children

The Rackety-Packety House

Betsy-Tacy, Betsy-Tacy and Tib (we'll wait until they're a bit older for the rest in the series)

Dr. Doolittle

Misty of Chincoteague

The Cricket in Times Square series (seven books in the series)

The Children's Book of America (we read the others in the series last year)

Degas and the Little Dancer

Merlin and the Making of a King

Fireside Stories

Tumtum and Nutmeg series (seven short books in the series)

And they're currently working on these:

Freddy the Pig series (there are *26* books in the series!)

The Moffats series (four books total)

That should keep us busy for the next month, but then I'll be back out hunting for more--so if you have suggestions for books at this level (or just beyond), please do let me know!