March 2015: Month-At-A-Glance

As winter came to a close in the Foothills, we spent many days outside enjoying the warmer weather this month. Grandpa and Grandma came to visit and we hand a wonderful time reading books, eating cake, going on walks, and singing and playing the piano together.

There was also lots of fun to be had indoors. Bud enjoyed drawing bugs, setting up an obstacle course in the basement, building an airplane out of scrap wood, even just playing with a tub of soapy water proved to be big fun.

Literature and Handwriting

In our homeschool this month, we continued reading Little House on the Prairie as our evening read aloud. We also read through the poems in Now We are Six by A. A. Milne. The kids loved this book. After reading a poem one day, Bud asked, “Mom, what is poetry?” It was fun to explain to him what it was and then let him hear a great example each day.

We also continued read Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White this month. What a treasure of a book that has been. We read a poem by James Baldwin about compassion for animals today and Bud mentioned Sam Beaver from Trumpet of the Swan. It is so great to hear him making those connections.

For handwriting, Bud continued to write Psalm 23. Breaking it up into sections has allowed us to dig deeper line by line into the poem and define any unknown words or concepts. Peanut has been working on practicing one letter a week. She colors pictures using that letter or makes the letter out of play doh or sometimes traces a worksheet. Schooltime is always optional for her, but she always chooses to participate.

History

I am reading through the Beautiful Feet Primary American History books with Bud and this month we finished up Pocahontas by Ingri and Edgar Parin D’Aulaire and began Pilgrim Stories by Margaret Pumphrey. Each day I read 1-2 pages to Bud and he narrates the story back to me. Once a week I print a picture from the Beautiful Feet picture packet for him to color. He dates it in his notebook and gives it a title. It’s been a nice way to introduce the idea of a “Book of Centuries”.

Math

We continued RightStart Math level B this month. We are learned about adding tens and quadrilaterals. Bud has also been trying to earn money doing odd jobs around the house to buy LEGOs. This has been great practice in addition.

Family Studies

For a hymn study we learned I Serve a Risen Savior by Alfred Henry Ackley. We made hand motions to go with the chorus. We also practiced proper breathing while singing. We would all take a deep breath together before singing the last part, “He lives within my heart!” We loved having Grandma around to fill our house with her beautiful piano music too.

We began a new composer study this month and began listening to Mozart. Bud seems to really like this music and asks for it all the time. The kids even bickered this morning about whether we would listen to Chopin or Mozart… love this homeschool!

We continued reading through the Gospel of Matthew this month leading up to the Easter season. As a part of our Morning Basket time, I read 5-10 verses then the kids narrate back to me or we discuss it. We also do our scripture memory verses based on the method laid out on SimplyCharlotteMason.com.

In preparation for Easter, we did an activity on the day we read about Jesus praying in the garden of Gesthemane (Matt. 26:36-56). We talked about how earnestly he prayed and excepted that God’s will was for him to complete his work on the cross. I told the kids about how when we pray sometimes it involves God changing our heart. To show this we baked homemade pretzels in the shape of arms crossing our hearts.

Science / Nature Study

We continued our weekly Nature Study time this month. I wrote two separate posts detailing what we learned during these fun sessions outside:

• Nature Study: Clouds
• Nature Study: Melting Snow

We also finished up our read aloud of The Tale of Tommy Fox and began The Tale of Cuffy Bear by Arthur Scott Bailey. We went for a hunt in the yard for fox scat and found some in the front of our house. We have seen a fox out there before so it was fun searching out clues to identify where he had been.

As we move into Spring, our school time will dwindle down a bit so we can focus more time on being outside and observing God’s beautiful creation. We are so thankful to live amidst such beauty and want to enjoy it as much as possible!

I do plan on writing a post soon about what a typical school day looks like in our house. I hope you will check back soon!