June 2015: Month-At-A-Glance

We love summer! June was such a fun month as we finally enjoyed warm temperatures and lots of time outdoors. We went camping near Jefferson, Colorado this month and enjoyed time around a campfire. We got a fair amount of rain during our trip so we read lots of great books inside our cozy tents.

It was kind of a trial run for our family and our youngest struggled a bit with the cool evening air (I brought him into my sleeping bag), but we plan to try again some time in August. If you need help getting your family packed up for some car camping, check out my Ultimate Car Camping Packing Guide here.

We did a very steep hike up to Jefferson Lake and fished in the small portion of the water that was not frozen. We didn’t catch anything, but had fun feeding the chipmunks that were scampering around us on the beach.

We had a wonderful Fathers’ Day weekend watching a local rodeo parade.  It was a fun community event and the kids had a blast seeing all the floats, horses, and monster trucks.

Family Studies

For our Bible lessons this month, we read through the rest of the story of Joseph and his brothers in Genesis. We learned some valuable lessons about forgiveness and how God’s plan always prevails.

Our hymn this month was America, The Beautiful by Katherine Lee Bates. I chose it because of the approaching Independence Day holiday. We sang it as a part of our Morning Basket time and the chorus before bed.

Literature / Handwriting

Bud continued to read aloud the Pathway Reader More Busy Times. I had him try extra hard speaking loud and clear for a week and as a reward, we all went to watch a high school baseball game.

Bud is memorizing Daffodils by William Wordsworth and is using that currently for his copywork. The poem is perfect for summertime and I really enjoy hearing him recite it each day. If you would like a PDF of the copywork I created for him, you can download it here.

Bud finished reading Black Beauty by Anna Sewall this month. It was a pretty advanced book for him so as a reward, we let him ride a horse on our recent vacation. Reading about the kind and not so kind treatment of horses in the book gave Bud a new appreciation and kindness toward animals. I have noticed him be very gentle and sweet to our dog lately.

History

We began reading The Courage of Sarah Noble which Bud narrated to me each day. We enjoyed our reading of the story of Joseph in Genesis so much that I decide to take a brief break from American history to read Boy of the Pyramids and get a glimpse into Egyptian history. What a wonderful book! Bud is very engaged during these readings and begs for me to “read one more page”.

Math

We continued RightStart Level B this month. After completing some of the assessments around Lesson 40 I feel confident that Bud is retaining his math knowledge. Our pace of 1/2 lesson per day seems to be just right for him. Him and Peanut both enjoyed creating designs with rubberbands on our geoboards.

Science / Nature Study

We did a wonderful nature study last month about Great Horned Owls. You can read more about that week’s observations here. We did a couple of other wonderful nature hikes to observe the beautiful flowers beginning to bloom.

Life was all around us this month. The elk that frequent our yard often had their calving season so we saw many young babies as the herds moved through the yard. We watched a bug digging his habitat for about 30 minutes one day. We enjoyed naming and feeding the chipmunks that live in a drainage ditch on our street. I love that this stage of life allows for so much quiet observation of our beautiful surroundings. There is so much to see and learn just by looking in our backyard.

Bud began Martial Arts classes this month and loves it so far. I am especially excited for the physical fitness side of it. An hour and a half of punching, kicking, and jumping would make any child tired and fit!

How is your summer shaping up? I hope you are enjoying it too!