Meet the First Grade class for 1999-2000
Our active First Grader enjoys active play and sports of all kinds. This picture was taken late last spring when he played T-ball. This spring he will play outdoor soccer for the first time with CABOSA.
Gardening with Grandma Liz has always been a favorite pasttime. At Rubicon, this is all part of our hands-on learning style. The tomatoes were a treat for Mom & Dad's palate. (After all the work, the student declined to taste them!)
Children have various learning styles. Our first grader is a visual,auditory, kinesthetic learner. This means that he likes to touch, see, and manipulate objects while he learns about them. He likes to be able to move around. Once we recognized his personal style, we were able to choose resources to help him to get more out of learning. For a quick overview on what these styles entail take this Learning Styles Test.
This year marked the beginning of true reading for our first grader. Favorite authors include: Sid Hoff, Mary Chalmers, Cynthia Rylant, Margaret Hillert, Arnold Lobel and Mercer Mayer. Our new reader has a sense of humor and likes stories that make him laugh, or that capture his active imagination. For read alouds he has particulary enjoyed the following:
Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
Stuart Little by E.B. White
Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
A key part of a Charlotte Mason education is narration. This is where the student "tells back" what he has learned, heard read to him, or experienced. From ages 6 to about 10, this is done orally. Written narration is usually begun after age 10. What follows is a sample narration dictated to me by the First Grader after completing a study of plants:
This is what I know about plants:
I know about the roots they get the water and bring it in to the stem and then the stem brings it in to the leaves. They store the water and then the stem brings some of it to the blossom. And make more blossoms.
When the bees get pollen from the blossom they take it to another flower. Then the pollen gets off its' back and the bee is too busy drinking nectar. The bee goes back to their hive to make more honey because they like more honey. And also, they come over there and bite you and puts its venom inside. It makes you itch. The new pollen helps to make a new plants.
Plants need carbon dioxide. We need oxygen. Plants get carbon dioxide from us when we breathe out. We breathe in oxygen from the plants.
Plants also need water, sun, time, air and food to grow.
Plants have seeds. Flowers, trees, blossoms, violets, tomatoes, a salad plant, corn, potatoes, apples, pears all have seeds. Some of them you can pick and eat.
We need the plants, the plants need us. We eat the plants. They are actually food. All the stuff that I have for my snacks are from plants: Ritz crackers, sweet cakes, saltines, gingerbread men, goldfish crackers.
Charlotte believed that education is about relationships. When a child is intrigued by the subject (due to the use of living books and other materials that capture his interest) and becomes interested in it, he establishes a relationship with it and will retain what he has learned. That is why many children can tell you so much detail of a favorite movie. We try to established these relationships in our studies. Using narration is a quick way to see if this is successful. Charlotte's method is not about learning something to pass a test and then forgetting it.
It is wonderful to see a child getting excited about so many different things! This is one of the many blessings of homeschooling. Just as you would never want to miss your child's first steps, I am so glad to have participated in fostering my child's relationship with books and learning.
Although Charlotte Mason did not have computers in her day, I feel that she would recognize the value in the use of technology in education. We use both Mac's and PC's in our homeschool. Favorite educational and entertainment software titles include:
The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis by Broderbund
Lego Creator by Lego Media
Star Wars Droidworks by Lucas Learning
GunGun Frontier by Lucas Learning
Kids Speak! Spanish by Transparent Language
Lyric Language - Spanish by Penton Kids
I Can Be A Dinosaur Finder by Learning Adventures
The IBM Brain Bytes series - Money Math, I Can Tell Time, etc.
Star Wars Episode 1: Pod Racer by Lucas Arts
A really great site that I find to buy lots of software for home and school is freecdrom. They have titles that include something for everyone and all you pay is S&H. I check the site often, as the titles are always changing. I also find good software deals at Software Street. Of course, there are lots of sites on the 'Net to download simple freebie educational games. Shareware.com is one.
More Favorite Links
Lynn's Very Unofficial CM Type Booklists - great booklists for all ages
Guardian's Ancient Egypt page - send a cyber-postcard and see your name in hieroglyphs. Lots of links.
Browse our Rubicon Academy Bookmark page for more great Elementary sites, including Interactive Math, Worksheet sites, more Book Lists and lots more!!
Comments, suggestions? E-mail us!
