Year 2, Week 3

This post wraps up my introduction to Year 2 (see part 1 & 2). My goal is to post the readings we've done every week, along with any interesting stories or new resources I have discovered.

Week 3 readings were completed with the just a couple changes:

The Bible -we have read through nine chapters of Genesis, with him narrating each story.
Tree in the Trail chapter 4  3-6
Poetry of Walter de la Mare (poems 11-15)
Pilgrim's Progress  Dangerous Journey - finish chapter 2

For Dangerous Journey, we watch Answers in Genesis video of each chapter after reading.

What do we do other than read those books?

Handwriting (copywork): Rod and Staff's Penmanship for grade 2  This goes from print to slant to cursive, using short lessons; he does this 2 days a week.  Bible verses and other phrases are done on other days, if spelling doesn't take too long.

Spelling: Rod and Staff's Spelling for grade 2 (1 lesson weekly, which we are breaking into 2 days)

McGuffey readers (free at Gutenberg or Amazon) for introducing new words - once or twice a week.  I have him read aloud something everyday, but he is still very resistant to this.

Math: Graded Work in Arithmetic, book 1.
Hopefully, we'll get through all of 1 and part of 2 this year.  We did more than one lesson a day at first, but now we've slowed down a bit.  Finished up lesson 20 this week.

Spanish: 2-3 times a week.  Rosetta Stone (new!) and Salsa episodes (once a week).

We are following AO's rotation for music and art appreciation, using resources found for free online, and some composer's pieces purchased through Amazon and iTunes, as well as from the Homestead Pickers CD's we purchased last year.

Term 1's artist is Renoir.  For weeks 1 and 2, we studied his Girl with a Watering Can.  This week and next, we are looking at Girls at the Piano.  The composer is Claude Debussy, and this month we are listening to Suite Bergamasque (Prelude, Menuet, no.3 Claire de Lune, no.4 Passepied).  Our folk song for August is Gypsy Rover and the hymn is the Rock that is Higher than I.

Girl with a Watering Can, from NGA

The Handbook of Nature Study, which is to be used as a teacher's guide, is leading us through insects this term.  Right now we are just working on the life-cycle of insects, and what exactly IS an insect...did you  know that bugs are technically just one part of the insect family?  I love learning right along-side of him. :)  The nice things about studying insects is that there is no shortage of them in our yard to investigate!  Ick.  We are also working through the Bob Jones 2nd grade science book.

Last year, his handicrafts included hand and machine sewing.  This year, his Pa is introducing him to leather crafting.   So far, he has looked at the tools, played with the hammer and visited the Tandy store.   He is also working on hand-sewing a stuffed puppy from a kit and hopes to get that done in time to submit it for the local fair.

For his instrument, he decided to stick with piano.  We are using Free Piano Lessons 4 Kids.  We have gotten through the first 10 lessons, which hasn't taken us any farther than we got using KinderBach or pianolessons4children last year.  However, this guy really knows how to get kids involved, and does it using little stories and simple games, which DS really enjoys.  Now, the videos themselves are free, and there pdf downloads for the first few lessons are free...then he starts charging.  If you like the first couple of lessons, make sure you pay the $26 or so to get all the pdf's instead of purchasing individually.  I think its worth it, to support his efforts.

There you have it!  Hard to believe it took me 3 posts to get it all down!  Doesn't a Charlotte Mason education sound fantastic?  Its deep, and its wide...and will hopefully open many doors for the future.

*submitted to the CM Blog Carnival, hosted Sept 4, 2012 by Amy in Peru*