Kinsman Circus: The first week of the 2012 school yea

We started school Monday. Denny began second grade and Emily continued with her Kindergarten program. This week went really well. Denny is so excited about being in second grade that he just cruised right through each day.

Emily was learning how to make things move. We moved a heavy box using a ball and pushing the box across the room over the ball. We lifted a heavy bucket with a rope. This is a picture of her trying to make objects move in water without actually touching the objects. She tried blowing, fanning and finally splashing the water which worked the best. Ben found us playing in water and had to join in. She soon had no objects to move after he got in there but they had fun splashing.

Denny learned about the Roman Empire and the fall of the Empire. As the project at the end of the week he made a Roman Legion's Signum. This was kind of like a flag for each legion. They carried these into battle. He was supposed to draw fierce animals on the round "metal" disks. He drew a spider, a tiger and a snake.

Emily learned about Gingerbread men (read the book and talked about body parts) so as a conclusion of that series of lessons we made gingerbread bear cookies.

Here is Denny's creation:

And Emily's creation:

For those who talk to me often know what a struggle spelling was last year for Denny. I wasn't sure if it was the program we used or his attitude but it was horrible! So, I decided to try a new program for this year to see if he did any better with a different spelling program. The first few days we spent testing to determine his level of spelling. Then, yesterday, we did our first official lesson. The Spelling Power program involves three sections. The first 5 minutes of the spelling period involve me reading words to Denny and having him write them in his spelling notebook. I say the word, then use it in a sentence, then say it again. He then says the word and writes it the way he thinks it should be spelled. Then I say the correct spelling as he checks his word. If it is right we move to the next word. If it is wrong then he writes the correct spelling on the column for "words to study". We do this for 5 minutes. Then he spends the next 5 minutes studying the words he got wrong. This involves 10 steps. He says the word, spells it out loud while looking at the word, closes his eyes and spells it then writes the word without looking at the example. Each step he checks his spelling as well. He also uses his finger to write his word in sand:

Then the last five minutes of the spelling period (total of 15 minutes) he completes a spelling activity. Today's activity was painting his spelling words. He absolutely loves this program and I am soo excited for this year's school with Denny.

Emily is learning about her senses. This week we worked on the sense of smell and how it works with your taste. Here she is holding her nose and closing her eyes while I feed her different foods to see if she can tell what they are without her sense of smell. She tried chocolate, grapes, grape tomatoes, strawberries and peanut butter. She did get some of them but the tomatoes and the strawberries threw her as well as the peanut butter. The boys joined in and tried as well and we all had a great time.

In Denny's science for the first half of second grade he will learn Earth Science. So, the first week we focused on the earth and it's core. We read several pages in a few encyclopedias about the earth's core as well as Denny drawing a picture of the earth. Then he made an earth out of clay. Each layer of the core being a different color and then making the continents and the ocean.