Trying something new!!!

I was thinking of trying something new to keep the blog more active. I'm planing to pick a day or two of the week and try to add as much info as possible.

November of last year I started working PT and my schedule since then has been even more hectic than before. But on the positive side I want to continue sharing my experience and let Moms out there now that it is possible to work and still be able to homeschool.

I feel that Little V by no means lost on the quality of her schooling, I just need to be more organized and time management is a must to work on and develop. We still have lots of fun while schooling and I can't believe she's on her final weeks of first grade, it feels like it was yesterday when we went outside to take our first day of school traditional picture.

For several weeks she was learning about the Human Body, we purchased a microscope. I do like the one we got her, very affordable and I think it will do its job for the years to come.

She got to see how one of her own hair looks in the microscope lens.

We also did for those weeks, while studying about the Human Body, an experiment to observe the patterns of finger prints. She rubbed the sharpened end of a pencil on a sheet of paper (top left picture), then she rubbed each finger tip on the paper (bottom left picture). Next, she applied a piece of clear tape on the dark spot of the finger tip and transferred the tape to the paper and wrote down which finger that piece of tape belonged to.

This helped her to learn that each person has an unique finger print and that these personal signatures form at five months before birth and they never change.

If you are interested, you can find this science experiment and many more that we used at Janice VanCleave's Biology for Every Kid - 101 easy experiments that really work.

For Arts, she was learning about Paul Cezzane and here you can see her working on an inspired still life piece from Cezzane, She used fake fruits and vegetables from her kitchen and used watercolor paint on watercolor paper.

Hope you enjoyed our post and if you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment below or contact me through the contact form.

Hope you have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

First Grade Science Curriculum!

We have been 5 days into our First Grade School year already and we are enjoying it very much! So, today I want to share with you what is our choice for First Grade Science Curriculum.

We are using the Biology for the Grammar Stage from Elemental Science, and the required books for this curriculum.

This is our first year using this curriculum, and as I mentioned before we've been 5 days into the school year, and so far we are very pleased with the activities, the flow of the curriculum, the books required. I love the activities and there's also an option too purchase the lapbook templates which is one of our favorite type of activity.

Little V will have 20 weeks to learn about animals, 10 weeks to learn about the Human Body and 6 weeks to learn about plants. The lessons are well planned and easy to teach. They provide a list of material needed for each week, to make sure you'll be able to complete the Scientific Demonstrations.

Another thing I liked about this curriculum, is the fact that they give you two possible schedules to be used, and believe me this is very helpful. The options are 2 days a week and 5 days a week. I decided to use the 5 days a week schedule.

While I was checking their sample classes online, I was also able to see the list of books that are required for the curriculum, and that was another plus, as ahead of time I knew what books we would have to purchase and therefore no surprises later.

As you can see in the picture above, I purchased the online version and printed the student workbook and teacher manual at home. The lapbook templates are in the same binder as the student workbook.

Come back to check more about this curriculum and to see Little V having fun while learning Science!

What is your choice of Science Curriculum? We would love to hear from you!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki