All About Spelling Level 2 Successfully Completed!!

Not a secret at all that I do love the All About Spelling Curriculum, this was our second year using it and yes we will use it again for next year - 2nd grade!
It's an easy curriculum to prepare for teaching, they basically help you out with all the explanation. Very important to use the app also, so you can hear the proper pronunciation of the phonograms.

You first learn how to spell words with the phonograms taught in each step, then some steps they have more words to spell. We usually do first spelling with the tiles, the next day we spell the same words on paper, if there are new words she spells them on paper, then phrases and  finally sentences.

If during spelling pracrice, she's writing a word wrong, I wait to see if she will figure out by herself before pointing it out, most of the times she figures out on her own that the word doesn't sound right, so she tries again, and if she's struggling we sound it out and she gets it and feels so proud of herself.

There's always a reviewing section before start a new step/lesson, which is great to keep things fresh in mind.

Last year, as soon as we finished Level 1 we started level 2, but this year we won't do it. We had to review all the steps we had started while still on Kindergarten, so I decided to use these last days of school to review some of the steps and keep practicing what she already learned.

Above, is Little V holding her Certification of Completion of Level 2. I'm so proud of my little student, she's so dedicated and love learning. I couldn't have asked for a better student!

If you would like to check more about the Spelling curriculum we use, please feel free to check their website at All About Leaning Press. There free downloads, the Phonogram app I mentioned above is free to download as well, and there are free lesson samples too. You can also follow their blog which includes many useful tips to make learning a great experience. 

Spelling is such an important skill to be mastered, and we do love All About Spelling because it does takes the struggle out of spelling just as they promise. 

If you have any questions, please feel free to use the contact form or leave a comment below and as soon as I have a chance I will get back to you. 

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

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

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 100th Day!!

Hello everyone!!! I really miss having more time to write here, but today I managed to find some time to let you all know that yes, we reached our 100th day of school already! We celebrated it last year and I thought it would be nice to continue celebrating it each year... maybe later on she might not be so interested in it anymore, so as for now let's enjoy it while we can!

Since we both are sick, I didn't have a chance to make as much stuff as we did last year, but I was able to make a card and matching cupcake toppers.

No, I didn't bake the mini cupcakes, had to buy them ready, but they are actually tasty. She loved it all and was so happy and we are so proud of her, she's such a great student, very dedicated and we love so much that we are able to homeschool her. 

Hope you enjoy the quick post! Do you celebrate the 100th day? We would love to hear what are your traditions!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Another fun Science Experiment!!

Good morning all!! Our Science subject for this week was fish. It was a fun week learning about these cold-blooded , aquatic vertebrates with gills and fins. Little V got to learn about:
- Salmon
- Seahorse
- Shark

We had visited the Shedd Aquarium many times before so we were able to look at some of the old pictures we had and hopefully soon we will be able to take advantage of the free days at Shedd Aquarium and make it a field trip day!

So now, let me share with you one cool experiment we did this week. This serves to teach them about osmosis (for older students) but also helps them to appreciate the importance of the animal's habitat. For example, Little V was able to see that a fresh water fish would have a hard time surviving in a salty water and vice-versa.

For this experiment we used:
- 2 shallow bowls
- tap water
- 6 slices of cucumber
- 1 tsp of salt

Little V wrote salt on s small tape and we adhered it to the bowl with salt water.

Once she added the cucumbers, we set the timer for 30 minutes. Once the time was up, we came back to check the cucumber slices.

Because the cucumber slices in the salt water lost water they were more flexible than the cucumber that were placed in the fresh water. Now, we switched the cucumbers and set the time for another 30 minutes.

The cucumber slices that were previously on salt water then were switched to fresh water recovered some of its firmness and the ones that were previously on fresh water and were switched to the salt water had lost some of its firmness.

This and more cool science experiments can be found at Janice VanCleave's Biology for Every Kid book. Just as a reminder in case you're wondering which curriculum we are using, here's a link to the Elemental Science website.

Here, Little V is working on the fish lapbook.

Hope you enjoyed our post, we surely had fun learning about fishes this week.

Today, is our last day of school before the Winter Break! Yay!!! We'll have 2 weeks to relax a little and have some fun! What about you? Will you have winter break?

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Parts of Speech Activities!!

Hello there!! We have been enjoying very much our homeschool activities! Little V is progressing very well and today I decided to share some of the cool stuff we have been doing for Pats of Speech. I'm using the Language Arts Grade 1 (Spectrum) as base of what she needs to learn and we are moving at her speed. I do however like to add lots of activities to make sure she gets it well.

So besides activities she gets from the book, we use our All About Reading student book and she practices coloring the parts of speech from the Fluency Sheets Sentences. There are some great activities also from Annie Moffat no prep packages.

I also created some activities myself and she used the Do-A-Dot Markers to color the different parts of speech.

I believe mastering these different parts of speech is an essential skill so I recently purchased an additional activity set of Parts of Speech from Dana Wonderland.

That's it for today! Hope you enjoyed our post about some of the cool stuff we have been doing for Parts of Speech.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Animals Units - Birds!!

Hello everyone, we spent  four weeks learning about birds! Little V first learned general characteristics of the birds: warm-blooded, egg-laying, feathered vertebrate that also have wings. Then we started learning a little bit more about each of the birds the curriculum picked.
- Eagle
- Owl
- Parrot
- Penguin
- Chicken
- Duck
- Swan
- Swallow
- Hummingbird
- Flamingo
- Peacock
- Ostrich

Each week there was a cool Science experiment and for each animal there was some craft activity or research. She also had a poem about Birds Characteristics to memorize. For each bird, we also identified their diet type and habitat.

Here's a highlight of some of the great and fun activities we did during the four weeks Little V learned about birds.

We made a paper craft Swan:

We made also a funny looking Flamingo:

One of the Science experiments called naked egg from the Biology for Every Kid - 101 Easy Experiments That Really Work by Janice VanCleave.

Little V poured white vinegar into a Mason Jar with a raw egg inside and we observed it for 3 days:

Look how big it got after 3 days!!

Not only big but all the hard shell dissolved and it became very rubbery!

Hope you enjoyed our post, we had lots of fun learning about birds and wanted to share some of the fun things we did!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Our Vocabulary Curriculum!!

I decided to add the Vocabulary to our homeschool workload, so after searching and reading a few options available I chose the Sadlier Vocabulary Workshop. I must say I'm happy with it. First, I thought I could get away buying only the student workbook, but after a few lessons I realized we could get more from it if I had  the teacher's edition as well, so if you are interested I highly recommend purchasing the teacher's edition, it gives you more ideas and helps you to be better prepared for teaching.

I like the fact that the book has lots of pictures and also you can access the lessons online.

So far we are happy with it and enjoying the lessons!

What do you use for Vocabulary?

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki