Last month's science class

Here are some pictures from last month's science class.

Sparkle got to learn about electricity and Pompeii.


Meanwhile I wandered the main exhibits with Glitter. There were lots of school groups. Glitter and I got to sort shells. Glitter got to be pretty good at separating swirly snail-type shells from flat clam-type shells.

Photos from October

A while back I was having computer problems and photo problems. So, lots of my blog posts didn't have photos to go with them, and I took some photos that I didn't blog. I am in the process of adding photos to the existing blog posts, but that still leaves the photos without posts. Instead of going back and creating posts for those photos, I'm just dumping those photos here in this post. Oh well, it's ugly but at least the pictures will be posted.

Here Sparkle's Little Flowers class put together a decorative pot of flowers to give to the priests.


Here Glitter asks for a drink of water from Wander (off camera). I think that she is at a birthday party in a park.


Here the girls draw at the gardens. I was on a colored pencil container kick, trying to find the perfect container for transporting and using colored pencils.


At the science museum, I was watching for the pendulum to knock over the block. After making Glitter wait and wait, I missed the big moment when trying to listen to an announcement over the loudspeaker.


Sparkle sewed a green felt frog pincushion at her girl's club.


Sparkle lead a decade of the rosary with the homeschool group in a park.

first grade spelling

I think I've figured out Sparkle's weekly spelling lists. Each list has ten words plus one bonus words.

The first five words on the list come from a high frequency word list. The school has a list of high frequency words with five words for each week. The list probably doubles for reading as well as spelling.

The second five words on the list are from a word family. All five words have the same basic ending, but a couple of the words also have a suffix, like 'ed.'

The bonus word is one of those motivational words. There is a big display near the entrance of the school with these words in big letters.

We practice these spelling words using the same method that we used for spelling. We analyze the spelling of each word, and then I dictate sentences using the words. Any misspelled words are analyzed again and Sparkle uses them in an original sentence.

Although the spelling load is light for Sparkle, I don't feel the need to supplement much. The high frequency words are good practice because they are high frequency and present a variety of spelling rules/patterns. The word families are okay, but at least a few of them have a suffix that we can discuss. The bonus word is usually multi-syllabic so it provides practice analyzing a longer word and doubles as vocabulary study.

(Oh, and that not supplementing much, well, when making dictation sentences sometimes I have to use a harder to spell word to create a sentence that makes sense. If she gets it, great. If not, then great, another chance to learn something.)

Glitter helps at home

Glitter helps me vacuum. She figured out how to turn the vacuum on from watching me. She hasn't yet figured out how to get it to roll flat on the carpet.


Glitter also helps with the laundry. If she is helping with the laundry, she isn't getting into other sorts of mischief. The laundry basket is about as big as Glitter, but she feels really big carrying it downstairs.

on the roof

Sunday afternoon Wander hung the Christmas lights. He really hates rigging the lights but he does it anyway out of love of the family.




Even though he's tall, he doesn't like the extra height from being on the roof.


Sparkle liked helping run clips and extra strands of rope light up and down the ladder.


Meanwhile, I setup the tree, garlands, and other decorations inside the house.