Homeschooling

Pater Noster

January 11, 2010

For this post, I wanted to share a video of Mica reciting the Lord’s Prayer in Latin, which I had her memorize. (Latin is part of her foreign language course, the other part being Spanish.)

“Foreign language provides one with entry into a worldview different from one’s own. If it is important that our young value diversity of point of view, there is no better way to achieve it than to have them learn a foreign language.” – Neil Postman in The End of Education

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First Language Lessons

November 18, 2009

For Rinoa’s grammar lessons, I use First Language Lessons by Jessie Wise. This scripted book not only teaches grammar concepts, but also includes memory work, copy work, and narration. As the author wrote, “Exposure, not mastery, is the goal at this level.” and the daily lessons that are given in small doses are perfect for this objective.

After forty or so lessons, Rinoa now understands the concept of nouns, proper nouns, and common nouns. By next week, she’ll be ready to learn all about pronouns. I’m using Schoolhouse Rock videos to supplement the grammar lessons. I don’t even have to buy them, they’re all in YouTube. Below is the video that got her excited to learn all about nouns. (I just grabbed the first video I saw in YouTube.) And you can’t blame her, the song is very catchy!

Aside from learning grammar, she’s also developing her narration skill. I tell her a short story, and she tells back the story in her own words. The problem I encountered when I started teaching her was she gives too much details that her narration become too long to write down – but she’s learning to pick out the important points and tone down her summary. As for memory work, she absolutely has no problems. I give her a 4-line poem and she has it memorized in one day. Below are two of three poems she has memorized so far.

Taken August 2009
Taken October 2009

She makes up all the hand gestures by herself and the person you hear clapping in the background in both videos is Mica.

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Character Sketch of Jessi

November 17, 2009

In one of Mica’s writing activities for Language Arts, she wrote a character sketch of her cousin, Jessi. I promised my sister-in-law a few months ago that I would share it, so here you go …

My Character Sketch of Baby Jessi
by Mica Redington

The first time I met my cousin, Baby Jessi, was in New York. She is a very happy and playful baby. Whenever you put her in front of a mirror, she laughs and giggles. If you play with her a lot, she usually smiles. Jessi loves it when you hold her up on her feet. She loves it even more when you play music and move her around like she’s dancing. Baby Jessi is one of the happiest babies I have ever known.

And what’s a post without pictures? Here are some of Baby Jessi , taken by my brother.

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