I’ll just jump into it. We’re homeschooling again, and this time, I’m vaguely inclined towards a bit more structure in our days, and some people had expressed interest or concern about the material we will be covering.

I also realize that I wish I had posted my Alphabet activity as I went for kindergarten, because we both really liked it, and perhaps this can serve as a bit of a record of what we’re doing for grade one.

We have a combination of Build Your Library activities, Singapore Math, Khan Academy, Torchlight, Wild Math, and Basic Foundations for Scientific Understanding.

So here is what’s on the schedule, in no particular order, and we’ll see what we get through, and follow up afterwards:

• We’re going to watch this video of someone reading Me on the Map: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgA3P_KkdHU, this is kind of an awesome introductory geography activity where kids can see where they are in relation to the rest of the world, and how they fit.
• Relatedly, we will do this activity from Playdoh to Plato - https://www.playdoughtoplato.com/me-on-the-map-craft/ which is generously provided as a printable, but I’ve modified ours to say province. (I also saw this great video on youtube for a more customizable DIY version, but I don’t have the inclination to do it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgA3P_KkdHU)
• We will read a couple of chapters of The Tale of Despereaux together which I got from the Library and discuss some of the themes and highlight a few vocabulary words.
• An introduction to nature journalling. We will do and talk about Lecture 1 of High Park Nature Centre’s Nature Journalling for Naturalists. (it’s about 17 minutes) - https://highparknaturecentre.com/index.php/nature-journaling-for-naturalists.
• We’ll share the poem “Step Outside. What Do You See?” © 2014 Allan Wolf from THE POETRY FRIDAY ANTHOLOGY® FOR SCIENCE edited by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong. https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/361625045072539941/ and go outside and run around and do some Wild Math.
• A couple of pages from Singapore Math 1A, and a couple of activities of his choice from the Math section of Khan Academy.
• Play a game (Valence or vegetable soup fraction game)

What did our day actually look like?

• We did watch the video of Me on the Map, which led to looking at the GoogleEarth of the globe, down to our community.
• We jumped around looking at different continents, which led nicely to the Me on the Map Craft. The nice thing about the craft is that it combines scissor skills with writing, while also demonstrating our position in the world clearly and in a tactile way.
• We ended up reading Book 1 of The Tale of Despereaux which was to the end of Chapter 15, and probably would have gone on, if it hadn’t been the perfect break for lunch.
• The kid read Big Trouble with Simple Machines
• A few lessons on Khan Academy, working with some ten frames and addition and subtraction up to 20.
• We watched the intro to nature journaling, from the high park nature centre, and started our first page and collected some observations and drawings at the pond. There were about 10 Autumn Meadowhawks flying around. We also saw a female goldfinch in the trees.
• We went for a 30 minute walk+run, and ended up also doing the Step Outside poem - including some accidental memorization.
• We also played extensively with a race car.