2nd Grade Curriculum

I'm behind in entries, so for those of you visiting, please come back randomly through the year.  In a nutshell, here is our 2nd grade curriculum.  I love how it flows into a full-circle.

Themes:  1st Semester
1.  Not Of This World (NOTW) - We live in this world, but we are not of it.  Learning about our community and where God has us living while we are here.  Community and Community Helpers.
2.  Maps & Directions - Learning to navigate in our community and world.  Our map for life is the Bible.
3.  Follow the Star - (Special study for December) Learning more about the Wise Men and how they followed the Star;  Jesus calls us to follow Him.
Themes:  2nd Semester
4.   Pirates & Treasure Maps - (fun twist for a boy!) False teachers of the scripture; Spiritual warfare
5.  Treasures - What are our treasures?  Earthly treasures vs. Heavenly treasures
6.  Not of This World - overview; Where our treasure is there our heart will be also;  Are our treasures earthly or heavenly, are we of this world or in this world?

Cover Contest Entry

Micah submitted an entry into the Eastside Explorers' 2011-2012 Yearbook cover contest.  He is in the 7 and older group who compete for the front cover.  The theme for the yearbook is: Journey.  Micah's entry is a picture of a little boy walking around his neighborhood (fits our home study theme too) with the verse:  "Love your neighbor as you love yourself" Galatians 5:14.  That is a journey!  Judging was today at the Fall is Fun Festival.

Art Class - Acrylics

Micah attended his first art lesson with Mrs. Whitehouse.  She's a member of Scottsdale Bible Church and has been working with the Bubar boys using acrylic paints on canvas.  I've been impressed with their work and finally gave her a call.  Her websites are:

http://www.amywhitehousepaintings.com/
www.amywhitehousepaintings.blogspot.com

Yesterday's class consisted of Micah & two of the Bubar boys (Joey & Willy).
Micah LOVED it! They did a festive fall arrangement. Mrs. Whitehouse's comment for Micah "he's very teachable."

Neighborhood Party

We enjoy hosting a neighborhood party regularly.  Due to our unit study and the timing of the sermons at church (Grace and your Neighbors), we chose to challenge ourselves and extend our invitation to all 30 houses on E. Williams Drive.  The kids and I used our maps, made our invitations, and walked them to each of the houses.  Our dinner party was Saturday October 15th - 8 homes were represented and it was a wonderful evening.

2305 E. Williams Drive

This is our address:  2305 E. Williams Drive.  How many houses are on 'our drive'?  How many of those neighbors do we know, know well?  We went out today to find out.  The kids grabbed their scooters, and I had the clipboards, paper and pencils.  We made the rounds, stopping at each house to gather our information.  The kids made maps, drew houses, and wrote the house number on each square.  We talked about who lived in each house - names (first, last), and any other information we could come up with.  When we got home, we made an enlarged version of their maps and added all the names, phone numbers and email addresses that we had available.

Barton House - Beauty Pageant Escort

During our September visit to the Barton House, Ellen asked Micah to attend their beauty pageant social event and be their escort. She asked him to wear dress pants, a nice shirt, and a tie. Today was the day. The Barton House #1 pageant started at 11:30am, we were to have lunch with them, and then we'd walk over to the Barton House #2 for their pageant at 2:30pm. We love to share Jesus with them on a monthly basis, but the social events are a great opportunity to interact with them more, see more of their personalities, and meet family members. It was an outstanding day!! I was so very proud of both kids. Micah did an amazing job listening to his instructions, being a team player, taking care of the residents, and voting. He walked each participant down the "runway" - by holding their hand or pushing their wheelchair.  Lilly did a terrific job watching, sitting in (or around) her chair, and letting me take pictures and video. It was well organized and we had a great day with our friends!
Here he is with the winners:  Sally, Mary Sue, and Patty.

Our Home / Community Unit

This is our home, a temporary residence, that God has blessed us with while we are here on Earth.

In this unit we will be learning about our home, neighborhood, and community in which we live.  We will have lessons on:

addresses

phone numbers

community helpers

thank you notes

As we live out our days on this Earth, as Christians we can rely on these promises:  (Our memorizing verses)

• "We, however, are citizens of heaven, and we eagerly wait for our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, to come from Heaven."  Philippians 3:20
• "The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and make you remember all that I have told you."  John 14:26

As we learn these verses, Micah & Lilly are well aware that these promises are for those that have recognized themselves as sinners, have accepted Jesus' gift of crucifiction on the cross, have received Him as their Savior, and are ready to follow Him.

CrackerJax

We brought our 'summer sticker charts' to fruition this weekend with a trip to CrackerJax. The kids chose CrackerJax as their prize for reaching the 500 stickers goal. We purchased a great Groupon for four 4-hour tickets to CrackerJax on a weekend day. This Saturday was a perfect day for it - the weather was overcast - cool enough to not sweat the whole time, but still warm enough to be comfortable when we got wet in the bumper boats.  This was our first time to do the bumper boats as a family - it was so fun!  We were all laughing so hard out there.
Lilly was 36" and was able to drive the mini go-karts for the first time.  Micah was able to drive the bumper boats by himself.  It was neat for both of them to reach these milestones.

Lilly's Cupcake Corner goes "real"

Lilly has spent months making "pretend" cupcakes, muffins, etc. for her business "LILLY'S CUPCAKE CORNER". We made "real" cupcakes on Wednesday. At the grocery on Sunday, she picked out the flavor of cupcakes and frosting.  We put on our aprons and got fixing - small and large cupcakes!  Lilly poured, mixed, baked, frosted, and sprinkled. Then, we wrapped them up on pretty pink plates, attached a note, and delivered them to some of our neighbors. Lilly got some 'assistants' throughout the day - Micah helped with frosting and sprinkling; Kaitlyn (her friend) helped with deliveries. She was so excited to do this. It was a very special day for her.

Garden - fall makeover

Each fall, when we start school we spend our first week getting the garden areas "fixed up".  It's time to clean up, add new soil, and plant new seeds.  This week we did just that.  We now have:

Eggplant (made it through the summer)

Tomatoes (made it through the summer)

Potatoes
Carrots

Cucumbers

Bell peppers

Onions

Radishes

Lettuce

Herbs

Festive gourds

Micah built our herb garden box.  We pulled out our last 5 watermelon to make room for the festive gourd seeds.  Whew, we made it before October 1.

"WINTER" Day

It's the first day of fall, but it's been all about "Winter" for us today! We have been waiting since spring for this day to arrive - the day "Dolphin Tale" came to the theatres. When we met Winter a few months ago, while visiting Nana & Papa Joe in Clearwater, FL, we learned of the movie and marked our calendar. Today we wore our Clearwater t-shirts and took our neighbor, Kyle (who'd also been talking about going) to the show.

Here are some pictures of our trip to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. It was really neat to see these places on the big screen.

1. Micah with Nana & Papa Joe pointing to Winter

2. Winter and her friend

3. The boat they used in the movie with the advertisement for the movie

We enjoyed the movie very much and highly recommend it for families!

School starts with a Dolphin Study

We are looking forward to the Dolphin Tale movie coming out on Friday.  So, we decided to start school with a Dolphin study.  It will include:

• Reading Dolphin Adventure by Wayne Grover (A true story about a diver's incredible undersea experience!)
• Dolphin coloring pages
• Drawing dolphins
• Reading dolphin facts and writing out notecards
• Visiting the official "Winter the dolphin" website:  http://www.seewinter.com/
• Learning more about dolphins through video:  http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/animals/creaturefeature/bottlenose-dolphin/
• Learning about prosthetics:  an artificial device extension that replaces a missing body part; on humans (http://www.rslsteeper.com/) and animals (http://www.lifewithinme.com/2009/11/animal-prosthetics-amazing-stories-of-rehabilitation/)
• Reading a board book:  Dolly Dolphin and creating a similar version about Winter
• Going to the movie!

Eastside Explorers "FALL KICK-OFF"

Tonight was the Fall Kick-Off for Eastside Explorers (our homeschool co-op).  It's a huge carnival with games, prizes, information tables, and snacks.  It was fun seeing familiar faces from our previous years of homeschooling and to get to know some new families joining in.  I worked the yearbook table for most of the night.  From my post I could see Micah & Lilly running around the gym (Matt was keeping his eye on them too), going to their favorite games, getting more of the same prizes (we have 15 bath ducks), and getting their faces painted.  It was a FUN night!

Summer Catch Up

Over the summer the blogger website has been doing some updates.  I was upable to publish my entries for most of the summer, so I'll be catching up on those and putting them in chronological order.
However, we are ready to begin school and get some of those entries online.
Don't forget to come back and scroll down!!!

Basketball Season begins

We signed Micah up for the YMCA basketball league again this fall.  It's September and it's time to begin.  Micah's first practice was September 1st and his first game was September 10.  His coaches are:  Coach Stearns and Coach Rich (Matt).

"Let's go Cheetas, let's go!!"

Summer Chapter Books

The first chapter book of the summer was - Mr. Popper's Penguins, by Richard and Florence Atwater. It was highly recommended by one of Micah's friends, Joey. Joey read it at least 3 times, he liked it so much. We did too! A modern-day movie was made about it and came out in theatres right when we finished it, but we decided not to go because the differences were so drastic. We didn't want to tarnish the pureness of the family dynamics and relationships in the book.

Next, The Trumpet of the Swan, by E.B. White. The beautifully written sister book to Charlotte's Web. By accident we learned that we were reading this book on the anniversary of E.B. White's birthday. One day when we were at our friends' house, the Bubar family, they said "We're reading The Trumpet of the Swan." We said "We are too!" They were one chapter ahead of us. The kids loved talking about what had been happening so far.

Our last chapter book to read this summer was - The Original Adventures of Hank, the Cowdog, by John R. Erickson. It was a birthday gift from our neighbors, Dave & Ruth H. They remembered reading it to their son, Max, who is now in the Army. It was about a mystery investigation from the viewpoint of the dog, Hank.

Lilly's Summer Goals

Without saying "this is my goal", Lilly definitely set a couple of goals for the summer.

1. Get a library card (needed to write first and last name legibly)
2. Improve her cupcake stand and move it outdoors

These goals were met in great speed.  Library card: 6/28/11; Cupcake stand: 7/8/11. When she's determined, it happens.

Homemade bread

We got the bread maker down from the attic - after 10 years - and put it to use this summer.  Our main reason was because the price of bread seemed to have gone up quite a bit and we were wondering if we could make it cheaper - or the same, but healthier.  It was a hit!  The kids loved measuring the ingredients and dumping them into the pan.  Then we waited.  The smell of the house throughout the day was delicious.  Having warm bread for dinner - priceless.  We made lots of loaves, experimented with different recipes and flavors, and liked them all.

When Kyle, one of the neighborhood boys, was over for the day he'd ask "what kind of bread are you making today?"  He liked being in the house with the smell.

Hello Haboob

 

A huge duststorm, called a "Haboob", passed through the valley and made major headlines around the United States.  My Aunt Vivian in Florida called the next day to make sure we were ok.  Not long later, on Monday evening (July 18), around 6:30pm we had a smaller version near our house.  We were leaving the neighborhood and caught these photos.  This is the beginning (leaving our house) and the end (exiting the 51 on Cacus Road) of the storm.