Mirette on the High Wire

This past Friday we had our first COOP of the school year. Things were a little different for this one, after the kids finished their show and tells we all stayed together and learned how to do a lapbook. Lapbooking can be done by any learner-- from preschoolers to adults. With this educational method, you make mini-books covering details that you've studied. After making a variety of mini-books about a larger topic, all the books are put together in a large folder. The finished product is called a lapbook because it's large and covers your lap.
Five in a Row has been using lapbooks (they call them fold n learns) for a while now but I never knew how to do them. Well, I know now and I love them. We went ahead and did lapbooks for Madeline's rescue and the little red lighthouse.
It's great to see all the info spread out like that, makes it so much easier to remember details about the story and the different subjects we are covering from a single story. I'm changing all my lessons to include a lapbook for each of them!


This week we are rowing Mirette in the High Wire, a wonderful story about a young girl who helps a old performer conquer his fear and perform once again.
We're going back to Paris, France for this one so it'll be a nice review of what we already learned when we read Madeline's rescue. Also for geography we'll be looking at all the places Bellini performed before ending up in Paris.
We'll be doing vocabulary words as well, lapbooks are a great way to display vocabulary words!
We played a game were we tried to walk on the high wire, the kids had fun pretending to do this.

This week we are starting phonics as well, A6 had no problems getting back into it. She is reading very well and she is able to figure out the different sounds certain letters make when they are together. I had to give her a little brake in between subjects because we are covering a lot more stuff now than when we first began school. The breaks worked well, she seemed ready to tackle the next subject after each break.
Math is going very well, we are almost done with Primer and we should be starting Alpha before the semester is over.
Her handwriting is getting better as well, I'm going to start a bit of spelling with her, probably every two weeks 3-5 words at a time. I have a really simple spelling curriculum where I have lists of words for each grade.
I'm working on the calendar right now, she will be learning how to spell the days of the week and then the months of the year.
This Wednesday we'll be continuing with the nutrition chapter from Home economics for homeschoolers.