Loving First Language Lessons

When I was a brand new homeschooler, a friend of mine suggested I take a look at First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind (Volume 1 & 2) to use with my five year old son. She loaned me her copy to look over, and shortly after I purchased my own copy. After looking on the internet, I found some printables to go along with this volume over at Homeschool Creations. We have been using the book for the past couple of weeks, and so far I really like it. What I love is that my five year old is picking up on things, but it's also a great review for my nine year old daughter when she listens in to our lessons. Homeschooling is great like that!

This week I noticed that my son was constantly pointing out nouns to me - and yes, he was pointing out pretty much everything! He gets the distinction between common and proper nouns as well. When I needed a chunk of quiet time to read aloud with my daughter, I had my son do an activity to solidify this concept.

I'm sure you have lots of these around your house (I save them for these occasions):

I told my son to cut out pictures of nouns.... and he came up with a lot of things to cut out! All on his own he went to the costume catalog and starting cutting out pictures of super heroes. "Here are a bunch of proper nouns, mom!" I was so happy to hear him make the distinction on his own.

I gave him a couple pieces of paper, a glue stick and wrote "Common Nouns" on one piece of paper and "Proper Nouns" on the other piece. He arranged them all very carefully before he glued (he's my type A child):

After about 30 minutes he had completed his work:

Without any effort, he has also memorized the poem "The Caterpillar" by Christina Rosetti (also in the book). We didn't even work on it; we just repeated each day during our lesson and all of a sudden he knew it. I haven't yet read The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer, but I have it reserved at our local library and can't wait until it gets here!

It struck me today not only how much I have yet to learn about this thing called homeschooling, but also just how blessed I am to have the opportunity to learn!

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The Sound of Music

Earlier this year, I was an ambassador for "Little House on the Prairie, the Musical" which came to the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. We helped promote the show and received four free tickets to the musical. My daughter invited two of her friends and it really was a fun time.

I'm so excited to be promoting another show - this time it is "The Sound of Music", (check out the video clips at this link!) once again at the Fabulous Fox. If you live in the Atlanta area, you can get discount tickets at any Publix.

I have heard this is a wonderful show, and we can't wait to visit the Fox again!

I have such fond memories of my dad singing music from "The Sound of Music". In fact, I always wanted to name my first daughter Liesel, but if you know my last name you know it just doesn't work out! Here is the song that just reduces me to tears every time I hear it (sorry about the subtitles - couldn't find just a plain version of the song!):

I took my daughter to see the VonTrapp family singers a number of years ago, and it was so moving. I'll let you know how the musical is once we've seen it - and if you live in the Atlanta area you should see if you should get discount tickets and join us!
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