Monoprints and Shapes

Art class is turning out to be one of Chance's favorite classes. Last week we did something super fun. We did monoprints. A monoprint is a type of printmaking which can only produce one result. We first painted our designs onto a cookie sheet then we transferred them onto construction paper.

Chance drew a monster truck going up a hill. He did a great job using the different kinds of lines we learned in previous lessons. We both have a good time pulling out paints and glue, crayons and markers and having the opportunity to make art. It's great being able to see his mind working, what he chooses to put into his art and why.

Today's art lesson was about shapes. His work of art includes square and triangle rocks on a triangle mountain. The other side of the mountain has been hit by a star meteorite and is on fire.

Vocabulary Class

Each vocabulary unit gives us a new list of words to learn. The lessons are supposed to be completed entirely online through interactive stories and games. I decided to add in an offline aspect too. So, before Chance does the online part we each take a little whiteboard then I say the word out loud "dance", then we both write the word on our boards without letting the other one see. After we are both finished writing I ask Chance what the word means. So far he has known what ever word has meant. After discussing the meaning of the word we flip our boards around to see if we spelled them correctly. He likes getting to write and erase on the whiteboards.

Here is one of our unit word list:

Home made yogurt pops.

We started with this: 

We had fun spooning in layers of yogurt then put the mold in the freezer. After a few hours we had this:

These were layered peach and strawberry. They were super tasty:

Now we all want to go get more yogurt flavors to make more tasty combinations. 

His first poem

We studied poems as one of his units in Literature. As one of the activities he was to write his own poem. They set it all up for him but he picked the words to fill in the blanks himself. 

The best part is when I congratulated him on writing his first poem he said "it's just the first one I wrote down, I write them in my head all the time"

Music class

Welcome to music class! It doesn't look a lot like music from these pictures but there is music playing and they are walking to the beat. Well, Scott is walking to the beat and Chance is trying. When he is paying attention he is right on the best perfectly but if anything distracts him it throws him way off but then he finds it again. They followed each other all through the house.

Chance's first youtube video

Chance discovered the joys of YouTube recently and so wanted to make his own youtube video. So we made a marble run and a video and here is the result:

Art

Chance is really liking his art class. It's built into the schedule twice per week but we've already done 2 extra classes at his request.

We learned about all the different types of lines used in art. Here Chance drew three different types of lines with varying thicknesses to show how the mood of a line changes depending on how thick or thin it is.

Here he wrote his name three times keeping a different kind of line in mind each time. First vertical, next wavy (see how all the letters are connected) and last curvy.

I was impressed with his choices and particularly like the last one, he made his name into a marble run.

 

First full day of school

We had been doing half days of school work since before school officially started on August 7th just to get used to the system and to bank extra hours of attendance. Wednesday was our first full day of schoolwork. 

The day was grey and rainy, we had the lights on inside all day long, still we got all our work completed. We did Math, Literature, Handwriting, Vocabulary, Phonics, History and Art. He got a little antsy at the end but overall he was very good. It took us a little longer than I was hoping but I think it will get faster as we get into a groove.

More School on the Road

Last Thursday we had another class connect session to attend. This time we set up shop on the bed in our hotel room.  We didn't need our headsets this time since we weren't out in public so we just sat back and relaxed.

This class was an overview of what to expect for our future class connect sessions and what is expected of us in regards to Language Arts and Math specifically.

Starting the week of August 26th there will be a Homeroom every Monday at 9am. Then every Monday and Wednesday morning there will be a math class and in the afternoon will be Language Arts. The classes are the same so we only need to attend one day. Tuesday and Thursday are left open for small groups. She will send invitations to students who need a little extra help either because they are ahead or behind. These are groups of 1 to 4 students. The all class sessions are optional but the small groups are mandatory. I think we will attend a couple classes per week though because they count for attendance and Chance gets to interact with his class which is always a plus.

First day of 1st grade!

August 7th was Chance's first official day of school. He attended the first day of first grade in a Starbucks in Alabama. 

We received all his school materials a few weeks ago and his courses released a couple weeks ago now in the On Line School system so we started doing lessons over a week ago. When we started out on our trip to the family reunion Chance had already banked 22 hours of attendance.

So Chance's first official day of 1st grade he only had two things we had to do, that was attend the K - 7 assembly and the 1st grade introduction. For that we needed Internet from 9-10am so we set up in the coffee shop. Chance and I both listened in as the Principal Mrs Marble introduced the teachers and gave us an overview of what to expect in the next week. After the assembly was over we switched to another session for a welcome to first grade from Chance's teacher Mrs. Titus as well as a bunch of dates get ready for in the coming weeks.