First Day!

This is going to be one seriously fun group of kids!  I can tell already... this year is going to rock!

We began our day with an overview of the rules of the farm.  Then, the kids met all of the animals, learned their names, saw the new baby goats, and went through all of the morning chores.  Once all of the animals were fed and happy, we headed in for our lesson of the day.

Whether it’s planting, breeding, hatching, or expanding, many aspects of farming involve making plans well in advance. We talked about the importance of setting goals on and off the farm. I asked a few students to help me with a demonstration. The kids each threw a ball into the air and caught it 3 times each. The class took note of how few drops were made. Then, I asked each kid to throw their ball up three more times, but this time they had to try to catch someone else's ball. Of course, they missed almost every time. The class discussed reasons for this difference. Then, I explained that this is a lot like setting goals for ourselves versus when other people set goals for us. If we take an active role in setting goals for ourselves, we are more likely to reach them!  At home, the kids will be writing about a goal they can set for themselves this school year.  I can't wait to see what they come up with!

We began our first Farm Fusion art project, which will be a layered painting.  We talked about perspective and planning ahead to create a layered piece of art.  Today, they painted the backgrounds of two of the pieces that will make up the final project.

Before Farm Fusion time came to an end, the kids and I pulled all of the hatched guineas and ducklings out of the incubator to move them into the brooder.  They'll be babied for a while before joining the older chicks, keets, and ducklings in the larger brooder out back.

After a fun outdoor lunch and some free time, the kids came back in for science class.  I introduced the students to our new book and workbook, The Story of Science: Aristotle Leads the Way.  We will be working our way through a chapter or two per week, diving into the ideas and concepts as they arise.  Today, I taught the class about B.C./A.D., B.C.E/C.E..  We created a giant timeline across the classroom wall, which we will add to each week as we work through the book.  It took a little practice, but the students started to get the hang of determining if 530BC came before or after 700BC, and if 250CE came before or after 100BCE.  We worked through many examples, and made a lot of progress! 

In grammar, the kids were able to work through the first couple lessons of material.  Most of these first few weeks will be a review, but I do not want to assume so!  My goal is to appropriately push them, but not to overwhelm anyone.  There is a sweet spot, and that's where I aim to teach!  We worked through the subject and predicate of a sentence, the four types of sentences, and different types of verbs.  At home, the kids will be completing three lesson in the book before our next day in class.  We will grade each lesson, review any concepts that are tricky, and teach some of the upcoming material.  We will slow down and spend time on anything we need to... the goal is mastery!  


In literature, the class began the book, "The Indian in the Cupboard".  This is a fun book to start out with!  The class was given vocabulary words as well as a set of reading comprehension questions.  My goal is to help the students not just to get a more thorough grasp on the material that they read, but to also use this time to help them improve in their sentence structure.  Today was mainly an introduction.  They will be reading chapters 1-3 at home, and then we will kick things into gear!