First Day of School at Woodruff Hall

WOODRUFF HALL

Woodruff Hall has opened it's doors. The first day was successful, aside from the fact that our Grammar book still has not showed up, and we weren't able to go over that. W started to get distant and distracted at the end of the last subject, but since it was our first day, I was scrambling a bit and the block went a bit longer than anticipated. Other than that, he seemed engaged and cooperated quite well. I am so proud of him! Of course, many of the work-book type subjects are too easy for him right now, so I think he enjoys the fact that he knows all the answers already.

Woodruff Hall administration and teaching staff:

(Picture to come)

Here is our first student:

W's first day of school

 We start every day with a prayer and then the Pledge of Allegiance

Here is an example of our daily activities. Here is our first day's work:

We started out with Religious Studies, 15 minutes a day. Today we read from the LDS Church's scripture reader "Book of Mormon Stories", which summarizes the Book of Mormon with pictures and captions to visualize things for small children. W really loved that. We read about how the Book of Mormon came to be. He narrated back to me very well, how Joseph Smith wanted to know which church was true, had a vision and was told that none of them were true, was ridiculed and mocked, the angel Moroni later came and told him about the Gold Plates, then over a course of years was taught and then shown where they were buried and then obtained them, translated them and published the pages into The Book of Mormon. Then the reader goes into what was taught by ancient prophets in the America's, (what is in the Book of Mormon). I figured we could do the Book of Mormon and the Articles of Faith right now for Religious Studies, because much of our reading and science is based on Bible verses.

Reading and reading comprehension. Everything is written in my handwriting because W cannot write fast enough yet. I just wrote down what he said. This week we are reading out of The Bible. Next week we will read from a kids book about the Trojan Horse. :) W also get's half hour of free reading time, but today was so scattered that he did not get that. I am anxious to get a routine down. 

Math. This is Singapore Math. 

 I felt really silly making W do this kind of stuff. Hopefully it gets more into actual problems soon. I hear Singapore moves fast, so that's promising. 

Writing. W has been able to write pretty well for some time now. The reason I am making him do something formal is to teach him the proper spacing and slants. What is funny is that his regular handwriting is more readable than his dad's. Maybe I should have Dad do A Reason for Handwriting.

Spelling. This is Explode the Code. I also felt silly making W do this. It was way too easy for him. He is reading so well right now, but I feel like he reads more by sight than phonetically. He knows phonics well, but I wanted to start him from a first grade level just to cover the basics again. It can't hurt. If he breezes through it, then that's even better. 

Science. This was our last subject of the day. We spend 60 minutes per day, two days a week on this subject. History is studied the days in between (Tuesdays and Thursdays). This is where W started getting tired of "school". I had to really coax him to narrate what we learned. I kept track of things to look up on the computer so that I could make it more visual for him as well. I felt like he wasn't getting much out of reading after having read the last two or three hours. He was really interested in the videos of hawks preying on squirrels.

E (our 17-month-old) fell asleep during science. Just plopped down on the floor and went bye-bye. Most of the time she played with the box of markers. Thankfully she can't open them up yet and they kept her pretty entertained as she took them out and put them back in. Soon, I will have to incorporate some time of official instruction for her. Which is mostly playing! So, yay for me!