Second Grade - Second Quarter, A Review

We made it through the second quarter of our first year of homeschooling intact!  We're both still liking it a lot.  Phew.

Here's a summary of what we've been working on the past few months:

Phy Ed - This was the area that I needed to work on because we didn't do much of anything in 1st quarter.  I'm happy with our progress in 2nd quarter!  She has been taking skating lessons at the St. Paul Figure Skating club once a week.  We've also been doing our normal walks, plus ice skating at the outdoor rink and swimming.  My goal was to do PE twice per week (because that's slightly more than she did at public school.  Yes, I'm comparing).

Reading - I've found that Millie can read slightly more advanced books than I thought if she reads quietly to herself.  I ask questions about what she's read, and she is comprehending the books.  If we read out loud however, she gets hung up on words, and needs to work on her speed and expression.  I should have been having her read out loud more than I have been, so that's something I need to work on next quarter.

Grammar - We're still using Grammar 2 from BJU Press and loving it!  We're moving at a much slower clip than I had anticipated, but this is a subject that Millie needs more help in.  I'm glad to be able to spend more time here because she needs the extra help.  In fact, when it came to learning about common and proper nouns, we did the work from the book, printed the extra worksheets from the Grammar 2 CD, printed worksheets from superteacher.com, AND from the BrainQuest 2 workbook.  I think she finally got it!

Spelling - Same old, same old.  We're doing 12 words per week.  She writes the words, plus does an activity with them each week (word search, word scramble, alphabetizing, etc).  I quiz her each day and she writes the words she gets wrong 5 times each.

History - We just finished learning about ancient Egypt.  This was a really fun unit, we both learned a lot!  We used History Pockets, watched a few documentaries, read out of the Usborne World History book, read The Magic Treehouse Mummies & Pyramids Research Guide, wrote our names using the hieroglyphic alphabet, and took a field trip to see the mummy at the Science Museum.  It was so cool to listen to her converse with the guy manning the mummy station.  I was able to see that she was retaining a lot of the information I had taught her. 

Math - She's cruising along in her Saxon 2 math book.  I also started having her do XtraMath.com to help her identify addition facts quickly. 

Science - We touched on animals/culture/geography in South America and Australia, and learned about our body's  functions (lungs, blood, heart, nerves, hearing, sight, etc).  We did a lot of really cool experiments during that unit!

Fine Arts & Unit Study - Millie is continuing with her piano lessons.  She was supposed to have a recital earlier in December but it has been postponed until late January.  We saw a ballet at the Landmark Center, which the girls both loved.  They took a class at Silverwood where they learned how to make apple cider using a cider press, learned about apple pollination, and painted with apple halves.  It was a great class, I always learn something at Silverwood!  November was filled with learning about the true story of Thanksgiving.  I would have like to have done more crafts, but we didn't get around to it.  We read a lot of books, though.

The "S" word - Millie has been seeing her friends at least twice per week, either during co-op activities,
play dates, church, skating class, etc. 

That about sums up what we've been busy doing for the past couple months!  Is there anything I'd like to change?  Of course!  I'd like Millie to see her friends at least twice during the week, not including skating or church.  Fridays are a given, but I would like to get her out to a class of some sort at least one other time.  I'm having socialization guilt.  I'd also like to keep up with and increase our physical activities.  Maybe a goal of 3 activities per week would satisfy me :)