Micah GotchFirst Grade Portfolio

2011-20126-7 yrs.

Field trip to California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco

Mathematics – Brilliant Minds Montessori, complete math curriculum Micah learned: •place values up to 1000, •up to 4 digit static addition and subtraction, •up to 4 digit dynamic addition and subtraction, •beginning multiplication•Reading analog clock•Reading and translating written place values to number symbols•Basic money values and counting (not pictured)

Playing “Go Get It” game using Montessori manipulatives.

03/201201/2012

Oops, needs corrected. ;)

Math is Micah’s favorite subject. We all really enjoyed using the materials from this set. Even so, Micah prefers to do most of his “calculations” in his head and has been able to work out even high single digit multiplications mentally since the age of 4 or 5. This course has given him a solid grasp on place values, addition and subtraction. Our goal for next year is to finish the course in the areas of multiplication and division as well as studying “short chains” which are square numbers. Worksheets pictured are recent and contain skills built upon the fundamentals of the earlier part of the year. Those worksheets are available as well.

01-03/2012

Reading- Micah has been read to every day of his life. He pretty much taught himself to read, just as he is now teaching himself grammar and punctuation by reading on his own. When he was 4 he learned enough sight words to read beginning readers with assistance, but this year (age 7) he really developed a love of reading and has begun reading entire chapter books on his own. In addition to the couple hundred books on his own bookshelf which we cycle through at bedtime each night (too many to list), his new favorites are the Magic Tree House series. Books 1-5 were read to him, and books 6-16 he read himself or to his little brother.

All read between 01-03/2012

Handwriting- Getty and Dubay Italic Handwriting books A and BMicah isn’t a big fan of handwriting, but these Getty and Dubay books make simple and relatively painless work of the subject and produce nice results. I’ve chosen to focus on handwriting this year and while touching on Language Arts, am planning to focus more on it next year once handwriting fundamentals have been established. Micah loves to draw and color though, so I feel the hand and finger strength will continue to improve over time making handwriting easier for him. Some samples of book work are included here.

Examples from book B 03/2012

Language Arts- Language Lessons For The Very Young, Charlotte Mason style

Pictured are some of the lessons completed in this book, and why we focused on handwriting. We will finish this lesson book next year as well as continue noticing and discussing the elements of capitalization, punctuation, sentence structure and grammar during our reading time. Also for next year we will begin spelling words. At this time, Micah always asks the correct spelling of words and will usually remember after writing it a few times.

10/2011

Above: Silly Sentences gameRight: The first 6 pages of a book we are writing and illustrating together about their stuffed animals’ adventures.

02/2012

Geography- Daily Geography Practice, grade 1

Example below of this workbook, which Micah has done several weeks worth of lessons of. He also copied vocabulary words from these lessons for a collection we started last year. We will continue to use this book next year until it is completed.

Above and Below: Geography in action through Geocaching. Kids showing off their finds.

11/2011

Social Studies- I consider Social Studies to be a way to discuss with Micah the relevant issues of our time, many of which are food based and environmental. We are a vegan family and activists in the area of educating the public about the benefits of plant based eating as well as the harms inherent in animal agriculture. Micah is well educated on the importance of supporting sustainable, organic practices in growing and consuming food and other goods. Within the activist community we have made friends from several cultures and have made opportunities to discuss with them their customs and religions.

Above: the sign which prompted our conversation about genetically modified foods, why they are being grown and why some people choose to avoid them, and our own sign made for the “Occupy Wall Street” movement.Left: at the Japanese Tea Garden with another vegan friend.

Science- 101 Great Science Experiments

We have done several of these experiments, although not all photographed. Here are some.

Below: Classic volcano, making a rocket with Dad, light table with water beads.

Art- Micah has been taking various art classes since age 4. Below is some of work as well as pictures of his first “Art Show” with guest: his aunt and uncle who are both fine arts graduates. For this year, First Grade, he took Art at Minds in Motion in Springboro as well as random kitchen art at home.

Older work

Recent work

Music- Uklele For The Classroom Books 1 and 2

Micah completed 2 years of Kindermusik before choosing Ukulele as his first instrument of study last year. He has been having private lessons for over a year and is working out of the books pictured below. He is adept at reading the notes of several scales and reads and picks up new songs easily. Double-click on the black box for a video of him playing Crawdad Song. Sorry it’s sideways! 03/2012

Physical Education:Basketball-YMCA, Soccer-YMCA, Tennis- Park by our houseBodyboarding- Bodega Bay, CA, Swimming- San Jose, CAHiking- Sequoia National Park, CA, Miniature Golf, Kelley’s Island

2011-2012

Field Trips-

The wonders of architecture, giant leaves, giant trees, and sunsets! (Japanese Tea Garden, SF Botanical Gardens, Sequoia Park, Kelley’s Island.)

2011-2012

Spontainious learning at home:

“Mousetrap” invention, dissecting a PC, home classroom where anything is possible!

Stewardship: Our children are taught to care for and respect all living beings. Left: The kids learned wildlife rehabilitation when this pigeon was hit by a car near our house. We cared for him for several months until he learned to fly again and returned home.Below: caring for class bunny and brushing their aunt’s horse. (note: We are the only family who goes to the school and gets the bunny out of her cage for exercise. I do this to teach them (the school and my kids) that pets have needs similar to ours and our responsibility is to care for them properly.

Micah also has many opportunities to study various engineering applications. He and his brother own several forms of building materials including legos, wood blocks, mega bloks, train tracks, K’nex race tracks, tree blocks, and robot kits with working motors.

Included in his “engineering studies” are the Lego class Micah took this year at The Academy at Minds In Motion, the open source computer programming software “Scratch” designed to teach kids basic computer programming (which Micah works on with his Dad who is a software engineer,) and a few trips to the Boonshoft Museum of Sciences homeschool classes he attended.

A day in the life.