Cyan's review for April

Language arts...
She is making great progress with reading this month. We have been working on nouns and short vowel sounds. She has left the 'sound out every letter' phase and is moving on to reading more quickly with sounds ('un', 'in', 'an', etc). Currently, we are reading aloud "Dick and Jane Look and See" (her to me) and "Prince Caspian" (me to her) as well as about 12 books on Africa for our Science studies and books on tape as well.

Math...
We have crossed the place value mark! She is able to add and subtract numbers up to 30 and we are working on making it to 100 before the year is out. She is doing great, and we will be moving to geometry next week to work on some shapes, then fractions and then back to addition and subtraction review just before the year is out. We are also graphing the garden on graph paper as the starts come up and making a table of the dates they popped out of the ground.

Science...
We have been working with Math and Science in the garden (Life Science/Life Cycles of Plants). On May 1st we should be getting our caterpillars as well as the manipulative's we ordered. We are also working on growing a small garden for her in a large planter box and recording our findings in a notebook she and I made on the growth of the roots and the above ground growth.
Social Studies...We have been reading African Folk tales that go along with our African unit study. She is also working on 'the golden rule' or ('the shiny secret' as she calls it). We are still with our homeschool group at least once a week... more like three times a week now that the nicer weather is chasing us all outside more. :)

PE/Health...
Lots of talk about nutrition lately. Lots of talk from her like "I know it isn't good for my body, but it won't hurt my body if I just eat it this once." lol... we have PE play dates with our homeschool group every other Friday. She is also starting swimming lessons, and plays endlessly outside every day. In the last month, she has learned to skate, and ride a bike with no training wheels. She is doing great in this area.

Fine Arts...
'Drawing Fest 2008' still continues at the Rose Garden Homeschool. She draws/colors/sketches something every day... sometimes all day long. We are drawing the flowers we see outside, we are drawing the measurements we make inside, we are drawing and taking pictures of the birds that are showing up to the feeders we made this winter. Her handwriting is amazing for first grade, and she is now learning cursive and 'princess letters' which was an idea we got from a fellow 'nimble fingered' first grade homeschooler in our area.

Technology...
This month she has learned how to get on You Tube to look up different artists. She only does this with my permission, of course. She uses technology such as a compass, measuring devices, humidity gauge, propane lamps for outside evening study, my stand mixer, thermometers, the freezer, hammer and nails, and the computer at least once a week each for all of the activities listed above with apt supervision.