Yesenia 4th Grade Evidence Blog
“Success is the sum of small efforts-repeated day in and day out.
-Robert Collier
Subjects
Here is a list of subjects we taught this school year. Click on the button to take you to the subject and the grey arrow to bring you back.
Mathematics
We continued this year with Singapore Math. She finished 3B and decided to switch programs to Right Start Mathematics. I really like the Singapore style of teaching but there was too much work that left little time for other subjects, it seemed to dominate our schooldays. Plus I felt the kids would benefit from more game-based learning. I admittedly miss Singapore Dimensions, but the kids grumble less so that really seals the deal. The hardest part of homeschooling is dealing with unmotivated learners. Yesenia really didn’t like the games at first but she’s come around. We used Level D and skipped around hitting on some of the lessons that were unique to Right Start. Singapore used less geometry so we had to familiarize ourselves with the terms and concepts of geometry.
Here are some of the videos our her schoolwork for evidence:
For our math facts, we use Reflex Math, it’s fun and has different games as rewards for completing basic facts. It’s what I thought was a fun way to do drills. Yesenia has mastered the majority of her multiplication tables and is at 91.8% mastery for multiplication. Those pesky 7’s and 8’s are always hardest to master, but I feel she will with time!
You can see the fluency she started at in October of 2019
And now where she ended up at the end of the year…
During the summer in order to retain some of our skills and get better at word problems we use Bedtime Math. It’s fun and challenging and a great way to work on our word problem skills.
Language Arts
This year we are using mad libs, poem recitation, and narration for our grammar work.
Here she is reciting two poems, Afternoon on the Hill by Edna St. Vincent Millay she did at the beginning of the year and a speech by Theodore Roosevelt commonly referred to as “Man in The Arena” she did at the end of the year.
For writing, she started the year creating stories with her brother. She then created comics on her own with wonderful illustrations. I needed her to have some more formal writing training so I also assigned book reports. She wrote one at the beginning of the year on Minecraft and one about The Prisoner of Azkaban (click on the links to see the essays). They are two very different reports and it really shows how much she has improved. We included brainstorming and multiple revisions in order to get the polished product at the end of the second piece so that definitely helped.
She’s done multiple comics throughout the year for creative writing. She really has an eye for visual storytelling.
Spelling
We’ve continued with the All About Spelling routine. She finished All About Spelling 1 & 2 and is working on 3. Her spelling has also improved as a side effect of her time on Scratch, a coding platform for 18 and under. She is motivated to make comments and be understood so she has made more of an effort to spell correctly.
Reading
Yesenia is a reader and my only goal with her is to expose her to new books that she wouldn’t normally read. As part of the school day, she has a structured reading time that I assign books. She’s read Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, A Little Princess, The Prisoner of Azkaban and Warriors Cats #1& #2. She also did reading comprehension and vocabulary exercises for Mrs. Frisby, A Little Princess and The Prisoner of Azkaban.
Here is the video of those
This year we started her on Vocabulary From Classical Roots to help her vocab comprehension. Here is the video of her work with that.
Our Homeschool friend is a reading tutor and as a part of her services, she offers a monthly book club. One of the books from the book club was Wonder! We read wonder out loud and the kids loved it. I would say it is one of their favorite books of the year. We celebrated the end of the book with a movie day and watched Auggie on the big screen.
Linked is a reading log from Epic of the many books she’s read in her spare time. Her favorites are Archie, The Smurfs, Phoebe and Her Unicorn, Scaredy Squirrel, and anything about cats.
History
We listened to The Story of The World Vol 2 audiobook as our primary lesson material.
For each lesson, we did either a small activity, color sheet or short Q&A.
Here is a picture of her with the signum she created for our chapter on Roman History!
Geography
Geography this year started out with the basics. The continents, the oceans, the cardinal directions. Then we switched to a week by week study of the Central and South American countries. We kept it very simple. Watch a video (Geography Now! videos on Youtube), draw the countries, and have a short discussion. The kids loved the Geography Now! videos and would often ask for them outside of school.
Spanish
We used Homeschool Spanish Academy and Rosetta Stone. Yesenia did a great job in both and always strove to 100% in each lesson before moving to the next. She’s too much like me, perfectionist through and through.
Science
Science-this year we did one subject for the entire year. The human body. It was project-based with videos and reading. The main text I used was the Human Body by Encyclopedia Britannica. The kids fell in love with the Operation Ouch series on Youtube and we got a lot of great information off of there. They remember the show more than any of my teaching or reading haha. Below is one of our first projects. A working model of the digestive system. Eww gross! We’ve done so many projects, I’ve created a separate post for our science curriculum.
Operation Ouch is our go-to! We love this show.
We also do loads of science in the great outdoors! Every month we visited Ranger Laurie at Oletta State Park were she guided us on awesome educational activities throughout the park. Shifted through owl pellets, made fishing rods like the Tequestas did and learned about invasive plants of South Florida.
Yesenia also participated in the Nature Scouts science fair, doing an experiment about CO2 on Mars
Music
This year we used Hoffman Academy for piano lessons. We also listened to Stories of Great Composers for Children by Thomas Tapper podcast. She continues to do a great job both with her lessons and singing along with the tracks!
Physical Education
PE is pretty simple. We have a park day every Thursday and once a month beach day with Nature Scouts. We did Parkour once a week. She took Hip Hop classes for about a month then the pandemic hit and we ceased all activities. Our PE has been regaled to walks or roller skating.
Sometimes they did Cosmic Kids Yoga on Youtube and Go Noodle to get some exercise when it’s raining too much outside.
Art
For Yesenia, this is the year of digital art! She has really learned to create and code in Scratch as well as create gifs and digital drawings on her iPad. I’m so very proud of her work and here are some of her creations for this year.
She ventured into the world of coding. Here she is at the start of the year making a short project in scratch.
And now at the end of the year, here is what her projects look like!
and created some stop motion videos
She auditioned for a spot on Nicklaus Children’s Hospital’s latest campaign. Not only did she get a callback but she also booked it! Here is a snippet of her onset.
Continuing on the acting vibes. She performed in The Royal Chessman Show as a pawn. She also started learning the basics of stage combat with swords.
We also had the fortune of having Lauren Baker teach us the art of ceramics. The kids made some really unique creations.
