Ah. These reports always make me feel better about what we have been covering throughout the year. And WHEW-EE, Samantha sure has covered lots of art! She is an artist though, so that is her job. I have worked on her progress report since September, adding a little at a time. And at the end of the actual year, I go over it and revise it, adding things I may have forgotten. I marvel at how many pages just the big stuff takes up. (Our day to day living is detailed in her journals I keep for records.)
We still have TWO more semesters. (We run like this September-December, January-May, and June-August, for paper work's sake. It helps me know where to begin and where to end on progress, even though we do year-round "school.")
I jumped ahead and added some things I know she will be doing next year. I know she will start swim classes. I know we will be reading some of the Molly American Girl books. I know she wants to continue to learn some math facts with her new card games that she loves. And I know that she will be doing a project of Egypt (or possibly California) for the Geography Fair. I have this nagging feeling it will switch to California pretty soon. (She has this undying love for the way the land and weather are portrayed in that area.) I also know she wants to learn how to knit with a loom and do some more You Tube videos with real clay!
Oh, how exciting it always is to start a new "chapter." Even though we only segment out our learning and life phases for paperwork purposes, there is always a difference we can feel and see as each new semester starts, weather it is renewed interest in old hobbies after the long Summer, new learning experiences after receiving numerous art supplies for Christmas, or a new sense of adventure rediscovered during the warm months, every part is always so exciting! And I know I can't wait for 2015.
Samantha Anne Mays
Progress Report 2014-2015
Curriculum
Description: Samantha
learns using a relaxed custom curriculum meant to teach her the basic concepts
of each subject and allow for growth in areas that interests her most. She uses
a range of learning tools and experiences from books, games, and movies to real
life and hands on activities. Samantha choices her own units of study, which is
then extended to include all the core subjects as well as other areas such as
Bible Study, Arts, and Music.
Unit Studies
Samantha
has completed a variety of unit studies (of her choosing) this year.
Dogs: Samantha really
enjoys dogs and has two of her own, so she chose to complete a study on dogs.
During that time everything she did was about dogs, from looking up images of
dogs to consistently looking up questions about dogs.
Activities: You Tube Dog
Training Videos-Zac George’s Channel, Clicker
Training, Care and Observation
Books: Marley and Me, Bad Dogs, and various informational books about dog
breeds, caring for dogs, and dog training and competitions
Art: Samantha main unit
of study this year, has been art. She has covered various form of art from
sewing and knitting to drawing and painting. She has used numerous mediums to
make her creations and finds her inspiration in many different places from
outdoor scenery to studying another artist’s work. She has even been inspired
by classical music selections.
Sewing: Samantha continued
to hold an interest in sewing from last year and has learned many new skills. She
can thread a needle and has been practicing needlepoint in order to make her
sewing more precise. She can also prepare her sewing machine and use it with
minimal assistance to complete a project. Some projects she has completed
include a pillow, cat outfit and doll clothes.
Crocheting: Samantha also
showed an interest in learning to crochet this year and went to her grandmother
for assistance. She started by learning to cast on and hand placement and can
now finish a complete chain. She hopes to be able to complete a dish cloth in
the next few months.
Knitting:
You Tube Videos: Samantha has taken
her art to a new level by making her own instructional videos, usually
containing instructions on how to make Play-Doh figurines based on video game
characters-inspired by the sweet treat You Tube channel Nerdy Nummies by
Rosanna Pansino. Samantha has also made videos on cake decorating, clay making,
and magic tricks. Samantha goes through the process of planning: what to make,
how to make it, gathering materials, rehearsing what she will say. Then I
assist her in filming the videos, sometimes taking several takes for one
scene. She has her own You Tube account
and has learned to post her videos/upload, name, and type a description. (She
follows a few channels such as How It’s Made, the History Channel, Zac George,
and Nerdy Nummies. She also enjoys browsing the videos on You Tube for art
videos and other topics of interest.) Samantha will soon learn how to edit
videos on her own.
Drawing and Painting: Samantha loves
drawing and painting and practices several hours a day. She loves reading How
To books and looking up videos to help her understand how to make things look
more realistic. She has started a few projects including several of her own
books.
For her
best book, she spent the day at the library looking for Children’s books about
foxes to get an idea of the illustration style she wanted to use. She named her
book The Fox and the Chicks. She
illustrated the cover, typed the story with some assistance, and completed the
pictures inside using sketch pencils and charcoals.
Her
paintings have made a marked improvement over the last year. She is learning to
control her brush strokes better. She can mix colors to make the colors she
wants. And she knows the effects each type of paint makes. Some of the projects
she completed with painting include her own interpretation of Starry Night, her
favorite painting by Van Gogh and her painting interpreting The Four Seasons
classical music by Vivaldi.
Field Trips: One of Samantha’s
big field trips this year was to the Downtown Chattanooga Bluff View Art
District. Samantha took a walk through Downtown Chattanooga, an art focused
area. As she walked to the Art District she saw many statues, some that were
abstract and others that were merely statues of people. She read about each one
and talked about it, what she liked, what she didn’t like, what it could mean.
Once she entered Bluff View, she visited the River Cress Art Gallery where
there were many different styles of art. Each medium of art was in in a separate
room. There was a glass room, a room with pottery, yard art, wood, paintings,
drawings, etc. (Samantha found inspiration in an oil painting on wood and was
determined to learn to use oil paints. She received a set of oil paints for
Christmas and has been experimenting with them ever since.) After the art
gallery she discussed what it must be like being an artist, starting out as an
artist, how to get displayed in an art gallery, the prices of art, art styles,
mediums, and interpretations.
Reading:
Samantha
started the year being able to read simple sentences without having to stop and
sound out each word. Most of her reading has evolved into recognition more than
phonics. By December Samantha was able to read storybooks on her own and
intermediate elementary chapter books (8+) with some assistance. She even
practices her reading throughout the day without being prompted by challenging
herself to read road signs, text messages, instruction manuals, game boards,
etc. She also challenges herself to spell out the word she is trying to convey
when she talks as opposed to saying the word. Her reading has become so fluent
that she rarely stops to sound out a word. Her spelling has become just as
second nature as her reading. Although there is still room for improvement,
Samantha ended the Fall semester “a reader.”
Samantha
has read a variety of texts including those listed above in her unit study
topics, hundreds of easy reader books, children’s classics, cookbooks, poetry
books, historical fiction, and books about topics she is interested in such as
books about horses and gymnastics.
She listened
to and assisted in reading chapter books such as Marley and Me, The Samantha American Girl series including Meet Samantha, Samantha Learns a Lesson,
Samantha’s Surprise, Happy Birthday, Samantha, Samantha Saves the Day, and Changes for Samantha as well as the
Samantha Mystery series including The
Curse of Ravens Court, The Case of the Stolen Sapphire, and The Call of the Loon.
The second
semester she focused on the Molly American Girl books about World War II (See
History).
Grammar and
Punctuation: Samantha
has a firm grasp on tenses as well as a beginning understanding of punctuation.
She knows what periods, exclamation points, question marks, and quotation marks
are for. She is beginning to use capitalization and punctuation in her writing
when she writes letters to friends, notes in her diary, or when writing her own
stories.
Activities: Samantha takes
bi-weekly trips to the Library. Each visit she checks out 20+ books, some
related to her unit studies and others not. Some she reads individually and
others are read to her in a variety of environments such as the Library, home,
outside, and in the store or car.
Math:
Samantha
began the school year true counting to 100. By December she was able to true
count to 1,000 by 1s and 10s. And can, although does not when prompted, count
by 2s and 5s. She has continued to work on her addition and subtraction fact
memorization and by December knew all her addition facts from 1 to 10. She also
started working with double and triple digit addition, including “carrying the
1.” To help her better understand the concept, we covered place value by
learning expanded form and using an “underlining method” on the marker board.
At the
beginning of the 2015 year Samantha started covering the same areas with
subtraction…
Samantha
has continued to be exposed to and learn a little about fractions. However, by
December, she still has limited understanding of what a fraction is. For
example, she understands that if the pizza is cut in half, we both get one
piece. But she does not understand how to complete word problems with fractions
or divide out more complex fractions.
Samantha
continued working with money this year by becoming more familiar with the value
of each coin, how to add totals in columns, and how to skip count to add
aloud-beginning. She is around money daily whether she is making a purchase
herself and receiving change, watching others make a purchase, going to the
bank, and watching budgets be made.
Activities: Samantha learns
math through playing board/card games such as Go to the Dump by Right Start
Math, Smath, Math War, Math Mat, and Race to a Quarter. She frequently plays
computer games such as funbrain.com, fun4the brain.com, powermylearning.com,
and cool-mathgames.com.
Science:
For Science
this year, Samantha has been focusing on Earth (Geology) and Life (plants and
animals) Science through camping and hiking. She has been to many different
parks and trails in the southeastern part of the United States. Samantha is
familiar with some of the plants and animals in the parks. She has learned
about which insects are poisonous and which are safe. She has learned about some
of Earth’s formations and how to find them on the map. (Beginners Map Reading) She
has learned about weather patterns and causes for specific patterns, while being
stuck in the rain many times. She has also learned to start predicting the
weather. She has watched and assisted in building fires, giving her better
understanding of its properties and uses.
Samantha
has covered some Medicinal Science, holistic form. Throughout the year Samantha
has learned more on how to make and measure the PPM of colloidal silver. She
has also begun learning about essential and carrier oils and how to mix or
diffuse them to help with illness or injury.
Samantha
has completed several Nature Studies every month. She has a nature journal and
art set with pencils, colored pencils, pastels, and water colored paints, any
of which she can use in her portraits. She has used each of these individually
as well a mixture of them together. Topics range from unit study related, such
as dogs, based on what she has heard, or seen in pictures and videos, to nature
related topics based on close observation such as the top of the clouds from
the Chimney Tops Trail in Gatlinburg.
Samantha
has also used a variety tools throughout the year. She has used measurement
tools such as a ruler, scale, and measuring cups/spoons, as well as observation
tools like a magnifying glass and microscope. She is learning more in depth how
to use these tools and why we use them.
http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0881984.html
Activities:
•
Nature Sketch Book
•
Caring for Pets
•
Fishing Trips
•
Camping Trips
•
Everyday Questions
History:
Civil War: Samantha’s carried her
focus on the Civil War through the first part of the school year.
Activities: She continued to
look through non-fiction books, watch documentaries online, and visit local
sites. (Our area is full of Civil War History including the local Battle Field
which has many statues with inscribed histories and stories on display as well
as a museum where they show a historically based film, put models on display
along with several gun cases full of era guns, and put on reenactments.)
Field Trips: Samantha took a
trip to a local reenactment at the Western Atlantic Railroad Tunnels. She was
able to visit several tents set up to tell about popular sports and hobbies of
the time such as archery and quilting. She sat through an outdoor reenactment
and asked questions about the battle. She also was able to tour the WAR Tunnels
museum, which included Civil War relics such as guns, bullets, and old letters,
and even walked through the actual tunnels.
Early 1900s: Once Samantha
completed her Civil War study, she started started studying the Victorian time
period, starting in 1904. She read several of the American Girl Samantha books,
which tell the story of a little girl growing up in the Victorian era. We made
the study come to life while looking through a book that discussed all aspects
of the Victorian era: hobbies, clothes, toys, etc. She also cooked recipes from
a Victorian recipes book.
World War II:
Activities:
·
Timeline
Geography:
Activities: See Unit Studies:
Egypt
Samantha
continued to get familiar with the US and World maps this year. Both are on
display in the hall and Samantha enjoys looking over them in her free time. She
focused mainly on Map Reading skills this year. She learned to use grids for
location-introduction to longitude and latitude. (Battleship has been a great
resource for this.) She has also learned about map keys and legends, direction,
and geographical feature maps. (For this we used _____ games.)
Physical Education:
Samantha
stays active during the day by playing outside-doing flips, running, playing
games with friends, playing on the playground, learning to skate, or simply
taking a nature hike. She also spends much of her time on her trampoline
practicing her gymnastics.
Samantha
participated in a homeschool gymnastics class for the second year through
Southern Adventist University. This year, however, she only attends class once
a week for an hour. She was placed in a mixed class that put emphasis on form
for basic exercises including rolls, cartwheels, headstands, stall bars,
trampolines, ropes, and other exercise.
For Spring
semester, she continued gymnastics and also began swim classes through the
University.
Music: Samantha is
surrounded by a variety of different music in her everyday life including
Gospel, Classical, Rock, Pop, Country, and traditional music from other
countries.
Her
favorite music is Classical Music, with her favorite artists being Vivaldi and
Beethoven. (She enjoys Bach’s softer music.) She could sit and listen to
Classical music for hours and hours. Many of the more famous pieces she has
memorized and likes to create art to accompany the music.
Art: (See Unit Studies:
Art)
Fine Arts:
Technology:
Now that
Samantha can read and spell and enjoys writing her own books, she showed
interest in learning to type. She practices and plays games on http://www.freetypinggame.net/ By
December she knew where her home row keys were located and knew how to place her
hands and reach each key without moving her other fingers. She can type at an
average of 12 words per minute, 8 words adjusted speed.
Activities:
·
Playing on the Computer, Wii U, etc.
·
Home Economics: Samantha is able to
do a variety of housework with little or no assistance. She understands the
basic concepts of cooking/baking from scratch, simple cleaning, and household
errands. Samantha has ample knowledge about the health benefits of eating
organic foods. She is familiar with the process of making household detergents
and cleaners. Samantha goes grocery shopping on a regular basis and knows to
look at the labels and ingredients and what to look for. She has been taught
the benefit of buying from local farmers and is encouraged to do so. Samantha
is also learning ways to be more economical with her money.
Bible Study: Samantha has a
basic knowledge of the Bible and some of the stories in it. She knows who her
creator is and what he sent his Son to do for us. Recently we have begun
putting emphasis on reading the Bible for herself and interpreting it based on
its Hebrew origins. As she begins reading more independently, she has taken
over most of the reading portion herself.
Volunteer Work: Samantha assists in
volunteering two places: Women’s Enrichment Center in Dalton and West Side
Elementary School.
WEC: Twice
a month Samantha assists me in volunteering at the Women’s Enrichment Center.
This year she has been able to complete more simple office work such as making
copies, licking envelopes, and placing stamps.
WES:
Samantha takes bi-weekly trips to WES during the school year where she helps
with clerical work such as making copies (like at WEC) or classroom assistance
such as making work samples.
Special Field
Trips: Ripley’s
Believe it or Not Gatlinburg, TN, Cades
Cove Smokey Mountain, TN Ruby Falls
Chattanooga, TN, Pumpkin Patch
Riceville, GA, Apple Picking Elijay, GA Pioneer
Days Audubon Acres Chattanooga, TN,
Conclusion/Main Goals:
Samantha is
on track to meet her goals for the 2014-2015 school year.
