Days 172-174 have been spent working on Daily Spark in the morning sun on the deck. She worked so hard for these two weeks that we suspended doing DS, therefore we did two lessons per book in the morning: Spelling & Grammar, US History, Spanish, Shakespeare (Romeo & Juliet), as well as the Giggly Grammar book, a Shel Silverstein poem, and a story from Ancient Egypt.
For science she wrote a 7 line, 7 stanza, Shel Silverstein inspired poem with the repeating phrase "Did you know" about all the cool stuff she learned about science!
She also planned, prepared, and created a 3-D Egyptian Pyramid Project for History.
For writing she compiled 7 pages of her best writing for this unit as her Writing Portfolio.
To demonstrate her Spanish learning, she has translated and can read in Spanish a children's book, Level 2 reading and I will film her reading & translation work for her final review.
Link to You Tube Video
Link to Video translation
For music she will perform and I will record two songs--one on the piano with voice and one on the guitar with voice.
Link to Sophie sings original song & plays guitar
Link to video Sophie sings & plays piano
We decided to skip a math review. She continues to work through the second Danika book and we will begin in September for her 8th grade year with the Math Minute book, as well as a new Math workbook, and she will finally learn how to use a calculator!
As for her reading, she is reading!!! Novels!! Because she likes them! So no review. Just encouragement to keep reading!
On the last day of school, Day 175 of 7th grade, we will film her Spanish and Music reviews, watch the Baz Luhrman movie version of Romeo & Juliet, do the last Daily Sparks of the year, and get ready for her Les Mis themed end-of-year party for family & friends.
It's been another fantastic year full of learning and adventure! Sophie continues to mature into a lovely, poised, smart, capable, considerate, thoughtful young lady and I am so proud to be her teacher and her mother.
At the end of this year I can say that Sophie is a self-directed learner who understands and enjoys that the world is full of wonder and knowledge and every day presents an opportunity to learn and grow as a human being and citizen of the world. Sophie works her best in the mornings, after a good breakfast and without a sense of rushing. She likes and appreciates following a schedule and a syllabus. Usually in the mornings we had some time that takes the place of a public school homeroom, where we reviewed the schedule for the day and I laid out the books she needed to work with and made any clarifications or answered questions. She liked the process of finishing her work and putting the book back--much like checking items off a list.
We keep a weekly calendar with the days of school and the expected work for the week. She likes to check in with the calendar daily. We keep her desk with the 3 piles of books: the ones she is currently working with daily to complete her 7 x 7 (these are unit-specific), next to that are the Daily Spark books (which did change a little throughout the year but generally remained the same grouping of books--this is also where she kept her working notebook,) and the final pile (which grew bigger as the days of school ticked by) are all the books she has read for the year!
On Friday, Day 175 that will be the last pile. We have a few books: the writing notebook, the Math book, some of the Daily Sparks books that we will carry over to next year. Otherwise all the other books--and there are a lot!--will go into a plastic tub labeled Grade Seven and up into the attic.
Sophie Calderwood is an excellent student. She is every teacher's dream student. She works hard, she is responsible for her work, she finishes tasks on time and without complaint, she writes clearly, she is eager to learn and willing to ask questions. She learned a lot this year and she is ready to be an 8th grader and have all the amazing adventures for our year abroad in Singapore!
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