Lucy's Year 1 Term 2 Exams

Here are Lucy's Year 1, Term 2 exams. I used the ones on Ambleside Online for the most part, with a few tweaks here and there. With the exception of the drawings and copywork, the whole thing was an oral exam, spread over three days. I tried to capture her spirit in the transcriptions but for some of it, you really just have to be there ;-) 

And you can tell in a few spots she got upset because she couldn't remember. Our exams are very low key and she really enjoys them overall, but she has trouble with anything that doesn't come very easily. But we worked through it and I think it is good for both of us.

Bible

1.    Tell one story about David.

David and Goliath. So, there was going to be an army because the Philistines were coming to attack them so everyone thought... But everyone was too afraid to fight Goliath because he was a giant. But David was a boy and his name was David and he said “I’ll fight” but everyone laughed and said “No, you can’t fight you are too little.” But he said “No! I will fight!” So he went to a little creek, river thing, and he got five stones and he took one and put it in his sling and threw it at goliath and hit goliath and he fell down.

2.    Tell about the wise men from the East.

So the wise men saw a star and went to the King and said, “Can we go?” And he said, “Go over and see him and then come back to me and see me and tell me where he is so I can come and worship him.” So they went and they saw him and they gave him gifts of gold, silver and myrrh. And they praised him and they went back but they went back a different way because they knew the king was not going to worship him for real.

3.    Can you tell me what two parts the bible is divided into? What does that mean?

New Testament and Old Testament. Old promise and new promise. Old Testament is that he would save the people and new land. New Testament they would go to heaven, that’s the new land in that part.

Reading

Read If All the World were Apple Pie to daddy 

Tales

1.    Tell a fable.

So, there was a fox and a leopard and after dinner they were sitting and talking about who was the best. And the leopard said” I think I’m the best because I have this nice coat of spots.” And the fox liked his tail so he didn’t…they were arguing. And the fox said, “Leopard, you have a pretty coat but you are being kind of annoying, kinda rude.”

2.    Tell the story of Grace Darling.

One day there was a girl and her dad. They lived at a watch house (lighthouse) and they saw a ship and there was a storm. And she said, “We MUST try to save them!” and the dad said, “We can’t they are miles away from us” and she said “We must try!” And they got on the rowboat and they rowed and rowed and they got to the ship and then they got the man onto their little rowboat and they rowed and rowed and rowed and rowed back. That’s the end.

4.    Tell me the story of the Elephant's Child, First Letter, or Armadillos.

The first letter because that’s the silliest one. And one day there was a person and his wife and his daughter. And one day he went out to catch fish. But when they were catching fish, the dad had a spear to catch fish but it broke and then a stranger appeared. She, the daughter, said, “Please get the spear and get it for me”. And he didn’t do anything. And he said “Oopph” and she said “okay” and he handed her this piece of bark thing and she drew a picture and said “I want you to go to our cave where the beavers are” and she drew a picture of the beavers and the spear in his hand but it looked like it was in the dad’s back. And the beavers looked like people and there were three spears in the picture. And he came to the house and he showed him the picture and she was like “AHHH!” and they sat on him and pulled his hair and filled his head with mud and said “lead us to the place” and they said “where were the people, where were the spears? Where is everything else?” And the girl, her name was Taffy, said “Oh I’m sorry, that was my picture. The people are my beavers and the pictures of the spear wasn’t meant to be in his back for real” and then they all laughed. And the chief said “Okay”. And taffy said “You did not bring daddy’s spear although you brought every other spear in the whole town”.

     3. Draw a picture narration for Aladdin and the Magic Lamp OR The Glass Slipper.

Those are the men walking to the palace with the treasures. The sultan is up in the window watching them. Aladdin's mom is on the lower right side, with the lamp in her bag.

History

1.     Tell the story of Dick Whittington, Picciola, or Antonio Canova.

Picciola. There once was a person who was in jail. And he felt like…and he was walking and saw a plant and almost stepped on it but he said “oh, how nice of a plant this is “but it was struggling because the rocks were in the way so he said “oh dear, that plant” so he watched it and named it Picciola. And he took care of it and one day, “hmm, the plant is going to die because we can’t’ move the stones away of the jail. But, what are we going to do with my little plant?” And then, I’ll skip a part because I can’t think. So the jailer took down the stones to let the plant grow and be free. I’ll skip another. And he, the man, was out of the jail and happy and took care of his plant and he liked it.  (Sidenote: I remembered incorrectly that the man’s name was picciola and the plant was named something else so I actually asked Lucy and she said “No, the plant is picciola,” I looked it up and she was right! So she may have forgotten some parts and just decided to skip them but she still did better than me on this one!)

2.     Tell how the Giant's Dance was brought to England, or how Arthur became king.

Lucy: I can’t remember those things at all. What do I do? I don’t know!

Me: Stay calm, let’s see. You drew the picture about Arthur and showed it to daddy, does that help you remember which story it is?

Lucy: Oh yeah, the rock guy. Okay. So there were all arguing who should be king after Uther pendragon had died. So they were arguing and then Merlin came and said, “This person will be king”. And everyone didn’t think that was a good idea. And then Merlin went away and everyone followed him and they followed until there were more and more and more people following until they came to this place. And it had a big rock. And in the rock was a sword but the rock had not been there before. And the boy’s name, the person’s name who Merlin wanted to be king, his name was Arthur. And everyone else tried to pull the sword out because whoever pulled the sword out would be king and everyone tried but they could not do it, it was soooo hard. And they tried and tried. And then Arthur came and he pulled it out so easily and he wasn’t even tired at all. And they all said “Yes! Yes yes yes, he will be king. He will be king! Yes!” so they were happy and he was king.

Geography

1.    Find Lake Michigan on a map? Where is Missouri on the same map? 

2.    Explain how locks help ships between St. Mary's River and Lake Huron.

So the boat goes into this place and it makes the water low so that the boat can go so it doesn’t go too fast down the water then, ifs its long then they can do a few locks in a row. (lots of arm motions accompanied this one J )

3.     Tell how you might tell the direction by looking at the sky.

With what’s the north star you can tell what is north and then you can tell what the other directions are. If it wasn’t nighttime, the sun. The sun sets North, wait no, West. The sun sets that way (points), that’s the west.

4.     Find the continents of Africa and Europe on the map. Find the countries of Canada, United States, United Kingdom. 

Natural History and General Science

1.    Describe your favorite nature study find this term.

Jonah: The eggs on the window

Lucy: I liked studying about birds. The birds, we learned about the yellow one that we didn’t know what it was. It had the black tail and black wings and yellow head with a bit of black but mostly yellow. And it was the American Goldfinch. (What else did we learn about it…) We saw it at our birdfeeder and it eats seeds from our birdfeeder.

  Tell about Mourning Doves or shrikes, or, What do you know about nests?

Nests are made of twigs and sticks. Robins use mud to make the nests to make the sticks and twigs stick together. They can probably fit 4-5 birds in them, maybe 1-2 grown ups and 2-3 babies. And some nests are not made of that. Some nests..like one type of bird, it made some stuff on a tree that light light green sorta stuff and peels it off the tree (she means lichen) and put it on the nest, it’s so tiny it looks like a knot on a tree. (Jonah: It was a hummingbird!).

2.    Can you explain what Invertebrate means?

Invertebrate is an animal that does not have a backbone. Like crawdads and daddy long legs and …(Jonah:shrimp!). Lucy: Shrimp. I didn’t remember that one but Jonah told me and he’s right.                       

                                                                      

Arithmetic 

     1. How many legs do you, Jonah and Zeeba (the cat) have altogether? 8

     6 +5 2> ? + 5

Picture Study

1.    Describe your favorite picture from this term's picture study.

Lucy: I can't remember it all. Can't I look at it? 

Me: Okay, tell what everything you remember on your own. Then you can look and add to it. 

From memory: On the picture that they wise men are on, I think there is a dog. Wait, one side it is nighttime, on the other it is kinda close to nighttime.

Looks: On one side there is mary and jesus and on the other there is mary and the wise men and the wise man are giving Jesus their gifts and the other side there are the shepherds and  there are some angels around Jesus and that’s all.

 Composer – Tell me one thing you remember about Hildegard Von Bingen

She was an artist and she wrote down her music so that other people can hear it. She was kinda famous, wasn’t she?

Recitation     

What was your favorite A.A. Milne poem and why?

Lucy: Oh, there were too many. How do I pick?

Me: Look through the book at the pictures and see which one you want to talk about. 

Lucy: Oh, this one. I loved this one! Puppy and I. Because at the end he’ll say “I’ll come with you!” but he said no to other ones. He thought going to the market to get barley was boring. And getting hay was boring. But playing was interesting.

Illustrate The Gift, The Eagle or Happiness (three of our recitation poems).

And she wasn't required to but she choose to recite it to daddy when she showed him the picture. 

Singing

     Sing your favorite folksong and hymn from this term. 

And I was on top of it enough to have Lucy pick out a colorful binder during the back to school sales and have compiled her exams from this term and last, as well as a handful of papers and I actually assembled it into a portfolio today! Go me! I did't do a ton, just a favorite art piece or two, a few nature study drawings, and drawing narrations.

A unprompted picture narration of daddy's current bedtime story series. Any guesses?

The sword in the stone. Part 1

The Sword in the stone. Part 2. One thing I find fascinating is the difference in her drawings for narration/story telling and art time. For art, she can do very detailed drawings that honestly, leave me a bit worried about my own lack of art skills and leave me scrambling through pinterest for ideas on how to guide her. But if she's doing it for oral processing, whether prompted or not, it is still very developmentally appropriate with stick figures and symbols. Mona Brooks talks about this is her book Drawing With Children but it is amazing to watch it play out. 

Because here is a picture she did just two weeks later than those above. This was based on a picture of a horse Craig pulled up on the computer but done without any guidance from us. 

 Sorry for the geeking out moment there, but I find developmental stuff like that fascinating. And having three kids means my house is a basically my mad scientists laboratory of children! In a non-creepy way, of course.

 More art work, this was an actual lesson in Artistic Pursuits.

Nature Study drawings. 

Whew, what a busy term we had! Not even counting all the travel and family experiences that could easily be considered "school". No wonder I'm worn out! I love looking back because each day doesn't have much in it and I might worry about whether we are doing enough but as a whole, we did lots of learning and I'm really happy. I know exams are optional but I really would encourage anyone doing AO to do them.

 It also helps me evaluate and ponder changes. I think her narrations are great and we are slowly getting to the point where I can read half or maybe even all of a story without stopping for narrations along the way. I don't want to push her too far that the quality of narrations goes down, but I do want us to try out more of a variety of narrations. More drawing narrations, playmobile and acting. Not everything, I still want the majority to be regular oral narrations, but maybe doing something different and fun more than just once or twice a term! I also still need to work on getting piano in more regularly, although I have gotten better at that. And art needs to become a higher priority. I was hoping to get her into a homeschool art class but I just got an email that it was full. But she's on the waiting list so maybe in the spring? For now, art at home will be our Norah's naptime activity during our break since we won't have to fit school in that spot. And handicrafts got dropped during the summer. I'm not worried about that since we spent so much time outside but I need to come up with a plan to get it back into our routine during the cooler, snug-at-home weather. She really wants to learn how to sew and crochet because that is what she see's me doing. I'm not sure I'm up for it but she'd probably surprise me. For now we rest and then, gasp, our last term of year 1 begins! I can hardly believe it.