New Stuff and One Proud Mama

Brenna and I have decided to start incorporating some geography into her home schooling and start learning about maps as well. I got on Amazon and ordered a few books about maps and simple geography stuff and figured we would start there. I've already received two of the three books and Brenna seems to like them a lot. One is about maps and globes and goes into detail about a lot of things, like making a map to scale and legends. The other book is called Geography From A to Z and has definitions along with pictures. Anyone know what a ford is? Well I will admit that I didn't. A ford is a shallow place in a stream where people and animals can safely wade from one bank to another. Please don't tell me that I am the only one who did not know that! LOL I think I will be learning a lot of cool stuff along with Brenna! :)
Anyway, I figured we would study a few definitions a week and do little art projects or find pictures on the Internet of the particular thing we are talking about. As far as the maps, I already have our world map up on the wall and she will be learning the seven continents and where they are located. We have a globe as well so I am sure that will come in handy. Maybe we'll even study a few little facts about some of the countries along the way.
The book from Amazon that I am waiting for is called Me On the Map. I remember my niece, Kastine, having that book and I thought it was really neat. It's about this kid and starts with a map of his room, then his house, then his street, city, state, ect... I think it does a good job at putting things in perspective for children.
In fact, today Brenna and I made a map of her room. We had the best time doing that and she did a great job. We worked on it for about an hour. It was a little difficult explaining to her how to look at her room from the top and just draw a rectangle for her bed instead of the actual bed with legs and everything (which she is so used to). She got it pretty quick though and did the whole room by herself. She made a legend and everything! I have some pictures on my camera that I took but I have to charge it before I can download them. I will try to remember to post them tomorrow.

Anyway, today was Brenna's fifth day for spelling and guess what word she spelled all by herself!!?? Beginning. Yep, that's right - my darling little 6 year old knows how to spell beginning. This curriculum is absolutely amazing. So how exactly did she get to spelling that word? It started with in, then be, then begin, then inning and before you know it we were at beginning today and she got it right! And it was so cool because on the very first day it has the student write the sentence, "We are all beginning to be good spellers" on a piece of paper. Now of course most of the words were not spelled right. Her sentence looked like this :

We r all begeney to bee good spelrs.

On the fifth day it says to show the student the paper again and show them how they spelled the word beginning. When Brenna saw that she actually spelled it right after only five days, she had the biggest and proudest smile on her face and I think it was right then and there that she realized what exactly she has been accomplishing. It was definitely one of those priceless moments that make me so grateful and happy to be my child's teacher.