Reagan's Weekly Report - Week # Whoknowswhat

Another productive week for Reagan's first grade here at Heritage Academy! I'm finding that if I (and by I, I mean my most wonderfully helpful dh who has really helped takes up my slack and make my currently heavier job in the kitchen much easier for me - "Shout out, Hubbs!  You rock!") really focus on getting prep work for the day's huge homemade meals and chores done the evening before, our lessons go much more smoothly allowing more wiggle room for her attitude.  She has been a bit on the moody side this week and it's meant a lot of lip-biting for me to keep the lesson upbeat and try to keep her from crying (about nothing other than her inability to answer me quickly and correctly every time - I don't know where she gets this standard as I am constantly reminding her to take her time and just try again if she makes a mistake!).  So I'm thankful when I have some wiggle room that allows her time to re-adjust her emotions...and also for coffee, even if it is black these days!  :-D

Phonics/Spelling:

We plodded through our CCC workbook covering the long /e/ sound when spelled (e consonant silent e), (ea), (ee), and the oh.so.difficult because it doesn't follow our 2-vowel rule, (ie).  I find that the rules for using each of these in words are becoming too many for her to manage, so I'm trying to just expose her to as many examples of each as I can through copywork and add to her spelling list (since her spelling 'tray' helps her to 'velcro' the words into her head better).  I assume that as she sees the usage of these phonograms more and more over her elementary years, her spelling will improve.  (Maybe I'll run her through a Spelling Workout book over the summer to see how she does...)

On another note, I'm looking for advice on 'decoding' words... or breaking them down into syllables with correct accent and vowel sounds marked.  At what point should a student learn this?  This part of the lesson always tortured Jefferson (as well as me) and is now bringing the glazed deer-in-headlights look to her eyes torturing Reagan also.  She just doesn't seem to be able to hold all the 'rules' for syllable breaks, accents and vowel sounds in her head...so every lesson is like a new lesson instead of one that builds on previous knowledge.  Will this info get picked up later?  How will this skill help her - in reading...spelling??

Writing/Penmanship:

As I can see her motorskills improving and her hand becoming stronger, I am trying to give her 1 to 3 lines of copywork each day (we started the year with that much per week).  She is finally writing more quickly but her penmanship still looks wonderful.  I never thought we'd get past all her little kinks and backwords habits she'd had!  With some good spelling basics under her belt and the ability to read, she is also becoming confident enough to write her own little stories.  She does this on papers and cards and little homemade 'books' and has a great time with her imagination!  I try not to correct these writings unless she asks me because I want to encourage her confidence in writing down the things on her mind.  I love the initiative she shows!

(A Lightning McQueen book written & illustrated for little brother, A)

Grammar (FLL):

I love that these lessons are so short - they don't seem to burden her that way and I can fit them in here or there.  She is gaining a better feel for the noun, proper and common, while learning some basics, like her address and how to abbreviate.  She memorized the poem "Work" by Anonymous in two days (shocking me, as usual, with her memory). I wrote down her narration of "The Girl Who Wanted to be Dirty" and she illustrated it.

Math:

One of our first tough weeks in this subject - I was surprised!  It turns out that she needs some more practice partitioning numbers up to twenty (ie. 20=8+5+5+2). I really want her to have a good grip on mental adding strategies before she moves on to harder topics.  Right now she is working on adding by "completing the ten", "two five's", "adding nines" (always one less) and seems to be able to add most 2-digit numbers that I give her, even if they 'trade' over into the next place number.  She still needs practice at this, so we are working on card games since they keep her interested and relaxed (I looooove Right Start's card games! I have no problem resorting to 'trickery' of this kind to get strategies into student's brains - lol!).  But even the games didn't seem to keep her from getting frustrated this week with the partitioning, as she would start crying almost as soon as she hesitated at an answer. It was as difficult for me, the teacher, as it was when Jefferson used to deal with frustration!  The real lesson for them is that practice is more important than fast or correct answers!  I'm hoping that next week the practice will result in a more relaxed and confident student (and fewer greys hairs for me!).  I am happy that we are still progressing well and have plenty of room for the practice that she needs as this foundational mental math is sooooo important.

And all this in just one week!  Surely I could learn to make my post a little more concise so I'd be more likely to keep up with journaling her progress.  But hey....there's always next week's report...

Reagan's 1st Grade Progress

It's truly been forever since I've taken the time to journal about Reagan's progress this year in 1st grade.  It really has just been such a different 1st grade than Jefferson had....don't know why I thought it would be the same considering their uniqueness and the events of this year - lol!

Our year got off to a rough start last August while I tried to balance Jefferson's heavier 3rd grade load (and new Sonlight curriculum package and growing disrespectful independent attitude) with Reagan's learning differences (namely her auditory processing delays and sensory make the mommy crazy bullheadeness irritations).  After four weeks, we ended up placing Jefferson in a local (but not quite local enough - next door would be nice - lol!) Christian school so that I could give Reagan focused attention at what could be a critical year for her developmentally.  DH and I truly felt that she would end up farther and farther behind if we didn't help her learn to concentrate and learn to be disciplined about her school work and to work through her struggles.  We felt that she was being hugely overshadowed by Jefferson and the attention that he often stole throughout the day (not purposely - just a part of his "golden retriever" type personality).

I'm so glad to see how well Reagan is doing at this point in the year!  She has come to be a great helper as she has gotten to step up and be the "oldest" child during the day, which builds her confidence and spills over into her lessons.  She is still very particular - to the point of perfectionism with her penmanship and with her lessons.  But THIS momma understands THAT - lol!  I do my best (snortchucklechuckle - as I bite  my lip into pieces!) to patiently encourage her past it rather than try to shove her through (she will NOT be shoved people!).  I've even come to enjoy the quality of work that her perfectionism produces and have learned to give her time limits so that she doesn't sit indefinitely working on one task. 

Reading is now exciting for her!  She is finally moving over that 'hump' from struggling to read one word at a time to reading more smoothly into readers.  Dr. Suess and anything with a princess in it are her favorites.  She recently purchased a Littlest Petshop book and shocked us by reading almost all of it by herself (there were some big words in there!)! This has to be the most exciting part of teaching someone to read.  It is such a joy to see her choose to sit down and read a book for me.  But my favorite has to be when she reads books to her little brothers!!!  So wonderful....and it makes her so proud to be 'helping' me to 'teach' them!

Her penmanship is improving in leaps and bounds!  What used to be like pulling teeth for me has become something that she enjoys because she realizes how well she is doing and how much she is learning (my goal is to keep her from being anxious about it and to move more quickly past something that isn't 'perfect' in her eyes).  Simple grammar (capital letters for sentence starting and proper nouns; punctuation; indenting in letter writing; identifying nouns) is starting to become familiar to her through her copywork and she is developing better stamina in her hand.

(The final line is "To live again a butterfly")

Her spelling lesson is part of her Christ Centered Curriculum phonics program - she learns one phonegram (ie. "a consonant silent e" or "ai" to represent the /a/ sound) per lesson and practices spelling words which use it (in addition to words she's already learned).  Because of her 'struggle' to write perfectly, I have had to switch her to tracing the word in a sand tray rather than have her use a pencil.  This small change has helped her stop stumbling over the penmanship and improve in the spelling - she loves it!

For grammar we have finally started using First Language Lessons (Wise Bauer) when I told myself that we wouldn't.  With her literal mind, I figured she wouldn't be able to wrap her mind around the abstraction of grammar - yet.  I am thankful that she seems to be at a point where she is comprehending it!  I do NOT enjoy the way it is presented in CCC, however, and do not wish to purchase another program.  Because she is 'ready,' I have been able to run more rapidly thought the first FLL lessons than I did with Jefferson (what a struggle grammar was for him!!).  MY perfectionism would tell me that we are 'behind' here (as I 'compare' to Jefferson or others) but what I've learned about homeschooling and how I'm learning to better understand my students allows me to realize that we are right where she needs to be!  Yay - progress for teacher Mommy! 

I'm seeing progress in her narration ability just these last months as well.  This can be a difficult skill for some children and I think that it's important to choose the right reading/picture for them to narrate back from.  This is doubly important for Reagan due to her auditory processing delays.  Learning to listen (not just hear) the words read to her and process the information as well as formulate her own words to tell it back was quite hard.  We had started with daily reading from the Little House on the Prairie series.  She liked these but found the chapters very hard to narrate back and soon I could see her body language telling that she was dreading our reading time.  So we recently started with a book from the Millers series, Storytime with the Millers, which is comprised of short chapters based on clear lessons about godly character traits.  These have been short and clear and Reagan is enjoying them much more! The added benefit being that her heart is soft enough to gain wisdom from the Spirit in these chapters as well! My plan is to work on different ways for her to narrate, including verbally, acting out, or drawing a picture. I'm hoping this will make it more interesting for her and help her to listen better.

Math is by far her favorite subject!  Again - a surprise to me (yeah - I'm always surprised by the speed at which my kids learn - shocks me everytime and adds to the joy of getting to teach them!) since I initially thought that her little nuansances and perfectionism would delay her actual learning here. But here she is - flying through the same awesome curriculum that Jefferson used (I'd bought another more "right-brained" program but was so pleased with AL RightStart that I knew it would work for her).  As fast as she is picking it up however, I find her perfectionism creep in and do it's best to ruin a lesson if she finds that she can't give me answers quickly enough (in her mind - not by my requirement!).  Again - I'm working on teaching her that it's the learning & repetition that matters and not perfection!

But here's where I've gone so astray from my last journey through 1st grade: history & science!  My plan this year was to combine The Story of the World Vol1 with Mystery of History for history but I'm not sure I'm liking MOH so much (for this age and this student - it doesn't hold her at all). We've been trying to hit one chapter of SOTW each week as well as one day with mapwork/coloring sheet.  However, it always seems that this gets pushed if time gets tight and we are vastly behind schedule - certainly not going to complete SOTW by June.  My problem with this is that Reagan needs continuity to gain a feel for the flow of history (as well as the fact that my almost OCD can't stand to be not on schedule - lol!)!  We find ourselves in the same boat with science.  Just wrapped up a unit on the human body (which she loved!) but not sure what to work on next (holy crow! Think of that: me - with no lesson plan!  You flexibile, laidback mommas would be so proud!).  Most likely we will continue with some more nature study as we head into spring (she loves this and seems to have a knack for observation and for sketching).  I plan to just flex with it (while biting my lip to hold back my own perfectionism) and remind myself that she is excelling well in her basics (applause for me please, those who know me and my love of non-flexing)!

(Looking for a 'cloud' to form at the top of the jar -what focus, huh?)

(Sketching seeds pods we found outside)

(A white blood cell enveloping a 'bad' bacteria)

(We all know how hard it is to do 'detail' work with watercolors!)

(A bit of geography in every lesson)

As far as teacher planning goes this year, I have been far from diligent myself!  The calendar that I planned for us has been shredded due to Jefferson's time in 'away' school - everything now rotates around that (I hate to admit how stifling it feels to me after 3 years of a more flexible homeschool schedule).  If he has a snow day, so does she - even though I would normally have gotten lessons done in the morning.  I had a week break planned for this next week (2/22-2/26) - for some time to regroup, photocopy, re-adjust the schedule according to her progress.  But then the double blizzard hit, brought Jefferson AND dh home and no lessons got done for Reagan.  I'm a bit bummed that I didn't use the time better (I focused on our food prep & research and making Valentine's instead) because now I'm gonna have to stuff my planning into a couple weekends instead (I don't like to have to ask dh to deal with our labor intensive food plan).

But now that Reagan is progressing so well and has settled into the flow of homeschool in our house, I feel that I need to focus on diligently bringing her along as far as she can get in the next few months.  I plan on schooling through the summer (for 1st grade - that's light enough and leaves plenty of play time) but will have to balance that with Jefferson being home daily on his break.  I guess the best thing to do is to plan a summer 'school' for him as well - he's always happier when he's busy.

Goodness, what a post!  Glad to have caught my dear blog up a bit on Reagan's 1st grade progress thus far and I'm hoping that I can do so on a more regular basis - kind of get back into the swing of weekly reports.  But now....back to teacher planning for me!

Our last couple of terms...

Holy guacamole, am I glad that we made it to break! I could tell in this last week especially that we all need some time out of the normal routine and into the sunshine (although the clouds aren't lettin' much of that through yet).


Every time we get to a break, I can't believe how much we accomplished and how much we learned! So I've got to break it down so I can have a reminder (and encouragement for the next time I need a break, huh?) but it won't be too interesting for anyone else - sorry.

Jefferson

Math - He is slowly but surely learning how to turn his skip counting into multiplication, enjoying working with shapes and symmetry, becoming quicker and quicker with his mental addition and subtraction. His favorite activity over the last terms, however, was learning to use his T-square and 30-60-90 triangle to draw interesting geometric shapes. He still loves the card games too, of course. I am trying to continue to strengthen his ability to put his thought process into words, however, so that I can tell whether he fully understands a concept or not. This also helps him to see math as more than just numbers, but something that is part of life. I can see that he still struggles with this, as word problems still slow him down.


Phonics - This year we have been slowly working through Christ Centered Curriculum, the program we used with him in Kindergarten and half of 1st grade. It's a very thorough and is doing a good job of broadening his vocabulary, strengthening his spelling and reviewing the grammar he's already learned from FLL. However, this is his least favorite subject since it almost always involves having to sit through 2 fussy younger brothers, 1 on-the-verge-of-tired mommy, and a grumbly tummy before lunch. Also, just as I did when we used this program in K, I still find the lessons to be too long and hard for me to shorten. I have to remind myself to keep them light so he doesn't hate them too much.


Grammar - Jefferson is finally getting the idea behind this subject and looks forward to showing me that he can diagram a sentence without my help. As always here - repetition and more repetition. But - he is enjoying it more now that he is more confident (and it helps that I'm working harder to keep the lessons shorter). We are on track to finish FLL but I am learning that I will not be using this book with Reagan.


Spelling - We cover this in our phonics lessons and review weekly.


Reading - What fun I am having this year to see Jefferson read, read and read! I can hardly keep up with the books for him. He always gets his required 45 minutes finished before breakfast. But in January, dh and I found something else vying for his attention - computer games. Since dh makes his living with computers, there's no outlawing them from the house - lol! So we decided that he could earn up to 2 hours of computer time (to be spent only on weekends) by reading 3 minutes for 1 minute of game time. This cut out all badgering and begging during the schooldays as well as any whining when game time was over. And the added benefit is the way he is constantly using addition and multiplication to figure out his minutes. All in all, he's reading at least 1.5 hours each day (minimum) and loving it. He tells me his favorites are the "Millers" series from Rod & Staff and our read alouds - the missionary stories of Nate Saint, Rachel Saint, and Amy Charmichael. He finished "The Tale of Desperaux" and "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh" each in one day (not that the motivation of a movie didn't help). He is writing one narration sheet each week, but I need to work on getting him to narrate to me more often than I currently do. This skill needs more polishing but often gets skipped in the chaos around here.


Spanish - Such inconsistency here! Half the time Jefferson goes to do his computer lesson, dh has done something to the computer that makes the headset not work. And this is the lesson that always gets skipped if we run out of time. So I've asked him to spend some extra time on the foundational lessons and review as he needs to. I need to spend some time catching up with his in the lessons so I can incorporate some of the language around the house.....


History - SOTW2 is dragging on for us this year. I just am not diggin' it and I don't really think it's holding Jefferson's attention either. I just think that we aren't using enough living books or activities to dig deeper - I just don't have enough time. We are only on chpater 27 of 42. But I'm trying not to get to perturbed about it since we are at least learning something each week.


Science - We are STILL not finished with our Astronomy book! Again, this is what gets skipped if we just can't fit it into the afternoon. Jefferson does enjoy learning about outer space and seems to retain the info very well because of this. He likes the little projects and has made some nice narration/illustration sheets for each planet. He was able to do a small lapbook at homeschool co-op as well. But just these past couple of weeks, astronomy has again been set aside for us to concentrate on learning about gardening and he and Reagan are REALLY enjoying it. Photos are posted in our last gardening posts..... Maybe we will get to geology and weather sometime this year?? :-/

Reagan

Phonics - We have finally gotten into a groove with the CCC program. Reagan is more than used to it and is confident that she is doing well. She is VERY perfectionistic about her penmanship and I often have to push her to keep moving instead of getting upset over minor mistakes. She was excited to complete her first copywork sheet and I often find her trying to write something on her own on her other papers. However, we have forgone these lessons for the last month as I started using Phonics Pathways to get her reading (I never felt like CCC got Jefferson reading when he was ready but slowed him down with other tedious work instead). She is able to read short sentences and has finally started her little readers. I can tell that she is getting excited about what she's learning since she is always trying to sound out words that she sees around her! I can't wait until she can start reading short books!


Math - Reagan really enjoys math but I'm finding that it's easier for me to fit in her phonics or reading lesson into our daily chaos. We are behind in this subject, but she is confident is what she's learning (partitioning 10, counting to 100, learning to group, looking for patterns, copying shapes, writing her numbers) and is enjoying it so I am happy.


So over this break, I hope to prepare for the coming homeschool convention as well as the next term. Don't know where there will be time to rest, but hopefully the sun will come out and we'll all get some much needed fresh air! The kids have been enjoying some nice pre-Easter activities at home church and are looking forward to heading to church next weekend for Easter.

Week 5 (T1) 2008

This was a tough one just due to my own lack of motivation. Don't really know why, but I didn't have the perseverance that I needed to push through this week's busyness and get school done as well. Don't get me wrong - we got a lot done. But I just don't feel like the week was complete.

First, Labor Day was a wash. I hadn't planned anything for this day but can't quite figure out how to tell my hs software that. So it thinks we just didn't get the lessons for Monday in! I'll have to find out how to adjust that since we will be adjusting things in the future as well. We read a little in the am and went to a great picnic in the afternoon. It was hosted by old friends. We thought is strange as we left as we realized that we feel soooo much more comfortable with the family of this friend (she has a large, large family who were all there) than we do amongst our own church family. Hmmm...

Tuesday was completely nuts! We were all dead-tired from the late picnic and slept in an hour. The cleaning lady woke me up and I spent the next hour just picking up (so SHE could clean up - you know how that goes! LOL!) and trying to get the kids awake and fed before the speech therapist arrived for Adam. By the time they both left, I had to get lunch ready and no one had gotten ANY lessons done! I think I managed to teach Jefferson grammar, math, and spelling and Reagan got her phonics lesson. Reading didn't happen since I had so many errands to run in prep for Jefferson's party.

Wednesday worked but only slowly. We did manage to get some very good reading time in for history and plan the mosaic that they were suppose to do on Friday. Jefferson is finished with his CCC phonics lessons and I have forgotten to order the next book! So we'll just skip that for a couple weeks, I guess. He's good at it, but I can tell that it's not his favorite. I think that we'll take the extra time (*hahahahehehe* Did I just say extra time? As if!) to start a few minutes of cursive practice each day since our Veritas Bible Primer Book 1 has arrived. I think that Reagan's math lesson got skipped! I had much food planning to do to get ready for our first day of homeschool co-op on Thursday.

Thursday was as tiring as I knew it would be with the co-op. It runs from 10:30am til 2:30 and I have to have everyone's lunches ready the night before if I'm going to get any lessons done in the morning. Even so, I was already tired (thanks to Sarah Palin's late speech Wednesday night) and we barely got out the door with all our stuff. Jefferson finished SWB. Reagan did get her phonics lesson this morning - we are working on short i and more penmanship. I know that she can blend and even sound out short words but need to continue emphasizing these basics for a while longer. Co-op was lots of fun for the kids and even I was as tired out by it as I can get. I will be assisting the teacher in the nursery/pre-k/K room, so I'll be with 3 of my 4 kids.

Friday I tried to get through the lessons that were planned but small details related to Jefferson's birthday kept getting in the way and I finally gave up. I was also very cranky. :-/ I think that days like these are why I have planned to school year round - I don't want to start yelling at the kids just because it HAS to get done. So we didn't - the mosaic will wait until next week. Jefferson played with his Legos (gift from his Nana), we read a bit and I worked on food lists/prep for the party. I also had the kids help me with some extra chores since we weren't doing lessons. The head cold that started Wedns for me is finally getting better....maybe that's what pulled me down this week?

Next week will be a better week I hope. I do feel like we are in a groove and I know that a break is coming soon. I can't actually believe that we have been at this for 5 weeks already - it's feels normal again! We will be skipping Tuesday so that Jefferson can go with dh to hear McCain/Palin speak at F&M University. Dave bought him a McCain booklet to give him some more info and we will be learning more about other presidents over the next couple of months. We just want him to have an awareness of this part of our country's democratic process as it happens!

Week 3 (T1) 2008

Don't have much time for a detailed weekly report this week. We are doing well in achieving our daily goals so far. However, I honestly don't know how this happens! It's only by the grace of God that I get to the end of the day and say, "It all got taught, learned, cleaned, fed, and loved today! Amazing!"

This past week, we had trouble sticking to our schedule. This is because I am getting use to homeschooling and to keeping things in my head as we get further into the year. I am getting a better sense for what needs to get done versus what I want to get done. This week was a "needs" week without any extra fun, crafty, or reading projects.

Tuesday was our "run all over the county" to get our farm food for the next 2 weeks, thus shoving lessons into the afternoon where I was tired and their minds weren't as sharp. But at least Adam was asleep! And somehow Jefferson got tons of time in on his Rosetta Stone Spanish. He loves to practice until he gets 100% and then show me that he has gotten farther and better than I have (I'm a slacker and choose not to shoot for 100's)! I like that he is motivated!

Wednesday was just plain gorgeous outside! Add to that the fact that I was miserable tired (doggone Olympics are causing me to miss my bedtime!) and wanted a 10am nap instead of my usual 3pm power nap, and we got nothing done in the morning. I was all kinds of behind on housework and thought we'd just do the school on Thurs. But we dug in as soon as Adam went for his afternoon nap and amazingly, it all got done again! Not the way I like to do it though, since Jefferson didn't get any breaks and dinner got pushed back. You just can't give up weather like that though - it keeps the kids growing and healthy!

Thursday we played a little catch up after a morning run to the grocery (I swear it takes me 3 or 4 trips to get our food for 2 weeks all bought and put away!). We read and read (Arthur but soon it will be Beowulf!) and walked and then did another item for our plant lapbook. Jefferson seems to be learning something from these but Reagan struggles to focus long enough to finish even these little parts. I know she's soaking something up though when she spits info back out at me when we're looking at plants in the yard. We used white carnations this week to show that colored water moves from the vase to the petals - they loved this!

Friday Reagan and I had our first interrupted lesson due to her behavior. Truthfully, she was so fussy this entire week that I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner! I was running through a listening exercise with her for phonics. When she missed one and I corrected her, she started fussing and whining. I tried to talk to her about how learning isn't where we get everything right, but where we practice and make mistakes. But she wouldn't listen and I could tell she was shutting down. I stood up and ended the lesson (with the mistake of slamming my pen down too hard) and a tantrum ensued. For some reason, however, she collected herself quickly and asked me to come finished the lesson! For those who know her, this borders on miraculous since it required her to calm herself AND humble herself. The Lord was good and we finished the lesson happily! Although I shouldn't have slammed my pen, I have decided that I will NOT even try to teach her when she is upset. I want her to associate our school time with happy learning and comfort - not stress or anger. And so far, she is pleased as punch to be "doing Kindergarten!" and I am thankful that God has given me the wisdom to be able to read her body language and keep her lessons enjoyable!

I STILL haven't completed my science plans and am starting to stress about it! I am ready to move into astronomy and I know Jefferson will love it. But the evenings and weekends keep slipping away! When I'm not catching up on the housework, I'm enjoying the kids and can't stick my back to them by sitting at my desk. And I get so tired in the evenings after dinner. I think I'm going to have to ask dh for some special time without the kids.....

But at least the Olympics are over and I can get some better sleep this week!! That will surely help. And for those who know her, please continue to be in prayer for Reagan and how we deal with her wisely and lovingly!

Week 2 (T1) 2008

This week I'm actually going to try to get this posted on time (without giving up sleep and while maintaining all other priorities, right? *snortchucklechuckle*).



Our 2nd week of school went as smoothly as the 1st and I must admit that I am excited to be back into the structure of school! I tried to plan activities and daily items for us all over the 7 weeks that we had for summer, but it still was just too long without school. I don't know about anyone else, but I tend to get less done, be less focused, and less organized when I don't have a well-defined structure in place. I'm assuming that the same goes for my kids since I could see their behavior slide as the weeks went on.



This week had no hiccups (or fishbones) and with no homeschool co-op yet started, we took Thursday off to visit the dr and then some friends at a campground (you'll note however, that even though said campground was 0.1 feet from my sil house, that we did NOT visit her. Apologies have already been made and relationships mended with future assurances that such a slight will never occur again! *snickersnicker*).

Jefferson - 2nd Grade

Bibletime is actually going quite well! I think that Explorer's Beginnings II is going just far enough in depth for Jefferson to make him think and also stretch him to remember. This week he worked through the 1st 3 days of creation in his lessons, colored one timeline sheet and colored 3 pages of his Creation booklet. Dh is a little further along at our lunchtime bibletime (since this is just reading and prayer)- they read about Cain and Abel here.



RightStart Math C - Jefferson is still reviewing a few things from last year. We went over 3 different method to add 1 and 2-digit numbers in his head (complete the 10, adding by 9, two 5's method). One lesson was just a practice sheet (as will every sixth lesson be) and games (Corners this week - his favorite). He also finished up his Addition Chart and learned to read an outdoor thermometer. Over the next month (actually this starts September because he cannot stand to start charting something mid-month! Oy - he is just like me...) he will check the outdoor temp each day and graph it. He loves tasks like this and wanted to know "What time of day will we do it?" I was surprised that he realized this on his own!



Language Arts

Grammar was a bit of a struggle as again I faced the fact that the definitions of a noun, pronoun, and verb were not at all sinking in. This is frustrating to me, having taught nothing but these all last year, but at the same time - understandable. I'm realizing that he just doesn't understand the concepts well enough - so it doesn't matter if he can spit the definitions back out at me. This is where only practice will help him at this point. So we started just copying sentences and labeling the N, P, and V so he could visualize and start strengthening what he learned about them last year. FLL is such a typical left-brained auditory book! He enjoys the LLFY much better and we may just move on over to that as the year goes -we'll see.

Phonics was all about the modified vowel this week. Another example of "I haven't a clue what that means, Mommy, even though we went over it plenty last year and last week!" Now... I know that he can read these just fine, so someone tell me why does he need to know the definition of a modified vowel? We are also working on the definition of a homonym and analogy right now. He seems to be fine with reading, spelling, and phonics but struggles when it comes to fishing words out of his brain (whether it be vocabulary or narrations). Hmmmm.....I seem to have always had the same problem myself. Don't quite know how to help him here - I just try to give him starting words, suggestions, verbal cues and encourage him to use more descriptive words.

Spelling covered some suffixes and the two /oo/ sounds (book, tool). This is all from SWB, which we completed last year, but are reviewing a bit to start this year. He is doing well here and it is showing in his dictation.

Reading - his reading is becoming more fluid although it is still common for him to run right through periods and commas only to stop at the end of a line of words instead. He does very well figuring out longer or difficult words phonetically or through context. He finished up "I Wonder" from the Reading to Learn series of Christian Light Publications (I love these books! Great for new readers and full of character lessons).
For our read aloud time we began "Arthur High King of Britain" by Michael Morpurgo. This is a FABULOUS book for read aloud! I was so into it the 1st day we read it, that I had to read ahead after he went to bed! The author presents this well-know myth in a wonderful manner that draws the reader in and holds us tightly. The illustrations are beautiful. I send a thanks out again to Jennefer at Smooth Stones Academy for her suggestion of this author! Jefferson "snuck" it up to his bedroom tonight and will most likely begin reading it on his own in the morning. He narrated it back to me without even realizing that he was narrating! Even Reagan was captivated with Arthur and Merlin today (and that's saying something since her attention span is so short). Next week we'll do a narration sheet with illustration.


Writing - Our Veritas Press Classically Cursive copybooks just arrived but we didn't use them this week. I dictated 4 sentences for Jefferson to put in his "Journal". This booklet has space at the top for illustrations so I ask him to draw something nice for one of the sentences each week. I have noticed that he is writing faster and more sloppily but does better with the 2nd grade lined paper (1/2 inch) than he was doing last year.


Memory Work - reviewed "God's Beautiful World" and started reviewing the Days of Creation. I forgot to start work on our house rules this week (each on has a scripture verse with it).....


History - we read the 1st chapter of SOTW2 on the end of the ancient Roman Empire. Jefferson worked on a map and coloring sheet after looking through our DK Eyewitness Ancient Rome book (I love these books - eyecandy and great info) and a couple library books. I'm not in project mode yet, so we didn't do anything further this week.

Science - Continued to work on our plant lapbook. Although Jefferson enjoys this, the information seems to be getting to him in a piece mealed way and I wonder how effective is this method. But then again, I'm not too focused on it and we've already exhausted the books I'd planned on reading for this topic. It'll look nice when they are finished!

Spanish - Goodness, does Jefferson love this! He is learning that he needs to speak more clearly in order to enunciate in this new language. He discovered this week that he could go back to parts of the lesson and repeat them until he did better (mostly he did this with the verbal lessons). Somehow he figured out that a 100% is the best thing to get and that practice is how he can get there! Ahhhh... the joys of self-motivation! I let him know how it pleased us that he wanted to do better. I also sat down this week and caught up with him in his lessons so that I know how the Rosetta Stone program works and so I can learn Spanish too. Of course, it was much easier for me, having had a couple years in high school but I expect it will get harder soon. At least my background can help him in pronunciation and with any grammar that he just isn't understanding.

Reagan - Kindergarten

Phonics
I am so excited about teaching her phonics! Again this week I was surprised by how much she already knows and how ready she is to read. I barely even had to explain to her how to blend a consonant with the vowels - these seemed easy to her. I did notice as she read, the directionality difficulties she tends toward (switching b/d, p/q etc). I will have to teach her some verbal or visual cues to fix these but I'm not concerned. We reviewed our vowel flashcards each day, read a blend chart (short a), and worked on her 1st Christ Centered Curriculum lesson (hadn't planned on using this but she seems ready!). She gets frustrated easily with her penmanship - seems to think that every letter must be perfect and holds her pencil very tightly, causing her hand to tire easily. I don't push her at all here since my focus is to get her reading, but she likes to have something to show her daddy!

RightStart Math A
Another good week for her. Lessons are still very simple as I get a feel for how long she can focus and where her strengths are. We finger painted 1, 2, 3's, reviewed dot cards, read 1 to 5 on the abacus, and worked on one tracing sheet. Below I've shown the "Mr. Thumbkin" sheet that we used last week to teach her a visual cue for writing her numbers in the correct direction. We start the 2 at his head, go around down to his feet, and then "Run away - they're stinky!" And we start he 3 at his head, go around to his "Smelly armpit" and down to his feet. She just eats this silliness up and it totally sticks in her head! The key with her is to keep it light and fun (not that Jefferson doesn't need the same thing, just that his behavior is more predictable so I never felt I had to work so hard to make it fun!)

I am thankful that we've hit the ground running this year! The Lord has blessed us and I am more than thankful! I need to tweak our schedule around a bit and be very diligent about my own sleep. I look forward to the week to come!

Weekly Report 1 (T1) 2008

So we made it through our first official week of 2nd grade/Kindergarten! I've had plenty to blog about prior to this but with all the prep to get here, I just couldn't do it. I know that I really only need to have the first 9 weeks planned, but I wanted to get as much done over the 6 week summer break that I could (anything to lighten my load for later). I managed to get almost everything planned except for history (don't have books and projects gathered yet), science (again - project materials), and memory work (I need a more focused system this year). Oh, and cursive copybooks aren't here yet.

(When things don't fit on my desk, I add a little wooden desk. Then I add another desk! I seem to need more space as I continue in this hs venture.)

Our only hitch this week was having to take Jefferson to the er for Friday afternoon. He decided to wolf his fish down for lunch (Haddock, I think it was) and got a bone stuck IN his throat! It hurt like crazy and kinda freaked me out. I mean, what do you do about a tiny little bone that you can't see and don't know if it's really there or not? Thankfully, with much prayer, we got an ENT that fished it right out (after much whaling and howling on Jefferson's part - he's not too keen on the numbing medicine in his nose/throat or the scope in his nose!) with a pair of MEGA tweezers. Now he carries it around with pride in a plastic cup! Bummer about the fish though - he was the only one of the kids that liked it to begin with....

So these weekly reports will be long since Jefferson has so many different subjects this year and since Reagan is starting Kindergarten. Boring for all of you, but good progress journaling for me.

Jefferson - 2nd grade

Bibletime is something new this year. I'm glad that I waited until he could read to try a program for him (last year we just spent time reading the Bible to him). He loves the workbook format ofr Explorer's Beginners II, although I am not yet sure about it. I like that he can do it on his own. But I want him to have more of a quiet time of reading the Word, reflection, and prayer rather than a 'lesson.' I guess this is a step in getting him used to spending time reading the Bible on his own. Although I have a Big Picture Bible Timeline (Carol Eides) to use with this, we didn't have any to work on this week.

RightStart Math C is going well, starting with review and easy warm-ups. He still loves this subject and always wants to play the card games that it offers which strengthen specifuc skill sets. This week it was "Go to the Dump" (aka 'Go Fish') where, instead of matching identical cards, we had to match parts of 10 (2&8, 3&7, etc.). Easy and fun review! However, in one of our warmups I noticed he couldn't count odd numbers by 2's very quickly. So I ended up writing then in color on the board so that we could give him a little right-brain help with them. I must remember to review these so that he doesn't revert to counting.

Language Arts this year consists of grammar, phonics, spelling, reading, and writing (penmanship/cursive through copywork, and this year, dictation).

Grammar was just a couple easy lessons from FLL and also from LLVY. Last year, he was barely remembering sentence parts and if given a sentence could only pull out the nouns (this - after all year!). So I've added a little color/hands-on stuff to the lessons and also 2 short LLVY lessons per week for him to do if he has the time.

Phonics is just very short lessons from CCC. These are a review of the sound/rule, a small bit of spelling, and then one sentence from dictation using the sound.

Spelling was easy for him since he's used to the Spelling Workout series. We are going back through half of SWB again just for review - this seems to be easy for him so I guess that means he really did learn it last year! But my favorite was finding some scra.bble squares and letting the kids go to town with them! They had a blast and didn't even know they were learning. Jefferson amazed me with his spelling skills and was challenged to see how many words he could spell and connect.

Reading is going well since Jefferson has started using the microwave timer to get his reading done. This way I don't have to keep asking him to sit down with a book and he gets a good amount read each and every day. Our read alouds are another story, however. This time seems to be what gets pushed off or ignored if we run out of time. Hmmmm... I've gotta make this work better and should probably place it in a better place in the day. Thankfully, dh is reading to him at bedtime too.

Writing this year will add something new for Jefferson -cursive. But right now we are just continuing with copywork until our Veritas Press Classically Cursive copybooks. I don't quite have all our copywork planned out yet either so this week was light on penmanship.

Memory Work
I don't have our memory work all printed out yet. But this week we continued our work on God's Beautiful World since we didn't get it memorized last May. I have the 6 days of creation ready for next week (with a.m. bible time). I hope our new system will work better for us this year.

History
I don't have history quite ready for this year either. But with SOTW, we can always be learning something anyway. We took this week to read the last 4 chpts of SOTW 1 before we start the next volume. Jefferson enjoyed just listening rather than feeling like he had to accomplish something this week. I had he and Reagan close their eyes to envision some of the events - this seems to peek their interest and hold the information in their memory better! I haven't gotten to the library for the extra books for next weeks SOTW2 chpt. yet so we'll have to push history to W/F instead of M/T. Jennefer at Smooth Stones Academy has done some good work on her book list for this - thanks!

Science
No science lessons ready yet - Astronomy is in the works as we finish up a plants lapbook. Just trying not to freak out about this and reminding myself that we have more time this year as well as a better plan than I had last year.

Spanish
Only got one lesson done this week due to not having the program installed in time for Monday and missing Friday (er visit). BUT - Jefferson loved the lesson he had and went for quite some extra time with it. Rosetta Stone seems nice but I need to figure out how I can repeat lessons when he doesn't do well (at first). I would also like to do the lessons myself so that we are learning them together. I also haven't figured out how/when there will be writing lessons.

Reagan - Kindergarten

Phonics
What a great start for Reagan this year! She was VERY excited to be part of school and have my undivided (well - as undivided as I could be with a 2.5yo screecher and 9mo crawler!) attention. She thrives on positive encouragement, so I laid it on as heavily as I could. We had 3 lessons this week (4 if you count the fun time on the floor Sat with the scra.bble cubes) and talked about the letter A. I know that she has learned this in pre-k, but I really want to focus on the short vowel sounds pretty hard so that she can hear them better when we start blending. We did some fun penmanship sheets with lots of finger tracing. We also named her left thumb "Mr. Thumbkin" to help her with directionality of letters and numbers (her right thumb is 'busy' holding the pencil so it can't be Mr. Thumbkin). This has been a great cue for her! When we are playing with any letter squares or cubes, all I have to due is mention him and she corrects any mistakes.
My favorite part of the week was realizing that she can already spell short vowel, 3-letter words! I only discovered this when we were playing with the scra.bble cubes on the floor. She just beamed at the praise and wanted to play all day! I think that she will be reading sooner than I thought!

Math
We started with very simple lessons for math. She knows how to count but I want to give her a good foundation in proper directionality (her mixed dominance causes easy switching - ie. 5's and 2's) and I don't want her to do mental math by counting (this is common in kids and will slow her down later). So this week we started with review of 1, 2, 3 using dots cards and fingers and objects, and the abacus. This was easy for her but gave her confidence as she started kindergarten. I also used some of the Semple Math program to teach her about "Mr. Thumbkin" when writing these numbers. She loves the tactile lessons and responds very, very well to added silliness (ie. "Start at Thunbkin's head and go down to his shoes. Then RUN AWAY from them!" for visual cue in writing a 2)

Auditory processing
Since we have Earobics scheduled in, it was easier for us to be consistent with it this week. This program was recommended by the psychologist who evaluated her last Feb to develop her ear and help her with sound awareness. This only takes 10 minutes each day and is fun since it's on the computer.

And there it is! An entire week late, but better late than never (hey, wait a minute - I think I've written that in more than one post this week! I guess my "No bloggin' after 10pm" rule is catching up to me.... *sigh*), right? Seriously though, I can't wait until the kids are headed off to college and they can read this post to see how far the Lord has brought them.

Week 33

As spring has sprung, I have flung my weekly checklist out and feel like we are just pushing through to the end. One more week of 'official' school work - 2 weeks short of my goal. Just can't do it any more this year! We're not accountable to the state yet and I truly feel that we've met our goals for 1st grade. In fact I can't believe how much Jefferson (and Reagan too) has learned in one short year!

So for this past week, we crammed a lot in since dh was away on business ALL week (oi!).

Jefferson:
Phonics - reviewed vowel digraphs we've been learning over the past 3 weeks (CCC B:3); his spelling skills are greatly improving w/ the use of this book - each day we spell 5 words related to the topic of the day (ie. vowel digraph 'oa') and 5 sight words (ie. 'there', 'from', etc.)

Spelling - SWB lessons are finished!! He is so excited to complete this book!

Reading - didn't read aloud to me as much as I would have liked this week - too much good weather to pull him away (I'm really going to have to structure this for him over the summer); he is always asking me to read him the Nature Reader - what's more interesting than learning about insects, after all? Every time the book suggests that he observes the ant or earthworm, etc, he's out with his magnifying glass and bug box!

Writing - more copywork in FLL, SOTW, HS, and Copywork for Boys; began simple, 1-sentence dictation (CCC B:3) which at first made him nervous ("I can't do that, Mommy!") but then built his confidence as it made him realize that he knows how to spell, capitalize, and punctuate, as well as how to proofread!

Grammar - 5 FLL lessons covering pronoun review, a new poem to memorize (see "God's Beautiful World" on the right sidebar), and an Aesop's Fable -The Boy Who Cried Wolf (he's always excited about these); reviewed definition and example of homonym

Math - Jefferson was so excited to finish his 1st grade math! These last few weeks covered intro to subtraction, more geometry, and learning to read and make bar graphs (which surprisingly caused a little trouble for him); year-end test is next Monday and then we play all the card games over the summer to keep skills fresh

History - Not going to get finished with SOTW 1 (we're at chpt. 35 out of 42) but I really don't want to just shuffle quickly through it so that's ok; we learned about early Chinese warring states, the Great Wall, and Chinese calligraphy (he asked over and over to try to paint the Chinese characters - they turned out great but didn't scan well, so no eye candy for you!). Jefferson loves the Roman Empire - it really gets his imagination going about their army, expansive empire, gladiators, the invention of concrete, pipes/aqueducts, and the Colosseum. He played with his toy amphitheater/chariots and I let him watch bits (and I mean, tiny, tiny supervised bits) of Russell Crow as the "Gladiator" just to give him an image of the costume, uniforms, and armor.

Science - still not where I wanted to be here! We've learned about the muscular and nervous system these past 2 weeks but still haven't added these parts to the bodies on the wall. I think I'll just have to touch on the other systems since I need to get plants introduced this summer (we'll be changing it up by doing a lapbook for this subject) also. Thanks goodness this subject isn't primary or I'd be feeling guilty. We didn't quite meet our goal but I'm definitely pleased with how much Jefferson learned this year!

Reagan:
This week I continued to work on penmanship with the vowel 'I'. We practiced a couple of coloring worksheets to repeat and remind her of 'top to bottom' and 'green to red' (left to right) rules. Again I was reminded to keep it very slow and low key in order not to frustrate her. She responds so very well when I over emphasis every correct stroke! You must know that this is new to me -I am not a natural-born encourager (just ask dh! I'm always telling him I shouldn't have to praise him for taking out the trash since it's his job, right? Wrong! I'm learning...really.) So it takes reminding myself to praise her excessively in these early stages so that she doesn't feel that she's learning but rather, just pleasing Mommy. (I'm finding myself just as thrilled with her work as I was when Jefferson was beginning - just the rewards of teaching them, I guess!)


Although her attention span isn't very long, Reagan has enjoyed at least listening to Jefferson's science lessons -especially the human body. She loves moving and stretching to observe the different parts, singing "Dem Bones, Dem Bones", touching, tasting, feeling, etc. She really likes putting the parts on her body on the wall too!


For simple math lessons this week, she colored a "Number 1" sheet (since we were working with straight lines in penmanship). With play dough (her favorite sensory toy) she rolled and cut out numbers 1 through 10 with cookies cutters and lines them up for me. Still she struggled with directionality of the 3, 5, and 9, but this is not surprising (now that we know her a little better). I had her fix them herself by asking her to finger trace her large numeral flashcards first and then look at the dough again. I've also found recently that she will group things into 2 - especially her spankings (it seems to calm her down to for her to say "So it's 2 plus 2?" as she holds up 4 fingers prior to the swats). So when I get out the geoblocks or square tiles, I've been asking her to sort them into groups and/or color. Grouping is what Right Start teaches and will help her particular learning ability.


I think that I'm starting to get the hang of thinking of more right-brained techniques to use to reach Reagan better. She enjoys them much more since her attention span is short and they seem to be helping things to stick in her mind better. I'll have to plan better for next year (kindergarten) since I am just throwing loose activities together right now.


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Wow - I guess I should get rid of dh for a whole week more often if it means we'll get more done in school! Or maybe I'm just getting more and more comfortable with my new job - teaching! Next week will be full of science and history as we play a little bit of catch up before the year truly "ends."

Week 27 (not so much a report as a play by play!)

Not our best week. Did we get things done this week? With the exception of 1 hour of history and 1 hour of science - yes. Was it a successful week? Not so sure.

Tuesday, my allergies and stress got the better of me and so we didn't do anything but read a little and enjoy the weather. This then stressed me out by leaving me with only Wedns and Fri (our homeschool co-op is on Thurs and that day is always shot) with dinner guests planned for Fri. Why do I let myself get stressed out? I don't know! I think that my personality has to get things done just so and in the right order. It borderlines on sickness, folks......

I wish that I could just learn to relax and go with the flow so that I didn't end up pressuring the kids in any way. I know that this is when I should go to the Lord in prayer but my body fights against the Spirit and says,"No time for that now! Go, go, go. Let's just push through this and get it done!" I'm sure you can all hear the pride in saying 'no' to prayer when I most need to head the Spirit. Oy!

So here is where my own planning, pushing, and stressing got us this week. I was left trying to get all the leftover school tasks finished, in addition to a full load of lessons, in addition to preparing for dinner guests, on Friday.

• Adam wakes up at 4:45 howling and soaked in pee (thanks so much for dh dealing with him for me)


• Lincoln wakes up at 5:30 for some strange reason. Thankfully he goes back to sleep - although I am now truly wide awake.


• I look over at the clock at 7:45 and realize that I did indeed fall back to sleep and am now an hour late in getting up! This means no peaceful prayer, breakfast, or quiet time for me.


• I forgot to thaw the chicken for the soup for dinner guests and have no bread for them. I run to the local grocery and break our grocery budget by buying another chicken (larger - I am nervous that there won't be enough for 5 adults and 3.5 kids) and the other things that you always end up buying when you make an extra trip to the store.


• I finally start breakfast at 8:30 (an hour later than usual) after getting the food put away and the leftover dishes dealt with (should have done this the night before). Thank goodness that dh slept late too and is helping with the 3 oldest kiddos.


• Nurse Lincoln at 8:45. This takes about 45 mins w/ diaper and clothes and helps me too loose any morning energy I might have had. I almost fall asleep in the chair.


• Adam has been throwing a tantrum for 15 minutes straight in his highchair while I refuse to help feed him until he calms down. This entire episode began when I touched my tongue to his cereal to make sure it wasn't too hot. Sheesh.


• Coffee at 10:00 (ahhhh...the blessed 'happy juice'). I feel like I've waited all morning for it. I lament in my mind that we haven't started any lessons and proceed to bark orders at Jefferson to at least get out his Friday folder and start "something, anything!" Adam has quinoa cereal all over him and is screeching about something else in the high chair. Who knows what Reagan is doing - trouble most likely. Lincoln is still being ignored while he lies under his playmat thingy.


• Gotta get the chicken in the pot so that I can have it cooked and picked apart by 3 or 4. It barely fits in my pot! Will I have enough broth for soup for all of us tonight? Jefferson wants more food (he always wants more food!). Adam is at my feet screaming about something else and saying "Up-uh, up-uh!"


• Finally, at 10:30, I just clean up Adam's snotty nose (for the millionth time), change his loose poopy diaper (I won't even go into the anxiety it causes me to see his diaper loose and burning his bum again - his g.i. issues are another story), and throw him back into his crib. There is nothing else I can do to meet his needs but to force him to get more sleep so his sick body can heal. Lincoln get plopped into the excersaucer.


• It's 10:45 in the morning before I can sit down with Jefferson to teach him. But at least it's quiet and we can focus - therefore math comes first. What's Reagan doing? Not sure - I think she's looking at books or a puzzle. Lincoln is quiet and happy, jumping up and down - as usual (this is why it's so easy to ignore the poor baby!).


• The quiet lets me breathe and we get some good lesson time in. But I won't give Jefferson the breaks that he usually gets since the time when both babies are asleep is priceless for lessons. I push him through math, phonics, grammar, and spelling. He is fidgety and distracted by the end and it's obvious that he needs a break. I keep breaking his focus by getting up to attend to another food prep for the lunch and/or dinner.


• Preparing lunch by 12:30. Babies are still asleep due to their colds and late start this morning. Jefferson works on his spelling list for 10 mins while I have to cut up and fry (olive oil and a little honey) 3 chicken breasts and 2 pounds of carrots for Adam and Reagan's lunch. Also have to make deli sandwiches for myself, Jefferson and dh (yes- the chick and carrots get gobbled up by A and R). Wash and cut up salad greens for dinner; pull out cooked chicken to cool before picking. Jefferson still has science and his own reading to get done as well as any leftover work from the week - maybe this afternoon I'll be able to sit down with him again?


• Nurse Lincoln at 1pm (an hour later than usual). 3 older kids are eating outside. I am breathing again - nursing is so relaxing. Even so, my mind is racing. There is so much food prep still to be done. Thank goodness that at least the house is clean enough!


• At 2 I'm cutting strawberries, beating the whip cream, cutting tomatoes, and cooking 2 more pounds of carrots to put into the soup (forgot to add them in the morning and the kids ate the last batch). Getting coffee serving items ready and cleaning all dishes as I go. Kids are actually quiet outside - Reagan isn't screaming at anyone! Lincoln is on the floor playmat again.


• Dh is home early to cut the grass and trim (and change the overflowing trash). The kids love being outside with him - the weather is beautiful! Thank goodness that we can eat outside tonight - no table setting needed. Still haven't stolen a minute for a shower - p.u.!


• At 3 I bring the kids in for a little break from running around (dh goes back into work). If they get too tired out, they'll be monsters for our guests in the evening. They are caked with dirt in every little crevice. Could they get any dirtier? Adam loves the fingernail brush because it tickles as I scrub away the mud. They watch 1 hour of tv while I continue with food prep by picking the chicken meat and making sure the kids' snacks are ready. Wait - did I eat lunch?


• Adam goes back down for another nap at 4 since he's sick and tired. I have 1/2 hour for history - not really enough time to do more than just read and narrate SOTW. I ask Jefferson to finish his copywork but it didn't get done. I am thankful that at least he is reading in bed in the mornings before I get him up since we didn't get that done either. I throw J and R back outside again.


• At 5 (yes - that's PM) I finally get a quick shower and am hoping the guests will be late as I nurse Lincoln in my bedroom. Then, I crazily decide that I can give him a quick bath too. But the guests aren't late and I take his clean, fat nak*edness downstairs to lotion and dress with the guests. It's always fun to show off his sumobaby fatness anyway!

I seriously don't know how Jefferson learns anything on days like this! And this week, every day felt like this - just packed to the brim. Reagan did not get a single hour of focused lesson or even reading time from me this week (except Tues)! I just don't think that I'm balancing this very well sometimes. I wish that I could do better.

I know that I'm not the only mom out there that is busy. After all, it's not like I have five or even seven kids. But days like this make me long for the days of PB&J lunches and relaxed play dates, where my biggest concern was that a baby had yellow poop up his back!

It was definitely good to hear Jefferson come in at 7pm as we were cleaning up some dishes and say,"Boy, it sure is nice to have people over and have dinner and stuff!" Despite the work, I know that too! Next week, I will try to get my prayer life together and hopefully Adam's cold (passed so nicely on to Lincoln already) won't pressure us too much.

Week 26

Spring break has done us well. We had a productive week and none of us felt so tired of the 'school' routine. The lovely weather has also helped to lift our spirits and give the kids someplace to burn off good energy. Nothing makes me happier than the breeze flowing through the drapes and the sounds of nature in our ears as we learn (makes a good motivator for getting the lessons finished also)!

Jefferson:

Phonics - worked on rules for 'decoding' longer words (CCC); using CCC to review vowel digraphs and suffixes this week

Spelling - SWB lessons (he likes these because he can do them on his own and they often have crossword puzzles) as well as 5-7 words from CCC (this week vowel digraphs & suffixes)

Reading - had trouble getting as much read-aloud in this week as I would like but at least some of it happened; on his own he enjoyed 3 Mary Pope Osbourne books (Hour of the Olympics, Tigers at Twilight, Lions at Lunchtime) to go with history and animal science, as well as an Encyclopedia Brown book

Grammar - 3 FLL lessons covering pronoun review, name initials, and an Aesop's Fable -The Crow and the Pitcher; he LOVED illustrating the fable - I couldn't figure out why he drew so many birds for a story with just one until he told me that each one was doing an action from the tale in sequence in order to show everything that happened (rather than just one part of the tale); reviewed definition and example of homonym

Math - Jefferson continues to get good practice at mentally adding double digit numbers, learning which methods work more easily depending on the addends given - he is thrilled at his success when he get the chance to do a worksheet with no mistakes and also loves to check his answers on the abacus (good practice also); looked at even/odd numerals again (into higher digits); beginning to understand concepts of rows/columns with games and charts

History - Alexander the Great was fun for Jefferson because he took over so much land in so little time; had to have him re-do the coloring page since it was obvious that he just scribbled it in to get it done - this is unusual behavior for him and I hope that I don't need to start watching him more closely to ensure that he's doing his best work; still reviewing the DK books on Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Greece - they are loaded with great pictures and info

Science - we began the study of the human body by drawing an outline of the kids' bodies on brown paper - they loved this due to how much the pen tickled as I traced around them; we learned about cells (not sure Reagan understood this but she'll get it again later), skin and hair; also learned about psoriasis since it is a skin disease that I have and am oh-so-eager to display right now (I've broken out terribly since starting to eat wheat again - the kids 'oooo and aaah' over it each day while I lament about it); outside the kids are discovering all kinds of things in the nice weather - Jefferson was thrilled to have this butterfly land right on his finger! He loved that it stayed there long enough for him to see it's 'straw' tongue and green eyes!

Reagan:

Reagan came home from pre-k Wedns with this Y sheet. I thought the rainbow pattern was pretty and asked her who helped her do it. She said,"I remembered it in my head from the balloons you had hanging {from her birthday party 4 weeks ago}!" I can't believe the memory that she has - the rainbow pattern of colors is rather long one to remember for a kid!

I learned a lot about Reagan's learning style this week with just one penmanship lesson. I wanted to give her a short phonics lesson from CCC since her workbook has arrived. The kindergarten lessons are short and easy so I thought that I could fit it in while Jefferson finished his grammar illustration and Adam played with play dough (his new favorite - thank goodness...something to occupy him). However, I soon figured out that my expectations of what we will accomplish in this next year need to be brought waaaaay down so that I can make sure she has a good foundation and that we can deal with her learning 'difference.'

The penmanship sheet has a verse on top and some capital and lowercase A's to trace and write. Now...this is not the first time she's picked up a pencil or written an A before. She has done so at preschool and when I worked with her this winter on pencil holding and tracing shapes and vowels.

But I felt as though I were showing her for the first time again. She could trace the letters fine enough but when she had to write them on the lines at the bottom, she struggled with directionality of them (left to right, top to bottom). When I asked her to color in the letters in the verse, she was all too happy to use rainbow colors again. I moved my attentions back to Jefferson's lesson but soon realized that, after the first line, she was starting her rainbow pattern on the right and moving left. After explaining to her (for the umpteenth time) that we always work from the left to the right, I left her go again. I soon noticed that she was coloring in each letter from the bottom up and corrected that as well.


Now this may not be a big deal to most kids, but it was a prime example of her 'mixed dominant' neurocognative processing that the psychologist informed us about. She may have a tendency to reverse sequences, letters, numbers, or patterns as well as having difficulty following directions so these are things I need to catch and help redirect early. I am so grateful for being lead to see this as just the way that her brain works rather than a disciplinary issue (which, believe me, I would have thought it to be prior to her evaluation due to her strong will). I just think that if she were in school, this 'little' difference would not have been noticed and may have ended up slowing her down in her education. I am thankfully praying that God will help me to be able to teach to her needs and personality so that kindergarten next year won't be a struggle for her.

So far she likes that things that we do for 'school' and she has not fought me on any of it (as I half expected her to do this year). I am learning to read her body language and help her to use words so that we don't end up frustrated and unable to learn. I truly thank God alone for this, as these lessons (for me) are growing me immensely as a teacher as well as mother!

Week 25

I can barely get a weekly report in recently! I feel like I can barely get school lessons in either! This week especially felt like a 'checklist' week - not full of learning milestones or accomplishments. Something tells me that I am headed down the road to homeschool burnout - just feel like I've been pushing and pushing with no end in sight. I do have goals, it's just that I forget them sometimes when my energy is low and I just want a break. So if I feel this way, I wonder how Jefferson feels!


And next year's plans and curriculum ideas are swimming around in my head daily, clogging my focus on each day. I am starting to feel anxiety about this creep slowly up with each day of non-planning that goes by!


I attribute this poor attitude on my part to a couple of things: first, I still have not gotten my resolutions well established in our days (especially the consistent quiet time -yikes!), and second, we just need a break! Some time where the days are ordered differently and where I can actually think about next year's goal's without having to divide my mind among another million things. So next week, when dh is away on business, I will pray for energy, warm weather, and a clear head so that I can get some planning/organizing/ordering done and the kids and I can get out of this house a bit more than usual! I didn't plan it for this week but here it comes - SPRING BREAK!


So this past week:

• Science -> Bears, bears, bears. Not my favorite animal but there's something attractive to a 6yo boy about a beast of this size. He's had a phobia last year about black bears showing up at his grandparent's log home in the woods so maybe this is where the interest comes from? This is our last week of animals. Next week-human body! It'll be nice to have a change of pace.


• History -> More Ancient Greece -Sparta & Athens. It seems a bit repetitive since we looked at this in August but it's just so interesting. Also nice to see that Jefferson actually remembers a lot of what we learned then, just by reading Jason and the Argonauts once! Jefferson loved making paper dolls and fighting them against each other. We'll see how many nanoseconds it takes to lose the tiny little sword and spear!


• Reading -> We finished "Nate Saint: On A Wing and A Prayer" and I think that it stirred quite an interest in Jefferson about flying and missionary work. I love books that teach about godly people! Still working on White Fang and daily Bible verses or chapters. I think he enjoys it but it's still part of "school" to him. I bought some wonderful chapter storybooks from Rod & Staff which illustrate wonderful scriptural lessons. He can read some and some we can do together - they are great! I really want his (their) education to be encompassed by biblical principles.


• Phonics -> Only got two lessons in this week but they were kind of longer than usual and I get the feeling that he really learned the topic. We worked on rules for breaking down a long word into syllables and accents and vowel sounds.


• Spelling -> We keep chugging right along here - lesson sare short and sweet. I'm trying to keep any stress from building here by correcting him right away rather than making him sweat it out for too long. I don't want him to stumble on a word because he got it wrong or stressed about it the first time. I also don't want it to 'stick' in his head incorrectly because of this. We just repeat it a few times over time if he can't get a word right (our spelling notebook marks his trouble words). Is this the way to do this? Not sure - suggestions are welcome...


• Grammar -> Only two lessons this week also. I just didn't want to do this this week - don't know why. He copied a few sentences and labeled them N, P, or V.

Reagan just got jipped this past week. We read books but didn't have any sit down time for penmanship, math, phonics or even her Earobics software which she should be doing every week. I was just too tired to juggle it all. For the next week, I'll need to be sure to plan out what we'll be doing together more intentionally. She did enjoy practicing her new 'horse' drawing on the whiteboard.

However, we've made one small improvement with the screeching, tantrum-throwing 2 year old, Adam, which has helped with school. We've switched from using a rod as our span*king tool to using a flexible rubber spatula (we've don't use our hands). We have consistently flicked his jaw when he screeches or screams, in order to require him to use the few words or signs that he knows and to use a quieter tone. The spatula comes into play when he hits us (his way of showing his anger - he comes at us like an ape swingin' for bananas!) as we can use it on his hands w/o hurting any knuckles. With consistency, we have been able to read his body language (since he doesn't yet speak) and tell when his heart turns from rebellion to repentance and can then show him love and forgiveness. He is still a very loud kiddo, but the tantrums are becoming fewer and he is becoming happier. (Sigh of relief....)

So I'm off to break for spring!! I hope I can get something done and spend time doing fun things with the kids. We're ready for some bike riding, weeding, playgrounds, math cardgames and lots more!