We’ve been at the books for 9 weeks now. I decided to look at what we’ve accomplished. With the surprise pregnancy (now you all know), I’ve had to set aside some of the extras and focus on the 3 Rs for several weeks. The addition of Crew review items, a week off for illness, and some other schedule grabbers made me wonder what we’ve actually done for the past 9 weeks.
Bible: We’ve completed our study of the Biblical Feasts and Holidays. This week we’ll review all 10 lessons and then next week move into a short study on thankfulness in the Bible. We are almost finished memorizing Psalm 91. Nate is working through How to Study the Bible for Kids by Kay Arthur and seems to be understanding it better than when we tried it a couple years ago.
SL Core 5: So far we have studied Oceania, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. I’ve found some interesting DVDs at the library to supplement our readings. The girls are completing mini books and other lapbook components as we move around the world. Nate is doing well with the Eastern Hemisphere Explorer research projects. We are taking this week to finish the section on Korea. I don’t feel like we spent enough time on it last week. Since we have friends who have adopted from Korea, we have a personal interest in learning a bit more about the culture. We’ll be reading Tales from a Korean Grandmother and maybe going out for some bulgogi (yum!).
Spelling: Nate and Maggie are progressing well through Spelling Power. We’ll be setting that aside for a while to try out All About Spelling.
Phonics: Katie and I have worked through the first 26 lessons of The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. We have begun the lessons which introduce short a words and spending lots of time with our phonics readers from Sonlight, Christian Liberty Press, the Bob books, and the McGuffy readers. In the past I’ve tried to move too quickly through the phonics lessons without reinforcing the words in actual books. This seems to be going well for Katie. Ben likes to sit in on this as well, so he knows most of the sounds and can even match sounds and letters.
Math: Katie is working through Christian Liberty Press’s Kindergarten math book and doing well. She’s adding and subtracting up to 3. Like most kids, she is struggling a little with the idea of subtraction, so we are spending lots of time with manipulatives to let her see subtraction. Both Nate and Maggie are moving through their Saxon math lessons at pace that seems to be working for them. I, of course, would love to see us move more quickly, but I am learning to hold my tongue and let real learning take place, not just a check mark on my planner page when a lesson is complete. Maggie has mastered carrying and is working to understand place value and fractions. Nate seems to be grasping some of the pre-pre-Algebra concepts that Saxon 65 introduces.
English/Language/Composition: Nate is working through the 5th grade book from Rod and Staff. Although he complains about the amount of writing and diagramming, I see it working. He also entered the HSLDA essay contest last month. Maggie and I are working through First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind (part 2) and doing writing one or two days a week with the Geography Based Writing Lesson from IEW. These use the Holling Clancy Holling books that are featured in Beautiful Feet’s Geography Through Literature lessons. We are both enjoying these times and she is thrilled to finally be doing the writing that I teach to everyone else!
Science: what I’ve let go so far…we haven’t done much,if any science thus far. I am hoping to get a handle on it this week and begin next week with Apologia’s Elementary Zoology (swimming creatures) book. We began the botany one last summer and I think I will leave that for next spring/summer.
Art/Music: We started off well with these subjects, but I need to be more deliberate in scheduling this into our week. The kids are taking art classes at our co-op, but I’d like to continue it at home also.
Overall: I enjoyed using workboxes for the first several weeks. I’m in the process of tweaking the system for Nate and Maggie to make it work better for us. I need to stay in the habit of using them for the little ones-they get more of my time and better use of it when I prepare the boxes each night.
Through LINK we’ve gone on two field trips—the Michigan Wildlife Center and the big trucks trip (a visit to Weller Truck Parts and Van Eerden Trucking). Along with a good reason to get out of the house, they were fun and educational.
