And Still...More Read-Alouds

Here are my reviews of the latest books we're reading for school:

The Milly-Molly-Mandy Storybook

This has been a surprise hit in our house. We are 4 chapters into the book and the boys love it. They really like that Milly-Molly-Mandy lives with her extended family on the farm. The book takes us back to a simpler time. This book is a much easier read aloud than the Uncle Wiggily Storybook so C-Monster gets into it more. When it's on the schedule, we're supposed to read one chapter, but I never read less than 3. The stories are short compared to what we've been reading lately.

What's Bigger Than a Blue Whale?

I love books by Robert E. Wells. He can weave some pretty complicated concepts into a picture book for kids. This one covers big objects from a Blue Whale to the Universe. When we read about the size of Antares compared to our sun, D-Man and I discussed the different stages of a star's lifespan. We've read 5 of his books in our house now and I'd highly recommend all of them.

Stories from Africa

This book contains 6 stories about the mission field in Africa. Although this book is perfect for the age group and a gentle introduction to missionaries, I was disappointed that most of the stories weren't more about Africa. They do take place in Africa and contain aspects of life that are different from the United States, but I'd hoped that it would have been more detailed. One reason that this is important to me is that D-Man is fascinated with Africa. It was the first continent he could recognize on a map and he asks questions about it all of the time. All-in-all, we enjoyed the book and had some good discussions about people who don't know who Jesus is.

The Gods Must Be Angry

We are about halfway through this book and it is sparking a lot of discussions. It is about a boy who knocks the head off of an idol in his house and how his family is faced with questions about the "power" of the idol. I was worried that D-Man wouldn't be mature enough for this story, but he was ready for it. It is a good introduction to different religions. It goes well with Stories from Around the World which contains stories based off of different world religions.

Well, those are our newest books. We don't have many more books to read in this core. So far, I've been very happy with Sonlight's book selections.

A Great School Day

I wrote this post a couple of weeks ago, but didn't get around to publishing it. I really wanted to share one of our great days, so here it is.

We had a great schoolday today. Not everyday is a great schoolday. Most days are good; occasionally, we'll have a not-so-good day, but today was a great day. Here's how it went:



Geography: I asked D-Man whether he wanted to start with math or spelling, but he really wanted to do geography. I caved. We got out the globe and reviewed what it was and where we live. He also identified North and South America. Then he and C-Monster spent another 15 minutes looking at the globe and asking me questions. They were particularly interested in the poles.


Once we were done with the globe, I introduced to D-Man to a map. Of course, he knows what a map is, but we compared it to a globe and talked about the advantages of a map. To finish it off, D-Man colored the map in his workbook.


Math: Once we finished geography, D-Man asked to do his new math book (Singpore PM 1A). First, I got out some addition flashcards and quizzed him on his 0, 1, and 2 math facts to 12. This was the first time we'd worked on math facts. Until now, I've just relied on all of the practice in Horizons K. D-Man did really well. He knew all of the problems and only had to think about the 2's above 6. Tomorrow, we'll review what we did today and also do the subtraction problems in that grouping. My goal is for him to have all of his addition and subtraction math facts to 10 memorized by the end of PM 1A. After D-Man was finished, C-Monster wanted a turn, so I helped him do the flashcards up to 1+5. Actually, he wouldn't let me help him, but he did let me remind him to use his fingers. Once flashcards were over, D-Man quickly did Review 2 in his workbook. It was mostly word problems which were really easy for him.


Spelling: Monday's are easy review days. We started with learning a few new spelling rules and reviewing the ones we learned last week. None of these rules were new to D-Man, but the cards and the exact wording were. He's still working on the exact wording of the rules, but the cards are perfect for him. He's a visual learner so having a picture cue for each rule is good for him. We, then, learned 4 new phonograms. When we learn new phonograms, D-Man looks at the phonogram, repeats the sounds after me and writes it on his whiteboard. We do this a couple of times. The next step is for me to quiz the phonograms by telling him the sounds for him to write on the whiteboard without seeing the card. The last step is for D-Man to read the phonograms from the cards. This gives him a good introduction to the new phonograms. Our last spelling task today was to review the words D-Man missed on his spelling test Friday. This was a good time for us to discuss his mistakes and talk about the correct spelling of the words. He misspelled 'bread' and 'hair,' but got 'floor' right the first time. Tomorrow, I'll quiz bread and hair again to see if he remembers what we talked about today.


Developing the Early Learner: The last thing we did was finish DEL 2. These books are intended to identify strenths and weaknesses in motor, visual, auditory, and comprehension skills. They are one of his favorite school activities. Today, we did the last 3 pages of the book. He finished them well. Of course, we had to look at the next workbook in the series and he "had" to work on one of the mazes in the middle of the book. The activities are designed to be worked in order, but he did the maze correctly anyway.

Sonlight Read-Alouds: After some recess and rest time, we dove into our Sonlight read-alouds. Today we got to read an Uncle Wiggily story, a poem from Animals, Animals, and a few pages from our science book, What's Under the Sea? SL RA's are the icing of our schoolday. D-Man and C-Monster look forward to cuddling on the couch to read with me. I don't mind it myself. D-Man is always full of questions about our readings. Today, he wanted to know a lot more about oil rigs. I answered the questions that I knew and told him that we'd look up his other ones later. Although our science books are pretty simple, they create lots of bunny trails for us to explore.

More than what we did, I enjoyed our attitudes. Everyone was excited about learning and having fun doing it.

Art and Airplanes

My parents recently visited us. When my parents drive here from Oregon, you never know when they'll arrive or what they'll visit along the way. For the boys, they never know what cool presents Grandma and Grandpa will buy at their stops. This trip, my parents visited several Oregon trail sights. They bought us several Oregon Trail books and a map. They also bought the boys some models of a stagecoach, covered wagon, and windmill. They also visited an Air Museum somewhere in Kansas. There they bought D-Man and C-Monster a couple of wooden airplanes to paint and put together. Well, we didn't get to it while they were visiting, but the day they left, the boys were excited to do the project. Shawn set up the paints and we let the boys go.

C-Monster chose the faster color-wash method

D-Man was deep in concentration creating some detail on his plane.

The finished project

They even made for some pretty sturdy toys.

Lunch at Sonic

Friday, we got to go to Sonic for lunch. Those of you who know me, know that this is a big deal for me to take the boys out to lunch. We rarely eat fast food. However, Sonic is great for a reward because they have fun drinks for kids (and Mom) plus the boys can get something besides chicken nuggets. Oh, and the boys love that they can get bananas instead of french fries.

The treat was for D-Man finishing up Horizons K this week. It took us less than 4 months to complete it, but the last 15 lessons seemed to drag on. This is mostly because we received Singapore PM 1A in the mail and D-Man was really exicted about it. We started to use Singapore as our primary math each day and Horizons K was relegated to a supplement. We did a little at a time until we got to lesson 150. That's when D-Man decided he was going to finish it. He worked on it during his rest times and finished it in 3 days. His motivation was that I wouldn't let him start Horizons 1 until Horizons K was completely finished. He's been chomping at the bit to do Horizons 1. So, we'll get to start it today, too.

Singapore PM will still be our main math program; Horizons 1 will be a supplement. Horizons presents a wider range of topics and LOTS of practice problems. We'll also be starting Challenging Word Problems (CWP) 1 soon. The CWP books have gone out of print, so I had the bindings cut off, put each page in page protecters, and put them in a binder. My idea of a non-consumable workbook. D-Man loves word problems, so CWP will be more of a fun, bonus activity on Fridays.

Weekly Report: Weeks 14 & 15

It is really hard to keep up with weekly reports when family's visiting. I really didn't have much time on my computer. However, I was thankful that D-Man was able to spend a lot of time with my family while they were visiting. That is definitely a perk of homeschooling. We completed full school days the whole time they were here (which only takes about 2 hours/day) and D-Man got to be at home instead of school for 8 hours during the weekdays. My family couldn't have picked a better week and a half for visiting San Antonio. We had a hot, dry summer. At the beginning of September, everything here was brown and, seemingly, dead. However, it started to rain in September and we've had a good bit since. The rain made everthing around here green again. It also brought some beautifully cool weather. Well, cool for us anyway. Granted, we had some wicked humidity, but at least it wasn't hot.


Back to school...

Math: As you may have read in my previous post, D-Man finished up Horizons K math. Yeah! We started Horizons 1 on Friday. He told me that it will be his favorite math book. He likes the color of Horizons and is really looking forward to problems with numbers over 100. We won't get to that until the second half of Horizons 1, so he'll probably want to rush through the first half. He is still enjoying Singapore math and I like how it's teaching him to think about the numbers and regrouping addition and subtraction problems. We have settled into doing 1 lesson of Singapore/day. I really like this pace. The concepts are still easy for him, but he's really thinking about the problems and different ways of attacking them. That's the beauty of Singapore Math. I have a feeling well go a little faster through the shapes and measurement sections, but slow right back down when we start 1B.

LA: Wow, we're on list H-1 already. Even though we go half-pace, SWR is going fast for me. For me, not for D-Man. He got a 100% and 90% on his list G tests, so he's understanding the material. We played the "bears" game (the board game from the phonogram fun packet) with my family and it was hilarious. D-Man loved it since he got to tell Grandma and Aunt Katrina the answers. They did pretty well and we all had a lot of fun. We started reviewing the spelling rule cards a couple of weeks ago. I thought it would be a little much for him, but it seems to be clicking in his brain. One of the rules is "A-Y usually says /A/ at the end of a base word. When a word ends with A says /ah/." I don't expect mastery on the rules yet, but D-Man's getting it. He asked me what 'ta' said yesterday morning after seeing it on TV. I asked him what he thought and he brought up the rule. I explained that 'ta' isn't a word, but that it would say /ah/ at the end. He says, "so tray (looking at Little-J's highchair) would end in A-Y, right? Because it says /A/." I told him he was correct and he was pretty happy with himself for getting it right. Can you see why I love SWR?

Sonlight: While my family was here, I was thankful that our core has a light schedule. We were able to complete our reading with no trouble. However, now that everyone is gone, we're zooming through the weeks. It's not really a big deal. We're just going to finish the core at our own pace and then re-read our favorites until it's time to start the next core. I also got some additional books from the library to help us slow down.

Science: Experiment Saturday's are back! Having a break was nice with all that was going on, but things have slowed down again. I got The Usborne Big Book of Experiments from the library to use as inspiration.

Art: We finally started this on Friday! The book we're using really stresses letting the kids do are their way. This week, I introduced them to their "art" crayons and talked about the different colors. Then, I sent them off to create. I told them to find something colorful and draw it with the crayons. D-Man colored life-like drawings of his new mini monkey erasers and a few of his stuffed animals. He used yellow, gray, and black. C-Monster decided to draw a silver box and then several other drawings using the silver crayon. I had to laugh at their use of color. I'll post some pics later.

Library: We had just a quick run to the library this week as the boys hadn't read a few of their books from last week. I did pick up How Do You Know What Time It Is? by Robert Wells and the Usborne experiment book. If you haven't checked out any of the Robert Wells' books, I'd recommend it. Sonlight has a few in the P4/5 core and we often check out others from the library. They are appealing to 5yos, but are appropriate for teaching older kids too.

Weekly Report-Weeks 12 and 13

Whew, what a crazy couple of weeks. Shawn and I got to go to CO last weekend for my 10 year reunion at USAFA sans children! It was amazing and exhausting. Despite everything (I felt) I needed to do to get ready for the trip and, more importantly, for the kids to be without me, we did some school.

Math: D-Man still loves his new Singapore math book. We did slow down a bit though. We covered finished subtraction and ordinal numbers. He's been solid on his ordinal numbers for a couple of years now so the info wasn't new, but he really liked the activities. We started the three reviews that are in the middle of the book last week. They are quite a bit longer than the regular lessons and packed with activities. It took us two days to finish 1 of the reviews last week. Then, we took a break from Singapore at the end of last week to work on Horizons K. Next week, I'm going to focus more on math facts. D-Man has a lot of them memorized already, but I want to make sure he has them all down cold before we start Singapore PM 1B.

LA: Week before last, we took a break from new words and did a review week. It turned out to be really helpful for both of us. I gave D-Man 2 spelling tests/day covering 20 words/list. He didn't have any trouble with it since they were all review words. I'm going to use the words he missed as review words in the coming weeks. I was pleasantly surprised by how much he's retained. Last week, we finished up List F. He didn't do as well on this test as he'd done on previous ones; however, he often just used the wrong phonogram for a common sound. For instance, he spelled bread, bred. He knows his phonograms very well, but just needs more practice with the week's words. We'll work on it. I'm also very happy with how well he's reading. This morning at church, he sat down and read one of the books in the 2 and 3 yo classroom while he was waiting to be checked into his class. He just sat down and read the whole book sounding out each word that he didn't recognize. It was pretty cool. He also really likes the new readers I bought him. They are called, I Can Read It, by John Holzmann. I got them from Sonlight. I don't require him to read, but I want to have material available in case he wants to. These stories are on the easy side for him (which encourages fluency) and have a pretty good storylines. The other day, he acted out one of the stories with M&Ms during rest time.

Sonlight: We finished Brer Rabbit way ahead of schedule. We finished week 20 this week and we weren't supposed to finish it until week 33. D-Man really liked that book, so I told him that we'd find more Brer Rabbit stories at the library. We're also going to find a book on tall tales. The boys really enjoy Jim Weiss' tall tale CD, but it only has 4 stories on it. At first, the SL IG seemed kind of choppy, but now I really like the format. Because we've been reading some of the books since the beginning, the characters have become endearing to us. Uncle Wiggily, for example, is like a part of the family. Reading more books at a time and stretching them out over weeks really cements them into our lives. That's really a new concept for me.

Science: Although, we've enjoyed What's Under the Sea?, I haven't organized any experiments for the last three Saturdays. This is just because I've been gone. However, I should be back on top of it by next Saturday.

Geography: That's right, we added geography to our plate last week. We're just going through three small workbooks that teach us 1. how to read a map, 2. land masses and bodies of water (generic terms), and 3. continents and oceans (specific places). I thought D-Man would like it and he does. In fact, he wanted to do 5 pages of the workbook on Tuesday because he's 5. I said no because the workbooks are only 16 pages apiece and I'd like them to last awhile. I will have to find some more geography activities to do, but that shouldn't be hard. We bought a globe on Friday and you'd think it was Christmas in our house. It was just a cheap $15 globe from Target, but the boys were pretty excited. When Shawn got home, Caleb showed him where California was on the globe (we'd previously only identified it on the map in the schoolroom) and told him that he (Caleb) was born there. He calls himself a "California-boy."

Library: We resumed our weekly library trip this week. The boys each picked out one book and I picked up Andrew Lang's Blue Fairy Book. We were able to have a mini-reading-marathon on Friday, so we read from both the Blue Fairy Book and Yellow Fairy Books. The stories are long, but interesting.