Weekly Report- Week 8

Now that we're getting back into the swing of things, I'm going to try getting a weekly report out each week.

Math:. I've decided to change up routine a bit. D-Man's to the point where not knowing his multiplication facts are holding him back. So, instead of forging on with Singapore 2B, we're going to concentrate on learning those facts while go through Horizons 2 and Miquon Orange/Red. Memorization is not his strong suit so we'll really have to work on those tables. Once he gets 2s and 3s down, we'll move on in Singapore. 2s aren't a problem, but he struggles with 3s past 3x5. I expect we'll have to do something similar when we get to 4s and 6s.   So this week, we did about 7 lessons in Horizons 2 and 20 pages in Miquon Orange.  He calls Miquon "fun math." One thing I really liked seeing was how fast he's gotten at addition and subtraction.  He does know his facts there and it seems has gained quite a bit of speed recently.  It is funny to hear him do his timed subtraction tests in Horizons.  He looks at each problem and says, "that's easy...it's just __."  It can get a little repetitive after the 30th problem. 

Spelling: We did List F this week. After our long vacation, D-Man needed a little remediation with cursive. Not a big deal, though. We finished off List E at the end of last week and I told him that I wouldn't help him with how to spell the words on his test, but he could ask me a anything about letter formation. He was back in the groove by the time his test came around this Friday.  He got a 100% on his test...YEAH!  It's nice to be doing these easy lists at the beginning of the year.  D-Man is thriving on his success and I think that'll take him a long way once we get to new words. 

We also reviewed the A-E-I-O-U page this week.  It is a reference page that covers all of the ways a vowel says 2nd (long) sound.  Since he'd already done it once last year and knows those rules well, we played a game where I'd give him the word with the 1st sound (ex. can) and he'd come up with the word that uses the 2nd sound (ex. cane), tell me the rule and do the markings.  We had fun and it was a good review.  Looking at the picture, I realize we forgot to finish the last reason.  We were saving it so that he could show his dad.  Guess we should finish that off tonight when Shawn gets home.

Reading: D-Man's still working his way through The Beginner's Bible.  He's now reading about Jesus' ministry.  I can't believe he's read 350 pages all by himself!  He does read a lot on his own each week, but it's great to track his progress through this one book.  Even though this set of readers is well below his reading level, I am still amazed at his reading ability.  Maybe that's the way it is with the first reader.  It's just so fun to see them go from painfully sounding out words to reading Bible stories with ease (well, until they get to "Nebuchadnezzar").  We didn't take any of his school reading on vacation, but he got so much practice reading stories to his brothers and his nature reader for fun.  This is a really great season for both of us in this subject.

Read-Aloud: We read the sequel to Dolphin Adventure, Dolphin Treasure this week.

This was a great, on-the-edge-of-their-seats book.  D-Man asked about every two minutes in chapters 3, 4, and 5 if they were all going to die.  I did tell him that if the author wrote the book, he must have lived.  That put him at ease a bit.  Of course, they were both pretty excited about the prospect of finding treasure.  We also had a good discussion on hypothermia.  While it was definitely on the lighter-side of our Sonlight read-alouds, it was so enjoyable. 

Science: This week, we're reading through the book How To Think Like a Scientist.  We didn't actually get to science until Saturday.  Between me having strep, D-Man's golf lessons, and playing with friends; we didn't get to everything this week.  However, since science is one of our favorite subjects, we made time for it on Saturday.

In this book, we're learning how to use the scientific method to answer questions.  At the beginning, we read about why our interpretation of the facts can lead to wrong answers.  Now, we've moved on to the 5 steps of the scientific method.  It's a great book that's written at a young elementary level. 

Sonlight and Spell to Write and Read

I decided to put a post together about this topic since I had a reader ask.  Really, there is no mystery...I just use each program in its entirety.  I just substitute SWR for Sonlight's LA.  Here are a couple of items worth noting:

SWR is a complete LA program for K-2/3.  It includes all of the necessary phonics, handwriting, grammar, and writing for those ages.  Despite that, I'm adding Cursive First for handwriting (really, we're finished with this), First Language Lessons (grammar), and Writing with Ease (writing) this year for 1st grade. 

Cursive First was designed to use with SWR to teach cursive.  There's not much to it but it provided just enough support to give me confidence teaching cursive to D-Man. It does include worksheets that correspond with learning the phonograms. We used some of them, but ditched them when we started the spelling lists for the year. D-man is pretty intolerant of busy work and writing the words throughout the week gives him ample handwriting practice. We sometimes have little refreshers on how two letters connect (mostly after a straight connecter, but he's getting better each week).

Writing with Ease (WWE) and First Language Lessons (FLL) are not necessary for most people using SWR. I'm adding them because those are the areas in which I am the least confident teaching. I learned very little grammar in school so the scripted nature of FLL will be a big help. I plan to teach the boys writing classically and WWE is giving us a good head start on that road. However, instead of using the WWE workbooks, I'm correlating our narration and dictation with our SL and Noeo reading. Another reason is simply that I love to supplement with great resources. If you've read my blog at all, you know that by now and take my supplementing with a grain of salt :).

I do still use the Sonlight readers alongside SWR. SWR does call for assigned reading several weeks into the program (after list I-1). I found the recommendation to wait on assigned reading a good one. The author, Wanda Sanseri, calls reading too early "torture reading" and waits until the child has the skills he needs to read well. Before they start reading books, they read the spelling lists several times a week to practice decoding and fluency. By the time D-Man got to list I-1, he started in week 24 of Sonlight's Readers 1 (after the I Can Read It Series). His fluency took off and he was soon capable of reading at a 4th grade level. I've chosen to keep him tracking in Sonlight's reader programs so he's working his way through Readers 2. They are an easy read for him, but he's enjoying the books and often chooses tougher material from the library as his free reading selections. I have him read all of the Sonlight books aloud to me while he reads his free reading selections silently. His reading and spelling levels are still steadily improving through the SWR spelling lists and enrichments. C-Monster is a bit of a different animal as he started reading before 3 and likes to pick up Fun Tales (Readers K) or Bob Books so I expect him to continue this trend over the next year and possibly getting through the first 24 weeks of Readers 1 (which he's capable of reading now) or farther. Between our collection and the library, we'll have plenty of books to keep him busy.

Where have we been?

I'll include a more thorough update with pics later, but we've been on vacation. It was great, but now it's time to get back to work.

Weekly Update: Weeks 41/42

I was waiting until I had time to add pics, but that never happened.  So...here's our last two weeks a little late.

Ahhh, another box of curriculum is on my way!!

We've had a great couple of weeks as usual.  I'm getting ancy to start our full schedule, but I'm glad we're waiting until June to start the rest.  Here's what we're doing in the meantime:

Sonlight: 

   Read-alouds:  We love this core's read-alouds!!  We just finished the My Father's Dragon trilogy.  Both older  boys ate them up.  I'm sad that we finished them so quickly and that the author only wrote 3.  We will read them again and I've already ordered the audiobooks from the library.  We are starting The Hundred Dresses next week, but we'll continue to read Boxcar Children sequels at bedtime. 

  History:  History hasn't really come alive for us yet.  The Usborne encyclopedia isn't really enough for D-Man.  He really needs more than a 2-page spread on each subject.  We do like Living Long Ago, but we're missing a good narrative on the subject.  I keep reminding myself that my only goal is exposure. 

 Bible:  We just started reading about Moses this week.  The Egermeier's Bible Storybook is a great read and I highly recommend it!  Because D-Man has been exposed to many of these stories in picture Bibles, he notices the details.  It's also fun to keep track of the people we're reading about on the timeline.  D-Man likes to flip through his Book of Time to see who all we've put in it and when they lived.  He doesn't fully grasp the logic of BC and AD yet, but we're working on it.  I think it's just too abstract of a concept for him at this point.

Math:  We are whizzing right along in math.  I was worried about D-Man starting addition with renaming (some of you will know it as carrying), but my concerns were unfounded.  He breezed through the concept and had no trouble.  I introduced it using Cuisenaire Rods and that helped him visualize the first few problems.  Once he saw how it worked, he was off.  For our supplemental math this week, I worked with D-Man on subtraction in Miquon.  He has gotten it into his head that he hates doing subtraction.  I used Miquon and the rods to bring some fun back into that concept.  I also told him that if he works on his subtraction facts, the problems will be easier for him.  While math concepts are a breeze for him, he isn't great at memorizing.  He understands subtraction and can figure out the answer to subtraction problems, but it takes him a long time.  I know that he'll need a lot of practice to get all of those facts to stick into his brain.  He's been working with Flashmaster this week which is fun for him.  We're supposed to start subtraction with renaming (borrowing) next week, but I may delay it if he starts to get frustrated.  We'll just work on subtraction facts and do some Miquon.  The funny thing is that he was faster on his fact recall a few months ago, but I guess we haven't been practicing enough.

LA:  We finished learning all of the cursive letters last week.  Now it's just a matter of D-Man getting used to writing in cursive.  This week, I'm just having him copy words to practice the formation and get used to the different way of writing.  He's begging to start spelling again so we'll start that soon.  I think I'll do another review next week and then start our first week of spelling words the following week.  I'm waiting for my box to come so that I can start my own Learning Log in cursive.  D-Man's going to love it.  Writing with Ease (WWE) is also coming in that box so I'll be able to finish my schedule correlating WWE with Sonlight and Noeo, our science program.  D-Man's still working his way through The Beginner's Bible.  He is so happy to have read 150 pages in one book.   He does struggle with some of the Bible names which is kinda cute.

Geography:  We haven't done much of this the last couple of weeks.  I just got some Galloping the Globe sheets copied so I need to add it in next week.  I have three books to use with Galloping the Globe in my shipment:  Geography Through Art, Eat Your Way Around the World, and an atlas.  We may focus back on Egypt when all of that comes since it'll be fun to add some art and cooking to the mix.

Library:  We are back to our weekly library trips.  D-Man is enjoying picking out books that he can read by himself.  C-Monster checks out whatever Dr. Suess book looks interesting even if we already have it at home.  Now that D-Man is a certifiable Star Wars nut, he checked out a bunch of Star Wars visual dictionaries.  He can't read them by himself yet, but Dad's happy to help him out.

Homeschool Conversations Pt. 4

How does a 6yo figure out negative numbers? I have no idea. Here's what happened during a lesson on how to use Singapore's bar models.

I was trying to show D-Man how the bar models correlate with addition and subtraction problems. In the course of the lesson, I used 6-10 as an example of a problem that doesn't work. Of course, that sent up a red flag with D-Man. He told me that it does have an answer and that he knew "all about negative numbers." Then he asked me to write a number line on the board and to add negative numbers to it. I did.

He then told me the answer was -4.  After that I came up with a couple of similar problems and he solved them just fine.  Then, he told me that he wanted to come up with his own problem.  Did he come up with one like mine...no, of course not.  He wrote down -20 + -10 =.  Just as I was about to stop him and explain that negative numbers can be a bit tricky, he writes down -30.  I stared at it dumbfounded.  How did he figure that out?  I have no idea, but he got it right.  

So ends another math lesson at our house.