I don't keep up on blogs so well...

Good intentions...I just don't keep up on this well!

We've had a good few weeks with a little break in there when our best friends visited.  The kids, despite the excitement over Christmas, are still getting lots of good work done.  I'll update by child... that's probably easier.

Jayden-

I have really seen a lot of growth in Jayden lately.  He is able to synthesize things much better when he reads.  He's learned the art of narration and is able to concisely give an overview.  He used to give me every single detail, but now after working through lessons in Writing With Ease he is much better at summarizing!  I also see a big difference in his writing.  It used to be pulling teeth to get him to write anything.  Now, he can easily sit down and write a 3 sentence summary of something he's read.  I'm going to up the ante in January, but for now I'm just glad he's getting the hang of it.  Science became too easy for him so I have him studying the same topic the rest of us are, but out of a different book.  He then summarizes what he reads and we talk about it.  It's working well and he's learning some interesting bird facts that I didn't know!  Jayden is making good progress with division and he's even gotten into some early geometry that his book is introducing to him.  He learned parallel and perpendicular this past week.  He was excited about that.  Jayden has started to really enjoy Latin (took a little while for it all to click for him).  I figured we hadn't reviewed enough over the past few months, but when we did he knew almost all of it!  I was amazed! 

Kylie-

Kylie is our little "doer".  She just buckles down and gets done what she needs to.  She's usually the first one finished with her work.  She doesn't complain at all and has also really grown a lot the past few months.  Her printing has gotten a TON better!  Writing neatly is not one of her strengths, but I've seen a drastic difference this year.  Makes me feel good about my approach with her of not pushing for "perfect" handwriting.  It came on it's own... Kylie is also making really good progress with writing.  She also fought me with not wanting to write AT ALL last year.  She is now a pro at summarizing as well and is not complaining about writing a one sentence narration.  (Going to up her in Jan. as well)  Kylie finished her second level of spelling and is starting the third.  She (and Jayden) are both learning to be excellent spellers.  Our curriculum does a great job of teaching the skill of spelling, not just memorizing lists of words.  I notice that the kids are actually thinking through HOW to spell as a result of this.  Very exciting!  Kylie is just about to start "borrowing" in math.  She is a math whiz.  Her math papers are almost always error free.  It amazes me since I was horrible in math.  I'm so glad she likes it and is doing well.  I'm still challenging Kylie with reading books actually at her reading level.  She likes to pick much easier books than she should be.  I let her do that, but have taken complete control of her "school" books.. that has helped.  She kicks and screams going into a new book, but once she's reading it she loves it.  One example... I had her read Pippi Longstocking and she almost cried when I gave it to her, but a couple chapters in she was in love with Pippi and I've heard about lots of Pippi's adventures since then!

Rylan-

Rylan has gone from a brand new reader to a fairly solid reader!  He's reading most of the beginner readers with no difficulty.  He enjoys reading and will pick up books on his own now and read without being asked to.  So fun to see that love for books developing!  He LOVES math... he catches onto the concepts very quickly and does a really good job.  He has the facts he's learned so far pretty much memorized.  That and AWANA... he's completed his book for the year, completed the review and is now onto "extra verses".  He continues to amaze me.  Rylan's handwriting is also coming along.  It's not great, but for the most part readable.  He HATED handwriting up until the past couple of weeks.  Now he sits down and works on several pages of handwriting at once!  (It was difficult to get him to do one page a day before!)  So, without me really realizing he's almost done with his Kindergarten book!  Rylan also adores history.  He asks a lot of questions to understand, but he really remembers a lot.  He's very excited to start his own timeline after Christmas.  We were having too many arguments over who gets to put who on our collective timeline, so I decided when we start Mystery of History 2 in January each child will do his/her own timeline.  They are all very excited for that!  I also started Rylan in spelling a couple weeks ago.  We are just working slow, but I realized this week maybe too slow as he started complaining "I already know this".  That is the trick with teaching Rylan... slow enough that he gets the skills, but fast enough to not frustrate him.  I learned I had to move faster in spelling!  Who would have thought?  This kid is going to out pace me before long!

Bryson-

It's hard to believe this little boy is only 4 sometimes!  He is reading up a storm!  Not far behind his next older brother!  He's reading Bob books and working through our phonics program.  He loves to read and is finding things to read all over.  In the books I read him, he'll ask "where is the word _____".   Bryson is also doing really well with his handwriting.  It comes much easier to him than to Rylan so I have to get used to that.  He loves to write and will choose to write and draw often.  His pictures are so cute!  I'll have to scan one in sometime... Bryson is also loving math.  We got to place value (tens) this week.  He decided that NOW he has started "real math" like Rylan!  I think counting for him was not real math!  I'm a little nervous starting place value with him, but he seems to understand.  We'll just take it slow.  He's very motivated so I'm guessing it won't be too long before it sinks in.

Another week and half and we'll take the rest of Dec. off.  I find it difficult when we are out of routine and the fall always seems so broken up... I'm actually looking forward to January when we can have a stretch where we don't take many breaks.  Good time to hunker down as it's usually too cold to be outside much.  The kids and I are going to hit the zoo again next week to go see the bird show.  Thought that would be very timely with our study of birds right now in Science.

That's it for us... hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!