Great Week!

We had a great very productive week!  No picts this week though...

This was a full week for Jayden.  We are into our new grammar... it's very detailed which is a little overwhelming for him.  He's my big-picture guy so labeling every noun, article and adjective in a sentence is very tedious for him.  He much prefers diagramming, which he does well with.

He completed his first model in CW Aesop.  He did SO well!  We did the writing project this week.  He had to rewrite The Tortoise and the Hare.  He had no confidence in himself though and of course it's something new so we had to work through attitude issues, but his actual work was excellent!  He got to type his final draft and he was pretty pleased when he was all done.  For right now it's a good thing to keep 2 weeks on every model.  I anticipated that doing the writing project the same week as the analysis would be too much and for now it is.

I started Jayden on the first stage of outlining history this week.  He wants to write every detail so I need to work with him on just choosing simple, main points.  This is difficult for him so we're going to do it together for awhile.

Math was a piece of cake with some early fraction work and Roman Numerals.  Nice after so much work with long division.  I got Life of Fred in the mail this week and it looks so fun!  Jayden will do that on Fridays to supplement MUS.  He's looking forward to it.

Completed another lesson in Latin.  That's going well and he'll soon be done with Prima.  We may take a little break on that before we start Christiana...

We also started MindBenders this week.  It's a logic curriculum.  Jayden LOVES it!  I'll give a couple of those puzzles to him a week.  He's been ready for it, I've just held off a bit.

I'm finding that I'm needing to work with him more one on one as he hits some of these new skills.  He's actually taking more time with me than the little guys right now.  I figure it's just for a time though, until he gets the hang of what I'm trying to teach him... then he'll be pretty independent.  Good timing as Rylan will need more of my attention moving into 1st grade.

Jayden has been reading a King Arthur book with all the stories in it and really enjoying it.  With me he's reading a book that tells the history and world events surrounding the tales.  It shows the evolution of the tales... the pieces of history are starting to make sense to him (and me!)

Kylie had a great week.  She is catching on SO well to multiplication.  I wondered at first if she was ready, but she has really risen to the challenge!  She can skip count like nothin!  She's having an easier time with the word problems too (she kept wanting to add over and over instead of multiply... I know, they are the same, however I've been trying to get her to think "multiplication" instead of repeated adding... she's finally getting that!)

She's continuing to work on her cursive.  That's going well... she read a couple fairy tales this week and we finished a version of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and started Sir Gawain and the Loathy Lady.  She also read The Sword in the Tree and a biography on Laura Ingalls Wilder.  (I know... it doesn't fit in with our history, but we've been watching Little House on the Prairies and I thought she'd like this book... I was right!)

WWE is going very well.  I started having Kylie write her own narrations on Day 4 and she's doing GREAT!  She was annoyed last week, but this week she did it without complaining.  It's so fun to see her progress.  I was thinking today as we did writing how neat it is that EVERYTHING I do with the kids I can trace back to a useful skill they are learning.  When I taught in PS I couldn't always say that.

Rylan had a great week.  He was earning a Lego kit for good school attitude this week and he did very well.  I'm hoping to get him out tomorrow morning before I leave to pick it up.  He's had a good week with only some minor issues that were solved by reminding him about the Legos!  :-)

Rylan is reading up a storm!  Every time he reads I am more and more impressed.  He's loving reading at night before bed now.  His fluency is absolutely wonderful and he very much enjoys most any book he reads. Math is "too easy" in his estimation.  I'm thinking he's probably right.  I most likely need to move him along faster, but I hesitate.  I know if we get too far ahead that backtracking will be impossible with him.  He would NEVER stand for going back over material.  I'm hoping that by putting MM in after the co-op purchase I made I can move him along a little faster... then I'll have lots of practice to fall back on if we hit a snag.  So far subtraction has gone very well.

Rylan's handwriting is really improving!  I never thought he'd get there, but I do believe someone else could actually read his writing now!  He is enjoying his new book.  I started FLL with him this week.  Transition issues!  He started out HATING it, but I think he may be coming (slowly) around.  He complains "it's too hard", but it's not... it is just that he doesn't want to spend any more time doing school than he has to and now I've added in something else!  Shame on me!  I told him he's getting ready for 1st grade and there will be even more ahead!  Better just get used to it!  Sucks to get older!  ;-)

Rylan's almost done with AAS Level 1.  He was complaining about it so I slowed way down, only doing a small portion each day so it's taken us forever to get through the last two steps.  But, the good news is, now that he has grammar to complain about he doesn't complain about spelling any more!  He's excited to finish his book... the sticker chart has been great for him (the older two don't use that).  I think I'm going to give him a little break... maybe just dictating some sentences from Level 1 for awhile before we start Level 2.

Bryson's reading is getting so good!  I can tell when we took a break over testing time/having friends here that it took a bit to get him fluently reading again.  He's back to a good amount of fluency for a 4 year old!  He's working his way through the second level of Bob books.  He loves them!  He now is enjoying some reading time before bed.  He takes his little bucket of books upstairs.  (I put all the books he's read with me in a bucket and he knows during reading time he can read any of them.)  I finally got Bryson his next handwriting book and he's enjoying that.  He's a good little writer.  So different from Rylan...  I have to get used to the fact that writing is not the chore for Bryson that it is for Rylan.

Bryson had a new math lesson this week, so it was time for a video.  Usually I watch these with him to make sure he's understanding.  Well, he had different ideas this week.  He came to me and said, "Mom, can I watch my math like the other kids do... you know, by myself?"  :-(  My baby.... :-(   I wanted initially to say "no" because I really want to watch it with him to make sure he gets it, but I figure him wanting to be independent is more important than that right now.  I can easily "reteach" the concept to him when he comes and works with me as he brings his finished sheet and we go over it.  (yes, he wants to do his sheet independently too!)  So, I let him do it.  He was so proud!  And, something even better came of it... of course this was a brand new lesson on skip counting by 2's.  Bryson has never done this before.  Of course, he didn't get it right away. But, I was working with Jayden so couldn't help him right away.  Rylan stepped up and helped Bryson out!  Rylan was very proud (as much as he doesn't show it, he was!) of being able to do this.  It was a win/win for both boys.  So, I'm glad I stepped out of the way... it's so fun to see the kids helping each other.

We got back to Science this week talking about the 5 senses.  For the older two it was review, but for the younger two it was new info.  We read a good series of books from the library that had a book on each sense.  I'm struggling a bit with Jayden for science.  What's good for the other three is not enough for him... but I can't add anything more to his plate right now.  I'll wait until fall and then maybe try something different for him.  Paige... are you coming out with Logic stage science pretty soon???  :-)

In history this week we did SOTW chapter 4 on the Byzantine Empire.  The older two are enjoying SOTW so now instead of pretending to do their work at their spots they've moved to actually sitting in the same room with the little boys and I as we read!  :-)  In MOH the older two and I have read about Columba (missionary to Scotland, Prince Shotoku (founder of Japanese civilization) and Gregory the Great (monk turned Pope).  The kids had great fun reading about Gregory the Great as Daddy's name is Gregory... they were very impressed he was named the same as someone so great in history!   We continue to work our map work in with what we're studying as well as assembling timelines.  I think it's kind of funny our kids can tell you where the Byzantine Empire was and what current countries it en-capsuled, however they cannot tell you where most of the 50 states are!  Oh well... we'll get there!

Oh, and one funny little story... in our Bible reading this week happened to be the story of Sappira and Annanias.  If you're not familiar, it's found in Acts and they both lie to the apostles about how much money they were giving to the church.  They get struck down dead right away.  I read the story to the kids and their faces were priceless... (well, Rylan and Bryson's anyway... they had never heard the story)  Not that I'm into scaring my kids into behaving well, but I could tell Rylan was really thinking that one through!  :-)

That's about it for us this week.  I'm off to scrapbook this weekend with some really good girlfriends!  So excited to have some time away... hope everyone has a great weekend!