Whew!

Well, it's been a few weeks!  I think one of my problem is getting photos uploaded.  I don't do the post if I can't get the photos uploaded so... I end up not doing anything!  So... here's a post with no photos!  I'll try and get some up next week.

Here's what the crew has been up to.  We've had a busy and productive few weeks!

Jayden

We ran into a bit of a roadblock with CW.  Jayden is not a lover of writing.  Although, he does very well when he writes, he just takes f o r e v e r!  It also takes a lot of focused energy for him.  All of this time and energy was taking away from his other subjects.  I also looked through Homer (the next book) and I just can't see how I'd be able to teach this program to 4 children eventually.  It is very time consuming and the more I looked at it, the more I thought.... "there has to be a simpler way to teach writing!"

Soooooo.... we are back to good ol' WWE for Jayden.  A weight was lifted this week from both our shoulders.  I even saw Jayden's work in grammar improve dramatically.  I think it was because he could put more energy into that now.  We will finish out WWE3 doing every other lesson through the summer... then I'll put him in WWE4 this next year.  We will also start including some Logic stage writing per the audio tapes I will listen to of SWB... she just makes it SO SIMPLE!!  Just what we need!

Jay is still working on finishing up a King Arthur book he's been reading for school forever.  It was more challenging than I expected... should have only had him read a few stories from it, not the whole book.  I told him to finish what he could this week for school, then we'll go onto something new next week.  He is also reading Canterbury Tales with me (McCaughrean's version) and we laughed belly laughs today at the story called "A Barrel of Laughs".  Jayden reads out loud to me and by the end of the story (the part where he sticks his rear end out the window for the visitor to "kiss") all the kids were gathered around Jayden and laughing their... well.... butts off!  :-)  Who said the classics were boring?  :-)

Math is going well.  Jayden is into Epsilon (Fractions) and the concepts are going well.  He doesn't jive with all of the little in between steps Mr. Demme does, but he's getting the overall picture.  Jay also likes Fred... I'm trying to keep Fred behind MUS so we aren't moving very fast.  He's just to the first bridge.  I'm happy to see it makes him think differently than MUS and he's also learning some things he hasn't learned yet outside of fractions so that's fun.

Jayden will finish Level 4 of spelling this week and next week we'll head into 5.  I can't believe after this next year he'll be done with official spelling lessons!  I'm sure he'll go through 5 and 6 before his 4th grade year is over.

Jayden has been blowing through Mindbenders puzzles!  We just started less than a month ago and he's already almost done with the 2nd book.  He's requesting 2 puzzles daily so I'm going through them much faster than I anticipated... but who am I to tell him no?  He LOVES them!

JAG (grammar) is going much better.  He has finally adjusted to the new curriculum.  It took him a bit to focus in on all the little details that he now must focus on.  Like I said above, he's doing much better now that writing has gone down a notch.  He's learning subject/verbs this week.  Finding the prepositions still gets him sometimes so I'm glad there's built in review.

Kylie

My little girl is almost 8!  She turns 8 on the 20th!  She's counting down the days until her birthday.  Here's what she's been up to...

First her biggest news is that she is now playing the violin!  She threw a temper tantrum for Daddy a week ago saying she didn't want to practice piano because she didn't want to play piano.  The only reason she was taking piano is because Mommy told her she had to before she took violin.  (I really wanted her to have some piano first...)  So.... I figure if the child really wants to play the violin why not?  So... I went out, rented her a violin and started giving her lessons these last 2 weeks.  She's in love!  And... if I do say so after 10+ years of teaching... she is really a natural....and I'm not just saying that because she's my kid!  :-)

In reading she's been reading some fairy tales (Cinderella mostly) from different countries.  This week is China.  She's also been reading about Islam... she just finished a book called Muslim Child which walks through the life of a.... you guessed it... Muslim child!  We just finished learning about Islam in SOTW.  This week she's reading some stories from China and Japan.    She continues right along in WWE2 on lesson 31 this week... almost done with level 2!  She's doing GREAT!  We're continuing to try and get the multiplication facts down.  She does fairly well.  There are a few (those last hard ones) yet she has trouble with.  We are stepping up flashcard drill and skip counting to get these under control before she's done with Gamma.  Ky started Level 3 of Growing With Grammar and has requested grammar every day!  I was only going to give it to her 3 times a week, but she wanted more so... okay!  She's also working her way through her cursive book.  Her writing is getting better, but she's still not neat.  She's got speed though... something her brother lacks... he's got the slow neatness!  Kylie is about to finish Level 3 of spelling... her spelling has really improved this year.  Still has trouble with her "r controlled vowels" though... we just keep working on those. I'm sure it's because of the way she hears her "r's"... that was the last sound to correct in her speech so I'm pretty sure she still hears them wrong in her head.

Rylan

Mr. Kindergarten is doing SO well with his reading!  In fact, he's been doing so well I started him in chapter books this week!  We just started The Magic Tree House first book and he loves it!  Actually, it reads easily for him so it's not too much of a challenge other than being longer.  I think he'll fly through them pretty quickly. I need to start figuring out the next level for him.  Handwriting is getting easier for him and it's improving.  Still not a real strong area for him, but lots of improvement over this last year!  He's tolerating FLL 1.  He HATES all the repetition so I'm trying to cut out some lessons that are particularly review.  If I ask him to define a noun one more time I think he may consider knocking my block off!  I tried to do days of the week with him today and his first response was "I know those already!" and he proceeded to fly through the entire week... so we moved on 3 lessons!  I really like the idea of FLL so I'd like to continue.  The best part is it is light on writing which is what he needs now and will need for the future as far as I can see right now.  I just have to really adapt to his unwillingness to review!  Spelling is going great!  He's learning how to divide syllables and label them and it's going better than I anticipated.  We just take everything really slow and keep the lessons short.  I decided I would like Rylan to do 2 pages of math a day.  He can very much handle the work... he whizzes through a math sheet in 5-10 minutes.  I decided to add this to his plate this week and I was met with strong resistance.  Mostly because he doesn't want to do any more work than "necessary".  I put my foot down though.  He's almost through Alpha... he'll finish it for sure by the end of the month... only 2 more lessons left.  He's doing wonderfully in math.  His numbers are even getting easier to read!

Bryson

This little guy has been working so hard lately!  He is whizzing through math... 2 sheets a day from Primer... just learned how to count by 5's this last week.  He'll learn tally marks tomorrow.  He takes his work very seriously and gets this cute little business like attitude when he's working with me.  His reading is jumping by leaps and bounds.  We're working on 2 letter endings on short vowel words.  He's still loving Bob books and has read several stories in the Beehive Reader.  When he concentrates on it, Bryson's handwriting is very good.  He's almost done with his current handwriting book and then I think I'm just going to move to copy work for him.  I bought a font CD with the handwriting we use so I can create sheets very easily.  Bryson loves to incorporate what we're learning with his play... this week he has been walking around the house chanting... "Islamic Empire".  Well... okay... kind of silly, but you know what we've been studying!  (And that he's actually listening when he's spinning around!)

All the kids have enjoyed learning about Islam and now Japan, China and Korea in history.  We are going to learn about Australia tomorrow.  On Wed. we'll read a fun Japanese book about kites and make carp kites per the SOTW activity guide.  I'm looking forward to that.  We don't do many projects so I think this will be a fun one.

We've been studying plants in science.  Our marigolds have not done great.  We'll probably have to replant.  It's just been too cold here and we don't have great light in the house.  Our garden doesn't have any sprouts yet, but hopefully soon???  We have carrots, peas and lettuce planted.  This is our first shot at gardening so we'll see how it goes.  We're doing a square foot garden.

The kids got a basketball hoop this last week and have been enjoying shooting hoops.  It's a great activity for the boys especially!  We also went to Goodwill and got tennis rackets for the kids and we went out and "played tennis".  It's been pretty rainy so we haven't been out again...

This week we'll just school through Wed.  Then we're off the rest of the week with our friends coming into town.  We're going to take everyone up to MOA Friday to celebrate the girls' bdays (Kylie's best friend's bday was in April).  The girls will hit the AG store and then join their brothers on the rides.... should be a really fun day!  Then we'll hit the Science Museum the next day and see the Dead Sea Scrolls.  We're all looking forward to seeing our best friends and having lots of fun with them!