Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Friday, January 14, 2011
Weekly Report - Week 2
This week went well also! We had to squish things into 4 days because Tornado Boy is going on a trip on Friday with his daddy. It was very easy to move things around, and none of our days felt like we were doing extra work, despite starting history and science this week.
Math: On Monday, we briefly discussed clocks and took the Chapter 5 test on clocks. He aced it. He fully understands time to the half hour. He's not as well versed in minutes, but that is in grade 2. Grade 1 (of MM) just talks about hours and half hours. We moved on. We skipped Chapter 6, which is shapes and measuring. He has done plenty of first grade level shapes and measuring in school, and again, he'll hit the same stuff in grade 2. So we started Chapter 7 - Addition and Subtraction 0-100. He pretty much knows this too (there is no regrouping yet), but I'm having him do this whole chapter for the most part, because it does introduce some concepts that will be necessary to know later on. He has enjoyed this chapter more. He even made explosive noises as he wrote numbers the first day, and he kept pointing out the patterns on the page ("It's an AABC pattern!") He has always loved patterns, even when there really is no pattern - he'll make one up! :)
We continued with MEP2A. Some of the topics actually coincided with MM work this week, so that was nifty.
Reading: He completed two stories in CLE Reading. I have decided that the schwa has got to go. We'll just be skipping the phonics-related things from now on. They will put a schwa in just about any word, it seems like! The suffix -ed ends up schwa-d. Huh? I actually say a short 'e' or maybe a short 'i' when using an -ed suffix. And today, they put a schwa in the first 'o' of hippopotamus! So when they shorten it, do they say "hippah?" I actually say a long 'o' in hippopotamus. There are just too many of these schwa things where saying the word with the schwa was just totally different from how we actually speak, and our way of speaking was more phonetically correct. Bye-bye, schwa!
Grammar: We did 5 lessons (4 lessons plus a review lesson) in R&S English. We discussed starting and ending sentences, plus how to turn a phrase into a sentence. Tornado Boy seems to enjoy these lessons. They also have good morals involved, like picking the sentences that are kind - "She looks funny." would not be a kind sentence.
Independent Reading: Tornado Boy finished Tornado by Betsy Byars. Now he is working on The Chalk Box Kid by Clyde Bulla. I had him read 2 chapters per day this week. I think he only has one chapter left. Next week, I'll have him start reading Encyclopedia Brown. He also read a couple Fly Guy books, a Nate the Great book, and whatever else was on the library book shelf. He likes the Fly Guy books.
Writing: We did copywork and narration passages from Pinocchio this week. This went very well. I am definitely seeing improvement in the narrations now. On day 4, I didn't have to ask for a complete sentence a single time. He automatically answered in complete sentences. Yay!
Handwriting: We did the letters 'y', 'p', 'r', and 'n', plus the copywork on the facing page for each letter. I really like how HWT forms their letters. Tornado Boy is starting to pick up correct letter formation habits. He still needs some reminders here and there, but some letters are starting to become automatic. Not bad for 2 weeks! Pencil grip is also improving, though I have to remind him most times he picks up the pencil. He knows how to fix it quickly though.
Spelling: Oh boy... When I first started researching curriculum, my first pick was All About Spelling. I really liked the samples and thought Tornado Boy and I would both enjoy it. This was the one thing that was set, while every other subject choice changed 2-3 times. Then as we got closer to making purchases, somehow I ended up deciding we didn't need AAS. I chose Sequential Spelling, since it works patterns and such. Then after purchasing that, I changed my mind and chose Rod & Staff Spelling 2. So last week, we used R&S Spelling and it was just too easy. This week, we used Sequential Spelling. It went ok, but during each lesson, Tornado Boy would ask "why". For example, when we did the word "pinning", he asked why we double the 'n'. I tried to explain it as best I could, but since I don't know all the spelling rules myself, it's hard to explain on the fly. So after doing SS all week, I have decided that we should just go ahead with AAS as originally planned! I have levels 1 and 2 on the way to me now. We'll hold off on spelling until they get here next week. I really think Tornado Boy will love AAS. It's magnetic letters on a white board! (and we already have the letters on magnets, which btw, was a lot of work to put on).
Phonics: We did the next 5 lessons of OPGTR, then on the second day that we normally do phonics, I decided since we start AAS next week, and it pretty much takes care of phonics instruction, we'll just put OPGTR away and wait until AAS comes in. Streamlining our homeschool is good!
Read-Aloud: Over the weekend, we listened to Socks by Beverly Cleary in the van. It was performed by Neil Patrick Harris, which after watching Malcolm in the Middle all those years, really made me laugh. :) We also plugged away on Little House in the Big Woods. We're over halfway through the book now. Tornado Boy likes it when we snuggle up in the big recliner chair under a blanket to read.
Bible: We completed week 18 of ABS Bible Workbook. This week talked about Deborah and Barak chasing Sisera in battle. Sisera hides in Jael's tent, and while he's sleeping, Jael runs a spike through his temples, into the ground. Gross! Tornado Boy likes this story, of course.
History: We started history this week! Since we had already read the corresponding Genesis chapters last week during our morning Bible reading, we didn't read them again. We did read SOTW1 Introduction and Chapter 1, learning about historians, archaeologists, and nomads. We also learned that Jericho is the oldest known city. We did some map work, looking at the continents and finding the Fertile Crescent. We did narrations for each section of SOTW that we had read. We also did a Cool History page about the topics we studied.
Science: We also started science this week! We did week 4 of Elemental Science Intro to Science (afterschooled weeks 1-3). This week was crystals. We tried to grow crystals (rock candy), but the recipe we used called for way too much sugar, I think. Yes, we got crystals... completely attached to the jar. We'll see how it is next week when all the water has evaporated.
This week was special in that we got snow! We don't typically get much snow here, and certainly not 8+"! So while all the schools around us were closed all or most of the week, we did school as usual and still got to play in the snow every day. Best of both worlds! And I seem to be one of the few parents on Facebook not going insane with the snow days. My kid had something to do everyday. :)
Math: On Monday, we briefly discussed clocks and took the Chapter 5 test on clocks. He aced it. He fully understands time to the half hour. He's not as well versed in minutes, but that is in grade 2. Grade 1 (of MM) just talks about hours and half hours. We moved on. We skipped Chapter 6, which is shapes and measuring. He has done plenty of first grade level shapes and measuring in school, and again, he'll hit the same stuff in grade 2. So we started Chapter 7 - Addition and Subtraction 0-100. He pretty much knows this too (there is no regrouping yet), but I'm having him do this whole chapter for the most part, because it does introduce some concepts that will be necessary to know later on. He has enjoyed this chapter more. He even made explosive noises as he wrote numbers the first day, and he kept pointing out the patterns on the page ("It's an AABC pattern!") He has always loved patterns, even when there really is no pattern - he'll make one up! :)
We continued with MEP2A. Some of the topics actually coincided with MM work this week, so that was nifty.
Reading: He completed two stories in CLE Reading. I have decided that the schwa has got to go. We'll just be skipping the phonics-related things from now on. They will put a schwa in just about any word, it seems like! The suffix -ed ends up schwa-d. Huh? I actually say a short 'e' or maybe a short 'i' when using an -ed suffix. And today, they put a schwa in the first 'o' of hippopotamus! So when they shorten it, do they say "hippah?" I actually say a long 'o' in hippopotamus. There are just too many of these schwa things where saying the word with the schwa was just totally different from how we actually speak, and our way of speaking was more phonetically correct. Bye-bye, schwa!
Grammar: We did 5 lessons (4 lessons plus a review lesson) in R&S English. We discussed starting and ending sentences, plus how to turn a phrase into a sentence. Tornado Boy seems to enjoy these lessons. They also have good morals involved, like picking the sentences that are kind - "She looks funny." would not be a kind sentence.
Independent Reading: Tornado Boy finished Tornado by Betsy Byars. Now he is working on The Chalk Box Kid by Clyde Bulla. I had him read 2 chapters per day this week. I think he only has one chapter left. Next week, I'll have him start reading Encyclopedia Brown. He also read a couple Fly Guy books, a Nate the Great book, and whatever else was on the library book shelf. He likes the Fly Guy books.
Writing: We did copywork and narration passages from Pinocchio this week. This went very well. I am definitely seeing improvement in the narrations now. On day 4, I didn't have to ask for a complete sentence a single time. He automatically answered in complete sentences. Yay!
Handwriting: We did the letters 'y', 'p', 'r', and 'n', plus the copywork on the facing page for each letter. I really like how HWT forms their letters. Tornado Boy is starting to pick up correct letter formation habits. He still needs some reminders here and there, but some letters are starting to become automatic. Not bad for 2 weeks! Pencil grip is also improving, though I have to remind him most times he picks up the pencil. He knows how to fix it quickly though.
Spelling: Oh boy... When I first started researching curriculum, my first pick was All About Spelling. I really liked the samples and thought Tornado Boy and I would both enjoy it. This was the one thing that was set, while every other subject choice changed 2-3 times. Then as we got closer to making purchases, somehow I ended up deciding we didn't need AAS. I chose Sequential Spelling, since it works patterns and such. Then after purchasing that, I changed my mind and chose Rod & Staff Spelling 2. So last week, we used R&S Spelling and it was just too easy. This week, we used Sequential Spelling. It went ok, but during each lesson, Tornado Boy would ask "why". For example, when we did the word "pinning", he asked why we double the 'n'. I tried to explain it as best I could, but since I don't know all the spelling rules myself, it's hard to explain on the fly. So after doing SS all week, I have decided that we should just go ahead with AAS as originally planned! I have levels 1 and 2 on the way to me now. We'll hold off on spelling until they get here next week. I really think Tornado Boy will love AAS. It's magnetic letters on a white board! (and we already have the letters on magnets, which btw, was a lot of work to put on).
Phonics: We did the next 5 lessons of OPGTR, then on the second day that we normally do phonics, I decided since we start AAS next week, and it pretty much takes care of phonics instruction, we'll just put OPGTR away and wait until AAS comes in. Streamlining our homeschool is good!
Read-Aloud: Over the weekend, we listened to Socks by Beverly Cleary in the van. It was performed by Neil Patrick Harris, which after watching Malcolm in the Middle all those years, really made me laugh. :) We also plugged away on Little House in the Big Woods. We're over halfway through the book now. Tornado Boy likes it when we snuggle up in the big recliner chair under a blanket to read.
Bible: We completed week 18 of ABS Bible Workbook. This week talked about Deborah and Barak chasing Sisera in battle. Sisera hides in Jael's tent, and while he's sleeping, Jael runs a spike through his temples, into the ground. Gross! Tornado Boy likes this story, of course.
History: We started history this week! Since we had already read the corresponding Genesis chapters last week during our morning Bible reading, we didn't read them again. We did read SOTW1 Introduction and Chapter 1, learning about historians, archaeologists, and nomads. We also learned that Jericho is the oldest known city. We did some map work, looking at the continents and finding the Fertile Crescent. We did narrations for each section of SOTW that we had read. We also did a Cool History page about the topics we studied.
Science: We also started science this week! We did week 4 of Elemental Science Intro to Science (afterschooled weeks 1-3). This week was crystals. We tried to grow crystals (rock candy), but the recipe we used called for way too much sugar, I think. Yes, we got crystals... completely attached to the jar. We'll see how it is next week when all the water has evaporated.
This week was special in that we got snow! We don't typically get much snow here, and certainly not 8+"! So while all the schools around us were closed all or most of the week, we did school as usual and still got to play in the snow every day. Best of both worlds! And I seem to be one of the few parents on Facebook not going insane with the snow days. My kid had something to do everyday. :)
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
Friday, January 7, 2011
Weekly Report - Week 1
We have had a great first week of homeschool!!!
Math: We did the first 4 sections of MM1B chapter 4 (place value). We had a few tears the second day because he was supposed to write number words - a LOT of them... on spaces big enough to fit the typed words. So I got the scratch paper out and had him write them on there, and severely cut down the number of problems he needed to do. All was well. By the 4th day, it was obvious to me that he fully understood the place value (ones/tens) that was being studied, and he also fully understood the number words - he just can't do that much writing, nor does he know how to spell them all yet. I'm ok with my first grader not being able to write "twenty-three" off the top of his head quite yet. So I made the executive decision to give him the Chapter 4 Test on Friday. If he did well, we'd move on to the next chapter (Clocks). For the test, he did have to write 4 number words, and I made a list of number words (one to fifteen, then the tens from twenty to ninety) for him to use as spelling help. He still had to put the words together, like "twenty-three". To my surprise, he even remembered the hyphen! He got 100 on the test. We're moving on to clocks. We'll probably finish clocks up next week and move on to the next chapter. I suspect we'll be starting MM 2A sometime in February.
Alongside MM, we are also doing MEP 2A. I have been giving him one page a day. It's different and interesting. Right now it's mostly easy (as 2A is early first grade level), but he's learning the different ways that MEP does math. We have seen some new things along with the easy stuff he already knows. It's been a good supplement.
Reading: We did the first 4 lessons of CLE Reading 100. Tornado Boy reads above a first grade level, but this reader is good for him. I'm happy with this level for now. We are doing 4 lessons per week. Each story has 2 lessons. The first two lessons were the schwa and schwa-r sounds. Those were new to Tornado Boy. Then he read Who's Afraid of Funder? and answered the questions in the workbook. It was pretty simple, and he seemed to like the story.
Grammar: I initially had planned to use R&S English 2 at a slow pace to last through second grade, but at the beginning of the week, after seeing how much writing Tornado Boy was actually capable of, I decided it was best to do it orally. Well, doing it orally, we might as well stick with the suggested schedule. It's easy enough and only takes 5 minutes or so to go through a 2-page spread. So this week, we learned about sentences, phrases, telling sentences, and asking sentences. Today was a review section, and Tornado Boy seemed to be enjoying the exercises. Yay!
Independent Reading: This week, Tornado Boy was to read one chapter each day from Tornado by Betsy Byars. He should finish it up Monday, and then we'll start a new book (to be determined after we go to the library today). He reads this while I put littles down for a nap. At the end of the chapter, he is to read anything he wants from the library book shelf until I come back down. I try to make this time last about 30 minutes (thank you smart phone that I can surf on while nursing baby). This routine has worked so well that he is starting to pull library books off the shelf on his own for fun during the downtime of our school day. Yay! He is not allowed any screen time (computer, video games, TV) until all school work is finished for the day.
Writing: We did week 1 of WWE1, which is 4 days of work. The first day was copywork - "There were no roads." The second day was a narration on a passage that involved that sentence. Tornado Boy's narration ("What is one thing you remember from this passage?") was "There were no roads." LOL. I told him that was cheating and asked for one more thing he remembered. :) He said "There were no people." Good enough. He did copywork on day 3 and then another narration on day 4. The narration on day 4 was much better! It even had a comma in it! He said "The bear was reaching into the pen, trying to get the pig." Narrations at this point are written by me. He just has to think of what to say. I write it down. He is learning to put thoughts into complete sentences. Questions about each passage on narration day are also to be answered in complete sentences. He is doing well with this new concept, and it tied in nicely with our grammar studies - sentences vs. phrases.
Handwriting: We worked through the HWT grade 1 book, hitting the letters that he was especially having issues with, such as 'e' and 'f'. We are now at the point where I can remind him of the little saying from HWT and he will write the letter correctly. He loves the "magic c", and that has really helped a lot of his letters that he was forming strangely.
Spelling: We did week 1 of R&S Spelling 2. It was pretty easy this week - words like "cap, hat, cake, rain, word, days" and others. We did the first page Monday, the second page Wednesday, and the test on Friday. I kept it simple this week. Later on, I might add in a dictation sentence using his words. He already knew how to spell all of these words, but he got to see how this program works. I'm ok with keeping spelling a bit easy this year. We're still working on phonics.
Phonics: We did 7 lessons from OPGTR this week - various digraphs, including /sh/, /ng/, /ch/, /tch/, and /nch/. We fly through these lessons right now, as he knows how to read these words, but it is good for him because they make him stop and read the word rather than sight reading based on shape. For example, he might think "Chip" is "Clip", and I will point at the word and he'll read it again correctly. He's starting to make less of those types of mistakes, as he needs to really look at the letters in these passages.
Read-Aloud: We have been reading a chapter a day from Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Tornado Boy seems to be enjoying this book, at least some of the time. :)
Bible: We finished week 17 of ABS Bible workbook. Tornado Boy knows all his judges of Israel. I still need to learn several of them. This week we learned about Othniel, Ehud, and Shamgar. Tornado Boy enjoyed the story of how Ehud killed Eglon by hiding the dagger under his robe and telling Eglon he needed to give him a secret message from God, so the doors were locked and he killed him, then hopped out the back and ran away before the servants ever realized anything was wrong.
All in all, this has been a wonderful week. I was well prepared, having put all my lesson plans into HST+, assigned lessons to the individual days, and printed out assignment sheets. I did make some changes mid-week in handwriting and phonics, as well as changing Friday's math to a test instead of the next section of work, but those were easy changes to pencil in and quickly change in HST+ so next week I'll know where we are. Our basic day goes like this:
7:30ish - Read from the Bible and sing some hymns while the boys finish breakfast
8:00ish - Start math, then follow up with reading (CLE) and grammar
9:00ish - long break - either go run errands or play outside
11:00ish - lunch
11:30ish - put littles down for nap, Tornado Boy does independent reading
12:00ish - WWE, HWT, ABS Bible, Spelling/Phonics
We were done by 1pm every day this week! Of course, we haven't started history or science yet, which will add another 30-60 minutes each day, depending on whether we're doing a project or not. We might start history and science next week. I'm still undecided. I'll make that decision sometime this weekend, I guess! :)
Math: We did the first 4 sections of MM1B chapter 4 (place value). We had a few tears the second day because he was supposed to write number words - a LOT of them... on spaces big enough to fit the typed words. So I got the scratch paper out and had him write them on there, and severely cut down the number of problems he needed to do. All was well. By the 4th day, it was obvious to me that he fully understood the place value (ones/tens) that was being studied, and he also fully understood the number words - he just can't do that much writing, nor does he know how to spell them all yet. I'm ok with my first grader not being able to write "twenty-three" off the top of his head quite yet. So I made the executive decision to give him the Chapter 4 Test on Friday. If he did well, we'd move on to the next chapter (Clocks). For the test, he did have to write 4 number words, and I made a list of number words (one to fifteen, then the tens from twenty to ninety) for him to use as spelling help. He still had to put the words together, like "twenty-three". To my surprise, he even remembered the hyphen! He got 100 on the test. We're moving on to clocks. We'll probably finish clocks up next week and move on to the next chapter. I suspect we'll be starting MM 2A sometime in February.
Alongside MM, we are also doing MEP 2A. I have been giving him one page a day. It's different and interesting. Right now it's mostly easy (as 2A is early first grade level), but he's learning the different ways that MEP does math. We have seen some new things along with the easy stuff he already knows. It's been a good supplement.
Reading: We did the first 4 lessons of CLE Reading 100. Tornado Boy reads above a first grade level, but this reader is good for him. I'm happy with this level for now. We are doing 4 lessons per week. Each story has 2 lessons. The first two lessons were the schwa and schwa-r sounds. Those were new to Tornado Boy. Then he read Who's Afraid of Funder? and answered the questions in the workbook. It was pretty simple, and he seemed to like the story.
Grammar: I initially had planned to use R&S English 2 at a slow pace to last through second grade, but at the beginning of the week, after seeing how much writing Tornado Boy was actually capable of, I decided it was best to do it orally. Well, doing it orally, we might as well stick with the suggested schedule. It's easy enough and only takes 5 minutes or so to go through a 2-page spread. So this week, we learned about sentences, phrases, telling sentences, and asking sentences. Today was a review section, and Tornado Boy seemed to be enjoying the exercises. Yay!
Independent Reading: This week, Tornado Boy was to read one chapter each day from Tornado by Betsy Byars. He should finish it up Monday, and then we'll start a new book (to be determined after we go to the library today). He reads this while I put littles down for a nap. At the end of the chapter, he is to read anything he wants from the library book shelf until I come back down. I try to make this time last about 30 minutes (thank you smart phone that I can surf on while nursing baby). This routine has worked so well that he is starting to pull library books off the shelf on his own for fun during the downtime of our school day. Yay! He is not allowed any screen time (computer, video games, TV) until all school work is finished for the day.
Writing: We did week 1 of WWE1, which is 4 days of work. The first day was copywork - "There were no roads." The second day was a narration on a passage that involved that sentence. Tornado Boy's narration ("What is one thing you remember from this passage?") was "There were no roads." LOL. I told him that was cheating and asked for one more thing he remembered. :) He said "There were no people." Good enough. He did copywork on day 3 and then another narration on day 4. The narration on day 4 was much better! It even had a comma in it! He said "The bear was reaching into the pen, trying to get the pig." Narrations at this point are written by me. He just has to think of what to say. I write it down. He is learning to put thoughts into complete sentences. Questions about each passage on narration day are also to be answered in complete sentences. He is doing well with this new concept, and it tied in nicely with our grammar studies - sentences vs. phrases.
Handwriting: We worked through the HWT grade 1 book, hitting the letters that he was especially having issues with, such as 'e' and 'f'. We are now at the point where I can remind him of the little saying from HWT and he will write the letter correctly. He loves the "magic c", and that has really helped a lot of his letters that he was forming strangely.
Spelling: We did week 1 of R&S Spelling 2. It was pretty easy this week - words like "cap, hat, cake, rain, word, days" and others. We did the first page Monday, the second page Wednesday, and the test on Friday. I kept it simple this week. Later on, I might add in a dictation sentence using his words. He already knew how to spell all of these words, but he got to see how this program works. I'm ok with keeping spelling a bit easy this year. We're still working on phonics.
Phonics: We did 7 lessons from OPGTR this week - various digraphs, including /sh/, /ng/, /ch/, /tch/, and /nch/. We fly through these lessons right now, as he knows how to read these words, but it is good for him because they make him stop and read the word rather than sight reading based on shape. For example, he might think "Chip" is "Clip", and I will point at the word and he'll read it again correctly. He's starting to make less of those types of mistakes, as he needs to really look at the letters in these passages.
Read-Aloud: We have been reading a chapter a day from Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Tornado Boy seems to be enjoying this book, at least some of the time. :)
Bible: We finished week 17 of ABS Bible workbook. Tornado Boy knows all his judges of Israel. I still need to learn several of them. This week we learned about Othniel, Ehud, and Shamgar. Tornado Boy enjoyed the story of how Ehud killed Eglon by hiding the dagger under his robe and telling Eglon he needed to give him a secret message from God, so the doors were locked and he killed him, then hopped out the back and ran away before the servants ever realized anything was wrong.
All in all, this has been a wonderful week. I was well prepared, having put all my lesson plans into HST+, assigned lessons to the individual days, and printed out assignment sheets. I did make some changes mid-week in handwriting and phonics, as well as changing Friday's math to a test instead of the next section of work, but those were easy changes to pencil in and quickly change in HST+ so next week I'll know where we are. Our basic day goes like this:
7:30ish - Read from the Bible and sing some hymns while the boys finish breakfast
8:00ish - Start math, then follow up with reading (CLE) and grammar
9:00ish - long break - either go run errands or play outside
11:00ish - lunch
11:30ish - put littles down for nap, Tornado Boy does independent reading
12:00ish - WWE, HWT, ABS Bible, Spelling/Phonics
We were done by 1pm every day this week! Of course, we haven't started history or science yet, which will add another 30-60 minutes each day, depending on whether we're doing a project or not. We might start history and science next week. I'm still undecided. I'll make that decision sometime this weekend, I guess! :)
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Monday, January 3, 2011
First Day of Homeschool!
We had our first day today! It went great. :) We started partway through breakfast with Bible reading, then sang a couple hymns and said a prayer.Next, we did one section of Math Mammoth 1B, where we learned how to use the abacus, a funny way of naming numbers greater than 10 (1 ten 1, 2 ten 3, etc.), and learned how to count objects by grouping in 10s first. After that, he did a MEP 2A worksheet, which was easy, but he learned a little bit different way of doing less than and greater than symbols (MEP has you put a number in the symbol to show how much less than or greater than).
After math, we worked on CLE Reading 100 lesson 1. We talked about the schwa and Mama made many "May the schwa be with you." jokes, which really don't make sense to Tornado Boy, as he's never seen Space Balls (schwa/schwartz). He laughed anyway and enjoyed the lesson. It was a pretty quick lesson.
Next, we did Rod & Staff English 2, lesson 1. I decided since his writing is S-L-O-W, I would do it orally. I know a lot of people do this book orally in first or second grade, and it's fairly common to do first grade grammar orally. The writing will come later. This text is very easy to use orally or written, and it took us about 5 minutes to talk about how a sentence is a complete thought. He even remembered later in the van when I asked him what a sentence was. :)
At this point, we took a break and went to Walmart for groceries. This took about 30 minutes to get everyone ready. The Brute was having focus issues, as 4 year olds often do. :P Spent about an hour on our errands, came back home and did "recess" while Mama made lunch. Halfway through lunch, I read a chapter of Little House in the Big Woods.
Now it was time to put The Brute and Mischief down for their naps. The Brute has not had a nap in weeks and really, really, really needed one. What a difference it made too! While I was working on naps, I had Tornado Boy read a chapter from the book Tornado (ha!) by Betsy Byers. His instructions were to then read any book on the library book shelf until I came back down. He probably got about 20 minutes of indepedent reading in.
Once everyone was down for naps, I returned and we worked on our Handwriting Without Tears pages, learning the letter 'd' and copying two sentences involving the letters worked on so far. Note that Tornado Boy knows how to write all his letters. His problem is that he forms many of them "weird". I am correcting that. He did very well today. The "magic c" used in HWT has been really good for him, and he likes it. His handwriting is improving already.
After that, we did Writing With Ease. The copywork today was "There were no roads." I briefly went over how to form a proper 'e' on the back of the page, as that is one he forms weird. He did some beautiful 'e's today! I was impressed.
Finally, we had "ABS Bible", which is the curriculum he used at school. It's a story per week, and it is all in a workbook. He corrected me on the pronunciations of Ehud and Eglon. We'll see if I remember them the rest of the week. I'm not really up on my early judges, so this is good for me too!
We finished "school" by 1pm and played with Snap Circuits for the next 2 hours. That was FUN! I highly recommend them. Tornado Boy absolutely loved them and did 16 projects. He started getting pretty good at doing the projects on his own without my help. That's my little engineer!!!
Hopefully we'll have a good rest of the week. I'm sure the littles will try my patience a bit. We'll survive though. :)
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