Homeschooling This Week and Beyond

Thank you all for the encouraging words, thoughts and prayers.  I am feeling more calm and normal again.  We are taking one day at a time.

I have some good news on the homeschooling front.  This week Hunter read “Ten Apples Up On Top” by Theo LeSieg (other books in this reading level) without hesitation or frustration.  He turned the pages and read steadily and clearly. I helped him with maybe two words.  It makes my heart so glad to hear him reading like that.  *happy dance*

The next night, Chandler wanted to read “Ten Apples Up on Top” by Theo LeSieg  and he stunned me with how much he can read!  He read 50 pages!  I helped him with a few words, but when he saw the word again he knew it.  Amazing.

I understand now when people say that reading will “click” for a child when they are ready.  Both boys seem to be clicking at the same time.  Last night Hunter was doing too much to help his brother and I had to ask him to keep his hands away from the book and stay quiet until Chandler asked for help.  Chandler didn’t ask for help and it hurt Hunter’s feelings (he cried).  I wasn’t  sure how to handle that, so I said as little as possible and just encouraged both boys to respect each other’s learning. I gave Hunter a big hug after Chandler finished reading.

We are still learning how to be good students and it’s better this week.  Hunter read to me from the Level 1 Vol. 1 of All About Reading which goes with All About Spelling.  It was easy for him, and good practice.  He read the first four stories.  Chandler did not feel like reading this morning. Instead he did a few pages in “Get Set for the Code Book B“.  He likes Explode the Code and Hunter did not.

Hunter and I did some of Step 2 in All About Spelling.  Step 2 is better than Step 1.  If I had to do it over again I would have skipped the extra vowel sounds in Step 1. I would make sure kids know the consonant sounds and the most common vowel sounds.  The extra vowel sounds can be added after reading is well established.

The boys are using Teach Me on the iPod and are already a couple of levels into it.  Teach Me Kindergarten for Chandler and Teach Me First Grade for Hunter’s review.  We also like the Montessori Crosswords  app by the makers of Word Wizard which both have their plusses.  I like the pictures in Montessori Crosswords and the 3 levels of spelling, but I also like the spelling lists and Dolch lists in Word Wizard, but the speaker in Word Wizard is hard to understand sometimes without a picture or sentence example.  Teach Me First Grade gives a sentence example of the word to spell and the words are written with a finger tip instead of dragging tiles like in the Word Wizard and Montessori Crosswords.   The boys also played various math and reading games too, including math and sight word bingo and memory games.

Hunter and I used the dry erase boards to work on adding and subtracting in columns and Hunter understands how to do it.  He needs more practice, of course, but he understands better than a few months ago.  Multiplication is also starting to click by thinking about groups.  We are laying out the groups with the gems like we learned with Arithmetic Village.  Brilliant method.  The new website and 2nd edition of AV is stunning but currently closed for remodeling.  Wait for it, it’s a great way to learn math concepts for add, subtract, multiply and divide!  I see a huge advantage after playing with AV.   I am also looking at IXL Math to help me cover everything for 2nd grade.  We also have Singapore Math 2a for second grade math and might be more of a guide for me, unless Hunter likes workbook math.

We have practiced skip counting for a while now and that is really helping with understanding multiplication too.  Both boys can count to 100+ and skip count by 10s.  Hunter can skip count by 2s and 5s also. We are working on threes by singing them to the jingle bells tune.   Both boys talk about math and ask about math often.  They like it and perhaps they like it because they learned it in real life vs. workbooks — when they were ready.  Just a thought.  Skip counting we do with an abacus or in the car.

We recently started “Noun Stories” before bed.  The boys LOVE it.  Seriously love it.  Now Hunter is doing the telling and I try to stay awake for the 30 minutes he takes to tell the story  — not always easy for this tired Mama.  The boys have better listening attention spans than I do!!

For these grammar stories, one of us picks a person, place and thing.  We also pick an action verb and abstract noun.  Then one of us tells a story using all the choices.  Hunter is a storyteller and I think Chandler will be too.  Some nights they are talking over each other in their excitement to interject their story ideas.  I recently got Grammar Island and might bring that out later this fall or during the winter.

We are still getting plenty of time outdoors (parks and playdates) and plenty of nature.  The boys caught frogs and we kept and fed them for over a week, then released them at the park pond.

We are also fishing with Gramma a few times in the last couple of weeks, and Daddy caught a big beetle and a praying mantis at work.   This is the praying mantis when we released it.

We got Hunter the book “Pets in a Jar” by Seymour Simon (1975 not revised version) as recommended by my friend Gina.  This is a great living book with paragraphs of information instead of DK style snippets. Gramma gave us a big glass jar that she recently used for tadpoles.  It has a lip at the top so we can put screen material to keep our captured “pets” for a while and then release them.   We also have iBirds Backyard Plus and Audubon Nature Pacific Northwest guide on the iPod (worth the cost!) and we are listening to bird calls and learning about various birds.  Hunter knows more birds than I do from Gramma’s backyard.

We are enjoying the last days of summer and I couldn’t resist the photo op with this one.  I should have told them not to pick the flowers at the park, but they only took a few and were so happy about it!  Then they picked off all the petals and put it in their sand “stew.”  *grin*

We need to work on telling time and the calendar.  Hunter struggles with rote memorization, which is surprising because he can narrate really well and remembers nearly everything, just not in a sequence.  He still skips a day or two of the days of the week, and does not know the months.  He doesn’t really care about it, so that might be why.  Chandler likes rote memorization and knows all our phone numbers (four) and how to spell the first, middle and last names of our family  — a little sponge.  I might work with Hunter on the calendar without Chandler around at first.

Lately, science is everything to do with paper airplanes and flying things.   This is Hunter’s current passion and he blows me away with his knowledge of them. This book is not too hard for him:  “Fantastic Flight” by John Collins but it is too hard for me.  His observations and deductions are correct.  Amazing.  He is quickly surpassing me in mechanical knowledge (or whatever you want to call it). I have to read about it and think about it more than he does.  He has watched every episode of Mythbusters and some episodes more than once.  He also loves How It’s Made and a few other science channel shows.  He asks to do science every day.  I’ve considered Aurora Lipper’s Supercharged Science curriculum, and might try it this winter.

For History we started “Pocahontas” by the D’Aulaires. We might start Story of the World CDs  when the weather changes to rain.  For geography we will learn this along with our Five in a Row books.  We also have Stack the States on the iPod and all the Holling C. Holling living geography books.  Last week we rowed “Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel.”  We’ve had plenty of local road construction to observe too.

We are rowing again this year with Five in a Row.  We have the books (except out of print books) for Volumes 1, 2 and 3.  We will skip around and might use them conversationally, depending on how many projects the boys want to do.

So far, no artist or composer study.  I downloaded a Fine Art app and some “learn to play” music apps.  We also have popular music from the last few decades and world music on the iPod.  Hunter does like classical music so I need to pick a composer for our fall term.  I called the School of Rock music school to see about drum and guitar lessons. I also heard about a local Suzuki Guitar teacher.  I am not sure which one to choose.  I am tone deaf, so I need someone to teach the boys to play an instrument.

Cub Scouts is going well and Hunter loves it.  Chandler wishes he is old enough.  Today we sold popcorn at the local grocery store.  70% of the sales goes to local scouts.  I wish we had something the same price as Girl Scout Cookies, but overall, I am happy to do this fundraising.

We are also looking at taking some classes with a local Thomas Jefferson Education group at their Leadership Academy. The classes are short and it might be a good fit.  I also signed Hunter up for a beginning drawing class.  We’ll also take a local swim and gym class.

Our fall term is busy now that we’ve jumped in to local classes.  I’m sure I’m forgetting something (we learn all the time), but this is enough for now.