Our January

We took a nice break after Christmas.  It was much-needed for all of us.  I even stopped reading to the kids before bed.  We all needed to do something else for a while.  We did pretty much whatever we wanted.  The kids watched too much TV and played too many video games.  I was on the internet and Facebook too much also.  I got a lot of knitting done and did some personal reading.  Hunter got interested in Lego’s and started making Lego stop motion movies.  Chandler encouraged all of us to play board games.  We got outside a few times in between rain showers and flood conditions.  We had snow one day.

The river by our house is at flood stage.

We are not walking much in our neighborhood, despite my determination a few weeks ago.  It’s just not the best place to be lately, but I’ve accepted it.  We do not plan to move.  I’m pretty sure we can outlive and outlast.

Our boys are doing well.  They are both learning to read at the same time.  They are encouraging each other. It’s like watching young horses run together.  It’s amazing to watch.  Hearing our boys take turns reading Dr. Seuss books last night was music to my ears.

Hunter is working through the books on Explode the Code on-line. He is on book 2 and needs the extra practice.  He is getting spelling and phonics with this as well. He prefers the computer, clicking and typing, to the handwriting in the ETC workbooks.  He likes computer instruction instead of my help learning to read.  It’s been nice to be able to take me out of it.

Chandler is on lesson 32 in Headsprout.   Chandler is learning to read by sight and memory.  He sees a word a couple of times and he knows it.  I’m encouraging him to do Headsprout because I want him to have phonics instruction, but he seems bored with it.  When he gets to chapter book level, he needs to know how to sound out bigger words, so I’m trying encourage that.  I might try Ordinary Parents Guide with Chandler since  he likes human teachers better than computer instruction.

Overall, I’m really relaxed about the boys learning to read and write. It’s really nice to say that!  The boys are also doing copywork and I use this website to print their worksheets. They tell me what they want to write and they like to be silly.  I have them underline the nouns and put a dot under the verbs.  They are learning these parts of speech because of our nightly noun stories.  The boys pick a person(s), place(s) and thing(s), an action verb and abstract noun and I tell a story using everything they picked.  They are simple stories to tell and they like hearing all their choices.  They will remind me if I forget one of their choices!  I will continue to add parts of speech like adjectives and adverbs soon.

Yesterday we played a fun Treasure Hunt game.  Hunter wrote words, and if Chandler could read the word he got to open the picture clue that he drew himself.  Then we played again and I wrote phrase clues like “under the desk” and “between the floor cushions.” I tried to think of as many words that I could to describe the location:  above, below, between, under, around, etc.

Today I want to play a reading/charades game.  I will write on pieces of paper things like “jump up and down,” “stand on one foot,” and “turn around in a circle.”  Then I will know they are reading and understanding.  I’m so happy to be able to play these kinds of games now!

Math is going well too.  Hunter is adding and subtracting in columns and learning to carry and borrow.  I can tell he doesn’t really understand why he is doing it, he is just doing it how I showed him.  I need to think of a way to show him with manipulatives.  We will start multiplication soon.  Chandler is ahead in math too.  Chandler finished kindergarten last month.  He is doing first grade work now.

I hope to restart our State quilt project in February.  It was a nice break for us!

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