Slow and Steady….
The 2nd half of our school year started this week. I decided to stagger when we started things so that we didn’t get completely overwhelmed on day 1. I’ve added a lot to our day over the summer and I know the kids and I would have become very frustrated had we dived head first into all of it.
So far we’ve done very well. We’re just doing math and grammar/phonics and sometimes bible and handwriting this week. Joseph is doing fantastic. We’ve gotten through a month’s worth of math lessons in the last 3 days. Seriously. We started a new math program called Math U See with him and I love it. He’s way past the beginning lessons so instead of spending a week on each lesson like you’re supposed to, we’re spending a day, and one day we accidentally did 2 lessons due to a page turning error. He’s also still working on his “Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading” book. We just started reading words with lk, lb and lp in them. Big stuff! We’re continuing with Hnadwriting Without Tears as well.
Michael isn’t having such a good week. We started on the 2nd workbook for our 2nd grade math curriculum. He has decided that it’s much too hard, that he doesn’t know how to add and that subtraction is rocket science. These are all things he’s actually quite good at if he would just stop whining about doing his math, start using his brain a bit and buckle down and work. Luckily today I held getting to go to an extra swimming lesson over his head and he finished nice and early. We’re going to switch him to Math U See as well. He had previously said that he didn’t want to switch but I’m not willing to deal with his attitude every day so we’re switching as soon as I either find a good deal on it or manage to get my credit card out of the van to order from the official site. He’s working through the parts of First Languaged Lessons that he doesn’t know in the first grade level so that hopefully we can move to the 2nd grade level by Christmas….when he’s in 3rd grade. I’m totally not worried about that though. He’s continuing to do Handwriting Without Tears as well. I’m not sure that he’ll ever have legible handwriting because he doesn’t like to work on anything. If it’s not easy for him, he’s not doing it without a fit. Not that I’m already frustrated by that on day 3 of the semester….
Our great find for the year so far is the Bible Study Guide for All Ages. It rocks and even the kids love it and hover around the binder for it just hoping that it’s time to work on it. It has coloring pages, a time to read the bible story from an actual bible, memory work, review, a timeline, map work and more. It does most of that every day and yet it doesn’t seem like it’s taking very long. Right now we’re reading the story of Joseph. It is broken into short parts, like today was Genesis 39. We talked about how it hurts other people when we tell lies and did some work based on that chapter. It’s good good stuff.
Ok, Z is awake tiME TO “”"fix supper! He’s helping 
Uncategorized | nozwmn | 
August 5, 2009 10:20 pm
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By Becca, August 8, 2009 @ 2:58 pm
I just heard about Math U See yesterday, glad to hear it works for you! I’m interested in seeing how it works.
By Joanna, August 12, 2009 @ 3:10 pm
I think *I* want the Bible program!