Still pretty laid back this week, although we're progressively picking up the pace in preparation for a full return to academics the first week of September.
Elf:
He did a couple of pages of review work from Saxon Math 2 (pages we had previously skipped). One of them was an assessment page, on which I am proud to announce he got 100%.
He is now reading The Magic Finger, along with his daily dose of Calvin & Hobbes. He is writing a story (on the computer) about himself as a knight, and hand-writing in a Scholastic story-starter booklet about a lonely giant. He also completed another 3 pages in Explode the Code 4.
In addition, he has been collecting and trying to identify rocks of various sorts.
Fairy:
She has been working diligently on letter recognition. I printed out some basic letter pages from Learning Page, in hopes that writing the letters repeatedly will help her form that connection.
She has also done a couple of pages of math this week, both from a cheap kindergarten book I got somewhere and from Saxon Math 1. Her addition and subtraction skills are pretty sharp!
Both:
We finished reading the Gilgamesh Trilogy this week and are now shifting our focus to Ancient Egypt. We got Mummies, Pyramids, and Pharaohs, along with Pyramids! 50 Hands-On Activities from the library and will start with those on Monday, plus we will have more books coming in soon. I am hoping we can go see this at the end of summer.
Scientifically speaking, the kids, and M, are having great fun playing around with projects from The Science Explorer (a great book from the San Francisco Exploratorium). So far the projects have been quite easy to do, with no special items needed - I really recommend this book!
And there's our week!
Friday, August 7, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Ramblings...
I cannot believe how fast summer is going by! We'll start up our academic year in about 4 weeks - I think I am (mostly) prepared. I do need to purchase the average supplies - crayons, pencils, etc., since we always seem to be running out of, or at least low on, those items. I finally, finally, after much thought and, I'll admit, a lot of dithering, decided on science for our upcoming year... we are going to use Milestones in Science along with supplemental reading and worksheets from edhelper. This will work out very well for us as M can do the projects with them, and I can handle the reading/worksheets.
My school year starts a bit sooner than theirs. I have a class in Children's Literature (which sounds awesome) starting on the 17th, and then I start back up with my degree completion program on the 29th. So, 13 units again this semester, which is manageable. I decided to halt my job search for the moment, and stick with evenings at my current place of employment. This is for a few reasons... 1. health insurance - my entire family has medical, dental & vision at no cost to us; 2. I can have the days to work with the kids, take them to classes and on field trips, etc.; and 3. I would have to piece together other jobs to keep my income at its current level. It IS only for another year and a half, at which point I will have my BA and can do substitute teaching instead while I work on either getting my teaching credential or find an internship. How I will teach and homeschool at the same time remains to be determined, though I am sure that somewhere out there someone else has managed to do this! I still hope that I can find a position as an IST for other homeschooled families.
In other news, my front yard renovation is coming along nicely. I now have 3 big rocks for focal points, and a fountain, and all my plants are flourishing. I need to find a good supplier for a better range of herbs since I am turning it into one big herb garden, with some flowers. I plan to have culinary, medicinal, and aromatic herbal plantings out there, all of which are fairly easy to maintain. In the backyard, our melons are coming along nicely, and the squash and cucumbers are really taking off. The tomatoes are ripening and delicious.
We have been listening to the third installment in A Series of Unfortunate Events, and reading Little Grey Rabbit stories, which I remember fondly from childhood. Elf is writing a story about a knight version of himself on the computer. Both he and Fairy have been busy with art lately, as well as rock collecting, and Fairy's incessant preoccupation with creating mud. We checked out a couple of dance studios yesterday and decided to go with the smaller, newer one, at least for now - Elf wants to try tap dancing, and we found a mixed tap-jazz-ballet class for Fairy... she's debating that versus straight ballet training. I think the opportunity to try different approaches could be a lot of fun for her, though it does mean 3 types of shoes! We chose the studio we did because we liked the director, and the class times are good for my schedule.
So there's an update! Hope all is going well for anyone who reads this!
My school year starts a bit sooner than theirs. I have a class in Children's Literature (which sounds awesome) starting on the 17th, and then I start back up with my degree completion program on the 29th. So, 13 units again this semester, which is manageable. I decided to halt my job search for the moment, and stick with evenings at my current place of employment. This is for a few reasons... 1. health insurance - my entire family has medical, dental & vision at no cost to us; 2. I can have the days to work with the kids, take them to classes and on field trips, etc.; and 3. I would have to piece together other jobs to keep my income at its current level. It IS only for another year and a half, at which point I will have my BA and can do substitute teaching instead while I work on either getting my teaching credential or find an internship. How I will teach and homeschool at the same time remains to be determined, though I am sure that somewhere out there someone else has managed to do this! I still hope that I can find a position as an IST for other homeschooled families.
In other news, my front yard renovation is coming along nicely. I now have 3 big rocks for focal points, and a fountain, and all my plants are flourishing. I need to find a good supplier for a better range of herbs since I am turning it into one big herb garden, with some flowers. I plan to have culinary, medicinal, and aromatic herbal plantings out there, all of which are fairly easy to maintain. In the backyard, our melons are coming along nicely, and the squash and cucumbers are really taking off. The tomatoes are ripening and delicious.
We have been listening to the third installment in A Series of Unfortunate Events, and reading Little Grey Rabbit stories, which I remember fondly from childhood. Elf is writing a story about a knight version of himself on the computer. Both he and Fairy have been busy with art lately, as well as rock collecting, and Fairy's incessant preoccupation with creating mud. We checked out a couple of dance studios yesterday and decided to go with the smaller, newer one, at least for now - Elf wants to try tap dancing, and we found a mixed tap-jazz-ballet class for Fairy... she's debating that versus straight ballet training. I think the opportunity to try different approaches could be a lot of fun for her, though it does mean 3 types of shoes! We chose the studio we did because we liked the director, and the class times are good for my schedule.
So there's an update! Hope all is going well for anyone who reads this!
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