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We’re wrapping up our third week of school and things are definitely getting better!
We’ve added a few more subjects to our day but we still haven’t added everything. (i.e. I still haven’t started Tapestry of Grace year 2!) We’ve been reading Peril and Peace from Year 1 (we didn’t finish last year) as sort of a review to get us back into history mode.
Summary of our week:
6th grade son:
Life of Fred Fractions – He really LOVES this. I am happy to hear that and will continue monitoring his progress to see how he’s doing. So far he’s completed through chapter 12. This is mostly review for him so I can’t get a great idea of how well this method actually teaches math yet.
Our Mother Tongue: A Guide to English Grammar – I like this resource and he tolerates it. He does like that the exercises are short and sweet. He’s been studying verbs this week.
Editor in Chief Level B1 – He LOVES this one even though it is challenging for him to find all the mistakes. He’s not real confident with challenges. Hopefully a full year of it and he’ll grow more confident.
Latin Alive! Book One – So far, so good with this new Latin curriculum. Everything has been review so far. (Very rapid review! I’m not sure I would recommend this to a student who had never had Latin before. I’ll have to see how long it maintains this pace.)
Introductory Logic – He has done 2 lessons so far with my husband. My husband wants to learn along with him so we’re going to try and see if this works. I’m in no hurry to get through, but my poor husband is so busy I have a feeling I may have to take over at some point.
4th grade daughter:
Singapore Math: Primary Math Textbook 3B US Edition – She is finishing up with this book from last year. This week she has practiced adding and subtracting weights and distances, and started on capacity.
Rod and Staff 5 – This is our tried and true English curriculum. She does really well using this. She’s very much a read the instructions and follow them sort of child. She has completed chapter 1 and taken the chapter 1 test.
Latina Christiana 1 – She has finished her review of the first 5 lessons that she completed last year and has started lesson 6. This was an item I received to review as a member of the Homeschool Crew last year. I really like this Latin curriculum for her so much that I switched her to it. It is very straightforward and predictable. That’s how she thrives. My son would not have liked it at all! He did very well with Latin For Children.
Building Thinking Skills Level 2 – This is another review item from last year. We did very little of it then, but I started her back with it this week. This is also very sequential and straightforward, and teaches thinking skills very effectively. (I guess that’s why they named it that! LOL)
2nd grade son:
I should mention that although I call him 2nd grade, I have always assigned grades based on age. He is not working on a 2nd grade level on anything except his handwriting. (and I’m not sure about that. He is using a 2nd grade book though.) He’s more of a 1st grader.
Math Mammoth Grade 1 – Also a review item from last year, I have found this to provide the explanation that I like but with more practice than Singapore. He’s almost finished 1A and has been working on writing addition and subtraction equations this week.
Primary Phonics Storybooks Set 2 – These are great phonics readers that I discovered last year at the library. I liked them so much I bought the first two sets. For review, I’ve had my son read through them one a day. We finished the second book in set 2 today. This set has workbooks that accompany them, but I was already using and happy with Explode the Code.
Explode the Code, Book 2 – We picked up on this where he left off last year so he’s about halfway finished. He’s been working on beginning blends like st, sm, sw, and tw. I really love these books for the extra decoding practice.
Handwriting without Tears – Printing Power – When people ask my son what his favorite subject is in school, he says writing! That is pretty amazing since this is a kid who didn’t write anything until a couple of years ago. I have used HWT for all my kids and it has worked well.
First Language Lessons – I was excited to begin this with my son this week. I wrote a complete review at The Curriculum Choice.
Together we have been studying reptiles using Land Animals of the Sixth Day: Exploring Creation with Zoology 3. Along with that, I’ve had my younger students making a reptile lapbook by Journey Through Learning. That is one of our current review products.
We also started Write with the Best by EDUDPS this week with my two older children. I will be reviewing it soon as well.
After typing this all up I am feeling really great about what we accomplished this week! Over the weekend I am going to try to figure out how to implement the Sue Patrick Workbox system in our homeschool. I’ll give an update on that next week hopefully!
By Kristen H.
I'm glad this week's going better. It sounds like everything is going really well, academically, too.
Have a great weekend.
Kristen –
I have a question about how you incorporate Explode the Code and HWT together. My son is almost 5, so I have started with some pre-school-y type stuff, mostly to get us in the groove of schoolwork. I have the ETC books A, B, and C, which I really like. However, I was a little nervous about how to teach reading, so I also got the Beginning Phonics Teachers Manual from Winter Promise. They use the ETC books as well as some other phonics resources. However, they talk about how when kids are learning to write, the paper they usually use has the lines so far apart that they have to use their whole hand to make letters, and it's not really how writing really works, and then when they graduate to normal paper, they essentially have to re-learn how to write. Does that make sense? Anyway, they provide smaller ruled writing paper with the idea that kids will learn how to form letters correctly from the beginning. I'm not sure if I am explaining this right….Anyway, that made perfect sense to me as far as using more normal sized paper, so I have been basically skipping the writing portions of in the ETC workbooks, and we just practice our letters on the more normally ruled paper supplied by Winter Promise.
I guess my question is….Do you think that is weird? Does your son write in his ETC books on the big lines, or just do handwriting in the HWT books? I have looked at the HWT books, and if I remember right, they have a different way of ruling the paper than the ETC books. Have you noticed any difficulty with your son going back and forth between differently ruled papers?
I know, this might seem stupid and overly compulsive, but both my husband and I have horrible handwriting, so I am trying not to screw it up with my kids. Plus, he is soooo not into writing that I don't have him do much – he doesn't really have the fine motor skills yet, and I don't want him to hate it.
Anyway, I know I have written a book about something as small as handwriting – sorry! But I'd appreciate any input you have.
Thanks! Deb
We started the other way. We got going with Tapestry of Grace Y1, now we're trying to fit everything else in. Looks like y'all had a better week, isn't it just hard sometimes to find your rhythm. I struggle with organization and I've found if I struggle, everyone suffers. Hope your days continue to flow and y'all have a great weekend!
Christi
Sounds like your school year is off to a great start. You've got quite a good variety of "stuff" there.
Heidi
Wow, you're oldest is doing some really great critical-thinking building skills. I'm glad you've found so much that works for each individual child.
I've used HWT for all my kids. It does use different paper, and it also starts our writing big. My kids have not had any problem adjusting to smaller paper nor has there been any confusion using the traditionally lined big paper instead of the HWT paper. I've never heard about there being a problem with relearning to write. My daughter has very nice handwriting and she's left-handed so I've been happy. My oldest son has nice printing if he wants to, but not so nice most of the time. He hates to write in cursive so I've not really forced it on his daily work.
Ooo you have lots of great curriculum! A few things I'd like to try one day.
We're huge fans of FLL here. We're on level 3 now and we still love it.