Week 14 in Review

Whew! It is amazing we accomplished as much as we did between dentist appointments, a food co-op divide, a field trip to watch a musical version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and me coming down with a nasty cold! This review is almost a week late in coming, but better late than never, right?

Anna: Sometimes when I read about other homeschooler's days, I'm amazed at how independent many of the kids are with their school work. Mom can actually take a break to go fold some laundry or throw some dinner in the crock pot. We're not there yet -- I'm in motion non-stop, switching between the three kids, usually telling one of them, "I'll be there in a minute!" But I'm starting to see the light at the tunnel. Anna is slowly becoming more independent. Yet sometimes I struggle with how to let her work independently without giving her busywork. For example, she uses Rod & Staff for grammar, which we really like. But what we like about it (besides being thorough and easy to understand) is that we can work on it together orally and be done in 15 minutes. We read the lesson together and then go through the oral drill section and the review section (also orally). About the only time I have her write anything down is when we do sentence diagramming or when she takes the unit test. I could easily send her off to read the lesson and complete the work on paper, freeing me up to do other things, but I just don't see the point. She has a solid grasp of the materials and this way she is freed up to work on other things. But it is something I privately debate -- how much should we do together.

Ryne: Giving addition with regrouping another week was just what Beta Boy needed. By the end of the week he was doing great with Lesson 7. One day I was checking his paper and could not find where he wrote the work to solve a certain word problem. The answer was correct, but there was nothing to show how he got the answer. I asked him about it and he said he did it in his head! Anna and looked at each other in disbelief. If you're new to this blog, you might want to read some of Ryne's history with math. Every week I continue to be amazed at the progress he has made. But as exciting as it was, I did tell him he needed to show me his work for word problems. Ryne also finished the book Pilgrim Boy just in time for Thanksgiving. While we ate our Thanksgiving turkey he told us all about the story. Ryne and I both liked the story.

Grace: She too benefited from staying in the same math lesson for an extra week. Solving for the unknown was a tough concept for her. It really helped to have her read the equation out loud. She is so eager to move forward in math, but I think we will be moving at a slower pace in the weeks ahead. Because she is the youngest and wants to learn the things the big kids are learning, sometimes I forget to teach her the things she is supposed to be learning as a Kindergartner. Thankfully, Ryne remembers every detail of Kindergarten so he is often reminding me of things to teach her. For example, something I said to Ryne one day made him start humming a song he learned to remember the days of the week. Grace was still having trouble remembering the days in order, so this song was perfect.

(Sing to the tune of the Munsters theme song)

Days of the week, [snap, snap]
Days of the week, [snap, snap]
Days of the week, days of the week, days of the week. [snap, snap]

There's Sunday and there's Monday,
There's Tuesday and there's Wednesday,
There's Thursday and there's Friday,
and then there's Saturday.

Days of the week, [snap, snap]
Days of the week, [snap, snap]
Days of the week, days of the week, days of the week. [snap, snap]

Of course that brings up another thing we need to work on -- snapping!

Other: I have mentioned before that we love Song School Latin, so I thought I'd show you what it looks like in a real homeschool. Grace and Ryne are practicing a chant, asking each other, "How are you?"

Happy Homeschooling!