Weekly Monthly Some Sort of Report

Has anyone else besides me completely lost track? Since we school mostly year-round, I have no idea what week we're on or when the last time I reported anything was. But this one is for Ms. Candy, our supervising teacher, who requested an update to what's going on here at Mill Creek Academy. It's a report of some sort! ;)

Einstein:
Einstein finished Ralph S. Mouse and is reading Mouse and the Motorcycle. Yep, we know it's out of order, but that's the order he started, so be it. He is also reading the first in the Hardy Boys series: The Tower Treasure. He is liking the mystery and the fact this series was read by his father, grandfathers and great-grandfathers since it was published in 1927. He also read an adapted version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. He loved the idea of a creepy "headless horseman". Such a boybarian!

He finished Explode the Code 5 and started book 4. Out of order seems to be the theme around here. It was advised on WTM boards to do the books out of order. Like much advice from that board, I wish I wouldn't have listened. My other boys will be doing the books in the order they were intended. It serves the child better to do 4 before 5. Einstein - my poor, poor guinea pig and my constant reminder to stop taking unsolicited advice. ;)

After taking the month of February "off" of math because of the wall we hit in long division, and the resulting effect on his self esteem, we are back to math. I wish I would have paced him even more in those early books when he was flying through the material. Now he is only 7 and struggling with long division. We are reviewing our factors, filling in the 12x12 times table grid LOTS for practice, and reviewing simple division (which he calls "easy division" because it's "multiplication backwards"). We also invested in the full version of Timez Attack, which is both less scary and more fun than the free trial version. They consider this a huge treat to have computer time that is fun and doesn't feel like school.

Picasso
He has been reading various books to Trouble. I can't think of all of them, but titles include: Runaway Bunny, Goodnight Moon, Are You My Mother?, and Cat in the Hat, among others. He read the Mickey Mouse version of Prince and the Pauper. Twaddle, perhaps, but independant so it counts for me. He is also reading and rereading the Star Wars readers, memorizing all the characters. He also has a Star Wars sticker book that he's been reading to Trouble, helping him learn all the names of character, planets and ships. Not exactly school-ish, but since he's still a young reader, any reading is beneficial.

He also is quite taken with Timez Attack as a fun supplement to Singapore 1b. He did 20 multiplication problems in about 4-5 minutes, proving he is ready to play Timez Attack and earning the full-fledged version. He can skip count all but 6,7,8 and 12 right now. We're drilling the others solidly before going on to those. He can also fill in a 12x12 multiplication grid.

He continues to work daily in Exlode the Code 1.5. It's all review for him, so I'm not sure he's really learning too much, but he is gaining spelling confidence and cementing those phonics rules. Can't complain there.

Both:
History is going swimmingly. We seem to love tangents. We started knights and castles and there is just way too much fun stuff out there. We played with the DK sticker book, we've read about Castles and Catherdrals from Macauley's books, among others. We are reading Mary Pope Osborne's Research Guide for Knights and Castles. I was hoping we'd be ready for Robin Hood, Prince and the Pauper or King Arthur at this point, but we're too enthralled with The Magician's Nephew just now. We read this versionof St. George and the Dragon, which has amazing illustrations!

Like previously stated, we are reading aloud The Magician's Nephew, which the older boys seem to like a lot. Picasso keeps waiting for Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy to appear in the story. Hopefully, the exciting story will keep him from being too disappointed. Einstein is old enough to grasp that Digory is Professor Kirke as a little boy, and "that's why he believed Lucy!". I love those moments where a connection is forged. It's so fun to get to be part of that as a teaching mom!

I am currently organizing all of Trouble's upcoming preK materials and plans. This is brand spankin' new territory for me. Everything I've known about teaching preschoolers has been abandoned and I'm learning all over again. He will be taking a very tacile, exploratory, sensory-rich, life-skills based, Montessori approach with advice from occupational therapy. Stay tuned for the plans!

Long Overdue Weekly Report

It's been awhile since I've done any sort of weekly report. I love hearing what other bloggers are up to, but one of my New Year's resolutions was to eliminate some of the things that may be fun but require a disproportionate amount of time for their value. All those fun videos fell into that category. I actually really enjoy seeing my past videos, so I do think I'll still do them occasionally. But here's where we are.

Einstein has finally had the long-awaited light bulb moment with reading. He has read Ralph S. Mouse, as well as three Magic Tree House books in the last two weeks. More importantly... he read the Treehouse books in one sitting! I was beaming. He's never been one for fiction up until this point. He would pour over an encyclopedia, or flip pages in his dictionary, but until the very recent past, had never picked up a story to read.

Even though he is nearly done with second grade academically, I wanted to spend some time reviewing and reinforcing phonics before we jump into 3rd grade stuff this summer. He started with Explode the Code (ETC) 5 and will finish the whole book in about 2 weeks. I plan to move him through the rest of the series at whatever pace is comfortable for him. Thankfully, it's all review from OPGTR. As a bonus, it's helping his writing confidence. I feel good about this getting him ready for Writing Tales and Lively Latin.

He is taking a math break. Not to say we're ignoring math, but the wall he encountered doing double- and triple - digit division in Singapore 3a was just a little too much for him right now. We are still doing math games, skip counting, doing kitchen and practical math, but I made the decision to set aside Singapore 3a until March. Stuff like this used to really freak me out... I am getting much more comfortable with the gentle ebb and flow, grow and plateau of learning. I am not at all worried about Einstein's math progression. Since he is ahead of grade here, it gives us some wiggle room.

We are wayyyy behind in history. This happens to us all the time. It took us 1 1/2 years to get through SOTW 1 and it looks like SOTW 2 is going that way, too. In the last two weeks we've talked about Spanish Muslim Moors, Charles Martel, Charlemagne, medieval France which launched us into learning a little about Paris. I think it's darling that my boys call the Eiffel Tower, Le Tour Eiffel, with a French pronunciation. It's almost as cute as the way they say "refrigerator". History is interesting, and I'd like to roughly stick with a 4-year rotation, but my boys have already done more history that I'd ever done... and i rather make it enjoyable and have fun with the tangents and interest-led side explorations than stick to some arbitrary schedule.

Prince Caspian has been so much fun. Einstein is always so disappointed when it's time to stop. Picasso has managed to sit through the story, too, because he is hoping to see the movie in May. When I told him it will be here on the 18th, he corrected me with a quick, "No Mom... Price Caspian arrives in theaters on May 16th!" Trouble has missed most of the fun, and will likely be very disappointed when he isn't invited to see the movie. I think it's going to be a little too intense for him.

Picasso is working his way thorugh ETC 1.5. I find myself questioning why I ever abandoned this series to begin with. He is really getting a lot out of it. He is still working his way through OPGTR, so this serves as reinforcement. So far so good. He started a couple weeks ago, and like Einstein will work through the first book in about 2 weeks.

He started multiplication in Singapore 1b in January. He claims he doesn't know how to multiply, but can now skip count: 2,3,4,5,9,10,11. We still have to learn 6,7,8 and 12. He still needs to skip count his way through his multiplication problems, but at six, I'm comfortable with that. We are looking into upgrading Timez Attack for reinforcement, speed and a fun way to earn productive screen time.

We have also just finished the Old Testament of Tomie dePaola's Bible Stories. We'll begin the New Testament on Monday.

Without getting too wordy and long, I can say I'm feeling more comfortable in my skin balancing the role of mom, teacher, employee, wife, etc. I think I've learned to loosen the reigns on school a little bit, and as a result I have much happier students and a much more laid back mom.

Happy Homeschooling

ps - I did 20 minutes on the elliptical yesterday. Yay me!

Weekly Report 21

Handy Man Productions has done it again! School is getting harder to do with all the holiday stuff looming. One more week until break!

ps - Check back soon, I feel a contest coming on.

Handy Man's Weekly Report

omgoodness... Handy Man has done it again!

Here's our weekly report - done with love, and many, many (!) hours by the loving and adoring Boybarian Daddy. Thanks for stopping by. :)

Weekly Report 14-16

I've been totally slacking in the Weekly Report department. But I'm up to date now, and Monday is a new week.

Stay tuned... Tuesday there will be a fabulous CONTEST!

Weekly Report 13

Can you hear the chorus of angels over Iowa?

Mark the calendars! Sing the Hallelujah chorus! Einstein has written his very first ever original sentences. He has never written an independent sentence before. So we've upped the focus around here on copywork. And much to my surprise, when I handed him the blank lines with a picture of Gulliver on top, he didn't melt into an Einstein puddle. He did balk a little, but only because he didn't know what to write. This is a whole different issue than knowing how to write it. Once he decided what to write, the actual writing went pretty smoothly. We have rounded a corner. I don't want to freak him out, but I am so stinkin' excited about this.



It's in our video, but I thought it deserved it's own picture, too. Waaaaawhhhoooo!

So, here it is! Our weekly report for week 13:

Weekly Report: Week 12

See below for the hilarious reveal of Handy Man's Box.


Here is our weekly report.

No Sorta' Weekly Report Here

I think I might... maybe, sorta, kinda... be a Weekly Report Dropout. Not exactly a total dropout, but at least until my reinforcement arrives and I'm not in a peak season at work, I'm going to have to do Every-other-Week-ly Reports. Now, I'm picturing a 50's diner-café movie scene with me in a poodle skirt and Frankie Avalon teasing me about blogging schoolwork. "W.R. Dropout. Go back to homeschool..."

We are about 3 months into our school year and I'm ready for some tweaking. Who knows, maybe I'm just feeling like a big ol' quitter this week (what with hiring help, being a W.R.D., and now this...) but since adding in my new language arts plan, I need to adjust a little. Copywork has been a big hit. They are picking up a great deal of language nuances - word spacing, capital letters, those pesky marks at the ends of sentences, etc. I think copywork is oft an under-rated thing. Until implementing it, I hard a hard time recognizing the value in copying what someone else wrote. Now, seeing how my boys' writing confidence has blossomed, how their speed has greatly increased in only a month's time and just their willingness to take risks and write words on drawings - well, I see tremendous value.

Because of this, I've decided to focus more on copywork. It's a risky move, but I feel it's so worthwhile a tool that I'm banking on it. I'm going to use copywork as spelling, vocabulary and writing for 1st and 2nd grade. I'm still going to continue OPGTR with Picasso. But FLL is out. SWR is out. Memorizing the parts of speech isn't sticking because it has no practical application to a 6 and 7 year old. They are still so focused on the mechanics of writing that parts of speech, any type of style, mean nothing to them. They will have plenty of time to learn what a direct object is when they can write easily and fluidly.

But, in exchange for this, I'm upping the copywork. I want Einstein doing one sentence a day from Happy Scribe, 1 sentence a week in history, and 1 paragraph a week from our read-alouds or, alternatively, from a lit-based copywork book we have that features sentences from books like Narnia, Charlotte's Web and Mr. Popper's Penguins. Picasso will stick with copying 1 sentence 2-3 times a week until OPG is done, and I'll move him to 1 sentence daily as well. He currently skips the history copywork, but when OPG is done, I'll add that in too.

I've also blogged a little about Einstein's math. I wasn't sure if he'd understand Sudoku, since it's technically logic not math, but he seems to like it. He did 2 Sudoku puzzles this week, played some multiplication games, did another chapter of Primary Grade Challenge Math. We're also liking Singapore's Intensive Practice. It may seem redundant to have him do 2b IP, but IP requires a different kind of thinking and I see a lot of value in the type of problem solving it requires. So with a trifecta of IP, PGCM, and Sudoku - I think we've found a winning combo for a few weeks' intermission until we start 3a.

Picasso is still working happily through Singapore 1a. His pace is slower than what I'm used to with Einstein, but I think for a brand spankin' new 6 year old his understanding of the concepts is much more typical for his age. I'd like to add Singapore's Challenging Word Problems after Christmas. Unless Singapore starts to move too fast for him, I don't think I'll add Horizons in for him until 2nd grade. While I think having 2 different math programs does a broader student make, he seems to have the right amount of work right now with just PM 1.

We're enjoying Gulliver's Travels as our read aloud. The language is a lot more complicated than I remember it. Stopping for summaries and narrations mid-chapter seems to be helping them grasp Swift's, well... Swift-iness. The boys seem to like how it feels like a conversation. Since it's a first-person narrative, it reads almost like a diary. It's the first read aloud we've done in first person. Gulliver's Travels is also an amazing demonstration on the evolution of language. English has changed a lot in the nearly 300 years since the book was first published. Here's an example from the first chapter:

"These people are most excellent mathematicians, and arrived to a great perfection in mechanics by the countenance and encouragement of the Emperor, who is a renowned patron of learning. This prince hath several machines fixed on wheels for the carriage of trees and other great weights. He often buildeth his largest men-of-war, whereof some are nine foot long, in the woods where the timber grows, and has them carried on these engines three or four hundred yards to the sea."

That requires a great deal of deciphering for 6 and 7 year olds. But their drawings demonstrate they are getting some of it. If nothing else, they are hearing very rich vocabulary and a bits and pieces of a story that sparks wild imagination.

(Incidentally, spell check struggled with some of Swift's words, too!)

Well, this sorta turned into a weekly report after all, didn't it? No pics though. Ah well, I spent all my "free time" this week working on a cookbook for work. Don't ask. ;)

Weekly Report 10-11

Finally! My weekly report. As a reward for your patience I uploaded *lots* of pictures.

These last two weeks have been definite lessons in schooling during distraction. We had every possible interruption, noise, distraction, anti-learning atmosphere imaginable - yet we still managed to get a fair amount done. Admittedly, these past 10 days of school won't be ones for the record books.

We had about 6 men here everyday. Each man has some sort of noisy tool - saws, mallets, nail guns. Our walls were shaking and pounding as we tried to work. And my boys were so impressed that the guys spoke a whole 'nother language. "What are they saying, Mom?" "Can I go count to ten for them? Please Mom?!" My kids would have sat on the stairs just listening to the exotic sounds of foreign tongue all week if I'd have let them. Monday we had a 3-hour long doctor appointment. Then on Friday, we had our pest control guy here (armed with a "spider web catcher"; a personal hero to any boy who loves critters) and both UPS and Fed-Ex guys came within 10 minutes of each other to bring our birthday boy his gifts. Prior to their arrival, I had to spend way too many minutes on the phone with the lady at the UPS office giving directions to our somewhat secluded lot.

So what was all the noise about? Well, we are no longer completely The Scourge of the Neighborhood! The Hardy Plank is up. They should be done next week with trim and cedar shakes in front. Gone forever is Tyvek wrapping! The house is really looking like a house now instead of a construction project. Granted, we still have no landscaping, so the dirty looks from Mr. PerfectlyManicuredLawn across the street still continue. Ah well, we can't win 'em all. We are really nice people - I swear. There's got to be a life lesson in being despised for shrubbery, right? We are also getting the basement framed. Up until this week it was nothing but cement and insulation. The boys used it to ride their bikes. Now we have the makings of walls. Having this project done would nearly double our living and storage space. Saaa-wweeeeeeet - more place for books!

So here it is, the "Opus of the Distracted" - Picasso first, then Einstein:

Thanks for visiting. Come again soon!

Weekly Report - Week 9

This was the first week implementing a new Language Arts plan. I am just beaming with excitement over both the quantity and quality of the writing Einstein and Picasso did this week. Compared to their usual reluctance to write anything, this week was a huge success, so many of the pictures focus on their copywork and writing. The pictures start with Picasso's work then go into Einstein's. We also included a little tree frog that we spied. He was taking refuge from some nasty Midwest weather by handing out on our door. He's still there, 3 days later.