Yesterday & Today

Totally forgot to update this yesterday. Yeesh!

So.... yesterday's lessons went well. We did math, and Jimmy had a minor struggle with his calendar work. It was the 13th, and he has problems with numbers between 12 and 20, and then again at the 10's from then on. I'm going to give him lots of opportunities to count this month by having him count all the days. He also has a little trouble remembering Thursday, so we'll work on memorizing the days of the week a little more. Our math activity was a big milestone - his first test! Which he aced. He was actually bored & asked when we were going to do something. After I finished the questions, he kept playing with the linking cubes to do something more challenging. The test involved me laying out 8 unlinked blue linking cubes. Jimmy had to count them, then make a row of yellow linking cubes to match (I gave him a pile of 10 yellow cubes). After the test, he decided to make a blue-yellow pattern out of the linking cubes.

Normally, on Thursdays, we would make lap books for the FIAR book and for the LotW. Since we didn't have a FIAR book this week & I wanted to spend time doing music, I decided to postpone the letter G book another day. So Jimmy recited his Bible verse (nailed it), practiced writing G and g, & read several words that start with the letter G. At one point, he got frustrated trying to write, but I lavished praise on what he had already done (which was deserved - his letters were very good), he regained his confidence & wrote even better letters. He had a little trouble reading the words, but they were rather difficult words. I tried to include a lot of trends, such as the "gr" sound, to make it a little easier. That seemed to work pretty well. I know he has the ability to learn to read; he just needs to see progress to keep from being overwhelmed.

For music, I brought out a new toy - rhythm sticks! We learned some different ways that the sticks could be used, but then we stuck to tapping the thinner smooth stick against the thicker ridged stick. We tapped along to She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain and Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. Jimmy was able to keep the rhythm better when he focused on tapping instead of singing. Caleb seemed to prefer the method of rubbing the smooth stick over the ridged stick, so I didn't get much of a chance to see what rhythm he felt. =)

For today's lessons, we read a pseudo-FIAR book. It's The Little Puppy by Judy & Phoebe Dunn. Last year, we read the Before FIAR book The Little Rabbit by the same author/photographer. I was hoping to re-read that along with The Little Puppy, but the library didn't get it in on time. The boys both enjoyed The Little Puppy, though, so no harm. It was nice to have a break from the FIAR books, but it was sweet to get back into reading with two eager little learners sitting on my lap.

Math today went very well. Jimmy did much better at his calendar work (14 is a much easier number than 13 and Friday is easier to remember than Thursday). He very proudly announced the correct date on the first try. The math activity bored him again. I can't wait to get a chance to review what we're doing this year to try to keep him challenged. The approach that this curriculum takes seems to fit very nicely with Jimmy's learning style, so he might just need to move up to a higher level. I'm going to see if I can borrow a 1st grade level book (he's currently doing grade K) to see if it would better suit him or if it would be too much right now. My mother-in-law has also offered to check what homeschooling families in her church are using. I'm a little hesitant about being overwhelmed by options, but it's certainly better than being underwhelmed! It will be good to at least know what else is out there in case the 1st grade level proves to be too much for Jimmy right now.

After math (yes, I'm back on track now), we finished up with our letter work. Jimmy recited his F & G Bible verses - very nicely, I might add, although he needed some coaxing to sit still enough to be understandable. Then he colored in & cut out some pictures of things that start with G. I glued them into his lapbook then showed him how to write their names. His handwriting is getting pretty good. We have to work on letter height, though... his "l" was the same height as his "i". Our work on his little g has made a big improvement on his little a, too.

So, another week over. The boys are spending the weekend with their Oma (my mother-in-law) so that Randy & I can tackle some things around the house. See you next week! We'll be reading Cranberry Thanksgiving.