Thanksgiving

I had originally planned to take the week off from school. It’s a short week with lots to do to prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday. But we were getting on a roll! Maybe it’s a good time to catch up from all of those 4 day weeks… So we had school on Monday, Tuesday, & Wednesday. I think I made the right call.

We finished our gratitude notebooks this week. They were a big hit! I’m definitely going to look into what we’ll do next. The biggest challenge for the boys was thinking of things to write/draw about each day. Continuing something like this may help spark some extra creativity. I’m especially interested in giving Jimmy some writing/spelling practice without it being a stuffy copywork exercise. Nothing wrong with copywork, but it is, well, work. Writing your own stuff is a little more fun.

This week was a bit of a review week. We continued on with new math lessons, History chapters, Psalms, and DISTAR reading assignments, but we didn’t add any new memory work weeks or catechism questions. I also kept Jimmy working on the same spelling list (number words one to twelve).

I might just do this kind of review week for the Christmas & New Year’s holidays, too. Everyone is enjoying school these days. Let’s keep up the momentum!

Gratitude

I'm getting school into a routine finally. I changed my lesson plan write-up so it is easier to see what we all do together versus what each kid does separately. I hope that helps!

The highlight of the week has been the new gratitude notebooks. So far, we've been thankful for an imaginary friend, apples, Caleb's painted pumpkin, flowers, watching TV, and Mommy. Glad they found a place for me in there somewhere, lol!

Jimmy's math fast facts (aka speed drills in addition & subtraction) are getting tons better. He has been finishing his 1 minute drills with time left over to check his work, although he still gets intensely frustrated when he doesn't finish. My little nerd really loves story problems (aka word problems). He enjoys listening to the stories from our History book, but I never know how much he is retaining until he pulls some random fact out of the air during another discussion. "Oh, a nickname, just like Egypt renamed Nubia to Kush!" Jimmy still struggles a bit with reading; he gets too impatient to slowly sound out unfamiliar words. Just like Mommy, he wants to quickly finish the story to find out what happens next!

Caleb is doing very well in all of his subjects. Poor kid is having trouble sitting still during group listening (History & Psalms), but he's getting better. He loves memorizing the children's catechism (he's up to question #8), learning phonics sounds through our flash cards, and playing with all of the cool "toys" during math. He's having a blast with cut & paste work while I focus on Jimmy. It makes Jimmy jealous sometimes!

We skipped school on Wednesday to run some errands, which, ironically enough, included a trip to the teacher supply store. (I bought a demonstration thermometer, play money for math lessons, packs of red & green construction paper for Christmas art projects, and a new lesson plan book.)

All five days!

WE DID IT!!!!!! We did 5 days of school this week!!! It's about stinking time, right? I mean, it's only November. lol

We had huge improvements in Jimmy's spelling, Caleb's catechism memorization, and (as I've blogged before) Caleb's ability to stay quiet during Jimmy's lessons.

Jimmy's spelling - leaps & bounds better! Something clicked this week. I have also noticed this has improved his reading. He is getting better at sounding out words, both for spelling words he hears aloud & for reading an unfamiliar written word. I love witnessing these breakthroughs! He is still working on accepting making mistakes in Math & not immediately remembering something from his memory cards. He is a perfectionist. I have been reminding him that he is not perfect, I am not perfect, only Jesus is perfect. It helps, but he still wants to be perfect, too.

Caleb is taking school a little more seriously. His catechism recitation is less likely to be in a baby voice. He still enjoys math quite a lot, even though we haven't used the super-cool balance yet. (He's very anxious to try it out!) He is still working on sitting still History & Psalm readings without interrupting. He enjoys his phonics flash cards but misses the phonics board game. I am actually impressed by the phonics sounds he knows - we only reviewed letter names last year!

I found something cool online that we added to our classwork. It's a gratitude notebook (find it for free *here*). There are several notebooking pages to fill in. I am using the picture style (big space for drawing, no lines for writing) for Caleb & a half-and-half page (top half lines for writing, bottom half space to draw) for Jimmy. Every school day until Thanksgiving, we will discuss something we are thankful for & fill in their mini-notebooks. Jimmy is enjoying writing in this. He had forgotten how to leave spaces between words (spelling work has only 1 word per line). I would like to find another type of notebook work to use after this journal is done.

Happy anniversary!

Nine years ago today, I married my best friend! I love you, babe! We have been through a lot together - and we did it together. I couldn't have asked for a better partner in life. God sure knew what he was doing! And I still think I got the better end of the deal. =)

So far, so good!

I got a few comments on Facebook giving advice on how to keep my youngest occupied while teaching the older one. Thank you to all who offered up their experiences!!

I dug out this really amazing activity book. It's practice for cutting & pasting. Each worksheet has a main item & something to cut out & paste on the main item. For example, a missing section of an apple or the food from a breakfast plate. I had given Caleb a page or two before, but he always seemed to finish the worksheet before I even got into the main part of Jimmy's math lesson! Today, I tried to max him out. I gave Caleb 4 of these worksheets. A pig's face, a gorilla's face, a tea party place setting, and a breakfast plate. He went to town! He finished all 4 worksheets. We had a quiet school time with no Caleb-driven interruptions once he got himself settled in.

After he was done & started cleaning up, he confessed something. "Mommy, that was a lot of work. Don't give me so much next time." lol I explained that he didn't have to finish them all next time. "It's ok to leave some for later." Too cute!

Now to figure out if I have something he can do once we use up all of those worksheets...

Need advice!

Caleb is having trouble sitting through school. He doesn't want to go play by himself but he won't be quiet by the school area, either. I have started giving him cut & paste assignments. That helps a little, but I seem to always underestimate how much he can do in a set amount of time. I have to give him more! It will be so nice to have a dedicated school room where Caleb can get his own projects out if he runs out of something. He & I are also working on patience, especially if Jimmy is in the middle of something timed, like a math drill. Anyone out there have any suggestions to help keep him occupied while I'm working with Jimmy?

We seem to be averaging 4 days of school a week! I'll have to improve that so we can get through Jimmy's math on time. Staying healthy would be a great big help...

Jimmy & Caleb are getting better about school prep work. Jimmy fills in his calendar to today's date & completes his math seatwork (aka pre-work). Caleb just colors in his calendar according to the month's color pattern (I fill in the date). November's color pattern is brown-red-red. Anyhoo, they both get assignment sheets each weekday morning. When they wake up, the check their assignments to make sure they get all of their chores & school assignments completed before formal school lessons begin. If they finish early, they're allowed downstairs for some TV time. This has been successful. We're still working on a few missed items here & there, but the system seems good for us.

Caleb is doing very well with phonics. Last year, you may remember, we used a phonics game (similar to a board game) to learn letter names. This year, I am using flash cards with him. He must tell me the letter name AND the sound it makes. We're starting with the consonants (leaving C and G for last, since they each have two different sounds). Then we'll do vowels, then blends. We started with 3 cards each session, but we worked up to 5 cards. I think we'll stay with 5 for a while.

Jimmy's reading it getting more confident. He was having trouble with "guessing" words based on the first letter (like thinking "circle" when the word was "color"). I taught him a trick that I think has worked well - if he struggles with a word like that, he mentally spells the word WITHOUT the first letter. Then he sounds it out, and finally adds the first letter. Simple, but it seems to work. Once he finishes reading the stories from the DISTAR book (using the lessons didn't work with Jimmy very well), I am hoping to move into books. My plan is to let him read by himself, and then quiz him with reading comprehension questions. My dad did that with me, and it was so helpful to me that I decided to try it with Jimmy. I will probably be asking you all for resources when we get there.

Jimmy's favorite part of school continues to be History. He loves hearing the stories, even if I butcher the names of people & places. I will definitely be looking for more stuff to go along with this textbook in the future.

Math is going really well. Caleb loves his math lessons. When Jimmy went through this text, he was the same age but he was b-o-r-e-d. Caleb is content to just have fun with it. Jimmy had a breakthrough in his math lessons. He has finally realized that it is important to learn how to count by 2s without silently saying the numbers in between. He is answering the +2 and -2 questions a lot faster now. He still struggles with getting less than 100% on his speed drills, but I am glad that he is learning this lesson. He needs to know that failure happens. We all fail. What is important is what we do after we fail.

US Presidents & States memorization is coming along. We're up to Martin Van Buren (president #8) and the New England & Middle colonies (from the 13 original colonies). There is a lot of stuff to memorize each week. Next week, when we have 3 sets, I'm going to have to decide how much to review from previous weeks. The plan is to go through the whole set (12 cards for each subject) twice during this school year. I just have to remind myself that we'll get back to these cards again!

I'm sure I forgot some things we did this week. I know we had some great conversations about the Psalms we read, but I don't remember what we discussed. It was deep stuff... really... Ok, now I feel terrible! What a bad mom!

Election Day

Not wanting to get the "is it time yet?" question every 30 minutes for days, I waited until last night to explain Election Day to the boys.

Me: "Boys, tomorrow is Election Day. Do you know what that means?"
Them: "No."
Me: "Do you know what 'election' means?"
Them: "No."
Me: "How about 'elect'?"
Them: "No."
Me: Sigh. "Alright, this is what will happen tomorrow..."

Fast forward to this morning.

Me: "Kids, get in the car! Time for me to vote!"
Caleb: "Oh, I forgot today is tomorrow!!"
Me: Huh? Reflects back on yesterday's conversation about "tomorrow." Ah.

Next up - lesson plans on time vocabulary! lol