First lost tooth!

Big news this week - Jimmy lost his first tooth! He was a little scared about it hurting, but he was a champ as I had to yank it out. I would have let it fall out on its own, but it was hanging by a thread & it was bedtime; I didn't want him to swallow the tooth in his sleep. The tooth came loose during a wrestling match with his younger brother, who was quite upset about the whole thing. Earlier in the day, we had been to the dentist, who told me that he'd have to pull the tooth if it hadn't fallen out on its own in a month. lol

Life interrupted this week. Between travel on President's Day & a long day full of errands, we only had 3 days of school this week. I think it's official now that we'll have school (at least math) into July.

We spend the holiday weekend at my parents' house. It was nice to get out of the house for a bit. During dinner one night, I mentioned Jimmy's math speed drill issue to my dad. When I was in grade school, my dad designed a computer program to make me 10 minute speed drill worksheets to help me get over my mental block. So I thought he might have some ideas to help me with Jimmy. I explained how this curriculum works & he immediately came up with the most simple yet brilliant idea - instead of giving him a minute on the timer, time how long he takes to complete the drill. The goal is to get the time less than a minute. He won't get frustrated at not finishing! How great is that? I put that into practice this week. We have only had 2 speed drills (1 of our 3 days was a test day, so no speed drill). First drill's time was 1:19. Second was over 2 minutes. Still, he was a LOT less frustrated & much more positive that he can do this thing.

So thank you, Daddy!

Homeschooling with Youtube

Our Biology experiment this week called for a microscope & slides of pond water. The point was to observe paramecium & other such critters. Um, no. Not in 1st grade. Not when I'm trying to keep the house clean to sell. Not when Youtube exists.

We found lots of great vids of paramecium, amoebas, and their kin online. The boys loved watching the tiny cilia beat and the amoeba feet surrounding & eating another cell. It was a great solution for impatient kids as well - no waiting for the microscope to get focused & no waiting for something cool to happen. Those things, of course, are important for growing scientists to learn. I just don't want to deal with teaching that just yet.

Caleb's phonics program is going really, really well. I think I have him placed in math & phonics just where he belongs. He is an easy going kid as long as you keep him occupied. ;)

Jimmy could go faster in math, but I'm happy with where he is. We're still struggling with the daily speed drills. He's consistently not finishing them but gets all of the finished questions correct. He gets SO upset when he doesn't finish. I'm trying to help him accept that he's not perfect while also trying to help him have more confidence so he CAN finish. What a wretched balancing act.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Just getting to writing last week’s blog. We had a chaotic weekend preparing for an open house yesterday & getting back into house hunting. I will be so relieved when this is all over! (Although I haven’t quite realized how much work I will have on the other side of a move… I am allowing my brain the luxury of a little unrealistic expectation. lol)

I declared a sick day on Tuesday, so we only had 4 days of school. Thankfully, it was just one of those 24 hour head colds. I almost never get those! Wednesday’s lessons were a little over-stuffed as I tried to compensate. I think next time, I will try to spread the love over a few days instead of just one.

This week’s Biology experiment called for looking at protozoa through a microscope. Not going to happen. We don’t own a microscope yet (and yes, I know we’ll have to eventually) and I don’t even have room right now to borrow someone’s. Keeping a house in selling condition definitely constrains us. But we can be thankful for Youtube! I found tons of protozoa videos online. We watched all kinds of single cell creatures moving, eating, & dividing. I love Youtube’s sidebar “other videos you may be interested in” – we happily browsed around for quite a while. The boys even let out a very disappointed “Awww!” when I shut down the laptop. We were able to watch a wider variety than I would have had available at home, with someone else taking the time to find the perfect “a paramecium divides” moment to capture. Eventually, it will be good to teach the boys that science requires a lot of patience, but this was perfect for where we are now.

No glasses!

Jimmy had an eye exam this week. He doesn’t need glasses, but the doc gave me some great advice on how to manage reading lessons while Jimmy’s eyes continue to develop. His eyes will get tired quickly from normal early-development convergence issues (when the eyes have trouble tracking together). It explains why he has a lot of problems reading when there are a lot of new words. It takes more eye-energy to read new words than familiar words.

Caleb’s big news is that we have started him on reading lessons. We’re using the 100 Easy Lessons book (DISTAR method). I tried this book with Jimmy, but he hated it. Jimmy did not like repetition if he already knew how to do something; he didn’t realize that he needed to practice the techniques on easy stuff in order to be able to use those tools on harder reading. Caleb’s personality is much more suited to this style. He likes playing games even when they are repetitive. He picks things up quickly but he doesn’t have the “need” to move on like Jimmy does. It is amazing to me how different they are. On the other hand, I have noticed that Jimmy has been using some of the “say it slow” methods more in his own reading. See what I was trying to tell you, buddy? Lol