DH had last week off, so we took the week off, too. But we roared back this past week! Or, well, you know...we did stuff.

Ari:
Math--I think I somehow have the non-US version of Singapore right now. Dave's aunt sent us a big stack of random math books that his cousin had had (but not used). 3B was among them, but not 3A, so this is our first encounter. So right now he's learning a LOT about the metric system and doing "revisions" instead of reviews. He's getting more comfortable with word problems these days. The boy likes his math concrete, but the word problems are definitely good for him and his little brain.

Grammar: He is not a huge fan of Growing with Grammar. I wonder if we should have stuck with First Language Lessons. Oh well. After years of thinking about it, I finally ordered the Michael Clay Thompson Language Arts materials from Royal Fireworks Press. I got the whole level one package, so it's grammar, poetry, writing, vocabulary, and a practice book. I'm thinking we'll go through Grammar Island with the rest of this year and then start on the rest in the summer or fall. We read a few pages on Friday, and he seemed pretty interested. I really think language is his strong suit, and I very much want it to be interesting for him. We'll keep doing Growing with Grammar, though, and have the MCT stuff as a supplement.

Writing: I really like Writing With Ease. Ari secretly likes it, too, though he would never, ever admit it. He giggles regularly at the passages from the books, and he's torn through two of the books separately on his own lately (The Mouse and the Motorcycle and Pippi Longstocking). Next year I'm thinking I'll pick all his assigned reading from the books used in WWE and do a casual literature study with them.

Milo:
Math: Milo's still adding and subtracting. He says math is favorite subject.

Reading: I keep thinking Milo's going to suddenly take off with reading, but instead he keeps gradually getting better. That works, too :) ...He really likes the "Now I'm Reading" books, so I bought a bunch more from someone on the WTM boards. He was thrilled when they got here. He's reading level 2 on those, which is beginning and ending blends and funky vowel stuff (I'm not sure what the official term for funky vowel stuff is). And he's halfway or so through Explode the Code 2. I guess I need to hop on ordering Book 3 pretty soon.

Next year I'm confident he'll be ready for FLL 1 and for WWE 1...I checked the guidelines for WWE, and it said it can be started once he's reading 4 letter words and comfortable writing his letters...he's all of that now, but by fall he should be stronger with reading and finished with Handwriting Without Tears K. I'm excited about doing FLL with him; I think he'll like it.

Other stuff: we've gotten pretty lazy about history. I'm at the point in the year where I'm more excited about next year than this year. We're keeping up pretty well with the readings, but projects aren't getting done. Which is fine. We're reading about Lewis and Clark and reading Little House on the Prairie right now. I'm getting a little worried about finishing WP before summer. We may have to make some selective cuts to the reading.

And, really, I'm thinking we might need to reverse the amount of time spent on history vs. science around here, as the kids enjoy science so much more (but maybe they'll like history more next year with my hand selected books???) We learned about different kinds of energy in the Nebel book this week.

And now DH is back from an ALL day chess tournament (he coaches the chess club at his school), so I'm going to spend some quality time with him and try not to eat any more of the brownies the kids and I made today!

An update while the kids are swim class with Dave....I just updated the sidebars, which helps me remember what we're doing differently now from 2 months ago. Milo's finally moved on to the kindergarten book in Handwriting Without Tears; really, he could have handled it much earlier, but I was kind of lazy about ordering it. He writes all his letters fairly well, but could definitely use some practice on form. It's funny--I think of him as one of those boys for whom handwriting is tough and tiring, and try to limit how much I have him do...but it really seems to be more my perception of things than his. It LOOKS like writing is hard for him, but he rarely complains about it. Of course, maybe that's because I don't make him do too much...at any rate, I think his handwriting's perfectly fine for a five year old boy, so I guess we'll keep doing what we're doing.

We've started using "Are They Thinking?" from Tin Man Press; it's a year long critical thinking curriculum, with a new activity for every day. It's supposed to be for grades 2 through 5, but Milo does fine with almost all the activities, and a lot of them are a bit easy for Ari. It's a fun way to start out the day and get their brains geared up for school. We have the beginning of the day routine down pretty well these days. We're all together for the Are They Thinking book (I have to print a copy out for Gus or he freaks out), Spanish, a Bible story, and the word of the day (from an Evan Moor book). Then I send Ari off to do math and grammar and Milo to do Explode the Code while I do "Gussie school" with Gus (mostly just reading stories). Milo usually finishes and comes back to listen to the tail end of that, and then I work with him on math and have him read to me. Then Gus and Milo are free to go play (or do some Starfall) while I go over Ari's math and grammar with him and we do Spanish and writing together. Afternoons are still a little more up in the air. We still generally take a long break for chores, free time, lunch, etc. after the morning stuff--but this is a holdover from when Gus still took naps, so we probably need to start moving right into independent reading (for Ari) and history or science so we can finish up by early afternoon. But then I'm kind of at the point in the year when I feel too set in our ways to change before the end of the school year.

Speaking of the end of the school year, I'm contemplating actually taking a long summer break this year (we usually go year round, but are pretty flexible in summer). Maybe we'll just take off from when Dave gets out of school until early July when we get back from our trip to the Cape. I feel like I might need a break to plan and refocus...and I'm also thinking school is going to start taking longer, at least for Ari, next year, so it might be good to have break before we transition to that.

The Nebel science book is still going well. I'm trying to decide whether I want to add something else in for next year...it does feel a little light at least for Ari's age. I'm thinking of getting Pandia Press' REAL Science. Right now we're also doing science once a week in co-op, so I feel like we're pretty covered at the moment.

Well, that's that. I've been slack not only on updating here but on taking pictures. So I'm going to try to do better on both counts. But we'll see....