Through November 20

I'm not one to sit down before a school year starts and map out exactly what pages we'll be doing week by week or anything like that.  I spend a good bit of time researching and putting materials together, but when it comes to the execution my planning method is more like: "finish Singapore 4 this year."  But then it seems like a good idea every now and then to take a look at where we are and whether we're making adequate progress toward these very broad sorts of goals.  The past couple of weeks I've been paying attention to where we are in our different subjects, and I'm pleased to report that we're not as hopelessly behind as I sort of felt like we were.  The halfway point for Dave's school year is the beginning of his Christmas break, and we're on track to be very close to halfway through with most all of our subjects.  This pleases me, as I was sure we were going to be trying desperately to finish up in July.  We made need a week or two past when Dave finishes, but not more than that.  History might be the exception...I bought a whole bunch of books last year, put them in chronological order on the shelf, and we've just been reading through them.  There are a lot of them left.  But that's okay, because they're enjoying the books, and that was the whole point of this year of history.

Tuesday was our last day of co-op classes until after the New Year.  Ari's chorus class had a little concert for the parents, during which they sang "Walk Like and Egyptian" and "Pleasant Valley Sunday."  I would post a picture of this, except blogger is not letting me post my pictures.  For reasons unknown.  I am frustrated.  Wait!  I figured it out!

This means I am all finished doing board game club!  Board game club was fine, but it was a little crazy and overwhelming at times. Lots of 4-6 year old boys and game pieces flying everywhere.  Next session, my friend Kristi and I are teaching a class on Caldecott winners for four to seven year olds.  We'll read and talk about the story the first half of the class, then do a craft relating to it the second half.  I saw the preliminary class offerings for the next session, and it looks like there will be a lot of good stuff.  I showed the list to Ari, and he took it off with him and rated each class based on how interesting it sounded to him, using OWL grades from Harry Potter.  Interestingly, creative writing (which he didn't take this session, but which I spent a lot of time talking up to him in anticipation of next session) got the highest grade.

We've been very diligent about our morning schooling, which is math and writing and reading and all that stuff.  Somewhat less so with history and science.  Ari just finished reading Afternoon of the Elves from his books you have to read before you're 13 list.  Somewhere around here I have The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles for him to start on next.  He's also finished with his self-imposed Harry Potter break and is well into book 6 now.  

Milo finished "Mouse Soup" and started Amelia Bedelia.  But then we misplaced Amelia Bedelia for a few days, so I pulled "In a Dark, Dark Room" (another "I Can Read" book, of silly-ish ghost stories) off our shelf for him. Ari read this to him a couple of years ago, so he was immediately intrigued.  And then an amazing thing happened.  He read me one of the stories during his school time and then, later that day, asked me to listen to him read another one!  And THEN he read yet another one, to himself, later that same day!  This has never happened before.  We're all very excited, and a little worried that he's finished the whole book now (I think--there may be one more story).  I found another book of stories by the same author at the library, so we'll hope that holds his interest, too.  His reading is coming along so well.  I've always had to fight off worry, because Ari was just such an early, strong reader that it was tough not to compare them.  But I looked up the reading level of Mouse Soup and the other level 2 I Can Read books the other day, and they're listed as 2nd grade. "Oh!" I said, "so he's FINE!"  He is.  He'd be a young first grader this year.  Yay Milo.

Gus is already reading tons of words without any instruction whatsoever--both sight words and sounding out simple words.  He read "jac" off the bag of Bil-Jac dog food (which, btw, we only have because that's what we're supposed to use for treats for Gable's obedience class) the other day. Now that I'm no longer worried he's going to pass Milo, I might start a reading program with him after Christmas.  If he wants to do it.  I feel perpetually guilty about not spending enough one on one time with him, and something scheduled helps with that. It was easier when we were doing the Sonlight pre-K thing last year.

Milo's really enjoying Right Start.  He's been working on the other side of the abacus the past couple of lessons. I might get Level A for Gus, too.  I think we already have all the materials; I'd just need to buy the book.  But I'm also a little panicky at the thought of doing 2 kids at the same time with Right Start.  How does anyone do it?

 

Ari just finished up a section on fractions in Singapore. He and Dave haven't been getting to Life of Fred too much lately, but now that they've finished Ari's big K'nex project, maybe there will be more time.  I've been slack about giving him his multiplication drill every day.  He's getting much faster with the multiplication tables, and it's helped a lot in cutting down his frustration level with things like long division.

We started Writing With Ease 3!  Finally!  Ari's been getting very frustrated with the narrations, but I'm not sure why.  They don't seem substantially different from what he was doing at the end of level 2, so I think it's him more than the material. I'm hoping that will get better next week.

We read a book about the Statue of Liberty and started a biography about Thomas Edison in history, and both were big hits.

Science...ah, science.  We're almost finished with the "try it before you buy it" from Real Science Odyssey...and I'm not sure I'm going to buy it after all.  It's not them; it's me.  I've never wanted to admit to being the sort of person who can't get the materials together to do science, but...I think I might be one of those people who can't get the materials together to do science.  Sigh.  I'm thinking of buying several experiments kits, materials included, for the rest of the year, and doing those plus a lot of reading from the library/our shelves.  I've been looking at the Science in a Nutshell kits.  Thank goodness for co-op; at least my kids are getting SOME organized science, even if it's not from me.  Of course, when I look at what they know, it's clear they're managing to pick up quite a bit of knowledge and understanding about science, despite my scatter-shot approach.  It's the last subject I haven't settled into at all....I have something I'm happy with for pretty much everything else.

We'll do a very light week this coming week (in fact, I doubt will do anything after Monday) because Dave is off and my in-laws are getting into town tomorrow evening.