Weekly Report - Weeks 26-31

It's been sooo long since I've posted a Weekly Report - six weeks to be exact. We've been plugging along with not much new to report. Still here is a quick overview of where we are.

Math - We are up to lesson 150. Ten lessons to go and we are finished with Horizons 2. Yahoo! Today Thatcher took his test and made 91%. I couldn't be more pleased. We don't do all the supplemental worksheets, suggested activities and flash cards listed in the TM. I started out trying to do it all and it was just leading to frustration for both of us. The only thing we do in addition to the actual lesson is skip count each day. He now knows how to skip count to 100 by all numbers 1-10. We are spending time reviewing these since he still gets a little confused here and there.

Reading - We have been reading the first four books in the Encyclopedia Brown series. It's so fun to share this series with him because I also enjoyed them as a child. The author, Donald Sobol, even visited my elementary school when I was in fourth grade. I was so ready to stop reading Magic Tree House books I was about to scream. They were wonderful as starter chapter books but they long ago served their purpose. This seemed like a good series to move to. The unplanned benefits is that it has really supplemented our start to logic. He has to pay careful attention to the details of each story to try and solve the mystery. He hasn't solved one on his own yet but with some loving guidance from Mommy, he has gotten close a few times. I feel like he is finally starting to learn how to think and not just what to think!

I mentioned in a previous post, but we've also been reading Christian Liberty Nature Reader, Book 1. I also read a chapter to him in Prudence and the Millers every day as well.


Logic - He loves Mind Benders and asks to do these first every day. Next year we are going to branch out a little more (but that's another post!) but for now these are a perfect start!

Spanish - United Streaming Elementary Spanish has been a wonderful start for us. I really think that one of the reasons is Thatch likes hearing another voice other than mine ;) We will finish our fifth unit next week and then take a break this summer to focus on all the Spanish games and activities we own.

Spelling - SWO B is going well. We are up to Lesson 12 and Thatcher has yet to miss one on any test. I have decided to keep him going to build confidence and teach him to follow directions. He loves workbooks (sigh) and looks forward to finishing his assigned pages every day. We are currently doing two lessons a week. I am not planning on continuing with SWO next year as I have found some terrific resources that (I feel) will do all that SWO does and more!

Grammar - Not happening. I have realized that if we don't have a page to fill in it doesn't get done (double sigh). This is a me problem, not a Thatcher issue. I need to make some decisions about this for next year with this in mind. We do talk about grammar through copywork and in stories we read but nothing formal is being taught. I know so many say that formal grammar isn't necessary until later but I still feel guilty about this.

History - We are up to chapter 34 and will complete two chapters a week to complete SOTW 1 by the end of the month. Luckily lots of these chapters can easily lump together so it won't be bad at all. SOTW has been a great start to our history journey. This year we have basically stuck with reading the story in the book, completing the coloring page, map and doing a narration for each chapter. I have lots of ideas for next year in this area too!

Science - Nothing formal happening here either. But do you want to know something that made me feel better today? A friend of mine kept Beckett while Thatcher, Haddon and I went into town on a field trip. Now granted this friend has three children of her own, one of whom is a boy.Yet after keeping my little man for four hours she said, "I don't know how you get anything done with that one! He is into everything!!!!" Amen, sister. You take your eyes off him for five minutes and he is flooding your bathroom and water is pouring through your downstairs light fixtures. Ask dh how he learned this lesson ;) This kid is a mess. I love him with all my being but boy the stories I will have to tell at his rehearsal dinner someday!

I will do another Report once we have finished our school year. :) Yahoo! I get excited just typing that.

Ready to Finish Strong

I just finished preparing lesson plans for the last six weeks of school before summer break begins. According to my original plan, we were to school for 40 weeks but I think there is just too much public school left in me. Two-thirds of my life has been spent in a traditional educational setting: thirteen years as a student, four years of college and seven years as a ps teacher. As a result, this time of the year I get the itch for a time of rest. I am ready to spend lots of time at the beach (only 30 minutes from our house), get my yearly deep cleaning and organizing done, read few good books and start planning for next year. I want to sleep in, read a million books to my boys, wrestle and do all the messy things we never have time to do during the school year - Moon Sand, painting, Playdough (gluten-free, of course ;) and so much more.

All that to say, I condensed our last ten weeks of school into six! I am re-energized to finish strong, and it feels great. Ultimately I want to move towards more of a year-round model. I would love to school for 40 weeks, taking six weeks off during the summer, a week off at Thanksgiving, three weeks at Christmas, a week off for Spring Break and a one week fall break as well. Maybe it will happen next year! I am thrilled with the year we've had so far and am thankful it is drawing to a close. My next post will be a very over-due weekly report - more like a quarterly report, I guess.

Weekly Report - Weeks 23, 24 & 25

It's been three weeks since my last weekly report. Even though they have become less frequent they are just as important for me. Thatcher loves seeing his work online; it gives him a great sense of satisfaction! I love having a place to "think out loud" and process. That said, here is our (multi)weekly report:

Math : Horizons is still going well, and I'm happy to say we finally started our supplemental math program (I will link to it soon. Right now their site is down). I love it! It only takes five minutes a day but it encourages a different kind of thinking. Thatcher has really enjoyed it, too. We've only done the first four lessons, so I'll keep you updated on how it's going as we continue to work through it. One of the best things...this program is free! :)

In the past few weeks on the WTM Curriculum Board there have been very encouraging threads about how well dc are prepared after working through Horizons from beginning to end. All of the moms who have used it K-6 said their children were more than ready for higher levels of math, and most added that they didn't supplement Horizons at all. You can read all the reviews in the world from "experts" but for me there's nothing like a "It's worked for me and my dc." from a respected mom who has been there, done that!

Spelling: This week we started Spelling Workout B. Thatcher has been so excited to have a change from ETC after 3 years. SWO B starts out very easy but increases in complexity pretty rapidly. I want Thatch to experience success to build confidence with a new program. One of the things I like best is the new skills he is learning: ABC order and editing were introduced just in Lesson 1.
Grammar: Here is what we have been doing for Grammar since we dropped FLL -

Each day I write two new sentences on the board ~ usually something that will be of high interest to Thatcher. These sentences were about his Daddy coming home from Washington. :) First he recites the required definitions to me and then he underlines all nouns and circles all verbs. This is working well for us.

Poetry Memorization: Now that we are not doing FLL I also had to come up with a way not to forget poetry memorization each day, too. I went through FLL and The Harp and Laurel Wreath and chose poems I wanted Thatch to learn for the remainder of this year. I wrote them on our "Memory Work Chart" and we review that week's poem each day. Right now Thatcher is learning "The Whole Duty of Children" by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Logic: We also started Mind Benders this week. To say that Thatch loves it is an understatement. He has always loved detective stories and, to him, this is just like solving a mystery!

History: We are still learning about Ancient Greece. Thatcher loves this period in history. Here are the two books we finished this week and Thatcher wearing a toga (admittedly not a very good one but Thatcher loved it nonetheless).


Science: We finished our unit on animals a few weeks ago and we have yet to start our human body study (my fault - can't get it all prepared with everything else going on lately). We did enjoy some nature study this week at our local nature trails.

We wondered what all has called this place home!

Thatch was fascinated with the idea of termites eating this tree. He asked me,
"Will you put this on your blog, please?"

My personal favorite of the day: West Indian Lantana
Yahoo! My first flower to identify all by myself thanks to this site!


This is from a beautiful garden someone planted behind their fence that
backed up to the trail we were on. Not sure what this one is.

From the same garden but couldn't identify this one either.
I made the assumption it was a type of daisy???


We enjoyed a picnic lunch and some playtime at the park before we started our hike. I had to include these photos just for the sake of a mommy brag!

Spanish: United Streaming continues to go well but like with several things I needed to step it up a notch (even if all I can manage is a tiny notch right now. Lol!) Here is a copy of the letter Thatcher sent to his Spanish penpal, Grace. I met her mom, Tammy, through the WTM board and learned they would be using US for Spanish too.

The other thing I am doing is being more deliberate to use the things we already own on the days we are not watching Sra. Cano on US. You can see some of these things in an old post about Spanish. Here Thatch is playing with Spanish matching cards ~ while balancing a lid on his head!

One more thing: These past few weeks I have gotten back to writing a checklist of all we need to accomplish each day on our dry erase board. I did this at the start of the year but dropped it because it seemed redundant and tedious. Recently, as I though of ways to speed up our days this came back to me. I can really tell how much Thatcher has matured this year because of how well he is using this tool to help him navigate his day. He loves to check those boxes and move on to the next thing! You can see, it's nothing fancy - just very practical (at least for us!).

And one last photo, just to make you smile. Here is my sweet Haddon dressed up like "Super Batman" (notice the cape and the mask!) while holding his favorite bear. How cute is that?!

Weekly Report - Weeks 21&22

Bible - For our Bible curriculum we do a mix of several things. Thatcher is involved in AWANA at a local church near us. It's his third year to participate and he loves it! If you are unfamiliar with AWANA, it's a fabulous program. The kids wear vests like in scouts and they earn jewels in a crown for memorizing verses and reciting them to a leader each week. They also earn AWANA bucks for different things that they can spend in the AWANA store a few times a year as well. There's so much more but that's the jist!

As a family we've slowly been working through Leading Little Ones to God for our morning family worship time. It's hard to do something as a family with kids of all different ages. LLOTG is way above Haddon's head but right on for Thatcher. Still Haddon is learning the value of sitting and listening as Daddy teaches. Then we sing a song and pray before we conclude. That's Haddon and Beckett's favorite part! Lol.

We also are always reading our way through one story Bible or another. Earlier this year it was The Jesus Storybook Bible and now it's....

Breakfast Reading - The Big Picture Story Bible. This Bible is similar to the Jesus Storybook Bible but is geared for preschoolers. All the boys are enjoying it though. We try to read at breakfast and lunch because they are a captive audience! :)

Lunch Reading - This week our Aesop's fable was "A Bundle of Sticks" and the moral was "In unity is strength". It was a perfect story for my boys who sometimes (okay, often) fight more than they should!

I also am still reading different Mother Goose stories to the boys at lunch. Beckett loves the cadence of these readings. As soon as I open a book he starts bobbing his head in anticipation of the rhythmic reading to come. It is so stinkin' cute!

Still More Reading :) - As soon as the little men go to sleep, Thatcher and I curl up on the couch for some reading time with just the two of us! This past week he read Hour of the Olympics to me and I read The Gods and Goddesses of Olympus to him.

Math - Horizons and math copywork are still going well! I still haven't managed to get in any of the great supplemental things we have but for now, that's okay.

History - Here are two of Thatcher's History Scribe Narration pages from SOTW. I just love his illustrations. He's come so far! At the start of this year he was only drawing a face with eyes, a nose and a mouth to represent a person. His coloring too! I should show you coloring he did this August for comparison. My little boy is growing up. Sigh.

Science - This week concluded our study of animals. We celebrated by going to the Houston Zoo to see each animal we studied, plus lots of others. The celebration only lasted 2 hours before we were scrambling to find a restroom where Thatcher could lose his lunch. Poor baby!

Spanish - In this unit Thatcher is learning the days of the week, the months of the year and counting. Also, Thatcher just got his first letter from his Spanish penpal, Grace. Tammy over at Evergreen Eclectic Academy agreed to let her beautiful daughter correspond with my little man. And she didn't even give up on me when we forgot to write our first letter! I'll take a picture of Thatcher's first letter for next week's report.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week next week!

Weekly Report - Week 20

I usually only do slide shows with subtitles for each photo, but this one was too cute to pass up!

Photo 1 - We just finished Lesson 100 in Horizons 2 and he made 92% on his test! Two days this week he finished his math assignment in 30 minutes and earned time to stay up late at bedtime and play board games with Mommy or Daddy!

Photos 2 &3 - The large chart is how we have been reviewing our skip counting most days (simply oral recitation while looking at the chart) but it just wasn't sticking. This method works beautifully for poetry memorization but was failing us here. I remembered Jessica at Trivium Academy is teaching Camille her math facts through copywork so I tried it with this skill, too. You know what? We had been reviewing this every single day for 2 weeks with limited success. He wrote it these few times and had it down pat! Yahoo!!!!!

Photos 4, 5 & 6 - Here is our science work from this week: a bear profile page, a tiger profile page and copywork to go along with each. Thatcher always says how much he is enjoying filling out these pages and I am learning lots too! :)

Photo 7 - SOTW Narration from Chapter 20: Greece Gets Civilized Again - using History Scribe Notebooking Pages. I have really been working with Thatcher on choosing just the most important details to include in his narrations. This is such a hard skill for anyone but especially to a little boy for whom every detail is crucial in all areas of life. Lol!

Photo 8 - A few pages of Explode the Code Book 8. Thatcher was excited to see a few new activities in this book. This is our third year using ETC so a change was refreshing for him!

Photo 9 - I am currently reading The Iliad to Thatcher and he is reading Storytime with the Millers to me. The Iliad is following up our readings of Mary Pope Osborne's Tales from the Odyssey but this version is a little more (okay, a lot more) graphic. It is a war after all but yikes! I don't think I would be reading this to a little girl but Thatch loves it.

Photo 10 - Now that we finished up The Jesus Storybook Bible (still the best children's Bible of all time, in my opinion!) we are reading the Big Picture Story Bible. We read one story each morning at breakfast. Also T-Th we do family devotionals from Leading Little Ones to God with Daddy before he leaves for work.

Photo 11 - The big man himself! I forgot to take any photos of him actually doing his work this week so I went up to his room this afternoon and asked him if I could take a photo. He wanted to pose with his favorite trophy from last basketball season.

Happy new week to all! :)

Weekly Report Week 19

As I logged onto the computer to type out our first Weekly Report of the new semester I realized I never did a report on weeks 17 and 18. Oops! I'm not even going to attempt to remember what we did a month ago and am just going to plow ahead. Here we go...

Math: I usually type this first since it's the first thing we do each day. In an attempt to speed up my little man, I have started a "Math Challenge" with Thatcher. Each day we set a timer and I've told him that every day he completes the lesson in less than 30 minutes he gets to stay up 30 minutes later at bedtime to either read or have me come play a board game with him. Two days this week he accomplished the goal and we played games together. It was so fun! Playing games is something we *rarely* do with an 19 month old around so I am hoping he wins more math challenges this week. One thing I need to do better at is helping Thatcher learn to count by 6's, 7's and 8's. He can count by 1's, 2's, 3's, 4's, 5's, 9's and 10's all the way to 100. I've just stalled out on teaching these last three. Other than that all is the same: Horizons 2 and just plugging along.

Reading: This week Thatcher started reading Storytime with the Millers aloud to me. I read Wisdom and the Millers to him earlier this year and he fell in love with the characters, so it's been great to revisit them. Many a great conversation has been started after reading one of the Miller stories! The covers are most definitely outdated but don't let that scare you away from these wonderful stories if you've not ever heard of them. I haven't made it back to the library so we were a little slim on our other readings this week. Next year I hope to make the library a twice a month trip of all of us but right now I go alone to choose books. It's too difficult with Beckett still being so young and into everything!

Phonics: We finished Book 7 in Explode the Code and will start Book 8 next week! Thatcher is so excited to be almost done with phonics and can't wait to start Spelling Workout in just a few weeks! I am sold on ETC and definitely plan on using this series again with Haddon although I am not yet sure of his learning style. Therefore, I reserve the right to change my mind. Lol! There are tons of great programs out there so I won't be at a loss if I need to shop around.

History and Science: SOTW...what can I say. I love it! I rarely do any projects or extra activities but it's working. Next year I hope to do so much more in this area. Right now on Monday we read the selection, do a narration and look up any additional information in one of our reference books. (For what it's worth...my favorite reference has been the Usborne Book of World History. I thought I would like Kingfisher History Encyclopedia or Usborne's Encyclopedia of World History. We own all three but find ourselves looking at the former 10x more than the latter.) On Tuesday we review that lesson, do the coloring page and the mapwork.

Life Science is going beautifully. Thatcher loves the Animal Profile pages that Jessica at Trivium Academy created and he's looking forward to starting our study of the human body in a few weeks. One of the nice things about living in the fourth largest city in the country is that we have amazing resources available to us. The Houston Health Museum is 40 minutes from my home and a treasure to be sure. My in-laws bought the boys passes for Christmas and we had a ball on our first trip two weeks ago. It will be a perfect supplement to our new study about to start. The picture shows the room in the museum that focuses on the Central Nervous system, the brain and the spinal cord. Pretty neat, huh?

That's about all for this Weekly Report. I'll take more photos of Thatcher's actual work this coming week and maybe a photo or two of my cutie pies!

Year-at-a-Glance Revised

Here is our updated Year-at-a-Glance. Some things are much the same (math, history and science) but there are several changes, too.

I have finally decided to set FLL aside. I have always said that I loved this grammar book, but the reality is I love it in theory, not practice. It took me most of the semester to figure this out. Thatcher is a very visual learner. FLL as written doesn't have enough visual input for him; it is dependent auditory learning much of the time. I could change it, but as I have become sold on Junior Analytical Grammar and Analytical Grammar for later elementary and junior high I have decided to de-emphasize the importance of early grammar for our school.

For the remainder of this year we will memorize the definitions of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. I will introduce the other parts of speech taught in FLL as well and Thatch can memorize those if he chooses - most likely he will since memory work comes very naturally to him. My plan is to write four sentences (one for each school day) on our dry-erase board each week. The first week, he will underline the noun in each sentence as we review the definition of a noun and talk about nouns in our copywork and other reading selections as well. A few weeks later, he'll underline the noun and circle the verb. The grammar discussions will continue across other areas of the curriculum. We'll underline the verb, circle the noun and draw a box around each adjective with an arrow going back to the noun it describes in following weeks. And finally we'll add in adverbs. I want him to really understand these four parts of speech by the end of this year and least recognize the names of the following as parts of speech: prepositions, conjunctions, interjections, and articles. I feel good about approaching grammar this way and have taken lots of comfort from other moms who have said that it really is okay (and even beneficial) to wait and not introduce much grammar until later when they can really understand these very abstract concepts.

Also, last semester our artist and composer studies never happened consistently to get any real benefit from them. I have decided to spend two weeks on every composer and artist to finish Thatcher's introduction to these great men and women by the end of this year. Note to self...I still need to decide what to use next year for fine arts!

Finally I have decided a really fun way to wrap up our year will be to make a lapbook for each content area that will cover the most important things we learned this year. Our Spanish lapbook will review vocabulary, math will have sample problems of all the things he learned to do this year, history will be a big time line with information about some of the most important players in history for that time period....We have never made a lapbook and these will definitely be the homemade variety - not the slick pre-made ones you can buy (although those are really neat, too!). We will spend two to three weeks on these and more if needed. I want to jump ahead and start these now!!!! If you are interested in lapbooks here's a link to a post I did about them awhile back.

What doesn't fit on our chart is the Aesop fable we will be studying each week this semester and the two poems we will focus on memorizing each month. Okay now that the "big picture" is in place I can do our next six weeks of lesson plans. :)

Weekly Report - Week 16

Our weeks are so routine at this point that sometimes I feel yet another Weekly Report will bore anyone to death reading my blog. Then I remind myself that these reports are a great way to track our journey, keep us focused and celebrate all we've accomplished.

This week I am going to start with a little bit of what Haddon is doing. We are going to start a little preschool in January - although I have no idea how I will work it into our schedule. This semester we have casually been working on learning to sing the ABC's and recognizing a few letters, counting to 10, reviewing colors and shapes, learning Mother Goose Rhymes, reading lots of board books every day and learning finger rhymes.

Below is our current Mother Goose book we read every day at lunch. I have three different Mother Goose books that we rotate so that we don't get bored. It's so cute to hear him walk around the house singing, "Hey Diddle, Diddle," "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" and "Humpty Dumpty"!

And because our time is so limited I have allowed these videos to teach Haddon his ABC's and how to count. They have done their job well, I might add. He can sing the ABC song, knows most of his letters and many of the sounds just from watching each video one time a week.

Here is Thatcher's Horizons Math Test from this week. He got 89% correct!


Here is his narration from Chapter 16 of SOTW1: The Return of Assyria. The illustration shows Ashurbanipal holding one of the clay tablets from the library he created in Nineveh. Thatch said he was smiling so big because he was happy to have all those books!


And here is Thatcher's copywork from science this week. We studied about flamingos and peacocks. We read from the Kingfisher First Animal Encyclopedia, followed up with more books from the library and completed our animal profile page too.

We have also been enjoying our readings of Aesop's Fables. Each week we focus on one story and read and discuss it each day at lunch. This version is wonderful and I would highly recommend it.

Weekly Report - Weeks 14-15

Here is my weekly report for the past 2 weeks of school - one before Thanksgiving and one after. We are finally in a good rhythm - and it only took four months to get there! Lol.

Math is plugging along; nothing new to report there. One lesson continues to take an hour but I am getting used to it and it does not bother Thatcher. He chooses to start with Math every single day! I have not been drilling his math facts nor practicing his skip counting since we are already spending so much time just completing the lesson. He can count to 100 by 1's, 2's, 3's, 4's, 5's, 9's and 10's. And he's almost half-way there with the 6's. If I would just count out loud to him every single day once or twice he would get it within a week or so. It seems like such a small thing but all those small things can sure add up!

Language is not happening. I am not sure why since it only takes a few minutes a day but we haven't done it in 3 weeks. It just isn't as fun as history, science or Spanish which are the other subjects we do in the afternoon and it just seems to get put to the side. I am going to try to pick up where we left off this week.

Reading is going very well and tonight I actually found Thatcher reading a Magic Tree House book all by himself. He is capable of reading above that level but because of his ADHD he struggles to focus when he sees that many words on a page. Because of that, for his independent reading I have kept him in longer picture books to minimize his frustrations, and we read all chapter books together.

If your child is in the same boat - somewhere between easy readers/picture books and chapter books - and you need some new ideas for reading here are some of our favorite series so far:

• Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel
  
• Henry and Mudge by Cynthia Rylant
  
• Poppleton by Cynthia Rylant
  
• Nate the Great by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat
• Commander Toad by Jane Yolen
• Mr. Putter and Tabby by Cynthia Rylant

If you have any others, please leave a comment. We're always happy for new ideas :)

For our read together time we are enjoying the Tales from the Odyssey series by Mary Pope Osborne. Thatcher loves these books more than any other we have ever read together. I would highly recommend them, especially if you have boys (Cyclops getting gored in the eye with a burning log may upset a few girly-girls!). The story has captivated his imagination and each day he can't wait to hear what adventures Odysseus will find.

Spanish is going great as well. Thatcher loves watching Sra. Cano on United Streaming and he is retaining a lot more than I thought he would. Most importantly he is excited about Spanish and is learning to love the culture which are some of my biggest goals for this year!

History and Science are great! Some days I wish we could spend much more time on these than anywhere else. Thatcher loves these subjects and to be honest, I am learning so much!

The week before Thanksgiving we went on a field trip to a wonderful place called Dewberry Farm. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from that day.

How do you like the shirts dh had made for all of us at the start of the year?! We wear them anytime we go on an outing. It makes it a lot easier to keep up with everyone and the boys are so proud to have their own school shirts!

Week 13 Report

This week was full...full of good and not so good. I'll share the good first. That's so much more fun!

Math (Horizons 2) is going well and next semester we are going to try to start supplementing with this program. I looked at tons of great programs but this one won out for now - mainly because it's free and has lots of what I am looking for: activities to encourage thinking "outside the box".

Language - We didn't touch FLL lessons this week. We'll play catchup next week.

Reading - We are struggling a little here. Thatcher has regressed in his oral reading skills again. He mumbles, skips words, inserts new words and is generally showing some laziness. We are stopping Magic Tree House books for the time being hoping that some fresh books will inject some life into this aspect of school.

History is still going very well. I had pretty much stopped doing narrations (just hard to fit it all in) but after reading several threads relating to the value of narrations on the Well Trained Mind Boards I was encouraged to start back up again. Here is his narration from Chapter 13 of SOTW1. I copied down his narration but had him write the title. I loved his artwork, too! It shows Hatshepsut on her throne wearing a crown and surrounded by gold!

Science - We are playing catch up in this area but we are loving the life science plans Jessica created and shared at her blog, Trivium Academy! Here are two of his animal profile pages from this week: worms and ants. He is really enjoying learning to draw the animals. Coloring and drawing have been a long time coming for us and are just starting to emerge but oh how fun!




Spanish - We just completed Unit 1 of the Elementary Spanish program on United Streaming. Thatcher scored 100% on his test! We have acquired a Spanish pen pal for Thatcher, too! I'll post more about that later. :)


Just for fun here are pictures of Thatcher (wearing his red-eyed tree frog glasses!) and Haddon (wearing his new birthday outfit from his paternal grandparents) from this week.
Now for the not so good. We have had a tough few weeks with Thatch; I am at a loss for how to help him many days. He is stuck in a negative spiral, and I don't know how to break the cycle. His ADHD/SPD/Spectrum Disorder stuff is really rearing it's head: emotional outbursts when life doesn't happen just the way he thinks it should, disrespect, impatience with his brothers (more than just normal "sibling stuff") and more. Raising kids is *tough*. Period. No matter what. Raising a kiddo with special needs is sometimes downright...I can't even think of a word to describe it: exhausting, sad, make you want to crawl under the sheets and hide some days...

We are starting fish oil supplements on Monday as some have had great success in treating ADHD this natural way. Oh, if it could truly be that easy for us! We are also getting more strict on his diet as I've grown a little lax since school has started: absolutely no sugar, refined flour or white rice, no dyes, additives or preservatives and limited dairy and wheat. I am also researching a parenting/behavior program that may work for us as well. I will post more as I learn about this as well.

Next week is a new week and I am looking forward to a fresh start!

Week 11-12 Report

I am late, late, late in posting our weeks 11 and 12. I have had a hard time keeping up with reports now that I am running early in the morning again. My bedtime has moved waaaay up and cut into my blogging time. Lol! As I have thought through my schedule and considered ways to streamline (read - cut things out!) I considered not doing weekly reports. You know what though...I like these reports and here's why: It gives both Thatcher and myself a sense of accomplishment to see our week all neat and tied up with a bow (or a slide show!). It also provides me a time and a place to process what is happening at Smooth Stones Academy. Some weeks we get so busy we are just going through the motions without stopping to reflect. Here I get to reflect and process.

History is going so well and Thatcher loves it! I wish we had more time for projects but it is just not happening this year. I keep reminding myself that he is getting so much more in this area than I ever was able to do as a public school first grade teacher. We did stop and have a little fun one day because Thatcher had been begging me to make him into a "toilet paper mummy". The photo shows our third attempt because the first two times Thatcher lost his balance and fell over ripping all the tp apart!

Science is also going really well. We started off very slowly but are rapidly picking up steam! Do you like Thatcher's frog he drew on his animal profile page? It's from Ed Emberly's Big Green Drawing Book. We got such a kick out of this and Thatcher was very proud of the final product.

We love United Streaming! Just in the past two weeks, in addition to our regular Spanish lessons, we have watched a Magic School Bus video on frogs and two excellent history videos on ancient Egypt. Part of my lesson planning each Sunday night now includes checking US to see what videos might match our lessons that week. We couldn't find much on snails and worms for science this week but reptiles will be more promising I am sure! Also, I have been very pleased with the Spanish program they offer, especially considering I was about to spend $200 on a different program. Instead, we got US and all it has to offer for only $129.

Lastly, because I hardly ever mention my little Haddon I thought I would type out what I am working on with him this year. He turns three next week so have not started anything formal, yet I have many things I want to teach him through play this year. By his age Thatcher already knew all these things and more but Thatch was an only child and his memory is one of his absolute greatest strengths. Haddon is much more interested in bats, balls and climbing than anything academic, although that is changing. Here we go:

• Colors
• Count to 10
• Recognize #'s to 10
  
• Say his ABC's
  
• Recognize all 26 letters
• Know basic shapes: circle, square, rectangle, oval, triangle, heart, star

In addition, each day we try to make sure we: read at least 10 books together, work puzzles/shape sorters/stacking toys, read from one of our Mother Goose books, sing songs, and do finger plays. Some days we don't get it all done but we certainly try.

Next week we are going to take off since we have a Halloween Party with our other home school friends on Tuesday, Halloween is on Wednesday (won't get anything done that day if I tried!) and I will spend all day Thursday baking and decorating Haddon's cakes for his party on Friday. For Halloween Thatcher is going to be Peter Pevensie from The Chronicles of Narnia. Haddon is going to be his younger brother, Edmund Pevensie, and Beckett is going to be Aslan the Lion! All the costumes just arrived today and they are cute! Can't wait to post those pictures and see all the cute ones of your peanuts too! :)

Week 10 Report: Reflections on Our First Quarter

We are one-fourth of the way through first grade. It started out rough (You can read about our first day here.) but has steadily gotten better as each week has progressed. I have figured out ways to get the most out of our days, but still want to do more...so much more!

I have had to turn loose many things in this give and take: my house is messier than it has ever been; I almost never get an opportunity to spend time or even chat on the phone with girlfriends; I have less time to myself than ever; reading for pleasure is a thing of the past; my toenail polish is always chipped ;) ... But you know what? I wouldn't trade a thing. What I do have is a six year old who truly loves learning, three brothers who adore each other (although some days they do a better job of showing it than others), and days full of knowledge, exploration and fun!

I have been continually reminded that this season is short. Soon I will turn around and my boys will be heading off to college. Until then, my main job is to be a wife to their Daddy and a disciple-maker of them. I will have years after they are gone to catch up on all the good books I've set aside, take classes at the culinary school, learn to quilt and I suspect I will have more than enough time to myself. Nope, this is the better thing. Not easier, but better. Now someone remind me of this in a few weeks when I am worn-out and frustrated. Lol!

I have been thinking through some of the things I still want to add into our days and here's what I have come up with:

• Problem: I desire for them to daily listen to classical music from our "Composer of the Month" so they will have a better grasp of that artist's work before we proceed on to the next.
• Solution: I will have music playing when the boys come down in the morning. We will listen as we do our morning routines. The music will go off after breakfast when we start our morning devotional. I will turn it back on when Thatcher has his 30 minute morning break.
  

• Problem: I still have yet to do any art instruction.
• Solution: I am not going to stress about it this year. I am seriously considering a video based art curriculum for next year. Thatcher is *such* a visual learner that I think this would be a great for him. (I am fully aware that I may simply be wimping out here and I am okay with that!) He watched a Veggie Tale's "Bonus Feature" on a DVD we checked out from the library that showed how to draw Goliath. I was truly amazed at what Thatcher did after seeing that short video segment. Unfortunately, any future purchases - big ones at least - will have to wait until the next year. Art instruction (formal at least) is on hold for now.
  

• Problem: Beckett is *so* demanding as he gets older. He amazes us with his ability to communicate his desires so young. Unfortunately this results in many tantrums as he throws himself backwards anytime he doesn't get exactly what he wants! You would think he would clue in after the 100th time of us not giving in that this method is not effective but alas, he hasn't gotten that memo yet! Working with him is a huge reason that some days we don't get nearly as much done as we could.
  
• Solution: Hang in there and don't sell him on eBay yet ;)! Haddon was much the same at his age and has turned out to be such a kind-hearted, tender little boy. Also, I have seen glimpses (albeit short) of the joys of having two so close together - Haddon and Beckett are starting to play together!!! Haddon will have Beckett follow him into the playroom and they have stayed there together playing for up to 20 minutes! I am looking forward to seeing their friendship blossom.
  

• Other Misc: I need to come up with a better system for our memory work. We have not been listening to our VP Old Testament Card CD since the second week of school. I want to have a library day twice a month for the boys to go and pick books of their own. I need to start thinking about next year and what curriculum we will use. I also want to make a plan for the remainder of elementary in regards to Language Arts - reading, grammar, writing and spelling.
  

So this is what you get instead of pictures of Thatcher's work this week - my ramblings. I just needed a place to think it all through. Thanks for indulging me!

Week 9 Report

I can hardly believe we are one week away from completing our first quarter! It's gone by so quickly. Here are some of the things we did in Week 9...

Reading:
Here is a photo of the books Thatcher read independently this week. He reads each book on his own and a short (or long, depending on his interest) discussion ensues to be certain he understood what he read. It's not at all unusual for him to disappear into a room to be found reading an hour later. It is also not unusual for him to be staring at the ceiling or playing with his matchbox cars an hour later either! A quick few (& fun) questions and I know whether he read the entire book or not! :) He is really enjoying non-fiction but the Henry and Mudge series is a big hit here, too!

We are still reading one Magic Tree House book together each week, too. We alternate reading chapters and we read two to three chapters a day. He could read these independently but he gets overwhelmed with all the words on the page (ADHD kicking in for sure!). At bedtime we are still reading The Last Battle. I think we will read Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling next and then move onto Favorite Thornton Burgess Animal Stories after that. They will nicely compliment our animal studies in science.

As a side note, I almost always link to Amazon in my blog because you can often see "inside" the book and I love that feature. It doesn't always mean that it's the cheapest place to buy though. Do your research before you buy. You can save some serious money if you do!!! :)

Math:
Here is a photo of one of Thatcher's math lessons. I was much encouraged by a mom who shared that her child also used to take about as much time to complete each lesson as Thatcher but has steadily improved each year with maturity and familiarity. Oh I do hope so!

Also, I don't put a number or letter grade on Thatcher's math assignments but I do put how many problems he missed at the top of the page and we correct all mistakes off to the side before proceeding to the next lesson. Recently he missed 15 problems on one page and made the comment, "That's a lot of problems wrong mom." He was so discouraged until I counted that he had 15 wrong but 92 correct! He brightened tremendously. Now I write how many he got wrong and right at the top of each page. It just feels like we not focusing so much on the negative that way! :)

Phonics:
He's doing so much better now that I am taking the time to really sit with him as we introduce
the rule and also make a point to review the rule(s) each day. Here's one of his "tests" this week. If it's difficult to read (insert drumroll....) he made 100%! I was so proud of him.

We are really using this as more of a spelling program than a true phonics program, so I really want him to understand the rules. I have said all along I would switch to Spelling Workout when we finish ETC but I just found out about SpellWell, a spelling program by the authors of ETC that I want to take a look at, too!




History:
Here is a photo of Thatcher's copywork from The Epic of Gilgamesh this week. I had never even heard of the Epic of Gilgamesh until just a few months ago when I was pre-reading SOTW1. Dh was shocked. I still wonder, "Was I truly never introduced to this material or did it just not stick?" I have referred to it before but it's worth repeating...I love the quote on Mater Magistra's blog, "To teach is to learn twice." It's so very true! I have learned so much already and we've been on this journey such a short time.

Also since we are studying the ancients this year I have been reading one story from Aesop's
Fables each week to Thatcher. One of my biggest goals for this year is character development so these stories serve a dual purpose: supplemental history readings and character building. The language is rich and beautiful in the classic version I chose so we read the same story each day at lunch M-Th. By Thursday the lights are really coming on for him.

This week we read The Lion and the Mouse and we discussed the moral, "A kindness is never wasted." There is a coloring book that I considered ordering but decided against it at the start of the year. Now that Thatcher has grown to love coloring I may just need to order it! It's called Aesop's Fables Coloring Book and it would be a great thing for Thatcher to do while I was reading to him.

Art Appreciation:
Someday I hope for this subject to list Art Appreciation & Art but I have not made time to sit down with my copy of Mona Brooke's Drawing with Children yet...although I did find another mom's generously shared plans for using this book on Paula's Archives. This is another one of those subjects I feel I know so little about and that makes me hesitant to teach it. Plus, I can wing a lesson in just about any other subject right now, but I definitely cannot wing this one! I need to sit down and decide if I can really use this book or if I would be better off with another program like Atelier or Draw Squad.

We did cover Rembrandt this week though. It was short meeting with this great man, but next week I am introducing a new artist and composer so that we can stay on track and cover all 10 artists and composers I chose for this year. This picture shows the books we read this week and the Dover Art Postcards ($1.25 per artist at Rainbow Resources) we used to help discuss the man and his works. I laminated the cards and will post the ones from the artist we are studying each month.

Be back next week with our Week 10 Report!

PS. I just viewed this post and I don't like how it formatted the text around some of the photos. I am not certain how to fix it and too tired to try! Oh well, that's what I get for trying something new! :)