Good day yesterday..and in general I'll call this week a success. I've started doing our days "backwards"...the curriculum as it is written from Sonlight starts with Bible, History/Geography, then Reading. Then I would follow with Spelling, Math, Handwriting without Tears and electives (Art, Music, PE, Health,etc). One day we started with science because of something we saw on the internet during breakfast ...and it worked out much better. The next day, we started with Math and had a great time talking and filling out the entire 1-12 multiplication table, so backwards again. Now, after prayer, the boys get to start out with something fun and interesting and we leave the quiet topics and reading to the end of the day.
Yesterday was a very full day, but I did more creative teaching and it was definitely more fun. :) I may have trouble sticking to the curriculum! I started our Health units with Fire Safety and we went over the escape routes from the house and how we would handle different scenarious. I think that helped Ben's anxiety alot, because he always worries about things like that. We walked through the drill, then took the dogs for a walk. Next time, I'll just set off the alarm in the house and it will be a "surprise" drill. I also did our first Science activity on biotic/abiotic things from the eequalsmcq.com text and the boys really enjoyed it. A quick Sequential Spelling drill and then we were off to ice skating. With their new pedometers, the boys loved keeping track of their steps all day, too. It finally made obvious why all of Ben's jumping all day keeps him so skinny!
When we got back from skating, the grocery store (and a quick lesson on unit pricing :) and picking up Shayla from school, they still had to finish their school day with Math - but we had an interesting development. When I mentioned that if the lessons were too easy for Ben, he could skip ahead, he jumped at the offer. He immediately wanted to do the last lesson on his current CD lessons, skipping 15 lessons - and he got a 92% on it! I told him that if he can pass the quizzes on the chapters by over 90%, he can skip to the next one. If he can skip all the way to 5th grade math (which I have no doubt he can do), I can start giving them both 5th grade math work and do more interactive math with them. Because they are at 2 different levels, I've been relying on them doing their CD lectures individually, but I really enjoying do their lessons with them together!
So, more developments on the homeschool front, but it's very clear that is the "norm" for our school. And I love it! Off to find out what today will bring....:)
Your school sounds wonderful: it makes me miss school. Oh, for the kind of energy Ben has: it's too bad we lose that as we age. Having had three children and 10 grandchildren, I can picture that jumping around in my mind. You are blessed to have your beautiful grandchildren and children. My mom enjoyed having both at the same time too.
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