Mid Year Status Check

It's hard to believe that another school year is already halfway over. I really don't know where all the time goes. Anyway, I couldn't think of a better way to spend an absolutely frigid day than to look ahead and see if we are on track to spend more time outside whenever spring arrives. The lightest squares are complete. The medium ones are partially completed, and the rest is our remaining work. Basically everything is supposed to be completed through week 21. Here's a look at Jessie's year so far...






Looks like we're a few lessons ahead in math. Grammar, spelling, Latin, and science are all on track. Critical thinking is only behind because Jessie wanted to try the A3 Mindbenders book again by herself after needing my help with several of the puzzles the first time through. She finished A3 for the second time this week and has plenty of time left for A4. I did skip one CW lesson because we were a bit behind. We may come back to it later. No surprise we're a bit behind in history, and I still have several weeks of history and science planning left to accomplish. For the most part, it looks like we're right on track.

Here's Violet's year...
So Singapore math, grammar, spelling, critical thinking, and science are all on track. I knew we were behind in the CWP book. I'm not sure why we're two weeks behind in Miquon. I'm sure we can double up somewhere. Then of course there's history. One of these year's I may actually stay on track for that. Still it's nice to see how much we have accomplished so far (and of course take a sneak peek at the end while dreaming of warmer temperatures).

Week 22: Treading water...

It's been a long week here. Baby Henry hasn't had a fever, but all of the stuffy noses and congestion have made sleeping anytime a struggle. He has at least learned to appreciate my suctioning out his nose instead of screaming while fighting me with all his might. We got our core work done along with some but not all of the extras that I had planned.

MATH

Jessie continued in her unit on decimals in the new 4B books. She learned about the hundredths place, did some converting between fractions and decimals, and did some addition and subtraction of either a few tenths or a few hundredths to solidify those places. She did an excellent job all week. Most of the lessons have been fairly easy for her so we did some doubling up on assignments. She did struggle a bit with the conversion between decimals and fractions. I was surprised to see that she struggled with the fraction part of the problem. It may just have been that she didn't write out the fraction when she was simplifying or multiplying. I'll wait to see how she does next week with the thousandths place before I add in any more practice.

Violet is still breezing through the unit on capacity. Truthfully I could have combined several of these lessons and been done with the unit already, but I'm trying to slow down the pace because I don't want to go too far into the 3A book this year. For once her Miquon lessons have actually corresponded with her Singapore ones. While the Singapore lessons were in liters, the Miquon lessons introduced gallons, quarts, pints, and cups using rods to represent the amounts. One day she had a square represent one gallon and had to figure out how many quarts, pints, and cups made a gallon. Another day she had different rods in the middle of the page to match with amounts around the outside (ie. an 8 rod = 1/2 gallon, 2 quarts, and 4 pints). I think she surprised even herself with how well she did.

LANGUAGE ARTS

Jessie grammar has definitely improved this week. The difference between subject and object pronouns and how they are used in a sentence seems to be sinking in at last. In spelling, she has finished the exercises in the SWO F book. She'll start SWO G on Monday, and I'm sure will finish the last test from F on abbreviations with flying colors on Tuesday. In dictation, she did a happy dance Thursday after we finished up the scene where Lucy meets Aslan again in Prince Caspian. Friday we did a short paragraph describing the actions of Reepicheep and the other mice during the battle with the Telmarines. In CW, we finally finished editing Jessie's version of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." For independent reading, she began Caddie Woodlawn by Brink and had the week off from Shakespeare and history biographies.

Violet has finished up the lessons on verbs this week. Friday we took the story "The Quarrel" from one of the lessons and picked out a few sentences to identify nouns, pronouns, and verbs. With a little coaching she did fairly well. In spelling she is officially half way through SWO D. Most of her copywork for the week came from The Wheel on the School. She finished up the last chapter of the book on Wednesday, read a story called "Goldilocks" (This one was a princess not the three bears girl as I had assumed when I made the assignment.) in the Blue Fairy Book, and read another third of The Reluctant Dragon, which she seems to be enjoying immensely.

HISTORY / SCIENCE

Part of our history lessons fell by the wayside this week. I had hoped to finish reconstruction and start on pioneers this week. We are almost finished with Be Ever Hopeful, Hannalee to cover reconstruction. I hope to finish reading the last few chapters either this afternoon or tomorrow. No booklets, maps, etc. this week. I do have a couple of fun projects lined up for next week.

For science this week we learned about sea lions, fur seals, and walruses. Benny spent both days looking at the seal pictures while I read until he could correctly distinguish a true seal from a sea lion and a fur seal. Jessie and Violet were both surprised to hear that walruses change colors. Even I didn't know that a normally brown walrus became pink when it is warm and white when it is cold. ART / MUSIC

No art this week. For music we learned about the bassoon and contra bassoon.

LATIN / OTHER

Latin this week was a review lesson giving Jessie time to catch up on the vocabulary. Because we have finally reached lesson 18, Jessie has now finally started using the history reader that came with LfC A. She was very excited and did a great job with her translations. For sign language, we watched the second Signing Time DVD and practiced the signs.

BENNY'S PREK

Benny only had two days of school this week. I overslept one morning and was still eating breakfast when it was his school time. On DH's day off, he was having such a blast downstairs with his play dough that I didn't call him up. Today, I've been trying to complete the last of the carpet shampooing so we can return the shampooer to my MIL this weekend. Despite the lack of consistency, he's been doing his magnetic calendar every day. He did very well on his two phonics lessons reading the three letter words. I didn't prepare any craft for his this week. He did take some computer paper and make some very fancy crowns on his own.

WW: Playing with Baby Henry and Having Fun Too

After months of peek-a-boo, rattles, etc., we now have a game to challenge both the baby and the babysitter. The baby's mission is to knock the tower down. The babysitter's challenge is to complete the tower before it is demolished. Sometimes the simplest games are the best.

Week 21: Starting up again...

Usually I detest starting up again after giving the girls a break. I expected to hear a lot of whining when we started up on Monday, but this time the girls surprised me. They stepped right back into the schedule as if we had only taken the weekend off. Not only that but they did a better job of staying on schedule than we did all of last month. I'm not going to say the entire week was perfect with no whining and no problems, but it definitely went much better than I was expecting. It's nice to be wrong on occasion.

MATH
Jessie spent most of this week reviewing. Monday she completed the last review exercise in her 4A workbook. The next three days were spent completing the semester review at the end of the 4A Intensive Practice book. Friday morning we finally began our first unit in the 4B books. I think Jessie was as happy as I was to realize that we are now halfway through our year. The first unit in the 4B text is on decimals. She started by learning how to write a fraction like five tenths as a decimal. The first lesson was easy enough that we went ahead and did two lessons today, and she still finished early.

Violet is continuing where she left off with the topic of time in the 2B books. This week she completed the Intensive Practice section on time. She read some times, drew some clock hands, and determined the amount of elapsed time in some word problems. She did a great job!

LANGUAGE ARTS
In grammar, Jessie started a new unit on pronouns this week. R&S separates subject pronouns from object pronouns and teaches them in different lessons. Jessie struggled a little bit since she is used to just identifying pronouns and not differentiating between them. In spelling we're up to lesson 34 of SWO F, so it's great to know that we'll start a new spelling book soon as well. Dictation is going. Jessie and I are still battling over how she holds the pencil. I think next week we'll try a really short pencil to see if that helps any. In CW, we started rewriting Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I've let Jessie do most of the work alone this week while I used the time to shampoo our carpets. I gave her both Tuesday and Wednesday to write the story since she was writing it out by hand. Thursday, she did some of her own editing. Next week we'll sit down together and work through the rough draft. As far as reading, this week she finished up Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh.

Violet's grammar topic for the week has been helping verbs. She had already memorized most of the helping verb list just by hearing Jessie recite it for me so she was really excited to show me what she already knew. For handwriting, I had her do some copywork from The Reluctant Dragon, write the cursive alphabet, and then made up a few sentences to work on the capital letters that she couldn't remember (Q, W, and Z). Spelling is going well. In reading she is almost finished with The Wheel on the School. Her story in the Blue Fairy book was called "The Terrible Head" about Medusa and Perseus. For her Thursday reading assignment, I've started her reading The Reluctant Dragon by Grahame. The story itself it fairly short, but the vocabulary is a little more advance than she is used to so I've divided it into three sections.

HISTORY
History this week has been all about historical fiction. Our actual topic for the week was reconstruction. We read a page from Story of the Great Republic. We spent the rest of our history and literature time this week working through two books. Turn Homeward, Hannalee covers the story of a young mill girl who is sent up north during Sherman's march to the sea. Be Ever Hopeful, Hannalee picks up the story of what happens to her family during the Reconstruction period. Of all of the books that I read taking place in this time period, I found these to be the most balanced in their presentation. Although it is told from a Southern viewpoint, the story isn't so simplified that one side is shown as good and the other bad. Instead there are clearly good and bad folks on both sides both during the war and after. Friday we added figures for Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction to our timeline. Our map shows the US states as of 1870. The date in the ex-confederate states shows the year in which they were readmitted to the Union.

SCIENCE
This week we started lesson 3. Tuesday booklet covered some basic information on the order Pinnipedia. Thursday we learned about true seals and how they are different from eared seals and fur seals.

ART / MUSIC
For art this week, there weren't any pictures corresponding with our lesson in the 1, 2, 3, Draw Ocean Animals book. Instead, we took some time Tuesday afternoon to paint the magnet in the kits the kids received in their stockings. Jessie painted the seahorse, Violet the octopus, and Benny the shark. It's a good thing I remembered to take a picture on Tuesday because all three have either been chipped or cracked since then for one reason or the other. For music this week we learned about the clarinet and the saxophone listening to examples of each.

OTHER
In Latin this week Jessie is working on lesson 17. The grammar is a continuation of the imperfect tense. I should have had her do her flash cards last week because she has forgotten some of her vocabulary. Thankfully next week is another review lesson so we can spend some time catching up. (Yes, I have a few words to work on also.) Our new addition to the year is sign language. Our library finally purchased or was given the series of Signing Time DVDs. On Monday we watched the first DVD. Wednesday and Friday we reviewed the signs. Jessie and Violet love it. Benny told me that it was boring but he still chose to stay and watch the whole DVD.

BENNY'S PREK
Benny's preK has gone very well this week. He's suddenly started remembering the number 15 in his counting. YEAH!! We're currently working on counting up to 60. He received a magnetic calendar for Christmas. We've been changing out the day and the weather magnets all week and learning the days of the week. In Phonics Pathways we started on the section of three letter words. He's doing very well, but is having a harder time so we've cut back to covering half a page a day instead of a full one. Today we reviewed the last page of the previous section just so I could see if he remembered all of his letter sounds so far. We just need to work on Y. For reading this week, our topic was Antarctica. Almost all of the books that I checked out were on penguins. We'll actually have plenty of penguin books left to read next week since I spent most of this week rereading Solo by Paul Geraghty over and over and over for school and bedtime too. Normally I would groan by the third time he asks me to read a book, but this one is truly a delightful read with beautiful illustrations. It will definitely make my must read list when I get time to start putting it together.

WW: Finally finished

I took these photos a day or two before Christmas. Jessie and Violet both worked very hard last month to finish up their current latchhook kits before receiving new crafts at Christmas.

Tweaking school for the New Year

Our studies are going along very well this year. Still there are always a few things here and there that I would like to improve on. I've decided on a few minor changes to our school for the new year.

Change number 1 is to add in some geography drill. Before we finish up with American history, I want the girls to have a solid grasp of American geography. That includes the states, capitals, major rivers, and mountain ranges. If I have the time maybe a few of the major cities as well. To accommodate the new drill, I'm going to have both girls alternate math drill with geography drill. We'll use a combination of the file folder map game I created a while back, the World Geography book that goes with our LeapPad, and some free software. I'll probably add the capitals to their memory box, and we might create a few other games at a later point.

Change number 2 is to increase Violet's FLL lessons from twice a week to 3 times a week. Since we've had a hard time getting through all of her lessons during her time with me, we'll alternate grammar with spelling tests and move her math/geography drill work to later in the morning when she used to have a short block of free time.

Finally, our third change will be to actually assign our art and music appreciation to certain days. This will help hold me accountable to making sure that we make time for the fun stuff every week. (Believe me the kids won't let me forget once they can see it written on their assignment sheets.

Another Happy New Year

It's hard to believe how quickly time goes by. It seems like only yesterday that baby Henry was born, and now he's crawling, sitting up, and babbling. It seems like only a couple of years since we began our homeschooling journey, but in truth we're on our 5th official year already. As I look ahead to the new year, I can see even more changes coming. Jessie will turn 10! EEK! I'll have my first official logic stage student in the fall. (Believe me she's ready with the why questions.) Violet's work will also ramp up as she hits 3rd grade, and Benny will officially begin K. For the first time it's finally hitting me that I have only a limited amount of time to teach and enjoy them before they grow up and move on. There is so much I want to cover with them and so many things that I want to do. (I foresee another list coming in the future.) At any rate in order to focus again, I thought I would revisit last years New Year's resolutions and see how I did and where I still have room to work.
Physically:

• Improve my eating habits by:

1. Drinking more water and less caffeine free Pepsi - I've gone back and forth with this one over the course of the year. Now that our Christmas tree is out of the house, and my allergies have subsided, I can start working on being more consistent in the coming year.
   
2. Having a least one fruit or vegetable with every meal or snack - Here is one area that I didn't make much progress on last year. In order to make this more attainable, my goal is to create a list of breakfast, lunch, and snack options for myself that I can choose from each day. If I have more of a set menu, I'm far more likely to follow through here.
   
3. Using my bread machine to make more homemade bread - Again I had some ups and downs here. The goal for the new year will be more consistency.
   
4. Eliminating soy from my diet - It is much harder to find store products with soy or soybean oil. I also try to avoid dairy as much as possible. I have yet to find a butter that is non-dairy, not hydrogenated, and contains no soy. More home cooking will help, but ultimately I'm going to have to choose either some dairy or some soy.
   

• Becoming more active as best as I can for the first half of the year and reestablishing a more consistent exercise program for the second half of the year. - This will be my main focus for the beginning of this year. Baby Henry is now sleeping in long enough stretches that I feel like I can set an alarm and get up to do something. I'd like to start with 5 days a week for the first part of the year to lose a bit of weight, and drop back to 3 towards the end of the year to maintain a healthy weight.
  
• Remember my daily vitamin - I did better this year, but there's still room for improvement in consistency.
  

Spiritually:

• Spend time daily on a more consistent basis in reading my Bible and praying - I did very well at the beginning of last year before Henry was born. I'd like to recapture that consistency now that he's a little older.
  
• Try to read through the entire Bible (whether I can stay on the daily schedule or have to finish up next year) - I honestly have no idea how far I got last year, so I'll just try again this year keeping better track of my progress.
  

Mentally:

• Start memorizing my way through the Psalms - Another area that I started very well with before the baby that I'll try to reclaim my progress in for the new year.
  
• Read and work my way through the book Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit - I actually completed this goal. YEAH!!!

Relationally:

• Try to spend some non-school quality time with each of my children individually twice a week - The girls and I have played a lot more board games this year. I'd like to spend some more time with the girls doing some cooking and sewing. With Benny, I'd like to play some more active games in addition to our reading together. I also need to make a conscious effort to find more ways for Benny to help me. He loves to work and accomplish something.
  
• Spend more time talking or doing something together and less time watching tv in the evening with DH - Another area to continue to work on consistency.
  

Other:

• Steam and put together the crocheted squares for Violet's blanket that have been sitting in a bag for over a year. - I did get them steamed last year. This years goal will be to get them put together.
  
• Reorganize what's currently in my office to make a bedroom for the baby - I made progress organizing the office part of the room and got the basics for Henry. Now that he is more active and has more toys to play with I need to reorganize the baby part of the room and buy the child some furniture beyond just a crib.
  
• Work through the pile of stuff that I have set aside to sell either by listing it on Ebay or getting it ready to consign this spring. - I did consign part of this pile. I set a few things aside to give to my niece in the coming years. Of course there is always a new pile as the kids outgrow things for me to work on for the coming year.
  

New Goals for 2009

• Establish a system to manage my digital photos so that they get edited and uploaded in a timely manner. Go back through older photos and get caught up with my backlog.
• Should I achieve the previous goal before year end, I'd like to start working on the boxes of photos I have stored from before we started taking digital photos. The end goal being some scrapbooks that the kids and I can look through together.
• Improve the consistency with which chores get done around the house both by myself and by the kids.