Weekly Report - 1

We finished our first week of school and it was super!

We had planned to start earlier but we kept hitting roadblocks. Last week the kids did VBS at church and I was able to plan. All our curriculum finally arrived as well. I'm still not 100% pleased with all my curriculum choices, but overall, everything went very well! So, here's the scoop:

LATIN
Everyone really likes Song School Latin. We sing along as we clean up breakfast, after a Bible story from Vos and catechism. Today K and C filled out the worksheets and they liked that as well. It's a very entertaining and gentle approach to Latin for the younger set!

READING
Kaden enjoyed the first week of lessons in Explorer's Bible Study, New Beginnings. He's using it for reading comprehension. Chloe is reading the Young Reader's Bible aloud to me. It is amazing to me that last summer I was teaching her the sounds of the letters and now she is reading fluently!

SPELLING
Kaden is taking a break from Apples and Pears Spelling and doing Spellwell on his own while we work out the logistics of teaching three kids at the same time. I think he likes it well enough, this morning he got it out and finished the weekly lesson before school even started! Chloe is working through the Explode the Code phonics books for spelling this year. She can probably start A&P in the Spring while Kaden finishes it. Sam is doing crafts from Jumbo Fun with the Alphabet and PuzzleBuzz from Highlights. He starts his day by coloring me a picture from an online coloring book collection. Sometimes he plays a kindergarten game on the computer while K and C have math.

MATH
Math is my big dilemma right now. I switched to BJU from Saxon because the grade progression put them at three years of calculus in high school (and who wants that)! I thought they could both work together through BJU Math 2, a repeat for Kaden and new for Chloe. It is perfect for Chloe, but Kaden is bored. Thursday, I printed out some of the enrichment pages on the teacher's CD and gave those to Kaden along with the daily worksheets and he had fun working on those in another room. I'm bummed that we might not be able to work together. I don't want to teach math twice, it just takes too much time, so I am thinking of getting him MUS to work on independently. Thinking...

GEOGRAPHY
Globe: Oceans, continents, equator, northern and southern hemispheres
States: TX, NM, AZ, CA, OR, WA, ID, MT

POETRY
K: There Once was a Puffin
C: Whole Duty of Children
S: Come to the Window, first stanza
(This went really well! They picked their poems and today I filmed them reciting.)

SCIENCE
Earth: Revolving, rotating, axis, the rising and setting of the sun, and the structure of the earth
MPH: Diversity, living and non-living things

HISTORY - CELTS
SOTW2: chapter 2
Celts by Martell
Favorite Medieval Tales: Finn MacCoul
Celtic Tales by Weiss
Our Island Story: chapters 1-9
Beowulf by Szobody
Celtic Animal Stained Glass
Patrick: Patron Saint of Ireland
(Their notebook pages turned out quite well. It's a stretch for Chloe so she might drop it until next year, but we'll see how it goes for a couple more weeks.)

We are reading The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald this week and we all like it immensely. Kaden read Fantastic Mr. Fox and three more A to Z Mysteries this week. He is reading so much faster now and loving it. Chloe is working through her first chapter book after struggling through the Princess Academy. She is reading The Runaway Racehorse and making steady progress.

We also managed to make it to the gym twice and to the pool twice. This was quite an accomplishment. Jack and Abby did great playing in their room during school as well! Now if we could just get the puppy to calm down and stop biting us, it should really be smooth sailing!