Well, the girls are still doing well with school. C is still not doing as well as normal with her math, although when made to redo any problems she misses, she gets them all correct, so it's still a laziness factor. She will be doing Lesson 65 today.
She is taking an English test today for her 4th unit. This unit was on "Writing a Persuasive Editorial." As it was an editorial, and therefore she could write on anything she wanted to give an opinion on, she, of course, chose to write about animals. To be precise, she wrote about why people should buy pets from animal shelters, as opposed to pet stores. She worked very hard at it, and even looked up numbers for the local shelters in our area, called them herself, stated her reason for calling (My name is-----. I am a sixth grade student writing an English paper, and I would like to ask a few questions, if I could have a few minutes of your time...."), and did brief phone interviews to get solid facts and quotes for her paper.Her final paper was very well-written, although she got her first B (a 91%) on anything she has written in over 2 years. The reason for the B was not her writing, it was the technical stuff, such as not capitalizing her title, leaving out a few commas, and....for the first time I can recall....a spelling error. (She spelled neutered wrong.)
C and I are muddling through HOD's studies. Go figure...a literature based program has (you guessed it!) tons of reading. *I* actually enjoy it. C tolerates it. We read excerpts from several different sources, research further online, and she follows the instructions to complete the entries in her student notebook. The other day she said something to me that sums this program up: "Mom, I thought all these books would be fun because I like reading. But they're boring, and the only time i like them is when YOU read them out loud to me and explain them. Then they're fun." Well, I'm flattered that I am able to make them FUN for her, but the point is that SHE should be reading most of the things independently, and not only understanding the material, but retaining what she reads. I'm reserving judgment until we finish out the year, but I doubt I use a lit-based program for C again. I think, in the future, I'll go back to a strictly textbook based program for history and related subjects.
Both girls are still LOVING Anatomy and Physiology. We finished our 3rd unit on the Skeletal System. E loves sitting in class, listening, answering questions, while C does the accompanying notebook work. Last week, I began to teach that days section, and C just began RAMBLING off the names of EVERY bone in our body. EVERY SINGLE BONE. I noticed the previous night she had spent about 3 hours with the science book and a piece of paper, and she had been looking them all up and listing them in order. On her own she memorized all 206 bones. Now...while I was not only flabbergasted that C had taken this initiative, and thrilled that the skeletal system interested her so much, little E was not quite so happy. With each bone C said, E's eyes began filling with tears, and soon she was just sobbing. E was upset because she didn't know all these bones. I told C, "Stop for right now.." C kept going. I said, "Honey, E doesn't know these, and she feels bad." C kept going. I said, "C! PLEASE stop for a minute. I am VERY impressed you know all this, and you may tell me later, but for right now please just stop." C kept going. She would NOT stop until she proved to me she knew all the bones. E cried harder. I felt so bad for her, because E loves being able to answer questions, and yet there was no way she could have read or pronounced all these scientific names on her own. Finally C finished. I tried to comfort E. I began asking about 20 questions in a row that I knew E could answer, glaring at C all the while. E slowly calmed down. C got mad that I was letting E answer all the questions. Ahhh......the joy of homeschooling. LOL
E has finished the printing section in her handwriting book. We will soon be starting cursive writing. For the next few weeks, though, the girls and I are doing "light" school work, so cursive will have to wait about a month.
E and I are both still loving R&S phonics and spelling. Well, ok, we both love Phonics. We haven't started the actual spelling book, because the phonics books are so wonderful that she is learning the spelling rules just from doing phonics. E is SO proud that she gets A+'s every lesson, and can remember when to use which spelling for words, and I am just proud of her period, for working so hard this year. : )
E's abilities in math never cease to amaze me. Every time we start on a new concept that *I* think will be difficult to teach, and difficult for E to grasp, she catches on after only one example by me, and she continues to Ace every lesson, every assignment, every test. She is currently on lesson 54. Horizons Math does NOT go lightly on the assignments. Each lesson takes E about an hour to complete, yet she never complains, never asks to skip a problem, and she figures each and every one out on her own.
E's reading is becoming more fluent, although I would like her to be able to be reading chapter books on her own to herself, and she isn't quite there yet. I don't know what's normal for a child of 7; I merely go by my own reading abilities, and her sister's. She has EXCELLENT comprehension skills, though, and I think one of these days she will take off reading on her own very soon.
In social studies, E has cemented her 7 continents, and is working on the 4 oceans. She, occasionally, still thinks Alaska is a continent, but now she giggles as soon as she says it, so I think she just says Alaska to get a rise out of me. LOL She and I have also been studying farming. (Oh, how utterly exciting....no offense to any farmers reading this. LOL) We are talking about the differences in farming today vs. farming in the Colonial days. E was completely awestruck that I have actually been to a real farm. I think I need a farmer friend to let us visit one of these days, so E can experience the thrill of a real, live farm for herself.
Well, this is long enough for today's update. There's so much more I wanted to write about too. Maybe if I tried to be more consistent in my blog-writing, I'd get it all said. Till next time....
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
One month into the school year...
Both girls (and I) are doing well with school. I am actually very pleased with their progress already, and I am much more motivated to get school done this year, as opposed to last year.
I THINK I have FINALLY found something that I not only like, but that is working for E's spelling confusion. After much research, I opted to order Rod & Staff's "Spelling by Sound and Structure" for grade 2, and Rod and Staff's Phonics for grade 2. We have had the Phonics for 2 weeks, and E just LOVES it. She asks to do it every day, and most days she asks to do more than one lesson. This is the FIRST program she and I have used that teaches the RULES of spelling, such as "the long a sound can be spelled 'a_e, ai, or ay'. We only use 'ay' when we hear the long a sound at the end of a word." Or...if a word begins with the /k/ sound, has a short vowel sound in the middle, and the vowel is a,o,or u, the first letter has to be "c". If the vowel is e or i the first letter has to be k." No other program I've used sets forth the rules of HOW to spell like this, and now E has something concrete to memorize and fall back on when unsure of how to spell a word. I had hesitated on buying the Phonics....almost only bought the Spelling, but it is the Phonics lessons that are teaching her how to spell. Ironically, this is the least expensive program I have ever used, and it is the best. (so far, check back at the end of the year, and we'll see if E's spelling has improved as much as I hope it to. LOL)
In other 2nd grade news, E is also still doing fabulously with her Horizons Math. She is on lesson 47, as of today, and still maintaining all A's. She, for some reason, really likes doing Handwriting every day, too, and if try to skip it, she asks for it. And I must admit, her handwriting IS improving. Within a couple of months she will begin learning cursive. In Social Studies E is still learning about communities, but we will soon be moving on to a very simple history of the U.S. She and I have also been reviewing the globe, the continents, and the oceans.
E and C are still doing science together. We are on the 3rd unit in Anatomy and Physiology. We all 3 still love it, although C tries to complain and get out of doing her note-booking activities. I've never seen a child who detests writing more than C. Yesterday we did a demonstration to show how cerebral-spinal fluid makes a huge difference protecting our brains. Each girl put an egg in a container full of water, and ran around my house shaking the container. The eggs remained unbroken. (The egg was our brain, the water was our cerebral spinal fluid, and the container was our skull.) Then we poured the water out of the container, and they again ran around shaking the egg in the container. Much to their delight, the eggs shattered, and suffered extreme "brain damage". LOL This experiment was so much fun they got more eggs out and damaged some more "brains". LOL
C is on lesson 58 in Math. She is not doing as well in math this year, as in years past. She is consistently getting about a C average on her assignments, but this is completely due to her rushing through, not reading directions thoroughly, and making careless mathematical errors without double checking her work. After I grade her work, hand it back to her to correct, she easily finds her mistakes, and corrects them, so it is not a lack of understanding causing her lower grades; it is simply laziness.
C is so far getting all A's in English again this year, and she is just finishing her 3rd unit in that, too. She wrote a BEAUTIFUL "personal narrative" a few weeks ago....definitely her best writing yet, and she did it all on her own, with NO assistance from me at all, from choosing the topic to the final draft, it was completely her own doing.
I FINALLY received her HOD unit study on "Resurrection to Reformation" 2 weeks ago, so we have only completed 1 week's worth of work in that so far. It adds a ton of time to our school day; there are several different books, projects, and activities each day, but overall she and I like it. I will reserve judgement on this for awhile, until we have gotten further into the program. I like the books HOD has chosen for this unit, and I love that one course incorporates History, Geography, Bible, Literature, and art, along with the optional Shakespeare study I ordered with it. I don't like the amount of time this is taking to complete each day, or how disorganized some of the lessons seem to be, but when I look at the entire week's worth of lessons altogether it all flows together at the end.
Every afternoon I see some of C's friends walk home from the bus stop at 3:40, home from their days as 6th graders at the WORST school in our district, and I just Thank God that C is able to be home another year with me. She is learning more, expected to be accountable for her learning and mistakes, and away from a HORRID environment that my older 2 step-daughters spent 3 years of their life in. I dealt with the appalling attitudes and behaviors reigning in that school for a total of 6 years, and I remember vowing NEVER to expose C or E to that way back when April attended that school. Again...Thank GOD I found home-schooling, and that I have the patience, time, and ability to do this for my daughters.
I THINK I have FINALLY found something that I not only like, but that is working for E's spelling confusion. After much research, I opted to order Rod & Staff's "Spelling by Sound and Structure" for grade 2, and Rod and Staff's Phonics for grade 2. We have had the Phonics for 2 weeks, and E just LOVES it. She asks to do it every day, and most days she asks to do more than one lesson. This is the FIRST program she and I have used that teaches the RULES of spelling, such as "the long a sound can be spelled 'a_e, ai, or ay'. We only use 'ay' when we hear the long a sound at the end of a word." Or...if a word begins with the /k/ sound, has a short vowel sound in the middle, and the vowel is a,o,or u, the first letter has to be "c". If the vowel is e or i the first letter has to be k." No other program I've used sets forth the rules of HOW to spell like this, and now E has something concrete to memorize and fall back on when unsure of how to spell a word. I had hesitated on buying the Phonics....almost only bought the Spelling, but it is the Phonics lessons that are teaching her how to spell. Ironically, this is the least expensive program I have ever used, and it is the best. (so far, check back at the end of the year, and we'll see if E's spelling has improved as much as I hope it to. LOL)
In other 2nd grade news, E is also still doing fabulously with her Horizons Math. She is on lesson 47, as of today, and still maintaining all A's. She, for some reason, really likes doing Handwriting every day, too, and if try to skip it, she asks for it. And I must admit, her handwriting IS improving. Within a couple of months she will begin learning cursive. In Social Studies E is still learning about communities, but we will soon be moving on to a very simple history of the U.S. She and I have also been reviewing the globe, the continents, and the oceans.
E and C are still doing science together. We are on the 3rd unit in Anatomy and Physiology. We all 3 still love it, although C tries to complain and get out of doing her note-booking activities. I've never seen a child who detests writing more than C. Yesterday we did a demonstration to show how cerebral-spinal fluid makes a huge difference protecting our brains. Each girl put an egg in a container full of water, and ran around my house shaking the container. The eggs remained unbroken. (The egg was our brain, the water was our cerebral spinal fluid, and the container was our skull.) Then we poured the water out of the container, and they again ran around shaking the egg in the container. Much to their delight, the eggs shattered, and suffered extreme "brain damage". LOL This experiment was so much fun they got more eggs out and damaged some more "brains". LOL
C is on lesson 58 in Math. She is not doing as well in math this year, as in years past. She is consistently getting about a C average on her assignments, but this is completely due to her rushing through, not reading directions thoroughly, and making careless mathematical errors without double checking her work. After I grade her work, hand it back to her to correct, she easily finds her mistakes, and corrects them, so it is not a lack of understanding causing her lower grades; it is simply laziness.
C is so far getting all A's in English again this year, and she is just finishing her 3rd unit in that, too. She wrote a BEAUTIFUL "personal narrative" a few weeks ago....definitely her best writing yet, and she did it all on her own, with NO assistance from me at all, from choosing the topic to the final draft, it was completely her own doing.
I FINALLY received her HOD unit study on "Resurrection to Reformation" 2 weeks ago, so we have only completed 1 week's worth of work in that so far. It adds a ton of time to our school day; there are several different books, projects, and activities each day, but overall she and I like it. I will reserve judgement on this for awhile, until we have gotten further into the program. I like the books HOD has chosen for this unit, and I love that one course incorporates History, Geography, Bible, Literature, and art, along with the optional Shakespeare study I ordered with it. I don't like the amount of time this is taking to complete each day, or how disorganized some of the lessons seem to be, but when I look at the entire week's worth of lessons altogether it all flows together at the end.
Every afternoon I see some of C's friends walk home from the bus stop at 3:40, home from their days as 6th graders at the WORST school in our district, and I just Thank God that C is able to be home another year with me. She is learning more, expected to be accountable for her learning and mistakes, and away from a HORRID environment that my older 2 step-daughters spent 3 years of their life in. I dealt with the appalling attitudes and behaviors reigning in that school for a total of 6 years, and I remember vowing NEVER to expose C or E to that way back when April attended that school. Again...Thank GOD I found home-schooling, and that I have the patience, time, and ability to do this for my daughters.
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