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.
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