Just browsing the new posts, and sure seeing a lot of negativity. Other people's opinions, hurdles we have to overcome as homeschoolers, confusion and uncertainty. So, tell me - what's going well for you this year? What's working, what's fun, what's your kiddo accomplished that just makes you swell with pride? Tell me happy things!!
Oh I'll tell! Grace is breezing through math - Alpha from MUS. It is like it is nothing to her at all. At the rate she is going she will be in Beta before Christmas! Another thing that is going well is reading. We use HOP and she has really taken off lately. Next week we will begin a two week study on autumn and will do a lapbook to go with it and we are both excited about that!
we are trying to get back into school after a week off. we painted a room robin blue turned into a wonderful school room. I started a new homeschool group with another friend down here we have 18 families already and grewing
My younger two are making a notebook about artists of the renaissance. They have Fra Angelico, Brunechetti, and Donatello so far in it. They also can tell you who de Medici is, too!
We started Latin this year, and I really thought they'd struggle with it, particularly my daughter. But both have done really, really well with it and enjoy it. They like using the words/phrases throughout the day. Chemistry has been going well this year as well, and both kids are doing well with their reading. Sequential Spelling seems to be working for the kids, and it's a new thing this year.
I think everything for us is going well. We just started on Monday, but we've covered every topic at least once and DS 12 is very VERY excited about his reading choices this year, so that was a surprise! Out of all the books I purchased, and many of them pure fun fluff, he chose to read I am the Cheese first. I was like Okaaay... :lol: He was a little put off with the Japanese writing, but after 3 days he's digging it. He even asked to see the workbooks that he'll be using all year. And today, while doing Japanese he was telling me (in his excited voice) about how he mixed up dining room and bedroom for vocabulary and wanted to start the section again to get a perfect score. And, he actually re-read his physics unit and asked if we should maybe practice his flashcards to day...lol...who IS this kid? So far so good with us.
Teaching Textbooks is going AWESOME. Sequential Spelling for my oldest and the www.superteacherworksheets.com spelling for my son in conjunction with spellingcity.com (he loves the site). The literature response sheet i created for my oldest. On a book that she reads that coincides with our history (she's "practicing" this week with one of her American Girl books, we start full blown history next week). Basically she has to do a narration, dictionary lookup for words she doesn't know, and then copywork of her favorite sentence in the chapter. She's really doing very well with it. Hmmmm.... So far, that's it.
Everything is going great so far. We love Teaching Textbooks and that is saying a lot for my "I hate math" 11 year old.
We've been started back for about a month and a 1/2. Everything's going good. Math (Saxon) is breezing by so far. This is our first year w/ BJU Geography, very in depth but dd's seem to be enjoying it. My youngest is concentrating even more on her writing this year. She has a real talent for it. She had two of her poems published last year and this year is working on some short stories and a children's book. My oldest is excited about art classes and has also enrolled in some cake decorating classes. All in all everything is on schedule and going smoothly! LR
Well, today was only day 2 for us, but so far so good, LOL. The best thing so far is how well my adaption of workboxes is working. The boys have jumped right in and like it. I like that it is keeping me more organized (so far) and we are fitting in games and puzzles and fun stuff as well as the main subjects. It seems to keep my 8 year old on task a bit better to know that there is fun stuff coming up, but like I said it has only been 2 days so I espect the newness to wear off a bit and hope it continues to work well.
we are using IEW writing in our co-op.I finally got to hear"mom, I like writing" from my dd who never liked writing.
My baby read her first bookWe are using LLATL for kindergarten,and she loves it. My oldest has really grasped the concept of addition,and her handwriting has made a huge improvement
We're doing pretty well this year, too! I was wondering how it was going to go with both of them (the little one has been at our public school's very good special ed preschool program for the past couple of years), but they are handling it better than I expected them to. The little one (doing Kindergarten) loves "doing homeschool" with the big one (3rd grade), and the big one, while just as distract-able as I expected, is doing better than I expected about getting herself back on task with a minimum of fussing from me. Right now the 3rd grader is doing review in math and language arts, so she's been doing a lot of independent work, which is very good for both of us. I'll have to be helping her more next week when the review is over and we go back to our regular scheduled Singapore Math and R&S English. Hopefully by that time the little one will be used to entertaining herself quietly in another room while we finish up homeschool in the dining room. (Me, earlier this week: "Hey, no roller skating in here right now! Take that into the living room." A few minutes later: "No scooters either! Go find a book!")
A couple of hsing friends and I started a once-a-week learning co-op just for 11 - 14 year olds. My kids love it. It's nice to (1) be able to plan activities for just that age group and not all the way down to early elementary as in our other co-op, and (2) have the kids spend time with some other age-mates. Around here, sooo many families return their kids to ps at middle or high school age. Carol
After talking with DD9- top of the list is First Language Lessons4 followed by her independent history/science from Preparing Hearts For His Glory third is A Beka science- just read and answer questions -easy peasy reading the other books in Preparing Hearts For His Glory she also enjoys listening to Readdy Fox with her younger brother and sister Now with my Kers- No negatives with Little Hearts For His Glory. They seem to be enjoying the activies in it more my 4 year old that 5 year old. My son loves Time4Learning and goes on it almost everyday. Without sitting next to him he gets really good scores. He's got it figured out.
We are doing well with Spelling Power, and enjoying the books in Lightning lit. (although the assignments...oops. no neg. on this post eh?) We are having some fun with NM history, which ds#1 has been joining in on even though it is ds#2's "subject". Same with Spanish...will consider getting a real program if they stick with this subject. They have been intersted in the Physics...and understandning it. (yea) (I still have to get the correct lab) But they love the solar mistake I made! ds#2 does not complain at all about cursive now that we have tweaked it a bit. (I am doing the lessons myself, rather than using a book...and I am throwing in vocabulary and bible verses and I don't even think he has officially noticed.) ds#1 almost always does his typing lesson first. AND he is getting 90-100% on math regularly. So actually, quite a lot is going well for us. Today we are going to have almost a whole day of home ec. (ha ha...cleaning the house)
I'm loving that my son is becoming an independent learner. Last year (first grade) I had to 'hold his hand' through every single page and assignment, walking him through each tiny step. Now he's reading the material and answering his questions mostly on his own. He's reading the directions for the activities and just doing them. If I'm not paying attention (e.g. I'm working with one of my younger boys), he just keeps going. I've had to start drawing lines in the LifePacs to show him where to stop and come get me. lol.
