Lorenzo - Age 11 months
Hyrum - Age 2.5
Hyrum's also been having his ears and hearing tested due to the speech issues. There is a slight chance that he has some hearing loss so the doctors and audiologists are following up on that.
Hyrum's funny because he loves much of our schoolork. He will sit at the table with crayons and paper pretending he is doing what the others are. He also loves to listen to the audio companion to First Language Lessons and regular walks around singing the prepositions or clapping his state of being verbs.
Ellie - Age 4.5
Ellie is my first kid to finish the What Your Preschooler Needs to Know workbook. It was great for her and quick for me! She begged for more all of the time.
She has recently started reading lessons with Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. She has surprised me with being able to blend simple CVC words and rhyme with ease. She also is capable of doing simple addends-under-five addition.
Emmett - Age 6, Kindergarten
LA:
Emmett still is working on becoming an independent reader. He and I did a lot of buddy reading at the beginning of this year. He still reads to me quite frequently. Sometimes he insists that he's read whatever I've sent him to read in his head, but he "finishes' 80 page books in 5 minutes. Riiight. He can read when prompted, but still doesn't choose to do it on his own. I want him to love it. Because I'm swamped and I don't want to be beating a dead horse, I've decided that he will just continue working on his phonics via Explode the Code. He's just started book three, which starts with VCE words. It's a good fit for him because he still forgets to make those vowels long even though he's practiced this concept forwards, backwards and upside-down for the last year or so.
Despite not being 100% independent with his reading, he sailed through All About Spelling 1 for his spelling. He's just started AAS 2.
First Language Lessons 1 has been another success for grammar this year. He has enjoyed memorizing the poems in the book. He just memorized all of his pronouns.
After working through all of these things for LA, we gave writing a try. Unfortunately, Emmett had a hard time with narration and answering follow-up questions. So, we decided to give him some time to mature a year.
Math:
Emmett really likes math. I wonder if he'll continue to like it like his mom did. I tried to slow him down a bit this year by doing half lessons and the like, but he still zoomed through. He just finished up the Singapore portion of 2A portion involving adding and subtracting three-digit numbers with regrouping, including the standard "stack-it-up" algorithm.
LA:
Abby is working on reading good books. This year she has read quite a few books, most notably the Tale of Despereaux, Door in the Wall, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (an indulgence), Black Beauty, Misty of Chincoteague, The Story of Dr. Doolittle, the Voyages of Dr. Doolittle, the Secret Garden, etc.
She finished up her grammar (First Language Lessons level 2) for the year. She enjoyed jumping to her prepositions as she memorized the list.
For writing, she is finishing up Writing With Ease 2. She's done great with her narrations and takes dictation well (even if she claims she hates it).
Spelling has sort of been up in the air. We took a bit off and then reviewed some to let her spelling sink in. She finished through the middle of AAS 3 and we have moved into R&S Spelling by Sound and Structure Level 3 because it's more independent and AAS (while phonetically awesome) is very teacher/parent intensive.
Math:
This year Abby has taken Beast Academy for a whirl. It's a very challenging curriculum, but she has absolutely loved the little beasts. Some critique Singapore because it doesn't teach kids as incrementally as they would like. For Abby, however, I have realized it is still very incremental and she often gets caught up in the little things while completely understanding the big picture. The ability for her to tease out HOW to approach problems and to puzzle through difficult problems has been HUGE for her. She still flips out over math sometimes, but not because she doesn't get it. Most of her drama about it is because she has spells of forgetting her facts. She is about halfway through 3C and loving long division (which is HUGE for her).
History:
Abby and Emmett are doing Middle Ages this year. Emmett sat in on history last year, but his participation was sketchy. This year, however, he is in there understanding more, figuring out the geography, and enjoying all of the battles. His narrations for history really feel like they've come a long way. In this way, we'll keep practicing narrations even though he's not doing a formal writing program.
Science:
Last year, Emmett LOVED all things science. We are using RSO again this year, but it is not catching him as interesting as the human body section. Apparently earth and space science is not nearly as interesting as biology. We are in the middle of making a lapbook about the Solar System. I've been having Ellie sit in making the lapbook and have her begin to give small narrations.
Extracurriculars:
Abby has remained in gymnastics all year long. Besides a mishap at a local play area the resulted in a broken clavicle, she has practiced handstands and cartwheels when she could.
Emmett joined swim team at the beginning of summer last year. He is loving swim and swam at the state swim mett this past February. His coaches even recognized him for how much his attitude, practice, strokes, and event times have improved in the last 10 months.
Ellie has continued in gymnastics as well. She enjoys gym but doesn't seem passionate about it either. It is good for her to keep active, however.
Last September we learned that we will be PCSing. That's military-speak for moving. For the last six months, my husband and I have been as busy as we could getting the house fixed up and finally on the market. It's been quite a task with five kids and homeschooling! Hopefully the house will sell soon.
This summer we are going from Oklahoma to Alaska. We will be driving and camping along the way. We are so excited to see and explore half the continent! We told the kids they could switch extracurriculars if they wanted. Emmett will continue with swim, but Abby has decided she might like to try drama and Ellie wants to give figure skating a go.
Homeschooling in Alaska should be fairly straightforward, which will be nice. We are definitely lookingn forward to the next big adventure!
Math:
Emmett really likes math. I wonder if he'll continue to like it like his mom did. I tried to slow him down a bit this year by doing half lessons and the like, but he still zoomed through. He just finished up the Singapore portion of 2A portion involving adding and subtracting three-digit numbers with regrouping, including the standard "stack-it-up" algorithm.
Abby - Age 7.5, Second Grade
Abby is working on reading good books. This year she has read quite a few books, most notably the Tale of Despereaux, Door in the Wall, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (an indulgence), Black Beauty, Misty of Chincoteague, The Story of Dr. Doolittle, the Voyages of Dr. Doolittle, the Secret Garden, etc.
She finished up her grammar (First Language Lessons level 2) for the year. She enjoyed jumping to her prepositions as she memorized the list.
For writing, she is finishing up Writing With Ease 2. She's done great with her narrations and takes dictation well (even if she claims she hates it).
Spelling has sort of been up in the air. We took a bit off and then reviewed some to let her spelling sink in. She finished through the middle of AAS 3 and we have moved into R&S Spelling by Sound and Structure Level 3 because it's more independent and AAS (while phonetically awesome) is very teacher/parent intensive.
Math:
This year Abby has taken Beast Academy for a whirl. It's a very challenging curriculum, but she has absolutely loved the little beasts. Some critique Singapore because it doesn't teach kids as incrementally as they would like. For Abby, however, I have realized it is still very incremental and she often gets caught up in the little things while completely understanding the big picture. The ability for her to tease out HOW to approach problems and to puzzle through difficult problems has been HUGE for her. She still flips out over math sometimes, but not because she doesn't get it. Most of her drama about it is because she has spells of forgetting her facts. She is about halfway through 3C and loving long division (which is HUGE for her).
All Together:
Abby and Emmett are doing Middle Ages this year. Emmett sat in on history last year, but his participation was sketchy. This year, however, he is in there understanding more, figuring out the geography, and enjoying all of the battles. His narrations for history really feel like they've come a long way. In this way, we'll keep practicing narrations even though he's not doing a formal writing program.
Science:
Last year, Emmett LOVED all things science. We are using RSO again this year, but it is not catching him as interesting as the human body section. Apparently earth and space science is not nearly as interesting as biology. We are in the middle of making a lapbook about the Solar System. I've been having Ellie sit in making the lapbook and have her begin to give small narrations.
Extracurriculars:
Abby has remained in gymnastics all year long. Besides a mishap at a local play area the resulted in a broken clavicle, she has practiced handstands and cartwheels when she could.
Emmett joined swim team at the beginning of summer last year. He is loving swim and swam at the state swim mett this past February. His coaches even recognized him for how much his attitude, practice, strokes, and event times have improved in the last 10 months.
Ellie has continued in gymnastics as well. She enjoys gym but doesn't seem passionate about it either. It is good for her to keep active, however.
The Big News
AKA
The Whole Reason I Have Been Too Busy to Keep Up This Blog
Last September we learned that we will be PCSing. That's military-speak for moving. For the last six months, my husband and I have been as busy as we could getting the house fixed up and finally on the market. It's been quite a task with five kids and homeschooling! Hopefully the house will sell soon.
This summer we are going from Oklahoma to Alaska. We will be driving and camping along the way. We are so excited to see and explore half the continent! We told the kids they could switch extracurriculars if they wanted. Emmett will continue with swim, but Abby has decided she might like to try drama and Ellie wants to give figure skating a go.
Homeschooling in Alaska should be fairly straightforward, which will be nice. We are definitely lookingn forward to the next big adventure!
