Princess L Through Week 6

Getting in a weekly update is just plain difficult this year!  I don't know how it's really going to happen.  So I'll just update on everyone when I can.  This post will be about Princess L.  We have been doing some major reviewing.  One problem with switching phonics curriculums as much as I have is that you have to do so much reviewing because each one teaches some things so differently.  If you don't start at the beginning, you don't always understand some of the lingo, acronyms or ways of marking words that are used.  They aren't all the same!  There are definitely some aspects of IEW PAL that I like.  At the moment, we are only doing the reading portion.  (She knows all her letters - though some are still backwards - so the first writing book was just too slow for her.  The story sequence is important, but we're going to hold off on that part until later.  The second writing book is mostly copywork, and I decided to get A Reason for Handwriting for her instead.  She really needs the starting dots right now as she has a hard time getting her letters a uniform size without that reference.)  We are pretty much doing two reading lessons a day.  I think she really could do one more, but I generally begin to run out of steam when we get to that point of our day.  Today we finished up lessons 28-29.


As part of IEW PAL, she has started All About Spelling Book 1.  I really like this program.  We aren't using it exactly as written, but she is flying through it.  We are already at step 13. Seeing as how both of her older sisters are great spellers, I'm not surprised.  However, one of Princess L's favorite past times right now is writing stories.  When she writes stories, all her phonics and spelling skills seem to disappear!  I'm anticipating that she will move into Book 2 sometime around her birthday in March.  Or perhaps we'll have to hold her off until after the MACHE conference to see if I can find it used somewhere.

She is also continuing to do about two pages of Explode the Code Book 3 each day.  She does this on her own, for the most part, except for the pages where you read the sentences and match it to the picture.  I do those with her.  And it is this exercise that has me convinced that she needs vision therapy.  She is going to be evaluated for it the beginning of October.

In Math, she has finally passed level two of Calculadder and has moved on to level three.  This level corresponds with MUS Alpha lesson 8 which is the +2/2+ facts.  When she gets close to passing this level, I will bring the Alpha book back out, as this is where we left off. 

Finally, TOG.  I say this with a big sigh because although I love TOG - I'm finding it difficult to work into her day.  It's not her fault.  Really, it the fault of her big sisters, who need to be brought back into focus every few minutes.  When I began TOG with the big two, both of them were much better readers than Princess L is right now.  So, I only read aloud one or two of the books each week, and they did the rest on their own.  By the time I finish school with Princess M, have had meetings with the big two, then have finished all  of the above work with Princess L (all the while bringing everyone else back to their tasks, attempting - and usually failing - to do some house chores, and keeping Princess M occupied throughout the day) I'm generally not awake enough, sane enough, or patient enough to sit down to read the TOG books.  Since we are in year one, much of the history is written in the Bible.  To me, that is really the meat of this year.  So every day we have been listening to this. This has been a wonderful addition to our Bible time! The girls usually draw pictures of what is going on each day as we listen. Sometimes we only listen in the morning. Other times we also listen at lunch. It depends how much reading is assigned in that week. This next week we will be listening to 29 chapters, so we'll listen three times most days.