Resurrection to Reformation Units 10-17

Yes – it’s been a long time since I’ve posted about Princess S.  She has been moving right along with RTR.  She has transitioned well to this program, for the most part.  She is able to do most of the activities on her own.  I wish I had time to do the Storytime box with her, but it just isn’t to be. 

Over the last few weeks she has learned about the Crusades, the Hundred Years’ War, the ending of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Exploration Age.  She has made some great history projects – which I neglected to get any photos of, mostly because I was working with her sisters while she was working on them.

In Math, she has just passed the lesson 10 test.  She could be a little bit further along at this point, but she keeps forgetting that she doesn’t need to do the B and C worksheets if she gets the A worksheet all correct.  So in almost every lesson she has done some unnecessary work.  Not that it’s all bad, but I do want her to pick up the pace a little bit. 

She is making very good progress on her Latin studies, however.  She is working on lesson 20 right now.  She is on pace to begin Level B before the end of the year, which I had hoped she would be able to do.  She does Latin completely on her own, as she refuses to ask for help.  I don’t worry about her pronunciation as she will not be speaking this anywhere. 

She has been taking writing classes through a co-op close to us.  They are working on IEW B.  Most of the information is a repeat of A, but I’m very grateful for the break from having to teach writing this year.  They love their teacher too, so that is a plus.  At the same co-op, she is taking an art class.  She is a very talented artist, who is stuck with a mom who cannot draw a stick figure to save her soul.  Thankfully, Jesus saved my soul, so I don’t have to worry about that!  We are looking forward to a two week break for the holidays.

Bigger Hearts Units 7-10

Princess L is partway through unit 11 now.  She enjoyed learning about the Native Americans, and about Benjamin Franklin.  She enjoyed making a wampum belt out of colored rice.

The problem was that our glue just wasn’t strong enough to hold the rice in place in the page protector.  She also got tired of trying to stay in the lines she had drawn.
The thing that I was most pleased with was her improvement on her vocabulary sheet.  This was the first sheet that she completed 100% on her own.  I was impressed that the sentence she wrote made sense and used the word correctly.

Her handwriting could be better and there are a few spelling errors, but I was so happy to see what she did on her own.

She has been enjoying learning cursive, so much so that she got quite a bit ahead of where she should be.  So I decided to take a week off from cursive to do a bit of extra spelling practice.  She is on lesson 15 in AAS Level Two.  I’m hoping to get through level two by the end of January and attempt to finish level three by the end of the school year.

In math she is working on the all facts review for the level three math facts.  She has been working with Math Rider as well on her addition facts. She is up to about 40% mastery.  I think she actually is probably better than that, but it takes her a bit to find the correct numbers on the keyboard yet, and then type them in with two fingers.

She has been on a break from her vision therapy.  We did a final analysis to see where she was at.  It was evident that she is still struggling visually, but the consensus is that she lacks either the understanding of what she is being asked to do, or the verbal acuity to tell us exactly what it is she is seeing.  So it was decided to take some time off and come back at the end of the school year.  Dr. Dean will reassess her to see if he thinks she is ready to pick up where she still has some weaknesses.  He gave her a pair of reading glasses, but I really don’t think that have made a difference at all.  She still skips lines, tries to combine words, and re-reads the same lines over several times.  So instead of adding in her own reading, I am having her read aloud part of our story time book every day.  I read a portion, and then she reads a portion, and we trade off.  We are almost done with Farmer Boy and will be starting Stuart Little soon.  I promised her we’d rent the movie after we were done with the book.

Finally, we got in a field trip last week.  Here’s the proof:

(Not really sure what they are doing or what Princess E is going for.  Wednesday Adams maybe?)  Nickelodeon Universe opened up for free rides for four hours one day last week and was filled to the brim with homeschoolers and preschoolers.  We were some of the lucky takers.