Princess L - 1st Grade - LG
We're still doing lots of reading. We're reading one lesson from Christian Liberty Press's Nature Reader each day. Then she is reading either a chapter in a chapter book, or two library picture books each day. Today we started my very most favorite series from my childhood - the Carolyn Haywood Betsy series. We began "B is for Betsy." I always enjoy reading these as some of their first chapter books. She is halfway through lesson ten in Explode the Code book four. We will be finishing this book soon, and I will be deciding what to do next. I have a few options, but since I don't have the money in my budget for book 5, we won't be including that one for now. In math, she is finishing up the +8/8+ facts. I've been having her do the online drill at the Math-U-See site and incorporating all of the facts she has learned so far. When she gets them all correct, she has done so with her fastest time being 100 seconds. It's a little bit longer than their suggested time. However, there is always some hunt and peck time with an online drill, so I'd really like to see her at around 80 seconds.
Princess S - 5th Grade - UG
The first two weeks of doing the D level history reading have gone okay I guess. However, she is several days behind at this point. I'm not sure what is going on with her, but I have made a big decision that should affect the older two princesses - hopefully for the better. More on that in a minute. History these two weeks has been dealing with the route to a divided kingdom. We saw how the people demanded a king and got Saul, and then everything that Samuel warned them about came to fruition through David and Solomon. After these two kings, the line of kings followed the LORD less and less, until the kingdoms became divided into two separate kingdoms. In math, Princess S has made it to lesson 24. She is beginning week 22 in her Tom Sawyer Fix-It book, and week 13 in her Caesar's English vocabulary. She has begun lesson 13 in Latin, and will be taking a break once she hits lesson 17. I had planned for her to do about half of the book this year. She will continue to play the games at HeadventureLand once a week until she starts up on the second half.
Princess E - 7th Grade - D
Princess E is finding a groove with her math review and is doing very well in Latin now that I have backed her up and given her a new schedule for each lesson. I also made up some forms that I am having her fill out for each new word that forces her to write each possible ending - in both Latin and English - so that she can remember the endings better. She is completing about a lesson every three days or so, so she is all the way up to lesson ten again. She is taking a break from Magic Lens as she is up to the loop lessons. We will be focusing on her vocabulary, Word Within the Word, until she reaches lesson twenty.
The big decision that I have made is that we are switching to a year round school schedule. The two older princesses are just struggling to stay afloat. They are very stressed out because they "think" they have so much more school work than everyone else. Really, they have the same amount that all the other kids have - they just are not able to focus on their work and become discouraged when they don't see any "me" time in sight. But, we aren't homeschooling just to do "school at home" - so we are going to do what is necessary for all of our sanities. I have been working on a staggered schedule for all of our subjects. This will mean that they have fewer assignments on any given day, hopefully allowing them to focus more on each subject rather than rushing to get everything done. It will still require diligence to get their work done, but it will hopefully allow those who need more sleep to get it and those who need more "me" time to get that as well. We will still be taking eight weeks of vacation from school; but they will be staggered throughout the year, rather than coming all together in the summer. This new schedule will begin on February 6.
Showing posts with label Princess L school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Princess L school. Show all posts
1/27/12
9/16/11
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.
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.
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