I love Caleb's schooling. I posted about it below this thread. Knowing that I'll have him home at least until 5th grade makes all the difference with teaching him. With Josh I never know and became so stressed about what he is not learning. I forget about how much Josh is learning. But back to Caleb

We worked on Reading Pathways-20 minutes, Noah Phonics-10mintues, dictation-10 minutes, Click N Read-20 minutes  (on the computer) and math 20 minutes (also on the computer). It takes about an hour and a half to complete his schooling. Once we start Rod & Staff Reading again it will take a total of 2hrs. With Caleb I am not rushing him through lessons. He is going at his own pace.Hopefully by the Fall he will read more fluently.

Annette does most of her work on her own. She is still using Rod & Staff Reading 3,  R&S Phonics 2, Singapore 1B, R&S Spelling 2, & Primary Language Lessons (informal English). I usually have her come to me for math & phonics. If she needs help with anything else she will hunt me down.

Annette is almost done with her spelling book  in another two weeks and she will move on to the next level. She is a pretty good speller, but I'm sure she will get stumped soon. She gets frustrated when she doesn't know something. So far her work has not been too challenging for her. She whizzes right through it. I can see that in the next couple of years she will be challenged more as her work load increases. Currently she is not doing any writing assignments (that starts next year 08/09 school year)

Her penmanship has gone down hill. Especially after seeing her cousins penmanship. While we were in Ca. my niece Ali needed some help with her homework. She was showing me what she was working on and she had to copy a paragraph in cursive. It was beautiful. She goes to Hueneme Christian School that uses Abeka. I'm considering having Brent, Ethan & Lance start cursive first.

Josh, still gets very distracted while doing school. He keeps putting off doing his work. We are working on that. One subject that really needs improvement is his writing. We are still using Intermediate Language Lessons and today he was supposed to write a letter. The lesson gave him two options to write about. He chose the one about a friend who sent him a puppy. We went over how to write a letter yesterday and I reviewed it again today. He sat at the table and looked like he was working hard. I went to my room to make my bed and next thing I know he is right behind me. I told him to go back and finish his assignment. He said he was done. I looked at him in a funny way because it was just minutes ago that I left the kitchen. I looked at his letter and he DIDN'T INDENT!!! All year I have been showing him how a paragraph looks, I have showed him by writing a paragraph, I have gone over the whole indent thing dozens of times. And he FORGOT TO CAPITALIZE the beginning of some sentences. Again we have gone over this one for TWO years NOW! I was ready to pull my hair out but I didn't. I calmly told him to make the corrections.

He did do well in math. We are taking a break from Rod & Staff Math for a while to pick-up with Math-U-See. He has memorized his multiplication for 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5's. Well, almost memorized them all. He knows them but sometimes it takes a few seconds for him to remember. He has been working on division up to the 5's too. He understands it but doesn't at the same time. I have explained it but we are getting know where. I went ahead and ordered Math-U-See Delta. Our plan is to work through Gamma & Delta side by side for a while and then go back to Rod & Staff once he has mastered and understands division. So we'll see how it works for a while. I'll keep you updated .

Josh loves Delta because it's yellow. Gamma is pink so he is not too happy about that. When he was working through R&S Math 2nd. I would tear out his math pages from the workbook, so he wouldn't see that it was pink.

I'm embarrassed to mention this but I ordered Little Hands to Heaven for Lance to use this coming year. I didn't purchase the Bible or Devotionals because we have enough to use already and he is using Journey of Imagination/I'm Ready to Learn from WinterPromise which has Bible & Devotions. I did order their cd "The Singing Bible". I know I'm crazy but I like how he will learn about Creation to the Apostle Paul.  There are 33 Units. In my humble opinion it seems more Christ centered than the other two programs & looks easy enough to combine. It's not like he has to finish everything in a year.I'll probably include Ethan with some of it too.

Ahem, did I mention that I also purchased their newest guide "Preparing Hearts for His Glory" The guide looks so simple to use. I didn't buy the whole program, just the guide. I'm going to compare it to My Father's World "Creation to the Greeks" and go from there. But if anything, I love how the guide has ideas for math, it has dictation passages, it schedules in R&S English 4 (which we are going to use) poetry & it includes the reading program that Josh will use next year. So if I don't use it for History, Bible, or Science it's will still be used . I'll have to keep you all posted on that too.

I need to get the kiddos ready for bed.

Linda<><

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.