I have a new blog in a new location: www.teachafish.blogspot.com and a new web site: www.teachafish.com

Common over for a visit!

P.S. I may keep this blog, as well - haven't decided yet.

I've been stressing over math, especially since I have taken 7yo dd back so far in lessons, with a long leisurely review of addition to 9, and now a long  leisurely review of subtraction to 9. All of the subtraction problems are getting little illustrations next to them, where dd draws 6 lines and scribbles out 3 of them to figure out 6 - 3. And I wondered if we'd ever get "there" ("there" is a magical place where something suddenly makes sense and seems easy). I assigned 3 pages of math, and figured she could finish it in 15mins if she just stayed on task and did it. Anyhow, half way through she says, "this is sooo easy! Look, 5 - 2 is 3 because 3 + 2 is 5." And the angels sang. The 3 pages took her 20 minutes, but I pointed out that she did sit there and dork around quite a bit (as evidenced by all the 4s and hs drawn around the page, because she discovered that 4s and hs were a lot alike. And also evidenced by the carefully written Times New Roman style numbers, with the little lines drawn at all the edges.) She decided that she probably dorked around for...oh, say...about 2 minutes, and then she computed in her head that it really only took her 18 minutes to complete because she dorked around for 2 of those 20 minutes, and 20-2 is 18. And its great to see the practical application of subtraction skills when you'd like to figure out how long you work and how long you waste time;) 

Dd7 picked the topic: Egypt. I took her narration about Egypt on the computer and then printed it off for her to copy. It took 2 days to copy the text, because it was rather long, and dd wanted to do her best handwriting. She drew pictures of a Queen and Princess. Next is my drawing of Bastet, the cat headed goddess (dd's choice), next is an Egyptian girl with a wax cone on her head. Underneath, to the left is Pharaoh whipping an Israelite slave, and next to that is the Israelite slaves squishing through the mud. Notice how unhappy they are? 

Here is Dd7's report on outer space. I had her tell me a few things about outer space, then I typed it up and had her copy it onto a piece of paper. We ended up changing the words a bit, since she had said a lot more but it was too much for her to try to write. I drew the planets and the satellite, she drew a bunch of asteroids and a big rocket ship.

We had a GREAT first day back to school! I feel so productive today:)

Me: got 1 load of laundry washed, 1/2 load folded and put away, kitchen floor swept, and 1 load of dishes. Kids helped too.

7yo: read 3 stories from her Beginner's Bible. Did 1 grammar page from Evan-Moor, I only made her write 1 of the sentences. Did 4 pages of her new Dev Math 3 book: Subtraction of Ones (i.e., numbers 9 and under). Today she subtracted 1 from a number. Tomorrow she'll subtract 2 from a number. The book looks very easy, but the storyproblems look rather tricky! It should make us think - maybe I will make them into challenges for the whole family.

5yo: read Bob Book 6 Dot and the Dog. Reviewed lowercase c, o, a, d. Learned lowercase g in HWT K. Did a few pages of BJU Math K, practiced counting pennies, learned about dimes.

Both: we have been reading about Moses leading the people to the promised land in Bible. We learned about famous explorers in history and then the kids told me everything they know about space exploration, so we went on a tangent about outer space. We learned about Deciduous Trees in science, and why leaves change color and fall off the trees in autumn. (I love that word Deciduous. I could say it all day: deciduous, deciduous, deciduous).

Also, 7yo is working on Away in the Manger on the piano and sounds very good. She's so proud to learn a Christmas song.

I have NOT been working on Nanowrimo...the family got sick, my husband had about 2 weeks of intense tooth pain (and went through a Series of Unfortunate Events at the Dentist Office, finally resulting in minor surgery at the oral surgeon). And then, my quarterly work assignment for our home business arrived a few weeks early. Which is actually a huge blessing, because it will leave my month of December free for Christmas endeavors. Its just that now I need to work for a customer, and not spend my time idly writing trippy stories for Nanowrimo:)

You do know that I only write about our good days where we accomplish a whole lot - so if you want to see our "typical" day, then divide our workload by half and add in some complaining:) LOL. So here was our really good day...

Let it be known that this day was started knowing it would be our last day of school before we take a 1 week break. Not that that should affect how our day goes, right;)

Dd7 completely and entirely finished her Developmental Math Book 2 (adding within 9). I have been setting the timer for 10mins and having her do as many pages as she can within 10 mins. So our total math lesson has been 10mins long. I promised a 1 week break when she finished her book. It was finished today, woohoo! Book 3 (subtraction within 9) has been ordered and is on its way, but won't be started for another week. Because we're taking a vacation from school. Do I sound excited about taking a vacation from school?? Yaaahooo! I also found out that Developmental Math is essentially Egyptian math. Of course I would use Egyptian math, why wouldn't I? I've been obsessed with Egypt since adolescence, of course I would use Egyptian math. Maybe I should find a good Egyptian writing program, too? Basically, the person who developed Dev Math designed the math curric for elementary schools in Egypt and developed this idea of a self-teaching math program. Then he came over to the US and hired someone to design Dev Math based upon these ideas that were working very well in Egypt. So, its kind of like Singapore Math, but its Egyptian, and it rocks. Most people by now know to just tune me out when I start talking about Egypt. Alright, alright, I'll move on...

I also demanded that Dd7 "write something" - 2 sentences. She could copy from a book or write her own sentences. She hates writing if it has anything remotely to do with educational, so this was met with instant obstinance. Instead of really writing, she hung out and annoyed me and her little sis while trying to do K math. After I finally got really mean about the interruptions, she opened up her journal and wrote. And what she wrote just absolutely warmed my heart and made me stop math and hug her. She wrote, "I love you. Sometimes I get angry or things don't turn out the way they should." And I just thought she did such a nice job of expressing her feelings (anger) in a way that wasn't mean. So I am counting this as a good day.

Dd5 did some money and calendar exercises in BJU K (she likes the money assignments. I keep the calendar stuff short because she does not like these. I may skip the rest and just work off a real calendar). She wanted to keep going in HWT, so she did many many pages in lowercase letters before I saw her get tired and talked her into stopping. She read Bob Book 5 Dot and Mit. Then she asked if she could write something too for school. So she's at the table now - not sure what she's coming up with, but I'm sure it'll be a page full of pegasuses and lots of wierd looking letters strewn all over the page. I love this age!

And now we are taking a week break. Have I mentioned how excited I am about our week break?

Lisa tagged me in a rather lazy, haphazard way (which I greatly admire! LOL) so here is my rather late and lazy response:

7 things about me

1. I talk to myself. Always have. If I'm engrossed in a conversation by myself as you pass by, you can either listen with interest, or keep walking.
2. I'm writing a novel for NanoWriMo. 8000 words so far.
3. I have trouble telling my left from my right. When teaching karate, I write L on my left hand and R on my right hand, and then the class goes much smoother:)
4. I tend to get weird illnesses for which there is a low chance of getting. I had toxic shock once. Very scary.
5. I also had pre-eclampsia in my 2nd pregnancy (not my first pregnancy, another very low risk thing). Also very scary.
6. I think I have Frozen Shoulder now, which is weird. And painful. And very weird. I didn't have this one diagnosed, but it seems to match the description on the web sites:D
7. I'm getting a lot of grey hair. Yuck. Old age is setting in.

My younger dd is turning 5. It has been such a joy to watch her grow. Here are some things about little Z...

• She was born at 29 weeks gestation, weighing 2 and 1/2 lbs by emergency c-sec. Immediately after birth she cried...loudly!
• Never could get that baby to nurse right. I expressed breastmilk for 9 months. So, yeah, she was breastfed, but from a bottle! I always had trouble answering the nurse's question, "breast or bottle?"
• She didn't get her first tooth until she was 14 months old.
• She didn't eat solid foods until she got her first tooth.
• She learned her colors at an early age, because it was important to her that she could dictate what her color preference was..."I want the blue one"
• Even to this day, everything needs to be blue. Blue pony. Blue snake. Blue dragon. Blue this, blue that. Blue everything.
• She also likes rainbow and can tell you what all the colors are (ROY G BIV - red orange yellow green blue indigo and violet)
• She has such a great love for people. Sometimes its sort of embarrassing. Everyone gets a hug and kiss. She goes up to people she recognizes and says passionately, "I LOVE you!" We are always trying to explain what situations this behavior is inappropriate. So if my dd comes up to you and expresses her great love, you'll know why.
• She loves sparkly things and jewelry. We are also trying to suppress her strong desire to tell everyone that she likes their jewelry. She loves to compliment people.  She even complimented these big burly guys in the elevator that wore giant gold "rapper" jewelry.
• She is strong willed but in a way that is very different from her sister. She has her own agenda. When it was time to learn how to read, she brought a book to me and told me exactly how I was going to teach her.
• She likes horses, pegasuses, unicorns (anything in horse form, really), butterflies, bats, dragons, snakes, and the poisonous blue frog she saw at the zoo. She really wants a pet poisonous blue frog someday. When she was 3 and 4, she always said she'd be a blue flying unicorn or a bat when she grew up. We made big plans of building a bat house for her to live in in the backyard when she grew up.
• Anything she sees that she likes, she says, "draw me that!" She loves to have pretty pictures to color. But she doesn't like the pictures to have a background, or for the animals to be doing anything but standing there nicely.
• When she gets in trouble (even if we're really nice about it and don't raise our voices) she says, "will you say your sorry?" and then we explain that we aren't sorry because she did something wrong, and she understands, but then says, "now will you say you're sorry?" and then the debate goes on for a good long time.
• When she doesn't want to help clean, she can hide better than anyone. She's tiny and can fit in tiny places. She's also very quiet when she's hiding. She has given me many-a-scare when she disappears into a hiding spot. 

Winter is on its way! Gone are the warmer days of fall. We're homeschooling in front of a roaring fire in pajamas today.

Dd-almost 5 has been catching on the tens and ones thing. After we skipped ahead and did some addition (she loves adding), we went backwards in the book and did 20s, and 30s. Instead of demonstrating outside of the workbook and using manipulatives, we just worked on the questions together in the workbook. After a few days, she seemed to pick up on the concept. She says she loves her math workbook and always picks math to do first. She is also working through HWT K, and has just finished all of the capital letters. She prefers to write in capitals, so I'm not sure if we'll continue in HWT or take a break. She has read through the first 4 books of Bob Books and really likes those. She gets tired of sounding out words, so I'm not sure if she'll work on any more Bob Books for awhile.

Dd 7 has watched me writing my novel for NanoWriMo, and has even listened to some of it. She has been typing her own version of the story in an effort to help me reach my 50,000 word goal. She has typed 35 words so far. We've had quite a bit of discussion about characters and plot. She has been drawing her own characters in un-written stories and listing whether they are boys or "grills". I've let copywork go by the wayside in favor of these new creative endeavors. For Math, we have been working through Developmental Math Level 2 (adding to 9). We have another 2-3 weeks left in the book before we move on to Level 3 (subtracting within 9). We've also been applying math to everyday life. She had 26 Reece's Pieces, and I covered up all the yellows and asked how many would 26 take away 6 be? Just for kicks, we calculated dinner calories if we wanted a second helping (260 + 260), which then fuels a discussion on healthy food choices and balanced portions (and a great intro on regrouping in addition). Great grandma stayed with us, so for breakfast I asked, "how many people do we have eating breakfast? (5) "if everyone wants 2 eggs, how many eggs do we need to cook?" and we came up with different ways to come up with the number 10. For reading, Dd7 likes to pick picture books with word bubbles coming out of people's mouths. She's completely head over heels for word bubbles. Hence, Martha the Talking Dog series are our favorites, and the Help Me Be Good books ("Reading about Annie can help you understand and deal with disobeying." LOL). I had hoped she would like Level 2 readers like Frog and Toad, or Amelia Bedelia, but so far she just does not like these.

Our current read-aloud is My Father's Dragon. Dd7 picked out a horse-and-teenage girl novel from the library, but has had no interest in me actually reading it. Thank God. I hate horse-and-teenage girl novels! But I guess I would read them if all the other books in the world fell off of the planet and only the horse books were left. Or, if a really sweet, loving 7yo looked up at me with big blue eyes and said, "please." Then, I guess I would read a horse-and-teenage girl novel. But I wouldn't like it.

I've been busy with the NanoWriMo contest (National Novel Writing Month) and am currently at 3,500 words, woohoo! The goal is to reach 50,000 on Nov 30th.

Last week was our last week of swimming lessons. Phew! That, and library, and playdates, and co-op, and birthday parties had us going, going, going on-stop last week. This will be our first boring week in a long time. So far, I'm enjoying it!

Our bean plants grew! Thanks for the prayers, because they grew wonderfully. Today was our "experience" (as the 7yo calls an "experiment") and what an experience it was! Both kids were busy planting their bean plants into planters. Dd4 picked her experiment to see what would happen if we put 1 in sun with no water, 1 in a dark closet with water, and another with both water and sun. She was so excited to do this! While my attention was turned to my 7yo, Dd4 broke her plants in half and then planted each half in containers. When I turned and saw the destruction, I gasped. I had to explain that now we couldn't do the sun/dark/water experiment because it wouldn't work. Then I had an inspiration to try seeing if her plant halves would grow - one without roots, and the other without leaves. Dd4 still sulked through the science experience and said she wouldn't smile for my pictures. Oh well. I'm not sure what Dd7's experiment is supposed to be. We planted them and then maybe we'll just track their growth. She didn't want to abuse her plants because they were living beings. I can respect that!

Then we brought in some fall leaves and did leaf rubbings. The girls loved this and it ended Dd4's *failed experiment* bad mood.

Dd7 has suddenly had a spelling attack today. Must be a phase. She keeps writing words and then asking if she spelled it right, and then correcting it. Now she is critiqueing her sister's writing ("you spelled that wrong").

I'm working on trying to come up with a list of Christmas gift ideas. So, this blog entry is for anyone that asks "what sort of things can I get your kids for Christmas?"

A hippity hop. I never think of suggesting this one until the middle of summer, when all of a sudden it seems like a good idea. So there you go. You could get one for each kid, even.

More Kid K'Nex. We love ours. Just seems like we never have enough pieces (and never will).

More legos - but check with me first. We might order a super bulk order off of eBay or something.

A dollhouse.

One of those big kitchens that take up a ton of room in your house. Yeah, the ol' spouse-a-roony wouldn't be as happy with this suggestion.

Anything pink, frilly, girly, princessy, or horsey. But not Bratz, yuck!

That Gears toy where you put the gears pieces together and then turn the crank and watch them turn. Or anything else that looks fun but kind of sciency like that.

We always like books. Storybooks, picturebooks, or interesting non-fiction type books.

Our day:

Dd4 spent the morning plunking at piano keys trying to figure out the notes to Little Mermaid songs. She got a good part of the melody figured out. I was amazed. I see music in her future:)

Dd7 worked ahead in her piano book and mastered the Volga Boatman song (Its the song that always gets played when you see a bunch of depressed tired slaves rowing a large ship, LOL). I think there's music in her future, too!

For math, I let Dd7 pick from one of the workbooks I had on hand. She picked Developmental Math and I'm so happy, because I really liked that book and hoped we'd pick it up again. Its Level 2, basic addition. She whipped through 6 pages (it has a lot of pictures on the page, so there are only 5-10 problems per page). For Dd4, I skipped ahead to addition, with the thought that we'll return to place value later in the year. It was a good move! She whipped through 5 pages before I thought she was getting tired. As for me, I've been reading through the AL Abacus book that my homeschooled brother gave me. It is the forerunner of the RightStart Math program that gets rave reviews all over the 'net. Anyhow, some things really clicked for me on putting numbers together to make 10, and the whole behind-the-scenes look at what really goes on when you "carry the one" in addition. In fact, I am so excited about this that I plan to buy an abacus when I order up my next round of books online.

We watched the Sonlight Discover & Do Science DVD today and re-created the bean plant experiment. We've done this one before, and it never ends well. It usually ends with a soggy, moldy bean without any plant growth. We'll see how this one works out. Pray for my little bean seed. It could really use the help. Now, I do have to say that Dd4 planted a bean seed in her co-op class, and that thing sprouted the next day. And I still have it, decorating my kitchen window sill. So maybe it's just me and an inability to grow bean seeds.

Later, the kids played with the Not-Our-Cat outside in the rain. Yes, we have a pet Not-Our-Cat that the 4yo has lovingly named "Jewel". Its a very pretty brown and black striped  kitten that absolutely loves to be petted, played with, held, and given oodles of attention when she comes to visit. She doesn't belong to anyone; we think she was dropped off here by someone that didn't want her. We absolutely adore her but we don't really officially want a cat. We're not cat people. Later, the kids and their daddy worked outside and watched the kitten catch a mouse, play with it, behead it, and eat it. Nice. 

Since I don't know how else to reply to blog comments: Thanks so much, Mich and Lisa - your support and encouragement are such a blessing. I admire both of you greatly!

Today, we did our math and handwriting (keeping it very short!) and then I introduced the idea of creating our own I-Spy page. Now, usually when I introduce the concept of a writing assignment, I get the evil eye from my oldest. I get the least amount of effort and the most amount of pain. But today was different. Today, the kids created pages to make up for all past pages. For at least an hour, the kids were occupied in their own worlds. If I even attempted to see how they were doing, it was met with "don't look!" I got the most wonderful, hot shower during this little project, LOL. Dd7 made 3 full pages complete with mermaids and castles and all sorts of hidden pictures to find. She wrote several items to find on each page. The title of her book is called I Spy Magic (spelled Majic). Dd4 cut up a piece of blue construction paper into 3 long horizontal pieces and drew mermaids and hid numbers on the page. There are also a bunch of letters on the page to tell you what to find (if you can read it!)

For read-alouds: I just recently finished reading all 7 Narnia books to the kids. Dd7 loves the old BBC Narnia movies and will watch them over and over again. The movies are rather cheesy in quality, but I guess that's part of what makes the movies so fun to watch. We just finished reading The Apple and the Arrow - a very nicely illustrated book about William Tell. We listened to the William Tell Overture and tried to figure out what parts in the music were telling which parts of the book. A week ago, we had seen that YouTube movie making its way around the Internet with the mom singing typical mommy phrases to the tune of the William Tell Overture, so unfortunately, we all had those words stuck in our head when we heard the real thing, LOL.

I'm soooo not an unschooler...or a relaxed homeschooler (do I seem relaxed to you? LOL). And yet, it seems we are sort of wading in the gentle waves of the homeschooling sea. Books have been ditched, rabbit trails are being followed, and who knows where we'll end up? We don't really seem to be following anything right now.

I hand Dd(7) a short math worksheet with 12 subtraction problems, with 6 being the largest number. She gets half of them wrong. She added on some. And she even had the MUS blocks at her disposal. The good news is, if they were addition problems, they would be 100% correct. Good thing we've got that addition thing licked. So an interesting discussion kicks up about what would happen if 3-2 became 2-3. I draw a numberline with negative numbers. Dd is interested and follows along. Later, she comes up with some negative problems of her own. Amazingly, she can figure out negative numbers in her head. Weird.

Dd(5) absolutely will not listen to my grandiose teaching scheme which demonstrates tens and ones. Why not? Its fun. We bundle pencils. I even try making tens and ones HORSES. It's not that she doesn't get it, its that she's not THERE, that isn't her interest right now. Nope, she is dwelling in counting-ville. She loves to count. She asks about calendars. She asks about clocks. She asks about thousands and millions and billions. She tells me what 10 + 10 is, and 100 + 100, and 2 + 2. She went on a nature walk with her daddy and brought home fall leaves. She arranged them in order from smallest to biggest and then counted "first, second, third, fourth, fifth". She counts the lanes at the store, and asks about numbers that she sees everywhere. But no, we won't listen to Mom and her "tens and ones" speech.

Dd(7) liked spelling better than any other topic. But eventually she stopped listening to Mom-the-Teacher doing her "phonogram" speech. Which meant she started getting the words wrong. Which meant she now hates spelling and writes sentences that read "This page is stoopid". At least its phonetic. She cries and begs and pleads, "please let me read stories. I want to read. I can learn how to spell by reading, really I can!" And she's probably right. She probably can learn to spell by seeing the same words in her favorite stories. At least at this early stage of learning. I cave. Ok, let's read books. We did come to an agreement, however; for handwriting, she can copy a sentence from her favorite book. I drew up a Perfectly Martha copywork page for her and it has a cute picture of Martha the talking dog on it saying "Soup". She was thrilled. We'll see how long this lasts...

But what all this means is, my school books have been shelved! For now, at least. I'm starting to loose faith in the whole "buy my program and you'll have perfect homeschooled kids" schemes out there. Let's hope I'm not completely going off the deep end here. Afterall, there's standards to maintain, and anti-homeschoolers to impress. Most likely, however, I'll wake up one day soon and say "what on earth am I doing?" and I'll feel behind and pressured. I'll buy Abeka, the complete $500 kit, and then tie my children down to their chairs. I'll crack the whip and make sure the blanks are filled in, by golly! And it'll last about a week, and then I'll cry, and they'll cry, and it'll start all over again.

*Disclaimer: unschoolers aren't bad. Abeka isn't bad. It's all good if it works for you and your family. I really do have "Abeka" type of days. And I have "unschooler" type of days. Hopefully it all balances out and my kids aren't psychologically scarred by it for the rest of their lives:) Its called "a well rounded education" right?

My older daughter turned 7 this week! She has learned so many things in the past year...

• She can get her face wet and dunk her head under water for swim. Still can't float. Maybe next year?
• She took off in reading. Her favorite book to read right now is Perfectly Martha about a dog that eats alphabet soup and the letters go straight to her brain. She is a talking dog - "Soup. The secret is soup" she says.
• She has developed a love of teaching. Right now she is trying to organize an outdoor science craft class that she would like to teach to other homeschoolers.
• She has grown in knowledge about God and the Bible. She can learn her AWANA verses very well now.
• She learned how to keep her bed dry at night. This was a huge accomplishment.
• She has gained in confidence - she loves to say Bible verses in front of a group of people. I have gotten many comments from other people about her confidence in a group.
• She can play all the games at gym time in AWANA. Gym was a big issue for us last year, but now she is a key player and plays her best!
• She promptly forgot all of her math from last year, LOL. We are doing basic, basic (really basic) math. She's currently struggling through the concept of subtraction up to 6, but only gets about half of the problems right! What happened?!? LOL. I think the alphabet portion of her brain pushed out the number part of her brain. If a dog can learn to talk by eating Alphabet Soup, is there such a thing as Numerical Soup? and so...
• We're working on developing a LOVE of math, instead of pushing facts...Fact practice is very short, but we've been adding lots of fun books like Sir Cumference and the First Round Table, or the I Hate Mathematics Book, which has a lot of cute mathy activities.
• She has developed her own creative ideas and wants to implement them for everything!

What a crazy week! Here's some of the things we did:

• Library trip
• Multiple shopping trips - the kids outgrew their shoes. We purchased glowing shoes, but one didn't work. Had to do birthday shopping. Had to shop for co-op materials for classes.
• Gym and swim for the littler one
• AWANA for both kids
• I went to a women's Bible study on Proverbs 31
• Swim lessons for the bigger one
• Had a Birthday Party
• Cleaned the lower level of the house
• Did a ton of laundry (I was behind...as usual)
• Ran a home business
• Did a little math and reading each day before pushing the kids through lunch and then pushing them towards the car for yet another outing.
• I prepared materials for and taught 3 co-op classes
• Came home from co-op yesterday and took a NAP.

Phew! What a week!!

Today's math lesson with my almost 5yo:

Me: today I'm going to teach you how to count fast. We're going to count by 10s. Today we'll stop at 50.
Z: 1,2,3,4....(with a little help goes all the way to 100). What comes after 100?
Me: 101 (sigh)
Z: 102, 103, 104....(needs help with 110, but gets the idea & keeps going). Hey, I only wanted to count to 100! Now I have to do it again. 1,2,3,4,5....(with help, reaches 100 for the 2nd time). 101, 102, 103...(goes up to 110 again). Hey, I only wanted to go to 100, now I have to do it again! 1,2,3,4...(counts up to 100 with minimal help), 101...
Me: STOP! NO MORE! STOP! STOP AT 100! (LOL). Remember, you only wanted to count to 100?
Z: now I need to start all over again!
Me: no, that's enough!  You did it the slow way, counting by ones. Today we're going to learn the fast way, counting by 10s. We're only going to count to 50. You've never done this before.
Me & Z: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50
Z: 60, 70, 80, 90, 100.
Me: uh, Ok...I guess you know that! LOL.

Sometimes I wonder why I try to teach anything at all!

What a different creature my almost 5yo is from my almost 7yo. My K'er wants to avoid manipulative practice and skip right to the workbook! She's not happy unless she can write something. This is quite a change from my write-o-phobic 1stborn.

This week she learned 12!!! This was a huge accomplishment. Before this week, counting went something like this: 10, 11, 32, 34, 35, 36... Then it slowly morphed into: 10, 11, 32, firteen, firteen, 16, 17, 18, 19... Now it is a very solid 10, 11, 12, firteen, firteen, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. With help (and some skipped numbers) she can count to 100. The other day she counted 15 schoolbuses as we passed by. With 12 under her belt, nothing can hold her back! She can count anything:)

We're just sort of going with the flow for reading, using ideas and books from Teach A Child to Read With Children's Books. We sometimes make little books with simple words, "I can...(fill in the blank)". She would much rather make a great big story than making a simple story that she can read, so we just go with the flow. I start with an "I can" statement, and it usually turns into a great long detailed story about a baby that went to live with grandpa and got everything she wanted. If we do phonics and build words with tiles, she usually brushes the tiles aside and wants to write. She just isn't happy unless she can write something.

On the other hand, she hasn't been real thrilled with Handwriting Without Tears practice and gets easily frustrated with making the letters in her workbook. She'd much rather come up with her own method for making the letters, or tracing my letters. Of course, she's little and has big directional problems. 2s and 3s are backwards. Most things are backwards. I know we have the next 3 years to work out a sense of direction.

I'm curious to see what her reading is like at the end of this year. I'm not in a hurry or pressured. But I've already noticed a big difference in how my 2nd one perceives reading. She loves it! She is always trying to figure out what a word says, or trying to write words, or handing me a book that she wants to read to me. I think I killed that love of reading in my 1st dd by beating her over the head with phonics. Fortunately, she overcame that dread of reading and likes it now. Live and learn.

Dd6 is doing awesome with her reading! She picks her own books to read, and reads to her sister, to me, or to anyone that will listen. She reads just for fun. She enjoys reading. She picks books that are easy, on level, and amazingly difficult. Just the other day, she read through Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, which is leveled at 3.9 grade level reading material. It was difficult for her and she needed some help with some words, but I was amazed at her ability to work through some of the words, and even more amazed at her willingness to tackle such a book! We are sort of "relaxed schooling" her reading, because I feel she is doing a good job of picking books and practicing on her own.

She has also caught on to spelling. We altered SWR to a point that it is hardly recognizable as SWR. We do 3 new words per day, and practice the past 6 words, for a total of 9 words total. She masters 12-15 words per week. This approach is working wonderfully, since it goes very quickly, is very little handwriting, and is very low-key. She is doing a marvelous job of applying rules to words.

She is almost finished with HWT 1st gr book, and has worked ahead of schedule in it (hooray!) She does NOT want to learn cursive, so I think I'll just print off handwriting sheets. She likes to copy, so we'll just to short copywork practice. She is finally identifying backwards Cs and Ss. She still needs practice with b, d, p, and q (and j!) 

I have not really used our Grammar book very much. Honestly, when I give spelling words and then have her write a sentence with one spelling word, she is picking up grammar (we go over spelling and grammar errors after she writes the sentence). I also occasionally do activities with our spelling words, such as making words plural, adding -ing, or -ed, or changing case (run to ran, etc.) We'll keep grammar as a guidebook, and occasionally pull a practice page from it.

Math. Oh math. Woe is math. Dd forgets just about everything in math. She won't add +1s without a battle. She has gone back into a manipulative stage, which is fine - but I'm not exactly sure how to proceed. Do we go back to basics? Keep plugging ahead? So far, we're using the "keep moving" method in Horizons 1 bk 2.  She understands the concepts. She understands adding, multi-digit adding, place value, subtracting, etc. but has trouble with the practice. She can function pretty well in Horizons, but takes a long time in adding & subtracting. When she counts out the answer, she'll start at 1 and count all the way up (4+2 is 1,2,3,4...5,6 instead of 4...5,6). She CAN count up taking the shortcut, but prefers not to.  It doesn't help that I've thrown several different methods out to her in the hopes that one method will catch on. Now she's just sort of confused.  Wow, it sounds a lot like our reading issue last year!! Although I don't know what to do, I'm confident that she'll get past this little hurdle...all in good time.