• Apr. 26, 2008
MACHE, Hannah Montana, and First Tooth
Well, MACHE is over and it was another successful year. I went to two seminars by Dianne Craft and was enlightened to the fact that my children's behavior may be due, in part, to a yeast overgrowth caused by antibiotic overgrowth. Check out her website here www.diannecraft.org/index.html . I say in part because there is also a sin factor involved, we'll see to what extent. So I'm now looking into buying a host of supplements for three months to bring their systems back to normal and we will hope to see some behavior changes.
Hannah Montana seems to rule the roost around here. They are both into the music of Hannah Montana - and Miley Cyrus as well. Actually, because it is always on in one bedroom, even Laura has been enjoying it. You've never seen it all until you've seen a 3 year old belt out "Nobody's Perfect, I got to work it, again and again til I get it right" at the top of her lungs. She can also do a mean Start All Over. It's quite comical.
Molly got her first tooth today. She took an hour and a half nap - which was great but completely out of character for my half hour napper. When she woke up and I changed her I saw the telltale gray spot on her gum and stuck my finger in. Sure enough, one corner had cut through. I started giving her some rice cereal in an effort to try to get her to sleep longer. But, parting those lips to get a spoon in is like parting the Red Sea - I think only God can do it. And once I finally get some cereal into her mouth, she proceeds to blow raspberries and spew forth all the cereal that hit its mark. I don't think my other three were as resistant to cereal.
I've got all my TOG materials into 3 inch binders and page protectors. I bought Gamma and Delta from Math-U-See and MACHE. I also bought Easy Grammer 4 for Emily. I'm going to keep Sarah in Stepping to Good English through the 3rd grade level. She will double up some on writing once we start Writing Aids in August, but I may not assign all of the pages in Stepping to Good English. But it is a good program and she's done well so far. I think I'm just going to purchase StartWrite and make my own writing assignments for next year. I figure I can use some excerpts from their reading as well as some of their Awana verses. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go with SOS for science. I'm going to buy 4th grade and just let them both use it. I may just let them go at their own pace as I think they will want to do a whole bunch one day and then not touch it for a few weeks. Their interest in science is either red hot or ice cold. I'll work with that for now.
Emily took the CAT survey test last week. I also gave both girls the AOP Lifepac placement test for Language Arts. I'm always curious to see where they are at with reference to that. Their reading levels were very advanced - 7th grade for Sarah and 8th for Emily. Emily tested at about 5th grade, though there were a few areas where she has some learning gaps that we'll work on. Sarah tested into the last half of 2nd grade. I won't bother testing any other subjects as the AOP scope and sequence is different from the somewhat eclectic one we've followed so far. Sarah finish her math on Friday and will start her MUS Beta book on Monday. Emily finished Beta last Wednesday and will be doing a Math Mammoth book on time as she still has issues with that. After that she will start on her Gamma book after that. Emily's two good friends have both started at a charter school near us that meets year round. So I decided to follow that school's schedule so we will go through mid June and then take a break and start back on August 4th. This will allow us to start before the public schools and other homeschoolers - hopefully to help with the library situation. Plus, I won't have to hear, "We're the only ones in school today."
Blessings.
