• Sep. 4, 2006
School on a holiday?

Yep, today we had school on a holiday.  We did reading and math.  My dd doesn't know any differently, so why not?  Just reading and math today.  We read some color words, did a worksheet, handwriting, and played with pattern blocks.  It was a good day.

It's amazing how many words dd has learned to read in just two short weeks.  In the first worksheet that we did, there were a lot of words that she was supposed to read, and she was able to sound them all out with help.

The reading work that we are doing is helping her with some of her computer games too.  She plays this one game called Studydog, and some of the sections are pretty hard for her.  She does well with the alphabet section, but not so well on the listening comprehension or sight words.  She was playing the sight words game yesterday, and was doing better at that game than I had ever seen her do before.

Dh wants her to start working on Italian... not formally or anything.  I think I'll set up the Rosetta Stone Italian program on her computer and let her play with it if she wants to.  She was born in Italy, so we sometimes use Italian words with her.  I told her that she had a due on her hand yesterday... the number two.  If she likes the program, great, if she doesn't, then I'm not going to make her do it or anything.  If she does like playing the program, I suppose me and dh will have to use the program along with her, so that we can brush up on Italian and be able to start speaking Italian to each other to reinforce it.

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• Aug. 30, 2006
Not so good day today...

Today was not such a good day today.  Getting dd through reading today was like pulling teeth.  She wanted to pretend she was stupid, didn't want to listen, and it took about twice as long as normal to get through reading today.  Math and history went well though.

I guess they can't all be great days though.  Yesterday things went quite well, and she her reading has been improving by leaps and bounds.

One more new lesson this week, and Friday will be the zoo and a review.

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• Aug. 25, 2006
Park Day

Today was our first park day for the school year.  I drug out Laurana's reading books and math stuff and we did the work partly in the park, and partly in dh's office.

I think that I'll just start doing reviews on Fridays, at least for reading.  She works pretty hard on her reading the other 4 days of the week.  She's 4 using a 1st grade reading textbook... the review might help her.  Besides, if I just make Friday a review day, I will have fewer books to drag out on Fridays.  I'll still do another lesson of math though, we're using Saxon Math K and it's pretty easy for her.  I can probably get by with not taking out the teacher's edition too.

Today we went to the park, then to the library.  After that, we went to pay some bills, take a nap, and went back to pick up dh after his work was over.  Next week dh has the day off so we're going to the zoo.  Science credits there!

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• Aug. 24, 2006
My Little Girl Is Reading!

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• Aug. 23, 2006
First Three Days of Kindergarten

Today was day three at our school, for Kindergarten.  We had been doing worksheets since last October, but Kindergarten is definitely a step up for my daughter, Laurana.

Reading started out okay, but dd got in a hissy fit after she colored something the wrong color.  Oddly enough, she doesn't like to color much... she asks me to color some of the things that she's supposed to color.  Since coloring is not really part of the curriculum, I don't mind coloring in things if she tells me what to color.  She had to take a break after her little fit.  Then I gave her a 15 minute recess break after reading.

She liked math... I skipped Saxon lesson 3 because it was almost the same thing as lesson 4.  Lesson 4 you get out the counting bears and let them play with the bears, and ask them what color the bears are.  Lesson 3 is the same except you don't ask your child what color they are... so we skipped it.  I let dd play with the bears whenever she wants to anyway, as long as she puts them away and plays with them at the table.  I created a "diving board" with a ruler, and had her make the bears dive into the bag when we put them away.  She didn't realize that we were putting them away until they were halfway put away!

History was pretty good too.  I had her find North using the direction where the sun sets.  It went better than the first day, because I didn't follow the script as closely.  The first day I was almost reading it as I went along and it went so slowly that she got bored.

It looks like the school year will go well, although we still have to work out some bugs.

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