Feb. 16, 2006 - First full day back after the ick...

Although Tuesday was pretty full, this really felt like our first FULL day of school this week.  I just was so sick/wiped out after the weekend that nothing seemed to get done.

Today we managed to do every subject ~ including Latin, Konos, Math and independant subjects.  Since I finished Belles yesterday, today I read The Reluctant Dragon by Michael Hague to the younger four.  It was a sweet story with awesome illustrations.  Paris and Abyni sat and drew pictures of their dragons while I read.

I decided today that since Sprite is almost finished with Wuthering Heights ~ and that has been a looooong read for her, I'm going to give her a week off from reading.  She can spend that week doing "fun" school with Abyni instead of literature.  Plus, she'll still have a book review to do for W.H. as well... seh deserves a break after all that!:)

The kids have almost all finished the Robert Quackenbush biographies and love them.  They seem to retain a lot of knowledge from them as well.  Even Paris gets a lot out of them.

I finished testing all the kids reading skills yesterday ~ and all the kids improved a lot! 
**Note ~ I started testing them two years ago because I had never done a phonics curriculum with any of them, and the boys started "late" and seemed to be lagging... I was worried that I had really messed up.  They loved the testing (go figure) and are excited when we do it again so they can see their results.

On one test, Jaedin (9) is at the same level that SPRITE (my "great" reader) started at when she was 12!  He was really impressed, as was I!  This was the boy who didn't even start reading until he was almost 7  ~~ Holy COW!  I guess I needn't have worried:)  His other tests show him at 6th - 8th grade level, or age 11.4.

Kainan (10 1/2) is at a 5.8 grade level (5th grade, 8th month)  ~ He didn't start reading until almost age 8, so I'm impressed that he "caught up" so quickly.  I guess they're right when they say it doesn't really matter when they start, they'll learn when they're ready!

Paris (7 yrs, almost 8) tested at 4.7-5.6 grade level or 9.3 age

Abyni (5) tested at grade 1.6... and hasn't been in the "mood" to do any of the other tests.

Sprite's (14) is almost exactly at her age level on the age-one, and the grade ones she tested at 9.9 and 11th grade level.