Spring Break, last week, really put a kink in things.  The nice weather has been hard on us as well.  So we've not been keeping up with school work as faithfully as I had planned.  But you know what, that's ok!  Over the last three weeks I've let Joshua have several days to just play outside.  That's one of the blessings of homeschooling.  The freedom to enjoy each and every day for what it has to offer.

Now during Spring Break (DH is a school teacher and so we follow his school's schedule), I had hoped to do a FEW things throughout the week.  Well, you know what, the books and activities were never even broached!  Ah, well, so we're just a tad behind.  But again, that's ok.  They joys of homeschooling include the fact that we can continue schooling on Saturdays or into the summer--which I'm planning to do anyway.

These last few days of schooling have been especially rewarding.  Even though we've been on a break last week, Joshua picked right back up with school work.

The most exciting thing that has changed as of this week, is that I've deliberately set aside a subject/time for Bible.  I'm tired of not doing anything in the area of Bible study with Joshua.  I have been waiting for the "right" curriculum to do Bible, and so I have just not done anything.  I tried to have a "Bible time" in the morning hours where we'd sing songs and pray together, but that wasn't happening.  So this week I put a new line on our subject board--"Bible."  And on it I put a scripture to cover every day.  This week we were specifically addressing Respect and Obedience since Joshua has had a little difficulty in showing both to our neighbors (his friends' parents).  We covered Ephesians 6, and passages in First Peter as well as a passage in Second Corinthians.  And I will say that the time spent was both beneficial to me as well as to Joshua. 

Where I plan to go with this next week I'm not exactly sure yet.  Steve suggested that I follow a "Life of Christ" chart of some sort and read through his life over a period of weeks/months.  I was thinking of starting in the book of Matthew.  I'm not sure.  But what I do plan to do is have us read together a passage of scripture and talk about it generally and maybe go specifically into a topic that might apply for the moment.  If not we'll just read and then move on.  We did buy Joshua a great Bible that he can read himself called "The Adventure Bible for Young Readers." 

In other areas of study Joshua just continues blossoming. 

READING: We have finished Book 2 of the Pathway Readers for 2nd grade.  His reading is just moving right along.  He still does not do much reading silently, but I KNOW that that will come in time, because I do see him perusing through magazines and books and he's bound to be doing some "reading."  He just has not tackled chapter-type books on his own, yet.  But it will come, I feel 100% confident of that!  So I'll continue to conduct our reading lessons with him reading them aloud to me.

MATH:  Our first lesson back this week after Spring Break did take Joshua nearly an hour to complete--due to distractions.  But the last two days of this week Joshua has been self-motivated to finish his worksheet and has done excellently.  However, next week I'm going to have him review over his addition facts.  It seems he has relapsed just a tad and I'm not sure he's able to recall them as readily as he once did.

HANDWRITING:  We're coming near the end of his second handwriting manual in Handwriting Without Tears.  His handwriting continues to improve and he doesn't complain about doing this work as they are not lengthy assignments.  But today he made the most interesting comment.  Yesterday while I was preparing some cards to send to relatives, Joshua showed an interest in writing two little cards to be included in my mailings to his grandparents and another to his cousins.  On both he included a short little note which he wrote himself with my help for spelling.  When he was finished I told him that we should do this more often and use it as his writing assignment.  And Joshua, so matter-of-factly, said, "yeah, and it would be so much for fun and useful than doing workbooks."  And that's always exactly how I have felt, but it's so hard to follow through on that.  This is a whole other topic for another post!

GRAMMAR:  Joshua has shown more interest in the "First Language Lessons."  I really like this book because the lessons are simple and require no preparation and are short and easy to do.  And I will say over this last week I have continued to be impressed with Joshua's ability to memorize.  He has two poems memorized and has a grasp on all the things that I am teaching him via this book.  We will stick with this one for the coming year!

HISTORY:  Joshua made a funny comment today.  Sometimes I allow him to pick the order that we will do lessons, and so today he set the order of his work.  He went through the list of reading and math and piano and science and grammar and put history last, "because," as he put it, "then I can just relax."  He enjoys listening to the stories and today he even ran to the map to find where Carthage was and Rome and the Alps.  It was a lot of fun.  This is another book/curriculum that we'll be keeping for the coming year!

SCIENCE:  After weeks of having science on Hold, I finally went onto Lesson 12.  We talked about tadpoles.  It was impressive when Joshua ran off into the playroom and came back with a book and--using the Table of Contents, all on his own--he showed me a very well illustrated section on the metomorphosis of the life of a frog from an egg to an adult.  He knew exactly which book this was found in and brought it right to me when we had our discussion.  It saved me some time of having to look it up on-line, which is what I had planned to do!  I was so very much pleased.  (However, I'm thinking of "ditching" this curriculum next year.  I'll likely discuss what I'm hoping to do next year in an upcoming post.)

PIANO:  We're working on learning the lines and spaces.  Joshua's GOOD memory is showing itself in this area as well.  We're using flashcards and Joshua has grasped the lines very well and is currently working on the spaces.  We'll continue working on this over the next few weeks before we move forward in the book!

Have I mentioned lately that  I LOVE HOMESCHOOLING?!  Well, I do.  This is such a joy and I just cannot imagine my life any other way!  I thank God for this opportunity!