This week ended out well.  In reading, we've taken up with the Pathway Readers.  Joshua has always enjoyed these books.  We started with First Steps and the other First Grade readers last year, and this year we're entering the Climbing Higher and other Second Grade readers.  I was a little apprehensive because these stories are significantly longer.  But Joshua's reading has jumped leaps and bounds over the summer.  I was really impressed listening to him.  As we did last year, I'm having him read the text aloud to me.  I can already tell, however, that he doesn't need my help hardly at all, if any.  He hasn't yet.  We also do the workbook orally.  I had him do this last year as well.  He enjoys doing it.  It consists of learning "new" words (he usually already knows them) and then using them to fill in the blanks.  The sentences are tied in to the characters and plots in the stories.  Joshua's favorite thing to do is to fill in the blanks with the wrong answer on purpose to make an hysterical sentence.  I have had to limit him, though, in this activity.  I tell him he can do a "funny" answer only once and then he has to tell me the correct response.  I figure it gives him an opportunity to practice his creativeness and/or imagination.  He has come up with some pretty humorous responses.  And he always seems to know the right answer right away, so it's all the funnier to him because of that.  I can also check his reading comprehension through these workbook pages.  He often proves he has a better memory than I do!
    I'm also very impressed with his advancement in math.  This week we began adding double/triple digits.  MUS teaches this concept by using value notation.  Joshua at times seems to have a little trouble with this if he deals with two numbers that are made up of different value places (135+22, for instance).  But when he is  adding 24+32, he writes out
       20+4
+    30+2
He then can add the units (4+2) and then the tens (20+30) and get the answer.  This long-hand version, though, wears him out and he hasn't yet transferred the idea that he can go immediately to the problem without writing the step all they way out.  I hope that we can move to that shortly beause in today's lesson he became really grumpy when he was on the last problem and didn't "feel" like going through the steps.  I showed him that he could skip those steps if he understood the idea of adding each place value and what it meant.
    We also learned estimation this week and rounding to the nearest 10.  Joshua grasped these concepts very easily!
    This week Joshua drew a horse almost completely on his own.  I can tell that he may need my direction a little more.  But I'm really torn.  Shouldn't drawing be something that he does and be of his own creation?  If I guide all his steps the picture will turn out "better," but will it be Joshua's drawing?  The background in his horse drawing was pretty chaotic and over-done.  I wanted to tell him that he needed to try to do less.  Should I stay out of it or guide?  At what point do I let him create for himself and at what point do I step in to show him "how to do it?"  It's a tough call!
    In Science we're taking a little side-track.  Next week we're going to focus on dogs for awhile.  Joshua showed a substantial interest in studying dogs and so we'll take a little adventure next week.  He specifically had a question that I hope we are able to answer next week, "why don't dogs have knees?"  I guess my question is, "do dogs NOT have knees?"  I hadn't really thought about it.  Do they?  Or don't they?  I guess we'll learn next week.
    Some things I wish we were doing that we're not doing is I wish we were keeping a timeline for our history reading material.  I think it would help him and me keep things straight as we go through the Story of the World.  It would be nice to have a visual in front of us as we go along.  Maybe someday we'll do that.  I would really like to buy material that would have all the graphics for a timeline (and there is a CD-ROM out called History Through The Ages, but costs $75!).  I suppose I can save up for that someday!
    My chart of schoolwork on the refridgerator worked better this week.  At least 4 out of the 5 days Joshua actually went to the board in the morning and began working on his independent work on his own.  I still wish we could get more done in the morning, however, because by the mid-afternoon (when we do the bulk of school) he and I are both pretty run down. 
    On a side note, I have begun a little read aloud time at the lunch table.  We are currently reading "The Wind in the Willows" (I have learned I am having to edit some words out--I was surprised, no shocked, at the language).  Mostly I get through about 4 or 5 pages a day.  This isn't too bad considering having two "babies" with us at the same time (Daniel and Miriam).  But I'm also surprised that Caleb has shown a great deal of interest in hearing it as well.  And usually as I am reading I feel as though what I'm reading is WAY above their heads (some of the language and descriptive writing is even hard for me to follow), and yet Joshua and Caleb sit and listen in rapture.  And Caleb constantly reminds me to read every time we sit down for lunch and Joshua always asks me to keep going even when I've said I need to stop.  This is encouraging and I'll be sure to try and find a better read for their age group after this one is finished.  (You know, it doesn't hurt any that they have actually seen a movie version of the book!)