So, we started back full force at schooling today.

Boy oh boy were they ready for it!!

Lori had a wonderful day.  She did math, phonics, critical thinking, Bible stories, and history.

Ky's day wasn't so great.  It started off nice, but once we started phonics he wanted to mess around.  It came back to haunt him, since it took him 1 hour longer to read something than it should have he had to do 1 hour's worth of my chores with me after we schooled.  It really saddens me to see him go from reading really well for 5-6 sentences to taking 20 minutes to read a word because he doesn't want to do it.  I actually got mad at one point because the word he was ignoring was a word he read 3 times already in the past 10 minutes prior.  (Oh, and I KNOW he wasn't struggling with the word itself.)  Ky did math, phonics, handwriting, history, Bible stories, spelling, and attitude improvement....as well as Mommy Chores.

Math

Lori had a great time doing simple addition.  She is really enjoying the concept.  We start subtraction tommorow, should be interesting to see how she does and if she enjoys that as much as she enjoys the addition.  These numbers are only 1-10, but 7+3 is still alot of fun.

Ky started simple division today.  Wow!  After working on multiplcation tables of 2 and 3's, doing division of 2's today was a breeze!!  He loved it!

Phonics - OPG (Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading)

Lori just finished Lesson 36 and is progressing really well.  She struggles a bit with modivation and being the overwhelming amount of words/sentences which are on the page.  It's wonderful to see her realize that there isn't a problem if you take one step at a time, but to see 5 sentences with 4-5 words a piece in each all together just stuns her.  I just love the realization that a REAL word just came out of her mouth as she sounds words out.

Ky just finished Lesson 96 and was doing fantastic reading the words with very little sounding out....up until sentence 9 of 14.  Then he just decided he didn't want to work.  He did learn the difference between 'wind' (as in the wind blows) and 'wind' (as in to wind the toy) and really enjoyed having to figure out which word was which based on context in the two sentences.  I've been keeping him to the shorter easy reader phonics readers waiting for him to realize that he can read.  It is still such a struggle for him to read because of attitude that I want the reading of books to be easy at this point.  I figure when he comes around he'll catch up and advance quickly.

History - Using Story Of The World book 2 the Medieval Era

We finished a study on Vikings just before Thanksgiving and started a unit study on Knights and Castles.  Those of you who know Ky know that he is obsessed...and those of you who know me know that I am going to encourage that particular obsession, as he came by it naturally!

So we're reading stories mainly about medieval England, but plan on touching a bit on European medieval times as well.

Today's story (yes we inhaled the whole book) was Magic Tree House #2 and it's companion book.  It was an easy read aloud, but fun.  I have a few books on the inards of the castle and one book called Castle by David Macaulay (whom I met many many years ago) which shows how a castle is built and what happens in and around a castle in the middle ages.  So, while I read they looked.  It was very enjoyable.

Sooo, that was our day for the most part.  Ky didn't have much fun helping me, but didn't complain once.  I guess his attitude was quickly overcome.

Kris