My Quivers Full - School Update: Early November

Nov. 7, 2008 - School Update: Early November

I have no idea what week we're on over here. Umm, maybe 12? Anyway, our week was crazy in many ways! Somewhere in there we did school.

Math: This subject was the doozy! We took all of October off of Abeka math to slow way down. The purpose was to allieviate some of the stress and confusion Big Man (8) was having in math. The last Friday in October, Big Man took his test and almost got an A+!! I don't think his chest could have puffed out any farther. He was proud of himself, and I was proud of him. He got to pick a prize out of the prize box, which hadn't happened in a long, long, long time! (more on that below) Then Monday came. (cue mournful music) Math couldn't have tanked any worse than it did Monday. He was completely overwhelmed, frustrated, and deflated. He muscled thru his assignment, with me taking him thru it step by step. The moment he finished his paper, he burst into tears. He declared that he hated school, hated math, he didn't understand it, it's just too hard. All of this in between sobs. Did you hear my heart breaking? That night I spend the entire evening engrossed in Math U See. I completely studied the teachers manual, did some online searching, and had long talks with my dear hubby. We decided that we needed to switch curriculums NOW. Big Man is thru with Abeka, period. Starting Monday, he'll be a Math U See kid. Boy, will I be holding my breath!! I have already shown him some of the things we'll be doing, and explained a little bit how this math program is different than the other one. Throughout this past week I printed off some worksheets for him from the Math U See website. We've used the manipulatives for things he was having trouble with. The big thing I did was have him go thru a multiplication chart. Every combination he could give me quickly, we shaded in. If there was any hesitation, we left it blank. By the time he was done, 2/3 of the chart was shaded. That blew him away. He had absolutely no idea he knew that many multiplication facts. We've been telling him and telling him, but he's the type of kid that needs to see the evidence! If you think of us, won't you please pray for Big Man? He could really use it!

Little Monkey (6), again, is a math wiz. He loves it. He flourishes in it. He doesn't have trouble with any of it. He's doing work kids a grade (or more) above him would be doing, and he says it's all so easy. Have I mentioned lately how nice it is to have a kid that is a math wiz? The only thing I have to remember to do is remind him NOT to expect perfection. He's my little perfectionist, and it rears it's ugly head in math. If you haven't read before how we reward math tests, we have a prize box. After five "A's", they can pick a prize. If they have gotten an "A+" at any time, they can pick two prizes. These are little cheap prizes I pick up here and there. Since Star Wars is so huge around here, lately it's been filled with little Star Wars action figures, books, stickers, etc. Well, Little Monkey got his fifth "A" today. Three out of the five A's were actually A+'s. He was disappointed because he wanted ALL A+'s. Aaaaarrrgggg!!!! After a little talk about how difficult it is to get even ONE A+, and how Jesus is the ONLY perfect person EVER, he got to pick his prizes. Then he was fine. He had Star Wars loot.

Reading: Still going well for both boys. We're on Level 3, moving along slowly. I think Big Man will be thru this level by Thanksgiving break. I'm not certain about that, but I'm getting ready to order Level 4 just in case. I am so, so impressed with this program. Yes, it moves slow, sometimes it feels painfully slow, but it is proving itself effective. Neither of the boys enjoy doing it, but even they have recognized their progress. For me, the big test of the Barton system was the spelling part. Big Man struggles over spelling like I've never seen before! He is learning, retaining, and using the things in this system. If I could do cartwheels without hurting myself or those around me . . . I'd be flipping all over the city!

Grammar: Still going very well. Big Man has moved into diagramming sentences made up of Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Adverbs, and Articles. We practice for five or ten minutes on the board using our color coding and reviewing the definitions of each part of speech. We then move to his workbook and complete that. This week, he asked if he could try his workbook by himself. YOU BETCHA!!! He knocked it out of the park. After all of his troubles with math, it's a relief to have a subject he's doing well with! Little Monkey is getting tired of just doing Nouns. Next week I'm going to begin moving him along in his book a little faster. The worst thing for him is to be bored with something. I will gladly move faster if that's what he needs. He memorized some of the poems along with Big Man last year, so we may be skipping a whole lot of lessons! There are some story narrations thrown in there, so we'll do those, along with a couple of oral usage lessons, but I think we'll be skipping somewhere in the vicinity of a dozen lessons. Yikes!

Science: Oh, we're having so much fun with science. We're really cruising along now with lots of experiments. This week and next week we're learning about the three states of matter: Solids, liquids, and gases. This week we melted an ice cube in a frying pan until it went from a solid state to a completely gaseous state. We trapped the gases of a melting ice cube in a plastic baggie in the microwave. We saw how an egg begins as a liquid, then cooked it to a solid. We did an evaporation experiment out on the sidewalk, and did evaporation art. (where all of the water evaporated and left the food coloring behind on plastic page protectors). Next week, we'll be doing some edible experiments using the same lessons.

History: We've been learning about Napoleon this week. Not the most exciting week for us, we're just looking ahead to Lewis & Clark. The boys did, however, enjoy the part of the book that talked about Napoleon showing early leadership abilities during snowball fights in military school

Extras: Yikes we've been busy!! Monday I had a meeting with my Elementary committee for our homeschool group. We met at a church playground so the kids could all play while the moms worked. Tuesday we took a field trip to the voting booth of course. Wednesday had the distinction of being the only normal day. Thursday my dear hubby flew back and forth from Washington D.C., again, and we had a playdate with our homeschool group at a bowling alley. Friday we babysat a friends little boy (1 yr. old) for a little more than an hour while we hurried through our lessons for the day, then we were off to a playdate with a friend who had the day off from public school. After that -- big news -- we went to the doctor to have Big Mans toenail removed!!! FINALLY!! It looked like it was getting infected in one spot, so Big Man is now on antibiotics and will be rechecked in two weeks. We're just relieved to have that rotten toenail off of there. It had really been bothering him this week. Next week won't be nearly as hectic, but Peanuts (3) birthday is next Saturday and I haven't even begun to shop for him!

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