My Quivers Full - December Update

Dec. 19, 2008 - December Update

It's almost Christmas, and I should be finishing up our Christmas cards and wrapping gifts!! Instead, I'm going to stall and do this. :) I don't have any fun pictures or anything, but here it goes:

Reading: Big Man (8) had a lot of trouble with the last couple of lessons in Barton Level 3. We trudged thru all of the lessons, and he didn't pass the end of the level test. We're currently re-doing and reviewing the things he had problems with -- darn contractions! Hopefully by mid-January he'll pass the test and move on to Level 4. Little Monkey (6) may just pass his brother soon!! He has two lessons left in Level 3, then will do the end of the level test. I think the last couple of lessons will be difficult for him, so they may begin Level 4 at the same time.

Math: Big Man is doing SO great with Math U See. Switching his math program was exactly what he needed. He still takes a while to get a new concept, but this curriculum is so much more hands on it really seems to be suiting him well. He was thrilled to have memorized his 9's times table within two sittings (and one of those was a very short session!) The next week was reviewing & multiplying by 9's, then counting & multiplying by 3's came after that. Since he already has the 3's down solid, I made this past week a review week for both the 9's and the 3's. Today he did his test, and asked to do the 3's test as well. Big Man was jumping with excitement when he received two A+'s on a math test day!! It was a great accomplishment, and he was extremely proud of himself. I love how it is set up to be taught until mastery is reached. My only gripe about the curriculum is the lack of review on the previously taught concepts. Big Man needs constant review to retain things, but this is an easy problem to solve. I got a great deal on an e-version of Math Mammoth. I've been using that to print off extra multiplication and clock practice. I use the worksheet generator on the Math U See website to print off practice pages for subtraction with borrowing (which he still needs to practice on a daily basis). Also, this week at a Parent/Teacher store, I picked up a Clock Bingo game that we'll use for both boys to practice telling time. Little Monkey is still cruising right along in 2nd grade Abeka. This past week he was introduced to subtraction with borrowing. I was holding my breath since that has been the thing that Big Man has had trouble mastering over the past year. Little Monkey blew right thru it, though. He needed a reminder for two days exactly when to borrow, but after that he has had no problems whatsoever. He has started working on multiplication facts with his Daddy during their time together. . . after much begging from Little Monkey to "Please, please, please show me how to do those multiplication cards"!! Yup, I love a little boy with a math brain :)

Grammar: Big Man's grammar has gotten harder, but he's still pluggin along in it. He is diagramming sentences with nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and direct objects all in the same sentence. It takes him a while, but it's much harder for him than the simpler sentences with just three of those things. Little Monkey was excited to finally get to pronouns. He's doing well, and is almost done learning all of the different pronouns he might encounter.

Science: Oh, I've been bad with science. We haven't done any for the last three weeks. I'm not upset about it; we've been rushed with Christmas and all of the busy things that go with that. The kids will be excited to pick this up again after our Christmas break.

History: I've been trying to get as much in as possible these last few weeks. I haven't done as much as I had hoped, though, but we still got thru quite a lot. Not bad considering this time of year! The boys learned about the three branches of government, and what each branch is responsible for. We made a "Three Branches of Government" poster with tree branches coming down to remind them these are "branches" of government. They then glued pictures to go with each branch on the poster. I was pleased how much they learned that week. We also learned about the War of 1812. Honestly, we didn't do much with history that week, but oh well! This week we started a two week rotation of South America. I wouldn't have chosen to have a two-week break in the middle of a two week study, but that's just how it worked out. Big Man had just finished learning all of the countries in South America during geography time with his Dad, so that was mostly a review time for him. It was all new for Little Monkey, however, and he's doing quite well learning those countries, as well as the Amazon River. Finding something hands on for them related to what we were doing this week was a little rough. Since we were mainly concentrating on learning the geography of the continent, I made a South America puzzle out of an old cardboard box. I had to cut it out with a box cutter, so it didn't turn out quite as good as I had hoped. The boys enjoyed reviewing geography with that little puzzle, though, so it was all worth it. If I remember, I'll post a picture here next time.

Extras: We had a really fun playdate this month at a new place. Big Man seems to have made a really good friend thru our group. I'm very happy about that, he's been pretty sad about his friend in our neighborhood moving away this summer Our Christmas party for our homeschool group went well. The planning for that took almost all of my time for a couple of weeks this month, so I'm REALLY glad it's over! Everyone had a good time, and my kids really like that we get to keep all of the games played at the party.....since I was the one who made them all!! I had hoped that we would be able to do some service work this month ringing bells for the Salvation Army, but the week our group was signed up for that, I had things going every other night of that week as well, so that was something that didn't happen as planned. There is a new support group forming in this area for parents of children with Sensory Processing Disorder. The first meeting was just last night. I was the ONLY person to come to the meeting, so that was a major disapointment. I've been feeling very alone lately, being the only person I know with dyslexic kids as well as a SPD kid. It's VERY hard not having anyone to talk to, who knows what we go thru every day. I don't have anyone to swap stories with, cry on each others shoulders, etc. The lady organizing it knew that the turnout would be very low because of the holidays, but she knows quite a few people that are already signed up for the next meeting. Lastly, a friend from church is coming to take care of our kids for a few hours tomorrow. I'm calling her my Christmas Angel I really need the time to de-stress and gear up for the Christmas celebrations. I'm sure I won't be posting anymore until the new year. For family that is reading this, we'll see you in a few days. For our friends that are reading this, we love you and we hope you have a great Christmas!

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