We had a great second day today.  DS is really enjoying this book and we are really getting into a good rhythm with Five In A Row.  It's exciting to find something that fits his learning style so well!

We began today with Lesson 7 in Leading Little Ones To God entitled God is One God.  This lesson taught us that Jesus and God are one and the same.  Because there are examples in the Bible of Jesus being kind and compassionate, we can know that God is also kind and compassionate, since they are the same.  We also talked a little bit about idols, how anything that we put before God in our life is considered an idol.  We should always place God first and foremost above all else!

We then read Madeline for the second time.  I think he must have memorized it yesterday when we read it, because he was practically reciting it back to me!  His memory is astounding, sometimes I think its photographic!  He picks things up so quickly, especially books.  When DS was 2 years old, he had all of his favorite books memorized, including Dr. Seuss books, and could recite them word for word!

We talked about how the author, Ludwig Bemelmans, uses "repetition" in this book, just like Marjorie Flack did in The Story About Ping.  The repetition in Madeline occurs twice.  The first was describing the activities of the girls:  "they broke their bread and brushed their teeth and went to bed".  The second was Miss Clavel's nighttime reactions:  "In the middle of the night, Miss Clavel turned on her light and said, 'Something is not right!".  We discussed how this repetition brings the reader full circle and it makes us say, "Aha!  We've heard that before!"

Our Bible application today was a continuance of yesterday's lesson.  We again discussed God being a God of Order and referenced the following verses:

"(About five thousand men were there.)  But he said to his disciples, "Have them sit down in groups of about 50 each.'"  Luke 9:14

"But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way."  1 Corinthians 14:40

I snuck in a little math lesson here, as well.  We took the first verse and I showed DS how we could break 5,000 men into 100 groups of 50.  Then, we got out his linking cubes and placed them into 4 different groupings of 12, to represent the 12 girls in the book:  2 groups of 6, 3 groups of 4, 4 groups of 3, and 6 groups of 2.  After setting up the groups, I had DS count the cubes in each group.  You should have seen his face light up when he realized each group had 12 in it!  It was like a lightbulb clicked! 

Yeah!  I LOVE moments like this!  It makes homeschooling so rewarding, to see your child "get" something and know that he is excited about it!

We also did a couple of lessons in our Saxon K book, reviewing ABB color patterns and making sure he understands "small, smaller, smallest" and "big, bigger, biggest" - he did, so there was no need for further work in this area.

I've decided to skip some lessons in Saxon K, since a lot of them focus on shapes, size, color, sorting, etc. - things that DS has been proficient in for several years and certainly does not need review in.  We are using K this year just so DS can get a good basis in learning about money and telling time before we move into the 1st grade book.  I'm hoping to finish K by Christmas and move into 1 by January.

In Social Studies, we talked about how "the car with a red light" was an ambulance and what these vehicles are used for.  DS "did" a maze where he had to get the ambulance from Madeline's house to the hospital.  I put "did" in quotes because (I admit) it was a difficult maze, so he "jumped" walls and drew bridges over the water to create a shortcut!  It was pretty funny...and creative...so I couldn't even say anything about it!  Oh well, it was supposed to just be fun, and he certainly acheived that!

We also reviewed Geography from yesterday, re-locating France, Paris, and the Seine River on a map.  We will be placing our story disc on the World Map later this week.  I'm excited about the story discs, because at the end of our FIAR year, DS will know where so many different places are in this world, without any "formal" geography lessons!

For reading practice, DS read another story out of Friends Old And New.  He's been having a hard time concentrating on his reading, so I watched him very closely today.  I figured out that he was trying to read ahead to see what was going to happen, so it was distracting him from the current sentence.  I showed him how he could place his bookmark right under the sentence he's reading and then move it as he progresses.  His improvement since doing this is remarkable!  He is reading three times faster, finishing the stories in no time, and even comprehending them better because he's not getting confused!  He even wants me to do it now when I'm reading aloud to him, I guess he's following along!

We finished the day with me reading aloud the next chapter in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  He's getting so excited because we're getting closer to the part where the kids go to the factory.  I love seeing him this excited about a book!

On to Day 3...

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