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Last week, I felt that the kids ( and I) were bored. I think we just have to get back into the swing of things. While I schooled them in May and July, it seemed more fun. Joey does really well picking up the concept of multiplication, but Josh just doesn't understand it. I think that it's a little too abstract for him right now. I've used manipulatives to try & "show" him and he does go through the motions of it, but through his comments I just don't think he truly understands it. He also doesn't understand rhyming. part of an assignment was to pick out the words that rhyme. I would say 2 lines at a time and he could not pick out the rhyming words. If I give him a word, he can come up with a rhyming word or a word that sounds very similar. i.e dog, he gave me lock. It took a very long time to get through that as well as practically every other assignment. I don't understand how he got any work done in school. He takes forever, which leads to Joey getting bored because he finishes sooner than Josh. I let Joey play with toys while Josh finished his work,hoping that seeing his brother having fun would prompt him to hurry up a little so he could play as well, but no. He was more than happy to stare off into space. When I threatened not to cook dinner until he was finished, he hurried up but then Joey took forever. I think I'll just move ahead with Joey and just come back to Josh whenever he's finished with his work. I've also noticed that while conversing, they omit the "and", "to" and connecting words. They also omit the beginnings and sometimes the ends of words. Computer is puter, connect is nect. I think I'm going to have a lot more assignments where they have to repeat sentences and phrases. It's almost like the muscles in their mouths aren't coordinated enough to form more than a couple of sounds at a time. Not when they're just talking, but when they're reading or repeating things they tend to swallow a lot. I'm also getting bored because while they're working on an assignment, I have to stay right there and watch over them or they won't finish it. They'll either start playing or they'll just stare off into space until I come back and say something, which doesn't leave me much time for cleaning up around the house or anything else. In one day, I finished an entire book. I figure it's better to let them see me reading than just sitting there bored. I have decided that our school day will start round 12:30 (after lunch) Since Friday, this has worked great. The kids get up in the morning and play or go on the computer. After lunch, for some reason, they get excited about doing their work and are much more pleasant. It works out great because it gives me the time I need to work on household chores and I'm not constantly thinking about what I need to get done around the house when I should be focusing on them. Today we visited a bunch of antique shops in Downtown Historic Sanford and learned the histories of their merchandise. We realized how small people were compared to today as well as how differently things were made. We also visited an art gallery and got to meet 2 artists. The boys were even allowed to create their own "masterpieces" with chalk in one of the artist's studios while onlookers watched from the sidewalk outside. We saw art made out of glass bottles, bottle caps, pastels, and all sorts of other things. Josh was fascinated with the fish made out of bottle caps. We even saw 2 silk paintings, each of a frog. One was a red eyed tree frog and the other was the blue poisonous something frog. I forgot the name of it, but the other day, we had gone online and found a website about frogs. It had a questionaire that you take & based on your answers, it tells you what type of frog you are. The two silk paintings we saw were the exact frogs that the boys turned out to be in their questionaires. We thought that was really cool. I thought about coming back and buying the paintings for them but they're $450.00 each, so I doubt it. Maybe for Christmas. |
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