The Summer Time Craziness

When to get it all done...

We've been doing "school lite" in the morning. First, we read from the Bible or some other spiritual stories for the day. Then Rabbit goes off to do typing drill and Quarter Mile Math drill. The Quarter Mile Math drill is starting to pay off. Oh sure, she's been doing it a long time. But, she can now remember her nemesis 3 x 6 = 18. Her math facts are coming a lot faster. She also found a "letter practice" option somewhere in Quarter Mile Math, and has been alternating between that and Dance Mat Typing for her typing practice.

So, while Rabbit is off on the computer, I'm working with the boys. We're finishing up Math-U-See's Primer. This week we've started learning about telling time. The boys are very excited about that, as we do have a couple of analog clocks in the house. And then were going through Abeka's 1st grade reading schedule. So far, it is just review, so they're kind of bored with it. But Pooh definitely needs it. I'd say after about 10 minutes or so of reading, his brain kind of just shuts down. He can hardly remember how to put the sounds together. Tigger is doing good with it, though.

I hope to add in Handwriting Without Tears workbooks for the boys soon (they shipped last Thursday or Friday). Pooh is definitely left-handed, so I'm hoping that will help him improve his fine motor control.

Then I have Rabbit do math with me. She is doing well with Singapore now. She gets the ideas, and sometimes can even do a problem or two in her head. I do see her starting to think more about how to do a problem, and look at the whole problem more. We're enjoying 3B because it is more practical - weights and measures, time, and such. After that, we finish off with spelling and reading. Poor Rabbit... I've been going through our "mastered" words again for the summer, just to make sure they're really mastered and "cleaned" got her again. But, she did finally spell "direction" right after about 7 days of trying. We're pronouncing it "digh-rec-tion" for spelling instead of "der-ec-tion" and that seems to be helping her. Otherwise, she was missing that first "i" in the word.

I really need to get the kids doing some chores everyday. Just not sure how to work it in to the overall scheme of the day. I also want them to be able to play outside when it is cooler. I'll get it worked out soon. Probably just in time to start school in the fall. Ha!

Weeks 33 - 34 in CTG

Well, we finished up a couple of weeks ago, so I suppose I should update.

For Bible History, we went through Nehemiah. It was interesting to see his faith, and fun to tie some of it into Babylonian history. Rabbit did awesome memorizing the Isaiah 40 passage. I am so proud of her.

These two weeks focused mainly on Greece. We learned about drama and the Olympics. It was also interesting to find out about the start of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. We finished up learning about Alexander the Great. It was too bad he died so young. But, I also felt like it was God's timing again.

In Science, we finished up Archimedes and the Door of Science. Rabbit got the concepts pretty well. I love the idea of just analyzing things and studying the universe and asking questions. It was neat to see how science got started.

There were two things recommended in the manual we didn't do. The first was to hold a mini-Olympics. I didn't tell the kids to do it, but I think Rabbit was reading about it in one of the book basket books, and after lunch one day I could hear them out in the yard having contests that were like Olympics. We didn't do the end of year Greek feast, but that was fine.

Rabbit did okay with the Vocabulary words. She missed 2 on her "final" test for vocabulary.

We didn't do all of the God and the History of Art the last two weeks. The Old Schoolhouse was having a sale, and I bought the Draw and Write Through History books and Rabbit did a couple of drawings from there, instead.

We enjoyed reading Aesop for Children. Some of the tales we've heard, but many were new. It was fun to discuss the truth of some of them, and amazing how many applied to current life.

Overall, Creation to the Greeks was a great year. Nothing took overly long (except maybe some of the art work and acting out the 10 Plagues). It is a different flavor than Exploring Countries and Cultures. Some weeks there wasn't much for the book basket. But toward the end there were some great books. The boys joined in for some of the Science. Science was, well, hit or miss. Sometimes the experiments wouldn't work, even after posting over on the message board. Sometimes we didn't do them. We don't have any South-facing windows, and window ledges or place to put things in front of a window are few and far between, so things requiring growing plants during the window months weren't done. But, I think it was good.