The difference of a day!

Oh, Rabbit did so much better today on the timed Test A: she completed all but 4 problems in the 5 minutes, and only missed 2! And the two she missed: one was a number reversal (wrote 65 instead of 56), and the other she added instead of multiplied. This second lesson was long, and then the DIVE video didn't explain about using a formula to find the terms in a sequence, so we had to go back to the book and look at the example, and then I had to explain it to her using a couple of other examples. We finished up the practice set and will do the Mixed Problem set tomorrow. I do like that the DIVE video uses different words and explains things in a little bit different way than the book, but he doesn't always go over everything that the book covers, and we have to go back and look for how to solve at least one of the practice set or mixed problem set. I hope that isn't a regular  occurrence. I mean, right now I'm sitting with her through the whole lesson, giving her hints of when to pause and write and such, hoping that eventually she'll only need me for the warm up. But, if he regularly skips something, then I'm going to need to be more familiar with the lessons.


Things went opposite for Pooh. He struggled with Math today. He kept rocking in the chair instead of doing math. Ended up in tears twice! But, I brought the Math-U-See blocks to piano lessons and sat on the floor with him to do the Singapore lesson, and it went better. Like Rabbit at this age, he needs me to sit with him and walk him through each problem. He loved doing cursive with Tigger, and I even taught them an extra letter so they could write a real word: cat. They thought that was very cool.


Tigger just plows through stuff. If he misses a problem, he goes back and fixes it. He gets a little frustrated, but he wants to get it done so he can be off. 

Gradually starting

So yesterday I started with Rabbit on Saxon 8/7. The first few lessons are quite long, so after we finished the practice set, I let her stop for the day. Then today we finished up the first lesson. She did pretty well with it, but it is basic review right now. Today she also did the first page of the pre-test in All-in-One English.

For Pooh and Tigger, today we started our Handwriting Without Tears Cursive book and Singapore 2A. That went well. I taught them together, but for math, I had them do their math pages separately. 


I think I've got 98% of my lesson plans entered into Homeschool Tracker Plus. I haven't put in dance, P.E., AWANA, or Writing Strands. And I haven't figured out how I'm going to do the Progeny Press stuff with Rabbit, either. I'm still stressing a little bit about how to schedule it all. I have a lesson plan for Rabbit, and then another for the boys since there is quite a bit of difference. For the Apologia Science, Saxon, and Singapore I just have "Lesson x" and then the notes say to refer to the lesson plan book from MFW. The nice thing is I have my Primary Language Lesson plans from back when Rabbit was in 3rd grade to use with the boys. 

Done with EXP1850

I've been such a slacker! Okay, we finished our required days/hours several weeks ago. We didn't get to the state study, though. I ordered Colorado from statehistory.net and plan on having Rabbit at least read through it this summer. Plus she's checked out a few books on Colorado from the library.


I'm very proud of Rabbit! She finished Singapore 5B on the last day of "official" school! She has worked so hard to get caught up.


Pooh is making progress in his reading. Slow and steady, it is coming along. He still has a hard time with the math facts. We're doing xtramath.com and some math drill stuff from Little Giant Steps. It is expensive, but it has helped some. I'm not seeing the progress I would like. He can do math during math time, he just has a terrible time with the speed drills.


Tigger is doing great. He's reading at grade level, doing math well, getting his math facts down, all of that. His temper is short, and he gets passionate about things, but he is easy to teach.


I really want to keep my blog up to date for 1850 to Modern Times. I'll certainly try.

EXP1850 Week 27

Yep, we're at Week 27 now. Let's see. We finished James 4 memorization. That last verse is so convicting: "Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do but doesn't do it, sins." Need to copy that one and put it around the house in strategic places!

There were a lot of booklets from the science lapbook this week, so I split that reading up over two days, instead of one. Then, we went outside and did the activity looking for the terminal bud scar. At first we had trouble finding them. We looked on our snowball bush, and our crab apple tree, and another bush. We finally found some branches on the snowball bush and crab apple tree that seemed to show the terminal bud scars. (Of course, any good excuse to go outside for school is a big hit with the kids.)

In history the big focus this week was Napolean, the 1812 War, and Waterloo. We also spent a day on South American history and their revolutions. Theirs was a bit messier, I think. The kids think the state sheets are getting old, so today I found a picture of the state bird and state flower and printed them out, and let the kids cut them out and glue or tape them onto their state page. I was given the title "super-mom" for allowing such a deviation from the regular routine. They still had to write the postal code and capital city name, though. I told them I might not allow it every time, but since today was a "light" day, and we had all our activities today, I would make it something that took less time.

All of the kids have advanced one level in All-About-Spelling. Rabbit is at Level 6, but she got really frustrated today reviewing the red cards and yellow cards. I know she wants to get on with the "spelling" part of it, but she really needs to get those phonographs better. She mostly has trouble with the vowel teams. Tigger is on level 3. Again, a little frustration today with the red cards, but he did fine, really. He'll get through step 1 soon. Pooh is actually on step 2 of level 2. He did spell his words today. He did fine on all except one. Keeping a good attitude in spelling is tough some days for all of them.

I've added in Little Giant Steps Rapid Recall System for learning math facts - especially for Pooh and Tigger. Pooh is really struggling, even with +1 facts. Sometimes he knows the answer, but can't remember how to write the number, other times he just can't remember the next number. I talked to my husband about it, and he says even if he can't do the timed drill in under 2 minutes, we ought to keep going trying to learn the next set of five. I'm going to try having him say the answers to me and me writing and see if we can get him going faster. Part of it is the act of writing that bogs him down.

Rabbit is actually going to finish Singapore 5B by the end of our school year, I think. I'm so proud of her for getting caught up in math. We'll try Saxon as recommended by MFW next, but if it doesn't go well, I may try Life of Fred. I got the one on fractions from the library, and I think she really enjoyed doing that first chapter. We'll just see how it goes. I have the boys working in Singapore 1 Extra Practice books (ordered from their website, not the ones I've found at the teacher-supply store). I just really want them to cement those concepts down before starting 2A. The stuff in math has been a little easier lately, so we've only been spending about 15 minutes each, which has been a nice break.

Officially we only need 21 more days of school, but I really want Rabbit to finish the state report. (I'm not worried about the boys, as they can do it in 7th grade when we do this again.) I think I might order something from statehistory.net to help us along. We got our Colorado magazine and map from our tourism department, and I found census stuff on-line. Now to set aside time to work in the library and such.

Progress and slacking....

Boy, what. slacker I've been about updating the blog this year. We're taking a temporary break this week to work on our geography fair. The kids chose Switzerland as their country. Tigger will talk about the geography of the country and some animals, Pooh will talk about languages, religions, and trains, and Rabbit will handle government and William Tell.

Overall, things are going pretty well in Explorers to 1850. We are in the middle of week 26. The kids seem to actually like doing the state sheets and president sheets. I've been trying to do some of the more fun activities and experiments. We did the make cotton and remove cotton seeds activity, made hasty pudding and scones, and did an experiment where we set a carrot in blue water to see what would happen. I got a color botany lapbook to go with science this year, so we haven't been doing all the notebook assignments, but I'm good with that.

We're going to finish our required number of days of school before we finish the curriculum this year. But, I'm going to have Rabbit go ahead and finish the state report, as our state does require doing some state history. The boys will repeat in 7th grade, so I won't make them do it.

In other good news, Pooh finally finished Level 1 in All-About-Spelling. An awesome accomplishment for him. But, he is really struggling with math facts. All I can say is, "Drill, baby, drill." I know he'll get it eventually, but it is a long, slow process.

EXP1850 Week 3

Okay, so this was a crazy week in school. Dance classes started. Rabbit is taking 2 classes, and the boys 1. Rabbit is taking Ballet II and Worship Dance II at Dance Scene Studios. The boys are taking a boys Hip Hop class. It is a Christian dance studio. At least all the classes are in the evening. I think this gives us a little more flexibility in our scheduling. P.E. Class doesn't start until the beginning of September.

History focused on King James and Jamestown, and some of the exploration for the Northwest Passage. There was one activity, making a wigwam, that we saved until our light and independent Friday (which currently falls on Thursday). We're almost done with it - we just need to cut out a hole in the top and on the side. (I'll post a picture or two when we finish.)

In Science right now we're focusing on Mammals. It is fun to learn about the different sizes and shapes and abilities.

We actually managed to at least read the Art lessons this week. We hardly ever have time to focus on that. And we squeezed music in on the way to piano lessons (can you say car-schooling?).

We started the read-aloud this week. Personally I'm enjoying it. I think Rabbit is too, as the story is told more from the point of view of a girl just a little older than she is.

The hardest part is getting the 2nd and 3rd grade supplement into place. I changed the routine, doing Bible, Spelling, English (or Writing), Reading and Math first. That leaves History and Science for after lunch. I think this has been working much better for us.

EXP1850 Week 2

Whew. We went camping before starting this week on a Thursday. I had nothing prepared like I like to. That made it a little bit hectic.

This week started the memorization of James. Right now we're doing Plan A. That could change as AWANA starts up in September, but right now, we're going for Plan A. It has been challenging, but well worth the effort, so far. I've needed some reminder of those first 4 verses.

I found a History Scribe pack over at CurrClick (for $5) that had lots of topics we'll be covering this year and next (Egypt to the Present). It also included pages on the Indian tribes we'll cover, too. So I bought that to use for some of our History Notebook Pages. Using the "blank" pages from that and good old Photoshop, I made some pages for the kids to fill in for their "summary pages" this week. We did make the Shortbread as described in the T.M. We used fresh-milled whole wheat flour and honey to make it "healthier." My husband said it reminded him of pie crust. He said, "Leave to the Americans to add apples and call it pie." Here's a picture:

In Science, we started looking at the Classification System and Vertebrates. The kids liked the activities. I made a Vertebrates page in Microsoft Word for the kids to show them the fun we can have with our science pages. The boys have been working out of the Complete Book of Animals some, too. We made the model backbone as described in the text.

Math is going fine. Rabbit takes a little bit longer on those Review pages in the Singapore Textbook. It took us 3 days to complete one. We're working on Order of Operations. I let Rabbit use the calculator a little bit, or it would have taken us hours and hours to do those problems. (I only let her use it if a step was NOT a common math fact.) The boys seem to be doing okay with math, though Pooh Bear often needs two or three explanations before it sinks in. He's really having trouble with his math facts, so I get out beans for him to use to do subtraction. Tigger loves Quarter Mile Math, and it really seems to be helping him.

Tigger continues to plow on in Reading and Spelling. He's over halfway through the Abeka 1st grade readers, and he's only got two more steps to finish in All About Spelling Level 1. Pooh Bear continues the slow and steady pace. He can read, but it is a lot more work for him. Spelling goes even slower. But, I've found if I let him do it on a whiteboard, so his letters don't have to be on lines, he does better. Rabbit is reading fine these days. We've been in All About Spelling Level 5 for a while. She is really struggling with some of the concepts at this level.

We've missed quite a few God and the History of Art pages. If I have to let something go, I feel like letting Art go is the easiest thing, because it's not always my interest. But, two of the three kids like drawing. If our days weren't so long, I'd probably do more.

Pooh struggles with Rosetta Stone, but part of that is he doesn't always speak clearly. I've also read that dyslexics have a hard time learning a Foreign Language. Rabbit seems to be mostly liking it - except when she has a hard time pronouncing things. Tigger enjoys it and isn't taking it too seriously. They are all doing Spanish.

I come up with a way to create a flexible schedule. I am using a pocket chart and some wipe-off word strips. Basically it is just to give us the order of the day. If multiple things are listed, the left column is for Rabbit, the middle for Pooh Bear, and the right for Tigger. So, if I'm working with Rabbit on English, the other two have independent stuff to do. Here's what it looks like:

It makes it pretty easy to change the order of the day if I know we have an appointment or something. We turn the cards over as we work through each section. I am thinking about moving Math and Reading before lunch, and History and Science afterwards. I really feel that sometimes the 3 R's get neglected if they're not done right after Bible. But, that is a lot of writing right in a row for the little guys, so I don't know.