ECC 2nd Edition: Day 1

Whew! Things are taking a lot longer with 3 doing them.

First, it didn't help that we didn't start on time. Will work on remedying that. So, we start with Bible, which was to read from Window on the World. Well, the kids (with their new Bibles) wanted to look up and read all the passages referenced in the introduction. And then my kids are picky about word choices ("Why did they say 'might' in that sentence? Jesus saves everyone who believes."). So that took longer. But, on a good note, they have memorized John 3:16 for AWANA so that's a no-brainer.

Then we did all the Geography activities. Reading from Maps and Globes was fine. But, then filling out the Passport Application - my-oh-my! I had to explain about filling out forms in print instead of cursive. Then, with two dyslexics, I had to spell everything and remind them of birthdays and such. And of course, writing the address on the front of the envelope takes more time. Yes, it is very tempting to do it all myself, but I know it is better for the kids if I let them do it. So I did, and so it took WAY longer than the 20 minutes allotted for Geography.

Next we worked on Science. Reading from Properties of Ecosystems (to be referred to as POE from now on) was fine. Though we had to go over and over all the new vocabulary words. I was tempted to make a vocabulary sheet before we started with all the new words from today. It was a lot to remember. I think I might do that for them as a reference. Then we did the Ecozones activity. Can I just say out loud that there needs to be an answer key for this one? Reading the descriptions of the ecozones in the book was slightly confusing. And then, because the print is rather fine on that green background for these old eyes, I misread some of the boundaries of the ecozones. It's fine. It's just general information for the kids to know, but it would help this type-A person to know whether or not we got the maps right. I definitely would skip this for a 3rd grader and below.

Tigger thought coloring the areas on the map was fun. Oh, and having the placemat maps from Explorers to 1850 or 1850 to Modern Times was handy for the kids to copy ocean names and such onto their maps. Our wall map is in a different area from the table where they were working, so I grabbed those and they used them to copy from. I think those would be a good addition to ECC.

I sent Rabbit off to do her school work while Tigger and Pooh did cursive practice and math. Poor Pooh. He really struggled. I showed him how to do the letters on the whiteboard, and then on his paper. I had him do only 4 copies. We still had some tears. I made sheets in StartWrite software, and they have the arrows to show how to form the letters. I also have them do words with the letters we've covered (or just letter combinations) to work on connections - especially letters like b that have a "tow-truck" (to use Handwriting Without Tears terminology). 

Take a week off of math and my boys almost forget how to add and subtract. Sigh. I ended up having to write the problems on my whiteboard and then have them tell me what step to do next. But, we got it done eventually. 

After lunch I worked with Rabbit on her math. She finished Test 18 in Saxon 8/7 today. We'll keep on working 8/7 until we finish it and then start either Algebra 1/2 or Algebra 1. I'm thinking Algebra 1, which will give her more time before 9th grade starts.

So, tomorrow we will do what we didn't get to today: English, Reading, Spelling, Math and Wee Sing. I'll see how that goes before we add any of the ECC stuff. It may be that doing those things first will work better for us than doing Bible, Geography, and Science first. I also need to check the work Rabbit completed today.

Tonight I will go by the  library to pick up our one book that has come in.

I almost forgot to take first day of school pictures:

The boy on the left in the back is Tigger. The boy on the right in the red shirt is Pooh. The girl is Rabbit. And those nicknames fit their personalities. The dog is Chloe - and yes that is her real name. We call her Klo for short.

Starting Early

Rabbit has decided to start some of her school for this fall this week. She is doing her Apologia Physical Science, writing, and her Progeny Press guide for Anne of Green Gables. Today we did the first science experiment. Thought I would post pictures and issues we ran into for others. (The boys also joined in to watch - anything using wires and a battery has interest to them!) 

So, first we had to set it up. The hard part was getting the wires to stay on the terminals of the 9-volt batter. We tried electrical tape, but it was too slippery. So then we went with masking tape and that worked better. There is one piece of tape over each wire and terminal, plus another piece of tape over both.

We definitely got bubbles going off our wires when we got them in the water once we used the masking tape. If you don't get bubbles, your wires are not taped to the terminals very well.

And here you can see how the copper started to turn that blue-green color copper usually does. It was kind of weird that it only happened to one of the wires. Not sure why.

We're using the Knowledge Box Central lapbook journal lab reports with the introduction and procedure all filled in. All we have to fill in are the observations, diagrams, and summaries. We also created a page with these pictures to go with her lab report.

1850MOD - We're Finished

Well, we've been "finished" for a while. Our state only requires 172 days. When we hit that, we're done! 

I did want Rabbit to at least hear all the history (the boys will get it again in 5 years), so we buckled down one day and spent 2.5 hours listening to and reading the last week of history. She has also listened to the rest of her General Science book. We are still working on Saxon 8/7. We usually only get to about 4 days a week of that. I have finally gotten her to use a calculator: I got a Calculator app for my iPad. She loves the big buttons, she can change the skins, and we can check the history to find her mistakes. 

I didn't worry about the boys finishing the 2nd/3rd grade supplement stuff. They finished Singapore 2B recently and we started on 3A this last week. I've been able to teach them their lesson and then work with Rabbit while they do the workbook. They can then come to me when they have questions. That has worked pretty well. 

We've just been doing Spelling, Math and trips to the library this summer. My plan is to start ECC on August 5. I've upgraded to the 2nd edition and Rabbit will be doing the 7th/8th grade supplement. I've been trying to figure out a schedule/routine for the fall, but I keep feeling overwhelmed with it all. I'm sure it will come together soon, but right now it's AAAAHHHH!

Seeing the Accomplishments

Sometimes we forget to really look at all we and our kids are accomplishing in our homeschool days. Take yesterday, for example. Rabbit really struggled through her hour of math. She was really frustrated by the end of it. She said, "Mom, I feel like my brain has melted." But, last night, I was thinking about how much math she did in that hour, and it was amazing! She had two problems to finish from lesson 86. Then she did the practice test for lesson 87, which was 12 problems. We worked through the two example problems in lesson 87, did the 8 practice problems, and 10 of the problem set problems. That was 34 math problems! My dyslexic Rabbit did 34 math problems in an hour, plus learning the new concept in lesson 87.

I could look at it as we have 2 weeks of school left, and we're only on lesson 87 out of 120. But, even at our current pace of 2 to 2.5 days to complete a lesson, we'll have finished 75% of the book in a school year. Not bad! And we'll continue through the summer. 

I look at Rabbit and see a young lady who is a hard worker, tries hard, has a good attitude (most of the time), and is growing spiritually. What more could I ask for? Those are the important things, not whether we finish a math book in a school year.

So, in spite of days where things look bleak, really try to see what you have accomplished for the year, not what you haven't finished. 

1850MOD: Week 28

Here we are on week 28... We have about 4 weeks left to get our official school days count in. I really need to blog more often.

Let's start with Bible. We loved Tales from Persia. On AWANA missionary night, the missionary who spoke was someone who reaches out to Muslims in America. The missionary was asking the kids if they knew what Muslims believed, and because of that book they were able to answer the questions. It was a big surprise to the missionary that any of the kids knew anything about Muslims, but it also confirmed that the book is accurate in their beliefs. Then, my husband took the book to work and gave it to a coworker who is interested in Christianity who comes from a Muslim background. Although the stories are written to appeal to children, I thought the gentle way it presented the concepts of Christianity from a Muslin perspective might help.

Now we're doing the T.H.U.M.B. prayer section and continuing on in A Young Person's Guide to Knowing God. We have good discussions on the topics.

History is interesting. Just Rabbit and I are doing Story of the World. They added the writing from an outline component, which has been challenging, but Rabbit is getting the idea more. I don't always agree with the organization of the outline, though, and that really challenges us sometimes. The boys enjoy the US Facts and Fun book. Most of their history comes from book basket. Tigger has even read one of the American Girl books and enjoyed it.

The boys LOVED the Fun with Magnets kit for the 2nd/3rd grade supplement, and the experiments don't take too long. The World of Science book is sometimes over their heads, but they do like looking at at the pictures while I'm reading it (and some of the computer stuff is a little outdated). The Apologia General Science hasn't been too bad for Rabbit. I have been using the alternate tests from the Yahoo group. We're on module 13, which has lots of terms and things to memorize about the digestive tract, so Rabbit has asked for a couple of extra study days before taking the test.

Math has been Rabbit's nemesis. Here test scores started going down, and after researching it, I realized she needed to be doing all the problems. Since we started doing that, her test scores have gone up. However, it takes 2 to 2 and a half days to do one lesson. We still have quite a few lessons to go. We'll continue over summer. My thought is to try to do an hour in the morning and then an hour in the afternoon to get caught up.

The boys have been doing pretty well with Singapore. Occasionally they struggle with a concept, but they have really gotten it. I wonder if Pooh will ever learn his math facts. I have tried several different methods, and now he is using math Wrap-Ups. Tigger really works hard at it and seems to get them much quicker. It will be a focus this summer.

I am pretty pleased with everyone's progress so far. We'll see how the rest of the year goes.

1850MOD: Week 20

Well, posting once a month is better than not posting at all. Let's see, where should we start?

After struggling with Saxon math with Rabbit, we've decided we're going to limit ourselves to an hour a day. We just pick up where we left off and then continue into our next lesson until our hour is up. I will say this, Facts Practice Test N has really helped Rabbit with her fractions. Sometimes I have wondered about the value of doing the Facts Practice Tests, but this one has carried over into her ability to work the fraction problems in the Mixed Practice.

We're on Module 10 in Science. Not sure if we'll finish the whole book or not by the time we are officially done with our 172 days. She is getting a B in class right now. I have been using some of the alternative tests from the yahoo Apologia group to make our lives a little easier. We are really trying to do the experiments. I even bought some ivy for Lowe's so we could do the experiments.

Rabbit finished the Progeny Press guide for Johnny Tremain today. She did pretty well. We didn't do any of the extra projects at the end. I feel as if she is getting enough writing from Essentials in Writing. She has been continuing on in the Apples spelling book, and I am seeing improvement in her spelling in her writing. The All-in-One English book has presented some challenges for us, but we are making progress though it.

We have just finished reading about World War I, but we are way behind on Sargent York. I did order the CDs from Mantle Ministries, but it feels like he reads a little slow, so I have taken to reading it with a Southern accent. Rabbit did her first writing from an outline today. She didn't do it exactly with paragraphs. But, I tried doing it too, and even I had a hard time working in all the points.  It is hard when you don't exactly agree on the grouping of the outline. For a first time doing such an assignment, it wasn't bad. I expect it to get better as we go on. The boys have been getting their History from the book basket and the second grade supplement books. I'm fine with that as they will repeat all if this in 8th grade.

We are really enjoying Tales from Persia. It is encouraging to read these stories of how God has worked in the Middle East. We are also enjoying the hymn study. I am glad they have the songs on the message board, even if the kids think the singer sounds like an opera singer.

Each if the boys is about halfway through their level in All About Spelling. Tigger is in Level 3 and Pooh is in Level 2. Tigger has started doing a lot more free writing. They are both in the 3rd grade Pathway Readers, with Tigger a book ahead of Pooh. Pooh prefers graphic novels (comics) over regular books, but at least he is reading. Tigger has been reading Star Wars junior novels (not based on the movies). It's not the greatest reading material, but he finished those and is now branching out into some other stuff. It is hard to find good stuff at the library for boys (girls have many more choices, in my opinion). Hank the Cowdog is a bit below Tigger's reading level, but other series seem to be too high. We did find a sports series that he is enjoying, but the characters are middle- and high-school.

Math is going well for the boys. Pooh has a hard time remembering math facts when we do drill, but he completes his math assignments just fine.

1850MOD Week 17

Well, seeing as how I haven't been a good blogger...

Just a quick update. We're on Week 17. We have a pretty good rhythm for things. And overall things are going pretty well. 

Rabbit struggles with Math, and sometimes it is hard to get those science experiments done, but we're getting there. (What do you do with a batch of worms from Walmart, after you're experiment is done and it is too cold to put them out in the garden?) We are doing the Johnny Tremain Progeny Press guide this semester. This time I'm having her write her answers in the book. She does pretty well with that. We decided to switch to Essentials in Writing for writing. I have liked Writing Strands until we got to Level 5. I really feel that Essentials in Writing will prepare her a little better for writing papers in high school. 

Pooh and Tigger finished their Singapore 2A books a couple of weeks ago and are now on 2B. We're reviewing subtraction facts most days. I'm amazed how they can do the mental math. All About Spelling is going really well for Tigger. Pooh struggles with each step at first, but usually by the time we finish all the sentences for a step, he gets the rule we're learning. The boys seem to enjoy the See the USA and U.S. Facts and Fun books. I've added in doing some practice testing (we have to submit standardized test scores this year) once or twice a week. I've also added in some writing exercises on the days we don't have English.

I think my biggest frustration is that we don't get to do hardly any of the activities from Story of the World with Rabbit. There just isn't enough time in the day.

Well, maybe next week I'll start updating weekly. Then again, maybe not! :)