Spelling

Spelling has been getting groans from the girls.

And from mom, if I'm completely honest.

So I knew it was time to change gears to something completely different.

My friend told me about the method she's been using for her 4th grader, and after she described it to me I decided to give it a try.

So I picked up a copy of Sequential Spelling, Level 1.

So far we've done two lessons. Oh, and Bekah's doing it with us.

They love it. They're succeeding, they're laughing, and they're learning without even realizing it!

A quick summary of how it works:
They start with writing "in." That's pretty easy to figure out. You write it on a white board and they see that they did get it! (they correct themselves as they go)
Then you have them write "pin." Also pretty easy, since they've already thought through the "in" part.

They write a couple more words the same way...they write it out, you write it on the white board and they see if they got it right. And they're done!!

Painless. Even for a child who doesn't like to write (though thankfully that doesn't seem to be as bad as it used to be. I think Copywork is helping tremendously in that regard), and even for a not-quite-5-year-old (who reads like a 9-year old)!!

Excellent idea, Mommy!

Yesterday, I was told, was the best day of school, ever.
Both Jasmine and Bekah told me separately that they loved it. Bekah told me school had been fun, and that I'd had an excellent idea. Yes, my 4-3/4-year-old daughter used the word excellent.
And Jasmine told me it was the most fun day of school she'd ever had.

And what was this wonderful thing I'd let them do??

We'd made Goobleck.
At first it was on the watery side but they had a blast:

I added more cornstarch and it was even cooler (so cool that I forgot to take pictures).

Even Josh thought it was cool when he tried it this morning.

It's messy. We have cornstarch all over the floor, counters and the stovetop. But it's been a lot of fun, trying to decide if it's a solid or a liquid!

*****important*****
If you make this, Don't put it down the drain when you're done. It will clog your drains. Throw it in the garbage!! (or let it dry and add water again for more fun someday down the road!)

Planning Stage

I don't know how it's possible, but it's time for me to start planning for school for next year.

Jasmine thinks we should spend the whole year doing science. She thinks it's the most enjoyable subject, but I think the state might have something to say about that.

So we're going to do a lot of science, but also spend the year studying American history and the other normal stuff.

And we're going out on a limb and doing our own curriculum for those two subjects!!!

We have access to a beautiful Christian library 10 minutes away. And what's even better is it's in the building where Josh works. So I can do a search and write to him, requesting a specific book to bring home for school the next day. How perfect is that?

We're going to stick with RightStart for math, Susan Wise Bauer's materials for language arts, and we're going to start using Sequential Spelling because we haven't found anything we like and that looks awesome.


I think this is the first post ever not to have pictures! I haven't taken any recently...well, none concerning school....I'll have to remedy that!

Enjoying the Journey

(I accidentally posted this on the family blog yesterday, so please forgive me if you've already read it over there!)

I'm finally disciplining myself and spending less time online. And I love the feeling. I feel so free! My house is staying cleaner. We got the week's school done in 4 days, and I think all but one day it was done before lunch. Which is good; tomorrow we'll start in on some of next week's school, since we have outings three days next week!!

But I did manage to get a few pictures :)

This was Monday morning's pile. One morning.
And yes, we got it all done!

Yeah, I know. It's a sandwich.
No, it's not a gun.
She recognized that the shape looked familiar: she matched it on her puzzle and proclaimed it Oklahoma!
Then she ate it, saying things like "I just ate a big church!"

Playing with the abacus after finishing her worksheet.

Bekah, proudly showing off her work.

Happy end of week 21!

Insecurities

Today's math lesson brought something out that I don't usually think about.
(story: they were working on their worksheet:

Jasmine used the abacus to figure out the totals, which is what the book intended for her to do. Bekah, though, figured out how straight-forward it was. On the first one, you can see a 0 that was erased between the two. She told me the right answer but wrote it the way she says it: "two ten five." She wrote "two ten (20) five." As soon as I showed her with their placecards how the 5 covers the 0, she didn't make that error again.)

Jasmine is very bright. School comes quickly to her, other than writing, so we're working on that. But the rest isn't difficult. She does worry about the future, though. She worries that she'll be left to do work on her own and not get the help she needs. I've spent a long time talking through that with her.

Bekah is in a different league from Jasmine. I'm sure we'll find something she struggles with someday...oh wait! I have it. She doesn't want to talk to other people. She thinks the family should be enough, and doesn't understand why there's a need to ever see anyone else. So there's her struggle.

Jasmine is starting to recognize the fact that Bekah can do everything Jasmine can do. And it's making her uncomfortable.

What makes this a million times harder for me is that she is ME. I always knew I was decently bright, but my brother outshone me...in everything but talking to people. Yup, even down to that. So though I'm comfortable with who I am now and who he is now, it hurts me to see her struggle. I know how she feels, and I'm not sure how to help her through it appropriately.

It's funny. I don't really compare the kids the rest of the time. I see them as all completely different kids, who touch my heart in different ways and all three mean the world to me. But when they're both doing the same work, it's next to impossible not to notice the difference.

Anyone else go through this? I'd love to hear that I'll get better at it and not notice so much down the road!

Math

I haven't talked much at all about math. Which is a shame, because we love the curriculum.

We're using RightStart (link is on the top left of the Blog page. Too lazy to get it myself, knowing you can see it now). Jasmine's still using the kindergarten level because we bought it for her last year, but she's going through it more quickly because of that.

Bekah's in the room for most lessons. We try to do math when Hudson's sleeping because he's just too much "help" with the abacus and place cards. But he's heard enough that when I said "six plus one equals" he chimed in "what?" and I've heard him call the abacus a "ten" (there are lots of "tens" in the way they teach counting.

It's a completely different way of doing math from what we traditionally do in America. I always loved math and did beautifully in it, but I liked the way this goes about it. It's closer to the way children in Japan are taught, but it doesn't put them at a disadvantage when they're tested using Western exams. It's just a different way of looking at math.

I'm not going to try to explain it all. If you're interested in seeing what it does, check out their site. I'll just tell you that we love it and it's done an amazing job.

And to prove that, here's Bekah's worksheet from this morning. (I will note that there are very few worksheets in their system. This is #15 and we've done more than 40 lessons).

(by the way, her 3s are blowing bubbles. My children don't lack any creativity!)

Finishing the Second Quarter

Technically she still has to do a little more cutting and gluing...
but we're done. We've finished the quarter. And that means our school year is half-done.
On October 14th.

I'm shocked, excited, and SO proud. It's crazy to see how much has changed since the year started, but how much is going the way we'd hoped and how much we still enjoy it!

Last week Jasmine tackled a huge project. In her Copywork, she has her choice of two sentences. One is very short, and the other more involved. Until this one, she'd always chosen the short one. But she decided she could tackle the long one, because it involved "supercalifragilisticexpialidocous." Bekah wanted in on the action too:

I let Bekah just write the million dollar word, but Jasmine had to write a whole sentence.

And they both did great!
Her handwriting has gotten a million times better since we started doing copywork 7 weeks ago. I think the fact that she knows it's the only writing she does helps. Bekah is happy doing anything involving writing, so we may use a lot more workbooks/worksheets with her, but for Jasmine, less is definitely more.

While they worked on this, I let Hudson work on one of his "busy bags." I'd been a little concerned that he didn't know his colors (and of course it made me wonder if he might be colorblind), but apparently it's just that he's playing the game my brother Phillip did, not wanting to name the colors but being plenty able to tell them apart. Because he played this game perfectly:

(sorting pompoms onto plates that matched). He loved it!

We finally did a Hideaway again! I've been dragging my feet lately because I'm so tired of cutting doors out of the boxes. I need to keep doing it, though, because they love them and we bought the boxes!! (and it's why we chose Hideaways in History, after all!)

So: we made the Taj Mahal.

And they put on their Indian garb for the pictures:

"namaste!"