In November we celebrated Thanksgiving. The girls did some Thanksgiving themed work and the same week we also celebrated Little K's 3rd birthday!
T and H finished up their first All About Spelling books. I HIGHLY recommend AAS for struggling spellers/readers. It is an amazing program. T started with level 1 and H started with level 2. They do NOT recommend starting any higher than that, no matter the students age. They know what they're talking about.
I've had these magnetic letters for a while that K is playing with in the picture below and one day I got the idea to only pull them out when I'm doing AAS with H or T so she can do her own "spelling" at the same time, and therefore, enable me to work with H or T. She wants to be included as much as possible, and keeping things only for certain times keeps them more exciting. So she can look forward to "spelling" time with her big sisters.
I've had these magnetic letters for a while that K is playing with in the picture below and one day I got the idea to only pull them out when I'm doing AAS with H or T so she can do her own "spelling" at the same time, and therefore, enable me to work with H or T. She wants to be included as much as possible, and keeping things only for certain times keeps them more exciting. So she can look forward to "spelling" time with her big sisters.
Mid-December was the week was the last week of co-op for the semester. H created a lego city for her final geography project. The picture does not do it justice. She even had little pieces of trash in her dump. She did a great job.
H also finished her second book in the Circle C Adventures Series. She earned another Pizza Hut coupon for a free personal pizza!
T's reading has been improving so much! Dad had a chance to listen to her read one day and he was pleasantly surprised with her improvement since the last time he'd her read. Reading has been a struggle for her. At the beginning of the school year she was reading quite below grade level, so we went all the way back to first grade phonics/reading. She's worked extremely hard over the last few months, working on phonics and decoding skills. She is almost finished with the last first grade reader, and I was going to buy the 2nd grade next, but her reading has improved so much that I thought we'd pull up the third grade to see how she did, and sure enough, she could read it! This was HUGE! So, I gave her the San Diego Quick Assessment (a very simple, quick, basic assessment of reading level) and she scored at a 3rd grade reading level. I then went on to have her read the first 400 Fry's sight words (the most common words in reading and writing that students should be able to read automatically) and out of 400 she only missed 38, which is a 90.5% accuracy rate! Again, this is HUGE!
MK is plugging along in pre-algebra and grammar. She also read Island of the Blue Dolphins. She looks forward to going to the co-op each week and has some good friends there. She is about to celebrate her 13th birthday, which blows my mind. We've switched MK's curriculum a few different times this semester, but we seem to finally be in a groove. I realized online learning does not work for our family (which is pretty ironic since we utilize so much technology in our home).
Little E has taken off with her reading. She impresses me daily. She is also recognizing most numbers up to 100, which actually baffles me, because she tends to learn things before we actually get there in the curriculum. We were at the pet store and she started reading the numbers next to all the fish tanks. It must be Starfall. No seriously, I don't know where she learns half the stuff she learns. I'll take credit for teaching her how to read, but the rest of it she just picks up. I'm not an un-schooler by any stretch of the imagination, but I can totally see why un-schoolers un-school when some kids are really just self-motivated learners. Little E is one of those kids that is very easy to teach. If she wants to know something, she asks, and then she remembers what answer you gave. She reminds me so, so much of MK at this age.
MK is plugging along in pre-algebra and grammar. She also read Island of the Blue Dolphins. She looks forward to going to the co-op each week and has some good friends there. She is about to celebrate her 13th birthday, which blows my mind. We've switched MK's curriculum a few different times this semester, but we seem to finally be in a groove. I realized online learning does not work for our family (which is pretty ironic since we utilize so much technology in our home).
Little E has taken off with her reading. She impresses me daily. She is also recognizing most numbers up to 100, which actually baffles me, because she tends to learn things before we actually get there in the curriculum. We were at the pet store and she started reading the numbers next to all the fish tanks. It must be Starfall. No seriously, I don't know where she learns half the stuff she learns. I'll take credit for teaching her how to read, but the rest of it she just picks up. I'm not an un-schooler by any stretch of the imagination, but I can totally see why un-schoolers un-school when some kids are really just self-motivated learners. Little E is one of those kids that is very easy to teach. If she wants to know something, she asks, and then she remembers what answer you gave. She reminds me so, so much of MK at this age.
H's completed work for first semester (Bible, language, reading, math, spelling). I couldn't bear the thought of just throwing all the hard work away without at least taking a picture of it.
T's completed work for first semester (language, reading, math, spelling):
Lastly, we celebrated CHRISTMAS! We are now taking a break and will resume in January. The break is nice, but I will be excited to get back into our groove again too.
May you be blessed in 2015!
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