I had hoped to keep up with our weekly progress, but sadly that isn't working out as well as I hoped. I thought about trying to backtrack our progress but I am not that organized so I am just going to start where we are or as I often tell myself while educating the kids....meet them where they are, or in this care, meet you where I am.
Allboy finished his All About Spelling Level 1 book and we are both excited. 24 lessons complete. We didn't spend a lot of time on it because quite a bit were things he knew, but the review was worth it just to go over all the phonics rules and make sure that he knew why words are spelled certain ways. I even learned things I never knew before. I didn't know that there are zero words in english that have enk in them, so that when you hear the enk sound it is always spelled ink. There are only 5 words in the English language that group eng together to make the ing sound, so it is almost always ing. Or that C makes the [s] sound when the vowel is i, e, or y, and the [k] sound when followed by any other letter. See I am smarter already.
Gbaby Supreme has worked his way through 2 books of Get Ready for the Code. Somehow the switch triggered and he just gets the letter sounds in a way that wasn't there in the beginning. He now recognizes all of his numbers, 1-20, and is learning greater and less than. His writing is slow to improve but it is getting better.
Grinmaster is doing a superior job in school and learning to take responsibility for his own work. He has an agenda and is learning to pace himself, and keep track of all of his work. I think he is going to make the honor roll and seems to be making friends. His teachers are impressed with his attitude and abilities.
In history we have covered the Age of Exploration. We learned about Erik the Red, Leif the Lucky, and Columbus the clueless. How did he in reality come to be called "The Great Navigator"? He never even realized he never reached the Indies. I can't wait until we get to see some of the ruins in South America. The fact that the civilizations were so advanced is surprising compared to how we all believed they were savage heathens. Right now we are covering Roanoke, The lost colony mystery, and the settlement in Jamestown. We already covered some of Jamestown during the Native American unit, but this will look at it all from a different direction.
Science we are plugging along with an emphasis in the Scientific method. We just finished the Earth's crust, and types of rock. We still have more rock studies and hope to classify and collect quite a few specimens. Mom gave us some fossils and different rocks found in the west and we are measuring the hardness scale.
I am not doing as much as I would like with Art. In fact we aren't doing anything. I need to change that. So far we have only done crafts as they relate to History. That isn't enough. I want to explore different mediums, and styles of art, but my motivation isn't there. I am thinking of contacting Bay Art's after the first of the year and getting the boys into a few of their classes.
