Thursday, July 3, 2008

Leaps and bounds

Becca is learning so fast, it's hard to keep up with her! Even compared with a few months ago, she's showing more attention to detail in her work. When she colors pictures, she strives for accuracy or makes a color pattern if it's strictly decorative. I think she's over using crayons and much prefers colored pencils for all of her work, even over a larger area. In reading her a simple fable and asking narrative questions afterward, I discovered that she remembered several key points verbatim. She actually remembered them and wasn't reading directly from the page because I had the book out of her view!

We had a brief struggle with the concept of "number bonds" in her Singapore math curriculum, but addition of smaller numbers is coming easily to her right now. I bought an extra practice book to go with it, and we've gone back and done several pages of extra work on number bonds. I think it's sinking in.

We're wrapping up our frog unit in science this week. We slowed down some because we got a Grandpa visit last week! Our frog finale will be cupcakes and paper bag puppets.

In history, we're learning about Mesopotamian life. We'll be building a ziggurat this week as well. Today Becca colored in a beautifully detailed picture of a Mesopotamian sailboat and showed us how they sailed up and down the Tigris river to trade with mountain people for various needs. She also copied down some vocabulary words and definitions. She is determined to write them out herself, no matter what, so I dictate and help her spell everything correctly. One of the main crops in Mesopotamia was barley, so I found some pearled barley and made a simple breakfast porridge with it. It's not really chronologically correct though, so I've been on an extended hunt for barley flour!

She finished her first Handwriting Without Tears book today, the first grade level My Printing Book. We enjoyed some ice cream as a treat for that and for filling up her reading log for the library's summer reading program (45 books!). To make sure she gets a good amount of printing practice, I've bought her the next book in the HWOT series, Printing Power. The lines are closer together in this book and the words get more complex - just what I want for keeping Becca challenged!

She's also nearly done with Spelling Workout A. This has kind of felt like busywork to me - I'm not sure how much spelling she's truly learning from this, so I'm leaning towards changing her spelling curriculum. I haven't decided whether to go with All About Spelling or take a suggestion from some online HS friends and work from The ABCs and All Their Tricks. The latter is a comprehensive reference book for phonics and spelling. I found a copy at the library, so I'll look through it and see how I'd do teaching directly from that book.

Probably our biggest news isn't directly homeschool related - Becca has been invited to join the Hot Shots class in gymnastics!! The youngest age is 5, and I have to say I felt like she might be invited right away. I'm incredibly proud of her. I know she struggled when she first started, but she has learned how to concentrate and pay excellent attention to her coaches. She's brave and fearless and willing to try any new skill asked of her. I'm so glad she's going to continue to be challenged there. We're going to increase her to 2 classes a week, and this will be her main activity. It'll be especially nice since we won't be able to do Fine Arts Fridays.

Meanwhile... Sylvia's not going to be attending preschool. As of right now she's not going to be doing any special activities, and anyone who knows us well knows exactly why....

I also finally got my Latin books and I'm working on some self-teaching now.

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