Heading Into Week Two

We spent the weekend working ahead on some of our school subjects and getting familiarized with Reezle's Spanish course. I had been waiting on her teacher to explain how to log in to the course, but I hadn't heard back. As it turns out, simply logging in using Reezle's user info did the trick. She completed the first 3 units, and the course looks great! Little G is even following along.

Reezle spent a good amount of time enjoying some books and her favorite Poptropica computer game, while Little G worked on Math almost non-stop from the moment he woke up each day until he went to bed. It is rare to see the little guy without his math workbook. He encountered a bit of frustration when doing math problems which required him to borrow more than once, especially when zeros were involved. He is an extreme perfectionist and has absolutely no patience for his own mistakes. It took me a bit of time to convince him that it is a perfectly acceptable part of learning to make mistakes, and that these can even help us to learn better. He wasn't having it at first, but he eventually calmed down and accepted it. He did a retake on his assessment, and scored 100% the second time. He was fine after that, of course.

We also did some writing, vocabulary, analogies, and spelling, but typing out all of our spelling words for each unit - especially at the rate at which my kids are currently burning through them - is tedious and probably not enjoyable to read anyhow. Suffice it to say they are tackling some pretty challenging words and doing an exceptional job. I'm very proud of both of them.

Much like last year, we are continuing our hoopdance practice and doing mostly that and running for our physical education. We did a lot of it over the past week. I incorporate nutrition and information about how physical activity benefits the body into our PE curriculum. It seems there is a huge overlap between our health and PE material, so I kind of wing it with how much individual time we're giving to each. We probably do a lot more physical activity than I log for PE, all of it educational, but I was actually told to stop logging it last year due to the amount of hours. Heh. Better a bit more than needed than not enough, in my opinion.

On the agenda for tomorrow is Study Island, in addition to our typical studies. They changed the format and wow, what a positive change. Little G has his first Aimsweb assessment of the year later this week, and we're also planning a family field trip in the very near future. I love getting back into a routine again!

Our First Day of Homeschool 2012-13

Today was our first official day of school! In continuing tradition, we celebrated in our pajamas.

Little G writing 575 in expanded form

I was a little concerned about how Little G would handle a full load of courses this year, affording him less time to do the things he enjoys independently. I expected boredom and frustration on his first day, but there was none! He handled his first day as a 1st/2nd grader like a pro.

Miss Reezle worked on math, language arts, history, and health. She also spent roughly 45 minutes playing Poptropica, which is surprisingly educational. She did great on her first day as a 3rd grader! Her spelling list for this unit is:

objects, insects, facts, products, plants, trucks, napkins, hundreds, numbers, gashes, boxes, foxes, riches, sandwiches, inches, bosses, dresses, *systems, *pencils, *presidents

The red one we need to work on. Mostly, she does fabulous with the root words; she just has a bit of difficulty with some of the suffixes. This morning, there were a lot more red words in that list. Once she reviewed them, she did great. I shared some tips I hope will be helpful for knowing and remembering which suffixes fit. She seems to have caught on very quickly, so we'll go through the spelling words list tomorrow and find out if it sticks.

Mr. G's spelling words list for Unit 4 was:

spot, stop, sled, brush, speck, swim, crib, drum, crab, splash, trot, grin, prop, slip, fled, brick, crush, grab, frog, crash, won, and busy, with bonus words travel, dragon, and crunch.

He got them all correct, easily, so we moved on to the unit review and wrapped things up.

As a little surprise for the kiddos, I downloaded several children's books to my iPad. Today we read Pete The Cat: I Love My White Shoes. This story was awesome. Both kids are well beyond the book in terms of reading level, but the message was fun and useful. Basically, no matter what happens, keep a positive attitude.

That's a message even I could learn something from. And Sticky, too, apparently, because she joined right in the reading break with us! What other school offers a furry friend to snuggle and pet while you're going through the day? We love our (home) school!

Perfect Little Spellers

This morning and afternoon, Little G worked on some more spelling. He seems to really be enjoying it this year, which I attribute to the difference in presentation with the curriculum change. Well, that and the fact that he earns warm and fuzzies for getting them correct! We have some pretty sweet trades in the trade bucket right now, so he has some good incentive.

On his first try, he spelled all of the words correctly, including the challenge words, without even a moment of hesitation. I went ahead and had him take the Checkpoints for Units 2 and 3, and he got 100% on both.

Unit 2 spelling words:

then, mush, when, rush, such, much, them, dash, shut, check, neck, tuck, luck, chap, peck, sham, duck, puck, chum, hush, what, said

Challenge words:

sandwich, checkers, sharpen

Unit 3 spelling words:

hand, gift, bump, pond, soft, bent, milk, belt, tent, fond, pond, land, pump, lift, silk, jump, hunt, find, felt, loft, send, says, front

Challenge words:

defend, adrift, shrimp

Little man is feeling pretty stoked, having finished three units of spelling before school even started officially. I'm very proud of him. Since we are working with consonant blends, I first asked him if he remembered what a vowel is. "Yes, it's A, E, I, O, and U." I was impressed, and asked if he knew, then, what a consonant was. "Yes, anything that's not a vowel." Daddy asked if he knew which consonant was sometimes a vowel, and Little G immediately answered, "Yes, Y."

Miss Reezle also completed a unit of spelling! I was surprised how quickly she mastered her spelling list, since she didn't seem very into it today.

Spelling words:

next, until, happen, sudden, rabbit, magnet, ticket, pocket, finish, publish, public, contest, himself, problem, establish, fantastic, may, have, say, hard, *difficult, *exact, *children

She also scored 100% on her spelling test! I can only assume that their avid reading is the reason they do so well in language arts. Grade 3, Unit 1 of spelling is complete! Warm & fuzzies for all!