Weekly Report: Days 76-80

It has been a cold, cold week and for the most part we spent the week hunkered down in our house staying warm.  I've been thinking a lot about next year, but I won't talk about that now.  I'm sure I'll talk about it plenty when we get closer.

In their blanket fort in their room.

Reading:
We've now officially transitioned to reading her lessons straight out the book.  No more iPad or computer screen for Lydia!  She's doing a great job. She has finished through lesson 146 and is still working on silent letters.  She's also working on her Book-It goal for February which is 10 books.  She's well on her way.

Math:
I've been giving Lydia's math future a lot of thought.  I've been feeling like she's not really progressing for a while and I've been wondering where to go from here.  After tons of though I've decided to start drilling her math facts.  I wasn't planning on doing that this early, but as we do all of her math, she doesn't seem to be picking up on the patterns in math and it feels like all of the discovery activities we are doing are wasting her time.  I'm thinking that if she memorizes her math facts first and then we do the discovery activities, she'll learn a lot more.  This is not an approach I would take with most kids, I think, but for Lydia's unique learning style, I think it will work very well.  Here's hoping.

That said, I've started her on addition with zeros and ones first while she continues to work on patterns with her therapist.

Grammar:
Both girls are still loving LLTL.  We learned about capitalizing and writing the titles "Mr." and "Mrs."  I also discovered that there are some really cute Beatrix Potter videos on YouTube, so after we read the stories and do the copywork, I'm letting the girls watch the related video and they are loving them.
Lydia also wrote a thank you note for a gift.  I walked her through what to say and then wrote it out for her on a different page.  She copied it and then drew a picture.

Spelling:
Lydia finished Lesson 15 in AAS and will start Lesson 16 next week.

Weekly Report: Days 70-75

Crystal Bridges

We're powering on through.  We went on a family trip to the beautiful Crystal Bridges art museum this week.  It is only a half hour away and a block away from where Tyler grew up, so it is a wonderful resource to have.  We took the girls in the past, but never with the intention of focusing on their enjoyment of the museum.  That's what we tried to do this time, and we lasted a whole hour and a half!  We talked about what different sculptures were made out of and talked about several paintings.  Lydia got really good at picking out which sculptures were made out of marble and which were made of bronze.  They also have a fun kids room and the girls had fun playing with some of the puzzles and puppets.

Eleanor's favorite: "Pinocchio" by Jim Dime (neither marble or bronze... wood!)

"The Life of a Hunter, A Tight Fix" by Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait

Reading:
This week in OPGTR Lydia has been learning about silent and not silent "gh".  They are more complicated than I realize before teaching them and Lydia is struggling with them a little, but I am completely confident that she will pick them up soon.  She also read several books with her therapist.

Grammar:
This week we started Language Lessons Through Literature (LLTL) and it has been a hit so far.  We've done 3 lessons and both Lydia and Eleanor seem to look forward to it. We are still reading Beatrix Potter stories and although we've read all of them before, the girls are really connecting with the stories this time around.

Math:
Lydia is still primarily doing math with her therapist.  They are focusing on patterns and sequences right now and Lydia is getting good at them.

Spelling:
We finally got through Lesson 14.  I don't know why it took us so long, but it did.  We're well into Lesson 15 now and she's doing well.  Also, the SoundLiteracy app is finally updated so it doesn't crash all the time!  Its a little thing but I'm glad to have it working.

Language Lessons Through Literature

Lydia finished Handwriting Without Tears Kindergarten.  I decided a while back that once she learned how to write her letters, we would start copywork.  I've had Language Lessons Through Literature on my radar for a few months and bought it back in December.   It is a fairly gentle, Charlotte Mason/Classical hybrid grammar program.  It uses children's classics, poems, art, and copywork to teach grammar and writing.  I decided to give it a try, thinking I'd like it well enough.

I bought the book and the PDF workbook.  The workbook isn't required because the book has all the assignments and copywork sentences in it, but the PDF has all the copywork in several different handwriting fonts, including HWT, which was huge for me.  Rather than copy each onto paper individually, I can now just print them right off!

Today we did our first day, so this is by no means an exhaustive review, but we had a good first experience and I wanted to share.  The first book is Peter Rabbit.  Lydia, Ellie, and I sat down together and read the book.  The girls really enjoyed the story and when it was time to do copywork, Lydia was very interested in the sentence that was from her story.  We talked about sentences starting with a capitol letter and ending with punctuation (she already knows about period, question marks, and exclamation marks).  At the end I had her draw a picture from Peter Rabbit and she loved doing it. She loved it so much she kept on drawing the rest of the day.  Eleanor saw her having fun with it and decided she just had to join in and do her own "copywork" (scribbles with crayons).  Lydia also pretended Peter Rabbit later. I played Mr. McGregor.

Peter (complete with shoes), Mr. McGregor, and the garden gate.

"Mr. McGregor said, 'Who ate a bite out of my tomato!? I'm going to eat you up!"

I'm excited to see where this goes in the future.

Weekly Report: Days 56-69

School is back on full-swing.  We are behind schedule a bit so we've been careful to do at least 5 days of school a week for the last few weeks.  Everything is going well and it has been handy because Lydia's therapist has taken over some of the schooling duties for me, but I'm still completely in the game.

Reading:
Lydia is through lesson 138 in OPGTR.  She has started silent letters and is rocking them.  I'm pretty proud of her.  She also reached her January Book-It goal of reading 8 books.  Next month I think we are going to go with 10.  Book-It has really motivated her to read.  She is very excited to "reach her goal" every month.  She's been really enjoying Syd Hoff books lately and I actually caught her reading one to herself a little bit before we read it together!

Playing with their "romper-stompers."  They are "so tall!"

Math:
We're still working on counting-on and counting-back, but Lydia's biggest achievement is that she can now read an analog clock.  Her therapist has been working on it with her and she went from not being able to read one at all to now she can read to 5 minutes every time and to the minute sometimes.  She's been doing so well that we bought her a new clock for her room.  She loves it.

Eleanor insisted that she should be called "Super Ballerina Eleanor"

Memorization/ Spelling/ Handwriting:
Spelling and handwriting are still coming along, although fairly slowly.  Lydia did finish learning her lowercase letters, so I guess I need to start doing copywork!  Man, I guess I should come up with a plan for that, huh? Lydia also finished memorizing "The Swing" and has decided to start "The Fisherman" which will be her longest poem yet.

My little engineer practicing her handwriting. (I promise she has better pencil grip than that).

Religion:
We usually read a page from the scriptures every night when Daddy is home before bedtime.  But when Daddy isn't home, I've been reading the girls a section from the Illustrated Book of Mormon.  The girls enjoyed it well enough, but we finished and it was a little above their level anyways.  When we were at my parent's house for Christmas I was able to convince them to let me take home their complete set of Illustrated Stories from the Book of Mormon which have been out of print for a long time.  Although they are a little dated (from the 60s), the girls are loving them and we already finished Vol. 1.

Weekly Report: Days 51-55

With Lydia's new therapy getting started and Christmas, complete with Tyler's interviews and a trip to Grandma's house, we had a busy December.  We really didn't do much school, but we are back to the grind now and did a full week this week!  But first, here are some pictures from Christmas. Thanks to my sister for taking most of these.

Christmas morning in their Christmas pj's, wings, and crowns.

Great Grandma reading Lydia and Adelaide (and Brodi) a story.

Lydia playing with cousin Sam's tee-ball set

Eleanor got lots of dress-up stuff for Christmas

Grandpa reading all the girls and Aunt Hannah a story

Eleanor got a manicure

Reading:

Lydia got through lesson 126 in OPGTR.  I forgot to mention that she read her 5 books in December for her Book-it goal as well.  5 was a little easy, but I knew it was going to be a short month school-wise, so I didn't up it.  This month she has a goal of 8 books and has already completed two, so I think she'll make it again.  We've started just picking out books from the beginning reader section at the library for her to complete it and that is going well.  For December she read Happy Birthday, Thomas!, Summertime in the Big Woods, Thomas and the School Trip, Mother Bear's Robin (Little Bear), and Wintertime in the Big Woods.

Math:

I've been mostly staying away from curricula for a few weeks and don't plan on going back much for a little bit.  Right now I'm working on Education Unboxed video suggestions but mostly I'm focusing on getting her to be able to count-on and count-back, with a goal of being able to count-on a specific number of times. Once she gets this concept, I think I'll be ready to start letting her memorize math facts and maybe get back to the curricula.

Handwriting/Spelling:

Lydia is only a few letters away from finishing learning how to write lowercase letters.  Once she does that, we'll be moving to copywork while she learns how to write her numbers.  Spelling is going well and there is a lot of cross-over between spelling and handwriting, but not much else to say except we are moving forward with it.

Weekly Report: Days 43-50

Well, we are all feeling better, but we've had a fairly busy month.  Lydia has started her new therapy that is taking up a lot of our time and we are having a tricky time getting into a new groove, but we will get there.  I've also been trying to figure out where I'm going with Lydia's math and haven't quite settled on something yet.  Hopefully we'll get it all figured out by the next year.

Adelaide working hard on the computer

Reading:
Lydia keeps getting better and better with reading.  We are getting to the point now where I think I'm going to need to start having Lydia read "real" books on occasion.  She is already reading some that we get from the library, but I think I am going to have her working on it more deliberately.  She is on lesson 122 in OPGTR.

Snow Day

I think she's been reading to herself a little too.  I got her a Thomas the Train book from the library and she spent a few days looking at it.  Today, when she read it to me, she did it almost flawlessly and very quickly, suggesting that she had read it before.  I am so excited that reading is becoming a bigger part of her life.
It was funny, the other day I was talking to her speech therapist and she mentioned that they just discovered she could read when they were doing flashcards with her and she was reading the answers.  Good for her.

Lydia: Learning addition facts while making an "Eiffel Tower."  Win/win!

Math:

Like I said, we are sort of trying to figure out where to go from here.  I'm not ready for Lydia to memorize math facts.  I'm not sure why, but I just don't think she should yet.  So I'm trying to figure out how to slow her down while helping her get really solid on her number sense.  Right now I think I'm going to work on a combination Kitchen Table Math and Education Unboxed videos.

Eleanor maybe had a little bit of help with this one.

Spelling:

Lydia finished Step 13 in AAS.  She has also been writing when she draws.  I love to go through her pictures and read the captions and little things she writes.  So far she seems to have a knack for remembering how words are spelled.  She is by nowhere near perfect, but she does a pretty good job at least trying.

"Ounch apon a time a bus wint to school"

Weekly Report: Days 39-42

At the Houston Arboretum, waiting for Daddy to finish his interview.

Well, I mentioned in my last weekly report that I was sick.  I still am. This is the cold that never ends.  Luckily, I'm at least functional and have done a little school.  Unfortunately, Tyler isn't as lucky.  He had another medical school interview last weekend, so we all took another car trip, this time to Houston, TX.  On the drive down, he progressively lost his voice more and more until it was completely gone, just in time for his interview.  Poor guy.  His voice is just now coming back, a week later.  He really missed being able to read the girls their bedtime story like he always does.  As a result of his cold, he was home most of last week and I never get as much school done with Daddy home.

Reading:
Lydia finished Lesson 113 in OPGTR.  She's zooming through it at a pretty fast pace now.  I'm actually starting to combine some of the shorter lessons into one day.  That is a far cry from where she was only 3 or 4 months ago where a lesson might take 3 or 4 days to complete.  At the rate she's going, I'm anticipating that we may actually finish the book by the end of Kindergarten, which would be amazing.

Since it is now November, Lydia has been working toward her new Pizza Hut Book-It goal for the month.  Last month, I vastly underestimated her and her goal was to read one story, which she did in one day.  This month, she has to read 5 stories to earn her pizza.  She has been really on top of it, asking me all the time if we "can work on my goal."  She has read four of her five required stories, so she'll probably be hitting that goal today.  The stories she read were Going to Town, Hop on Pop, and two Little Bear stories.  She is averaging a middle 2nd grade reading level, which is very exciting to me.

Eleanor continues to ask for a reading lesson every day I do reading with Lydia.  How can I say no to that?  We are slowly working through the McGuffey app I mentioned last week and watching a few of the Reading Bear videos where they sound out words for her.  Blending is holding her back a little.  That, and I'm really not feeling inspired to start teaching her read yet.  I think now that Lydia is starting to really catch on, the idea of starting over at the beginning isn't appealing to me.  That's my own issue, and I'm trying not to let my own inclinations affect Eleanor.  She's so young (newly three), that I don't think I can hurt her at this point, regardless of what we do. Thus all the reading apps and videos.  They are the happy medium for now.  I've promised myself that if she figures out blending with any sort of reliability, I will buckle down and start doing reading with her in earnest.

Adelaide loves reading too!

Math:
I'm trying to figure out what to do with math.  I feel like Lydia is sort of floating along and not really learning anything new or grasping any of the extra number-sense concepts that Math Mammoth is trying to teach her.  I'm also trying to figure out if I should start teaching her math facts.  Right now, I'm leaning towards stepping back from Math Mammoth for a bit and focusing on Miquon and math games.  We'll see what we do, but I do think I need to pause a bit at the moment and make sure she gets some of these concepts down solid.

"Winie the Pooh and Piglit (and Eeyore)"

Spelling:
I'm doing so much better with spelling now that we have the Sound Literacy app.  Lydia likes it too and is much happier to do spelling.  We finished through Lesson 11.  She has also been writing a lot in her free time.  Usually, she writes words that describe the pictures she draws.  I just love to see her using the things she's learning.