First of all, I must apologize for getting a bit behind on the blog. We had 1-1/2 weeks of illness and another week to get back on track with life. But, we have now completed our third full week.
The girls have both been doing wonderful. The workboxes are really making all the difference. We do them in order, but the girls like to look in all of them ahead of time so they know when the fun stuff is coming up. Usually I try to include a snack in one of them and at least one fun activity, like a drawer full of craft items or a puzzle.
Math: K has been working on telling time. The last couple weeks we have been working on 5-minute increments. Before yesterday she didn't quite get that at the 12 it went to the next hour. Yesterday it finally clicked. H has been working on patterns, greater than and less than, sorting, and one-to-one correspondence.
Language arts: K got 92% on her spelling test. The only word she missed was these, which she spelled theese. Other words included third, mother, clothes, throat, and thick.
Her reading has been outstanding, as usual. We're still using the readers from 1st-grade McRuffy, but instead of taking all week on them, I have her read the book and then I ask her all of the comprehension questions. The next day we move on to the next book. She'll be done with them in a few weeks, and then we will be moving on to Anne of Green Gables.
Writing is hit and miss. One day we did a narration from Peter Pan. I read the passage and asked her to give me a sentence about something that she remembered. She gave me the sentence and I wrote it down. When I was putting the paper away she said, "I'm not really learning anything from this." At that point, I had to explain to her why the copywork and narration are important and how they were going to help her be a great writer in the future.
H has been doing fantastic on her McRuffy Phonics and Reading. She can read sentences like Pat has a bat. She is finally starting to show more confidence in her reading. Her sister likes to spell out words like hat and can and have her guess what they are. Outside of school, she is also starting to break words down into sounds. She is also very fond of changing beginning sounds of words we say to her. If we say "Do you want some Cheerios?" she will answer "Do you want some Meerios?" and then giggle at herself. I'm sure this has some sort of educational use.
Bible: Yesterday, K said this was her favorite class. (It does change often, though. A few days before, it had been writing.) For the most part, she does this on her own. We are using a worktext, so she will usually read the passages and do the worksheets on her own. Most of the information is pretty basic at this point, so she doesn't have a problem understanding what's being taught. She has been learning about God, how He teaches and how He listens.
Science and history have been on the back burner, but next week we plan to get back into them.
Hopefully, illness will now stay far away from our house so we can stay in our routine. I have been so proud of both of my girls. Not only are they doing great at school, but they also really look forward to it! That's all I can ask for, right?Labels: weekly update, workboxes