Our Homeschool Update

I started out this homeschool year thinking I could write a weekly blog post highlighting what we had accomplished that week.  I think I made it through 3 weeks of that.  I could not find the time to get it in.  Even though I do highlight some of the "special" things we have had going on (field trips, art class, hands on activities) I never got back to doing an overall what we've been up to kind of post.  After this one catches up from August to now, I hope to write one at least monthly in the future.

We do P.E., Bible, and History as a family.  Earlier in the year we reviewed Family Time Fitness and loved it!  Each morning we start out with P.E.  It is a great way to start our school day.  We finished up Apologia's Who Is My Neighbor worldview curriculum a couple of weeks ago and have gone back to Classical Academic Press's God's Great Covenant New Testament.

The boys are doing Apologia's Swimming Creatures for Science.  To go along with it we bought a fish tank and some fish.  Then we got a tadpole that we are watching transform into a frog.   We are working on the chapter on Primeval Reptiles and are also planning on trying to hatch some triops. 

We read The Swiss Family Robinson as our read aloud and finished it up last week.  After we finished, we watched the movie.  The kids liked the movie but were very disappointed in all of the changes they made from the book.  They agreed the book was much better.

Chelsea (11th grade) is working through Math U See Algebra 1.  She has about 15 lessons before she finishes the book.  She completed her 8 week Time For Writing; Explorations in Essay Writing in September and started working through Lightning Literature British Mid to Late 19th Century.  She is currently reading Great Expectations.  Chelsea has been having a little bit of a hard time with Chemistry.  She is not enjoying it at all.  It is very heavy on Math and formulas which is not he favorite thing in the world.  But she is working through it.  She also started Classical Academic Press's Latin Alive Book 2.

Nicholas (5th grade) has been doing VERY well with Math U See!  Last year when we started fractions with Abeka, everyday's math lesson was a struggle.  Using the Math Mammoth Fractions PDF helped a lot, but I knew we would not continue with Abeka math.  I switched all of the children to Math U See and am so glad!  He started in Epsilon and actually understands fractions now.  I thought he would resist using the fraction overlays and almost didn't buy them, but he does use them.  He likes watching the videos too and that he can do his math independently.  Nicholas is using Essentials in Writing this year which is very similar to Math U See.  Though he doesn't like it as well as math, he still he doing quite well with it and likes the independence he has with this program.  I had planned on adding Visual Latin back in, but we were so busy with reviews that we never did.  We will be adding it back in the first week of December. 

Alex (3rd grade) is also using Math U See.  He is working through Beta and doing very well.  Though he resists using the manipulatives, I do encourage him to use them, especially when starting to learn a new concept.  He does need someone to read the word problems to him everyday so he can't work entirely on his own.  Alex is learning cursive using Handwriting Without Tears and his cursive is much neater than his printing has ever been!  He is still using All About Spelling Level 2 along with the Level 2 readers.  We have just finished What Am I and started on the first story in the Queen Bee.  He still does the best at spelling when he can build the words with the tiles.  He is also using Samson's Classroom for practice with sight words and reading comprehension.

Anthony (1st grade) is using the Alpha Book of Math U See and is doing a great job working through it.  He likes it well enough that he will do more than one page per day even though he only has to do one.  He is using The Reading Kingdom for reading and LOVES it!  He even writes and illustrates his own stories using the words he learned on Reading Kingdom.

Christian (K) is using PAL for reading and writing.  We have made it through all of the letters of the alphabet.  He is so funny.  He thought he had "finished" all of his schoolwork forever because he had learned his letters all the way to the zipper letter.  He was happy though to find out there is lots more to learn and do with PAL.  He loves playing the games everyday!