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Homeschool Update: Jr.

Saturday, November 14th, 2009

Just a quick update.

We finished up his cursive workbook (for formation of the letters) and he is now copying print into cursive for penmanship practice. One of the freebies I’d gotten from CurrClick in the past was a Children’s Garden of Verses which is perfect for this stage. It takes a lovely poem by Robert Louis Stevenson and breaks in into two lines at a time for copying.

We’ve started moving forward again on Math. After a few weeks of playing with the multiplication tables 1 through 10 Jr. is having an easier time with the double and triple digit multiplication. Moving onto division I think will also strengthen his familiarity with the multiplication facts since he can “check the answer” by multiplying.

Grammar and Phonics are coming along nicely. I am amazed at how comfortable he is with diagramming simple sentences. It isn’t so much that he’s doing something spectacular as much as it is his comfort with the request. I think I spent a total of three weeks diagramming in 8th grade and didn’t touch it again. Perhaps I would have had a more facile understanding of the structure of a sentence had we diagrammed more. Phonics in terms of an activity is fine. He’s enjoying the workbook I selected here. I am still seeing a bit of a challenge when it come to reading the r-changed vowels and some challenges with ia – oi – and ea words. (Such as spatial, jointed)

History has gone backwards and we’ve been listening to our ancient history cd’s. But history reading is blossoming with the “Who was…?” series of books thus far I managed to find King Tut which Jr. enjoyed a lot and Ben Franklin. With Ben Franklin he was interested to learn that he’s the person behind our postal system. I suspect I’ll have him read a few again and perhaps use them in writing/report exercise. Leonardo Da Vinci is up next!

Conversation of the day

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

Jr.: “This is the hardest gum ever! I sure wonder how my brother chewed his in half?!” *mouth full of round candy*

Me: Are you sure it’s a gumball?!

Jr.: “It was orange and round.” *still mushing the ball around in his mouth*

Me: “What did the packet say?”

Jr: “It didn’t say anything it was just clear.”

Me: “Honey that’s a jaw breaker!!”

Jr: *pops the jaw breaker out of his mouth and holds it up*

Jr:….huh no wonder its like the hardest gum ever. Good thing I didn’t break my teeth!

Me: ….

Moral:

Beware Halloween Candy.

Happy 8th Birthday

Monday, October 5th, 2009

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What a mixture of boy and young man.

What a delight of joy and love.

This my first son.

This my oldest boy.

This my 8 year old.

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Happy Birthday Jr!