Monday, August 29, 2011

Week 2 recap

Had our first meeting of the year with our ES.  Matthew now has his Civics and Physical Science books and the 8th grade grammar for once he's done with 7th grade.  Jonathan also now has his 5th grade science so this will be the first week for both of them having all their courses.  Yay!

Nick is loving the Horizons Math and continues to generally be very easy to work with.  He'll generally sit down and just knock everything out quickly and if we are home or somewhere he can in the morning, he'll be done by lunch.  What's more amazing is that I had Matthew help me a bit with him this week so instead of doing Hooked on Phonics, Matthew had him read Hop on Pop aloud.  He did it!  Even words like Constantinople and Timbuktu!  So proud of my little guy.

We are still trying to figure out a good writing program for Jon.  He's working with a resource specialist to try and bring his writing skills up to grade level but it's a struggle.  They are going back to basics again with subject and predicate.  *sigh*  I wish this stuff wasn't so hard for him.  Looking into different things right now and there may be some back and forth between therapy and home which is fine...so long as I can find a few more hours to work on it with him since he absolutely loathes writing so it's always a struggle to get him to do it.

Matthew is plugging away.  He's complaining about LotR and how can it possibly take 3 chapters for them to get from one end of the shire to the other.  "All they do is walk!!!" I frequently hear wailed from the other room.  I get to laugh.  It's good for him tho.  He can't always have his way with the main character being attacked and stabbed in the first chapter.  Poor guy.

Chris has been doing well in his math course.  Got his first quiz back today with a 9/10 which is great.  He does his homework online and gets immediate feedback on if it's correct or not so he can retry it if it's wrong so that's wonderful for him.  Still haven't heard how he did on his first paper in the English class.  He's currently doing the research for the next paper which is a movie review on Deep Blue Sea.  Need to talk to him about getting a plan together on when to have each step completed by.

In all tho, the school year is going well so far.  I can only hope it continues this well as we go forward.  We still have a few activities left to add in so we'll see how that shapes things as we go.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

2nd week in progress

 Yesterday was super busy with running around but we did manage to get almost all schoolwork accomplished.  Today was only a touch less busy so I asked Matt to help out a bit with Nick.
Yeah, he's a big help.  LOL

 A few days ago I had promised little chef that we would make cookies.  We were given the Trader Joe's sugar cookie mix for Christmas so he pulled that out and prepared it on Sunday so today I kept my promise and we working on culinary skills like flouring a board and rolling pin and how to get the right thickness of dough.
 And of course, the mechanics of the cookie cutters that can produce such cool Star Wars characters. LOL
 Such concentration...I can only wish he was like this with his regular schoolwork.
But thankfully, these two can actually sometimes settle down and get it done.  Gives me hope for all of them.

Friday, August 19, 2011

End of Week 1, Only 34 more to go

Here we are at the end of the 1st week of the 2011-12 school year.  Here's a recap:

Chris ~ Was looking pretty dicey for him getting into all the classes he wanted at CSM but as of today he is enrolled in all 3 for a total of 10units.  He has already completed his first math assignment and has his first 4page essay due on Monday.  He also still has to complete the accounting work for me from last school year.  Ugh!

Matt ~ Still trying to finish up a few classes from last year and behind for the week as he got nothing done while housesitting and then exhausted from housesitting thus killing two days of the school week.  He's working hard to try and get things done but he'll be working this weekend to catch it up.

Jon ~ Got most things done.  Completed 5th Grade math in Aleks and has been bumped up to 6th.  Missed spelling 2 days this week so he'll be doing it this weekend.  Also didn't get any Prairie Primer in so we'll have to figure out why that's not happening and remedy that.

Nick ~ Progressing nicely with everything.  Even did a page in his animal workbook today on caribou.  We found Italy on a map and learned a couple of words in Italian and some great new vocabulary words.  He's been eager to get to work and get everything done as quickly as possible most days which helps a lot.  Here's hoping that it continues!


Thursday, August 18, 2011

Things are coming together

Had Jon's OT do a quick evaluation of Nicholas to see if we need to really push for a full evaluation at this point.  Thankfully she said that he's age appropriate and while there are a few things, it's nothing we would get services for.  She gave me a few things to do with him, some thicker pencils to help improve his grip, and will check again in a few months to see how he's progressing.

Started Horizons Math with Nicholas this afternoon.  He was using the new pencils and apparently they are doing the job as after half a lesson he was complaining of his hand hurting.  That was the bad news.  The good news was that he needed only a little help, mostly on ordinals that he couldn't sound out and the whole concept of the crossword puzzle since he'd never done one before.

In other good news, Chris did manage to get into the English class.  The bad news on that, he has a 3-4 page essay due on Monday.  Yes, the one that is coming up.  Thankfully it's on what he perceives as his strengths and weaknesses so it sounds like the teacher is trying to get an idea of where the students are at.  It still means that I get to try and find time to help with some revision this weekend.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Could have been better news

Chris started back at CSM today for the fall semester.  He was waitlisted for three classes.  He got into his Body Conditioning class with no problems.  He looks good for getting into the Intermediate Algebra class and will find out for sure on Friday.  English is a problem tho.  The instructor said that the class is full and no waitlisted students are getting in.  He advised them to go be pitiful to the Lang Arts department in hopes of getting a new class going and try back again tomorrow to see if he scared any students away today.  Chris will be trying the second option first but I may tell him to try the first if the second doesn't work.  I do have some English stuff I can do with him here but it's a major pain as it puts us in a bad position for next semester. Not awful, but not where we were hoping to be.  Not sure if there is any way for him to get into any other classes at this point either.  If things don't work out tomorrow, I may have to look into that option.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Not much of a 2nd day

Tuesdays are going to be one of those days were very little book learning happens.  By the time we get up to speed on all the activities, J&N will be in activities from 8:45a-3p straight.  Makes it kind of hard.  We aren't there yet but had other stuff fill in for it today.

So school looked something like this:

  • Get J&N ready for swim, wake other kids up
  • Leave Matt to do history reading before he went to housesit and Chris to work on accounting while I take J&N to swim
  • Finish up with swim, go to grocery store and realize I don't have the coupons I need. Run other misc errands instead
  • Drop J off at speech and take N to library to renew library cards and put a hold on some books for N's Five in a Row
  • Come home to get lunch and help C find accounting error. J did some typing practice and reading.
  • Drop C at dentist and take J&N to do grocery shopping. Taught them about economics (ie. You get this cereal because it's on sale and with coupons it's only $.99 whereas that cereal you are asking for is not on sale and I don't have coupons so it's $4.59 which I'm not paying).
  • Teach kids about time management when I have C walk to the grocery store from dentist as that saves me having to drive to library to pick him up there when we have other places to go from grocery store.
After that, it was gaming over at a friend's house which consisted mostly of me learning I read the last campaign wrong and gave them way too many big creatures to go up against which is why 2 of them died.  *shrug*  They came back to life and now they are dealing with the consequences of my actions.  That's what we call a valuable life lesson.


Monday, August 15, 2011

2011-12 First Day of School

First day of the new school and we got off to a pretty rockin' start.  I had a doctor's appointment at 11a so I did what I could with Nicholas before leaving so he just had some workbook stuff to do while I was gone which Mark was on hand to supervise.  We started the morning with Five in a Row at his request (Clown of God this week) and then Hooked on Phonics while playing Mille Bourne.  What a way to combine Math and Reading!  As you can see, he's working hard and super proud of himself!
 Jonathan got all of his school work done nice and early as well except for spelling which I did with him when I got home.  He's almost done with his 5th grade Math and took great delight in telling me this when he got home.

 Matthew stayed in his room much of the day but claims to have gotten everything done.  I still need to grade his grammar test and catch-up to him on his history reading so we can discuss that.  Just need to find more hours in my day to do that.

 School doesn't technically start for Christopher until Wednesday when he goes back to CSM but he has yet to complete the Accounting course he took from me last school year despite my constant hounding so he's paying for that now.  Don't mess with the mama boy!



And here is what happens when you sneak into the teens' room to try and take pictures of them working...  Funny faces and books being thrown at you.



Sunday, August 14, 2011

I think we are set!

I think we are set for the start of our new school year tomorrow.  I had a basic plan back in May and started prepping towards that.  We are still awaiting delivery of a few courses but we have almost everything.  Chris is enrolled at CSM although he is waitlisted for all his classes.  It will be a few weeks before all the activities start up which is just fine with me since once those do, it's truly insanity.

So here is what the boys are taking...

Chris 

  • Intermediate Algebra (5units, 8th on waitlist)
  • English 848 (4units, 19th on waitlist)
  • Body Conditioning (1unit, 3rd on waitlist).  

Not many classes but still, at 10units in college, it's a decent load.  We want to focus this semester on getting his non-fiction essay writing up to a college level.


Matthew

  • Algebra 2 (Saxon, this will happen after he finishes up Alegebra 1 in about a month)
  • Saxon Grammer 7th/8th grade (again, needs to finish the previous before we head up)
  • Lord of the Rings unit study (full year-long course studying the books and what went into writing them)
  • Oak Meadow Civics (waiting for curriculum to start)
  • US History using Story of US by Joy Hakim
  • Oak Meadow Physical Science (waiting for curriculum to start)
  • Accounting (LifePacs study units)
We'll see how things go as he is taking a lot of classes this year.  If it proves to be too much, I may pull back on the Accounting and save it for next year.  


Jonathan 
  • Aleks Math (he is almost done with 5th grade and will be starting 6th grade probably within the month)
  • Winston Grammar
  • Editor-in-Chief Beginner (4th grade level but I want him to finish before moving on)
  • Word Roots Beginner (4th grade level but I want him to finish before moving on)
  • Prairie Primer (still working our way through this since we are not using it to cover everything)
  • US History using Story of US by Joy Hakim (he'll be going slower than Matt as it's a two year course but Matt started it back in 5th grade so he'll be doing more review where Jon will be going slower since he has time to)
  • Macmillian 5th Grade CA Science (I think this is physical science as well)
Jon has some other things like typing practice and critical thinking that are not necessarily curriculum based but help him in areas he struggles in.  


Nicholas 
  • Hooked on Phonics (he is currently on the Level 2 box)
  • Explode the Code (Book 2 currently)
  • Horizons Grade 2 Math
  • Handwriting Without Tears
  • Five in a Row (almost done with volume 1)
  • Various other workbooks from Bright Minds, Kumon, and Costco
Really just focusing on reading good books to him and helping him work on his reading skills.  He's doing well and has started working on blends on already which I think is great.  His math is very advanced so we'll take it easy there and slow down if necessary.  The program looks good tho, lots of review, bright and colorful, brings core concepts back every so often to keep them fresh.

So that is what we will be studying this year.  Well, that and all their extracurricular classes which I'll post more about later.  

Friday, August 12, 2011

2011-12 School Year....It's a big one!

Wow....2yrs has sort of flown by!  Not quite sure where it's gone but I'm pretty sure it was spent chasing and/or chauffeuring children places.  That seems to encompass much of my time on any given day.

This year marks some major milestones for us here.  Nicholas, my last baby, is starting Kindergarten this year.  Jonathan will be in 5th grade and Matthew in 8th.  Christopher, my first baby, is a high school senior.  This will be his second year doing primarily college classes at our local Jr. College but it doesn't change this fact.

I have a child graduating Kindergarten, Elementary, Jr. High, and High School....all this year.  No, I didn't plan it but you can believe we are going to be throwing one huge party come June!