We are starting to ease into some new scheduling and a more rigorous academic education for the boys. The first day went typically. R spent the entire day, hours and hours staring at his page of math, doing entirely nothing. I went over how to do the questions with him to no avail. I did do his spelling with him and he worked on his geography.
B did a bit better, he got off to a slow start, but he managed to finish his math, geography, dictation, spelling, and.
J, 4, is such a keener, he is aching to learn. We spent a good half hour yesterday writing out rhyming words. He came up with a word, such as can or cat and we looked through the alphabet trying out new letters at the beginning to make rhyming words. He sounded them all out to see if they worked. Afterwards he wanted to read a book, so we took the first couple phonetic readers out and we sounded them out together. He is still missing a few sounds and doesn't always grasp the sounding out concept. He is really good at looking for picture clues. One of the stories said something about 'sat on a hat' and the picture showed the character sitting on a bench, so I kept trying to get him to sound out hat with me, but he kept wanting to say bench or seat. He did figure it out though, it was really fun to watch him discover and learn.
While waiting for dinner, he had gotten out a printing book and he must have worked in it for half an hour at least, completely self-directed. He hates to hold the pencil properly, but we are working on it.
Today we are going to set up some new binders with dividers, especially for the Latin Road to English Grammar which we will start today. Should be interesting.

So we have a nice rhythm happening in our school days. Math, Spelling, Handwriting, French, journal/writing. And then.....
we get stalled.
We need to start our new Grammar program. We need to start our new Social Studies unit. We need to do our Science test and move on to the new chapter. We need to be doing more Bible memory work, we seem to have fallen out of the habit.
The reason we are stalled is because I haven't taken the proper steps in planning ahead. I have to get my but in gear. Find my Science test disk so that I can print out the pre-tests and tests. I need to do a week of the Grammar program ahead of them so that I can teach it. Yeah. Why did I think that the Latin Road to English Grammar was a good idea? I still do, I am just lazy about making time to do it. I have had the program sitting on my shelf for 2 years. I cut out and organized all the flash cards. I uploaded the audio to my iPod. And still it sits. Today, tonight even, I will do the first lesson. I think it will be fun! Don't you?
Oh and the flippin' library. I still haven't ordered my books for Canadian History. I hate the library. Hate. All I can think of while I am there or while I am reading a book from the library is germs. Of all the dirty hands that have touched the books. I realize many people love the library, I am just not one of them. If I could buy all of the books I need then I would gladly do that. I would go without lattes and food to buy the books. But sadly a great many of the books I need are not available for purchase. wah. So I need to bite the bullet tomorrow and leave my house and head to the library to buy my card. Once I have that, it is easy. I just go on my computer (joy!) and order my books.
Okay. I can do this.
Tonight: - Check over this week's math lessons
- Do first Latin/Grammar lesson
- Find my Science cd-rom and print tests
- Do a French lesson....
- Maybe work on my yearbook/scrapbook for last year...
Tomorrow: - Get past journaling on our list of school work
- GO TO THE LIBRARY!

I really can do this. I know I can.
Yep

Not so bad

Well it did not go to badly yesterday. Our morning started with listening to the terrific New testament on CD I bought for Brent for Christmas. It is in the style of old Radio plays but true to the complete text of the New Testament. Awesome!
In school we started with math, as usual and that went well so we moved on to spelling. I have not taught spelling yet this year so we did the Spelling Power placement testing. I am very pleased with the results as R is one level ahead of where we left off and B is two levels ahead. Today we did the more specific tests and those were the final results. (R{10}is level C and B{13} is level G) We also managed to get in some handwriting, blogging/journaling and French. Not too bad for the first day back.
Today we started with our prayer and Bible reading: Ps. 1 and 2 & Matthew 10 & 11
I have finished the spelling placement and the boys are working on their math.
Science: We are finishing our reading for Module 3 and I need to print out the pre-test and tests for them. I love this module, we are learning about non-obvious variables, blind and double blind studies, graphing and interpreting results. Cool! I have decided to use science as exam taking practice. Easy choice considering that there are exams for each module. I am going to set them up formally to take these tests, this is not something we do very often, but I think it is important for them to know. They both plan on continuing their education, so they will need to know how to write an exam as well as how to study.
Handwriting: I have been using Handwriting Without Tears with R (10) and I have kind of let handwriting slide with the eldest. Today he decided to handwrite his spelling test. Big mistake. So I am doing some remedial handwriting with him using the same curriculum. I wish I had found it before he learned to handwrite because although he has some pretty letter formations, often the curly letters he writes are easy to mistake for other letters or letter combinations. Not so good.
Grammar/Punctuation: I will go over a page or two of The Usborne Guide to Better English. I hope.
Writing: 20 minutes of blogging
Geography: finishing off our unit on Canadian Geography

I need to get to the library and renew my card so that I can order all the books we need for our Canadian History unit.
I was flipping through a book I bought a year or two ago, The Usborne Guide to Better English: Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation. It is terrific! In five minutes of flipping I learned tons of things that I am doing wrong in my own writing. How embarrassing! It is a fun little resource and it even includes some activities and tests, so I think I will read it with the boys and we can do the activities. It is the least dry English book I have ever seen and it offers a very common sense approach to the subjects that makes so much sense to me. The book is British, so I am not sure how it would line up with the American standards of Grammar and spelling, but for us canuckleheads it works perfectly.