School Today

Thursday is really the last "full day" of school for Arielle and Nolan. The older boys try to get some school done on Friday - but because of Produce Co-op we don't get a LOT done.

I can't believe that our math u see arrived yesterday afternoon. Wow. I ordered it on the 17th and it arrived on the 18th! Now THAT is great customer service. Of course, it turns out they ARE a TX company. ::snort:: Jared began Epsilon. He watched the first lesson and said, "Ah - I think I get it". Fractions have been a consistent problem for him. He went on to complete 5 worksheets and ACED them all. I gave him the option of taking the tests and skipping the work, but he wants to do the work. I told him to work 30 minutes a day and do as much as he can in that 30 minutes (Saxon took 1 - 1 1/2 hours a day). Arielle, Nolan and I began learning the skip counting songs. I don't think we'll ever be able to sing some of these hymns in chapel again without laughing. Arielle is on lesson 9 and Nolan is going to begin on lesson 1. He CAN do the work but I have to explain how every time...so he needs to start at the very beginning...a very good place to start. ::snort::

They zipped through their independent work. I can't believe that Nolan has lost his raceway book and reader 17 - again! I have spent the week looking for this. I hate to buy another workbook for this - but I hate to not do it either. We've spent the week reading other books I found at the library and doing Explode the Code. I'm really excited to check out Character Quality Language Arts. Thanks again, Lisa for mailing it to me to check out. I KNOW that we are doing writing, spelling, grammar...but the idea of integrating them and doing it AROUND a character study really appeals to me. I could make up my OWN units on various character traits that are part of our "parenting projects" but I'm wondering......We shall see.

*Praying Mantis* by Rebecca Stefoff - this is a COOL book. I did not plan on using ANY text book for science with my younger ones. I really believe in lots of hands on experiments, activities and nature studies for elementary age. These younger two, however, saw Jared's apologia book and wanted to do it with him....and so we've been using Apologia's elementary books. They are written around Charlotte Mason principles and so they are a great compromise between my idea and their desires. ::snort:: However, sometimes I simply have to go to the library and find tons of real living books on the topics we are doing in Apologia. This is one such book. I would class this as a LIVING BOOK. It's interesting, lots of facts, great photos and the author obviously loves his topic. This was an easy read today and we had lots of fun talking about various mantis', stick bugs etc that we've seen since moving down here. I plan to add some of the lap books that Cyndi Kinney has made that go along with the Apologia Elementary books. I think that will give us the best of both worlds. Hands on and fun for ME and the structured text book that Arielle seems to thrive on. If you are interested in the lapbooks you can either google Cyndi or follow the homeschoolestore link in my side bar....they are the "pick of the week". I know I COULD make up our very own lapbooks, and maybe we will some day, but for now I'm thrilled to find kits. ::snort::

Josiah was supposed to have today off...but called in. He asked me if I had something he had to do....and we couldn't think of a thing...so he went in. Then I thought, "you know he's in high school - he has SCHOOL to do and if he doesn't want to go in when called again THAT is enough reason to tell them to ask one of the older managers to come in." ::snort:: So....he has the van...and I forgot about getting the other boys to their ministry location today...::snort:: Cy REMEMBERED and is running home to drop them off quickly...

The younger ones and I are home bound - think we'll work on some quilt squares. We've finished 3 weeks of TOG this week. We're on a roll. It helps that they are weeks without a lot of resources listed. ::snort::