Lorena went to her accounting class last night so Christian, Kelly, and I were home alone together all evening. The kids are both doing great on their homeschool programs. The Sonlight literature and history programs are absolutely stellar as is the Singapore Math programs. The way we use the two programs continue to evolve. We have made some modifications to the way we are doing the reading part of the Sonlight programs. After reading on any given day, I always had the kids explain to me what they had read, but they are turning into quite good writers. They generally have two books going at a time. One of each of their books is a read aloud book while the other is a book they are supposed to read to themselves. Because all three of us like to read aloud together, we have chosen to read only Christian’s books out loud. That is so that Christian will not have to hear something now from Kelly’s program that he will just have to read again later. We felt like it would be good for the kids to do a little more writing, too, so the kids are writing a synopsis of what they read in their second book for me to review each day. That leaves Kelly’s read aloud book. I am having her give a detailed oral synopsis of what she read. It is all working out quite well.
For math, we are blasting right along, just like last year. Kelly should finish here elementary school math before Christmas break while Christian has at least a year and a half before he finish. As Kelly moves into her junior high school math, we will have to make some modifications to the program. Instead of having workbooks from which to work, there are exercises at the end of each section in the textbook that need to be worked directly on notebook paper. At the rate we are going, Kelly will be well into Elementary Algebra by the end of the year.
