We have gotten a little behind in our homeschool (a day or so) and have been so busy we have not been able to find the time to get caught up. This is the weekend. If we do not do it this weekend it will not happen for another couple of weeks because of parties and other stuff. Really though, I am pretty pleased. The main thing Kelly works on is her significantly more aggressive reading schedule. The material is more difficult and there is more of it. She is doing great, but it takes practice to be able to handle the level of reading required to perform well in school. She has been reading How to Read a Book and believes that should help here through the process for the rest of the year.
Christian’s main thing is his writing. His schedule called for a good chunk of writing about three times per week, but I think we will go to a daily writing schedule. I will try to negotiate that this afternoon. In addition, we continue to work on his programming. Last night we stayed at it until a little past bedtime. I wanted to get something specific done. We got it done, but went too fast through some new material, so we will address what we did on the next pass. It was pretty cool because we are now able to capture images with Christian’s laptop camera. I need to draw some block diagrams to explain what we did because it is not something that is really obvious when you just look at the code.
On Saturday, we definitely want to run down to the bookstore or the library to just hang out in a nice environment and study.
I really like the “weekly” trip to the bookstore/costco idea. We do something similar with a grocery store outlet place and then library. I really would like to add the bookstore idea as it would broaden our scope of seeing new books and we could add a cup of hot chocolate with the autumn season finally arriving!
Hi Ken,
Could you speak a little on what you use for writing for the kids? What curriculum, or books have you used? I feel that I am a competent writer, but the art of writing is hard to teach.
Deanne–Just before I read this post we had a BIG discussion in the car about which hot chocolate is best–Seattle’s Best (at Borders) or Starbucks (at Barnes and Noble). The only thing we decided is that they are both great, but Mom’s homemade Abuelita is the VERY best! Those are some of our very favorite outings.
Ruthie–I have been giving this some thought about how to teach writing and do not feel I am that great in this area. If I put down my ideas and can get some feedback from you, Audrey, and Deanne, I would appreciate your ideas. I will try to do that sometime this week. On a similar note, Kelly is halfway through “How to Read a Book” and thinks what she has learned is extremely valuable. Thanks a lot for the tip.