History, Science, Reading, and More. An Update.

These past few weeks, we have been chugging along with school work. It has been extremely busy but I am very excited and happy in my role! I thought I would post a quick update on all that we are doing.

Math: We are still working on some math from Saxon 1. I decided to review more facts and go over a few things before starting Saxon 2. It is going extremely well and we are actually enjoying our lessons together! We also just started Saxon 1 with Isabella and I'm starting to get the hang of teaching 2 different math lessons concurrently.

Phonics: SSRW is GREAT!!! We love it around here. Marco's reading has improved and he is becoming more fluent. The readers from the program are the best! They are long and offer great stories and pictures. I especially like that they are not short because it has helped Marco keep his attention for longer periods of time. Isabella is also doing well with her blending and just finished the ferris wheel section of the program. The prizes are definitely an incentive, but I stopped giving them away on a daily basis.

History: This has been a little slow to start. We are currently doing Chapter 1 of SOTW. We covered creation, but have failed to do a fun project to go along with it. I am amazed that Marco is retaining the information being read to him. Narrations start today and I am using some great notebooking pages from Notebookingpages.com. We'll see how our projects turn out at the end of the week!

Cartography: By far the shortest lessons ever! National Geographic is wonderful and I like that the lessons are short and simple. We do this every Monday and the lesson takes about 10-15 minutes. Super easy and they are learning all about maps.

Science: The thorn in my side! I'm waiting on the updated lesson plans for science from Angelicum. They recently updated them, so we have been without a science curriculum for a while now. We are reading some books about animals, however, and that is filling in the gap. DH has also been teaching the kids all about cells, clotting, and other medical-type stuff. They look at videos and pictures from his books. They should be little doctors by the end of the year!

Reading: We are following along with some history books to accompany SOTW. We also just started Wind in the Willows for our "good books" selection.

Unit Studies: The Olympics!! This week we'll be working on an Olympic Lapbook and learning all about the Olympics and its sports. We'll be having our own Olympic competition with friends as well.

Religion: Just going along lesson by lesson. The kids seem to mellow out when we do religion and I really like that. They'll be starting their Faith Formation classes next month as well, so I think they'll be more prepared than ever.

Shurley Grammar: I postponed doing this for a while because I wanted Marco to advance with reading a little more. Currently we are going to start with Chapter 2 of the book. Chapter 1 consisted of classifying things into groups...something that I think he has gotten plenty of and understands, so we are skipping it.

Seems like lots, huh? It really has gone by really well and I'm loving the fact that we are learning so much more than just math and phonics. It really is an exciting time!!