This Week at Our House #32 #33 #34

 

We started school. We've done school and nothing more. It's time consuming, so this blog has been neglected. 

After three weeks, here's my report:

Adam is in the 10th grade. He gets everything right except for math. He struggled with math for the first two weeks, after that he seemed to 'get it'.  He did well on his test. 

Rachel is in the 9th grade. She's doing reasonably well with everything. She pretty much doesn't like to do any of it, and she's slow about it. 

Anya is in the 7th grade. She does her work. She complains a little and cries a lot. She gets her work done in a timely manner. She gets embarrassed when she gets something wrong. Her writing is good and interesting. Her drawing is really, really good. 

Joseph is in 7th grade too. I have had him a year a head since his second year of homeschool. He rushes through things. He's a fast reader and a fast writer. While Joseph is generally interested in things, he acts like he doesn't like school. 

Joshua is in the 4th grade. Josh is reading on level, though slow, so that is good. I can tell when he does not pay attention to what he is reading because he struggles through every word. If he pays attention to his reading, then he reads smoothly. His tracking is still troubled, though. We work through that by using book marks. Josh does well with math. He doesn't need me to read things for him in his workbooks anymore. 

Arwen is in the 3rd grade and an excellent reader. She's smart and picking things up quickly. She loves language arts and learning hard words and big words. She doesn't like memorizing math facts, but she's finally remembering them. 

Susan is in the first grade. For the most part, she likes doing her school work. After three weeks, I would say that she is coming along nicely with reading. But, we'll see. She doesn't really get how to sound words out yet, but she does memorize words and passages with ease. At first, I thought her curriculum was going to be too hard. I slowed down with her and that made a big difference. She's doing well with math. Kate saw her adding on her fingers while just laying around talking to herself. 

Samuel loves to learn and demands learning time. He's doing starfall and counting and tracing. He already knows some of the alphabet, and a few numbers. He counts to 5 by himself and 10 with help. Sam likes the structure of school. He keeps his school things neat and organized. He also spends a lot of time looking at books. He's a very curious 3 year old. 

Gideon, also known as gettingin, takes the busy lesson time and reseatches every nook and cranny, drawer and shelf. He particularly likes electrical and computer related devices as well as tools and coins. 

On the whole, I think we've had a good start to the school year. 

Ruth has almost finished putting the children's book that she and I have been doing together. She is in the process of getting the cover to work. She has put it up on amazon to see the preview and is working through the changes. 

I am going to start a book of children's poetry next, and get Kate to illustrate it. Ruth is working on the illustrations for a Christmas story, the birth of Christ children's book that I wrote and will need to edit and clean it up. I am working with 16 other poets from around the world to get a poetry book printed together. Our deadline is going to be in September, so I think we'll have it out in October. I need to get thinking about cover design and construction. 

Kate and Johnny definitely keep busy. 

My garden is producing. I have a large watermelon sitting on the bar from my garden now and many more still ripening. I have new plants planted and many things all the way harvested, like the butternut squash. The tomato bush is aging, but I have several offshoots from that plant now producing fruit. I have basil growing in 3 different places and peppermint in two different places. The parsley and oregano are doing well, but the lavender, thyme, and rosemary didn't make it through the summer's heat. Cucumbers, acorn squash, and split peas are young plants and should harvest in October. Deer have been into my watermelon and cantaloupe patches. They've eaten two cantaloupes and four or five watermelon, beside trampling down a lot of the melon leaves. I look forward to the young hens and ducks laying eggs. 

This Week at Our House #30 and #31

We finished off our final two weeks of summer vacation with some big bangs! We had two very fun trips to the beach,  Joseph had birthday, I published my creative writing curriculum, and Arwen had a birthday! It's been very, very hot. We cannot go outside during the daytime for the most part. It's hard to do anything outside. The chickens don't lay many eggs and the ducks and chickens sit in the shade all day. We start school tomorrow. We had a long vacation. The little ones are ready to get to work. It's a good time for it too, because it's hard to be outside.

Joseph turned 11. He played games with John and group family games all day. He got a small lego set that he happily built right away. He's getting ready for the 7th grade. I bumped him up with Anya when he was supposed to be heading into the 2nd grade and he has continually stayed one to 6 years ahead of grade level. I am excited for him to do my language arts curriculum. There's a lot of writing in it and he will come up with some very imaginative things.

Arwen had a spectacular eighth birthday. She played minecraft with John and herself. She got a light yellow parakeet, yes, that's right, a living bird. We had a steak lunch, then went to the beach and got ice cream cones on the way home. Then we had crepes with homemade chocolate pudding, strawberries, blueberries, and spray whipped cream. Then she hung out with John and I and then John watched a movie with her until like 3 am. She was tired the next day, but her birthday was special. Arwen will be in the 3rd grade.

 Susan has all of her stuff and has been practicing reading. She's asked each day when school starts. 

Sam has all of his stuff and he has been working on it for a while. He has animal flashcards to learn his animals. He called the toucan, canned tuna. I would have never put those two together, but I see where he did. It's so funny. Sam now swims at the beach. his terror of the ocean has ceased. He loves the big tubes and the waves lifting him slightly up. 

Anya's now much taller than Joseph and a little taller than Rachel. She's long and lanky and very thin like I was. She has the longest hair that goes down past her bottom now. She looks quite grown up. Anya starts the 7th grade.

I made sure that Rachel has paper workbooks to work from this year, and books that she can write in. We will see how she does. I have not let her complain about school because it's not good for her or the little kids who look up to their cool sister. She's made a few complainy remarks. I hope she finds herself this year. Rachel will be in the 9th grade. 

Adam will be in the 10th grade. He's big and fairly mature. He'll do his work and learn his stuff. He can finally read fast and spends a lot of time reading on his own, though he tends to read things other than novels. 

Ruth has finished pictures for my next children's book, but I was so busy with the curriculum that I

have not gotten to that yet. 

Kate and Johnny would still like to go on a mission in the future. I wonder if it will ever happen for them. Kate will help a bit with school this year. Those two are our next two birthdays. I hope this next 12 months brings some good things for them. 

Gideon will be shocked when school starts. I'm not sure what to do with him. He'll probably sneak out to get into things or try and sit on me. He's now 18 months. He is big and needed a bigger car seat. He says "no," "yes," and "uh-oh," most frequently. He'll also say mom and dad and cat and don't.

Three Birthdays

Susan had a birthday  June 19th, She's 6 years old and delighted to be so big!

Joseph had a birthday July 20th. He's 11 and has an argument for every situation, and will probably write a novel soon.

 

 

Arwen had a birthday July 27th. She had a list as long as Christmas, but got a parakeet and some capri suns and rootbeers. Arwen's very smart and very mature.