David's School Progress

Some of you have probably been wondering how David is doing with homeschool so I thought I  would share some of his progress. I haven't done a great job of taking photos of school lately, but I will work on that for next time.

Phonics
He continues to improve, but this is still his weakest by far. We have struggled for the past severl months on the method/curriculum to use for him. We have tried and discarded several. We have very recently settled on Explode the Code Online - we were using the workbooks, but he is continually frustrated and his work was not good. And since he has handwriting issues this was really a struggle. He could do 2 pages in his workbook each day and that was pulling teeth. With the online program he averages 5 pages per day and loves it!

Reading
Improvement is continuing here as well. And this is another subject that I had to work to find the right program for him. After tial and error we are using Learning Languge Arts Through Literature. I am very happy with this program and it does a good job of teaching reading and grammar and comprehension and vocabulary and sequencing and writing. The best part is we get to use actual books along wth our readers.

Math
By far and away his best subject. I struggle to keep it challenging for him. We are using Saxon 1 and he is on lesson 64. So far he has gotten 1 problem wrong all year. I supplement this with math games and printables; not that it needs a supplement I just want to do all I can to avoid boredom. We have recently thought of adding the Life of Fred books - I am going through now to see where he should start with them. A friend has the first one and we are reading it now, but the concepts are very beginner. We also use manipuatives and our white board quite a bit and oral exercises. He just talks and thinks in math. And for this subject he is fine with workbooks, LOL.

Religion
This is a favorite subject for both of us. We continue to learn about the Church and what it means to be Catholic. The first grade catechism book from Faith & Life is excellent. We also regularly and chronologically read the bible and have a timeline to go with. The other part of our religion study is living and integrating our faith into our daily lives. We are celebrating and learning about Saints and Feast Day and Holy Days. We are very blessed to have several close friends who are also raising their children in the faith and we are able to share many of these special celebrations with them.

Science & History
These both continue to go well. David loves all the stories in history and the experiments in science. We don't do this everyday, usually just once a week and it is a nice change for him. We actually have a 2nd science book that is first grade health. That has been fun for learning about our body.

Spanish/Art/Music
These are my weakest areas. Spanish has kind of fallen by the wayside, but I am really hoping now that we have settled on a phonics and reading program we will have a better schedule and be able to dedicate more consistent time.

Art for me is actual art, we do crafts in all the other subjects. We have print we study each month that follows special times in the Church and on occasion we study a specific famous artist.

Music is very sporadic. I have a few curriculums, but usually we just pull up a famous composer on the ipad and read about him and listen to his music on youtube.

Misc.
Sometimes we have a special day and do something like "Angry Birds School". The blogging world is full of wondrful free resources for homeschoolers. We also do things like pumpkin school, fall school, etc. Whatever is the current season/holiday.

All in all it is WONDERFUL, AMAZING, FUN, etc. I wouldn't change it for anything in the world!!!!

Superior Mustangs...

This past weekend there was a band competition in Alex City on Saturday. We missed it due to me being sick, but I was able to "steal" a few pics from Em's friends on FB. And she came over yesterday and I got the scoop. Sounds like a really fun day and the majorettes got a 1 score, which is Superior. Evidently the individual components of the band are scored and then that is combined for the overall band score. So overall they also got a 1!!!