Homeschool update

We are still glad that we chose to homeschool the boys this year and plan to continue next year. I feel like they are finally starting to get the hang of reading. We've had to change things up quite a bit from what I thought we were going to use and what we are using now. I originally started with Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. Some people swear by it, but it was painful to get through each lesson. The lessons are supposed to be short (15-20 minutes) but would take anywhere from 30-45 minutes times 2 since I had to do it with each boy. We made it through about lesson 35 and then decided to change things up. We tried using the McGuffey Eclectic Primer as suggested by Easy Peasy, but that just wasn't a great fit either. I didn't like how it was teaching them to memorize words as opposed to sounding them out. What I have found is working for us is doing 1 lesson per day in MCP Plaid Phonics Level A and reading with Bob Books a couple times per week. We are taking it slow, but that is what my boys need.

We also do math every day. We are using Singapore Essentials Math 1b. I skipped 1a because we pretty much covered those concepts on our own. I think I finally broke down and bought the actual math books in October even though we technically started school in July. Noah tends to pick up on math concepts quicker than Eli. I usually let Noah mostly do his lesson on his own after I explain it, and I sit with Eli to make sure he understands the lesson.

We dropped the co-op we were in. It was on Wednesdays which is our busy day. It was just too much running around in one day. Since we aren't doing co-op anymore I try a little harder to have play dates. The boys are enrolled in karate and take classes 2 days per week. They have both earned a stripe on their belt! We also work on handwriting and will occasionally make a lapbook. We've made lapbooks on pumpkins, bats, colors/rainbows, Thanksgiving/pilgrims, and are working on knights.

Fizzy shamrocks!

I try to throw in some fun/messy activities every once in awhile. Today for St. Patrick's Day we had green pancakes for breakfast. We discussed the history of St. Patrick's Day, who St. Patrick was and why he is important, the symbolism of the shamrock, and where Ireland is. For fun we painted shamrocks with baking soda paint and then sprayed with vinegar for a magical fizzy reaction.