This week was our 9th week in this homeschool year. On Thursday and Friday of this week, I did a review of everything we have learned so far. I wanted to see how much information he had retained and see the progress from week 1 to week 9.
History
We did a review of the first 7 chapters of the Story of the World, other than having trouble being able to define history and archeology he remembered all the stories we had read and was able to answers all the questions from the activity book. He was able to give a narrative of the stories when asked. He loves the map work that comes with the activity book and I will be adding more map and geography to our lessons.
Spelling
I went back and picked one or two spelling words from each week and he was able to spell them. We also made a sentence from each word. Beginning next week I will be writing down the sentences he comes up with for the spelling words, because the are usually funny. I would like to keep a record of these, I am sure I will look back one day and laugh.
Math
I did a timed math fact sheet just to see how well his math facts are coming along. He has no trouble with the Singapore 1B workbook, or the word problems book. He is moving through them at such a fast pace, I have started spending more time working on learning and getting our math facts down and less time with the Singapore books. I can see a huge improvement from week 1 to now, I feel the daily practice we are doing is helping him memorize his math facts.
Handwriting
Handwriting was a problem last year and is still our most difficult task this year. He just does not like it, he thinks since he knows how to make all the letters there is no reason to practice getting better and learning to write neatly and within the lines. This year I started back with just tracing, not making him write anything just practice tracing the letters and words exactly. I took a laid back approach and did not push him to hand write, I let him use the dry ease board to write when he wanted to. The past two weeks I have introduced more handwriting where he is writing words he picks, his name, spelling words, etc. He is working harder at staying in the lines and trying to make each letter correctly. I feel the more laid back approach to handwriting is working for him.
Reading
The only challenge we have with reading is finding books for him to read. He loves to read just like Mom and Dad, reading a book a day is not a problem with him. He is a 5 year old who can read and comprehend on a 5Th grade level. Finding books that are age appropriate and interesting to him is a challenge. He has been reading the Magic Tree House chapters books and loves them. He is all most finished with the set I have and I am looking at buying the hardback ones for Christmas. We have read a few of the Magic Tree House research books, they add a lot more information than the books do. We also have read a few Magic School Bus chapter books. For read aloud books, we read The Trojan Horse: How the Greeks Won the War, a book on the solar system and a few others he picked out for us to read, We will be starting King Arthur and his knights of the round table by Roger Green this next week.
French, Bible, and Language
He has retained the information from French, Bible and language with no trouble.
I am impressed with how much he has learned and retained that means what we are doing is working. We will be starting Kinderbach in October. When his swim lessons are over and we are staying home more do to flu and cold season, kinderbach will be a fun addition to our day. We have been listening to a classical piece of music everyday.
Even though the daily challenges of homeschooling are daunting somedays, I love homeschooling and seeing his progress on a daily basis.
