Wrap-Up: Wk. 8

We have completed another week, and what a chilly week it was! I had to pull out the gloves and comforters for our (technically, almost) freezing nights. It's hard to believe there will come a time in a few months when 35 degrees feels like heaven after several single digit weeks in a row.

It really was a great week. Eliot began multiplication and seems to have finally "gotten" subtraction. He is still very slow at subtracting, but I feel pretty confident xtramath.org will help him master those facts. As I stated last week, MiF (our math program) expected him to go into multiplication already knowing many multiplication facts so I didn't know how he would do with it. I didn't need to worry: He's a pro! He easily understood the concept of "6 groups of 8 is the same as 6 groups of 5 plus 6 groups of 3." Even though he has never been given the problem 6X8, he was able to use (6X3)+(6X5) to do the problem in his head. Obviously, he will eventually learn all of the multiplication facts by heart, but I'm glad to see this problem-solving mental approach to introducing a new concept. We will survive math this year. (I'm just going to keep saying that over and over.)

We will also survive writing. Today El wrote a letter to my mom, and it was a pretty good letter. Although he still doesn't remember to use punctuation at the end of sentences and capitals at the beginning of new sentences when writing a paragraph, the sentences are there. Basically, I take this to mean he is at least forming complete sentences in his head. This is a huge step forward for him. Anyway, I helped him correct the letter and he wrote a very nice final draft, addressed the envelope, and mailed the letter. I don't know if the Spectrum workbook we started using is helping him in his writing or not, but it at least gives him an opportunity to do some structured writing once or twice a week, which he wasn't getting with WWE. (My point is: WWE is good, we just needed more.)

I bought my first unit study package download today! As I have said before, my kids read all of the time so I haven't really done a formal "reading" anything so far this year. I just pick out library books that are somewhat aligned with CM & Classical programs and they read them. Sometimes I ask them what chapter they're on and I read them a couple of chapters. That's about it. El has been absolutely in love with the Little House series for the past few weeks, though, and he is currently reading my personal favorite of the series: On the Banks of Plum Creek. I really wanted to do some kind of unit on this, so I found this on CurrClick.  (I think in the future I will be able to develop my own literature unit studies, but right now I was totally willing to pay 5 bucks for someone else's hard work.)

What else is new? Oh, Beestar.org. It's okay I guess. In less than 20 minutes a week, I can verify that if I sent him back to public school he would do fine in math. I guess that's important. He liked it, so we'll do it until he gets tired of it and I won't push it after that.

Wednesday was cut short by sewage backup and an emergency plumber call, so that was fun.

Tuesday, El decided the world would absolutely END if we did not go to the apple orchard this fall, so we did that (it was one of those things on my to-do list during break week that just never happened.) It was freezing cold, but we were lost in the corn maze for most of the time we were there so the dead corn stalks protected us from the wind. We brought back apple cider doughnuts for the rest of the family.

Artsy Friday painting

El's finished product

Em enjoys a caramel apple