Well it seems that my good intentions to post more regularly have all but died! There are so many things happening all at once, I can't seem to pull myself away from life long enough to share them with everyone here. I think I am going to have to schedule time to blog into my weekly routine so then it gets done a couple times a month. But there I go again with good intentions.
School is going very well. Little TD is asking daily to do school and wants it to last longer. I am still on the fence about starting him in Kindergarten early. He is ready to learn to read and has been doing basic math skills (thanks to his big sister) and is mastering drawing lines and holding a pencil, so I am not sure why I am so concerned. I guess it is the pressure from the long history of public school thought that you shouldn't start Kindergarten until you are 5 years old. It would really only be a few months before he's five, so I don't see him at a huge disadvantage! One of my best friends from high school was born in November and she started school before she was 5 too, and she turned out great-she graduated from high school early and has a master's degree. I really should stop second guessing myself I guess.
He has had a couple of fun projects in his school time. Back in January, we were studying about Joshua and Jericho. Here he is constructing his own wall of Jericho out of peanut butter and crackers.
His teacher wasn't very prepared, so we didn't have square crackers. We just had to use extra "mortar" to keep the wall upright. It made for a tasty lunch too!
That same week, we also built the city of Jericho out of blocks and then marched around the city and knocked the wall down. Just like typical boys, his favorite part was the knocking down of the walls!
Princess TD is still loving school at home. She is still perplexed why it takes the neighborhood kids so long when they go to school. She definitely doesn't want to join them, but is curious why hers is so short. Of course I gave her the obvious reason -that she is very intelligent and that I only have Little TD and her to teach at school, and not 18-20 more kids.
We started working on the concept of multiplication last week, and she got it in about 10 minutes. I was amazed! Now I guess we move on to fact memorization...(yuck! I was never big on memorization!) Thanks to the recommendation of one of my good friends, who is a veteran homeschool mom herself, I think we'll get that down pretty quick because we have been listening to this for a couple of years now.
Her least favorite subject continues to be writing and copywork. She seems to enjoy copying scripture on paper she can color, so that is where we are working now.
As a science experiment, we planted some seeds to watch them sprout. We planted a few green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers and sweet peppers. I choose these partly because of the differences in germination times and partly because those were things that my family would actually eat if they grew! Well, guess what!? I haven't killed them yet, so we planted them in a Square Foot Garden in the back yard! Here is a picture on the day they were planted.
So far they are still growing, and the extra seedlings are still growing in smaller pots, just in case the planted ones don't make it!
Another project we did a couple of months ago involved dropping a crayon into a glass of water to see what would happen. It sank, of course. Then we added a couple of tablespoons of salt, and then put the crayon back to see what would happen. It floated. Princess TD was thrilled it worked!
Well, that will do it for the update this week. Spring is in the air and we are venturing out for our usual activities. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for our anniversary celebration camping trip, the zoo, Blue Bell ice cream and bluebonnets, our first American Heritage Girls family campout and time with good friends! It will be a busy spring for us!
