Quarter Report

Well, we are now officially one quarter of the way through a new school year. The report has been typed up and sent off in the mail. And I'm still standing (yeah, yeah, yeah).

I have to say that my boys are loving early American History. Thank you Sonlight!!! Gabriel (my 4 year old) was reading a Junie B. Jones book about a Columbus Day play and he came to tell me that the book was wrong because it talked about Queen Elizabeth but spelled it wrong and Elizabeth didn't have anything to do with Columbus. Because he knows that she was the queen a hundred years later when Roanoke was settled. After a minute I realized that it must say Isabella, and reminded him that she was queen of Spain when Columbus sailed to the new world.

Not all subjects are going as well as history, but I think that we are off to a good start none the less. Latin is going fairly well. I am seeing improvements in Jacob's spelling even if they come slowly - I think switching to a true mastery approach for spelling has been a good thing. His writing has matured significantly this quarter.

It is math that really concerns me. He is good at math concepts. He understands new stuff quickly. But he can't remember math facts to save his life and he never works carefully through the steps of a problem. And so now, Mr. Math Whiz says he hates math! I am in the process of stepping back and trying to fix that, but I don't have complete confidence in myself here.

And lest I leave Cadence out, at three and a half she can finally count consistently to five, and sometimes even gets to ten. That is after us counting with her several time a day for months. She also has learned to recognize the letter "m". It is the only letter she knows, but knows "big M, little m". I think Super Why taught her that, 'cuz I decided to give up on letters until she figured out how to count.