What we are doing in Homeschool.

 We jumped right back into lessons after our long trip.  It helps to give a nice routine to our day.  At first, Dom had some trouble getting through lessons, but once I gave him breaks between subjects, he started to really do well.  It also helped that we spent all of December working on math facts and last summer working on money and time.  Now he always picks math as his first subject to tackle and he flies through the material.  He is coming along quite nicely in his memorization of facts, but if he gets stuck, he uses 3 point shots and 2 point shot to help him figure out the answer.  It's pretty awesome.  I'll give him something like 9 + 5 and if he doesn't just know it, a look of worry will come on his face, and then relief as he goes: "Oh!  9 + a 3-point shot, 12, plus a 2-point shot = 14...9 + 5 = 14"  He does subtraction the same way.

English is also a favorite subject.  And to aid with the new concepts of nouns, verbs, and adjectives, we've started doing MadLibs.  The boys love these and crack up over the silliest things.  I love hearing what they come up with.  I have learned that their pop culture knowledge has been successfully limited.  When asked for celebrities they give historical figures and their wives.   Spelling can be a bit tedious and phonics is, frankly, pretty boring.  He can read pretty well, so phonics really is busy work in a lot of ways...but, you gotta get through it!

  His 'reward' at the end of everything is to work on his 'Top Secret Agent' puzzle.  He finished his trip to Kenya and is currently working in Brazil.  I love that he is learning to be quite independent in his research.  He is also learning that if he doesn't know an answer, he can skip it, work on something else for a bit, and then come back to it when I have some time to help him. 

He has also discovered instant messaging.  This is a great practice for spelling and typing.  Right now, it takes him so long to type a word or phrase that it is a great practice in patience for his father and me.

 William continues to impress me with his self-motivation.  He finished the kindergarten phonics program last fall, and I ordered him the 1st grade book when we returned.  He only does a page a day, but has very little trouble with it.  And thanks to some fancy pencils, his handwriting is coming along. He is sounding out words quite well.  As he practices his reading, I just have to tell him to slow down and use his letter sounds, and he quickly figures out the word that has tripped him up (or he just guessed at...which is more common).  As with Dom, I tell him to look at the pictures in the book to also give him an idea of what the word may be.  What's been particularly fun to see is Molly copying Will.  After he finishes a book (that she will avidly listen to), she swipes it and 'reads' to herself.  History is repeating itself a bit here, as Will has been doing the same thing during Dom's practice reading sessions for well over a year.

Will is also a little math fanatic.  He will do page after page after page of math.  I have no idea where he is in the year, but I will just get the next book when he is finished with this one.  His addition and subtraction are very good.  I do know he just calculates everything in his head (as opposed to memorized facts), but he is quite accurate.  The other day I got a ruler out for Dom to help with drawing straight lines, and Will was so intrigued by it, we took a small break to discuss measurements and he proceeded to measure everything he could get his hands on.  Naturally, I love how much he enjoys numbers and patterns.  And I am really looking forward to celebrating Pi Day with him.  I'm pretty sure his mind is going to blow over that ratio!

History and Science are covered in the afternoon.  We have a couple of text books that I read from and then supplement with books from the library and many, many conversations.  These conversations occur at the dinner table, in the car, and if Will had his way, during Mass...

 Molly has started to take quite an interest in the school routine.  I use to give her my tablet and knew that she would spend the next hour or so watching cartoons.  But, now, she will either go look at books on her own or pull up a seat and request to do school, too.  I have my resources from when I did work with the boys on the preschool level and we have some other workbooks for her to work on.  She does not have the attention span, so she'll often go and play and will frequently be joined by Will.  They are teaching each other a little one-upmanship in the creativity department.  In the above picture I had the pleasure of teaching Mario, A Jayhawk basketball player, and Mario Peach Princess...I honestly don't remember what she called herself that day.

 Here are a couple of shots of the boys recreating the Alamo in our Florida Room.  I am pretty sure the outcome was similar to the actual event.  Sometimes, the Texans win, though.  #revisionisthistorylesson

We are all enjoying homeschool.  Both Dom and Will have mentioned they would not like to go to a building school and they are both very diligent about their lessons these days.  We had some ups and downs as we settled back in to the routine, but now that we are caught up for the most part, we have room to relax a bit more.  Well, until April anyway!

Something we have added to our meals are questions from a Brain Quest deck.  We have the 1st grade edition and the kids really enjoy answering the questions and I enjoy seeing what they know.  It is sort of like a mini-quiz and I'm always relieved to learn that certain lessons are sticking and it also offers a nice informal review of lessons learned.  And for the record, it is not like I'm drilling them (that's what I did in December with math facts...not really fun for anyone).  Often we sit down and Dom points to the deck and requests that we 'play' Brain Quest or Madlibs.  And they beg for 'just one more card'.  Though, that could be more about postponing kitchen clean-up than wanting to show their knowledge...either way #win/win.