Week #4 Review

Another good week. This week in Handwriting Without Tears Matthew finally got to the letters. He is still very wobbly with a pen, but THOROUGHLY enjoyed building the letters out of the wood pieces. He did that for probably 2 hours one day, just finding different letters and figuring out how to build them. He thought it was great fun.

We enjoyed going outside several days this week to do our science lessons since we're learning about spring. We just pulled up a pile of pollen and looked around trying to find the things mentioned in the book!

Matthew's ice skating went well this week. He had some special visitors come watch him skate and he enjoyed the "snow fight" they got to have for the last 10 minutes of their lesson. He got to throw snowballs made from ice shavings and who wouldn't love that? (Especially a kid who has hardly ever gotten to experience snow! It's been so warm here in the winters since he's been born!)

Today we decided to try math. I hadn't been using his math book because it really assumes the child can write (a lot of it is writing and tracing numbers, circle this picture, cross out that picture, etc.) Today I realized, I can just write whatever answer he says. He doesn't have to actually do the writing. Then I realized, why write it? I can just have him point and I can make a mental note of what concepts he's having trouble with and we can reinforce those. That way, he still has the math book to use when he CAN write for himself, or if he gets beyond these math concepts, I'll have a program for his sisters. He LOVED it. He did 6 lessons before I had to tell him it was time to take a break! Another incentive for the subjects he doesn't like as much ("if we finish this we can do MATH!")

Since he is reading 4-5 years ahead of his age/level, there's some grammar in the books that are really beyond his comprehension. Right now the grammar is apparently focusing on exclamation marks, because they're everywhere in the stories. He understands what an exclamation mark means, but he doesn't really know yet to "read ahead" and see that there's one at the end of the sentence. So he reads something like, "I can't wait to go to the PARK!" or "I told you not to GO!" He yells the last word of the sentence while reading the rest of it in a fairly monotone voice. It's quite humorous to listen to :-)

So another good week. Starting next week we will be incorporating crafts based on stories we're reading, I just haven't been organized enough to tackle that yet. So more pictures should be coming. I'll also be adding a "wish list" to the side bar where our curriculum is listed, so if you see something on there that you have an opinion about, let me know your opinion! I always like hearing user's opinions of products. Or if you're a family member or friend needing gift ideas for my kids, start there! :-)