Jayden is almost through Unit 3 in Bigger Hearts For His Glory. She's really picked up dictation well and is flying through the passages. In math she's working on adding and subtracting three digit numbers. In history she's learning all about explorers who found America (and didn't know it). She's also learning how to look things up in the dictionary (apparently something I'm really not good at teaching!) and how to form good sentences. She's really loving science this year so far. Right now it's One Small Square: Seashore. She has one science notebook entry per week and one experiment where she has to follow the scientific method each week. She also has art once a week that is starting to get pretty advanced.... at least I think so, but then again I can't draw or paint for anything. And her story time book is a biography about Philis Wheatley. Even I am enjoying that book.... very well written!
She will finish up her second (of nine) sections in her reading program this week. She chose to read The Littles for her fantasy genre and really really loved it. She's working on her project that she has to present tomorrow. I believe she might be making a model showing that the Littles lived inside the Biggs walls like mice, but it's supposed to be a surprise.
We have one more week of school before we will take a one week break. We will have been schooling 6 weeks straight, so we thought a break was in order. Plus we are taking a vacation that I will blog about when we get back ;) We will take a couple of weeks off from the reading program and start with the next genre (she will choose between adventure - Stone Fox and historical fiction - Hannah) the 7th of February with everything else.
Grace is absolutely flying through her curriculum. She is starting Unit 7 this week. She gets about 6 or 7 days worth of school done per week. Her history is focused on Bible history right now. She just learned about Joshua and Caleb leading the Israelites into the promised land and the battle of Jericho. We also just finished reading Thornton Burgess' Reddy Fox and started Peter Rabbit... she thinks it's pretty cool that all the characters are in all the different books. She's doing first grade math and doing well with it, although the names of the signs are confusing to her (plus/minus, add/subtract, etc.) But that's ok, because she understands the concepts..... it'll come. She's also beginning to have beautiful handwriting!
Julianna is having the hardest time with school because she wants more more more! I'm making her take her preschool book slowly because I want there to be some space between Grace finishing Little Hearts For His Glory and her starting it. So we get through with her work in about 15 minutes and she just wants more.... and she can do more. So I feel badly for her. We have added in some workbooks on letters, numbers, comparing/contrasting, but even with that it doesn't add much to her day. She will be beyond happy when she starts doing more work each day.
Evie is doing the most changing right now though. She's a little ham, and always wants us to see what she's doing.... but she doesn't have the words for that yet. So she does this cute little laugh when she wants us to watch her :)
We are also night weaning her. I realized that the only time I didn't like nursing her was during the night. I was getting grumpy with her; she was crying and unhappy and not sleeping well; she was wanting me to stay in one position in the bed with her all night long, so I wasn't sleeping much at all! So I decided that it was better for both of us to just night wean. Back in November we got her to where she could/would go to sleep without nursing initially, so I just took that a little farther this week and made the rule that she wouldn't nurse in her bed. Every night has gotten better and she's actually been sleeping better, and therefore I am too :) (SIDENOTE HERE: Night weaning will not solve all sleep issues... it will ONLY help if the child has NO OTHER ISSUES and the child is READY.... teething and separation anxiety are both valid issues that will interrupt sleep) Even when she does wake up at night now, I'm not dreading her being demanding and making me not be able to roll over if I want to. I love cuddling with her :D It will also allow me to enjoy nursing her during the day more because we'll both be well rested and happy!
