Things going on in school

Reading/phonics: lots of reading aloud, still working through Alphaphonics (almost done), Jacob reading just about anything he sets his mind to. Last night when we came in from ballet and before dinner, the older 2 immediately sat down with a book of poetry. Jacob read to Nicole. Brian laughed and said, "Gee, I don't know about all this reading they do. It might not be good for them." :) I agreed. "Yeah, maybe we should take away the books and encourage more TV watching!" HAHAHAHAHA

Math: Addition, money, measuring in inches, place value counting by tens and on and on and on. Time to pull out the Tangrams again. Got a cool new book!

Science: We have been learning about seeds, flowers and trees. We do lots and lots of reading. I love nature books. We are growing kidney bean plants. About 3 weeks old now and absolutely amazingly fast growers. We are trying apple seeds, but I doubt they'll work. Yesterday we did tree bark rubbings and soon we'll have to collect leaves (but first they need some color change).

Handwriting: lots of letter practice, writing The Litany to the Holy Name of Jesus line by line each day.

Religion: We read the Golden Children's Bible little bits each day and then he periodically narrates to me what he has read. Then he illustrates his retelling of the stories. We just finished reading about St. Francis and we read lots of religious books often.

Jacob has memorized 2 poems by Robert Louis Stevenson and is illustrating them in a poetry notebook. We are also studying some fine art paintings. Yesterday I had each of them pick their favorite from the six and make up a story about it. I copied it down for them and then tomorrow they will try their hand at copying the paintings (maybe with pastels) and attach them to the stories.

And then we read. Read. Read. Read. We just finished D'Aulaire's book on Benjamin Franklin. We love their books. The exhibit on Benjamin Franklin at the Houston Museum of Natural Science begins on October 13th and we are planning on going!

I am really enjoying our homeschool adventure. It is fun. It is not always easy, but I love watching them learn and grow and take interest in things like tree bark and Benjamin Franklin. Jacob looks forward to his daily lessons and is always proud to tell others that he does homeschool.

I thank God for this opportunity to teach my precious children about him and the world he created and the history he has been a part of.