Around here we 'do school' just about all year long, because we have really weird vacations (that also include learning of some sort, most of the time).
Lightning McQueen has done his oral presentation for 4-H; he chose to present his pullets and did an OK job. I'm proud of him for actually doing it, but I think he could have been better prepared and done more research and practice beforehand.
Velvet helped, as you can see from the photos. Only fair, I guess, since he helped her with her presentation a couple of months ago.
He's working his way through Saxon 7/6 math and
I just would rather he was less stubborn and bullheaded about his chores, with which we continue the ongoing battle of "it must be done when MOM says, not when KID gets good and ready."
Velvet is in Saxon 6/5 math and doing well. I think the little break we took, while waiting for Lightning to finish with the book, was what she needed as far as reinforcement goes. She's very good at mental estimating, which means I really like grocery shopping with her. She can figure out the better buy more quickly than I can almost all the time.
Birdman will be testing tomorrow for his Cadet Senior Master Sergeant in Civil Air Patrol, and is getting A's and high B's in Saxon Geometry. He's also doing the Apologia Biology (for which I need to order microscope slides YESTERDAY).
As for other subjects, they have each read over 20 books since Labor Day 2010, correct each other's grammar (not very often, since they all seem to have inherited the 'grammar gene' and don't make common but fingernails-on-a-blackboard grammatical errors like "mom will pick Birdman and I up at 3 to go to the dentist"), and are SLOWLY getting better at using the computer.
We have our garden again this year, and they are all big enough now to wield yard tools with some degree of competence.
One game they 'invented' on the way to Indianapolis a couple of weeks ago: several of the exits we passed had names of towns that are in other states and even other countries. They tried to think of all the places those names turn up, and by the time we got to our destination we'd pretty much been all over the world! To see where we could have been, Google the route between Morgantown, WV and Indianapolis, IN. I think you'll be amazed - I know I was pretty impressed with my kids' knowledge of geography!
What did I miss? I think I got everything!
Sounds like they're all doing great! I can't wait to do our cross-country road trip next month just for the lessons that will be learned without them realizing that they're learning them! (We'll actually be on that same route, or most of the same route....from PA to KS, going right through Indy on the way back.)
ReplyDeleteHoping to get into DC for one day so that they can REALLY learn!
If you are there when they are open and have the time, try to stop at the Cabela's store near Wheeling. The inside of the store is AMAZING, with taxidermied animals of all sorts (even a polar bear!) and a pond with real fish you can watch. My kids loved it.
ReplyDeleteI hope you get to DC too, it's an experience not to be missed!